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The
Ottoman Empire (1258-1922)
The Ottoman Empire was founded by Osman I (in
Arabic Uthmān, hence the name Ottoman Empire). As sultan Mehmed II
conquered Constantinople (Istanbul) in 1453, the state grew into a mighty
empire. The Empire reached its apex under Suleiman the Magnificent in the
16th century when it stretched from the Persian Gulf in the east to Hungary
in the northwest; and from Egypt in the south to the Caucasus in the north.
After its defeat at the Battle of Vienna in 1683, however, the empire began
a slow decline, culminating in the defeat of the empire by the Allies in
World War I.
Rise and Early Expansion
In the late 13th century the Seljuq empire had
collapsed and Anatolia was divided into hundreds of small states. One of
these states was Söğüt, a small tribe settled in river valley of Sakarya.
The founder and bey (chief) of the tribe was Ertoğrül, the father of Osman
I. When Ertoğrül died in 1281, Osman became the leader of the tribe.
In 1299 the Byzantine city Bilecik fell to Osman
I. It was but the first of many cities and villages to fall into the hands
of the Turks during the 1300s and 1310s. Osman also conquered some of the
nearby Turkish emirates and tribes. During the late 1310s Osman I laid
siege to several important Byzantine forts. Yenişehir was captured and with
it as a base the Turks could lay siege to Prousas (Bursa) and Nicaea
(Iznik), the largest Byzantine cities in Anatolia. Bursa fell in 1324, just
before Osman's death.
The son of Osman, Orhan I, conquered Nicaea in
1331 and Nicomedia in 1337 and established the capital in Bursa. During
Orhan's reign the empire was organized as a state with new currency,
government and a modernized army. He married Theodora, the daughter of
Byzantine prince John VI Cantacuzenus. In 1346 Orhan openly supported John
VI in the overthrowing of the emperor John V Palaeologus. When John VI
became co-emperor (1347-1354) he allowed Orhan to raid the peninsula of
Gallipoli which gained the Ottomans their first stronghold in Europe.
Conquests of Murad I
Orhan died in 1360 and left a growing empire to
his son and successor, Murad I. Murad advanced the reformation of the state
and founded such entities as the divan (the government and advisors), the
beylerbey (great chief), the kaziasker (military judge) and the defterdar
(financial minister). He appointed a grand vizier like the Arabic rulers of
the Middle East and he also founded the Janissary corps.
In the early 1360s the ottoman armies marched
into Thrace through Gallipoli and captured Adrianople (Edirne) and
Philippopolis (Plovdiv) and forcing the Byzantines to pay tribute. In 1366
the count Amadeus VI of Savoy (cousin to John V Cantacuzenus, the Byzantine
emperor) initiated a minor crusade to aid the Byzantines. The count drove
away the Turks from all of Europe except Gallipoli. The very next year
Murad attacked anew and regained most of Thrace, including Adrianople.
During the early 1370s Murad launched his forces
deeper into Europe. At the Battle of Maritsa, at the Maritsa River, Murad's
second lieutenant Lalaşahin encountered a 70,000 man strong
Serbian-Bulgarian army under the Serbian king Vukasin. The Ottoman army was
smaller, but due to superior tactics the enemy was defeated and king
Vukasin killed. Now that the Serbian coalition was weakened by such a blow,
Murad was quick to advance further into Bulgaria and capture the cities of
Dráma, Kavála and Seres (Serrái).
In 1383 Murad declared himself sultan of the
Ottoman Empire. Shortly thereafter he began a new campaign in Europe.
Sofia, the Bulgarian capital, fell in 1385 and the city of Niš the year
after. The Ottoman Conquest halted in 1387 when the Serbs won the Battle of
Plocnik but two years later Murad marched anew into the west. The Ottomans
won a great victory over the Serbs in the Battle of Kosovo but the sultan
himself was killed by the assassin Miloš Obilic.
Beyazid the Lightning Bolt
Beyazid I succeeded to the sultanship upon the
assassination of his father Murad. In a rage over the attack, he ordered
all Serbian captives killed; Beyazid became known as Yildirim, the
lightning bolt, for his temperament.
He conquered most of Bulgaria and northern Greece
in 1389-1395 and laid siege on Constantinople in 1391-1398. On September
25, 1396 at the Battle of Nicopolis, his forces met the Venetian-Hungarian
army led by king Sigismund of Hungary. The Ottomans won and signed a peace
treaty with Hungary. Beyazid then turned his attention to the east,
conquering the Turkish emirate of Karaman in 1397.
Around 1400 Timur Lenk entered the Middle East.
Timur Lenk pillaged a few villages in eastern Anatolia and the conflict
with the Ottoman Empire was a fact. In August, 1400 Timur and his horde
burned the town of Sivas to the ground and advanced into the mainland. The
war culminated at the Battle of Ankara in July, 1402. Timur won, captured
Beyazid, and was free to raid and pillage Anatolia. Beyazid died in
captivity in 1403.
Interregnum and Restoration
After the defeat at Ankara followed a time of
total chaos in the Empire. Mongols roamed free in Anatolia and the
political power of the sultan was broken. Beyazid was captured and his
remaining sons, Suleiman Çelebi, İsa Çelebi, Mehmed Çelebi, and Mûsa fought
each other in what became known as the Ottoman Interregnum.
When Mehmed Çelebi stood as victor in 1413 he
crowned himself in Edirne (Adrianople) as Mehmed I. His was the duty to
restore the Ottoman Empire to its former glory. The Empire had suffered
hard from the Interregnum; the Mongols were still at large in the east,
even though Timur Lenk had died in 1405; many of the Christian kingdoms of
the Balkans had broken free of Ottoman control; and the land, especially Anatolia,
had suffered hard from the war.
During his reign, Mehmed moved the capital from
Bursa to Adrianople (Edirne), reinforced control over Bulgaria and Serbia,
drove the Mongols from Anatolia and assaulted Albania, Cilicia, the Turkish
emirate of Candaroglu and Byzantine controlled areas in southern Greece.
The Wars of Murad II
When Mehmed died in 1421, one of his sons,
Murad, became sultan. Murad spent his early years on the throne disposing
off rivals and rebellions, most notably the revolts of the Serbs. In 1423
he paid a short visit to Constantinople, laid siege on it for a couple of
months and forced the Byzantines to pay additional tribute.
In 1423 the first regular war against Venice
began. During Murad's siege of Constantinople, the Byzantine Emperor's
control over the Greek city-states was weakened. On the request of the
inhabitants, Venetian troops took control of the city of Salonika
(Thessaloniki). The Ottoman army that laid siege to the city knew nothing
of the transfer of power, and some Venetian soldiers got killed by Ottoman
troops, believing them to be Greeks. Murad II had been on peaceful terms
with Venice for some time, so the Venetians deemed the act unacceptable and
declared full war.
Murad acted swift, raised the siege of Constantinople
and sent his armies to Salonika. The Venetians had gained reinforcements by
sea but when the Ottomans stormed the city the outcome was given and the
Venetians fled to their ships. But when the Turks entered and began
plundering the city the Venetian fleet suddenly started bombarding the city
from the sea-side. The Ottomans fled and the fleet was able to hold off the
Ottomans until new Venetian reinforcements could arrive to recapture the
city. The outcome of the Battle of Salonika was a setback for Murad and
when Serbia and Hungary allied themselves with Venice, the young sultan was
involved in one of the Ottoman Empire's worst conflicts ever, with all odds
against it. Pope Martin V encouraged other Christian states to join the war
against the Ottomans, though only Austria ever sent any troops to the
Balkans.
The war in the Balkans began as the Ottoman army
moved to recapture Wallachia, which the Ottomans had lost to Mircea cel
Batran during the Interregnum and that now was an Hungarian vassal state.
As the Ottoman army entered Wallachia, the Serbs started attacking Bulgaria
and, at the same time, urged by the Pope, the Anatolian emirate Karamanid
attacked the Empire from the back. Murad had to split his army. The main
force went to defend Sofia and the reserves had to be called to Anatolia.
The remaining troops in Wallachia were crushed by the Hungarian army that
was now moving south into Bulgaria where the Serbian and Ottoman armies
battled each other. The Serbs were defeated and the Ottomans turned to face
the Hungarians who fled back into Wallachia when they realized they were
unable to attack the Ottomans from the back. Murad fortified his borders
against Serbia and Hungaria but did not try to retake Wallachia, instead he
sent his armies to Anatolia where they defeated Karaman in 1428.
In 1430 a large Ottoman fleet attacked Salonika
by surprise. The Venetians signed a peace treaty in 1432. The treaty gave
the Ottomans the city of Salonika and the surrounding land. The war between
Serbia and Hungaria and the Ottoman Empire had come to a standstill in 1441
when the Holy Roman Empire, Poland, Albania, and the emirates Candaroğlu
and Karamanid (in violation of the peace treaty) intervened against the
Ottomans. Niš and Sofia fell to the Christians in 1443 and the year after
the Empire suffered a major defeat in the Battle of Jalowaz. July 12, 1444
Murad signed a treaty that officially gave Wallachia and the Bulgarian
province of Varna to Hungary, western Bulgaria (including Sofia) to Serbia
and forced Murad to abdicate in favor of his twelve-year-old son Mehmed.
Later the same year the Christians violated the peace treaty and attacked
anew. In November 11, 1444, Murad defeated the Polish-Hungarian army of
Janos Hunyadi at the Battle of Varna.
Murad was reinstated with the help of the
Janissaries in 1446. Another peace treaty was signed in 1448 giving the
Empire Wallachia and Bulgaria and a part of Albania. After the Balkan front
was secured, Murad turned east and defeated Timur Lenk's son, Shah Rokh,
and the emirates of Candar and Karaman in Anatolia. He died in the winter
1450-1451 in Edirne. Some have it that he was wounded in a battle against
Skanderbeg's Albanian guerilla.
Mehmed the Conqueror
Many doubted the young Mehmed II when he became
sultan (again) following his father's death. But by conquering and annexing
the emirate of Karamanid (May-June, 1451) and by renewing the peace
treaties with Venice (September 10) and Hungary (November 20) he proved his
skills both on the military and the political front and was soon accepted
by the noble class of the Ottoman court.
One of his first goals as sultan was to annex
Byzantine Constantinople. When in 1451 the bankrupt Byzantines asked Mehmed
to double the tribute for holding an Ottoman competitor for the throne, he
used the request as a pretext for nulling all treaties with the Empire.
Although, when he in 1452 proposed to attack Constantinople most of the
divan, and especially the Grand Vizier, Kandarli Halil, was against it and
critized the sultan for being too rash and overconfident in his abilities.
On April 15, 1452, Mehmed ordered the
construction of a castle on the shore of the Bosphorus. It was completed on
August 31 and was named the Rumeli Hiskari (the European Castle). In
September, Mehmed began mobilizing his troops, setting up a large camp
surrounding the city. On March 3, 1453, he presented the Byzantine emperor
Constantine XI with an ultimatum, but the emperor declined to surrender the
city. The Siege of Constantinople began on April 6 and lasted for almost
three months. On May 29 the city was finally captured. Mehmed had the city
rebuilt as his new capital, turning Hagia Sophia into a mosque and
constructing the Topkapi Palace in 1462.
When Constantinople was captured and the
Byzantine Empire extinguished, Mehmed turned south to Morea (Pelleponessos)
where a last Greek kingdom still remained in Christian hands, and west to
the Balkans. In 1456 Mehmed laid siege to Belgrade. On August 13 the
Janissaries advanced into the city but were ambushed by the forces of Janos
Hunyadi and forced to flee. Mehmed never succeded in taking Belgrade.
Mehmed entered Athens in 1460, until then ruled by emperor Constantine's
two brothers, Thomas and Demetrios. The following year Mehmed launched a
campaign into Anatolia defeating the Candaroglu Beylik in Sinope, and
Armenia under Uzun Hasan before capturing the Empire of Trebizond on August
15, 1461.
In 1475 Mehmet conquered the Genoese colony on
the Crimea, establishing the first Ottoman presence north of the Black Sea.
Two years later he moved upon the Venetian east coast of the Adriatic,
annexing the city of Piavas and some Adriatic islands in a peace treaty. In
1480, a vizier called Ahmed landed in Italy and captured the city Otranto.
Mehmet died about a year later. Some have it that he was secretly poisoned
by his Jewish doctor at the instigation of Pope Sixtus IV.
The apex of Ottoman power can be said to have
been from the conquest of Constantinople in 1453 to the death of Suleiman
the Magnificent in 1566. There are also many other variants, including
stretching the empire's days of glory to the failed Battle of Vienna in
1683, but by then the empire had suffered from internal degeneration and
corruption for a century.
Beyazid the Just
When Beyazid II was enthroned upon his father's
death, he first had to fight his younger brother Cem, who took Inegöl and
Bursa and proclaimed himself Sultan of Anatolia. After a battle at
Yenişehir, Cem was defeated and fled to Cairo. The very next year he
returned, supported by the Mameluks, and took eastern Anatolia, Ankara and
Konya but eventually he was beaten and forced to flee to Rhodes.
Sultan Beyazid attacked Venice in 1499. Peace
was signed in 1503, and the Ottomans gained the last Venetian strongholds
on the Peloponnesos and some towns along the Adriatic coast. In the 1500s
Mameluks and Persians under Shah Ismail I allied against the Ottomans. The
war ended 1511 in favor for the Turks.
Later that year, Beyazid's son Ahmet forced his
father into making him regent. His brother Selim was forced to flee to
Crimea. When Ahmet was about to be crowned the Janissaries intervened,
killed the prince and forced Beyazid into calling Selim back and making him
the sultan. Beyazid abdicated and was later executed.
Decline of the Empire
The Ottoman Empire failed to keep up
technologically with its European rivals, especially Russia. It suffered a
huge naval loss at the Battle of Lepanto in 1571. In the Balkans region it
was constantly contested by Habsburgs and the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth.
Its border with the Commonwealth was that of semi-pernament warzone, with
Tatars raiding the southern Commonwealth and Cossacks raids pillaging areas
as far as Istanbul suburbs. Fighting Persia on the west, Commonwealth and
Habsburgs on the west and Russia in the north, Ottoman Empire was unable to
hold for long any of its gains. It barely managed to repulse foregin
intervention from Moldavia (1593-1621). After its defeat at the Battle of
Vienna in 1683 at the hands of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, the
Ottoman Empire began a long decline, culminating in the defeat of the
empire by the Allies in World War I. After the great defeat of the Ottomans
at Vienna, Prince Eugene of Savoy led Austrian forces to further victories.
By 1699, the whole of Hungary had been conquered from the Ottomans by the
Austrians.
Early Attempts at Reform
The late 18th century saw the Ottoman Empire
fall behind the west militarily. Wars and territories were lost to Austria
and Russia. Areas of the empire such as Egypt were independent in all but
name. Thus when Selim III came to the throne in 1789 an ambitious effort of
military reform was launched. All the efforts at reform were geared towards
securing the Ottoman Empire. The sultan and those who surrounded him were conservative
and desired to preserve the status quo. No one in power in the Empire had
any interest in social transformation.
Western military advisors were imported but
their abilities to enact change were limited. A parade of French officers
were brought in, and none of them could do a great deal. One example of an
advisor who achieved limited success was the Baron de Tott, a French
officer. He did succeed in having a new foundry built to make artillery. He
also directed the construction of a new naval base. Unfortunately it was
almost impossible for him to divert soldiers from the regular army into the
new units. The new ships and guns that made it into service were too few to
have much of an influence on the Ottoman army and de Tott returned home.
Interestingly when they had requested French
help a few of years earlier from the Directory a young artillery officer by
the name of Napoleon Bonaparte was to be sent to Constantinople. He did not
go, for just days before he was to embark for the Near East he proved
himself useful to the directory by putting down a Parisian mob in the Whiff
of Grape-Shot and was kept in France.
The most important change was the creation of an
elite new infantry unit. The nizam-i-jedid was set up using European
uniforms, weapons, and training. This group offended the Janissaries,
however. Once the elite forces, the Janissaries had become a conservative
elite using their military power to advance themselves commercially and
politically. In 1806 the Janissaries, with support of the ulema and the
provincial governors revolted against the Sultan and his new force and
replaced him with Mustafa IV.
In 1808 he was replaced by Mahmud II who
restarted the reform efforts. His first actions was to ally with the
Janissaries to break the power of the provincial governors. He then turned
on the Janissaries, massacring them in their barracks in Constantinople and
the provincial capitals. The event is called the Auspicious Incident and it
cleared the way for substantial reforms.
Again these reforms were implemented mainly to
improve the military. British, Prussian and French advisors were imported.
Most importantly a series of schools teaching everything from math to
medicine were set up to train the new officers.
Mahmud adopted other western ideas, however. The
government was overhauled and redesigned on European models. European
clothing styles were also imported and the Sultan and the elites abandoned
the fez and turban. The first Turkish newspaper, an official government
publication, was also published during this time. This period of reform
continue after the death of Mahmud in 1839. In 1849 a massive new program
of reforms known as the Tanzimat was launched.
Russian Expansionism
Fringe territories were lost to Russia in the
north, but more importantly the Empire began to fall behind technologically
compared to the west. The outside world was still mostly unaware of the
extent of the Empire's decline until the 1820s, when it became clear that
the Ottoman armies had no way to put down the Russian backed revolt in
southern Greece. The great powers of Europe decided to intervene to give
Greece its independence. Thus Greece became the first independent country
created out of a section of the Ottoman Empire. Russian aspirations for a
section of the empire and bases on Russia's southern flank provoked British
fears over naval domination of the Mediterranean and control of the land
route to India.
When in 1853 Russia destroyed the entire Ottoman
fleet at Sinop, Britain and France concluded that armed intervention on the
side of the Ottomans was the only way to halt a massive Russian expansion,
on the grounds that the Ottoman armies could do nothing to stop a Russian
march on Constantinople.
Crimean War
The Crimean War illustrated how modern technology
and superior weaponry were the most important part of a modern army, and a
part that the Ottoman Empire was sorely lacking. While fighting alongside
the British, French, and even the Piedmontese, the Ottomans could see how
far they had fallen behind. While the industrial revolution had swept
through western Europe, the Ottoman Empire was still relying mainly on
medieval technologies. The vast empire had no railroads, and few telegraph
lines. It took days before the major naval defeat at Sinope was learned of
in the capital. The poor communications made it very difficult for
Constantinople to control its provinces. Thus the provinces in the Balkans,
Africa, and Asia became almost autonomous. Serbia was now an independent
nation in all but name, paying only token tribute to the Sultan. Most of
the other provinces also paid only fractions of the tribute required by
law. Even the areas under the Sultan's direct control had an outdated and
corrupt tax system, drastically depleting revenues. The disorganization and
corruption permeating the nation also discouraged trade, hurting both
itself and its relations with other nations. Compared to any other European
power the Ottoman empire also had virtually no industry, and its raw
materials were not being harvested. It is not surprising then that at the
mid point of the 19th century the Ottoman Empire was at the mercy of the
Russians until outside forces intervened.
Things began to change after the Crimean war.
The western powers had invested a great deal of resources in the Crimean
war and they did not wish to come to the aid of the faltering Empire again.
Thus the nation was invaded by British, French, and Austrian businessmen
and administrators who came to reform and rebuild the economy. This period
known as the Tanzimat saw great changes. During the period after the
Crimean war a national bank was created, the tax system was revised and
strengthened, the law was altered to emulate the Napoleonic Code, a public
education system based on that of the French was created, the Orient
Express railroad was constructed, as well other railroads were built that
travelled along the coast of Anatolia and into the Balkans. Another change
was that Serbia was permanently granted its independent status. This
pleased both Austria, who feared a Serbian revolt on its borders, and
Russia who long supported the Slavic nation's independence. Other changes
began to occur as Europeans for the first time saw the trading opportunity
of Turkey. The amount of money entering the nation through trade was soon
dramatically increased. As well the government received a great deal of
extra money from a uniform tax system with little corruption. The Sultan
also managed to get a tighter grip on the provincial beys and increased the
tribute they had to pay. Regrettably Abd-ul-Aziz, the Sultan at the time,
used much of this money on furnishing and creating great palaces to rival
the great ones in England and France, which he had visited. The Empire was
undergoing a revolution, throughout Anatolia a new Ottoman nationalism was
appearing, and for the first time the Empire had a middle class. It seemed
as though it might be possible for the Empire to turn its decline around.
Fall
Then on Friday, May 9, 1873 disaster struck. The
Vienna stock market crashed and took with it the economy of Europe. The
money and loans from abroad stopped pouring into Constantinople and the
government entered a financial crisis. Unable to deal with this the Sultan,
Abd-ul-Aziz, began to rapidly switch Grand Viziers. Unable to repay foreign
loans, the empire was forced to default on them, and ask for assistance
from Europe. Soon the Sultan could avoid a fetva no longer and he was
deposed. Eventually Abd-ul-Hamid II was girded with the sword of power. The
monetary and governmental collapse combined with a new threat from Russia
began the final stages of the Empire's collapse. Russia had been forced by
the Crimean War to give up its ambitions of owning Constantinople and
controlling the Bosphorus. Instead it decided to focus on gaining power in
the Balkans. The population of much of the Balkans were Slavs, as were the
Russians. They also mainly followed the Eastern Orthodox Church, as did the
Russians. When new movements in Russia, such as that of the Slavophiles,
started to enter the area, it became agitated and prone to revolution. When
the government in Constantinople tried to initiate measures to prevent an
economic collapse throughout the empire it touched off a revolt in
Herzegovina. The revolt in Herzegovina, quickly spread to Bosnia and then
Bulgaria. Soon Serbian armies also entered the war against the Turks. These
revolts were the first test of the new Ottoman armies. Even though they
were not up to western European standards the army fought effectively and
brutally. Soon the Balkan rebellions were beginning to falter. In Europe,
however, a new problem was developing. The papers of Russia were filled
with reports of Turkish soldiers killing thousands of Slavs. Soon more than
Russian propaganda was moving southwards and a new Russo-Turkish war had
begun.
Despite fighting better than they ever had
before the advanced Ottoman armies still were not equal to the Russian
forces. This time there was no help from abroad, in truth many European
nations supported the Russian war, as long as it did not get too close to
Constantinople. Ten and a half months later when the war had ended the age
of Ottoman domination over the Balkans was over. The Ottomans had fought
well, the new navy of Ironclads had won the battle for the Black Sea, and
Russian advances in the Caucasus had been kept minimal. In the Balkans,
however, the Russian army, supported by rebels, had pushed the Ottoman army
out of Bulgaria, Walachia, Romania, and much of East Rumelia and by the end
of the war the artillery firing in Thrace could be heard in Constantinople.
In response to the Russian proximity to the
straits the British, against the wishes of the Sultan, intervened in the
war. A large task force representing British naval supremacy entered the
straits of Marmara and anchored in view of both the royal palace and the
Russian army. The British may have saved the Ottoman empire once again, but
it ended the rosy relations between the two powers that had endured since
the Crimean War. Looking at the prospect of a British entry into the war
the Russians decided to settle the dispute. The treaty of San Stephano gave
Romania and Montenegro their independence, Serbia and Russia each received
extra territory, Austria was given control over Bosnia, and Bulgaria was
given almost complete autonomy. The hope of the Sultan was that the other
great powers would oppose such a one-sided resolution and a conference
would be held to revise it. His desire became reality and in 1878 the
Congress of Berlin was held where Germany promised to be an "honest
broker" in the treaty's revision. In the new treaty Bulgarian
territory was decreased and the war indemnities were cancelled. The
conference also again hurt Anglo-Turkish relations by giving the British
the island of Cyprus. While annoyed at Beaconsfield and the British, the
Sultan had nothing but praise for Otto von Bismarck who forced many of the
major concessions upon Russia. These close Germano-Turkish relations would
persist until the empires' very end.
Internal Collapse
The autocratic Sultans of the Ottoman Empire had
remained unchanged in centuries, while the rest of the world slowly became
more democratic and liberal. The loss of nearly a quarter of the Empire's
territory added to the already existing economic problems to make a
situation ripe for revolution. The situation was especially dangerous in
Constantinople, which contained thousands of refugees fleeing the Balkans.
A number of small coups broke out, trying to overthrow the Sultan. None of
them were well organized or even remotely successful, but they filled
Abd-ul-Hamid II with a paranoia that lead to a self-imposed isolation in
the palace of Yildiz. The entire Ottoman Empire was built around the
Sultan, but this Sultan never left his palace and would only see a few
trusted advisors. Unlike in the other states of Europe, such as Germany,
where a weak ruler could be made up for by a powerful Prime Minister, there
was no one who could make up for a weak Sultan. While in his self-imposed
exile the Sultan's Empire continued to fall apart. Egypt had long been only
loosely connected to the Ottoman Empire and in 1882 the British
incorporated it into their empire to protect the Suez canal. In 1896 Crete
revolted and received aid from the Greeks. This soon lead to a war between
the Ottoman Empire and its former province. For the first time in centuries
the Ottoman Empire won a war unaided. Greece was invaded from the North and
the Ottoman armies marched south as far as Thermopylae before King George I
of Greece agreed to an armistice. Greece lost some of Macedonia, and had to
pay an indemnity to Turkey. Crete was, however, given almost complete
autonomy to appease Britain and Russia who did not want to see its
Christian inhabitants returned to the Turks.
The military victory did nothing to stop the
rise of revolutionary sentiments. In 1902 a meeting in Paris brought
together the leadership of the "Young Turks" - a group, mainly
made of students, who were fervent Turkish nationalists wishing to do away
with the archaic Empire. In Bulgaria and Macedonia terrorists started
bombing Ottoman banks and government buildings demanding total
independence. The two rebellions eventually joined in 1908 when an army
regiment stationed in Macedonia rebelled and fled into the hills. It was
joined by Macedonian rebels as well as large numbers of Young Turks. This
group called itself the Committee of Union and Progress (CUP). Soon other
regiments in Bulgaria and Rumelia mutinied as did many of the Anatolian
soldiers sent in to end the rebellion. Abd-ul-Hamid had no choice but to
give into the revolutionaries' demands. A constitution was adopted and a
parliament created, Abd-ul-Hamid was now the leader of an Ottoman
constitutional monarchy. Soon after the first election, which CUP won
easily, there was a counter coup by the more conservative military
officers. The coup failed to destroy the new government, mainly due to the
skill of an unknown Adjutant-Major named Mustafa Kemal. When the liberals
discovered that the Sultan had aided the coup they decided that he must go.
Thus a fetva was issued and Abd-ul-Hamid II's long reign was at an end.
Final Destruction and Rebirth
Italy declared war on the Empire on September
29, 1911, demanding the turnover of Tripoli and Cyrenaica. When the empire
did not respond, Italian forces took those areas on that November 5 (this
act was confirmed by an act of the Italian Parliament on February 25,
1912).
Later that same year, a nationalist uprising
broke out in Albania, and on October 8, the Balkan League, consisting of
Serbia, Montenegro, Greece and Bulgaria, mounted a joint attack on the
Ottoman Empire, starting the First Balkan War. Albania declared
independence on November 28, Turkey agreed to a ceasefire on December 2,
and its territory losses were finalized in 1913 in the treaties of London
and Bucharest. Albania became independent, and the Empire lost almost all
of its European territory (Kosovo, Sanjak of Novi Pazar, Macedonia and
western Thrace) to the four allies.
On November 5, 1914 the United Kingdom annexed
Cyprus, and together with France declared war on the empire. The final end
to the aged and crippled empire came in the First World War. Close
relations with Germany and the continued enmity towards Russia pushed the
empire into joining the Central Powers. The empire at first held its own
honourably. Its armies did well in the Balkans, preventing any Russian
advance, and — commanded by the dynamic Mustafa Kemal — the Ottoman forces
won a great victory against Allied forces at the Battle of Gallipoli. These
successes were quickly reversed, however, by the revolt of the Arabs, who
were advised and led by a British military genius, T. E. Lawrence. Allied
forces, including the Arabs, eventually defeated the Ottoman forces in the
Middle East. At the end of the war the Ottoman government collapsed
completely and the empire was divided amongst the victorious powers. France
and Britain got control of most of the Middle East while Italy and Greece
were given much of Anatolia. At the same time an independent Armenian state
was established in eastern Turkey, and an autonomous Kurdish area was also
created.
The Turkish people refused to accept this
arrangement, however, and under Mustafa Kemal the remnants of the Young
Turk movement formed a government in Ankara and created an army. They defeated
the Greeks and forced them out of Anatolia. The Italians had never managed
to get a substantial presence in their holdings and in the weakened state
could do little to try to recapture them after they were in Turkish hands.
The British and French, exhausted by the war had no interest in
intervening, especially to stop a movement of national self-determination
of the type they had been supporting in other lands. The Turks also
destroyed the states given to the Armenians and the Kurds and reabsorbed these
areas into their domain. During this series of conflicts the Armenian
Genocide and Hellenic Holocaust took place, and by 1923, at least 2.5
million Christian Armenians and Pontic Greeks had been massacred, with the
rest fleeing for their lives to Greece and the then-USSR, or had been
converted to Islam by force. Thus the new state of Turkey was proclaimed on
January 20, 1921 and Mustafa Kemal, who took on the name Atatürk, became
its first president.
Armenian Genocide
After World War I the Committee of Union and
Progress (CUP) - more commonly known as the "Young Turks" -
decided to carry out a genocide against the Armenian people under Ottoman
control. It is estimated that one and a half million Armenians were
massacred between 1915 and 1923, out of the previous population of around
two million. The Armenians were subjected to torture, massacre and
expropriation of their wealth. The great majority of the Armenians were
forced from their homes in Armenia and Anatolia and left to die of hunger
and thirst in Syria where they fled.
There was a strong outcry in the United States,
United Kingdom, France and Russia against the mistreatment of the
Armenians. The Allies demanded that the Young Turks be tried for warcrimes.
However, there was no intervention beyond helping the small remainder of
the Armenians who were still alive in Syria. After the war there were no
restitutions to the Armenian people for their loss of wealth and human
lives by the Ottomans.
Changing World Economy
Changes in technology and the global economy
occurred at an ever increasing pace the Ottoman Empire became
peripheralized. Once almost all trade between Asia and Europe had had to
pass through Ottoman lands or seas, the revolution in shipping in Europe
beginning in the 16th century allowed European traders to by-pass the
Empire.
This also caused a major shift in trade patterns
from the Mediterranean Sea to the oceans. With most of the Empire's
population and major centres located on the Mediterranean this greatly
affected the Empire as well as other southern European states such as
Italy.
The Industrial Revolution saw even greater
changes. The Ottoman Empire did not have a social structure well adjusted
to the free market capitalism needed to build factories. The Empire also
lacked crucial supplies of coal and other needed commodities.
As a result the Empire shifted from being a
producer of manufactured goods to being a producer of raw materials for
European industry. Different parts of the empire moved towards producing
different commodities. Mount Lebanon became a centre of silk production.
Syria, once one of the world's great steel producers, grew foodstuffs.
Egypt became one of the world's largest producers of cotton.
An inevitable side effect of this large scale
trade with Europe was increasing links between Ottoman provinces and
Europeans. As Britain became dependent on Egyptian cotton for its textile
mills Britain became ever more involved in the internal politics of that
country, eventually declaring it a protectorate in 1882. The Lebanese silk
was mostly shipped to Marseilles, and increasingly France came to dominate
that area. Many of the provinces were more closely linked to Europe than to
Constantinople. When railways were built, largely by Europeans, they linked
to the coast, not to the capital.
Weak Leadership
In any effort to modernize or reform the empire
the Sultan was always opposed by the powerful military and religious elite
who did not want to lose their traditional powers. One of the most powerful
of these elites, was the powerful religious body known as the ulema. If the
ulema was displeased with a Sultan a decree known as a fetva would be
issued and the Sultan would be removed from power. The threat of a fetva
was a powerful weapon used many times by the ulema to force the Sultan to
back down from reforms.
Unstable leadership was also a problem the
second most powerful man in the Empire was the Grand Vizier, the advisor in
chief to the Sultan. This position was also considerably weakened by the
fact that to prevent a fetva or coup the Sultan would often sacrifice his
Grand Vizier. In turbulent times Sultans would thus frequently go through
dozens of Grand Viziers in only a few years. This prevented a stable
government, the thing most required in turbulent times.
Other practices weakened the Empire's
leadership. One of the most problematic was the method of ensuring that an
uncle or brother of the Sultan did not try to seize power. For the duration
of the Sultan's reign they would be locked away in a small apartment, known
as a kafe and never see the outside world. Whenever a Sultan died or was
deposed with no male heir, his brother or uncle would be taken out of the
kafe and be made ruler of the Empire.
Fratricide in the Harem
It must be remembered that sultans could take
several wives and many concubines. The sultan had a harem, and there could
be between 200 and 600 women there. It was thus possible for a sultan to
have many children, and in particular, many sons. A practice of fratricide
grew up, in which on the death of a sultan, one of the sons would become
the new sultan, and would then order the execution of all his brothers.
Although this did not always happen, many were executed. The thought behind
this practice was that it was considered important to remove any
possibility of having different focal points for power, and a
rationalisation was that the death of a few would be a small price to pay
for political stability. The fear of civil war, in which many could die,
was a strong driving force for this practice.
The women in the harem also jostled for power,
and the mother of the sultan became a powerful force. Each mother in the
harem would try to promote her own son to become sultan, as they knew that
the alternative would be that their sons would be killed.
Corruption of Janissaries
To create a modern state out of the Ottoman
Empire the area that most needed redevelopment was the military. Most
Sultans realised this, but their efforts were repeatedly repelled. The most
powerful group in the empire, and the one most averse to change, were the
members of the Sultan's personal army. These were known as the Janissaries.
They were first created from a tax, known as the devsirme. The devsirme was
imposed on all Christians living in Ottoman controlled territory. Every
five years one in five Christian sons were given to the Sultan. Some
entered the civil service, some went into politics, and a few managed to
rise to the position of Grand Vizier. The majority of the boys, however,
entered the army. They were trained to be master warriors supremely loyal
to the Sultan, and became known as the Janissaries. They were strictly lead
by an ancient code of honour and were ready to sacrifice themselves for
their Sultan at any time. Overtime, however, the Janissaries, with their great
strength and close attachment with the Sultan, gained a great deal of power
in the empire. With power comes corruption, and during the 18th century the
Janissary code of honour gradually disappeared. The Janissaries became rich
through bribes and theft. They used their power to control the government,
and to do all that was possible to prevent changes to their traditional
powers. By the 1820s the Janissaries were no more than a group of heavily
armed thugs rebelling at even minor military changes. The situation was
desperate, the Ottoman army had fallen so far behind the rest of Europe
that any aggressive power could take the capital. In 1826 the Janissaries
revolted against the Sultan's decree that forced them to wear western
military uniforms. Rather than back down to the Janissary threat as all
previous Sultans had, Mahmud II used his new artillery regiments against
the Janissary barracks in Constantinople. The barracks was destroyed and
all the Janissaries trying to flee were killed. Outside the capital most of
the Janissaries peacefully disbanded, but many of them were still executed
on charges of treason. With the removal of the Janissaries the path to
military reform was now open, but after centuries of Janissary interference
the Ottoman army could never fully recover.
Failure of Outside Assistance
To modernise the army and bring it up to
European standards, outsiders had to be brought in. Unfortunately, these
outsiders were regarded with suspicion by the empire's elite. The senior
members of the army and government still thought that they were back in the
17th century when the Ottoman army was more powerful than any other on
Earth; however, the signs of decline were already evident. Catherine the
Great had annexed the Crimea and Georgia at the end of the 18th century,
and the Sultan had no way to intervene. Bessarabia was lost in 1812 after
the Ottomans attempted to take advantage of Russia's war with Napoleon. The
first losses to Russia, an enemy of the empire for centuries, were a great
embarrassment, but they were not enough to motivate reform. In the early
part of the 19th century, the Ottoman Empire was allied with France, and
thus it was to them that the Sultan turned for aid in rebuilding his
military might. When they requested help from the Directory, a young
artillery officer by the name of Napoleon Buonaparte was to be sent to
Constantinople. He did not go, for just days before he was to embark for
the near east he proved himself useful to the directory by putting down a
Parisian mob and was kept in France. It is interesting to think of what a
man of Napoleon's skill might have done with the Ottoman army. In his place
a parade of French officers were brought in, but none of them could do a
great deal. One example of an advisor who achieved limited success was the
Baron de Tott. He did succeed in having a new foundry built to make
artillery and he directed the construction of a new naval base.
Unfortunately, it was almost impossible for him to divert soldiers from the
regular army into the new units. The new ships and guns that made it into
service were too few to have much of an influence on the Ottoman military
and de Tott returned home.
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