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THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE: A HISTORY
FROM BEGINNING TO END,
by
HOURLY HISTORY.
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Well written and well compiled.
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"“The Ottoman Empire should be cleaned up of the Armenians and the Lebanese. We have destroyed the former by the sword, we shall destroy the latter through starvation.”
"—Enver Pasha"
Not quite first genocide, that, because those had been conducted against India by invaders for over a millennium by then, but nevertheless, one of those that inspired the nazi leader of Germany of decades until end of WWII.
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"In a period of little more than 200 years, the Ottoman Empire rose from being a single, belligerent Anatolian fiefdom to become one of the most powerful empires in the world and one of the most influential Muslim states ever. In terms of art, literature, science, technology, medicine, and military prowess, the Ottoman Empire had few rivals.
"Having built a mighty empire which stretched across a vast range of lands, the Ottoman Empire then entered a period of stagnation followed by a gradual decline. Over the next 350 years, the empire slowly transformed from a powerful transcontinental power into “the sick man of Europe,” a term coined by the Russian Tsar Nicholas I.
"This is the dramatic story of both the Ottoman Empire’s rapid rise to power and of its long and gradual decline into weakness and obscurity. It is a story of shrewd and able sultans who used their absolute power to increase the influence of the empire and of weak, corrupt, and even mad Sultans who allowed this power to dissipate. This is the story of the Ottoman Empire."
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"“If all of us would now turn to salt, we couldn’t even salt the Turk’s lunch.”
"—Kosančić Ivan, epic poem on the Battle of Kosovo"
One must assume that's clear to the author.
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"By the end of the ninth century, the Byzantine Empire, the surviving remnant of the once mighty Roman Empire, ruled lands which stretched from Armenia in the east to Calabria, southern Italy in the west; in between lay the capital, the vast metropolis of Constantinople. However, the empire was facing difficulties. Successive rulers ignored the need to train, equip, and maintain efficient fighting forces and there were acrimonious internal debates between Orthodox Christians and the increasing power of Catholics under the rule of the Pope. This culminated in the Great Schism of 1054.
"It wasn’t long before other powers, sensing the weakness of Byzantine rule, began to take lands which had once been ruled from Constantinople. One of these was the Seljuk Empire, a Turko-Persian Sunni Muslim state established in 1037. ... "
Wasn't Selucas the Greek left by Alexander when he returned from Asia, to oversee his interests? Why then was the "Turko-Persian Sunni Muslim state" termed "Seljuk Empire"? Was it because the regime consisted of descendents of precisely those Greeks, since then converted?
" ... The Seljuk Empire expanded during the next one hundred years, often expanding by taking lands which had previously belonged to the Byzantine Empire. By 1100, the Seljuk Empire controlled lands in what is now Turkey and Georgia as well as parts of Iran, Iraq, and Afghanistan. The Seljuk Empire was eventually overrun by Mongols who swept into Anatolia in the 1260s, capturing the lands formerly controlled by the Seljuks and dividing it into a series of emirates known as the Anatolian beyliks. Each beylik was an area of land under the control of a bey (lord) appointed by and loyal to the Mongols.
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"By 1300, one of the Anatolian beyliks in western Anatolia was ruled by Osman I, a ruthless, able, and ambitious man who led his nomadic bands of Oghuz Turk horsemen, the gazis (raiders), against other beyliks. Initially, these were hit-and-run raids where the gazis would swoop on a poorly defended part of a neighboring beylik and carry off as much booty as could be carried. Later, these became bigger and better organized, and Osman conquered several neighboring beyliks.
"Osman’s ambitions were not confined to his native Anatolia, and it wasn’t long before he turned his attention to the west and the Christian lands of southeastern Europe which had formerly been controlled by the Byzantine Empire. Osman was immediately and spectacularly successful in this move to take lands in the west, partly because of his policy of allowing the Christian princes of the conquered lands to remain in power provided that they agreed to submit to his rule, to pay tribute, and to ensure that Christian soldiers and officials were encouraged to join the army and government of Osman (these people were not required to convert to Islam provided that they agreed to serve Osman).
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"Legend has it that Osman was encouraged in his conquests by a dream which he had while he was still a little-known bey. In this dream he saw a great tree from which four rivers flowed—the Tigris, the Euphrates, the Danube, and the Nile. Shaded by the gigantic branches of the tree were four mountain ranges—the Caucasus, the Balkans, the Atlas, and the Taurus. Osman took this as a metaphor, with the tree representing the empire he was founding which one day would encompass the lands in which these rivers flowed and the mountain ranges stood.
"The area ruled by Osman and his successors rapidly increased in size until it covered lands in what are now Greece, Bulgaria, Romania, Bosnia, Macedonia, Serbia and Montenegro, and Croatia. Osman established a formal government in what was now being called the Ottoman Empire— “Osman” becomes “Uthman” when written in Arabic. Although Europeans commonly referred to the Ottomans as Turks and the country from which they came as Turkey, these terms were not used within the empire."
But the epithet "Turk" was far from invented by Europe. In India, for example, the invaders who established colonial regimes- before Mongols and their descendents - were called Turk, by themselves as well, not only by India. This was the name Central Asians had for the people of the region.
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"When Osman died in 1324, control passed to his son Orhan who proved to be no less able as a military commander. Under the leadership of Orhan, the army of the Ottoman Empire conquered the city of Bursa in northwestern Anatolia, making it the empire’s new capital. Orhan died in 1362 and was succeeded by his son, Murad, another strong and capable military leader who was now known as the sultan of the Ottoman Empire. The port city of Thessaloniki in Greece was captured from the powerful Venetians in 1387. Murad continued to expand the Ottoman Empire to the east, at the expense of the Christian Principalities of the Balkans. This inevitably brought them into conflict with the warlike Serbs, and in 1389 the growing Ottoman Empire faced its most challenging test to date when it fought a Serbian army under the command of Prince Lazar Hrebeljanović in Kosovo.
"Murad’s army was around 30,000 strong and included more than 2,000 Janissaries, an elite infantry unit created by Murad as a personal bodyguard and the first modern professional army in Europe. These were supported by around 6,000 heavy cavalry (sipahis), 5,000 light cavalry (akincis), 15,000 light infantry (azaps), and troops provided by the friendly beylik of Isfendiyar. Against these forces were ranged around 30,000 Serbian fighters. On June 15, 1389, the two armies faced each other on a flat plain near what is now Kosovo. Contemporary accounts of the battle are sketchy, but we do know that the bulk of both armies became casualties on the field. Sultan Murad and Prince Lazar both died during the battle, and the remnants of the Christian army fled. The army of Murad endured such heavy casualties that it too withdrew from the field, but the Ottoman Empire was able to bring more troops to the area from the east. The Serbians had no reserves to call upon, and in the years that followed, the Serbian principalities fell under Ottoman rule one by one.
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"The precise circumstances of the death of Sultan Murad on the day of the battle are unclear. He did not die while fighting. Some accounts suggest that a small band of Serbian fighters were able to fight their way to the sultan’s tent and kill him there. This seems unlikely, as the sultan’s Janissary guard would have stayed close to him at all times during the battle. Another account has a Serbian nobleman, Miloš Obilić, pretending to change sides during the battle. When Obilić was taken into the presence of the sultan, he was able to kill Murad with a hidden knife before being killed himself by the sultan’s bodyguards.
"Whatever the precise circumstances of his death, this left Murad’s son, Bayezid, as heir to the Ottoman Empire. Bayezid quickly demonstrated that he had the ruthlessness required to be an effective sultan when he strangled his younger brother, Yakub Çelebi, immediately upon hearing the news of his father’s death to ensure that there would be no doubts as to the identity of the next sultan. When he was safely established as sultan, Bayezid had a tomb built in Kosovo Polje in which some of his father’s organs were interred. This tomb became a shrine and place of pilgrimage for local Muslims.
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"Bayezid proved to be an effective military leader, and within a few years of the Battle of Kosovo, constant expansion of the Ottoman Empire had left its main rival, the Byzantine Empire, reduced to the lands around its capital, the city of Constantinople. The increasing power of a Muslim empire in eastern Europe was a matter of grave concern to the Christian countries of western Europe, and when the Ottomans relentless encroachment on Christian lands continued, it was decided that a crusade must be mounted to curb further expansion of the Ottoman Empire.
"A massive Christian army was raised which included crusading knights from England, France, Germany, Burgundy, Bulgaria, Hungary, Wallachia, and Croatia supported by elements of the Venetian navy. The crusader army was a fearsome fighting force which numbered around 15,000 heavily armed and armored men, and when it arrived in the vicinity of Nicopolis in September 1396, few Christians believed that it would fail to inflict a heavy defeat on the Muslim forces of Sultan Bayezid which numbered around 20,000. After a desultory and unsuccessful attempt to besiege Nicopolis (which was occupied by a Turkish governor, Doğan Bey), the crusaders under the command of King Sigismund of Hungary faced the Ottoman army on a flat area close to the River Danube on September 25, 1396. Fighting was heavy and confused; there are no reliable accounts of precisely what happened on that day, but by nightfall, King Sigismund had fled the field in a fisherman’s boat and what was left of his army surrendered to Sultan Bayezid.
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"It was a crushing and completely unexpected defeat for the armies of Christianity. The following day, Sultan Bayezid watched as several thousand Christian prisoners were executed in retaliation for the earlier execution of Muslim prisoners at Rahovo. Following the Battle of Nicopolis, the Ottoman Empire controlled almost all the former lands of the Byzantine Empire with the exception of the city of Constantinople. Then, just as it seemed that nothing could stop Bayezid, he faced a challenge from an entirely unexpected direction.
"Amur Timur, more generally known as Tamerlane (Timur the Lame), was a warlord just as ruthless and successful as any Ottoman sultan. Timur was a Turko-Mongol leader who dreamed of restoring the Mongol Empire of Genghis Khan. His nomadic armies laid waste to vast swathes of Persia and the Levant—historians estimate that his military actions directly caused the deaths of 17 million people, equivalent to around 5% of the population of the Earth at that time.
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"In 1402, Timur’s army invaded Anatolia, and on July 20, he faced the army of the Ottoman Empire under the command of Sultan Bayezid near the city of Ankara. The armies were some of the largest ever deployed on a battlefield at the time with Timur fielding around 140,000 men supported by cavalry and war elephants while Bayezid opposed him with a mixed force of around 85,000.
"The outcome of the battle was a total defeat for the Ottoman forces and the capture of Bayezid himself. When the sultan died in captivity three months later, the remainder of the Ottoman Empire was embroiled in a civil war as Bayezid’s sons fought over the succession. The war lasted for 11 years and almost ended in the destruction of the Ottoman Empire. In 1413, Bayezid’s son Mehmed finally achieved victory and emerged as the new sultan. In the meantime, Timur had died just three years after the Battle of Ankara, and his empire dissolved during fighting to decide who would be his successor. With Timur out of the way, there was nothing to stop Mehmed and the Ottoman Empire regaining the momentum they had lost during the civil war."
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"“If Earth were a single state, Istanbul would be its capital.”
"—Napoleon Bonaparte"
Well, the man wasn't always right, after all, and this would be the first example one knows thereof.
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"The first task facing Sultan Mehmed was the need to regain Ottoman territories in the Balkans including Kosovo and Macedonia which had been lost to Christian forces while the Ottomans were distracted by the civil war. He fought a number of relatively small battles and took back some of the lands which had been claimed by the Christian princes. Mehmed reigned for just eight years until his death in 1421 when he was replaced by his son, Murad II.
"Murad II was more ambitious and more expansionist than his father, and he stepped up military operations in the west. These met with limited success, and by 1444 Murad II had signed a ten-year peace treaty with Hungary and arranged a truce with the Karaman Emirate in Anatolia. Having assured peace for the empire, Murad then abdicated in favor of his 12-year-old son, Mehmed II. Murad built himself a lavish palace in eastern Anatolia and retired to enjoy a lifestyle worthy of an ex-sultan. However, despite the agreement of peace treaties, some of the Christian principalities of eastern Europe still feared Ottoman expansion, and the princes of Hungary and Venice petitioned Pope Eugene IV to raise a new crusade, hoping that it would be easy to defeat an Ottoman army while it was commanded by such a young and inexperienced sultan.
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"In November 1444, a crusader army of around 30,000 men entered what is now Bulgaria and approached the Ottoman-held city of Varna. Opposing them, the young sultan was able to deploy an army of 50,000 men. Mehmed II may have been only 12 years old, but he clearly wasn’t naive. He recognized the importance of the coming battle and asked his father, Murad II, to return to the throne and lead the army. Murad, who was rather enjoying a leisurely retirement in eastern Anatolia, refused. Mehmed sent him a letter: “If you are the Sultan, come and lead your armies. If I am the Sultan I hereby order you to come and lead my armies.” Faced with no other option, Murad II agreed to become Sultan once more and led his army against the Crusaders at Varna.
"On the morning of November 10, 1444, the two armies met in battle near Lake Varna. The conflict descended into a bloody slogging match with large numbers of casualties on both sides. The crusader army was virtually annihilated, but Ottoman casualties were so extensive that it is said that it wasn’t until three days later that Murad II realized that he had been victorious. The Battle of Varna was the last serious Christian attempt to limit the spread of the Ottoman Empire in eastern Europe. Until his death in 1451, Murad II continued to reign as sultan and to push the borders of the empire to the east, culminating in victory against a massive Hungarian army at the Second Battle of Kosovo in 1448."
Shouldn't that be "push the borders of the empire to the west", not "push the borders of the empire to the east"?
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"After his father’s death, Mehmed II, now a confident young man of 19, took over the throne once more. Mehmed immediately set about reorganizing both the apparatus of government within the empire and its military forces. His ambition was not further expansion to the east but something much more dramatic—he wanted to capture the last vestige of the Byzantine Empire, the mighty city of Constantinople.
"Constantinople had been an imperial capital for more than one thousand years since it had first been consecrated in 330 for Emperor Constantine. The city represented the furthest eastern reach of Christendom, and for the Ottomans it was a persistent threat to their rear. By the 1400s the city had some of the most formidable defensive walls and structures ever seen and was widely believed to be impregnable to attack or siege. This confidence in the walls of the city meant that its 50,000 inhabitants were defended by just 7,000 troops. However, no-one had taken into account the existence of a new weapon which had been little used on the battlefield before—the cannon.
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"Gunpowder had been used in hand-held weapons for some time, but limited knowledge of metal casting meant that early large caliber cannons had proven as dangerous to their users as to the enemy. However, a master founder by the name of Orban, who was either Hungarian or German, claimed to have discovered the secret of casting large, powerful, and reliable cannons. He first tried to sell his knowledge to the Byzantine defenders of Constantinople, but when they showed no interest, he approached the young sultan who proved much more receptive to these new ideas.
"When the armies of Mehmed II began to besiege the city on April 6, 1453, they were supported by large numbers of cannons of a power and range never before seen—one cannon, named “Basilica,” was 27 feet long and could fire a projectile weighing over 600 pounds for over a mile. For more than 50 days, the walls of Constantinople were bombarded by cannon fire while the besieging army made several unsuccessful attempts to enter the city. Then, shortly after midnight on Tuesday, May 29, the final assault began. Later that same day the announcement of the unthinkable came—Constantinople had fallen to the Ottoman Empire. Mehmed II rode on a white horse through the streets of the city to the famous Hagia Sophia, the cathedral in the center of the city which had now been re-consecrated as a mosque.
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"The capture of Constantinople made the Ottoman Empire the most significant power in southeastern Europe and the eastern Mediterranean—the other remaining Anatolian beyliks which had previously remained independent gradually came to accept the rule of the Ottoman dynasty. Mehmed II became known as Mehmed the Conqueror and took for himself a new formal title, Kayser-i Rûm (Emperor of Rome). The capture of Constantinople marked the beginning of the Ottoman Empire as a major world power.
"This event was a crushing blow to European Christians—the supposedly impregnable city was the last bastion of Christian control facing Muslim Asia, and for many Orthodox Christians, Tuesday is still regarded as the unluckiest day of the week. Pope Nicholas V called for a crusade to retake the city, but this was never a realistic prospect, and no military attempt to retake the city was ever undertaken by Christian forces. The fall of Constantinople sent shockwaves throughout Europe, and this event marks the end of the European Middle Ages.
"Mehmed II wasted no time making Constantinople, now re-named Istanbul (City of Islam), the capital of the Ottoman Empire. He built a huge palace there and made peace with the Orthodox Christian Church—Christians were allowed to remain in the city and to worship there, though they were not allowed to bear arms or to dress in the same way they previously had in public. Safe from attack by Christian forces, Istanbul became a major trading hub for the Ottoman Empire and the seat for the new system of government which Mehmed II had developed. The Ottoman Empire began a period of stability and growth which would see it become one of the most important military and political powers in the world."
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"After the capture of Constantinople, Mehmed II became obsessed with the notion that he was the new Roman emperor. To that end, he decided that he also wanted to conquer the city of Rome itself. In preparation for this, Ottoman forces set up a number of bases on the eastern side of the Adriatic Sea and, in 1480, launched an invasion force to the Italian mainland. In July 1480, an Ottoman fleet of 128 ships landed troops near the Neapolitan city of Otranto in southern Italy. After a short siege, the city was captured by Ottoman troops.
"However, the Ottoman invasion of Italy did not progress beyond the capture of this one city, which was reclaimed by Christian forces less than one year later. The reason for this was the death of Mehmed on May 3, 1481, at which time he was succeeded by his son, Bayezid II. Bayezid had no interest in the conquest of Rome, and the Ottoman troops in Italy were withdrawn to the eastern side of the Adriatic Sea. Bayezid proved to have little appetite for military adventures, mainly because he was embroiled in internal disputes from the time he took the throne.
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"He first had to fight his brother Cem in a civil war that dragged on for three years. Then, during Bayezid’s final years, his sons fought each other and their father for the right to claim the throne. Ahmet, the oldest son and likeliest heir, tried to mount support to ensure his succession. Meanwhile Bayezid’s other son, Selim, staged a revolt which was defeated by his father’s forces, causing him to flee to Crimea. The Janissaries, who were becoming increasingly powerful and troublesome, intervened and demanded that Bayezid abdicate in favor of Selim. He agreed to do this but died almost as soon as he had abdicated; there was suspicion that the Janissaries had him murdered. Selim became the new sultan of the Ottoman Empire in April 1512 and set about making his own position and the role of sultan more secure and less liable to pressure from within. His brother, Ahmet, would not pose a threat for much longer since he was defeated in battle and executed one year later.
"Having achieved this—and acquired the name Selim the Resolute in the process—the new sultan began to look for ways of expanding the limits of his empire. Istanbul provided the Ottoman Empire control over the lucrative trade routes between Europe and Asia, and this supplied the finance required to expand and improve both the army and the navy. The Persian Safavid Empire under the rule of the shahs of Iran occupied large parts of eastern Anatolia and provided an obvious target for Ottoman attack.
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"In August 1514, Sultan Selim led an army of around 100,000 men against a Safavid force of around 80,000 under the command of Shah Ismail at Chaldiran in northern Iran. The Ottoman forces included thousands of Janissaries equipped with gunpowder weapons and a large number of heavy artillery pieces. The opposing Safavids had no firearms at all. This advantage helped Selim’s army to achieve a decisive victory, and his troops went on to capture the Safavid capital of Tabriz. The Battle of Chaldiran gave the Ottoman Empire complete control over Anatolia and parts of northern Iran; it also persuaded the Kurdish tribes to switch allegiance from the Safavids to the Ottomans.
"Next, Selim turned his attention to the Mamluk Sultanate which ruled in Syria and Egypt. At stake was the highly lucrative spice trade as well as control over some of the holiest Muslim cities. The Ottoman campaign against the Mamluks included several notable battles. However, just as in their battle with the Safavids, the Ottomans had a distinct military advantage because their armies included thousands of Janissaries armed with the arquebus, an early form of musket. The Mamluk armies facing them were strictly traditional and relied on the bow and arrow. Given this technological imbalance, the outcome of most battles was predictable. At the Battle of Marj Dabiq in August 1516, Ottoman forces were triumphant and the Mamluk leader Qansuh al-Ghawri was killed.
"In October, the Ottoman forces met another Mamluk army at Khan Yunis near the city of Gaza. Once again, the Ottomans were victorious. Another Ottoman victory, this time at the Battle of Ridaniya near Cairo in January 1517, marked the effective end of the war. The outcome was that Ottoman control extended to the Levant, Egypt, and Hejaz and included the holy cities of Mecca and Medina.
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"When Selim died in September 1520, he passed to his son Suleiman an empire that had become the most powerful and most feared in the Muslim world. Suleiman, who would eventually become known as Suleiman the Magnificent, expanded the limits of the empire even further, capturing Belgrade in 1521 and the southern and central parts of Hungary in 1526. In 1534, Sultan Suleiman’s forces took Baghdad from the Persians, giving the Ottomans access to the Persian Gulf and control of Mesopotamia, the fertile region between the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers.
"Suleiman’s rule lasted for 46 years, and during this period the Ottoman Empire reached the peak of its power and influence. By the time of his death in 1566, Suleiman ruled over more than 15 million people in a territory that included what is now Turkey, Greece, Egypt, Syria, Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, Yemen, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, Macedonia, parts of Saudi Arabia, and large sections of the coast of North Africa. The Ottoman navy controlled most of the Mediterranean, the Red Sea, and the Persian Gulf and made successful expeditions into the Indian Ocean. It also mounted a blockade that prevented ships from Europe reaching the Spice Islands.
"Suleiman’s long reign didn’t just bring military victories—this was also a period of internal stability and great wealth which permitted major advances in art, architecture, science, and medicine. The Topkapi Palace, the sultan’s residence and administrative headquarters in Istanbul, became one of the most opulent and lavish royal complexes anywhere in the world."
Hence the assertion by Napoleon quoted above by this author?
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"Ottoman society was also settled and stable during this period. A small ruling class (the askeri) were responsible for setting laws and for ensuring that there were sufficient financial resources to protect and maintain the mass of the population (the rayas—the “protected flock”) by ensuring that they were safe from external attack and provided with sufficient food. The people were divided into millets, semi-autonomous religious communities, and esnaf, guilds which looked after members of specific professions. Advances in medicine meant that people lived longer, and the wealth amassed by the ruling class trickled down to all levels of society. In general, life was good for those who lived under the control of the Ottoman Empire, even for non-Muslims who were tolerated and protected provided that they observed certain restrictions on their religious practices (Orthodox Christian priests were not permitted to wear full regalia in public, for example) and other aspects of their lives (Christian were not allowed to bear arms in Ottoman cities).
"When he died in 1566, Suleiman left an empire that seemed set to endure for a very long time indeed. However, it wouldn’t be long before new threats appeared and the Ottoman Empire began to change."
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"“If one wants to do business with the Ottoman Empire, one must go to the Sultan’s mother before any other.”
"—Ogier Ghiselin de Busbecq"
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"For the first 200 years of its existence, the Ottoman Empire was graced with a series of able, ambitious, and committed sultans who were often ruthless and sometimes brutal, but who ruled effectively and massively increased the power and reach of the empire. After the death of Suleiman, the quality of Ottoman rulers varied, and their reigns frequently ended with assassination or overthrow. The four sultans who followed Suleiman—Selim II, Murad III, Mehmed III, and Ahmed I—ruled for a combined total of just 50 years. These continual changes of leadership weakened the ruling class and undermined the stability of the empire.
"Then, in 1617, Mustafa, younger brother of Sultan Ahmed I, took the throne. His appointment as sultan had been the result of a great deal of behind the scenes bargaining—for the first time on the death of a sultan, there were several possible heirs all living in the Topkapi Palace. Mustafa was eventually chosen on the basis that Ahmed’s son was too young to be enthroned. Unfortunately, it rapidly became clear that Mustafa had some fundamental problems—he was in the habit of knocking the turbans off his viziers heads and pulling their beards as well as distributing coins to birds and fish. He is now remembered as Mustafa the Mad. After being sultan for just three months, Mustafa was deposed in favor of his young nephew and the son of Ahmed I, Osman II.
"Osman II reigned for just four years before he was assassinated during a Janissary riot in May 1622. It is probably a measure of just how desperate things were that Mustafa the Mad, who had been quietly living in the old palace since his deposition, was recalled to the throne. He immediately had everyone who had been involved in the murder of his nephew chopped into pieces before descending into even more eccentricity—amongst other things, he seemed to believe that Osman II was still alive and hiding somewhere in the vast Topkapi Palace, and he was often seen wandering the corridors, crying and calling for his nephew. After just 18 months he was once again deposed and replaced by the 11-year-old Murad IV.
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"Murad IV reigned for 17 years before being replaced in 1640 by Ibrahim (also later known as “the Mad”) whose extravagance infuriated the royal court. After eight years, Ibrahim’s Grand Vizier Ahmed Pasha was torn to pieces by an angry mob (gaining him the unenviable nickname “Ahmed of the thousand pieces”) and soon after Ibrahim himself was deposed and strangled. His replacement, his six-year-old son Mehmed IV, lasted longer than his father, but he too was deposed in 1687.
"This series of weak and occasionally deranged sultans led to many changes in the Ottoman Empire. One of these changes was the increasing influence of women in the rule of the empire. The period following the rule of Suleiman the Magnificent is sometimes known as the Sultanate of Women. This was partly due to a movement of the harem during the rule of Suleiman from being a secret and separate part of the royal palace to something much closer to the seat of power. Suleiman was the first sultan to be formally married, to a woman who would later become known as Hürrem Sultan who influenced the politics of the empire through her husband and played an active role in state business. When she died in 1558, the streets of Istanbul were thronged with thousands of mourners.
"Many of the sultans who came to power in the next hundred years were very young and were subject to the influence of their mothers, the valide sultans. Some foreign ambassadors at this time reported that if a country wanted to do business with the Ottoman Empire, the most effective route was via the sultan’s mother. Other adult sultans were greatly influenced by their wives, the haseki sultans. Rivalry between the women of the imperial harem became so intense that it occasionally led to violence—Kösem Sultan, the favorite consort of Ahmed I and mother of Murad IV and Ibrahim, became one of the most powerful and influential women in the imperial court. However, she had a rival in the form of a young concubine of Sultan Ibrahim, Turhan Hatice, the mother of Mehmed IV. The two women plotted against one another for several years before Turhan Hatice finally managed to arrange to have her rival strangled in the harem by the chief eunuch.
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"The weakness of a number of sultans led to a period where the Ottoman Empire was effectively ruled by a series of grand viziers from the powerful Köprülü family. The first of these grand viziers, Köprülü Mehmed Pasha, was appointed by Turhan Hatice after she had gained ascendancy in the imperial court by the removal of her rival Kösem Sultan. She gave the new grand vizier unprecedented independence and power, and the period from 1656 to 1703 is generally known as the Köprülü era of the Ottoman Empire as other members of the Köprülü family inherited the role of grand vizier.
"The weakening of central rule also led to the rise of many powerful families within the empire and to the gradual decentralization of power. Changes to the military system also led to major changes in taxation which in turn led to unrest and occasionally to open rebellion. The main problem was the need to maintain large standing forces of Janissaries provided with firearms. This was necessary as the European armies with which the Ottomans found themselves in conflict were themselves increasingly using troops with firearms. The high cost of maintaining this standing army, even during peacetime, required the introduction of a different system of direct taxation—previously, taxation had been levied only on those who owned land. The increased taxes led to hardship and poverty in people who had previously enjoyed some of the highest living standards in the medieval world. This was exacerbated by huge inflation, caused partly by the influx of gold and silver to Europe from the New World as well as by an increase in population (by 1600 the Ottoman Empire included more than 30 million people, creating a shortage of land). These things led to discontent in a large proportion of the population and a feeling of distrust for a weakened sultanate. In the provinces, the changes led to the appearance of a new class of nobles, the ayan, who became powerful local political and military leaders. Corruption became widespread throughout the empire.
"The hundred years following the death of Sultan Suleiman also saw an end to the effortless expansion of the Ottoman Empire. The expansion of Russia under Ivan IV in the late 1500s threatened the Ottoman northern trade routes. A coalition of Catholic powers under the leadership of King Philip II of Spain challenged Ottoman naval control of the Mediterranean. At the Battle of Lepanto in 1571, the Ottoman fleet was defeated and virtually destroyed, a stunning defeat for an empire that had previously seemed invincible. The Long Turkish War (also known as the Thirteen Years’ War) was fought between the Ottoman Empire and the Austrian Hapsburg Monarchy from 1593 to 1606 and led to large numbers of casualties but provided no enduring gains or major victories for the Ottomans.
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"To supplement the expensive Janissaries, the Ottomans recruited large numbers of sekban, mercenaries armed with an improved arquebus. However, when these groups were disbanded, the men often returned home with their firearms, and this led to widespread banditry within the empire and even to small-scale rebellions such as the Jelali revolts in Anatolia in the late sixteenth to early seventeenth century.
"The Ottomans were also involved in an on-going series of wars against the Safavid Persians. After Sultan Suleiman’s conquest of Baghdad in 1534, a second campaign against the Safavids during the reign of Murad III led to the Ottoman annexation of west Iran and the Caucasus Mountains in 1590. However, in 1612, during the reign of Sultan Ahmed I, Persian Shah Abbas, sensing weakness in the Ottoman leadership, attacked and reconquered much of the territory controlled by the Ottomans. In 1624, during the first reign of Mustafa the Mad, the Persians attacked again, taking back the city of Baghdad. In 1639, a peace treaty was finally agreed between the Safavid Persians and the Ottoman Empire. This restored the borders roughly to where they had been in 1555.
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"The worst military defeat for the Ottoman Empire came in the Great Turkish War which raged in Europe from 1683 to 1699. A blockade of Istanbul by Venetian ships in the 1650s had caused severe shortages in the city and unrest amongst the poorest of the population. Determined to end the threat from Christian Europe, Grand Vizier Kara Mustafa Pasha led a massive Ottoman Army west in an attempt to take Vienna, capital of the Hapsburg Monarchy. This culminated in the Battle of Vienna on September 12, 1683 where the Ottoman forces met Hapsburg and Polish troops supported by forces from the Holy Roman Empire. The battle included the largest known cavalry charge, where more than 18,000 mounted Christian knights smashed into the Ottoman lines. The result was a decisive victory for the Christian forces and, though the war continued for another 16 years, the Ottoman Empire was eventually forced to sign a treaty, the Treaty of Karlowitz, in which it surrendered most of its territory in Europe including Ottoman Hungary.
"Following the signing of this treaty, the Ottoman Empire was never again a serious threat to Christian Europe. More significantly, the empire had reached the limits of its ability to defend the territory it had acquired. From this point on the Ottoman Empire would be focused on attempting to retain control of lands that it had already conquered rather than seeking to expand into new areas."
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"“The Ottoman Empire whose sick body was not supported by a mild and regular diet, but by a powerful treatment, which continually exhausted it.”
"—Charles de Montesquieu"
................................................................................................
"In 1703, a new sultan, Ahmed III, took control of the Ottoman Empire. He was given the name “the Warrior,” which was more than a little ironic given that the 27 years of his reign are generally known as the Tulip Period due to his love of this particular bloom and his desire for peace and stability. During the early years of his reign, Ahmed III was persuaded to ally the Ottoman Empire with Sweden, then fighting a war against Russia. King Charles XII of Sweden was briefly forced to flee to Istanbul following defeat by the Russians, and he talked Ahmed into attacking Russia in 1710. Victory for Ottoman forces led to the signing of the Treaty of the Pruth. This ensured the security of the Ottoman border with Russia, but also made it clear that the empire was no longer interested in aggressive expansionism.
"This intention was confirmed in the years that followed as the Ottomans built extensive defenses to protect their borders in the Balkans, again making it clear that they favored defense over expansion. An extended period of peace followed, during which art and architecture flourished throughout the empire. Influenced by the Baroque and Rococo periods in Europe, many works of art and buildings created during this period are fantastically ornate. Many European artists also came to Istanbul where they were commissioned to produce a number of significant works.
"During this period, there were also a number of attempts to carry out significant reforms within Ottoman society and government. Corruption was recognized as a major problem, particularly in remote provinces where local governors used their power and influence to enrich themselves at the expense of the empire. A number of chiefs were executed as a result, but this generally resulted in their replacement with another, equally corrupt governor. This corruption led to widespread inefficiency and weaknesses in defense and military works.
................................................................................................
"There were some successful changes during this period. Taxes, for example, were lowered as spending on the military declined and private ownership and small businesses were permitted for the first time. However, some significant attempted improvements failed. For example, the use of artillery had become a major factor in modern warfare, and many European armies had made great advances as a result of the application of science and technology in this aspect of warfare. The Ottomans recognized that they were falling dangerously behind. The Janissaries, however, were still a significant and powerful group, and they saw the increasing importance of artillery as a threat to them. As a result, they blocked many attempted reforms.
"In 1730, Ahmed III was deposed by a Janissary revolt. In 1734, his successor, Mahmud I, attempted to create an artillery school which included French instructors (at the time, France was the leading exponent of the use of artillery). However, this move was blocked not just by opposition from the Janissaries but also from the Muslim clergy who regarded artillery as “an instrument of evil.” The school was abandoned, and the Ottoman Empire lost its lead in the use of firearms which had brought it so many victories in the past.
"Other attempted improvements were also blocked. For example, the printing press had revolutionized much of Europe in the late 1400s. The powerful guild of writers in Istanbul, who still relied on the use of highly skilled calligraphers to produce books, denounced the printing press as an “instrument of the devil” and successfully blocked its use. It wasn’t until the mid-1700s that non-Muslims were permitted to use printing presses to produce non-religious books within the Ottoman Empire. The Ottoman Empire in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries had taken the lead in many aspects of science and technology. By the eighteenth century, resistance to change prevented many new ideas from being used and adopted. Ironically, this resistance often came from a sense of nostalgia for a previous period where the Ottoman Empire was seen as strong and vigorous, which completely missed the point that this strength had often come from a willingness to adopt new thinking.
................................................................................................
"The stagnation in the Ottoman Empire and the decline of its military power created a situation that was too tempting for other powers to ignore. In 1725, Peter the Great, the tsar of Russia died, leaving no heir to succeed him. He was followed by his wife, Catherine, who became the first empress of Russia. Catherine ruled Russia for just two years before she died and was succeeded by Peter II, the last of the direct Romanov male line. Peter II lasted less than three years before his death at which time he was replaced by another empress, Anna. All these rulers were interested in expanding the limits of Russian lands, and all saw the faltering Ottoman Empire as the ideal target for that expansion.
"During the reign of Empress Anna, the Russians allied themselves with their old enemy the Hapsburg Monarchy and attacked the northern parts of the Ottoman Empire in 1735. The resulting war lasted for four years with neither side being able to gain a substantial advantage. In 1739, the Treaty of Belgrade returned Belgrade to Ottoman control but, crucially, gave Russia the port of Azov which provided access to the Black Sea.
"In the decades that followed, Russia became the most powerful nation in south-eastern Europe. A number of reforms were undertaken to improve the administration and fighting ability of Russian military units. In the short term, the Russians and the Hapsburg Monarchy were concerned with limiting the growing power of Prussia. However, in Russia, it was generally accepted that the only opportunities for expansion would come at the expense of the Ottomans.
................................................................................................
"Within the Ottoman Empire, the peace which followed the Treaty of Belgrade allowed more opportunity for reform, but this was largely wasted. Internecine quarrels between different elements of the Ottoman military, and especially concerns by the Janissaries about what they regarded as the erosion of their influence and prestige, prevented any meaningful improvements. The Ottoman Empire was involved in several relatively minor wars against the Safavid Persians in the first half of the eighteenth century, but, although these sapped valuable resources, they did not provide any decisive changes.
"Sultan Mustafa III came to power in 1757. He admired the military successes of Frederick the Great and concluded a peace treaty with Prussia in 1761. Frederick, meanwhile, saw the Ottoman Empire as a potentially useful ally against the Hapsburgs. Mustafa III wanted to use the knowledge and expertise of the Prussians to improve his army, causing the Ottoman army to recruit officers in Prussia who would attempt to improve and reform the Ottoman military."
Hence the later alacrity by various Arab states hiring German War criminals post WWII!
"Mustafa III also introduced a number of fiscal and educational reforms aimed at reducing the unrest and open rebellion that was starting to emerge in parts of the empire. Under Mustafa, the coinage of the empire was strictly regulated, and taxes were eased. New educational institutions such as the Istanbul Technical University were created, and extensive new building and renovation were undertaken in Istanbul and elsewhere.
................................................................................................
"However, in 1762, a new empress took the throne in Russia. Catherine II, who would later be known as Catherine the Great, was autocratic, ambitious, and determined to expand the borders of Russia. In 1768, using the pretext of pursuing fleeing Polish revolutionaries, Russian troops entered the Ottoman-controlled city of Balta in Bessarabia. When the citizens objected, they were massacred and the city burned. The Ottoman Empire declared war on Russia. The result should have been a victory for the Ottomans who had much larger armies than their Russian foes. Instead the modernized Russian army won a series of victories against numerically superior Ottoman forces. The Russians won a major battle at Larga in Moldavia in July 1770 when 30,000 Russian troops defeated an Ottoman army of 80,000. A few weeks later, a Russian army of 40,000 defeated an Ottoman army of more than twice that number at Kagul in Moldavia. At around the same time, a Russian naval flotilla from the Baltic Sea fleet defeated a much larger Ottoman naval force in a battle off Chesme in the Aegean Sea. In 1771, the Russians conquered the Crimean Khanate which had been an Ottoman possession for more than 250 years.
"As the war progressed, the Ottoman Empire lost its fortresses in the Danube region to the Russians and suffered further major military defeats at Turtukai in 1773 and Kozluji in 1774. When a peace treaty was signed in 1774, Russia had gained parts of northern Caucasus, and the Crimea had become a Russian protectorate (which would be annexed without Ottoman response in 1783). Russia also gained additional ports in the Sea of Azov which gave military and merchant shipping access to the Black Sea and, via the Turkish Straits, to the Mediterranean. The war of 1768-1774 was a military catastrophe for the Ottoman Empire. It became apparent that Ottoman military might was an illusion and no match for well-led, modernized European armies.
................................................................................................
"When Selim III became sultan in 1789, he was determined to force through reforms to the Ottoman military, even though he knew that he would face opposition from both religious leaders and from the Janissaries, who had become increasingly anarchic and were virtually an independent military force within the empire. The need for reform was emphasized by defeat at the Battle of Abukir when French forces under the command of Napoleon Bonaparte invaded Ottoman-controlled Egypt. The French lost 220 men while the Ottoman army suffered casualties of over 8,000. This defeat opened the way for the French to take control of Egypt and, as a direct result, Sultan Selim III created a new military unit, the nizam-i djedid (the new order) equipped with modern weapons, trained by European officers, and wearing French-style uniforms.
"By 1806, the new army included over 23,000 men and incorporated modern artillery units. Predictably, the Janissaries objected to the growing power of the new force, and by May 1807, Selim III was deposed and subsequently murdered during yet another Janissary revolt. Selim’s successor, Mustafa IV, lasted only one year before he too was deposed and executed.
"The next sultan, Mahmud II, was determined to continue with the military reforms begun by Selim III. This provoked another Janissary revolt in 1826, but this time, military units loyal to the sultan were strong enough to suppress the mutiny. Janissary leaders were executed, and the Janissary Corps itself was finally disbanded. A sultan of the Ottoman Empire would never again be deposed by a Janissary revolt. But although it was clear that although this threat had been removed, other internal troubles were brewing for the empire."
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"“It is magnificent, but it is not war; it is madness.”
"—Pierre Bosquet"
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"The reforms started by Mahmud II were continued by his successor, Abdulmejid I, who came to the throne in July 1839 following Mahmud’s death. Abdulmejid introduced the Tanzimat era which brought sweeping changes to Ottoman society and its political structures. Under this reform, religious law was replaced by secular law (which amongst many other things decriminalized homosexuality), the banking system was improved, a modern, conscripted army was introduced, and the guilds of craftsmen were forced to accept the creation of modern factories. This era led to the introduction of paper banknotes, post offices, a national anthem and flag, and even to the introduction of the Meclis-i Maarif-i Umumiye, a form of government where absolute power was devolved from the sultan.
"Although the Tanzimat period produced dramatic and far-reaching changes to the Ottoman Empire, it still faced insurrection from within. During the period of conquest, the Ottoman Empire had incorporated people of a whole range of religious and ethnic backgrounds. While the empire remained strong, the ambitions of these people for independence were held in check. As the empire weakened, movements for regional independence grew in strength. The First Serbian Uprising, which began in 1804 and lasted for over ten years, heralded the beginning of a period of increasing struggle for national identity in the Ottoman-controlled Balkans. In 1821, a revolution which began in the Peloponnese led to the Greeks declaring war on the Ottoman Empire. By 1829, the empire admitted defeat and Greece became an independent country. Continuing insurrection in Serbia, Wallachia, and Montenegro led to a measure of independence for these principalities by the 1860s.
"Russia continued to be the main external threat during this period. By this time the weakness of the Ottoman Empire had become so obvious compared to the growing strength of Russia (it was during this period that the Ottoman Empire was first referred to by Russian Tsar Nicholas I as “the sick man of Europe”) that a number of European states including France and Britain signed treaties with the Ottomans. The fear was that Russia would take advantage of Ottoman weakness to increase its own sphere of control, and former enemies of the Ottoman Empire were now willing to become its allies in order to prevent this from happening.
................................................................................................
"In 1853, a dispute with Russia over the treatment of religious minorities within the Ottoman Empire led to another war with Russia. However, this time, the Ottoman Empire was supported by the powerful naval and military support of Britain and France. Initial fighting took place in the Balkans between Russian and Ottoman forces and, despite all attempts at modernization and reform, the Ottoman military failed to deliver, fighting a mainly defensive action and ceding most of the Danubian Principalities to Russia.
"Concerned that an Ottoman collapse was imminent, British and French forces landed first in Gallipoli and then, in September 1854, on the Crimean Peninsula in the Black Sea. The intention was to capture the Russian naval base at Sevastopol, and after battles at Balaclava and Inkerman, the port was finally captured in 1855. Russia, increasingly isolated and facing a concerted military response, sued for peace in March 1856. What had become known as the Crimean War ended on March 30 with what seemed to be a defeat for Russia, but no-one now doubted that the Ottoman Empire was very vulnerable indeed, and the peace treaty led directly to the states of Moldavia and Wallachia, previously Ottoman vassals, becoming independent.
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"The continuing weakness of the Ottoman Empire in the face of Russian aggression led to the creation in 1865 of a significant and influential secret society—the Young Ottomans. This group of intellectuals were dissatisfied with the Tanzimat reforms and wanted greater changes. Specifically, they wanted an end to the rule of the sultans and the introduction of some level of democracy and the introduction of constitutional government within the Ottoman Empire while retaining the Muslim foundations upon which Ottoman society was founded. Led by Namik Kemal and İbrahim Şinasi, both of whom published reformist newspapers, the group grew more powerful and influential, thought to most people it seemed unlikely that the sultan would ever accept his own replacement with an elected assembly.
"Then, in 1873, a global stock market crash brought financial hardship to many people within the empire and led to the imposition of higher taxes, making the situation even more difficult. Adding insult to injury, flooding and drought in Anatolia caused crop failures and food shortages, leading to unrest and open rebellion—Christian peasants in Bulgaria, Bosnia, and Herzegovina were amongst the first to rebel, and there were rumors of massacres and brutal atrocities as Ottoman troops responded to the insurrection. As a result, Russia went to war with the Ottoman Empire once again, inflicting a series of humiliating defeats on Ottoman forces in the Balkans.
................................................................................................
"Taking advantage of chaos and unrest, in May 1876 a group of Young Ottomans staged a coup and deposed Sultan Abdülaziz, who mysteriously died a few days later. He was replaced by Sultan Murad V who agreed to the creation of a constitutional government. The alcoholic Murad V was, however, quickly found to be too unreliable to continue as sultan, and he was replaced after just three months in August 1876 by Abdul Hamid II who, on December 23, 1876, promulgated the new Ottoman constitution. The new parliament, the General Assembly of the Ottoman Empire, convened for the first time on March 19, 1877. The Young Ottomans were ecstatic—surely now the Ottoman Empire could be truly reformed and take its place once again as the world’s leading Muslim power. Sadly, they were quickly disappointed. After just one year, Sultan Abdul Hamid II went back on his promise, dissolved the constitution, disbanded the parliament, and banished many leading Young Ottomans from the country which reverted to absolute rule by the sultan.
"In 1878, in the wake of the war with Russia, an international conference agreed that the former Ottoman territories of Bulgaria, Romania, Serbia, and Montenegro would be granted independence. Yet another small piece of the once mighty Ottoman Empire had vanished."
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"“The Ottoman Empire should be cleaned up of the Armenians and the Lebanese. We have destroyed the former by the sword, we shall destroy the latter through starvation.”
"—Enver Pasha"
Not quite first genocide, that, because those had been conducted against India by invaders for over a millennium by then, but nevertheless, one of those that inspired the nazi leader of Germany of decades until end of WWII.
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"Under the absolute rule of Sultan Abdul Hamid II, the Ottoman Empire continued to suffer unrest and revolt. The Armenian people attempted to gain some measure of independence in the late nineteenth century, but the sultan reacted by imposing a period of brutal repression in which upwards of 300,000 Armenians were massacred. These actions caused an international outcry and made Abdul Hamid II known as the Bloody Sultan, but no direct intervention was provided.
"Meanwhile, another influential secret society had been created within the empire—the Young Turks were, like the Young Ottomans before them, dedicated to the establishment of constitutional government in the empire. A conference between Russia and Britain in June 1908 to agree spheres of influence for these two powers caused consternation in the Ottoman Empire where it was believed that this would lead to the carving up of what remained of the empire. As a result, a coup by military officers involved in the Young Turk movement forced the sultan to surrender and to agree to the re-establishment of the constitution of 1876. However, the sultan, who had been allowed to continue in a symbolic role as head of state, organized a counter-coup in April 1909 which was intended to restore his power. This failed, and Sultan Abdul Hamid II was deposed on April 27 replaced by the more compliant Mehmed V.
................................................................................................
"Constitutional democracy was introduced in the Ottoman Empire, but this quickly proved to be just as chaotic, confused, and prone to corruption as the monarchy. Political groups splintered, divided into factions, and descended into anarchy. Other countries quickly took advantage. Austria-Hungary annexed Bosnia and Herzegovina in 1908. Italy seized Libya in 1911. In 1912, the empire lost all its Balkan possession as well as the historic city of Adrianople. In 1913, one of the leading political parties in the new parliament, the Committee of Union and Progress (CUP), staged a coup and took control of parliament and the country. Other political parties were brutally repressed and the CUP leader, Enver Pasha, became a virtual dictator. Under his leadership, the Ottoman Empire began to separate from its traditional European allies, Britain and France, and to move closer to the emerging power in central Europe, Germany.
"As Europe moved towards World War I, the Ottoman Empire remained a large power—it controlled 30 million people in what is now Turkey, Syria, Lebanon, Iraq, and Israel and ruled a further 5 million on the Arabian Peninsula. However, frequent changes of leadership and direction, insurrection, corruption, and a number of failed attempts at modernization and reform had left the empire fragile and vulnerable. Still fearing Russian aggression, the empire signed the Ottoman-German Alliance in 1914, just as Germany was about to declare war on France, Russia, and Britain.
................................................................................................
"During World War I, the Ottoman Empire fought on the side of Germany and won some significant victories, including repulsing a British landing at Gallipoli in 1916, but it also suffered a number of crushing defeats, especially against Russian forces in the Caucasus. During the war, the Ottomans renewed their persecution of ethnic Armenians; up to 1.5 million were massacred or killed in brutal forced marches. At the end of the war, finding itself on the losing side, the Ottoman Empire was forced to accept the Treaty of Sèvres which effectively partitioned the empire—more than 30 new and nominally independent countries were formed of lands previously ruled by the Ottoman Empire, and Anatolia was placed under Christian rule. Even the capital, Istanbul, was occupied by Allied troops.
"Enraged by what they saw as a betrayal of the empire, the signing of this treaty led to the emergence of a new leader, Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, a military officer who had sworn to overthrow the treaty and the administration which had accepted it and who created the Turkish National Movement. For four years, the Ottoman Empire was riven by the Turkish War of Independence where forces loyal to Atatürk fought both Ottoman forces who supported the sultan and Allied troops. After years of bitter fighting, the Treaty of Lausanne was signed in July 1923. This led directly to the creation of the modern, secular nation state of Turkey with Mustafa Kemal Atatürk as its president. The Ottoman sultanate was abolished, and the last sultan, Abdulmejid II, left for exile on a British battleship.
"In the end, it wasn’t external enemies which brought down the Ottoman Empire—it collapsed under its own weight as internal divisions and factions tore it apart. In the early days, the disparate parts of the expanding empire were held together by a series of ambitious, ruthless, and very able sultans. However, as the empire grew beyond the capacity of effective rule by any single man, the different nationalities, ethnicities, and religions which it contained began to pull in different directions until they destroyed the whole edifice. This was compounded by people within the empire who looked back with nostalgia at the glory days of expansion and success. These people tried to keep everything as it was, reasoning that if everything could be kept the same, the empire would continue to thrive. Sadly, it wasn’t so. The world changes, and empires must change with it, or they become, like the Ottoman Empire, outdated and erode from within."
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"It seems unlikely that we will ever again see an empire quite like the Ottoman. This mighty empire can be traced back directly to one man, Osman, and his ambition and dreams of a mighty empire. The 11 sultans who followed, his direct descendants, continued to expand the empire until, 250 years later, the Ottoman Empire was the most powerful Muslim state in the world as well as a center of medical and scientific knowledge and the home of some of the finest art and culture in the world.
"Seldom can one man’s ruthless energy have created a direct legacy which lasted so long and had such a profound impact on the history of the world. In the 1500s, it was difficult to imagine that anything could ever defeat this powerful state, and yet the empire already contained the seeds of its own destruction. The Janissaries, the feared and effective fighting force created by Sultan Murad I in the late 1300s were initially an elite military unit which helped the Ottoman Empire to achieve some of its most astounding victories. However, over the several hundred years which followed, this fighting force gradually morphed into a self-perpetuating, hereditary group which expected and demanded privileges denied the vast bulk of Ottoman subjects. When thwarted, the Janissaries were capable of removing a sultan who displeased them and replacing him with one who did. This led to the imposition of sultans who were good for the Janissary Corps, but not for the empire as a whole.
................................................................................................
"The same was true of many other institutions within the empire. The guilds of craftsmen, which in the early days helped to develop new technologies and equipment that allowed the empire to grow, became powerful agents dedicated to blocking change and improvement.
"In the end, this refusal to embrace much-needed change doomed the Ottoman Empire. Unable to stay ahead in the latest military technologies, the empire was helpless to resist external threats. Unwilling to change the way in which its subjects were governed, the empire was also vulnerable to internal unrest. This combination of internal and external threats first eroded and then destroyed the once mighty Ottoman Empire."
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Table of Contents
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Introduction
Emergence of the Ottoman Dynasty
The Fall of Constantinople
Selim the Grim and Suleiman the Magnificent
Sultanate of Women
The Russian Threat
The Crimean War and the Young Ottomans
Decline Until World War I
Conclusion
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Introduction
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"In a period of little more than 200 years, the Ottoman Empire rose from being a single, belligerent Anatolian fiefdom to become one of the most powerful empires in the world and one of the most influential Muslim states ever. In terms of art, literature, science, technology, medicine, and military prowess, the Ottoman Empire had few rivals.
"Having built a mighty empire which stretched across a vast range of lands, the Ottoman Empire then entered a period of stagnation followed by a gradual decline. Over the next 350 years, the empire slowly transformed from a powerful transcontinental power into “the sick man of Europe,” a term coined by the Russian Tsar Nicholas I.
"This is the dramatic story of both the Ottoman Empire’s rapid rise to power and of its long and gradual decline into weakness and obscurity. It is a story of shrewd and able sultans who used their absolute power to increase the influence of the empire and of weak, corrupt, and even mad Sultans who allowed this power to dissipate. This is the story of the Ottoman Empire."
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December 25, 2022 - December 25, 2022.
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Chapter 1. Emergence of the Ottoman Dynasty
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"“If all of us would now turn to salt, we couldn’t even salt the Turk’s lunch.”
"—Kosančić Ivan, epic poem on the Battle of Kosovo"
One must assume that's clear to the author.
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"By the end of the ninth century, the Byzantine Empire, the surviving remnant of the once mighty Roman Empire, ruled lands which stretched from Armenia in the east to Calabria, southern Italy in the west; in between lay the capital, the vast metropolis of Constantinople. However, the empire was facing difficulties. Successive rulers ignored the need to train, equip, and maintain efficient fighting forces and there were acrimonious internal debates between Orthodox Christians and the increasing power of Catholics under the rule of the Pope. This culminated in the Great Schism of 1054.
"It wasn’t long before other powers, sensing the weakness of Byzantine rule, began to take lands which had once been ruled from Constantinople. One of these was the Seljuk Empire, a Turko-Persian Sunni Muslim state established in 1037. ... "
Wasn't Selucas the Greek left by Alexander when he returned from Asia, to oversee his interests? Why then was the "Turko-Persian Sunni Muslim state" termed "Seljuk Empire"? Was it because the regime consisted of descendents of precisely those Greeks, since then converted?
" ... The Seljuk Empire expanded during the next one hundred years, often expanding by taking lands which had previously belonged to the Byzantine Empire. By 1100, the Seljuk Empire controlled lands in what is now Turkey and Georgia as well as parts of Iran, Iraq, and Afghanistan. The Seljuk Empire was eventually overrun by Mongols who swept into Anatolia in the 1260s, capturing the lands formerly controlled by the Seljuks and dividing it into a series of emirates known as the Anatolian beyliks. Each beylik was an area of land under the control of a bey (lord) appointed by and loyal to the Mongols.
................................................................................................
"By 1300, one of the Anatolian beyliks in western Anatolia was ruled by Osman I, a ruthless, able, and ambitious man who led his nomadic bands of Oghuz Turk horsemen, the gazis (raiders), against other beyliks. Initially, these were hit-and-run raids where the gazis would swoop on a poorly defended part of a neighboring beylik and carry off as much booty as could be carried. Later, these became bigger and better organized, and Osman conquered several neighboring beyliks.
"Osman’s ambitions were not confined to his native Anatolia, and it wasn’t long before he turned his attention to the west and the Christian lands of southeastern Europe which had formerly been controlled by the Byzantine Empire. Osman was immediately and spectacularly successful in this move to take lands in the west, partly because of his policy of allowing the Christian princes of the conquered lands to remain in power provided that they agreed to submit to his rule, to pay tribute, and to ensure that Christian soldiers and officials were encouraged to join the army and government of Osman (these people were not required to convert to Islam provided that they agreed to serve Osman).
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"Legend has it that Osman was encouraged in his conquests by a dream which he had while he was still a little-known bey. In this dream he saw a great tree from which four rivers flowed—the Tigris, the Euphrates, the Danube, and the Nile. Shaded by the gigantic branches of the tree were four mountain ranges—the Caucasus, the Balkans, the Atlas, and the Taurus. Osman took this as a metaphor, with the tree representing the empire he was founding which one day would encompass the lands in which these rivers flowed and the mountain ranges stood.
"The area ruled by Osman and his successors rapidly increased in size until it covered lands in what are now Greece, Bulgaria, Romania, Bosnia, Macedonia, Serbia and Montenegro, and Croatia. Osman established a formal government in what was now being called the Ottoman Empire— “Osman” becomes “Uthman” when written in Arabic. Although Europeans commonly referred to the Ottomans as Turks and the country from which they came as Turkey, these terms were not used within the empire."
But the epithet "Turk" was far from invented by Europe. In India, for example, the invaders who established colonial regimes- before Mongols and their descendents - were called Turk, by themselves as well, not only by India. This was the name Central Asians had for the people of the region.
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"When Osman died in 1324, control passed to his son Orhan who proved to be no less able as a military commander. Under the leadership of Orhan, the army of the Ottoman Empire conquered the city of Bursa in northwestern Anatolia, making it the empire’s new capital. Orhan died in 1362 and was succeeded by his son, Murad, another strong and capable military leader who was now known as the sultan of the Ottoman Empire. The port city of Thessaloniki in Greece was captured from the powerful Venetians in 1387. Murad continued to expand the Ottoman Empire to the east, at the expense of the Christian Principalities of the Balkans. This inevitably brought them into conflict with the warlike Serbs, and in 1389 the growing Ottoman Empire faced its most challenging test to date when it fought a Serbian army under the command of Prince Lazar Hrebeljanović in Kosovo.
"Murad’s army was around 30,000 strong and included more than 2,000 Janissaries, an elite infantry unit created by Murad as a personal bodyguard and the first modern professional army in Europe. These were supported by around 6,000 heavy cavalry (sipahis), 5,000 light cavalry (akincis), 15,000 light infantry (azaps), and troops provided by the friendly beylik of Isfendiyar. Against these forces were ranged around 30,000 Serbian fighters. On June 15, 1389, the two armies faced each other on a flat plain near what is now Kosovo. Contemporary accounts of the battle are sketchy, but we do know that the bulk of both armies became casualties on the field. Sultan Murad and Prince Lazar both died during the battle, and the remnants of the Christian army fled. The army of Murad endured such heavy casualties that it too withdrew from the field, but the Ottoman Empire was able to bring more troops to the area from the east. The Serbians had no reserves to call upon, and in the years that followed, the Serbian principalities fell under Ottoman rule one by one.
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"The precise circumstances of the death of Sultan Murad on the day of the battle are unclear. He did not die while fighting. Some accounts suggest that a small band of Serbian fighters were able to fight their way to the sultan’s tent and kill him there. This seems unlikely, as the sultan’s Janissary guard would have stayed close to him at all times during the battle. Another account has a Serbian nobleman, Miloš Obilić, pretending to change sides during the battle. When Obilić was taken into the presence of the sultan, he was able to kill Murad with a hidden knife before being killed himself by the sultan’s bodyguards.
"Whatever the precise circumstances of his death, this left Murad’s son, Bayezid, as heir to the Ottoman Empire. Bayezid quickly demonstrated that he had the ruthlessness required to be an effective sultan when he strangled his younger brother, Yakub Çelebi, immediately upon hearing the news of his father’s death to ensure that there would be no doubts as to the identity of the next sultan. When he was safely established as sultan, Bayezid had a tomb built in Kosovo Polje in which some of his father’s organs were interred. This tomb became a shrine and place of pilgrimage for local Muslims.
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"Bayezid proved to be an effective military leader, and within a few years of the Battle of Kosovo, constant expansion of the Ottoman Empire had left its main rival, the Byzantine Empire, reduced to the lands around its capital, the city of Constantinople. The increasing power of a Muslim empire in eastern Europe was a matter of grave concern to the Christian countries of western Europe, and when the Ottomans relentless encroachment on Christian lands continued, it was decided that a crusade must be mounted to curb further expansion of the Ottoman Empire.
"A massive Christian army was raised which included crusading knights from England, France, Germany, Burgundy, Bulgaria, Hungary, Wallachia, and Croatia supported by elements of the Venetian navy. The crusader army was a fearsome fighting force which numbered around 15,000 heavily armed and armored men, and when it arrived in the vicinity of Nicopolis in September 1396, few Christians believed that it would fail to inflict a heavy defeat on the Muslim forces of Sultan Bayezid which numbered around 20,000. After a desultory and unsuccessful attempt to besiege Nicopolis (which was occupied by a Turkish governor, Doğan Bey), the crusaders under the command of King Sigismund of Hungary faced the Ottoman army on a flat area close to the River Danube on September 25, 1396. Fighting was heavy and confused; there are no reliable accounts of precisely what happened on that day, but by nightfall, King Sigismund had fled the field in a fisherman’s boat and what was left of his army surrendered to Sultan Bayezid.
................................................................................................
"It was a crushing and completely unexpected defeat for the armies of Christianity. The following day, Sultan Bayezid watched as several thousand Christian prisoners were executed in retaliation for the earlier execution of Muslim prisoners at Rahovo. Following the Battle of Nicopolis, the Ottoman Empire controlled almost all the former lands of the Byzantine Empire with the exception of the city of Constantinople. Then, just as it seemed that nothing could stop Bayezid, he faced a challenge from an entirely unexpected direction.
"Amur Timur, more generally known as Tamerlane (Timur the Lame), was a warlord just as ruthless and successful as any Ottoman sultan. Timur was a Turko-Mongol leader who dreamed of restoring the Mongol Empire of Genghis Khan. His nomadic armies laid waste to vast swathes of Persia and the Levant—historians estimate that his military actions directly caused the deaths of 17 million people, equivalent to around 5% of the population of the Earth at that time.
................................................................................................
"In 1402, Timur’s army invaded Anatolia, and on July 20, he faced the army of the Ottoman Empire under the command of Sultan Bayezid near the city of Ankara. The armies were some of the largest ever deployed on a battlefield at the time with Timur fielding around 140,000 men supported by cavalry and war elephants while Bayezid opposed him with a mixed force of around 85,000.
"The outcome of the battle was a total defeat for the Ottoman forces and the capture of Bayezid himself. When the sultan died in captivity three months later, the remainder of the Ottoman Empire was embroiled in a civil war as Bayezid’s sons fought over the succession. The war lasted for 11 years and almost ended in the destruction of the Ottoman Empire. In 1413, Bayezid’s son Mehmed finally achieved victory and emerged as the new sultan. In the meantime, Timur had died just three years after the Battle of Ankara, and his empire dissolved during fighting to decide who would be his successor. With Timur out of the way, there was nothing to stop Mehmed and the Ottoman Empire regaining the momentum they had lost during the civil war."
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December 25, 2022 - December 25, 2022.
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Chapter 2. The Fall of Constantinople
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"“If Earth were a single state, Istanbul would be its capital.”
"—Napoleon Bonaparte"
Well, the man wasn't always right, after all, and this would be the first example one knows thereof.
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"The first task facing Sultan Mehmed was the need to regain Ottoman territories in the Balkans including Kosovo and Macedonia which had been lost to Christian forces while the Ottomans were distracted by the civil war. He fought a number of relatively small battles and took back some of the lands which had been claimed by the Christian princes. Mehmed reigned for just eight years until his death in 1421 when he was replaced by his son, Murad II.
"Murad II was more ambitious and more expansionist than his father, and he stepped up military operations in the west. These met with limited success, and by 1444 Murad II had signed a ten-year peace treaty with Hungary and arranged a truce with the Karaman Emirate in Anatolia. Having assured peace for the empire, Murad then abdicated in favor of his 12-year-old son, Mehmed II. Murad built himself a lavish palace in eastern Anatolia and retired to enjoy a lifestyle worthy of an ex-sultan. However, despite the agreement of peace treaties, some of the Christian principalities of eastern Europe still feared Ottoman expansion, and the princes of Hungary and Venice petitioned Pope Eugene IV to raise a new crusade, hoping that it would be easy to defeat an Ottoman army while it was commanded by such a young and inexperienced sultan.
................................................................................................
"In November 1444, a crusader army of around 30,000 men entered what is now Bulgaria and approached the Ottoman-held city of Varna. Opposing them, the young sultan was able to deploy an army of 50,000 men. Mehmed II may have been only 12 years old, but he clearly wasn’t naive. He recognized the importance of the coming battle and asked his father, Murad II, to return to the throne and lead the army. Murad, who was rather enjoying a leisurely retirement in eastern Anatolia, refused. Mehmed sent him a letter: “If you are the Sultan, come and lead your armies. If I am the Sultan I hereby order you to come and lead my armies.” Faced with no other option, Murad II agreed to become Sultan once more and led his army against the Crusaders at Varna.
"On the morning of November 10, 1444, the two armies met in battle near Lake Varna. The conflict descended into a bloody slogging match with large numbers of casualties on both sides. The crusader army was virtually annihilated, but Ottoman casualties were so extensive that it is said that it wasn’t until three days later that Murad II realized that he had been victorious. The Battle of Varna was the last serious Christian attempt to limit the spread of the Ottoman Empire in eastern Europe. Until his death in 1451, Murad II continued to reign as sultan and to push the borders of the empire to the east, culminating in victory against a massive Hungarian army at the Second Battle of Kosovo in 1448."
Shouldn't that be "push the borders of the empire to the west", not "push the borders of the empire to the east"?
................................................................................................
"After his father’s death, Mehmed II, now a confident young man of 19, took over the throne once more. Mehmed immediately set about reorganizing both the apparatus of government within the empire and its military forces. His ambition was not further expansion to the east but something much more dramatic—he wanted to capture the last vestige of the Byzantine Empire, the mighty city of Constantinople.
"Constantinople had been an imperial capital for more than one thousand years since it had first been consecrated in 330 for Emperor Constantine. The city represented the furthest eastern reach of Christendom, and for the Ottomans it was a persistent threat to their rear. By the 1400s the city had some of the most formidable defensive walls and structures ever seen and was widely believed to be impregnable to attack or siege. This confidence in the walls of the city meant that its 50,000 inhabitants were defended by just 7,000 troops. However, no-one had taken into account the existence of a new weapon which had been little used on the battlefield before—the cannon.
................................................................................................
"Gunpowder had been used in hand-held weapons for some time, but limited knowledge of metal casting meant that early large caliber cannons had proven as dangerous to their users as to the enemy. However, a master founder by the name of Orban, who was either Hungarian or German, claimed to have discovered the secret of casting large, powerful, and reliable cannons. He first tried to sell his knowledge to the Byzantine defenders of Constantinople, but when they showed no interest, he approached the young sultan who proved much more receptive to these new ideas.
"When the armies of Mehmed II began to besiege the city on April 6, 1453, they were supported by large numbers of cannons of a power and range never before seen—one cannon, named “Basilica,” was 27 feet long and could fire a projectile weighing over 600 pounds for over a mile. For more than 50 days, the walls of Constantinople were bombarded by cannon fire while the besieging army made several unsuccessful attempts to enter the city. Then, shortly after midnight on Tuesday, May 29, the final assault began. Later that same day the announcement of the unthinkable came—Constantinople had fallen to the Ottoman Empire. Mehmed II rode on a white horse through the streets of the city to the famous Hagia Sophia, the cathedral in the center of the city which had now been re-consecrated as a mosque.
................................................................................................
"The capture of Constantinople made the Ottoman Empire the most significant power in southeastern Europe and the eastern Mediterranean—the other remaining Anatolian beyliks which had previously remained independent gradually came to accept the rule of the Ottoman dynasty. Mehmed II became known as Mehmed the Conqueror and took for himself a new formal title, Kayser-i Rûm (Emperor of Rome). The capture of Constantinople marked the beginning of the Ottoman Empire as a major world power.
"This event was a crushing blow to European Christians—the supposedly impregnable city was the last bastion of Christian control facing Muslim Asia, and for many Orthodox Christians, Tuesday is still regarded as the unluckiest day of the week. Pope Nicholas V called for a crusade to retake the city, but this was never a realistic prospect, and no military attempt to retake the city was ever undertaken by Christian forces. The fall of Constantinople sent shockwaves throughout Europe, and this event marks the end of the European Middle Ages.
"Mehmed II wasted no time making Constantinople, now re-named Istanbul (City of Islam), the capital of the Ottoman Empire. He built a huge palace there and made peace with the Orthodox Christian Church—Christians were allowed to remain in the city and to worship there, though they were not allowed to bear arms or to dress in the same way they previously had in public. Safe from attack by Christian forces, Istanbul became a major trading hub for the Ottoman Empire and the seat for the new system of government which Mehmed II had developed. The Ottoman Empire began a period of stability and growth which would see it become one of the most important military and political powers in the world."
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December 25, 2022 - December 25, 2022.
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Chapter 3. Selim the Grim and Suleiman the Magnificent
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"After the capture of Constantinople, Mehmed II became obsessed with the notion that he was the new Roman emperor. To that end, he decided that he also wanted to conquer the city of Rome itself. In preparation for this, Ottoman forces set up a number of bases on the eastern side of the Adriatic Sea and, in 1480, launched an invasion force to the Italian mainland. In July 1480, an Ottoman fleet of 128 ships landed troops near the Neapolitan city of Otranto in southern Italy. After a short siege, the city was captured by Ottoman troops.
"However, the Ottoman invasion of Italy did not progress beyond the capture of this one city, which was reclaimed by Christian forces less than one year later. The reason for this was the death of Mehmed on May 3, 1481, at which time he was succeeded by his son, Bayezid II. Bayezid had no interest in the conquest of Rome, and the Ottoman troops in Italy were withdrawn to the eastern side of the Adriatic Sea. Bayezid proved to have little appetite for military adventures, mainly because he was embroiled in internal disputes from the time he took the throne.
................................................................................................
"He first had to fight his brother Cem in a civil war that dragged on for three years. Then, during Bayezid’s final years, his sons fought each other and their father for the right to claim the throne. Ahmet, the oldest son and likeliest heir, tried to mount support to ensure his succession. Meanwhile Bayezid’s other son, Selim, staged a revolt which was defeated by his father’s forces, causing him to flee to Crimea. The Janissaries, who were becoming increasingly powerful and troublesome, intervened and demanded that Bayezid abdicate in favor of Selim. He agreed to do this but died almost as soon as he had abdicated; there was suspicion that the Janissaries had him murdered. Selim became the new sultan of the Ottoman Empire in April 1512 and set about making his own position and the role of sultan more secure and less liable to pressure from within. His brother, Ahmet, would not pose a threat for much longer since he was defeated in battle and executed one year later.
"Having achieved this—and acquired the name Selim the Resolute in the process—the new sultan began to look for ways of expanding the limits of his empire. Istanbul provided the Ottoman Empire control over the lucrative trade routes between Europe and Asia, and this supplied the finance required to expand and improve both the army and the navy. The Persian Safavid Empire under the rule of the shahs of Iran occupied large parts of eastern Anatolia and provided an obvious target for Ottoman attack.
................................................................................................
"In August 1514, Sultan Selim led an army of around 100,000 men against a Safavid force of around 80,000 under the command of Shah Ismail at Chaldiran in northern Iran. The Ottoman forces included thousands of Janissaries equipped with gunpowder weapons and a large number of heavy artillery pieces. The opposing Safavids had no firearms at all. This advantage helped Selim’s army to achieve a decisive victory, and his troops went on to capture the Safavid capital of Tabriz. The Battle of Chaldiran gave the Ottoman Empire complete control over Anatolia and parts of northern Iran; it also persuaded the Kurdish tribes to switch allegiance from the Safavids to the Ottomans.
"Next, Selim turned his attention to the Mamluk Sultanate which ruled in Syria and Egypt. At stake was the highly lucrative spice trade as well as control over some of the holiest Muslim cities. The Ottoman campaign against the Mamluks included several notable battles. However, just as in their battle with the Safavids, the Ottomans had a distinct military advantage because their armies included thousands of Janissaries armed with the arquebus, an early form of musket. The Mamluk armies facing them were strictly traditional and relied on the bow and arrow. Given this technological imbalance, the outcome of most battles was predictable. At the Battle of Marj Dabiq in August 1516, Ottoman forces were triumphant and the Mamluk leader Qansuh al-Ghawri was killed.
"In October, the Ottoman forces met another Mamluk army at Khan Yunis near the city of Gaza. Once again, the Ottomans were victorious. Another Ottoman victory, this time at the Battle of Ridaniya near Cairo in January 1517, marked the effective end of the war. The outcome was that Ottoman control extended to the Levant, Egypt, and Hejaz and included the holy cities of Mecca and Medina.
................................................................................................
"When Selim died in September 1520, he passed to his son Suleiman an empire that had become the most powerful and most feared in the Muslim world. Suleiman, who would eventually become known as Suleiman the Magnificent, expanded the limits of the empire even further, capturing Belgrade in 1521 and the southern and central parts of Hungary in 1526. In 1534, Sultan Suleiman’s forces took Baghdad from the Persians, giving the Ottomans access to the Persian Gulf and control of Mesopotamia, the fertile region between the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers.
"Suleiman’s rule lasted for 46 years, and during this period the Ottoman Empire reached the peak of its power and influence. By the time of his death in 1566, Suleiman ruled over more than 15 million people in a territory that included what is now Turkey, Greece, Egypt, Syria, Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, Yemen, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, Macedonia, parts of Saudi Arabia, and large sections of the coast of North Africa. The Ottoman navy controlled most of the Mediterranean, the Red Sea, and the Persian Gulf and made successful expeditions into the Indian Ocean. It also mounted a blockade that prevented ships from Europe reaching the Spice Islands.
"Suleiman’s long reign didn’t just bring military victories—this was also a period of internal stability and great wealth which permitted major advances in art, architecture, science, and medicine. The Topkapi Palace, the sultan’s residence and administrative headquarters in Istanbul, became one of the most opulent and lavish royal complexes anywhere in the world."
Hence the assertion by Napoleon quoted above by this author?
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"Ottoman society was also settled and stable during this period. A small ruling class (the askeri) were responsible for setting laws and for ensuring that there were sufficient financial resources to protect and maintain the mass of the population (the rayas—the “protected flock”) by ensuring that they were safe from external attack and provided with sufficient food. The people were divided into millets, semi-autonomous religious communities, and esnaf, guilds which looked after members of specific professions. Advances in medicine meant that people lived longer, and the wealth amassed by the ruling class trickled down to all levels of society. In general, life was good for those who lived under the control of the Ottoman Empire, even for non-Muslims who were tolerated and protected provided that they observed certain restrictions on their religious practices (Orthodox Christian priests were not permitted to wear full regalia in public, for example) and other aspects of their lives (Christian were not allowed to bear arms in Ottoman cities).
"When he died in 1566, Suleiman left an empire that seemed set to endure for a very long time indeed. However, it wouldn’t be long before new threats appeared and the Ottoman Empire began to change."
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December 25, 2022 - December 25, 2022.
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Chapter 4. Sultanate of Women
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"“If one wants to do business with the Ottoman Empire, one must go to the Sultan’s mother before any other.”
"—Ogier Ghiselin de Busbecq"
................................................................................................
"For the first 200 years of its existence, the Ottoman Empire was graced with a series of able, ambitious, and committed sultans who were often ruthless and sometimes brutal, but who ruled effectively and massively increased the power and reach of the empire. After the death of Suleiman, the quality of Ottoman rulers varied, and their reigns frequently ended with assassination or overthrow. The four sultans who followed Suleiman—Selim II, Murad III, Mehmed III, and Ahmed I—ruled for a combined total of just 50 years. These continual changes of leadership weakened the ruling class and undermined the stability of the empire.
"Then, in 1617, Mustafa, younger brother of Sultan Ahmed I, took the throne. His appointment as sultan had been the result of a great deal of behind the scenes bargaining—for the first time on the death of a sultan, there were several possible heirs all living in the Topkapi Palace. Mustafa was eventually chosen on the basis that Ahmed’s son was too young to be enthroned. Unfortunately, it rapidly became clear that Mustafa had some fundamental problems—he was in the habit of knocking the turbans off his viziers heads and pulling their beards as well as distributing coins to birds and fish. He is now remembered as Mustafa the Mad. After being sultan for just three months, Mustafa was deposed in favor of his young nephew and the son of Ahmed I, Osman II.
"Osman II reigned for just four years before he was assassinated during a Janissary riot in May 1622. It is probably a measure of just how desperate things were that Mustafa the Mad, who had been quietly living in the old palace since his deposition, was recalled to the throne. He immediately had everyone who had been involved in the murder of his nephew chopped into pieces before descending into even more eccentricity—amongst other things, he seemed to believe that Osman II was still alive and hiding somewhere in the vast Topkapi Palace, and he was often seen wandering the corridors, crying and calling for his nephew. After just 18 months he was once again deposed and replaced by the 11-year-old Murad IV.
................................................................................................
"Murad IV reigned for 17 years before being replaced in 1640 by Ibrahim (also later known as “the Mad”) whose extravagance infuriated the royal court. After eight years, Ibrahim’s Grand Vizier Ahmed Pasha was torn to pieces by an angry mob (gaining him the unenviable nickname “Ahmed of the thousand pieces”) and soon after Ibrahim himself was deposed and strangled. His replacement, his six-year-old son Mehmed IV, lasted longer than his father, but he too was deposed in 1687.
"This series of weak and occasionally deranged sultans led to many changes in the Ottoman Empire. One of these changes was the increasing influence of women in the rule of the empire. The period following the rule of Suleiman the Magnificent is sometimes known as the Sultanate of Women. This was partly due to a movement of the harem during the rule of Suleiman from being a secret and separate part of the royal palace to something much closer to the seat of power. Suleiman was the first sultan to be formally married, to a woman who would later become known as Hürrem Sultan who influenced the politics of the empire through her husband and played an active role in state business. When she died in 1558, the streets of Istanbul were thronged with thousands of mourners.
"Many of the sultans who came to power in the next hundred years were very young and were subject to the influence of their mothers, the valide sultans. Some foreign ambassadors at this time reported that if a country wanted to do business with the Ottoman Empire, the most effective route was via the sultan’s mother. Other adult sultans were greatly influenced by their wives, the haseki sultans. Rivalry between the women of the imperial harem became so intense that it occasionally led to violence—Kösem Sultan, the favorite consort of Ahmed I and mother of Murad IV and Ibrahim, became one of the most powerful and influential women in the imperial court. However, she had a rival in the form of a young concubine of Sultan Ibrahim, Turhan Hatice, the mother of Mehmed IV. The two women plotted against one another for several years before Turhan Hatice finally managed to arrange to have her rival strangled in the harem by the chief eunuch.
................................................................................................
"The weakness of a number of sultans led to a period where the Ottoman Empire was effectively ruled by a series of grand viziers from the powerful Köprülü family. The first of these grand viziers, Köprülü Mehmed Pasha, was appointed by Turhan Hatice after she had gained ascendancy in the imperial court by the removal of her rival Kösem Sultan. She gave the new grand vizier unprecedented independence and power, and the period from 1656 to 1703 is generally known as the Köprülü era of the Ottoman Empire as other members of the Köprülü family inherited the role of grand vizier.
"The weakening of central rule also led to the rise of many powerful families within the empire and to the gradual decentralization of power. Changes to the military system also led to major changes in taxation which in turn led to unrest and occasionally to open rebellion. The main problem was the need to maintain large standing forces of Janissaries provided with firearms. This was necessary as the European armies with which the Ottomans found themselves in conflict were themselves increasingly using troops with firearms. The high cost of maintaining this standing army, even during peacetime, required the introduction of a different system of direct taxation—previously, taxation had been levied only on those who owned land. The increased taxes led to hardship and poverty in people who had previously enjoyed some of the highest living standards in the medieval world. This was exacerbated by huge inflation, caused partly by the influx of gold and silver to Europe from the New World as well as by an increase in population (by 1600 the Ottoman Empire included more than 30 million people, creating a shortage of land). These things led to discontent in a large proportion of the population and a feeling of distrust for a weakened sultanate. In the provinces, the changes led to the appearance of a new class of nobles, the ayan, who became powerful local political and military leaders. Corruption became widespread throughout the empire.
"The hundred years following the death of Sultan Suleiman also saw an end to the effortless expansion of the Ottoman Empire. The expansion of Russia under Ivan IV in the late 1500s threatened the Ottoman northern trade routes. A coalition of Catholic powers under the leadership of King Philip II of Spain challenged Ottoman naval control of the Mediterranean. At the Battle of Lepanto in 1571, the Ottoman fleet was defeated and virtually destroyed, a stunning defeat for an empire that had previously seemed invincible. The Long Turkish War (also known as the Thirteen Years’ War) was fought between the Ottoman Empire and the Austrian Hapsburg Monarchy from 1593 to 1606 and led to large numbers of casualties but provided no enduring gains or major victories for the Ottomans.
................................................................................................
"To supplement the expensive Janissaries, the Ottomans recruited large numbers of sekban, mercenaries armed with an improved arquebus. However, when these groups were disbanded, the men often returned home with their firearms, and this led to widespread banditry within the empire and even to small-scale rebellions such as the Jelali revolts in Anatolia in the late sixteenth to early seventeenth century.
"The Ottomans were also involved in an on-going series of wars against the Safavid Persians. After Sultan Suleiman’s conquest of Baghdad in 1534, a second campaign against the Safavids during the reign of Murad III led to the Ottoman annexation of west Iran and the Caucasus Mountains in 1590. However, in 1612, during the reign of Sultan Ahmed I, Persian Shah Abbas, sensing weakness in the Ottoman leadership, attacked and reconquered much of the territory controlled by the Ottomans. In 1624, during the first reign of Mustafa the Mad, the Persians attacked again, taking back the city of Baghdad. In 1639, a peace treaty was finally agreed between the Safavid Persians and the Ottoman Empire. This restored the borders roughly to where they had been in 1555.
................................................................................................
"The worst military defeat for the Ottoman Empire came in the Great Turkish War which raged in Europe from 1683 to 1699. A blockade of Istanbul by Venetian ships in the 1650s had caused severe shortages in the city and unrest amongst the poorest of the population. Determined to end the threat from Christian Europe, Grand Vizier Kara Mustafa Pasha led a massive Ottoman Army west in an attempt to take Vienna, capital of the Hapsburg Monarchy. This culminated in the Battle of Vienna on September 12, 1683 where the Ottoman forces met Hapsburg and Polish troops supported by forces from the Holy Roman Empire. The battle included the largest known cavalry charge, where more than 18,000 mounted Christian knights smashed into the Ottoman lines. The result was a decisive victory for the Christian forces and, though the war continued for another 16 years, the Ottoman Empire was eventually forced to sign a treaty, the Treaty of Karlowitz, in which it surrendered most of its territory in Europe including Ottoman Hungary.
"Following the signing of this treaty, the Ottoman Empire was never again a serious threat to Christian Europe. More significantly, the empire had reached the limits of its ability to defend the territory it had acquired. From this point on the Ottoman Empire would be focused on attempting to retain control of lands that it had already conquered rather than seeking to expand into new areas."
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December 25, 2022 - December 25, 2022.
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Chapter 5. The Russian Threat
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"“The Ottoman Empire whose sick body was not supported by a mild and regular diet, but by a powerful treatment, which continually exhausted it.”
"—Charles de Montesquieu"
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"In 1703, a new sultan, Ahmed III, took control of the Ottoman Empire. He was given the name “the Warrior,” which was more than a little ironic given that the 27 years of his reign are generally known as the Tulip Period due to his love of this particular bloom and his desire for peace and stability. During the early years of his reign, Ahmed III was persuaded to ally the Ottoman Empire with Sweden, then fighting a war against Russia. King Charles XII of Sweden was briefly forced to flee to Istanbul following defeat by the Russians, and he talked Ahmed into attacking Russia in 1710. Victory for Ottoman forces led to the signing of the Treaty of the Pruth. This ensured the security of the Ottoman border with Russia, but also made it clear that the empire was no longer interested in aggressive expansionism.
"This intention was confirmed in the years that followed as the Ottomans built extensive defenses to protect their borders in the Balkans, again making it clear that they favored defense over expansion. An extended period of peace followed, during which art and architecture flourished throughout the empire. Influenced by the Baroque and Rococo periods in Europe, many works of art and buildings created during this period are fantastically ornate. Many European artists also came to Istanbul where they were commissioned to produce a number of significant works.
"During this period, there were also a number of attempts to carry out significant reforms within Ottoman society and government. Corruption was recognized as a major problem, particularly in remote provinces where local governors used their power and influence to enrich themselves at the expense of the empire. A number of chiefs were executed as a result, but this generally resulted in their replacement with another, equally corrupt governor. This corruption led to widespread inefficiency and weaknesses in defense and military works.
................................................................................................
"There were some successful changes during this period. Taxes, for example, were lowered as spending on the military declined and private ownership and small businesses were permitted for the first time. However, some significant attempted improvements failed. For example, the use of artillery had become a major factor in modern warfare, and many European armies had made great advances as a result of the application of science and technology in this aspect of warfare. The Ottomans recognized that they were falling dangerously behind. The Janissaries, however, were still a significant and powerful group, and they saw the increasing importance of artillery as a threat to them. As a result, they blocked many attempted reforms.
"In 1730, Ahmed III was deposed by a Janissary revolt. In 1734, his successor, Mahmud I, attempted to create an artillery school which included French instructors (at the time, France was the leading exponent of the use of artillery). However, this move was blocked not just by opposition from the Janissaries but also from the Muslim clergy who regarded artillery as “an instrument of evil.” The school was abandoned, and the Ottoman Empire lost its lead in the use of firearms which had brought it so many victories in the past.
"Other attempted improvements were also blocked. For example, the printing press had revolutionized much of Europe in the late 1400s. The powerful guild of writers in Istanbul, who still relied on the use of highly skilled calligraphers to produce books, denounced the printing press as an “instrument of the devil” and successfully blocked its use. It wasn’t until the mid-1700s that non-Muslims were permitted to use printing presses to produce non-religious books within the Ottoman Empire. The Ottoman Empire in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries had taken the lead in many aspects of science and technology. By the eighteenth century, resistance to change prevented many new ideas from being used and adopted. Ironically, this resistance often came from a sense of nostalgia for a previous period where the Ottoman Empire was seen as strong and vigorous, which completely missed the point that this strength had often come from a willingness to adopt new thinking.
................................................................................................
"The stagnation in the Ottoman Empire and the decline of its military power created a situation that was too tempting for other powers to ignore. In 1725, Peter the Great, the tsar of Russia died, leaving no heir to succeed him. He was followed by his wife, Catherine, who became the first empress of Russia. Catherine ruled Russia for just two years before she died and was succeeded by Peter II, the last of the direct Romanov male line. Peter II lasted less than three years before his death at which time he was replaced by another empress, Anna. All these rulers were interested in expanding the limits of Russian lands, and all saw the faltering Ottoman Empire as the ideal target for that expansion.
"During the reign of Empress Anna, the Russians allied themselves with their old enemy the Hapsburg Monarchy and attacked the northern parts of the Ottoman Empire in 1735. The resulting war lasted for four years with neither side being able to gain a substantial advantage. In 1739, the Treaty of Belgrade returned Belgrade to Ottoman control but, crucially, gave Russia the port of Azov which provided access to the Black Sea.
"In the decades that followed, Russia became the most powerful nation in south-eastern Europe. A number of reforms were undertaken to improve the administration and fighting ability of Russian military units. In the short term, the Russians and the Hapsburg Monarchy were concerned with limiting the growing power of Prussia. However, in Russia, it was generally accepted that the only opportunities for expansion would come at the expense of the Ottomans.
................................................................................................
"Within the Ottoman Empire, the peace which followed the Treaty of Belgrade allowed more opportunity for reform, but this was largely wasted. Internecine quarrels between different elements of the Ottoman military, and especially concerns by the Janissaries about what they regarded as the erosion of their influence and prestige, prevented any meaningful improvements. The Ottoman Empire was involved in several relatively minor wars against the Safavid Persians in the first half of the eighteenth century, but, although these sapped valuable resources, they did not provide any decisive changes.
"Sultan Mustafa III came to power in 1757. He admired the military successes of Frederick the Great and concluded a peace treaty with Prussia in 1761. Frederick, meanwhile, saw the Ottoman Empire as a potentially useful ally against the Hapsburgs. Mustafa III wanted to use the knowledge and expertise of the Prussians to improve his army, causing the Ottoman army to recruit officers in Prussia who would attempt to improve and reform the Ottoman military."
Hence the later alacrity by various Arab states hiring German War criminals post WWII!
"Mustafa III also introduced a number of fiscal and educational reforms aimed at reducing the unrest and open rebellion that was starting to emerge in parts of the empire. Under Mustafa, the coinage of the empire was strictly regulated, and taxes were eased. New educational institutions such as the Istanbul Technical University were created, and extensive new building and renovation were undertaken in Istanbul and elsewhere.
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"However, in 1762, a new empress took the throne in Russia. Catherine II, who would later be known as Catherine the Great, was autocratic, ambitious, and determined to expand the borders of Russia. In 1768, using the pretext of pursuing fleeing Polish revolutionaries, Russian troops entered the Ottoman-controlled city of Balta in Bessarabia. When the citizens objected, they were massacred and the city burned. The Ottoman Empire declared war on Russia. The result should have been a victory for the Ottomans who had much larger armies than their Russian foes. Instead the modernized Russian army won a series of victories against numerically superior Ottoman forces. The Russians won a major battle at Larga in Moldavia in July 1770 when 30,000 Russian troops defeated an Ottoman army of 80,000. A few weeks later, a Russian army of 40,000 defeated an Ottoman army of more than twice that number at Kagul in Moldavia. At around the same time, a Russian naval flotilla from the Baltic Sea fleet defeated a much larger Ottoman naval force in a battle off Chesme in the Aegean Sea. In 1771, the Russians conquered the Crimean Khanate which had been an Ottoman possession for more than 250 years.
"As the war progressed, the Ottoman Empire lost its fortresses in the Danube region to the Russians and suffered further major military defeats at Turtukai in 1773 and Kozluji in 1774. When a peace treaty was signed in 1774, Russia had gained parts of northern Caucasus, and the Crimea had become a Russian protectorate (which would be annexed without Ottoman response in 1783). Russia also gained additional ports in the Sea of Azov which gave military and merchant shipping access to the Black Sea and, via the Turkish Straits, to the Mediterranean. The war of 1768-1774 was a military catastrophe for the Ottoman Empire. It became apparent that Ottoman military might was an illusion and no match for well-led, modernized European armies.
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"When Selim III became sultan in 1789, he was determined to force through reforms to the Ottoman military, even though he knew that he would face opposition from both religious leaders and from the Janissaries, who had become increasingly anarchic and were virtually an independent military force within the empire. The need for reform was emphasized by defeat at the Battle of Abukir when French forces under the command of Napoleon Bonaparte invaded Ottoman-controlled Egypt. The French lost 220 men while the Ottoman army suffered casualties of over 8,000. This defeat opened the way for the French to take control of Egypt and, as a direct result, Sultan Selim III created a new military unit, the nizam-i djedid (the new order) equipped with modern weapons, trained by European officers, and wearing French-style uniforms.
"By 1806, the new army included over 23,000 men and incorporated modern artillery units. Predictably, the Janissaries objected to the growing power of the new force, and by May 1807, Selim III was deposed and subsequently murdered during yet another Janissary revolt. Selim’s successor, Mustafa IV, lasted only one year before he too was deposed and executed.
"The next sultan, Mahmud II, was determined to continue with the military reforms begun by Selim III. This provoked another Janissary revolt in 1826, but this time, military units loyal to the sultan were strong enough to suppress the mutiny. Janissary leaders were executed, and the Janissary Corps itself was finally disbanded. A sultan of the Ottoman Empire would never again be deposed by a Janissary revolt. But although it was clear that although this threat had been removed, other internal troubles were brewing for the empire."
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December 25, 2022 - December 25, 2022.
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Chapter 6. The Crimean War and the Young Ottomans
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"“It is magnificent, but it is not war; it is madness.”
"—Pierre Bosquet"
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"The reforms started by Mahmud II were continued by his successor, Abdulmejid I, who came to the throne in July 1839 following Mahmud’s death. Abdulmejid introduced the Tanzimat era which brought sweeping changes to Ottoman society and its political structures. Under this reform, religious law was replaced by secular law (which amongst many other things decriminalized homosexuality), the banking system was improved, a modern, conscripted army was introduced, and the guilds of craftsmen were forced to accept the creation of modern factories. This era led to the introduction of paper banknotes, post offices, a national anthem and flag, and even to the introduction of the Meclis-i Maarif-i Umumiye, a form of government where absolute power was devolved from the sultan.
"Although the Tanzimat period produced dramatic and far-reaching changes to the Ottoman Empire, it still faced insurrection from within. During the period of conquest, the Ottoman Empire had incorporated people of a whole range of religious and ethnic backgrounds. While the empire remained strong, the ambitions of these people for independence were held in check. As the empire weakened, movements for regional independence grew in strength. The First Serbian Uprising, which began in 1804 and lasted for over ten years, heralded the beginning of a period of increasing struggle for national identity in the Ottoman-controlled Balkans. In 1821, a revolution which began in the Peloponnese led to the Greeks declaring war on the Ottoman Empire. By 1829, the empire admitted defeat and Greece became an independent country. Continuing insurrection in Serbia, Wallachia, and Montenegro led to a measure of independence for these principalities by the 1860s.
"Russia continued to be the main external threat during this period. By this time the weakness of the Ottoman Empire had become so obvious compared to the growing strength of Russia (it was during this period that the Ottoman Empire was first referred to by Russian Tsar Nicholas I as “the sick man of Europe”) that a number of European states including France and Britain signed treaties with the Ottomans. The fear was that Russia would take advantage of Ottoman weakness to increase its own sphere of control, and former enemies of the Ottoman Empire were now willing to become its allies in order to prevent this from happening.
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"In 1853, a dispute with Russia over the treatment of religious minorities within the Ottoman Empire led to another war with Russia. However, this time, the Ottoman Empire was supported by the powerful naval and military support of Britain and France. Initial fighting took place in the Balkans between Russian and Ottoman forces and, despite all attempts at modernization and reform, the Ottoman military failed to deliver, fighting a mainly defensive action and ceding most of the Danubian Principalities to Russia.
"Concerned that an Ottoman collapse was imminent, British and French forces landed first in Gallipoli and then, in September 1854, on the Crimean Peninsula in the Black Sea. The intention was to capture the Russian naval base at Sevastopol, and after battles at Balaclava and Inkerman, the port was finally captured in 1855. Russia, increasingly isolated and facing a concerted military response, sued for peace in March 1856. What had become known as the Crimean War ended on March 30 with what seemed to be a defeat for Russia, but no-one now doubted that the Ottoman Empire was very vulnerable indeed, and the peace treaty led directly to the states of Moldavia and Wallachia, previously Ottoman vassals, becoming independent.
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"The continuing weakness of the Ottoman Empire in the face of Russian aggression led to the creation in 1865 of a significant and influential secret society—the Young Ottomans. This group of intellectuals were dissatisfied with the Tanzimat reforms and wanted greater changes. Specifically, they wanted an end to the rule of the sultans and the introduction of some level of democracy and the introduction of constitutional government within the Ottoman Empire while retaining the Muslim foundations upon which Ottoman society was founded. Led by Namik Kemal and İbrahim Şinasi, both of whom published reformist newspapers, the group grew more powerful and influential, thought to most people it seemed unlikely that the sultan would ever accept his own replacement with an elected assembly.
"Then, in 1873, a global stock market crash brought financial hardship to many people within the empire and led to the imposition of higher taxes, making the situation even more difficult. Adding insult to injury, flooding and drought in Anatolia caused crop failures and food shortages, leading to unrest and open rebellion—Christian peasants in Bulgaria, Bosnia, and Herzegovina were amongst the first to rebel, and there were rumors of massacres and brutal atrocities as Ottoman troops responded to the insurrection. As a result, Russia went to war with the Ottoman Empire once again, inflicting a series of humiliating defeats on Ottoman forces in the Balkans.
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"Taking advantage of chaos and unrest, in May 1876 a group of Young Ottomans staged a coup and deposed Sultan Abdülaziz, who mysteriously died a few days later. He was replaced by Sultan Murad V who agreed to the creation of a constitutional government. The alcoholic Murad V was, however, quickly found to be too unreliable to continue as sultan, and he was replaced after just three months in August 1876 by Abdul Hamid II who, on December 23, 1876, promulgated the new Ottoman constitution. The new parliament, the General Assembly of the Ottoman Empire, convened for the first time on March 19, 1877. The Young Ottomans were ecstatic—surely now the Ottoman Empire could be truly reformed and take its place once again as the world’s leading Muslim power. Sadly, they were quickly disappointed. After just one year, Sultan Abdul Hamid II went back on his promise, dissolved the constitution, disbanded the parliament, and banished many leading Young Ottomans from the country which reverted to absolute rule by the sultan.
"In 1878, in the wake of the war with Russia, an international conference agreed that the former Ottoman territories of Bulgaria, Romania, Serbia, and Montenegro would be granted independence. Yet another small piece of the once mighty Ottoman Empire had vanished."
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December 25, 2022 - December 25, 2022.
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Chapter 7. Decline Until World War I
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"“The Ottoman Empire should be cleaned up of the Armenians and the Lebanese. We have destroyed the former by the sword, we shall destroy the latter through starvation.”
"—Enver Pasha"
Not quite first genocide, that, because those had been conducted against India by invaders for over a millennium by then, but nevertheless, one of those that inspired the nazi leader of Germany of decades until end of WWII.
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"Under the absolute rule of Sultan Abdul Hamid II, the Ottoman Empire continued to suffer unrest and revolt. The Armenian people attempted to gain some measure of independence in the late nineteenth century, but the sultan reacted by imposing a period of brutal repression in which upwards of 300,000 Armenians were massacred. These actions caused an international outcry and made Abdul Hamid II known as the Bloody Sultan, but no direct intervention was provided.
"Meanwhile, another influential secret society had been created within the empire—the Young Turks were, like the Young Ottomans before them, dedicated to the establishment of constitutional government in the empire. A conference between Russia and Britain in June 1908 to agree spheres of influence for these two powers caused consternation in the Ottoman Empire where it was believed that this would lead to the carving up of what remained of the empire. As a result, a coup by military officers involved in the Young Turk movement forced the sultan to surrender and to agree to the re-establishment of the constitution of 1876. However, the sultan, who had been allowed to continue in a symbolic role as head of state, organized a counter-coup in April 1909 which was intended to restore his power. This failed, and Sultan Abdul Hamid II was deposed on April 27 replaced by the more compliant Mehmed V.
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"Constitutional democracy was introduced in the Ottoman Empire, but this quickly proved to be just as chaotic, confused, and prone to corruption as the monarchy. Political groups splintered, divided into factions, and descended into anarchy. Other countries quickly took advantage. Austria-Hungary annexed Bosnia and Herzegovina in 1908. Italy seized Libya in 1911. In 1912, the empire lost all its Balkan possession as well as the historic city of Adrianople. In 1913, one of the leading political parties in the new parliament, the Committee of Union and Progress (CUP), staged a coup and took control of parliament and the country. Other political parties were brutally repressed and the CUP leader, Enver Pasha, became a virtual dictator. Under his leadership, the Ottoman Empire began to separate from its traditional European allies, Britain and France, and to move closer to the emerging power in central Europe, Germany.
"As Europe moved towards World War I, the Ottoman Empire remained a large power—it controlled 30 million people in what is now Turkey, Syria, Lebanon, Iraq, and Israel and ruled a further 5 million on the Arabian Peninsula. However, frequent changes of leadership and direction, insurrection, corruption, and a number of failed attempts at modernization and reform had left the empire fragile and vulnerable. Still fearing Russian aggression, the empire signed the Ottoman-German Alliance in 1914, just as Germany was about to declare war on France, Russia, and Britain.
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"During World War I, the Ottoman Empire fought on the side of Germany and won some significant victories, including repulsing a British landing at Gallipoli in 1916, but it also suffered a number of crushing defeats, especially against Russian forces in the Caucasus. During the war, the Ottomans renewed their persecution of ethnic Armenians; up to 1.5 million were massacred or killed in brutal forced marches. At the end of the war, finding itself on the losing side, the Ottoman Empire was forced to accept the Treaty of Sèvres which effectively partitioned the empire—more than 30 new and nominally independent countries were formed of lands previously ruled by the Ottoman Empire, and Anatolia was placed under Christian rule. Even the capital, Istanbul, was occupied by Allied troops.
"Enraged by what they saw as a betrayal of the empire, the signing of this treaty led to the emergence of a new leader, Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, a military officer who had sworn to overthrow the treaty and the administration which had accepted it and who created the Turkish National Movement. For four years, the Ottoman Empire was riven by the Turkish War of Independence where forces loyal to Atatürk fought both Ottoman forces who supported the sultan and Allied troops. After years of bitter fighting, the Treaty of Lausanne was signed in July 1923. This led directly to the creation of the modern, secular nation state of Turkey with Mustafa Kemal Atatürk as its president. The Ottoman sultanate was abolished, and the last sultan, Abdulmejid II, left for exile on a British battleship.
"In the end, it wasn’t external enemies which brought down the Ottoman Empire—it collapsed under its own weight as internal divisions and factions tore it apart. In the early days, the disparate parts of the expanding empire were held together by a series of ambitious, ruthless, and very able sultans. However, as the empire grew beyond the capacity of effective rule by any single man, the different nationalities, ethnicities, and religions which it contained began to pull in different directions until they destroyed the whole edifice. This was compounded by people within the empire who looked back with nostalgia at the glory days of expansion and success. These people tried to keep everything as it was, reasoning that if everything could be kept the same, the empire would continue to thrive. Sadly, it wasn’t so. The world changes, and empires must change with it, or they become, like the Ottoman Empire, outdated and erode from within."
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December 25, 2022 - December 25, 2022.
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Conclusion
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"It seems unlikely that we will ever again see an empire quite like the Ottoman. This mighty empire can be traced back directly to one man, Osman, and his ambition and dreams of a mighty empire. The 11 sultans who followed, his direct descendants, continued to expand the empire until, 250 years later, the Ottoman Empire was the most powerful Muslim state in the world as well as a center of medical and scientific knowledge and the home of some of the finest art and culture in the world.
"Seldom can one man’s ruthless energy have created a direct legacy which lasted so long and had such a profound impact on the history of the world. In the 1500s, it was difficult to imagine that anything could ever defeat this powerful state, and yet the empire already contained the seeds of its own destruction. The Janissaries, the feared and effective fighting force created by Sultan Murad I in the late 1300s were initially an elite military unit which helped the Ottoman Empire to achieve some of its most astounding victories. However, over the several hundred years which followed, this fighting force gradually morphed into a self-perpetuating, hereditary group which expected and demanded privileges denied the vast bulk of Ottoman subjects. When thwarted, the Janissaries were capable of removing a sultan who displeased them and replacing him with one who did. This led to the imposition of sultans who were good for the Janissary Corps, but not for the empire as a whole.
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"The same was true of many other institutions within the empire. The guilds of craftsmen, which in the early days helped to develop new technologies and equipment that allowed the empire to grow, became powerful agents dedicated to blocking change and improvement.
"In the end, this refusal to embrace much-needed change doomed the Ottoman Empire. Unable to stay ahead in the latest military technologies, the empire was helpless to resist external threats. Unwilling to change the way in which its subjects were governed, the empire was also vulnerable to internal unrest. This combination of internal and external threats first eroded and then destroyed the once mighty Ottoman Empire."
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December 25, 2022 - December 25, 2022.
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THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE: A HISTORY
FROM BEGINNING TO END, by
HOURLY HISTORY.
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December 23, 2022 - December 25, 2022.
Purchased December 23, 2022.
ASIN:- B07K7YLW1K
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https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/5183867052
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