What was the Ottoman Empire?

The Ottoman Empire was founded by Osman I (in Arabic Uthmn, 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 St, a small tribe settled in river valley of Sakarya. The founder and bey (chief) of the
tribe was Ertorl, the father of Osman I. When Ertorl 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. Yeniehir 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 Lalaahin 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 Drma, Kavla and Seres (Serri).
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 Ni 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 Milo 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 13911398. 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 elebi, sa
elebi, Mehmed elebi, and Msa fought each other in what became known as the Ottoman Interregnum.
When Mehmed elebi 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 Candarolu and Karamanid (in violation of the peace treaty) intervened against the Ottomans. Ni
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-yearold 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
Inegl and Bursa and proclaimed himself Sultan of Anatolia. After a battle at Yeniehir, 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 selfimposed 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 selfdetermination 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 Atatrk, 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.