Tzachas also known as Chaka Bey The Turkish

Turkish language

Turkish is a language spoken as a native language by over 83 million people worldwide, making it the most commonly spoken of the Turkic languages. Its speakers are located predominantly in Turkey and Northern Cyprus with smaller groups in Iraq, Greece, Bulgaria, the Republic of Macedonia, Kosovo,...

 form of Tzachas didn't appear in any historical documents. The name «Çaka» («Çaka Bey») prevailed especially in Turkey, after Akdes Nimet Kurat used the name "Çaka" in his work "Çaka: Orta Zamanda İzmir ve Yakınındaki Adaların Türk Hakimi", İstanbul, 1936. , ... yüksek siyasî ve askerî görüş sahibi olarak büyük önem taşıyan bu bey'in adının gerçek söylenişi henüz tamamen kesinliğe kavuşmuş değildir. Bu hususta şimdiye kadar üç ihtimal ileri sürülmüştür: Çaka, Çağa, Çakan. AN Kurat'ın bunu «Çaka» kabûl ederek eserini de «Çaka Bey» diye adlandırması, özellikle memleketimizde Çaka şeklinin yaygınlaşmasına yol açmıştır denebilir. (Tarih Dergisi, Cilt 20, İstanbul Üniversitesi Edebiyat Fakültesi, İbrahim Horoz Basımevi, 1983, http://books.google.com/books?id=MiAtAQAAIAAJ&q=%22g%C3%B6r%C3%BC%C5%9F+sahibi+olarak+b%C3%BCy%C3%BCk+%C3%B6nem+ta%C5%9F%C4%B1yan+bu+bey'in+ad%C4%B1n%C4%B1n+ger%C3%A7ek+s%C3%B6yleni%C5%9Fi+hen%C3%BCz+tamamen+kesinli%C4%9Fe+kavu%C5%9Fmu%C5%9F+de%C4%9Fildir%22&dq=%22g%C3%B6r%C3%BC%C5%9F+sahibi+olarak+b%C3%BCy%C3%BCk+%C3%B6nem+ta%C5%9F%C4%B1yan+bu+bey'in+ad%C4%B1n%C4%B1n+ger%C3%A7ek+s%C3%B6yleni%C5%9Fi+hen%C3%BCz+tamamen+kesinli%C4%9Fe+kavu%C5%9Fmu%C5%9F+de%C4%9Fildir%22&hl=en&ei=XbY0TqCDBM_mmAXn0bDwCg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CCgQ6AEwAAp. 56.] ) or Emmir Chaka of Smyrna, was an 11th-century Seljuk Turkish emir who ruled an independent state based in Smyrna

Smyrna

Smyrna was an ancient city located at a central and strategic point on the Aegean coast of Anatolia. Thanks to its advantageous port conditions, its ease of defence and its good inland connections, Smyrna rose to prominence. The ancient city is located at two sites within modern İzmir, Turkey...

 (present day Izmir

Izmir

Izmir is a large metropolis in the western extremity of Anatolia. The metropolitan area in the entire Izmir Province had a population of 3.35 million as of 2010, making the city third most populous in Turkey...

).

Chaka was taken as a prisoner during a war with the Byzantine Empire

Byzantine Empire

The Byzantine Empire was the Eastern Roman Empire during the periods of Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, centred on the capital of Constantinople. Known simply as the Roman Empire or Romania to its inhabitants and neighbours, the Empire was the direct continuation of the Ancient Roman State...

 by Emperor Nicephorus III Botaneiates. The emperor took an interest in the youth and brought him to live in the palace. He was granted the title of protonobilissimus.

After Alexios I Komnenos

Alexios I Komnenos

Alexios I Komnenos, Latinized as Alexius I Comnenus , was Byzantine emperor from 1081 to 1118, and although he was not the founder of the Komnenian dynasty, it was during his reign that the Komnenos family came to full power. The title 'Nobilissimus' was given to senior army commanders,...

 became the Byzantine Emperor, Chaka returned to Anatolia and began a war against the Byzantines. In 1081, Chaka conquered several cities on the Aegean coast of Anatolia, including Smyrna. Intent upon expanding his power, he ordered the construction of a fleet at the shipyards of Smyrna and Ephesus

Ephesus

Ephesus was an ancient Greek city, and later a major Roman city, on the west coast of Asia Minor, near present-day Selçuk, Izmir Province, Turkey. It was one of the twelve cities of the Ionian League during the Classical Greek era...

. This fleet, which consisted of 33 sail ships and 17 oar ships, was the first Anatolian Turkish navy.

Chaka's fleet conquered Lesbos (1089) and Chios

Chios

Chios is the fifth largest of the Greek islands, situated in the Aegean Sea, seven kilometres off the Asia Minor coast. The island is separated from Turkey by the Chios Strait. The island is noted for its strong merchant shipping community, its unique mastic gum and its medieval villages...

 (1090), before defeating the Byzantine fleet under Niketas Kastamonites near the Koyun Islands off Chios on 19 May 1090. In 1091, his fleet conquered the islands of Samos

Samos Island

Samos is a Greek island in the eastern Aegean Sea, south of Chios, north of Patmos and the Dodecanese, and off the coast of Asia Minor, from which it is separated by the -wide Mycale Strait. It is also a separate regional unit of the North Aegean region, and the only municipality of the regional...

 and Rhodes

Rhodes

Rhodes is an island in Greece, located in the eastern Aegean Sea. It is the largest of the Dodecanese islands in terms of both land area and population, with a population of 117,007, and also the island group's historical capital. Administratively the island forms a separate municipality within...

, but also suffered a crushing defeat in the Sea of Marmara

Sea of Marmara

The Sea of Marmara , also known as the Sea of Marmora or the Marmara Sea, and in the context of classical antiquity as the Propontis , is the inland sea that connects the Black Sea to the Aegean Sea, thus separating Turkey's Asian and European parts. The Bosphorus strait connects it to the Black...

 to Constantine Dalassenos

Constantine Dalassenos (thalassokrator)

Constantine Dalassenos was a prominent Byzantine military leader on land and sea during the early reign of Emperor Alexios I Komnenos . Information on his life is only known from the Alexiad of Anna Komnene.- Life :...

, undoing much of his previous successes. Dalassenos and John Doukas

John Doukas (megas doux)

John Doukas was a member of the Doukas family, a relative of the Emperor Alexios I Komnenos and a senior military figure of his reign. As governor of Dyrrhachium he secured the imperial possessions in the western Balkans against the Serbs...

 then defeated Chaka again in 1092, destroyed his fleet and recovered all the islands he had captured.

According to Byzantine sources, Chaka was murdered in 1092 by his son-in-law Kilij Arslan I

Kilij Arslan I

Kilij Arslan was the Seljuq Sultan of Rûm from 1092 until his death in 1107. He ruled the Sultanate during the time of the First Crusade and thus faced the brunt of the entire attack...

. However, his name appears in later dates, such as a campaign against the strategic port city of Adramyttium (modern day Edremit) in 1095, where, according to these sources, he died. Some historians indicate that it was in fact his son who was appointed by Kilij Arslan to take his post.

At any rate, after Chaka's death, his beylik

Bey

Bey is a title for chieftain, traditionally applied to the leaders of small tribal groups. Accoding to some sources, the word "Bey" is of Turkish language In historical accounts, many Turkish, other Turkic and Persian leaders are titled Bey, Beg, Bek, Bay, Baig or Beigh. They are all the same word...

disappeared from history. The Byzantines would soon recapture the area under the leadership of Alexius I

Alexius I

Alexius I may refer to:*Alexios I Komnenos , Byzantine Emperor *Alexios I of Trebizond , great-great-grandson of the above, Emperor of Trapezunt...

, and it would take the Seljuks more than two centuries to reach the Aegean coast again.