The
Ottoman Empire or
Ottoman State (
Ottoman TurkishOttoman Turkish is the variety of the Turkish language that was used as the administrative and literary language of the Ottoman Empire. It contains extensive borrowings from Arabic and Persian languages and was written in a variant of the Perso-Arabic script...
: دَوْلَتِ عَلِیَّهِ عُثْمَانِیَّه
Dawlet-il ʿAliyyat-il ʿOs̠māniyye,
Modern TurkishTurkish is spoken as a first language by over 63 million people worldwide, making it the most commonly spoken of the Turkic languages. Its speakers are located predominantly in Turkey and Cyprus, with smaller groups in Iraq, Greece, Bulgaria, the Republic of Macedonia, Kosovo, Albania and other...
:
Osmanlı İmparatorluğu or
Osmanlı Devleti), also known by its contemporaries as the
Turkish Empire or
Turkey (see
the other names of the Ottoman StateThe state of the Ottomans which began as part of the Anatolian Seljuk Sultanate and became an independent Empire, has been known historically by different names at different periods and in various languages...
), was an
empireThe term empire derives from the Latin imperium. Politically, an empire is a geographically extensive group of states and peoples united and ruled either by a monarch or an oligarchy...
that lasted from 1299 to
November 1, 1922Mehmed VI Wahid ed-din was the 36th and last Sultan of the Ottoman Empire, reigning from 1918 to 1922. The brother of Mehmed V, he succeeded to the throne as the eldest male member of the House of Osman after the 1916 suicide of Abdülaziz's son Yusuf Izzettin, the heir to the throne...
(as an
imperial monarchyThe person who heads a monarchy is called a monarch. It was a common form of government in the world during the ancient and medieval times. A Monarchy is a form of government in which supreme power is absolutely or nominally lodged with an individual, who is the head of state, often for life or...
) or
July 24, 1923The Treaty of Lausanne was a peace treaty signed in Lausanne, Switzerland, that settled the Anatolian and East Thracian parts of the partitioning of the Ottoman Empire by annulment of the Treaty of Sèvres that was signed by the Constantinople-based Ottoman government; as the consequence of the...
(
de jureDe jure is an expression that means "concerning law", as contrasted with de facto, which means "concerning fact"....
, as a
stateA sovereign state is a political association with effective internal and external sovereignty over a geographic area and population which is not dependent on, or subject to any other power or state...
.) It was
succeededThe Treaty of Lausanne was a peace treaty signed in Lausanne, Switzerland, that settled the Anatolian and East Thracian parts of the partitioning of the Ottoman Empire by annulment of the Treaty of Sèvres that was signed by the Constantinople-based Ottoman government; as the consequence of the...
by the Republic of Turkey, which was officially proclaimed on October 29, 1923.
At the height of its power (16th–17th century), it spanned three continents, controlling much of Southeastern Europe, Western Asia and
North AfricaNorth Africa or Northern Africa is the northernmost region of the African continent, linked by the Sahara to Sub-Saharan Africa.Geopolitically, the UN definition of Northern Africa includes the following seven countries or territories; Algeria, Egypt, Libya, Morocco, Sudan, Tunisia,Mauritania, and...
. The Ottoman Empire contained 29 provinces and numerous
vassal statesVassal States were a number of tributary or vassal states, usually on the periphery of the Ottoman Empire under suzerainty of the Porte, over which direct control was not established, for various reasons.-Functions:...
, some of which were later absorbed into the empire, while others gained various types of autonomy during the course of centuries. The empire also temporarily gained authority over distant overseas lands through declarations of allegiance to the
Ottoman Sultan and CaliphThe Ottoman Dynasty ruled the Ottoman Empire from 1299 to 1922, beginning with Osman I , though the dynasty was not proclaimed until Orhan Bey declared himself sultan...
, such as the declaration by the Sultan of Aceh in 1565; or through the temporary acquisitions of islands in the Atlantic Ocean, such as
LanzaroteLanzarote, a Spanish island, is the easternmost of the autonomous Canary Islands, in the Atlantic Ocean, approximately 125 km off the coast of Africa and 1,000 km from the Iberian Peninsula. Covering 845.9 km
2, it stands as the fourth largest of the islands...
(1585).
The empire was at the centre of interactions between the
EasternThe term Eastern world refers very broadly to the various cultures, social structures and philosophical systems of "the East", namely Asia and Eastern Europe ....
and
WesternThe Western world, also known as the West and the Occident , is a term that can have multiple meanings depending on its context...
worlds for six centuries. With
ConstantinopleConstantinople was the imperial capital of the Roman Empire , the Byzantine/Eastern Roman Empire , the Latin Empire , and the Ottoman Empire...
(Istanbul) as its capital city, and vast control of lands around the eastern Mediterranean during the reign of Suleyman the Magnificent (ruled 1520 to 1566), the Ottoman Empire was, in many respects, an Islamic successor to the
Eastern Roman (Byzantine) EmpireThe Byzantine Empire or Eastern Roman Empire, was the continuation of the Roman Empire during the Middle Ages, centered on the capital of Constantinople, and ruled by Emperors in direct and de jure succession to the ancient Roman Emperors...
. This is the longest lasting Muslim empire, from circa 1300, to 1922, in both the number of years, and the falling year.
Rise (1302–1453)
With the demise of the Seljuk Sultanate of Rūm (
circaCirca means "in approximately" , referring to a date...
1300), Turkish Anatolia was divided into a patchwork of independent states, the so-called
Ghazi emiratesthumb|350px|Anatolian Turkish Beyliks map.Anatolian Beyliks or Turkmen Beyliks were small Turkish emirates or Muslim principalities governed by Beys, which were founded across Anatolia at the end of the 11th century in a first period, and more extensively during the decline of the Seljuk Sultanate...
. By 1300, a weakened
Byzantine EmpireThe Byzantine Empire or Eastern Roman Empire, was the continuation of the Roman Empire during the Middle Ages, centered on the capital of Constantinople, and ruled by Emperors in direct and de jure succession to the ancient Roman Emperors...
had seen most of its Anatolian provinces lost to ten Ghazi principalities. One of the
Ghazi emiratesthumb|350px|Anatolian Turkish Beyliks map.Anatolian Beyliks or Turkmen Beyliks were small Turkish emirates or Muslim principalities governed by Beys, which were founded across Anatolia at the end of the 11th century in a first period, and more extensively during the decline of the Seljuk Sultanate...
was led by
Osman IOsman I, Osman Gazi or Othman I El-Gazi Ottoman: عثمان بن أرطغرل, or Osman Bey or I.Osman or Osman Sayed II) was the leader of the Ottoman Turks, and the founder of the dynasty that established and ruled the Ottoman Empire...
(from which the name Ottoman is derived), son of
ErtuğrulErtuğrul was the father of Osman I, the founder of the Ottoman Empire. He was the leader of the Kayı clan of the Oghuz Turks...
in the region of
EskişehirEskişehir is a city in northwestern Turkey and the capital of the Eskişehir Province. According to the 2008 census, the population of the district was 614,247; of which 599,796 live in the city of Eskişehir. The city is located on the banks of the Porsuk River, 792 m above sea level, where it...
in western Anatolia. Osman I extended the frontiers of Ottoman settlement towards the edge of the
Byzantine EmpireThe Byzantine Empire or Eastern Roman Empire, was the continuation of the Roman Empire during the Middle Ages, centered on the capital of Constantinople, and ruled by Emperors in direct and de jure succession to the ancient Roman Emperors...
. He moved the Ottoman capital to Bursa, and shaped the early political development of the nation. Given the nickname "Kara" (which means "black" in modern
TurkishTurkish is spoken as a first language by over 63 million people worldwide, making it the most commonly spoken of the Turkic languages. Its speakers are located predominantly in Turkey and Cyprus, with smaller groups in Iraq, Greece, Bulgaria, the Republic of Macedonia, Kosovo, Albania and other...
, but alternatively meant "brave" or "strong" in old Turkish) for his courage, Osman I was admired as a strong and dynamic ruler long after his death, as evident in the centuries-old Turkish phrase, "may he be as good as Osman." His reputation has also been burnished by the medieval Turkish story known as "Osman's Dream", a foundation myth in which the young Osman was inspired to conquest by a prescient vision of empire(according to his dream, the empire is a big tree whose roots spreads through three continents and its branches are covering the sky). In this period, a formal
Ottoman governmentThe governing of the Ottoman Empire is more than the description of its court, customs, ceremonies, and officials with catalogues of their provinces and duties....
was created whose institutions would change drastically over the life of the empire. The government used the legal entity known as the
milletMillet is an Ottoman Turkish term for a confessional community in the Ottoman Empire. In the 19th century, with the Tanzimat reforms, the term started to refer to legally protected religious minority groups, other than the ruling Sunni. Millet comes from the Arabic word millah and literally means...
, under which religious and ethnic minorities were able to manage their own affairs with substantial independence from central control.
In the century after the death of Osman I, Ottoman rule began to extend over the Eastern Mediterranean and the
BalkansThe Balkans is a geopolitical and cultural region of southeastern Europe...
. The important city of
ThessalonikiThessaloniki , Thessalonica, or Salonica is the second-largest city in Greece and the capital of the Greek region of Macedonia. It is honorarily called the Συμπρωτεύουσα Symprotevousa of Greece, as it was once called the συμβασιλεύουσα symvasilevousa of the Byzantine Empire...
was captured from the
VenetiansThe Most Serene Republic of Venice or Venetian Republic was a state originating from the city of Venice in Northeastern Italy. It existed for over a millennium, from the late 7th century AD until the year 1797...
in 1387, and the Turkish victory at the
Battle of KosovoThe Battle of Kosovo was a battle fought in 1389 on St Vitus' Day, June 15*, between the Serbian Empire and its allies, and the Ottoman Empire, in the Kosovo Field, about 5 kilometers northwest of modern-day Pristina. Reliable historical accounts of the battle are scarce...
in 1389 effectively marked the end of
SerbianThe Kingdom of Serbia was created when Prince Milan Obrenović, ruler of the Principality of Serbia, was crowned King in 1882. The Principality of Serbia was ruled by the Karadjordjevic dynasty from 1817 onwards...
power in the region, paving the way for Ottoman expansion into Europe. The
Battle of NicopolisThe Battle of Nicopolis took place on September 25, 1396, between the Ottoman Empire versus an allied force from the Kingdom of Hungary, France, the Knights Hospitaller, and the Republic of Venice, as well as smaller contingents and individuals from elsewhere in Europe, near the Danubian fortress...
in 1396, widely regarded as the last large-scale
crusadeThe Crusades were a series of religiously-sanctioned military campaigns waged by much of Latin Christian Europe, particularly the Franks of France and the Holy Roman Empire. The specific crusades to restore Christian control of the Holy Land were fought over a period of nearly 200 years, between...
of the
Middle AgesThe Middle Ages of European history is a period of European history covering roughly a millennium in the 5th century through 16th centuries. More specific starting and ending points are sometimes adopted by scholars to suit their respective specializations or current focus...
, failed to stop the advance of the victorious Ottomans. With the extension of Turkish dominion into the Balkans, the strategic conquest of Constantinople became a crucial objective. The Empire controlled nearly all of the former
Byzantine landsThe Byzantine Empire or Eastern Roman Empire, was the continuation of the Roman Empire during the Middle Ages, centered on the capital of Constantinople, and ruled by Emperors in direct and de jure succession to the ancient Roman Emperors...
surrounding the city, but the
ByzantinesByzantine Greeks or Byzantines is a conventional term used by modern historians to refer to the medieval Greek or Hellenized citizens of the Byzantine Empire, centered mainly in Constantinople, the southern Balkans, the Greek islands, Asia Minor and the large urban centres of the Near East and...
were temporarily relieved when
TamerlaneTimur , also known as Tamerlane , was a 14th-century conqueror of much of western and central Asia, and founder of the Timurid Empire and Timurid dynasty in Central Asia, which survived until 1857 as the Mughal...
invaded
AnatoliaAnatolia is a geographic region of Western Asia, comprising most of the modern Republic of Turkey. The region is bounded by the Black Sea to the north, the Caucasus to the northeast, the Iranian plateau to the southeast, the Mediterranean Sea to the south and the Aegean Sea to the west...
with the
Battle of AnkaraThe Battle of Ankara or Battle of Angora, fought on July 20, 1402, took place at the field of Çubuk between the forces of the Ottoman sultan Bayezid I and the Turko-Mongol forces of Timur, ruler of the Timurid Empire.-Background:...
in 1402, taking Sultan
Bayezid IBayezid I was the Sultan of the Ottoman Empire, then Rûm, from 1389 to 1402...
as a prisoner. Part of the Ottoman territories in the Balkans (such as Thessaloniki, Macedonia and Kosovo) were temporarily lost after 1402, but were later recovered by
Murad II Murad II Kodja was the Sultan of the Ottoman Empire from 1421 to 1451 ....
between the 1430s and 1450s.
The capture of Bayezid I threw the Turks into disorder. The state fell into a civil war which lasted from 1402 to 1413, as Bayezid's sons fought over succession. It ended when
Mehmed I Mehmed I Çelebi was a Sultan of the Ottoman Empire from 1413 to 1421.- His nickname :He is nicknamed as;...
emerged as the sultan and restored Ottoman power, bringing an end to the
InterregnumThe Ottoman Interregnum began in the 15th century, when chaos reigned in the Ottoman Empire following the defeat of Sultan Bayezid I in 1402 by the Mongol warlord Timur...
. His grandson,
Mehmed the ConquerorMehmet II , was Sultan of the Ottoman Empire for a short time from 1444 to September 1446,...
, reorganized the state and the military, and demonstrated his martial prowess by capturing
ConstantinopleThe Fall of Constantinople was the capture of the capital of the Byzantine Empire which occurred after a siege laid by the Ottoman Empire, under the command of Sultan Mehmed II. The siege lasted from Thursday, 5 April, 1453 until Tuesday, 29 May, 1453 , when the city fell to the Ottomans...
on May 29, 1453, at the age of 21. The city became the new capital of the Ottoman Empire, and Mehmed II assumed the title of
Kayser-i Rûm (Roman Emperor). However, this title was not recognized by the Greeks or Western Europe, and the Russian Czars also claimed to be the successors of the Eastern Imperial title. To consolidate his claim, Mehmed II aspired to gain control over the Western capital, Rome, and Ottoman forces occupied parts of the
Italian peninsulaThe Italian Peninsula or Apennine Peninsula is one of the three peninsulas of Southern Europe , spanning 1,000 km from the Po Valley in the north to the central Mediterranean Sea in the south. The peninsula's shape gives it the nickname Lo Stivale...
, starting from
OtrantoIn 1480 and 1481 the city and fort of Otranto, in Apulia, southern Italy, were held by Ottoman troops.-Attack:On July 28 1480 an Ottoman fleet of between 70 and 200 ships arrived near the Neapolitan/Aragonese city of Otranto, in what is now the region Apulia, Italy. Possibly these troops came from...
and
ApuliaApulia is a region in southeastern Italy bordering the Adriatic Sea in the east, the Ionian Sea to the southeast, and the Strait of Òtranto and Gulf of Taranto in the south. Its southern portion known as Salento, a peninsula, forms a high heel on the "boot" of Italy...
on July 28, 1480. But after Mehmed II's death on May 3, 1481, the campaign in Italy was cancelled and the Ottoman forces retreated.
Growth (1453–1683)
This period in Ottoman history can roughly be divided into two distinct eras: an era of territorial, economic, and cultural growth prior to 1566, followed by an era of relative military and political stagnation.
Expansion and apogee (1453–1566)
The Ottoman conquest of
ConstantinopleConstantinople was the imperial capital of the Roman Empire , the Byzantine/Eastern Roman Empire , the Latin Empire , and the Ottoman Empire...
in 1453 cemented the status of the Empire as the preeminent power in southeastern Europe and the eastern Mediterranean. During this time, the Ottoman Empire entered a
long period of conquest and expansionThe growth of the Ottoman Empire is the period followed after the rise of the Ottoman Empire in which the Ottoman state reached the Pax Ottomana. In this period, the Ottoman Empire expanded southwestwards into North Africa and battled with the re-emergent Persian Shi'ia Safavid Empire to the east...
, extending its borders deep into Europe and
North AfricaNorth Africa or Northern Africa is the northernmost region of the African continent, linked by the Sahara to Sub-Saharan Africa.Geopolitically, the UN definition of Northern Africa includes the following seven countries or territories; Algeria, Egypt, Libya, Morocco, Sudan, Tunisia,Mauritania, and...
. Conquests on land were driven by the discipline and innovation of the Ottoman military; and on the sea, the Ottoman navy aided this expansion significantly. The navy also contested and protected key seagoing trade routes, in competition with the Italian city states in the
Black Seaur a loser!The Black Sea is an inland sea bounded by Europe, Anatolia and the Caucasus and is ultimately connected to the Atlantic Ocean via the Mediterranean and Aegean Seas and various straits. The Bosporus strait connects it to the Sea of Marmara, and the strait of the Dardanelles connects it to...
,
AegeanAegean may refer to:*Aegean Sea*Aegean Islands*Aegean Region, Turkey*Aegean civilization*Tyrsenian languages, aka Aegean languages*Aegean Airlines*Aegean Macedonia, another term for the Greek region of Macedonia...
and Mediterranean seas and the Portuguese in the
Red SeaThe Red Sea is a seawater inlet of the Indian Ocean, lying between Africa and Asia. The connection to the ocean is in the south through the Bab el Mandeb strait and the Gulf of Aden. In the north, there is the Sinai Peninsula, the Gulf of Aqaba, and the Gulf of Suez,...
and Indian Ocean. The state also flourished economically thanks to its control of the major overland trade routes between Europe and Asia. This lock-hold on trade between western Europe and Asia is frequently cited as a primary motivational factor for the Queen of Spain to fund
Christopher ColumbusChristopher Columbus was a navigator, colonizer and explorer whose voyages across the Atlantic Ocean led to general European awareness of the American continents in the Western Hemisphere...
's westward journey to find a sailing route to Asia.
The Empire prospered under the rule of a line of committed and effective sultans. Sultan
Selim ISelim I , also known as "the Excellent," "the Brave" or the best translation "the Stern", Yavuz in Turkish, the long name is Yavuz Sultan Selim; October 10 1465/1466/1470 September 22, 1520) was the Sultan of the Ottoman Empire from 1512 to 1520...
(1512–1520) dramatically expanded the Empire's eastern and southern frontiers by defeating
Shah IsmailShāh Ismā'il Abu'l-Mozaffar bin Sheikh Haydar bin Sheikh Junayd Safawī , was a Shah of Iran and the founder of the Safavid Empire, which survived until 1736. Shah Ismail started his campaign in Azerbaijan in 1502, and had re-unified all of Iran by 1509...
of
SafavidThe Safavids were one of the ruling dynasties of Iran. They ruled one of the greatest Iranian empires since the Islamic conquest of Persia and established the Ithnāˤashari school of Shi'a Islam as the official religion of their empire, marking one of the most important turning points in the...
Persia, in the
Battle of ChaldiranThe Battle of Chaldiran occurred on 23 August 1514 and ended with a decisive victory for the Ottoman Empire over the Safavids. As a result the Ottomans gained control over the north western part of Iran. The Ottomans had a larger, better equipped army numbering 60,000 to 200,000, while the...
. Selim I established
Ottoman rule in EgyptEgypt was conquered by the Ottoman Empire in 1517. Egypt was always a difficult province for the Ottoman Sultans to control. It remained dominated by the semi-autonomous Mameluks until it was conquered by the French in 1798. After the French were expelled it was ruled by the Albanian Muhammad...
, and created a naval presence on the
Red SeaThe Red Sea is a seawater inlet of the Indian Ocean, lying between Africa and Asia. The connection to the ocean is in the south through the Bab el Mandeb strait and the Gulf of Aden. In the north, there is the Sinai Peninsula, the Gulf of Aqaba, and the Gulf of Suez,...
. After this Ottoman expansion, a competition started between the
Portuguese EmpireThe Portuguese Empire was the first global empire in history, with territories in South America, Africa, India and South East Asia...
and the Ottoman Empire to become the dominant power in the region.
Selim's successor,
Suleiman the MagnificentSuleiman I was the tenth and longest-reigning Sultan of the Ottoman Empire, from 1520 to his death in 1566...
(1520–1566), further expanded upon Selim's conquests. After capturing
BelgradeBelgrade Belgrade Belgrade (Serbian Cyrillic: Београд, Serbian Latin: Beograd (meaning "White City" in Serbian) is the capital and largest city of Serbia. The city lies on two international waterways, at the confluence of the Sava and Danube rivers, where Central Europe's Pannonian Plain meets...
in 1521, Suleiman conquered the southern and central parts of the
Kingdom of HungaryThe Kingdom of Hungary , emerged in 1000, when the Principality of Hungary, founded in 896, was recognized as a Kingdom. The form of government was changed from Monarchy to Republic briefly in 1918 and again in 1946, ending the Kingdom and creating the Republic of Hungary...
(while the western, northern and northeastern parts weren't conquered) and established
Ottoman rule.Ottoman Hungary refers to parts of the Ottoman Empire situated in what is today Hungary in the period from 1541 to 1699.-History:By the sixteenth century, the power of the Ottoman Empire had increased gradually, as did the territory occupied by them in the Balkans, while the Kingdom of Hungary was...
in the territory of present-day Hungary (except western parts) and other
Central EuropeCentral Europe is the region lying between the variously defined areas of Eastern and Western Europe. The term and widespread interest in the region itself came back into fashion after the end of the Cold War, which, along with the Iron Curtain, had divided Europe politically into East and West,...
an territories, after his victory in the
Battle of MohácsThe Battle of Mohács was fought on August 29, 1526 near Mohács, Hungary. In the battle, forces of the Kingdom of Hungary led by King Louis II of Hungary and Bohemia were defeated by forces of the Ottoman Empire led by Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent.The Ottoman victory led to the partition of...
in 1526. (See also: Ottoman–Hungarian Wars). He then laid
siege to ViennaThe Siege of Vienna in 1529 was the first attempt by the Ottoman Empire, led by Suleiman the Magnificent, to capture the city of Vienna, Austria. The siege signalled the pinnacle of the Ottoman Empire's power and great rivalry with Europe as well as the maximum extent of Ottoman expansion in...
in 1529, but failed to take the city after the onset of winter forced his retreat. In 1532, another planned attack on Vienna with an army thought to be over 250,000 strong was repulsed south of Vienna, at the fortress of
Güns----Kőszeg is a town in Vas county, Hungary. The town is famous for its historical character.- History :The origins of the only free royal town in the historical garrison county of Vas go back to the third quarter of the 13th century...
. After further advances by the Ottomans in 1543, the Habsburg ruler
FerdinandFerdinand I was a Central European monarch from the House of Habsburg. He was Holy Roman Emperor from 1558, King of Bohemia and Hungary from 1526. He ruled the Austrian hereditary lands of the Habsburgs most of his public life, at the behest of his elder brother, Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor and...
officially recognised Ottoman ascendancy in Hungary in 1547. During the reign of Suleiman,
TransylvaniaTransylvania is a historical region in the central part of Romania. Bounded on the east and south by the Carpathian mountain range, historical Transylvania extended in the west to the Apuseni Mountains; however, the term frequently encompasses not only Transylvania proper, but also the historical...
,
WallachiaWallachia or Walachia is a historical and geographical region of Romania. It is situated north of the Danube and south of the Southern Carpathians...
and, intermittently,
MoldaviaMoldavia is a geographic and historical region and former principality in Eastern Europe, corresponding to the territory between the Eastern Carpathians and the Dniester river...
, became tributary principalities of the Ottoman Empire. In the east, the Ottomans took
BaghdadBaghdad is the capital of Iraq and of Baghdad Governorate, with which it is coterminous. Having a municipal population estimated at 6.5 million, it is the largest city in Iraq and the second largest in the Arab World....
from the Persians in 1535, gaining control of
MesopotamiaMesopotamia "land between the rivers" is a name for the Tigris–Euphrates region in the eastern Mediterranean, largely corresponding to Iraq, as well as northeastern Syria, some parts of southeastern Turkey, and some parts of the Khūzestān Province of southwestern...
and naval access to the
Persian GulfThe Persian Gulf, in the Southwest Asian region, is an extension of the Indian Ocean located between Iran and the Arabian Peninsula. Historically and commonly known as the Persian Gulf, this body of water is sometimes controversially referred to as the Arabian Gulf by most Arab states or simply The...
. By the end of Suleiman's reign, the Empire's population reached about 15,000,000 people.
Under Selim and Suleiman, the Empire became a dominant naval force, controlling much of the
Mediterranean SeaThe Mediterranean Sea is a sea connected to the Atlantic Ocean surrounded by the Mediterranean region and almost completely enclosed by land: on the north by Anatolia and Europe, on the south by Africa, and on the east by the Levant. The sea is technically a part of the Atlantic Ocean, although it...
. The exploits of the Ottoman admiral
Barbarossa Hayreddin PashaBarbarossa Hayreddin Pasha was a Turkish privateer and Ottoman admiral who dominated the Mediterranean for decades...
, who commanded the
Ottoman NavyThe Ottoman Navy was established in the early 14th century. During its long existence it was involved in many conflicts; refer to list of Ottoman sieges and landings and list of Admirals in the Ottoman Empire for a brief chronology.-Rise :...
during Suleiman's reign, led to a number of military victories over Christian navies. Among these were the conquest of
TunisTunis is the capital of the Tunisian Republic and also the Tunis Governorate, with a population of 1,200,000 in 2008 and over 3,980,500 in the greater Tunis area...
and
AlgeriaAlgeria , officially the People's Democratic Republic of Algeria, is a country located in North Africa. It is the largest country on the Mediterranean sea, the second largest on the African continent and the eleventh-largest country in the world in terms of land area.It is bordered by Tunisia in...
from Spain; the evacuation of Muslims and Jews from Spain to the safety of Ottoman lands (particularly Salonica,
CyprusCyprus , officially the Republic of Cyprus , is a Eurasian island country situated in the eastern Mediterranean, south of Turkey and west of Syria and Lebanon....
, and
ConstantinopleConstantinople was the imperial capital of the Roman Empire , the Byzantine/Eastern Roman Empire , the Latin Empire , and the Ottoman Empire...
) during the
Spanish InquisitionThe Spanish Inquisition was an ecclesiastical tribunal started in 1478 by Catholic Monarchs Ferdinand II of Aragon and Isabella I of Castile. It was intended to maintain Catholic orthodoxy in their kingdoms, and to replace the medieval inquisition which was under papal control...
; and the capture of
NiceNice is a city in southern France located on the Mediterranean coast, between Marseille, France, and Genoa, Italy, with 347 060 inhabitants in the 2006 estimate...
from the
Holy Roman EmpireThe Holy Roman Empire was a union of territories in Central Europe during the Middle Ages and the Early Modern period under a Holy Roman Emperor. The first emperor of the Holy Roman Empire was Otto I, crowned in 962. The last was Francis II, who abdicated and dissolved the Empire in 1806 during...
in 1543. This last conquest occurred on behalf of France as a joint venture between the forces of the French king
Francis IFrancis I , was king of France from 1515 until his death.Francis I is considered to be France's first Renaissance monarch. His reign saw France make immense cultural advances...
and those of Barbarossa.
FranceEarly Modern France is the early modern period of French history from the end of the 15th century to the end of the 18th century...
and the Ottoman Empire, united by mutual opposition to
HabsburgThe House of Habsburg or Hapsburg was an important royal house of Europe and is best known for being an origin of all of the formally elected Holy Roman Emperors between 1452 and 1740, as well as rulers of the Austrian and Spanish Empire and several other countries...
rule in both
Southern EuropeThe term Southern Europe, at its most general definition, is used to mean "all countries in the south of Europe". However, the concept, at different times, has had different meanings, providing additional political, linguistic and cultural context to the definition in addition to the typical...
and
Central EuropeCentral Europe is the region lying between the variously defined areas of Eastern and Western Europe. The term and widespread interest in the region itself came back into fashion after the end of the Cold War, which, along with the Iron Curtain, had divided Europe politically into East and West,...
, became strong allies during this period. The alliance was economic and military, as the sultans granted France the right of trade within the Empire without levy of taxation. In fact, the Ottoman Empire was by this time a significant and accepted part of the European political sphere, and entered into a military alliance with France, the
Kingdom of EnglandThe Kingdom of England was, from 927 to 1707, a sovereign state and island country to the northwest of continental Europe. At its zenith, the Kingdom of England spanned the southern two-thirds of the island of Great Britain and several smaller outlying islands—what is today the legal unit of...
and the
Dutch RepublicThe Republic of the Seven United Netherlands was a European republic between 1581 and 1795, in about the same location as the modern Kingdom of the Netherlands,...
against
Habsburg SpainHabsburg Spain refers to the history of Spain over the 16th and 17th centuries , when Spain was ruled by the major branch of the Habsburg dynasty...
, Italy and
Habsburg AustriaThe Archduchy of Austria , one of the most important states within the Holy Roman Empire, was the center of the Habsburg Monarchy and the predecessor of the Austrian Empire. Over nearly 700 years, it evolved from a margravate to the center of an empire...
.
As the 16th century progressed, Ottoman naval superiority was challenged by the growing sea powers of western Europe, particularly Portugal, in the
Persian GulfThe Persian Gulf, in the Southwest Asian region, is an extension of the Indian Ocean located between Iran and the Arabian Peninsula. Historically and commonly known as the Persian Gulf, this body of water is sometimes controversially referred to as the Arabian Gulf by most Arab states or simply The...
, Indian Ocean and the Spice Islands. With the Ottomans blockading sea-lanes to the East and South, the European powers were driven to find another way to the ancient silk and spice routes, now under Ottoman control. On land, the Empire was preoccupied by
military campaigns in AustriaThe Ottoman–Habsburg wars refers to the military conflicts between the Ottoman Empire and the Habsburg dynasties of the Austrian Empire, Habsburg Spain and in certain times, the Holy Roman Empire and the Kingdom of Hungary. The war would be dominated by land campaigns in Hungary...
and Persia, two widely separated theatres of war. The strain of these conflicts on the Empire's resources, and the logistics of maintaining lines of supply and communication across such vast distances, ultimately rendered its sea efforts unsustainable and unsuccessful. The overriding military need for defence on the western and eastern frontiers of the Empire eventually made effective long-term engagement on a global scale impossible.
Revolts and revival (1566–1683)
The effective military and bureaucratic structures of the previous century also came under strain during a protracted period of misrule by weak Sultans. But in spite of these difficulties, the Empire remained a major expansionist power until the
Battle of ViennaThe Battle of Vienna took place on 11 and 12 September 1683 after Vienna had been besieged by the Ottoman Empire for two months...
in 1683, which marked the end of
Ottoman expansion into EuropeThe wars of the Ottoman Empire in Europe are also sometimes referred to as the Ottoman Wars or as Turkish Wars, particularly in older, European texts.- Rise :...
.
European states initiated efforts at this time to curb Ottoman control of overland trade routes. Western European states began to circumvent the Ottoman trade monopoly by establishing their own naval routes to Asia. Economically, the huge influx of Spanish silver from the New World caused a sharp devaluation of the Ottoman currency and rampant inflation. This had serious negative consequences at all levels of Ottoman society.
The expansion of Muscovite Russia under Ivan IV (1533-1584) into the Volga and Caspian region at the expense of the Tartar khanates disrupted the northern pilgrimage and trade routes. A highly ambitious plan to counter this conceived by
Sokullu Mehmet PashaSokollu Mehmed Pasha was a 16th-century Ottoman statesman of Serbian descent...
, Grand Vizier under
Selim IISelim II Sarkhosh , also known as "Selim the Sot ", was the Sultan of the Ottoman Empire from 1566 until his death...
, in the shape of a Don-Volga canal link (begun June 1569), combined with an attack on Astrakhan, failed, the canal being abandoned with the onset of winter. Henceforth the Empire returned to its existing strategy of utilising the Crimean Khanate as its bulwark against Russia.
After
burning MoscowIn 1570, the Crimean Khanate terribly devastated the Ryazan borderland of Muscovy, not meeting strong resistance. In May 1571, the 120,000-strong Crimean and Turkish army led by the khan of Crimea Devlet I Giray, and Big and Small Nogai hordes and troops of Circassians, bypassed the Serpukhov...
in 1571, the Crimean khan
Devlet I GirayDevlet I Giray was a khan of the Crimean Khanate during whose long reign the khanate rose to the pinnacle of its power....
, supported by the Ottomans, developed the plan of full conquest of the
RussianThe Tsardom of Rus was the official type of government and name for the Russian state between Ivan IV's assumption of the title of Tsar in 1547 and Peter the Great's foundation of the Russian Empire in 1721....
state.
The next year, the invasion was repeated but repelled at the
Battle of MolodiThe Battle of Molodi was one of the key battles of Ivan the Terrible's reign. It was fought near the village of Molodi, 60 km south of Moscow, in July-August 1572 between the 120,000-strong horde of Devlet I Giray of Crimea and about 60,000 Russians led by Prince Mikhail Vorotynsky...
. The
Crimean KhanateThe Crimean Khanate or the Khanate of Crimea was a Crimean Tatar state from 1441 to 1783. Its native name was Crimean Yurt The Crimean Khanate or the Khanate of Crimea was a Crimean Tatar state from 1441 to 1783. Its native name was Crimean Yurt...
remained a significant power in Eastern Europe and a threat to Muscovite Russia in particular until the end of the 17th century.
In southern Europe, a coalition of Catholic powers, led by
Philip II of SpainPhilip II was King of Spain and Portugal, Naples, Sicily, and, during his wife Mary Tudor's reign, King of England and Ireland...
, formed an alliance to challenge Ottoman naval strength in the
Mediterranean SeaThe Mediterranean Sea is a sea connected to the Atlantic Ocean surrounded by the Mediterranean region and almost completely enclosed by land: on the north by Anatolia and Europe, on the south by Africa, and on the east by the Levant. The sea is technically a part of the Atlantic Ocean, although it...
. Their victory over the Ottoman fleet at the
Battle of Lepanto (1571)The Battle of Lepanto took place on 7 October 1571 when a galley fleet of the Holy League, a coalition of Spain , the Republic of Venice, the Papacy The Battle of Lepanto took place on 7 October 1571 when a galley fleet of the Holy League,...
was a startling blow to the image of Ottoman invincibility. However, historians today stress the symbolic rather than the strictly military significance of the battle, for within six months of the defeat a new Ottoman fleet of some 250 sail including eight modern galleasses had been built, with the harbours of Constantinople turning out a new ship every day at the height of the construction. In discussions with a Venetian minister, the Turkish Grand Vizier commented: "In capturing Cyprus from you, we have cut off one of your arms; in defeating our fleet you have merely shaved off our beard". The Ottoman naval recovery persuaded Venice to sign a peace treaty in 1573, and the Ottomans were able to expand and consolidate their position in North Africa.
By contrast, the
HabsburgThe House of Habsburg or Hapsburg was an important royal house of Europe and is best known for being an origin of all of the formally elected Holy Roman Emperors between 1452 and 1740, as well as rulers of the Austrian and Spanish Empire and several other countries...
frontier had settled into a more or less permanent border, marked only by relatively minor battles concentrating on the possession of individual fortresses. This stalemate was mostly caused by the European development of the trace italienne, low bastioned fortifications built by Austria along the border that were almost impossible to capture without lengthy sieges. The Ottomans had no answer to these new-style fortifications that rendered the artillery they previously used so effectively (as in the Siege of Constantinople) almost useless. The stalemate was also a reflection of simple geographical limits: in the pre-mechanized age,
ViennaVienna is the capital of the Republic of Austria and also one of the nine states of Austria. Vienna is Austria's primary city, with a population of about 1.7 million , and is by far the largest city in Austria, as well as its cultural, economic, and political centre. It is the 10th largest city by...
marked the furthest point that an Ottoman army could march from
ConstantinopleConstantinople was the imperial capital of the Roman Empire , the Byzantine/Eastern Roman Empire , the Latin Empire , and the Ottoman Empire...
during the early-spring to late-autumn campaigning season. It also reflected the difficulties imposed on the Empire by the need to maintain two separate fronts: one against the Austrians (see:
Ottoman wars in EuropeThe wars of the Ottoman Empire in Europe are also sometimes referred to as the Ottoman Wars or as Turkish Wars, particularly in older, European texts.- Rise :...
), and the other against a rival Islamic state, the Safavids of Persia (see:
Ottoman wars in Near EastOttoman wars in the Near East covers wars in the Levant, Anatolia, Mesopotamia and the Caucasus.In August 1400, Timur Lenk and his horde burned the town of Sivas to the ground and advanced into the mainland...
).
On the battlefield, the Ottomans gradually fell behind the Europeans in military technology as the innovation which fed the Empire's forceful expansion became stifled by growing religious and intellectual conservatism. Changes in European military tactics and weaponry in the
military revolutionThe Military Revolution is a term used by some historians for a radical change in military strategy and tactics that is usually placed between the late Medieval era and the Early Modern Period up to the 18th Century...
caused the once-feared
SipahiSipahi was the name of several Ottoman cavalry corps...
cavalry to lose military relevance. The 'Long War' against
HabsburgThe House of Habsburg or Hapsburg was an important royal house of Europe and is best known for being an origin of all of the formally elected Holy Roman Emperors between 1452 and 1740, as well as rulers of the Austrian and Spanish Empire and several other countries...
Austria (1593-1606) created the need for greater numbers of infantry equipped with firearms. This resulted in a relaxation of recruitment policy and a significant growth in
JanissaryThe Janissaries comprised infantry units that formed the Ottoman sultan's household troops and bodyguards...
corps numbers. This contributed to problems of indiscipline, effectiveness and outright rebelliousness within the corps which the government wrestled with but never fully solved during (and beyond) this whole period. The development of
pike and shotPike and shot is a historical method of infantry combat, and also refers to an era of European warfare generally considered to cover the period from the Italian Wars to the evolution of the bayonet in the late seventeenth century, in part developed in response to the Swedish Empire's use of a...
and later linear tactics with increased use of firearms by Europeans proved deadly against the massed infantry in close formation used by the Ottomans. Irregular sharpshooters (Sekban) were also recruited for the same reasons and on demobilisation turned to brigandage in the
Jelali revoltsJelali revolts , were a series of rebellions in Anatolia against the authority of the Ottoman Empire in the 16th and 17th centuries. The first revolt termed as such occurred in 1519, during sultan Selim I's reign, near Tokat under the leadership of Celâl, an Alevi preacher, and the name of the...
(1595–1610) which engendered widespread anarchy in Anatolia in the late 16th and early 17th centuries. With the Empire's population reaching 30,000,000 people by 1600, shortage of land placed further pressure on the government.
However, the 17th century was not simply an era of stagnation and decline, but also a key period in which the Ottoman state and its structures began to adapt to new pressures and new realities, internal and external.
The
Sultanate of womenThe Sultanate of Women was the near 130-year period during the 16th and 17th centuries when the women of the Imperial Harem of the Ottoman Empire exerted extraordinary political influence...
(1648–1656) was a period in which the political influence of the
Imperial HaremThe Imperial Harem of the Ottoman Empire was one of the most important elements of the Ottoman court. It was known in the West as "the Seraglio", an Italian term.- Harem quarters:...
was dominant, as the mothers of young sultans exercised power on behalf of their sons. This was not wholly unprecedented;
Hürrem SultanHürrem Sultan or Karima, known to Europeans informally as simply Roxelana was a legal wife of Süleyman the Magnificent of the Ottoman Empire.-Names:...
, who established herself in the early 1530s as the successor of Nurbanu, the first
Valide SultanValide Sultan was the title held by the mother of a ruling Sultan in the Ottoman Empire. The Turkish pronunciation of the word Valide is...
, was described by the Venetian
BayloA bailo, also spelled baylo, was a diplomat who oversaw the affairs of the Venetians in Constantinople, and was a permanent fixture in Constantinople around 1454 ....
Andrea Giritti as 'a woman of the utmost goodness, courage and wisdom' despite the fact that she 'thwarted some while rewarding others'. But the inadequacy of
Ibrahim IIbrahim I was the Sultan of the Ottoman Empire from 1640 until 1648. He was born in Istanbul the son of Ahmed I by Valide Sultan Kadinefendi Kösem Sultan, an ethnic Greek originally named Anastasia...
(1640-1648) and the minority accession of
Mohammed IVMohammed IV may refer to:*Ottoman Great Sultan Mehmed IV *Sultan Mohammed IV of Morocco *Sultan Muhammad Imaaduddeen IV of the Maldives *Mehmed IV Giray , khan of the Crimean Khanate...
in 1646 created a significant crisis of rule which the dominant women of the
Imperial HaremThe Imperial Harem of the Ottoman Empire was one of the most important elements of the Ottoman court. It was known in the West as "the Seraglio", an Italian term.- Harem quarters:...
filled . The most prominent women of this period were Kösem Sultan and her daughter-in-law
Turhan HaticeTurhan Hatice Sultan , was one of the hasekis of the Ottoman sultan Ibrahim I and the mother of his successor, Mehmed IV ....
, whose political rivalry culminated in Kösem's murder in 1651.
This period gave way to the highly significant
Köprülü EraThe Köprülü era was the period which Ottoman Empire's politics were set by the Grand Viziers, mainly the Köprülü family, which was a notable family of imperial bureaucrats. Köprülü family generated grand viziers to the Empire, combining ambition and ruthlessness with genuine talent...
(1656–1703), during which effective control of the Empire was exercised by a sequence of
Grand VizierGrand Vizier, in Turkish Sadr-ı Azam or Serdar-ı Ekrem , deriving from the Persian word vizier , was the greatest minister of the Sultan, with absolute power of attorney and, in principle, dismissable only by the Sultan himself...
s from the Köprülü family. On September 15, 1656 the octogenarian
Köprülü Mehmed PashaMehmed Köprülü was the Grand Vizier of the Ottoman Empire from 1656 until his death. He was also the founder of the Köprülü noble family....
accepted the seals of office having received guarantees from the Valide
Turhan HaticeTurhan Hatice Sultan , was one of the hasekis of the Ottoman sultan Ibrahim I and the mother of his successor, Mehmed IV ....
of unprecedented authority and freedom from interference. A fierce conservative disciplinarian, he successfully reasserted the central authority and the empire's military impetus. This continued under his son and successor
Köprülü Fazıl AhmedKöprülü Fazıl Ahmed Pasha , of the Köprülü family, was the grand vizier of the Ottoman Empire from 1661 when he inherited the title from his father Mehmed Köprülü. He was dubbed Fazıl, meaning fair-minded, for reducing taxation and promoting education...
(Grand Vizier 1661 - 1676).. The Köprülü Vizierate saw renewed military success with authority restored in
TransylvaniaTransylvania is a historical region in the central part of Romania. Bounded on the east and south by the Carpathian mountain range, historical Transylvania extended in the west to the Apuseni Mountains; however, the term frequently encompasses not only Transylvania proper, but also the historical...
, the conquest of
CreteCrete is the largest of the Greek islands and the fifth largest island in the Mediterranean Sea at 8,336 km²...
completed in 1669 and expansion into Polish southern
UkraineUkraine is a country in Eastern Europe. It is bordered by Russia to the east; Belarus to the north; Poland, Slovakia, and Hungary to the west; Romania and Moldova to the southwest; and the Black Sea and Sea of Azov to the south. The city of Kiev is both the capital and the largest city of...
, with the strongholds of Khotin and
Kamianets-PodilskyiKamianets-Podilskyi is a city located on the Smotrych River in western Ukraine, to the north-east of Chernivtsi...
and the territory of
PodoliaThe region of Podolia is an historical region in the west-central and south-west portions of present-day Ukraine, corresponding to Khmelnytskyi Oblast and Vinnytsia Oblast. Northern Transnistria, in Moldova is also a part of Podolia...
ceding to Ottoman control in 1676.
This period of renewed assertiveness came to a calamitous end when Grand Vizier Kara Mustafa Pasha in May 1683 led a huge army to attempt a second Ottoman siege of
ViennaVienna is the capital of the Republic of Austria and also one of the nine states of Austria. Vienna is Austria's primary city, with a population of about 1.7 million , and is by far the largest city in Austria, as well as its cultural, economic, and political centre. It is the 10th largest city by...
. The final assault being fatally delayed, the Ottoman forces were swept away by allied Habsburg, German and Polish forces spearheaded by the Polish king
Jan SobieskiJohn III Sobieski was one of the most notable monarchs of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, from 1674 until his death King of Poland and Grand Duke of Lithuania. Sobieski's 22-year-reign was marked by a period of the Commonwealth's stabilisation, much needed after the turmoil of the Deluge and...
at the
Battle of ViennaThe Battle of Vienna took place on 11 and 12 September 1683 after Vienna had been besieged by the Ottoman Empire for two months...
.
The alliance of the
Holy LeagueHoly League may refer to:* Holy League , AKA "League of Venice", alliance of several opponents of French hegemony in Italy, arranged by Pope Alexander VI...
pressed home the advantage of the defeat at Vienna and 15 years of see-sawing warfare culminated in the epochal
Treaty of KarlowitzThe Treaty of Karlowitz was signed on 26 January 1699 in Sremski Karlovci , a town in modern-day Serbia, concluding the Austro-Ottoman War of 1683–1697 in which the Ottoman side had finally been defeated at the Battle of...
(January 26, 1699) which ended the
Great Turkish WarThe Great Turkish War refers to a series of conflicts between the Ottoman Empire and contemporary European powers, then joined into a Holy League, during the second half of the 17th century.-1667-1683:...
and for the first time saw the Ottoman Empire surrender control of significant European territories (many permanently), including the
Ottoman Hungary.Ottoman Hungary refers to parts of the Ottoman Empire situated in what is today Hungary in the period from 1541 to 1699.-History:By the sixteenth century, the power of the Ottoman Empire had increased gradually, as did the territory occupied by them in the Balkans, while the Kingdom of Hungary was...
. The Empire had reached the end of its ability to effectively conduct an assertive, expansionist policy against its European rivals and it was to be forced from this point to adopt an essentially defensive strategy within this theatre.
Only two Sultans in this period personally exercised strong political and military control of the Empire: the vigorous
Murad IVMurad IV Ghazi
was the Sultan of the Ottoman Empire from 1623 to 1640, known both for restoring the authority of the state and for the brutality of his methods...
(1612–1640) recaptured
YerevanYerevan is the capital and largest city of Armenia and one of the world's oldest continuously-inhabited cities. It is situated on the Hrazdan River, and is the administrative, cultural, and industrial center of the country...
(1635) and
BaghdadBaghdad is the capital of Iraq and of Baghdad Governorate, with which it is coterminous. Having a municipal population estimated at 6.5 million, it is the largest city in Iraq and the second largest in the Arab World....
(1639) from the Safavids and reasserted central authority, albeit during a brief majority reign.
Mustafa IIMustafa II Ghazi
was the Sultan of the Ottoman Empire from 1695 to 1703.-Early life:...
(1695-1703) led the Ottoman counter attack of 1695-6 against the Habsburgs in Hungary, but was undone at the disastrous defeat at
Zenta* Zenta is a Hungarian name of Municipality in Region Vojvodina, Backa* Senta , a town in Serbia* Battle of Zenta * Zenta class, class of warships of Austro-Hungarian Navy* Zenta Knowledge Services Limited* SMS Zenta-External links:*...
(September 11, 1697).
Stagnation and reform (1699–1822)
During the
stagnation periodThe Stagnation of the Ottoman Empire is the period following the growth of the Ottoman Empire . During this period the empire continued to have military might. The next period would be shaped by the decline of their military power which followed the loss of huge territories...
much territory in the Balkans was ceded to
AustriaThe Archduchy of Austria , one of the most important states within the Holy Roman Empire, was the center of the Habsburg Monarchy and the predecessor of the Austrian Empire. Over nearly 700 years, it evolved from a margravate to the center of an empire...
. Certain areas of the Empire, such as
EgyptEgypt , officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, is a country mainly in North Africa, with the Sinai Peninsula forming a land bridge in Western Asia...
and
AlgeriaAlgeria , officially the People's Democratic Republic of Algeria, is a country located in North Africa. It is the largest country on the Mediterranean sea, the second largest on the African continent and the eleventh-largest country in the world in terms of land area.It is bordered by Tunisia in...
, became independent in all but name, and subsequently came under the influence of
BritainThe Kingdom of Great Britain, also known as the United Kingdom of Great Britain, was a sovereign state in northwest Europe, in existence from 1707 to 1801...
and France. In the 18th century, centralized authority gave way to varying degrees of provincial autonomy enjoyed by local governors and leaders. A series of wars were fought between the
RussianThe Russian Empire was a state that existed from 1721 until the Russian Revolution of 1917. It was the successor to the Tsardom of Russia, and the predecessor of the Soviet Union...
and Ottoman empires from the 18th to the 19th century.
The long period of Ottoman stagnation is typically characterized by historians as an era of failed reforms. In the latter part of this period there were educational and technological reforms, including the establishment of higher education institutions such as
Istanbul Technical UniversityIstanbul Technical University is an international technical university located in Istanbul, Turkey...
; Ottoman
science and technologyScience and Technology in the Ottoman Empire covers the topics related to achievements and distinguished events that happened during the existence of the empire. The study of scientific, cultural and intellectual aspects of Ottoman history is a very new area...
had been highly regarded in medieval times, as a result of Ottoman scholars' synthesis of classical learning with Islamic philosophy and mathematics, and knowledge of such Chinese advances in technology as gunpowder and the magnetic compass. By this period though the influences had become regressive and conservative. The guilds of writers denounced the printing press as "the Devil's Invention", and were responsible for a 43-year lag between its invention by
Johannes GutenbergJohannes Gensfleisch zur Laden zum Gutenberg was a German goldsmith and printer who is credited with being the first European to use movable type printing, in around 1439, and the global inventor of the mechanical printing press...
in Europe in 1450 and its introduction to the Ottoman society with the Gutenberg press in
ConstantinopleConstantinople was the imperial capital of the Roman Empire , the Byzantine/Eastern Roman Empire , the Latin Empire , and the Ottoman Empire...
that was established by the Sephardic Jews of Spain in 1493. Sephardic Jews migrated to the Ottoman Empire as they escaped from the
Spanish InquisitionThe Spanish Inquisition was an ecclesiastical tribunal started in 1478 by Catholic Monarchs Ferdinand II of Aragon and Isabella I of Castile. It was intended to maintain Catholic orthodoxy in their kingdoms, and to replace the medieval inquisition which was under papal control...
of 1492.
The
Tulip EraThe Tulip period or Tulip era is a period in Ottoman history from 1718 to the rebellion of Patrona Halil in 1730. This was a relatively peaceful period, during which the Ottoman Empire can be said to have begun to orient itself towards Europe.The name of the period derives from the tulip craze...
(or
Lâle Devri in Turkish), named for Sultan Ahmed III's love of the
tulipA tulip is a flower in the genus Tulipa, comprising about 150 bulbous species, and in the family Liliaceae. The native range of the species includes southern Europe, north Africa, and Asia from Anatolia and Iran in the west to northeast of China. The centre of diversity of the genus is in the Pamir...
flower and its use to symbolize his peaceful reign, the Empire's policy towards Europe underwent a shift. The region was peaceful between 1718 and 1730, after the Ottoman victory against Russia in the Pruth Campaign in 1711 and the subsequent
Treaty of PassarowitzThe Treaty of Passarowitz or Treaty of Požarevac was the peace treaty signed in Požarevac , a town in modern Serbia, on 21 July 1718 between the Ottoman Empire on one side and the Habsburg Monarchy of Austria and the Republic of Venice on the other.During the years 1714-1718,...
brought a period of pause in warfare. The Empire began to improve the fortifications of cities bordering the Balkans to act as a defence against European expansionism. Other tentative reforms were also enacted: taxes were lowered; there were attempts to improve the image of the Ottoman state; and the first instances of private investment and entrepreneurship occurred.
Ottoman military reform effortsOttoman military reform efforts began after the Belle Époque of European civilization. Ottoman military reforms follow the empire's transformation to become a modern country. It followed the same period only a couple decade later of Russia's reforms, and Japan's opening of its doors to west during...
begin with
Selim IIISelim III
was the Sultan of the Ottoman Empire from 1789 to 1807. He was a son of Mustafa III and succeeded his uncle Abdülhamid I . He was born in Istanbul. His mother was Valide Sultan Mihr-i shah...
(1789–1807) who made the first major attempts to modernize the army along European lines. These efforts, however, were hampered by reactionary movements, partly from the religious leadership, but primarily from the
JanissaryThe Janissaries comprised infantry units that formed the Ottoman sultan's household troops and bodyguards...
corps, who had become anarchic and ineffectual. Jealous of their privileges and firmly opposed to change, they created a Janissary revolt. Selim's efforts cost him his throne and his life, but were resolved in spectacular and bloody fashion by his successor, the dynamic
Mahmud IIMahmud II
was the 30th Sultan of the Ottoman Empire from 1808 until his death in 1839. He was born at Topkapi Palace, Istanbul, the son of Sultan Abdul Hamid I. His reign is notable mostly for the extensive legal and military reforms he instituted...
, who massacred the Janissary corps in 1826.
SerbiaThe origins of the history of today's Serbia lie in the Slavic settlement on the Balkans, on the territories ruled by the Byzantine Empire, between 6th and 8th centuries...
gained its autonomy from the Ottoman Empire in two uprisings in 1804 (led by Đorđe Petrović – Karađorđe) and 1815 (led by Miloš Obrenović), although Turkish troops continued to garrison the capital, Belgrade, until 1867.In 1821, the
GreeksMost of Greece was part of the Ottoman Empire from the 15th century until its declaration of independence in 1821, a historical period also known as Tourkokratia ....
declared warThe Greek War of Independence was a successful war of independence waged by the Greek revolutionaries between 1821 and 1829, with later assistance from several European powers, against the Ottoman Empire, who were assisted by their vassals, the Egyptian Khedivate and partly the Vilayet of...
to the Sultan. Through the rebellion that originated in Moldavia, as a diversion, and followed by the main revolution in the
PeloponneseThe Peloponnese or Peloponnesus is a large peninsula and region in southern Greece, forming the part of the country south of the Gulf of Corinth...
, the latter, along with the northern part of the gulf of Corinth became the first parts of the Ottoman empire to be completely liberated in 1829. Serbia,
BulgariaBulgarian nationalism emerged in the early 19th century under the influence of western ideas such as liberalism and nationalism, which trickled into the country after the French revolution, mostly via Greece, although the first Bulgarian historical text Istoriya Slavyanobolgarskaya was written in...
,
RomaniaDuring the period of Austro-Hungarian rule in Transylvania and Ottoman suzerainty over Wallachia and Moldavia, most Romanians were treated as second-class citizens in their own country...
and
MontenegroMontenegro , is a country located in Southeastern Europe. It has a coast on the Adriatic Sea to the south-west and is bordered by Croatia to the west, Bosnia and Herzegovina to the northwest, Serbia to the northeast, Kosovo to the east and Albania to the south...
followed in the 1870s.
Decline and modernization (1828–1908)
Ottoman decline (loss of huge territories) is typically characterized by historians also as an era of modern times. The Empire lost territory on all fronts, and there was administrative instability because of the breakdown of centralized government, despite efforts of reform and reorganization such as the
TanzimatThe Tanzimat , meaning reorganization of the Ottoman Empire, was a period of reformation that began in 1839 and ended with the First Constitutional Era in 1876. The Tanzimat reform era was characterized by various attempts to modernize the Ottoman Empire, to secure its territorial integrity against...
. During this period, the Empire faced challenges in defending itself against foreign invasion and occupation. The Empire ceased to enter conflicts on its own and began to forge alliances with European countries such as France, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, and Russia. As an example, in the 1853
Crimean WarThe Crimean War was fought between the Russian Empire on one side and an alliance of the British Empire, France, the Ottoman Empire and the Kingdom of Sardinia on the other. The war was part of a long-running contest between the major European powers for influence over territories of the declining...
the Ottomans united with the British, French, and others against Russia. The Crimean War caused an exodus of the
Crimean TatarsCrimean Tatars or Crimeans are a Turkic ethnic group originally residing in Crimea. They speak the Crimean Tatar language...
. Of total Tatar population 300,000 of the Tauride Province about 200,000 Crimean Tatars moved to the Ottoman Empire in continuing waves of emigration. Towards the end of the Caucasian Wars many
CircassiansCircassians is a term derived from the Turkic Cherkess . Generically it refers to the Caucasian peoples of northwest Caucasus. It might be understood in a narrower sense , or in a broader sense...
fled their homelands in the
CaucasusThe Caucasus or Caucas is a geopolitical region between at the border of Europe and Asia. It is home to the Caucasus Mountains, including Europe's highest mountain ....
and settled in the Ottoman Empire. Since the 19th century, an exodus by the large portion of
MuslimIslam Islam Islam ( al-’islām,
[There are ten pronunciations of Islam in English, differing in whether the first or second syllable has the stress, whether the s is or , and whether the a is pronounced as in father, as in cat, or (when the stress is on the i) as in the a of sofa...]
peoples (who are termed "
MuhacirMuhacir is a term of Arabic origin in Turkish language, used across ethnicities, and that corresponds to people whose ancestors migrated from formerly Muslim territories , considered lost to the non-Muslims : the Balkans Muhacir (sometimes maacir in colloquial Turkish) is a term of Arabic origin...
" under a general definition) from the
BalkansThe Balkans is a geopolitical and cultural region of southeastern Europe...
,
CaucasusThe Caucasus or Caucas is a geopolitical region between at the border of Europe and Asia. It is home to the Caucasus Mountains, including Europe's highest mountain ....
,
CrimeaCrimea or the Autonomous Republic of Crimea is the only autonomous republic of Ukraine. It is located on the northern coast of the Black Sea, occupying a peninsula of the same name.The territory of Crimea was conquered and controlled many times throughout its history...
and
CreteCrete is the largest of the Greek islands and the fifth largest island in the Mediterranean Sea at 8,336 km²...
, took refuge in present-day Turkey and moulded the country's fundamental features.
During the
Tanzimat periodThe Tanzimat , meaning reorganization of the Ottoman Empire, was a period of reformation that began in 1839 and ended with the First Constitutional Era in 1876. The Tanzimat reform era was characterized by various attempts to modernize the Ottoman Empire, to secure its territorial integrity against...
(from
ArabicArabic is a Central Semitic language, thus related to and classified alongside other Semitic languages such as Hebrew and the Neo-Aramaic languages. In terms of speakers, the Arabic macrolanguage is the largest member of the Semitic language family. It is spoken by more than 280 million people as...
Tanzîmât, meaning "reorganization") (1839–1876), a series of constitutional reforms led to a fairly modern conscripted army, banking system reforms, and the replacement of
guildA guild is an association of craftsmen in a particular trade.The earliest guilds were formed as confraternities of workers. They were organized in a manner something between a trade union, a cartel and a secret society...
s with modern
factoriesA factory or manufacturing plant is an industrial building where workers manufacture goods or supervise machines processing one product into another. Most modern factories have large warehouses or warehouse-like facilities that contain heavy equipment used for assembly line production...
. In 1856, the
Hatt-ı Hümayun promised equality for all Ottoman citizens irrespective of their ethnicity and confession, widening the scope of the 1839
Hatt-ı Şerif of GülhaneThe Hatt-i Sharif of Gülhane was an 1839 proclamation by Ottoman Sultan Abdülmecid I that launched the Tanzimat period of reforms and reorganization....
. The Christian millets gained privileges, such as in the
Armenian National ConstitutionArmenian National Constitution or Regulation of the Armenian Nation was Ottoman Empire approved form of the "Code of Regulations" composed of 150 articles drafted by the Armenian intelligentsia Armenian National Constitution or Regulation of the Armenian Nation (Turkish:"Nizâmnâme-i Millet-i...
(Ottoman Turkish:
Nizâmnâme-i Millet-i Ermeniyân) of 1863, which was the
DivanThe Sublime Porte is a synecdoche for the Ottoman Empire, by reference to the High Gate of the Divan .- Terminology :...
approved form of the
Code of Regulations composed of 150 articles drafted by the Armenian intelligentsia, and the newly formed
Armenian National AssemblyArmenian National Assembly was the governing body of the Armenian Millet established by Armenian National Constitution of 1863 under Ottoman Empire....
.
The reformist period peaked with the Constitution, called the
Kanûn-ı EsâsîThe Kanûn-ı Esâsî was the first constitution of the Ottoman Empire. Meaning "basic law" in Ottoman Turkish, it was written by members of the Young Ottomans, particularly Ahmed Şefik Midhat Pasha, during the reign of Sultan Abdülhamid II...
(meaning "
Basic LawThe term basic law is used in some places as an alternative to "constitution", implying it is a temporary but necessary measure without formal enactment of constitution. A Basic Law is either a codified constitution, or in countries with uncodified constitutions, a law given to have constitution...
" in Ottoman Turkish), written by members of the
Young OttomansThe Young Ottomans were a group of Ottoman nationalist intellectuals formed in 1865, influenced by such Western thinkers as Montesquieu and Rousseau and the French Revolution. They developed the concept of Ottomanism, aligned with these thinkers...
, which was promulgated on November 23, 1876. It established the freedom of belief and equality of all citizens before the law. The Empire's
First Constitutional eraThe First Constitutional Era of the Ottoman Empire was the period of constitutional monarchy from the promulgation of the Kanûn-ı Esâsî , written by members of the Young Ottomans, on 23 November 1876 until 13 February 1878...
(or
Birinci Meşrûtiyet Devri in Turkish), was short-lived; however, the idea behind it (
OttomanismOttomanism was a concept which developed prior to the First Constitutional Era of the Ottoman Empire. Its proponents believed that it could solve the social issues that the empire was facing. Ottomanism was highly affected by thinkers such as Montesquieu and Rousseau and the French Revolution. It...
), proved influential as a wide-ranging group of reformers known as the
Young OttomansThe Young Ottomans were a group of Ottoman nationalist intellectuals formed in 1865, influenced by such Western thinkers as Montesquieu and Rousseau and the French Revolution. They developed the concept of Ottomanism, aligned with these thinkers...
, primarily educated in Western
universitiesA university is an institution of higher education and research, which grants academic degrees in a variety of subjects. A university provides both undergraduate education and postgraduate education...
, believed that a
constitutional monarchyA constitutional monarchy is a form of government in which a monarch acts as head of state within the parameters of a written , unwritten or blended constitution...
would provide an answer to the Empire's growing social unrest. Through a military coup in 1876, they forced Sultan
AbdülazizAbdülaziz I or Abd Al-Aziz, His Imperial Majesty was the 32nd Sultan of the Ottoman Empire and reigned between 25 June 1861 and 30 May 1876...
(1861–1876) to abdicate in favour of
Murad VMehmed Murad V was the 33rd Sultan of the Ottoman Empire who reigned from 30 May to 31 August 1876.He was born at Istanbul, Topkapı Palace. His father was Abdülmecid I...
. However, Murad V was mentally ill, and was deposed within a few months. His heir-apparent Abdülhamid II (1876-1909) was invited to assume power on the condition that he would declare a constitutional monarchy, which he did on November 23, 1876. However, the parliament survived for only two years. The sultan suspended, but did not abolish, the parliament until he was forced to reconvene it. The effectiveness of the
Kanûn-ı EsâsîThe Kanûn-ı Esâsî was the first constitution of the Ottoman Empire. Meaning "basic law" in Ottoman Turkish, it was written by members of the Young Ottomans, particularly Ahmed Şefik Midhat Pasha, during the reign of Sultan Abdülhamid II...
was then largely minimized.
The
rise of nationalismThe rise of the Western notion of nationalism under the Ottoman Empire eventually caused the break-down of the Ottoman millet concept...
swept through many countries during the 19th century, and the Ottoman Empire was not immune. A burgeoning
national consciousnessNationalism is an ideology, a sentiment, a form of culture, or a social movement that focuses on the nation. It is a type of collectivism emphasizing the collective of a specific nation...
, together with a growing sense of
ethnic nationalismEthnic nationalism is a form of nationalism wherein the "nation" is defined in terms of ethnicity. Whatever specific ethnicity is involved, ethnic nationalism always includes some element of descent from previous generations...
, made nationalistic thought one of the most significant Western ideas imported to the Ottoman empire, as it was forced to deal with nationalism both within and beyond its borders. There was a significant increase in the number of revolutionary political parties. Uprisings in Ottoman territory had many far-reaching consequences during the 19th century and determined much of Ottoman policy during the early 20th century. Many Ottoman Turks questioned whether the policies of the state were to blame: some felt that the sources of ethnic conflict were external, and unrelated to issues of governance. While this era was not without some successes, the ability of the Ottoman state to have any effect on ethnic uprisings was seriously called into question.
In 1821
GreeceGreece , officially the Hellenic Republic , is a country in southeastern Europe, situated on the southern end of the Balkan Peninsula....
became the first Balkan country to declare its independence from the Ottoman Empire (officially recognized by the
PorteThe Sublime Porte is a synecdoche for the Ottoman Empire, by reference to the High Gate of the Divan .- Terminology :...
in 1829) after the end of the
Greek War of IndependenceThe Greek War of Independence was a successful war of independence waged by the Greek revolutionaries between 1821 and 1829, with later assistance from several European powers, against the Ottoman Empire, who were assisted by their vassals, the Egyptian Khedivate and partly the Vilayet of...
.
The
TanzimatThe Tanzimat , meaning reorganization of the Ottoman Empire, was a period of reformation that began in 1839 and ended with the First Constitutional Era in 1876. The Tanzimat reform era was characterized by various attempts to modernize the Ottoman Empire, to secure its territorial integrity against...
reforms did not halt the rise of nationalism in the
Danubian PrincipalitiesDanubian Principalities was a conventional name given to the Principalities of Moldavia and Wallachia, which emerged in the early 14th century. The term was coined in the Habsburg Monarchy after the Treaty of Kuchuk Kainarji in order to designate an area on the lower Danube with a common...
and
SerbiaSerbia , officially the Republic of Serbia , is a country located in both Central and Southeastern Europe. Its territory covers the southern part of the Pannonian Plain and central part of the Balkans...
, which had been semi-independent for almost six decades; in 1875 the tributary principalities of Serbia,
MontenegroMontenegro , is a country located in Southeastern Europe. It has a coast on the Adriatic Sea to the south-west and is bordered by Croatia to the west, Bosnia and Herzegovina to the northwest, Serbia to the northeast, Kosovo to the east and Albania to the south...
and
RomaniaRomania is a country located in Southeastern and Central Europe, North of the Balkan Peninsula, on the Lower Danube, within and outside the Carpathian arch, bordering on the Black Sea. Almost all of the Danube Delta is located within its territory...
(comprising
WallachiaWallachia or Walachia is a historical and geographical region of Romania. It is situated north of the Danube and south of the Southern Carpathians...
and
MoldaviaMoldavia is a geographic and historical region and former principality in Eastern Europe, corresponding to the territory between the Eastern Carpathians and the Dniester river...
) unilaterally declared their independence from the Empire; and following the Russo-Turkish War of 1877-1878, independence was formally granted to all three belligerent nations.
BulgariaBulgaria , officially the Republic of Bulgaria , is a country in the Balkans in south-eastern Europe. Bulgaria borders five other countries: Romania to the north , Serbia and the Republic of Macedonia to the west, and Greece and Turkey to the south...
also achieved virtual independence (as the
Principality of BulgariaThe Principality of Bulgaria was a self-governing entity created as a vassal of the Ottoman Empire by the Treaty of Berlin in 1878. The preliminary treaty of San Stefano between the Russian Empire and the Porte , on March 3, had originally proposed a significantly larger Bulgarian territory: its...
) whose volunteers had participated in the Russo-Turkish war on the side of the rebelling nations.
The Vilayet of BosniaThe arrival of the Ottoman Turks marked a new era in Bosnian history.-Ottoman Rule:The Turks had conquered Slavonia and most of Hungary by 1541. In the next century, most of the Bosnian province wasn't a borderland and developed in relative peace...
and the
Sanjak of Novi PazarThe Sanjak of Novi Pazar was an Ottoman sanjak that existed until the Balkan Wars of 1912-1913 in the territory of present day Montenegro, Serbia and Kosovo.-History:It was part of the Ottoman province of Bosnia and later Kosovo Province...
were partially occupied by the forces of
Austria-HungaryAustria–Hungary, also known as the Austro-Hungarian Empire, the Dual Monarchy or the k.u.k. Monarchy, or Dual State, was a monarchic union between the crowns of the Austrian Empire and the Kingdom of Hungary in Central Europe...
following the
Congress of BerlinThe Congress of Berlin was a meeting of the European Great Powers' and the Ottoman Empire's leading statesmen in Berlin in 1878. In the wake of the Russo-Turkish War of 1877–78, the meeting's aim was to reorganize the countries of the Balkans...
in 1878, but they nominally remained as Ottoman territories (
Bosnia and HerzegovinaBosnia and Herzegovina Bosnia and Herzegovina Bosnia and Herzegovina ( or (Bosnian, Croatian, Serbian Latin: Bosna i Hercegovina; Serbian Cyrillic: Босна и Херцеговина) is a country in Southeast Europe, on the Balkan Peninsula...
until the
Bosnian crisisThe Bosnian Crisis of 1908-1909, also known as the Annexation crisis, erupted into public view when on October 5, 1908, Bulgaria declared its independence and on October 6, 1908, Austria-Hungary announced the annexation of Bosnia and Herzegovina. Russia, the Ottoman Empire, Britain, Italy, Serbia,...
in 1908,
Novi PazarSandžak is a historical region lying along the border between Serbia and Montenegro...
until the
First Balkan WarThe Balkan Wars were two wars in South-eastern Europe in 1912–1913. The First Balkan War broke out on 8 October 1912 when Bulgaria, Greece, Montenegro and Serbia , having large parts of their ethnic populations under Ottoman sovereignty, attacked the Ottoman Empire, terminating its five-century...
in 1912), with the continuing presence of Ottoman soldiers.
CyprusCyprus , officially the Republic of Cyprus , is a Eurasian island country situated in the eastern Mediterranean, south of Turkey and west of Syria and Lebanon....
was rented to the British in 1878 in exchange for Britain's favours at the
Congress of BerlinThe Congress of Berlin was a meeting of the European Great Powers' and the Ottoman Empire's leading statesmen in Berlin in 1878. In the wake of the Russo-Turkish War of 1877–78, the meeting's aim was to reorganize the countries of the Balkans...
.
EgyptEgypt , officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, is a country mainly in North Africa, with the Sinai Peninsula forming a land bridge in Western Asia...
, which had previously been occupied by the forces of
Napoleon I of FranceNapoleon Bonaparte later known as Napoleon I, and previously Napoleone di Buonaparte, was a military and political leader of France whose actions shaped European politics in the early 19th century.Born in Corsica and trained as an artillery officer in mainland France, Bonaparte rose to prominence...
in 1798 but recovered in 1801 by a joint Ottoman-British force, was occupied in 1882 by British forces on the pretext of bringing order; though Egypt and Sudan remained as Ottoman provinces
de jureDe jure is an expression that means "concerning law", as contrasted with de facto, which means "concerning fact"....
until 1914, when the Ottoman Empire joined the
Central PowersThe Central Powers was one of the two sides that participated in World War I, the other being the Entente Powers.-Member states:...
of
World War IWorld War I , also known as the First World War, the Great War, and the War to End All Wars, was a global military conflict which involved most of the world's great powers, assembled in two opposing alliances: the Triple Entente and the Triple Alliance...
, and Britain officially annexed these two provinces and Cyprus as a response. Other Ottoman provinces in
North AfricaNorth Africa or Northern Africa is the northernmost region of the African continent, linked by the Sahara to Sub-Saharan Africa.Geopolitically, the UN definition of Northern Africa includes the following seven countries or territories; Algeria, Egypt, Libya, Morocco, Sudan, Tunisia,Mauritania, and...
were lost between 1830 and 1912, starting from
AlgeriaAlgeria , officially the People's Democratic Republic of Algeria, is a country located in North Africa. It is the largest country on the Mediterranean sea, the second largest on the African continent and the eleventh-largest country in the world in terms of land area.It is bordered by Tunisia in...
(occupied by France in 1830),
TunisiaTunisia , officially the Tunisian Republic , is a country located in North Africa. It is bordered by Algeria to the west and Libya to the southeast. Tunisia is located southwest of the island of Sicily and south of Sardinia. Its size is almost 165,000 km² with an estimated population of just...
(occupied by France in 1881) and
LibyaLibya , officially the Great Socialist People's Libyan Arab Jamahiriya , is a country located in North Africa...
(occupied by Italy in 1912.)
The
ArmeniansThe Armenians are a nation and ethnic group which originated in the Caucasus and the Armenian Highland. It is estimated that there are 8 million Armenians around the world. There is a large concentration of Armenians in the Caucasus, especially in Armenia, and there is a significant presence in...
, who were granted their own
constitutionArmenian National Constitution or Regulation of the Armenian Nation was Ottoman Empire approved form of the "Code of Regulations" composed of 150 articles drafted by the Armenian intelligentsia Armenian National Constitution or Regulation of the Armenian Nation (Turkish:"Nizâmnâme-i Millet-i...
and
national assemblyArmenian National Assembly was the governing body of the Armenian Millet established by Armenian National Constitution of 1863 under Ottoman Empire....
with the
TanzimatThe Tanzimat , meaning reorganization of the Ottoman Empire, was a period of reformation that began in 1839 and ended with the First Constitutional Era in 1876. The Tanzimat reform era was characterized by various attempts to modernize the Ottoman Empire, to secure its territorial integrity against...
reforms, began pressing the Ottoman government for greater autonomy after the Russo-Turkish War of 1877-1878 and the
Congress of BerlinThe Congress of Berlin was a meeting of the European Great Powers' and the Ottoman Empire's leading statesmen in Berlin in 1878. In the wake of the Russo-Turkish War of 1877–78, the meeting's aim was to reorganize the countries of the Balkans...
in 1878. A number of Armenian uprisings took place in the cities of
AnatoliaAnatolia is a geographic region of Western Asia, comprising most of the modern Republic of Turkey. The region is bounded by the Black Sea to the north, the Caucasus to the northeast, the Iranian plateau to the southeast, the Mediterranean Sea to the south and the Aegean Sea to the west...
, leading Sultan
Abdul Hamid IIHis Imperial Majesty, The Sultan Abdülhamid II, Emperor of the Ottomans, Caliph of the Faithful, , was the 34th sultan of the Ottoman Empire...
responded to these uprisings and attacks by establishing the
Hamidiye regimentsHamidieh soldiers were irregular Kurdish cavalry, well-armed and called "the Hamidieh" after the Sultan Abd-ul-Hamid II.-Organization:In 1891 Sultan Abd al Hamid authorized the establishment of an irregular mounted force in eastern Anatolia, designating it after himself, the Hamidiya Cavalry...
in eastern Anatolia, formed mostly of irregular
cavalryCavalry were soldiers or warriors who fought mounted on horseback in combat. Cavalry were historically the second oldest and most mobile of the combat arms...
units of recruited Kurds. From 1894–96 anywhere between 100,000 to 300,000 Armenians living all throughout the empire were killed in what became known as the
Hamidian massacresThe Hamidian massacres, also referred to as the Armenian Massacres of 1894-1896, refers to the massacring of Armenians by the Ottoman Empire, with estimates of the dead ranging from 80,000 to 300,000, and at least 50,000 orphans as a result...
. Armenian militants seized the Ottoman Bank headquarters in Constantinople in 1896 to bring European attention to the massacres, although they failed in this endeavour.
Economically, the Empire had difficulty in repaying the
Ottoman public debtThe Ottoman public debt was a term dated back to 1854, when the Ottoman Empire first entered into loan contracts with its European creditors shortly after the beginning with the Crimean War. The Empire entered into subsequent loans, partly to finance railway construction and partly to finance...
to European banks, which caused the establishment of the
Council of Administration of the Ottoman Public DebtThe Ottoman Public Debt Administration , established 1881, was a European-controlled organization set up to collect the payments that the Ottoman Empire owed to companies in Europe, Ottoman public debt. The OPDA became a vast, essentially independent bureaucracy within the Ottoman bureaucracy, run...
. By the end of the 19th century, the main reason the Empire was not entirely overrun by Western powers came from the Balance of Power doctrine. Both Austria and Russia wanted to increase their spheres of influence and territory at the expense of the Ottoman Empire, but were kept in check mostly by the United Kingdom, which feared Russian dominance in the Eastern Mediterranean.
Dissolution (1908–1922)
The
Second Constitutional EraThe Second Constitutional Era of the Ottoman Empire began shortly after Sultan Abdülhamid II restored the constitutional monarchy after the 1908 Young Turk Revolution. The period established many political groups...
began after the
Young Turk RevolutionThe Young Turk Revolution of 1908 reversed the suspension of the Ottoman parliament by Sultan Abdul Hamid II, marking the onset of the Second Constitutional Era...
(July 3, 1908) with the sultan's announcement of the restoration of the 1876 constitution and the reconvening of the Ottoman Parliament. It marks the
dissolution of the Ottoman EmpireThe dissolution of the Ottoman Empire was the period following the decline of the Ottoman Empire , including the watershed events of the Young Turk Revolution and the establishment of the second constitutional era, and ending with the partitioning of the Empire by the victorious sides of World War...
. This era is dominated by the politics of the
Committee of Union and ProgressThe Committee of Union and Progress began as a secret society established as the "Committee of Ottoman Union" in 1889 by the medical students İbrahim Temo, Abdullah Cevdet, İshak Sükuti and Hüseyinzade Ali...
, and the movement that would become known as the
Young TurksThe Young Turks were a coalition of various groups favoring reformation of the administration of the Ottoman Empire. The movement was against the monarchy of Ottoman Sultan and favored a re-installation of the shortlived Kanûn-ı Esâsî constitution...
. Profiting from the civil strife,
Austria-HungaryAustria–Hungary, also known as the Austro-Hungarian Empire, the Dual Monarchy or the k.u.k. Monarchy, or Dual State, was a monarchic union between the crowns of the Austrian Empire and the Kingdom of Hungary in Central Europe...
officially annexed
Bosnia and HerzegovinaBosnia and Herzegovina Bosnia and Herzegovina Bosnia and Herzegovina ( or (Bosnian, Croatian, Serbian Latin: Bosna i Hercegovina; Serbian Cyrillic: Босна и Херцеговина) is a country in Southeast Europe, on the Balkan Peninsula...
in 1908, but pulled its troops out of the
Sanjak of Novi PazarThe Sanjak of Novi Pazar was an Ottoman sanjak that existed until the Balkan Wars of 1912-1913 in the territory of present day Montenegro, Serbia and Kosovo.-History:It was part of the Ottoman province of Bosnia and later Kosovo Province...
, another contested region between the Austrians and Ottomans, in order to avoid a war. During the
Italo-Turkish WarThe Italo-Turkish or Turco-Italian War was fought between the Ottoman Empire and the Kingdom of Italy from September 29, 1911 to October 18, 1912.As a result of this conflict, Italy was awarded the Ottoman provinces of Tripolitania, Fezzan, and Cyrenaica...
(1911-1912) in which the Ottoman Empire lost
LibyaLibya , officially the Great Socialist People's Libyan Arab Jamahiriya , is a country located in North Africa...
, the
Balkan LeagueThe Balkan League was an alliance formed by a series of bilateral treaties concluded in 1912 between the Christian Balkan states and directed against the Ottoman Empire, which at the time still controlled much of the Balkan peninsula...
declared war against the Ottoman Empire, which lost its Balkan territories except eastern
ThraceThrace is a historical and geographic area in southeast Europe. As a geographical concept, Thrace designates a region bounded on the north by the Balkan Mountains, on the south by the Rhodope Mountains and the Aegean Sea and on the east by the Black Sea and the Sea of Marmara...
and the historic Ottoman capital city of
EdirneEdirne is a city in Thrace, the westernmost part of Turkey, close to the borders with Greece and Bulgaria. Edirne served as the capital city of the Ottoman Empire from 1365 to 1453, when Constantinople became the empire's new capital. At present, Edirne is the capital of the Edirne Province in...
(Adrianople) with the
Balkan WarsThe Balkan Wars were two wars in South-eastern Europe in 1912–1913. The First Balkan War broke out on 8 October 1912 when Bulgaria, Greece, Montenegro and Serbia , having large parts of their ethnic populations under Ottoman sovereignty, attacked the Ottoman Empire, terminating its five-century...
(1912–1913). Some 400,000 Muslims, out of fear for Greek, Serbian or Bulgarian atrocities, left with the retreating Ottoman army. The
Baghdad RailwayThe Baghdad Railway , built from 1903 to 1940, was planned to connect the Ottoman Empire cities of Konya and Bagdad with a new line through modern-day Turkey, Syria and Iraq....
under German control became a source of international tension and played a role in the origins of
World War IWorld War I , also known as the First World War, the Great War, and the War to End All Wars, was a global military conflict which involved most of the world's great powers, assembled in two opposing alliances: the Triple Entente and the Triple Alliance...
.
The Young Turk government had signed a secret treaty establishing the
Ottoman-German AllianceThe Ottoman-German Alliance was established between the Ottoman Empire and the German Empire on August 2nd, 1914. It was this binding alliance that ultimately led the Ottoman Empire to enter the First World War on the side of the Central Powers....
in August 1914, aimed against the common Russian enemy but aligning the Empire with the German side. The Ottoman Empire entered the First World War after the
Goeben and Breslau incidentThe pursuit of Goeben and Breslau was a naval action that occurred in the Mediterranean Sea at the outbreak of the First World War when elements of the British Mediterranean Fleet attempted to intercept the German Mittelmeerdivision comprising the battlecruiser SMS Goeben and the light cruiser SMS...
, in which it gave safe harbour to two German ships which were fleeing British ships. These ships then – after having officially been transferred to the
Ottoman NavyThe Ottoman Navy was established in the early 14th century. During its long existence it was involved in many conflicts; refer to list of Ottoman sieges and landings and list of Admirals in the Ottoman Empire for a brief chronology.-Rise :...
, but effectively still under German control – attacked the Russian port of
SevastopolSevastopol is a port city in Ukraine, located on the Black Sea coast of the Crimea peninsula. It has a population of 342,451...
, thus dragging the Empire into the war on the side of the
Central PowersThe Central Powers was one of the two sides that participated in World War I, the other being the Entente Powers.-Member states:...
, in which it took part in the
Middle Eastern theatreThe Middle Eastern theatre of World War I was the scene of action between 2 November, 1914, and 29 October, 1918. The combatants were the Ottoman Empire, with some assistance from the other Central Powers, and primarily the British and the Russians among the Allies of World War I...
. There were several important Ottoman victories in the early years of the war, such as the
Battle of GallipoliThe Gallipoli Campaign took place at Gallipoli peninsula in Turkey from 25 April 1915 to 9 January 1916, during the First World War. A joint British Empire and French operation was mounted to capture the Ottoman capital of Istanbul, and secure a sea route to Russia...
and the
Siege of KutThe Siege of Kut was a major battle of World War I. It was part of the Mesopotamian Campaign . The British Empire's Indian Expeditionary Force D was defeated by Ottoman forces and later surrendered....
; but there were setbacks as well, such as the disastrous
Caucasus CampaignThe Caucasus Campaign comprised armed conflicts between the Ottoman Empire and the Russian Empire, later including Azerbaijan, Armenia, Central Caspian Dictatorship and the UK as part of the Middle Eastern theatre or alternatively named as part of the Caucasian Front during World War I...
against the Russians.
In 1915, as the
Russian Caucasus ArmyThe Russian Caucasus Army of World War I was the Russian field army that fought at the Caucasus Front. The Army was engaged at Caucasus Campaign and Persian Campaign...
continued to advance in eastern
AnatoliaAnatolia is a geographic region of Western Asia, comprising most of the modern Republic of Turkey. The region is bounded by the Black Sea to the north, the Caucasus to the northeast, the Iranian plateau to the southeast, the Mediterranean Sea to the south and the Aegean Sea to the west...
with the help of
Armenian volunteer unitsArmenian volunteer units or "Armenian volunteer corps" were Armenian battalions in Russian and British armies during the World War I. The Armenian force during this period also included French Armenian Legion which was established under the French army and Armenian militia which were irregular...
from the
CaucasusThe Caucasus or Caucas is a geopolitical region between at the border of Europe and Asia. It is home to the Caucasus Mountains, including Europe's highest mountain ....
region of the
Russian EmpireThe Russian Empire was a state that existed from 1721 until the Russian Revolution of 1917. It was the successor to the Tsardom of Russia, and the predecessor of the Soviet Union...
, and aided by some Ottoman Armenians, the Ottoman government decided to use this as a pretext to begin their
extermination of the whole of the entire Armenian populationThe Armenian Genocide , also known as the Armenian Holocaust, the Armenian Massacres and, by Armenians, as the Great Calamity , was the deliberate and systematic destruction of the Armenian population of the Ottoman Empire during and just after World War I...
. Through forced marches and massacres, the Armenians living in eastern Anatolia were uprooted from their ancestral homelands and sent southwards to the Ottoman provinces in
SyriaSyria , officially the Syrian Arab Republic , is a country in Western Asia, bordering Lebanon and the Mediterranean Sea to the west, Turkey to the north, Iraq to the east, Jordan to the south and Israel to the southwest....
and
MesopotamiaMesopotamia "land between the rivers" is a name for the Tigris–Euphrates region in the eastern Mediterranean, largely corresponding to Iraq, as well as northeastern Syria, some parts of southeastern Turkey, and some parts of the Khūzestān Province of southwestern...
. Estimates vary on how many Armenians perished during the Armenian Genocide but scholars give figures ranging from 600,000 to up to 1.5 million.
The
Arab RevoltThe Arab Revolt was initiated by the Sherif Hussein ibn Ali with the aim of securing independence from the ruling Ottoman Turks and creating a single unified Arab state spanning from Aleppo in Syria to Aden in Yemen.- Background :The rise of nationalism under the Ottoman Empire goes back to 1821...
which began in 1916 turned the tide against the Ottomans at the Middle Eastern front, where they initially seemed to have the upper hand during the first two years of the war. When the
Armistice of MudrosThe Armistice of Moudros ended the hostilities in the Middle Eastern theatre between the Ottoman Empire and the Allies of World War I...
was signed on October 30, 1918, the only parts of the
Arabian peninsulaThe Arabian Peninsula , Arabia, Arabistan, and the Arabian subcontinent is a peninsula in Southwest Asia at the junction of Africa and Asia...
that were still under Ottoman control were
YemenYemen , officially the Republic of Yemen is a country located on the Arabian Peninsula in Southwest Asia...
, Asir, the city of
MedinaMedina is a city in the Hejaz region of western Saudi Arabia, and serves as the capital of the Al Madinah Province...
, portions of northern
SyriaSyria , officially the Syrian Arab Republic , is a country in Western Asia, bordering Lebanon and the Mediterranean Sea to the west, Turkey to the north, Iraq to the east, Jordan to the south and Israel to the southwest....
and portions of northern
IraqIraq , officially the Republic of Iraq , also known as Mesopotamia, is a country in Western Asia spanning most of the northwestern end of the Zagros mountain range, the eastern part of the Syrian Desert and the northern part of the Arabian Desert.Iraq shares borders with Jordan to the west, Syria...
. These territories were handed over to the British forces on January 23, 1919. The Ottomans were also ordered to evacuate the parts of the former
Russian EmpireThe Russian Empire was a state that existed from 1721 until the Russian Revolution of 1917. It was the successor to the Tsardom of Russia, and the predecessor of the Soviet Union...
in the
CaucasusThe Caucasus or Caucas is a geopolitical region between at the border of Europe and Asia. It is home to the Caucasus Mountains, including Europe's highest mountain ....
(in present-day
GeorgiaGeorgia Georgia Georgia is a country in the Caucasus region of Eurasia. Situated at the juncture of Western Asia and Eastern Europe, it is bounded to the west by the Black Sea, to the north by Russia, to the south by Turkey and Armenia, and to the east by Azerbaijan...
,
ArmeniaArmenia , officially the Republic of Armenia , is a landlocked mountainous country in the Caucasus region of Eurasia...
and
AzerbaijanAzerbaijan , formally the Republic of Azerbaijan , is a country in the Caucasus region of Eurasia. Located at the crossroads of Western Asia and Eastern Europe, it is bounded by the Caspian Sea to the east, Russia to the north, Georgia to the northwest, Armenia to the west, and Iran to the south...
) which they had gained towards the end of WWI, following Russia's retreat from the war with the Russian Revolution in 1917.
Under the terms of the
Treaty of SèvresThe Treaty of Sèvres was the peace treaty between the Ottoman Empire and Allies at the end of World War I. The Treaty of Versailles was signed with Germany before this treaty to annul the German concessions including the economic rights and enterprises. Also, France, Great Britain and Italy...
, the
partitioning of the Ottoman EmpireThe Partitioning of the Ottoman Empire was a political event that occurred after World War I. The huge conglomeration of territories and peoples formerly ruled by the Sultan of the Ottoman Empire was divided into several new nations....
was solidified. The new countries created from the former territories of the Ottoman Empire currently number 40 (including the disputed
Turkish Republic of Northern CyprusThe Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus , commonly called Northern Cyprus or North Cyprus , is a de facto independent republic located in the north of Cyprus. The TRNC declared its independence in 1983, nine years after a Greek Cypriot coup attempting to annex the island to Greece triggered an...
.)
The occupation of Constantinople along with the
occupation of SmyrnaThe Occupation of İzmir established between 21 May 1918 to 8 September 1922 by Greek forces under the High Commissioner Aristidis Stergiadis in the İzmir district aligned with the Allied partitioning of the Ottoman Empire. There was no military hostilities between Greece and the Ottoman Empire...
mobilized the
establishment of the Turkish national movement"The establishment of the Turkish national movement" explains the creation of the Grand National Assembly of Turkey. The establishment of an alliance of Turkish revolutionaries during the partitioning of the Ottoman Empire resulted in the declaration of the Republic of Turkey and abolishment of the...
, which won the
Turkish War of IndependenceThe Turkish War of Independence is the political and military resistance developed by Turkish Nationalists to the Allied partitioning of the Ottoman Empire after its defeat in World War I...
(1919–1922) under the leadership of Mustafa Kemal Pasha. The Sultanate was abolished on November 1, 1922, and the last sultan,
Mehmed VI VahdettinMehmed VI Wahid ed-din was the 36th and last Sultan of the Ottoman Empire, reigning from 1918 to 1922. The brother of Mehmed V, he succeeded to the throne as the eldest male member of the House of Osman after the 1916 suicide of Abdülaziz's son Yusuf Izzettin, the heir to the throne...
(reigned 1918–1922), left the country on November 17, 1922. The new independent
Grand National Assembly of TurkeyThe Grand National Assembly of Turkey is the unicameral parliament of Turkey which is the sole body given the legislative prerogatives by the Turkish Constitution. It was founded in Ankara on 23 April 1920 in the midst of the Turkish War of Independence...
(GNA) was internationally recognized with the
Treaty of LausanneThe Treaty of Lausanne was a peace treaty signed in Lausanne, Switzerland, that settled the Anatolian and East Thracian parts of the partitioning of the Ottoman Empire by annulment of the Treaty of Sèvres that was signed by the Constantinople-based Ottoman government; as the consequence of the...
on July 24, 1923. The GNA officially declared the Republic of Turkey on October 29, 1923. The
CaliphateThe term caliphate refers to the first form of government inspired by Islam. It was initially led by Muhammad's disciples as a continuation of the political authority the prophet established, known as the 'rashidun caliphates'. It represented the political unity of the Muslim Ummah, and was the...
was constitutionally abolished several months later, on March 3, 1924. The Sultan and his family were declared
persona non grata of TurkeyAfter the Turkish War of Independence , the newly established Republic of Turkey presented a list of 600 names to the Conference of Lausanne, which were to be declared personae non gratae. Later, a list comprising only 150 of these, put into effect by the Grand National Assembly of Turkey on April...
and exiled. Fifty years later, in 1974, the GNA granted descendants of the former Ottoman dynasty the right to acquire Turkish citizenship.
Fall of the Empire
The
Fall of the Ottoman EmpireSome scholars argue the power of the Caliphate began waning by 1683, and without the acquisition of significant new wealth the Ottoman Empire went into a fast decline...
can be attributed to the failure of its economic structure; the size of the Empire created difficulties in economically integrating its diverse regions. Also, the Empire's communication technology was not developed enough to reach all territories. In many ways, the circumstances surrounding the Ottoman Empire's fall closely paralleled those surrounding the
Decline of the Roman EmpireThe decline of the Roman Empire refers to both the gradual disintegration of the economy of Rome and the barbarian invasions that were its final doom...
, particularly in terms of the ongoing tensions between the Empire's different ethnic groups, and the various governments' inability to deal with these tensions. In the case of the Ottomans, the introduction of increased
cultural rightsThe cultural rights movement has provoked attention to protect the rights of groups of people, or their culture, in similar fashion to the manner in which the human rights movement has brought attention to the needs of individuals throughout the world...
,
civil libertiesCivil liberties are rights in Freedom that protect an individual from the government of the nation in which they reside. Civil liberties set limits on government so that its members cannot abuse their power and interfere unduly with the lives of private citizens.Common civil liberties include the...
and a
parliamentary systemA parliamentary system is a system of government where in the ministers of the executive branch are drawn from the legislature, and are accountable to that body, such that the executive and legislative branches are intertwined...
during the
TanzimatThe Tanzimat , meaning reorganization of the Ottoman Empire, was a period of reformation that began in 1839 and ended with the First Constitutional Era in 1876. The Tanzimat reform era was characterized by various attempts to modernize the Ottoman Empire, to secure its territorial integrity against...
proved too late to reverse the
nationalisticThe rise of the Western notion of nationalism under the Ottoman Empire eventually caused the break-down of the Ottoman millet concept...
and
secessionSecession is the act of withdrawing from an organization, union, or especially a political entity.-Secession theory:...
ist trends that had already been set in motion since the early 19th century.
Economy
Ottoman government deliberately pursued a policy for the development of Bursa, Edirne (Adrianople) and Constantinople, successive Ottoman capitals, into major commercial and industrial centres, considering that merchants and artisans were indispensable in creating a new metropolis. To this end, Mehmed and his successor Bayezid, also encouraged and welcomed migration of the Jews from different parts of Europe, who were settled in Constantinople and other port cities like Salonica. In many places in Europe, Jews were suffering persecution at the hands of their Christian counterparts. The tolerance displayed by the Ottomans was welcomed by the immigrants. The Ottoman economic mind was closely related to the basic concepts of state and society in the Middle East in which the ultimate goal of a state was consolidation and extension of the ruler's power, and the way to reach it was to get rich resources of revenues by making the productive classes prosperous. The ultimate aim was to increase the state revenues as much as possible without damaging the prosperity of subjects to prevent the emergence of social disorder and to keep the traditional organization of the society intact.
The organization of the treasury and chancery were developed under the Ottoman Empire more than any other Islamic government and, until the 17th century, they were the leading organization among all of their contemporaries. This organization developed a scribal bureaucracy (known as "men of the pen") as a distinct group, partly highly trained ulema, which developed into a professional body. The effectiveness of this professional financial body stands behind the success of many great Ottoman statesmen. The economic structure of the Empire was defined by its geopolitical structure. The Ottoman Empire stood between the West and the East, thus blocking the land route eastward and forcing Spanish and Portuguese navigators to set sail in search of a new route to the Orient. The Empire controlled the spice route that
Marco PoloMarco Polo was a merchant from the Venetian Republic who wrote Il Milione, which introduced Europeans to Central Asia and China. He learned about trading whilst his father and uncle, Niccolò and Maffeo, voyaged through Asia and met Kublai Khan. In 1269, they returned to Venice to meet Marco for...
once used. When
Christopher ColumbusChristopher Columbus was a navigator, colonizer and explorer whose voyages across the Atlantic Ocean led to general European awareness of the American continents in the Western Hemisphere...
first journeyed to the Bahamas in 1492, the Ottoman Empire was at its zenith, an economic power that extended over three continents. Modern Ottoman studies think that the change in relations between the Ottomans and central Europe was caused by the opening of the new sea routes. It is possible to see the decline in the significance of the land routes to the East as Western Europe opened the ocean routes that bypassed the Middle East and Mediterranean as parallel to the decline of the Ottoman Empire itself. The
Anglo-Ottoman TreatyHaving a favourable balance of trade up until the mid nineteenth century; ‘In the years 1820-22, the Ottoman Empire exported goods worth £650,000 to the United Kingdom...
, also known as the
Treaty of Balta LimanThe Treaties of Balta-Liman were both signed in Balta-Liman with the Ottoman Empire as one of its signatories.-1838:The Treaty of Balta Liman was a commercial treaty signed in 1838 between the Ottoman Empire and the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, regulating international trade...
that opened the Ottoman markets directly to English and French competitors, would be seen as one of the staging posts along this development.
By developing commercial centres and routes, encouraging people to extend the area of cultivated land in the country and international trade through its dominions, the state performed basic economic functions in the Empire. But in all this the financial and political interests of the state were dominant. Within the social and political system they were living in Ottoman administrators could not have comprehended or seen the desirability of the dynamics and principles of the capitalist and mercantile economies developing in Western Europe.
State
The
state organisation of the Ottoman EmpireThe Ottoman Empire developed a highly advanced organisation of state over the centuries. Even though it had a very centralized government with the Sultan as the supreme ruler, it had an effective control of its provinces and citizens, as well as its officials. Wealth and rank wasn't necessarily...
was a very simple system that had two main dimensions: the military administration and the civil administration. The Sultan was the highest position in the system. The civil system was based on local administrative units based on the region's characteristics. The Ottomans practiced a system in which the state (as in the Byzantine Empire) had control over the clergy. Certain pre-Islamic Turkish traditions that had survived the adoption of administrative and legal practices from Islamic
IranIran , officially the Islamic Republic of Iran is a country in Western Asia. The name Iran has been in use natively since the Sassanid period and came into international use from 1935, before which the country was known internationally as Persia...
remained important in Ottoman administrative circles. According to Ottoman understanding, the state's primary responsibility was to defend and extend the land of the Muslims and to ensure security and harmony within its borders within the overarching context of orthodox Islamic practice and dynastic sovereignty.
The "
Ottoman dynastyThe Ottoman Dynasty ruled the Ottoman Empire from 1299 to 1922, beginning with Osman I , though the dynasty was not proclaimed until Orhan Bey declared himself sultan...
" or, as an institution, "
House of OsmanHouse of Osman was the name of the administrative structure of the Ottoman Dynasty, part of the state organization of the Ottoman Empire but nonetheless directly linked to the dynasty...
" was unprecedented and unequaled in the Islamic world for its size and duration. The Ottoman dynasty was ethnically Turkish in its origins, as were some of its supporters and subjects, however the dynasty immediately lost this "
TurkicThe Turkic peoples are Eurasian peoples residing in northern, central and western Eurasia. They speak languages belonging to the Turkic language family. They share, to varying degrees, certain cultural traits and historical backgrounds...
" identification through intermarriage with many different ethnicities. On eleven occasions, the sultan was deposed because he was perceived by his enemies as a threat to the state. There were only two attempts in the whole of Ottoman history to unseat the ruling Osmanlı dynasty, both failures, which is suggestive of a political system that for an extended period was able to manage its revolutions without unnecessary instability.
The highest position in Islam,
caliphateThe term caliphate refers to the first form of government inspired by Islam. It was initially led by Muhammad's disciples as a continuation of the political authority the prophet established, known as the 'rashidun caliphates'. It represented the political unity of the Muslim Ummah, and was the...
, was claimed by the sultan which was established as Ottoman CaliphateThe Ottoman Caliphate, under the Ottoman Dynasty of the Ottoman Empire inherited the responsibility of the Caliphate from the Mamluks of Egypt....
. The Ottoman sultan, pâdişâhPadishah, Padshah, Padeshah, Badishah or Badshah is a superlative royal title, composed of the Persian pād "master" and the widespread shāh "king", which was adopted by several Islamic monarchs claiming the highest rank, roughly equivalent to Christian Emperors or the ancient notion of "Great King"...
or "lord of kings", served as the Empire's sole regent and was considered to be the embodiment of its government, though he did not always exercise complete control. The
Imperial HaremThe Imperial Harem of the Ottoman Empire was one of the most important elements of the Ottoman court. It was known in the West as "the Seraglio", an Italian term.- Harem quarters:...
was one of the most important powers of the Ottoman court. It was ruled by the
Valide SultanValide Sultan was the title held by the mother of a ruling Sultan in the Ottoman Empire. The Turkish pronunciation of the word Valide is...
. On occasion, the Valide Sultan would become involved in state politics. For a period of time the women of the Harem effectively controlled the state in what was termed the "Sultanate of Women". New sultans were always chosen from among the sons of the previous sultan. The strong educational system of the
palace schoolPalace school was part of House of Ottoman system that is designated to educate Ottoman Empire's governing elite. Palace school is really not a single track but was in two. First one was the Madrasa for the Muslims, which educated the scholars and the state officials in accordance with Islamic...
geared towards eliminating the unfit potential heirs, and establishing support amongst the ruling elite for a successor. The palace schools, which would also educate the future administrators of the state, were not a single track. First, the Madrasa was designated for the Muslims, and educated scholars and state officials in accordance with Islamic tradition. The financial burden of the Medrese was supported by vakifs, allowing children of poor families to move to higher social levels and income. The second track was a free
boarding schoolA boarding school is a school where some or all pupils not only study, but also live during term time, with their fellow students and possibly teachers. The word 'boarding' is used in the sense of "bed and board", that is, food and lodging...
for the Christians, the Enderûn
, which recruited 3,000 students annually from Christian boys between eight and twenty years old from one in forty families among the communities settled in RumeliaRumelia or Rumeli is a Turkish name, used from the 15th century onwards, for the southern Balkan regions of the Ottoman Empire...
and/or the BalkansThe Balkans is a geopolitical and cultural region of southeastern Europe...
, a process known as DevshirmehDevşirme or devshirme was the practice by which the Ottoman Empire conscripted boys from Christian families, who were taken from their families by force, converted to Islam, trained and enrolled in one of the four royal institutions: the Palace, the Scribes, the Religious and the Military.The...
().
Though the sultan was the supreme monarch, the sultan's political and executive authority was delegated. The politics of the state had a number of advisors and ministers gathered around a council known as DivanDīvān or dīwān was a high governmental body in a number of Islamic states, or its chief official .-Etymology:...
(after the 17th century it was renamed the "PorteThe Sublime Porte is a synecdoche for the Ottoman Empire, by reference to the High Gate of the Divan .- Terminology :...
"). The Divan, in the years when the Ottoman state was still a Beylik, was composed of the elders of the tribe. Its composition was later modified to include military officers and local elites (such as religious and political advisors). Later still, beginning in 1320, a
Grand VizierGrand Vizier, in Turkish Sadr-ı Azam or Serdar-ı Ekrem , deriving from the Persian word vizier , was the greatest minister of the Sultan, with absolute power of attorney and, in principle, dismissable only by the Sultan himself...
was appointed in order to assume certain of the sultan's responsibilities. The Grand Vizier had considerable independence from the sultan with almost unlimited powers of appointment, dismissal and supervision. Beginning with the late 16th century, sultans withdrew from politics and the Grand Vizier became the de facto head of state.
Throughout Ottoman history, there were many instances in which local governors acted independently, and even in opposition to the ruler. After the
Young Turk RevolutionThe Young Turk Revolution of 1908 reversed the suspension of the Ottoman parliament by Sultan Abdul Hamid II, marking the onset of the Second Constitutional Era...
of 1908, the Ottoman state became a constitutional monarchy. The sultan no longer had executive powers. A parliament was formed, with representatives chosen from the provinces. The representatives formed the
Imperial Government of the Ottoman EmpireThe Imperial Government of the Ottoman Empire was the government structure added to the Ottoman governing structure during the Second Constitutional Era. The Committee of Union and Progress was in power between 1908 and 1918...
.
The rapidly expanding empire used loyal, skilled subjects to manage the Empire, whether
AlbaniansAlbanians are a people from southeast Europe who live in Albania and neighboring countries. They speak the Albanian language. About half of them live in Albania, with other large groups residing in Kosovo, the Republic of Macedonia, Serbia, and Montenegro...
,
Phanariot GreeksPhanariots, Phanariotes, or Phanariote Greeks were members of those prominent Greek families residing in Phanar, the chief Greek quarter of Constantinople, where the Ecumenical Patriarchate is situated.For all their cosmopolitanism and often western...
,
ArmeniansThe Armenians are a nation and ethnic group which originated in the Caucasus and the Armenian Highland. It is estimated that there are 8 million Armenians around the world. There is a large concentration of Armenians in the Caucasus, especially in Armenia, and there is a significant presence in...
,
SerbsSerbs are a South Slavic people living in the Central Europe and the Balkans , between the Balkan- and Carpathian mountains in the east and the Adriatic sea in the west. They are located mainly in Serbia, Montenegro, Bosnia-Herzegovina, and, to a lesser extent, in Croatia...
,
BosniaksThe Bosniaks or Bosniacs are a South Slavic ethnic group, living mainly in Bosnia and Herzegovina, with a smaller autochthonous population also present in the Sandžak, Croatia, and the Republic of Macedonia. Bosniaks are typically characterized by their tie to the Bosnian historical region,...
, Hungarians or others. The incorporation of Greeks (and other Christians), Muslims, and Jews revolutionized its administrative system.
This eclectic administration was apparent even in the diplomatic correspondence of the Empire, which was initially undertaken in the
Greek languageGreek , an independent branch of the Indo-European family of languages, is the language of the Greeks. Native to the southern Balkans, it has the longest documented history of any Indo-European language, spanning 34 centuries of written records. In its ancient form, it is the language of classical...
to the west.
The
TughraA tughra is a calligraphic seal or signature of an Ottoman sultan that was affixed to all official documents and correspondence. It was also carved on his seal and stamped on the coins minted during his reign....
were calligraphic monograms, or signatures, of the Ottoman Sultans, of which there were 35. Carved on the Sultan's seal, they bore the names of the Sultan and his father. The prayer/statement “ever victorious” was also present in most. The earliest belonged to Orhan Gazi. The ornately stylized Tughra spawned a branch of Ottoman-Turkish
calligraphyCalligraphy is a type of visual art. It is often called the art of writing . A contemporary definition of calligraphic practice is "the art of giving form to signs in an expressive, harmonious and skillful manner"...
.
Society
One of the successes of the social structure of the Ottoman Empire was the unity that it brought about among its highly varied populations through an organization named as millets. The
MilletsMillet is an Ottoman Turkish term for a confessional community in the Ottoman Empire. In the 19th century, with the Tanzimat reforms, the term started to refer to legally protected religious minority groups, other than the ruling Sunni. Millet comes from the Arabic word millah and literally means...
were the major religious groups that were allowed to establish their own communities under Ottoman rule. The Millets were established by retaining their own religious laws, traditions, and language under the general protection of the sultan. Plurality was the key to the longevity of the Empire. As early as the reign of
Mehmed IIMehmet II , was Sultan of the Ottoman Empire for a short time from 1444 to September 1446,...
, extensive rights were granted to
Phanariot GreeksPhanariots, Phanariotes, or Phanariote Greeks were members of those prominent Greek families residing in Phanar, the chief Greek quarter of Constantinople, where the Ecumenical Patriarchate is situated.For all their cosmopolitanism and often western...
, and
JewsThe history of the Jews in the Ottoman Empire and Turkey covers the 2,400 years that Jews have lived in what is now Turkey. There have been Jewish communities in Asia Minor since at least the 4th century BCE and many Spanish and Portuguese Jews expelled from Spain were welcomed to the Ottoman...
were invited to settle in Ottoman territory. Ultimately, the Ottoman Empire's relatively high degree of tolerance for ethnic differences proved to be one of its greatest strengths in integrating the new regions but this non-assimilative policy became a weakness after the
rise of nationalismThe rise of the Western notion of nationalism under the Ottoman Empire eventually caused the break-down of the Ottoman millet concept...
. The
dissolution of the EmpireThe dissolution of the Ottoman Empire was the period following the decline of the Ottoman Empire , including the watershed events of the Young Turk Revolution and the establishment of the second constitutional era, and ending with the partitioning of the Empire by the victorious sides of World War...
based on ethnic differentiation (
balkanizationBalkanization or balkanisation is a geopolitical term originally used to describe the process of fragmentation or division of a region or state into smaller regions or states that are often hostile or non-cooperative with each other....
) brought the final end which the failed
OttomanismOttomanism was a concept which developed prior to the First Constitutional Era of the Ottoman Empire. Its proponents believed that it could solve the social issues that the empire was facing. Ottomanism was highly affected by thinkers such as Montesquieu and Rousseau and the French Revolution. It...
among the citizens and participatory politics of the
firstThe First Constitutional Era of the Ottoman Empire was the period of constitutional monarchy from the promulgation of the Kanûn-ı Esâsî , written by members of the Young Ottomans, on 23 November 1876 until 13 February 1878...
or the
constitutional EraThe Second Constitutional Era of the Ottoman Empire began shortly after Sultan Abdülhamid II restored the constitutional monarchy after the 1908 Young Turk Revolution. The period established many political groups...
had successfully addressed.
The
lifestyle of the Ottoman EmpireLife in the Ottoman Empire was a mixture of western and eastern life. One unique characteristic of Ottoman life style was it was very fragmented. The millet concept generated this fragmentation and enabled to coexist in a mosaic of cultures...
was a mixture of western and eastern life. One unique characteristic of Ottoman life style was it was very fragmented. The millet concept generated this fragmentation and enabled many to coexist in a
mosaicMosaic is the art of creating images with an assemblage of small pieces of colored glass, stone, or other materials. It may be a technique of decorative art, an aspect of interior decoration, or of cultural and spiritual significance as in a cathedral...
of cultures. The capital of the Ottoman Empire,
ConstantinopleIstanbul is the largest city in Turkey and fifth largest city proper in the world with a population of 12.6 million. Istanbul is also a megacity, as well as the cultural and financial centre of Turkey. The city covers 39 districts of the Istanbul province...
also had a unique culture, mainly because prior to Ottoman rule it had been the seat of both the
RomanThe Roman Empire was the post-Republican phase of the ancient Roman civilization, characterised by an autocratic form of government and large territorial holdings in Europe and around the Mediterranean. The term is used to describe the Roman state during and after the time of the first emperor,...
and
ByzantineThe word Byzantine may refer to:Topics directly related to the Byzantine Empire* A citizen of The Byzantine Empire, or native Greek during the Middle Ages...
Empires. The lifestyle in the
Ottoman courtOttoman court or the culture that evolved around the court of the Ottoman Empire was known as the "Ottoman Way". To get a high position in the empire, one must be skilled in the Way. It included both knowing Persian, Arabic and Ottoman Turkish and how to behave in court, in front of the sultan, and...
in many aspects assembled ancient traditions of the Persian
ShahShah is a Persian term for a king that has been adopted in many other languages.-Word history:"Shāh" was the title of Iranian kings including the Achaemenid dynasty which unified Persia and created a vast intercontinental empire...
s, but had many
GreekThe Greeks , also known as Hellenes, are a nation and ethnic group native to Greece, Cyprus and neighbouring regions, who can also be found in diaspora communities around the world....
and European influences. The culture that evolved around the Ottoman court was known as the Ottoman Way, which was epitomized with the
Topkapı PalaceThe Topkapı Palace or in Ottoman Turkish: طوپقپو سرايى, usually spelled "Topkapi" in English)is a palace in Istanbul, Turkey, which was the official and primary residence in the city of the Ottoman Sultans for 400 years of their 600-year reign, from 1465 to 1853.The palace was a setting for state...
. There were also large metropolitan centers where the Ottoman influence expressed itself with a diversity similar to metropolises of today:
SarajevoSarajevo is the capital and largest city of Bosnia and Herzegovina, with a population of 304,614 people in the four municipalities that make up the city proper, and an estimated urban area population of 421,289 people in the Sarajevo Canton . It is also the capital of the Federation of Bosnia and...
,
SkopjeSkopje is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Macedonia, with more than a quarter of the population of the country, as well as its political, cultural, economic, and academic centre. It was known in the Roman period under the name Scupi. The city developed rapidly after World War II,...
,
ThessalonikiThessaloniki , Thessalonica, or Salonica is the second-largest city in Greece and the capital of the Greek region of Macedonia. It is honorarily called the Συμπρωτεύουσα Symprotevousa of Greece, as it was once called the συμβασιλεύουσα symvasilevousa of the Byzantine Empire...
, Dimashq,
BaghdadBaghdad is the capital of Iraq and of Baghdad Governorate, with which it is coterminous. Having a municipal population estimated at 6.5 million, it is the largest city in Iraq and the second largest in the Arab World....
,
BeirutBeirut is the capital and largest city of Lebanon with a population of over 2.1 million as of 2007. Located on a peninsula at the midpoint of Lebanon's coastline with the Mediterranean sea, it serves as the country's largest and main seaport and also forms the Beirut Metropolitan Area, which...
,
JerusalemJerusalem is the capital of Israel and its largest city in both population and area, with a population of 747,600 residents over an area of if disputed East Jerusalem is included...
, Makkah and
AlgiersAlgiers is the capital and largest city of Algeria, and the second largest city in the Maghreb . According to the 1998 census, the population of the city proper was 1,519,570 and that of the urban agglomeration was 2,135,630...
with their own small versions of Ottoman Provincial Administration replicating the culture of the Ottoman court locally. The
seraglioA seraglio is the sequestered living quarters used by wives and concubines in a Turkish household, from an Italian variant of Persian saray , meaning "palace", "enclosed courts"...
, which were the non-imperial places, in the context of the Turkish fashion, became the subject of works of art, where non-imperial prince or referring to other grand houses built around courtyards.
Slavery in the Ottoman EmpireSlavery was an important part of Ottoman society until the Ottoman Empire forbade the slavery of Caucasians in the early 19th century., slavery did still exist. As late as 1908, women slaves were still sold in the Ottoman Empire. In Istanbul), about one-fifth of the population consisted of slaves...
was a part of Ottoman society. As late as 1908 women slaves were still sold in the Empire. During the 19th century the Empire came under pressure from Western European countries to outlaw the practice. Policies developed by various Sultans throughout the 19th century attempted to curtail the slave trade but, since slavery did have centuries of religious backing and sanction, they could never directly abolish the institution outright — as had gradually happened in Western Europe and the Americas.
The exact population of the Ottoman Empire is a matter of considerable debate, due to the scantness and ambiguous nature of the primary sources. The following table contains approximate estimates. The figures from 1831 onwards are official census results, but the censuses did not cover the whole population. For example the 1831 census only counted men and did not cover the whole empire.
| Year |
Population |
| 1520 |
11,692,480 |
| 1566 |
15,000,000 |
| 1683 |
30,000,000 |
| 1831 |
7,230,660 |
| 1856 |
35,350,000 |
| 1881 |
17,388,604 |
| 1906 |
20,884,000 |
| 1914 |
18,520,000 |
| 1919 |
14,629,000 |
Culture
The Ottoman Empire had filled roughly the territories around the
Mediterranean SeaThe Mediterranean Sea is a sea connected to the Atlantic Ocean surrounded by the Mediterranean region and almost completely enclosed by land: on the north by Anatolia and Europe, on the south by Africa, and on the east by the Levant. The sea is technically a part of the Atlantic Ocean, although it...
and
Black Seaur a loser!The Black Sea is an inland sea bounded by Europe, Anatolia and the Caucasus and is ultimately connected to the Atlantic Ocean via the Mediterranean and Aegean Seas and various straits. The Bosporus strait connects it to the Sea of Marmara, and the strait of the Dardanelles connects it to...
while adopting the traditions, art and institutions of cultures in these regions and adding new dimensions to them. Many different cultures lived under the umbrella of the Ottoman Empire, and as a result, a specifically "Ottoman" culture can be difficult to define, except for those of the regional centers and capital. However, there was also, to a great extent, a specific melding of cultures that can be said to have reached its highest levels among the Ottoman elite, who were composed of myriad ethnic and religious groups. This multicultural perspective of "
milletsMillet is an Ottoman Turkish term for a confessional community in the Ottoman Empire. In the 19th century, with the Tanzimat reforms, the term started to refer to legally protected religious minority groups, other than the ruling Sunni. Millet comes from the Arabic word millah and literally means...
" was reflected in the Ottoman State's multi-cultural and multi-religious policies. As the Ottomans moved further west, the Ottoman leaders absorbed some of the culture of the conquered regions. Intercultural
marriageMarriage is a social union or legal contract between individuals that creates kinship. It is an institution in which interpersonal relationships, usually intimate and sexual, are acknowledged by a variety of ways, depending on the culture or demographic...
s also played their part in creating the characteristic Ottoman elite culture. When compared to the Turkish folk culture, the influence of these new cultures in creating the culture of the Ottoman elite was very apparent.
"Ottoman architecture" was influenced by Persian,
Byzantine GreekByzantine architecture is the architecture of the Byzantine Empire. The empire gradually emerged as a distinct artistic and cultural entity from what is today referred to as the Roman Empire after AD 330, when the Roman Emperor Constantine moved the capital of the Roman Empire east from Rome to...
and
IslamicIslamic architecture encompasses a wide range of both secular and religious styles from the foundation of Islam to the present day, influencing the design and construction of buildings and structures in Islamic culture....
architectures. The Ottoman architecture are a continuation of the pre-Islamic
Sassanid architectureSassanid architecture refers to the Parthian style of architecture in Iranian architecture that reached a peak in its development during the Sassanid era. In many ways the Sassanid dynastic period witnessed the highest achievement of Persian civilization, and constituted the last great Persian...
. For instance, the dome covered square, which had been a dominant form in Sassanid became the nucleus of all Ottoman architecture. During the
Rise periodThe rise of the Ottoman Empire refers to the period which started with the weakening of the Seljuk Sultanate of Rum in the very early 14th century and ended with the Byzantine Empire decline and the Fall of Constantinople in 1453....
the early or first Ottoman architecture period, the Ottoman art was in search of new ideas. The
growth periodThe growth of the Ottoman Empire is the period followed after the rise of the Ottoman Empire in which the Ottoman state reached the Pax Ottomana. In this period, the Ottoman Empire expanded southwestwards into North Africa and battled with the re-emergent Persian Shi'ia Safavid Empire to the east...
of the Empire become the classical period of architecture, which Ottoman art was at its most confident. During the years of the
Stagnation periodThe Stagnation of the Ottoman Empire is the period following the growth of the Ottoman Empire . During this period the empire continued to have military might. The next period would be shaped by the decline of their military power which followed the loss of huge territories...
, Ottoman architecture moved away from this style however.
During the
Tulip EraThe Tulip period or Tulip era is a period in Ottoman history from 1718 to the rebellion of Patrona Halil in 1730. This was a relatively peaceful period, during which the Ottoman Empire can be said to have begun to orient itself towards Europe.The name of the period derives from the tulip craze...
, it was under the influence of the highly ornamented styles of Western Europe;
BaroqueBaroque is an artistic style prevalent from the late 16th century to the early 18th century. The popularity and success of the Baroque style was encouraged by the Roman Catholic Church, which had decided at the time of the Council of Trent that the arts should communicate religious themes in...
,
RococoRococo is a style of 18th century French art and interior design. Rococo rooms were designed as total works of art with elegant and ornate furniture, small sculptures, ornamental mirrors, and tapestry complementing architecture, reliefs, and wall paintings...
,
EmpireThe Empire Style, sometimes considered the second phase of Neoclassicism, is an early-19th-century design movement in architecture, furniture, other decorative arts, and the visual arts. The style originated in and takes its name from the period when Napoleon I ruled France, known as the First...
and other styles intermingled. Concepts of Ottoman architecture mainly circle around the mosque. The mosque was integral to society,
city planningUrban, city, and town planning is the integration of the disciplines of land use planning and transport planning to explore a very wide range of aspects of the built and social environments of urbanized municipalities and communities...
and communal life. Besides the mosque, it is also possible to find good examples of Ottoman architecture in
soup kitchenA soup kitchen, a bread line, or a meal center is a place where food is offered to the hungry for free or at a reasonably low price. Frequently located in lower-income neighborhoods, they are often staffed by volunteer organizations, such as church groups or community groups...
s, theological schools, hospitals, Turkish baths and
tombA tomb is a repository for the remains of the dead. It is generally any structurally enclosed interment space or burial chamber, of varying sizes...
s.
Examples of Ottoman architecture of the classical period, aside from
IstanbulIstanbul is the largest city in Turkey and fifth largest city proper in the world with a population of 12.6 million. Istanbul is also a megacity, as well as the cultural and financial centre of Turkey. The city covers 39 districts of the Istanbul province...
and
EdirneEdirne is a city in Thrace, the westernmost part of Turkey, close to the borders with Greece and Bulgaria. Edirne served as the capital city of the Ottoman Empire from 1365 to 1453, when Constantinople became the empire's new capital. At present, Edirne is the capital of the Edirne Province in...
, can also be seen in Egypt, Eritrea, Tunisia, Algiers, the Balkans and Hungary, where mosques, bridges, fountains and schools were built. The art of Ottoman decoration developed with a multitude of influences due to the wide ethnic range of the Ottoman Empire. The greatest of the court artisans enriched the Ottoman Empire with many pluralistic artistic influences: such as mixing traditional
Byzantine artByzantine art is the term commonly used to describe the artistic products of the Byzantine Empire from about the 4th century until the Fall of Constantinople in 1453....
with elements of
Chinese artChinese art is art that, whether ancient or modern, originated in or is practiced in China or by Chinese artists or performers. Early so-called "stone age art" dates back to 10,000 BC, mostly consisting of simple pottery and sculptures. This early period was followed by a series of art dynasties,...
.
"
Ottoman Turkish languageOttoman Turkish is the variety of the Turkish language that was used as the administrative and literary language of the Ottoman Empire. It contains extensive borrowings from Arabic and Persian languages and was written in a variant of the Perso-Arabic script...
" was a variety of Turkish, highly influenced by Persian and Arabic. Ottomans had three influential languages;
TurkishTurkish is spoken as a first language by over 63 million people worldwide, making it the most commonly spoken of the Turkic languages. Its speakers are located predominantly in Turkey and Cyprus, with smaller groups in Iraq, Greece, Bulgaria, the Republic of Macedonia, Kosovo, Albania and other...
,
PersianPersian is an Iranian language within the Indo-Iranian branch of the Indo-European languages. It is widely spoken in Iran, Afghanistan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and to some extent in Iraq and Bahrain, and has a status of official language in the first three countries under different names...
,
ArabicArabic is a Central Semitic language, thus related to and classified alongside other Semitic languages such as Hebrew and the Neo-Aramaic languages. In terms of speakers, the Arabic macrolanguage is the largest member of the Semitic language family. It is spoken by more than 280 million people as...
but they did not have a parallel status. Throughout the vast Ottoman bureaucracy and, in particular, within the Ottoman court in later times, a version of Turkish was spoken, albeit with a vast mixture of both Arabic and Persian grammar and vocabulary. If the basic grammar was still largely Turkish, the inclusion of virtually any word in Arabic or Persian in Ottoman made it a language that was essentially incomprehensible to any Ottoman subject who had not mastered Arabic, Persian or both.
The two varieties of the language became extremely differentiated and this resulted in a low literacy rate among the general public (about 2–3% until the early 19th century and just about 15% at the end of 19th century). Consequently, ordinary people had to hire special "request-writers" (arzıhâlcis) in order to be able to communicate with the government. The ethnic groups continued to speak within their families and neighborhoods (
mahalleMahalle is an Arabic word, adopted into Turkish which usually translates into "neighborhood". It is an official administrative unit in many Middle Eastern countries. In the Ottoman Empire the mahalle was the smallest administrative entity...
s) with their own languages (e.g., Jews, Greeks, Armenians, etc.) In villages where two or more populations lived together, the inhabitants would often speak each other's language. In cosmopolitan cities, people often spoke their family languages, some Ottoman or Persian if they were educated, and some Arabic if they were Muslim. In the last two centuries, French and English emerged as popular languages, especially among the Christian Levantine communities. The elite learned French at school, and used European products as a fashion statement. The use of Turkish grew steadily under the Ottomans, but, since they were still interested in their two other official languages, they kept these in use as well. Usage of these came to be limited, though, and specific: Persian served mainly as a literary language, while Arabic was used solely for religious rites. At this time many famous Persian poets emerged.
"
Ottoman classical musicOttoman classical music developed in palaces, mosques, and Mevlevi lodges of the Ottoman Empire. Above all a vocal music, Classical Turkish Music traditionally accompanies a solo singer with a small instrumental ensemble...
" was an important part of the education of the Ottoman elite, a number of the Ottoman sultans were accomplished musicians and composers themselves, such as
Selim IIISelim III
was the Sultan of the Ottoman Empire from 1789 to 1807. He was a son of Mustafa III and succeeded his uncle Abdülhamid I . He was born in Istanbul. His mother was Valide Sultan Mihr-i shah...
, whose compositions are still frequently performed today. Ottoman classical music arose largely from a confluence of
Byzantine musicByzantine music is the music of the Byzantine Empire composed to Greek texts as ceremonial, festival, or church music. Greek and foreign historians agree that the ecclesiastical tones and in general the whole system of Byzantine music is closely related to the ancient Greek system...
, Arabic music, and
Persian musicPersian traditional music is the traditional and indigenous music of Iran and Persian-speaking countries: mūsīqī, the science and art of music, and moosiqi, the sound and performance of music .-Origins:Archeological...
. Compositionally, it is organised around
rhythmRhythm is the variation of the length and accentuation of a series of sounds or other events.-Rhythm in linguistics:...
ic units called usul, which are somewhat similar to
meterMeter or metre is a term that music has inherited from the rhythmic element of poetry, where it means the number of lines in a verse, the number of syllables in each line and the arrangement of those syllables as long or short, accented or unaccented...
in Western music, and
melodicA melody , also tune, voice, or line, is a linear succession of musical tones which is perceived as a single entity...
units called
makamIn Turkish classical music, Mevlevi music, and some Mosque music, a system of melody types called makam provides a complex set of rules for composing...
, which bear some resemblance to Western
musical modeMode is a term from Western music theory having three definitions :# the rhythmic relationship between long and short values in the late medieval period;...
s. The
instrumentsA musical instrument is an object constructed or used for the purpose of making the sounds of music. In principle, anything that produces sound can serve as a musical instrument. The history of musical instruments dates back to the beginnings of human culture...
used are a mixture of Anatolian and Central Asian instruments (the
sazSaz can be a shortened version of Sarah, or may refer to:* Saz, or baglama, a Middle Eastern stringed instrument* Sameh Zakout, rap artist...
, the
bağlamaright|180pxThe bağlama is a stringed musical instrument shared by various cultures in the Eastern Mediterranean, Near East, and Central Asia. It is sometimes referred to as the saz...
, the
kemenceThe term kemenche is used to describe two types of three-stringed bowed musical instruments:...
), other Middle Eastern instruments (the
udThe oud is a pear-shaped, stringed instrument, which is often seen as the predecessor of the western lute, distinguished primarily by being without frets, commonly used in Middle Eastern music.-Name:The words "lute" and "oud" are both suspected to be derived from the...
, the
tanburFor other uses, see Tanbur .The term tanbūr can refer to various long-necked, fretted lutes originating in the Middle East or Central Asia. According to the New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, "terminology presents a complicated situation...
, the
kanunQanun refers to laws promulgated by Muslim sovereigns, in particular the Ottoman Sultans, in contrast to shari'a, the body of law elaborated by Muslim jurists. It comes from the Greek word kanon...
, the
neyThe ney is an end-blown flute that figures prominently in Persian, Turkish and Arabic music. In some of these musical traditions, it is the only wind instrument used...
), and — later in the tradition — Western instruments (the
violinThe violin is a bowed string instrument with four strings usually tuned in perfect fifths. It is the smallest and highest-pitched member of the violin family of string instruments, which also includes the viola and cello....
and the
pianoThe piano is a musical instrument which is played by means of a keyboard. Widely used in Western music for solo performances, ensemble use, chamber music, and accompaniment, the piano is also very popular as an aid to composing and rehearsal...
). Because of a geographic and cultural divide between the capital and other areas, two broadly distinct styles of music arose in the Ottoman Empire: Ottoman classical music, and folk music. In the provinces, several different kinds of
Folk musicThe term folk music originated in the 19th century as a term for musical folklore. It has been defined in several ways; as music transmitted by word of mouth, music of the lower classes, music with no known composer...
were created. The most dominant regions with their distinguished musical styles are: Balkan-Thracian Türküs, North-Eastern (
LazLaz, or LAZ, may refer to:* Wolfgang Lazius or Laz* Laz people* Laz language* L’vivs’ky Avtomobil’ny Zavod * Laz, wife of the Babylonian God NergalPlaces* Laz, Finistère, a commune in Finistère département, France...
) Türküs, Aegean Türküs, Central Anatolian Türküs, Eastern Anatolian Türküs, and Caucasian Türküs. Some of the distinctive styles were:
Janissary MusicOttoman military bands are thought to be the oldest variety of military marching band in the world. Though they are often known by the Persian-derived word mahtar in the West, that word, properly speaking, refers only to a single musician in the band...
,
Roma musicRomani music is often referred to as Gipsy music.Typically nomadic, the Romani people have long acted as wandering entertainers and tradesmen. In all the places Romanies live—in Europe, North Africa, the Middle East and northwest India— they have become known as musicians...
,
Belly danceBelly dance is a Western term for a traditional Arab dance genre known as raqs sharqi or sometimes raqs baladi...
,
Turkish folk musicTurkish folk music has combined the distinct cultural values of all those civilisations which have lived in Anatolia and the Ottoman territories in Europe and Asia...
.
"
Ottoman cuisineOttoman cuisine is the cuisine of the Ottoman Empire and its successors in Anatolia, the Balkans, and much of the Middle East.The importance of culinary art for the Ottoman Sultans is evident to every visitor of Topkapı Palace. The palace houses several kitchens that are built underneath ten domes...
" refers to the cuisine of the capital —
ConstantinopleConstantinople was the imperial capital of the Roman Empire , the Byzantine/Eastern Roman Empire , the Latin Empire , and the Ottoman Empire...
, and the regional capital cities, where the melting pot of cultures created a common cuisine that all the populations enjoyed. This diverse cuisine was honed in the Imperial Palace's kitchens by chefs brought from certain parts of the Empire to create and experiment with different ingredients. The creations of the Ottoman Palace's kitchens filtered to the population, for instance through
RamadanRamadan is the ninth month of the Islamic calendar. It is the Islamic month of fasting, in which participating Muslims refrain from eating, drinking, smoking, and indulging in anything that is in excess or ill-natured; from dawn until sunset...
events, and through the cooking at the
YalıYali may refer to:* Yalı , a water's edge house or mansion in Turkey* Yali , a Hindu mythical creature with the body of a lion and some elephant features* Yali , a Greek volcanic island...
s of the
PashaPasha or pacha, formerly bashaw, was a high rank in the Ottoman Empire political system, typically granted to governors, generals and dignitaries...
s, and from there on spread to the rest of the population. Today, Ottoman cuisine lives in the
BalkansThe Balkans is a geopolitical and cultural region of southeastern Europe...
,
AnatoliaAnatolia is a geographic region of Western Asia, comprising most of the modern Republic of Turkey. The region is bounded by the Black Sea to the north, the Caucasus to the northeast, the Iranian plateau to the southeast, the Mediterranean Sea to the south and the Aegean Sea to the west...
and the Middle East, "common heirs to what was once the Ottoman life-style, and their cuisines offer treacherous circumstantial evidence of this fact". It is typical of any great cuisine in the world to be based on local varieties and on mutual exchange and enrichment among them, but at the same time to be homogenized and harmonized by a metropolitan tradition of refined taste.
Numerous traditions and cultural traits of this previous empire (in fields such as architecture, cuisine, music, leisure and government) were adopted by the Ottomans, who elaborated them into new forms and blended them with the characteristics of the ethnic and religious groups living within the Ottoman territories, which resulted in a new and distinctively Ottoman cultural identity.
Religion
Before adopting
IslamIslam Islam Islam ( al-’islām,
[There are ten pronunciations of Islam in English, differing in whether the first or second syllable has the stress, whether the s is or , and whether the a is pronounced as in father, as in cat, or (when the stress is on the i) as in the a of sofa...]
— a process that was greatly facilitated by the
AbbasidThe Abbasid Caliphate was the third of the Islamic Caliphates of the Islamic Empire. It was ruled by the Abbasid dynasty of caliphs, who built their capital in Baghdad after overthrowing the Umayyad caliphs from all but Al Andalus....
victory at the 751
Battle of TalasThe Battle of Talas in 751 AD was a conflict between the Arab Abbasid Caliphate and the Chinese Tang Dynasty for control of the Syr Darya. On July 751, The Abbasides started a massive attack against the Chinese on the banks of the Talas river; 200,000 Muslim troops met the combined army of 10,000...
, which ensured Abbasid influence in Central Asia — the Turkic peoples practised a variety of
shamanismShamanism comprises a range of traditional beliefs and practices concerned with communication with the spirit world. It is a prominent term in anthropological research. A practitioner of shamanism is known as a shaman, , noun...
. After this battle, many of the various Turkic tribes — including the
Oghuz TurksThe Oghuz were a group of Turkic peoples. In the ninth century the Oghuz Turks from the Aral steppes drove the Pecheneg Turks of the Emba region and the River Ural toward the west...
, who were the ancestors of both the Seljuks and the Ottomans — gradually converted to Islam, and brought the religion with them to Anatolia beginning in the 11th century.
The Ottoman Empire was, in principle, tolerant towards Christians and Jews (the "Ahl Al-Kitab", or "People of the Book", according to the Qu'ran) but not towards the
polytheistsPolytheism is the belief in and worship of multiple deities, called gods and goddesses. These are usually assembled into a pantheon, along with their own mythologies and rituals...
, in accordance with the Sharia law. Such tolerance was subject to a non-Muslim tax, the
JizyaUnder Islamic law, jizya or jizyah is a per capita tax levied on a section of an Islamic state's non-Muslim citizens, who meet certain criteria...
.
Under the millet
system, non-Muslim people were considered subjects of the Empire, but were not subject to the Muslim faith or Muslim law. The Orthodox millet
, for instance, was still officially legally subject to Justinian's CodeThe Corpus Juris Civilis is the modern name for a collection of fundamental works in jurisprudence, issued from 529 to 534 by order of Justinian I, Eastern Roman Emperor....
, which had been in effect in the Byzantine Empire for 900 years. Also, as the largest group of non-Muslim subjects (or zimmiA dhimmi is a non-Muslim subject of a state governed in accordance with sharia law...
) of the Islamic Ottoman state, the Orthodox millet was granted a number of special privileges in the fields of politics and commerce, in addition to having to pay higher taxes than Muslim subjects.
,
The Ottoman Sultan
Mehmed IIMehmet II , was Sultan of the Ottoman Empire for a short time from 1444 to September 1446,...
allowed the local Christians to stay in
ConstantinopleIstanbul is the largest city in Turkey and fifth largest city proper in the world with a population of 12.6 million. Istanbul is also a megacity, as well as the cultural and financial centre of Turkey. The city covers 39 districts of the Istanbul province...
after conquering the city in 1453, and to retain their institutions such as the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate.
In 1461 Sultan Mehmed II established the Armenian Patriarchate of Constantinople. Previously, the
ByzantinesThe Byzantine Empire or Eastern Roman Empire, was the continuation of the Roman Empire during the Middle Ages, centered on the capital of Constantinople, and ruled by Emperors in direct and de jure succession to the ancient Roman Emperors...
considered the Armenian Church as
hereticalHeresy is proposing some unorthodox change to an established system of belief, especially a religion, that conflicts with the previously established opinion of scholars of that belief such as canon. It is sometimes confused with apostasy which is disaffiliation from orthodoxy and blasphemy which is...
and thus did not allow them to build churches inside the
walls of ConstantinopleThe Walls of Constantinople are a series of stone walls that have surrounded and protected the city of Constantinople since its founding as the capital of the Eastern Roman Empire by Constantine the Great...
. In 1492, when the Muslims and Sephardic Jews were expelled from Spain during the
Spanish InquisitionThe Spanish Inquisition was an ecclesiastical tribunal started in 1478 by Catholic Monarchs Ferdinand II of Aragon and Isabella I of Castile. It was intended to maintain Catholic orthodoxy in their kingdoms, and to replace the medieval inquisition which was under papal control...
, the Ottoman Sultan
Bayezid IIBayezid II was the oldest son and successor of Mehmed II, ruling as Sultan of the Ottoman Empire from 1481 to 1512...
sent his fleet under
Kemal ReisKemal Reis was a Turkish privateer and Ottoman admiral. He was also the paternal uncle of the famous Ottoman admiral and cartographer Piri Reis who accompanied him in most of his important naval expeditions....
to save them and granted the refugees the right to settle in the Ottoman Empire.
The state's relationship with the Greek Orthodox Church was largely peaceful, and recurrent oppressive measures taken against the Greek church were a deviation from generally established practice. The church's structure was kept intact and largely left alone but under close control and scrutiny until the
Greek War of IndependenceThe Greek War of Independence was a successful war of independence waged by the Greek revolutionaries between 1821 and 1829, with later assistance from several European powers, against the Ottoman Empire, who were assisted by their vassals, the Egyptian Khedivate and partly the Vilayet of...
of 1821–1829 and, later in the 19th century, the rise of the Ottoman
constitutional monarchyA constitutional monarchy is a form of government in which a monarch acts as head of state within the parameters of a written , unwritten or blended constitution...
, which was driven to some extent by nationalistic currents, tried to be balanced with
OttomanismOttomanism was a concept which developed prior to the First Constitutional Era of the Ottoman Empire. Its proponents believed that it could solve the social issues that the empire was facing. Ottomanism was highly affected by thinkers such as Montesquieu and Rousseau and the French Revolution. It...
. Other Orthodox churches, like the
Bulgarian Orthodox ChurchThe Bulgarian Orthodox Church is an autocephalous Eastern Orthodox Church with some 6.8 million members in the Republic of Bulgaria and between 2.5 and 3.0 million members in a number of European countries, the Americas and Australia...
, were dissolved and placed under the jurisdiction of the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate; until Sultan
AbdülazizAbdülaziz I or Abd Al-Aziz, His Imperial Majesty was the 32nd Sultan of the Ottoman Empire and reigned between 25 June 1861 and 30 May 1876...
established the
Bulgarian ExarchateThe Bulgarian Exarchate was the official name of the Bulgarian Orthodox Church before its autocephaly was recognized by the Ecumenical See in 1945 and the Bulgarian Patriarchate was restored in 1953....
in 1870 and reinstated the autonomy of the Bulgarian Church.
Similar millet
s were established for the Ottoman Jewish community, who were under the authority of the Haham BaşıHakham Bashi is the Turkish name for the Chief Rabbi of the nation's Jewish community.-History:The institution of the Hakham Bashi was established by the Ottoman Sultan Mehmet II, as part of his policy of governing his exceedingly diverse subjects according to their own laws and authorities...
or Ottoman
Chief RabbiChief Rabbi is a title given in several countries to the recognized religious leader of that country's Jewish community, or to a rabbinic leader appointed by the local secular authorities...
; the
Armenian OrthodoxThe Armenian Apostolic Church is the world's oldest National Church and is one of the most ancient Christian communities. Armenia was the first country to adopt Christianity as its official religion in 301 AD, in establishing this church...
community, who were under the authority of a head
bishopA bishop is an ordained or consecrated member of the Christian clergy who is generally entrusted with a position of authority and oversight. Within the Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox Churches, in the Assyrian Church of the East, in the Independent Catholic Churches, and in the...
; and a number of other religious communities as well.
Law
The Ottoman legal system accepted the
religious lawIn some religions, law can be thought of as the ordering principle of reality; knowledge as revealed by God defining and governing all human affairs. Law, in the religious sense, also includes codes of ethics and morality which are upheld and required by God...
over its subjects. The Ottoman Empire was always organized around a system of local
jurisprudenceJurisprudence is the theory and philosophy of law. Scholars of jurisprudence, or legal philosophers, hope to obtain a deeper understanding of the nature of law, of legal reasoning, legal systems and of legal institutions. Modern jurisprudence began in the 18th century and was focused on the first...
. Legal administration in the Ottoman Empire was part of a larger scheme of balancing central and local authority. Ottoman power revolved crucially around the administration of the rights to land, which gave a space for the local authority develop the needs of the local
milletMillet is an Ottoman Turkish term for a confessional community in the Ottoman Empire. In the 19th century, with the Tanzimat reforms, the term started to refer to legally protected religious minority groups, other than the ruling Sunni. Millet comes from the Arabic word millah and literally means...
. The jurisdictional complexity of the Ottoman Empire was aimed to permit the integration of culturally and religiously different groups. The Ottoman system had three court systems: one for Muslims, one for non-Muslims, involving appointed Jews and Christians ruling over their respective religious communities, and the "trade court". The entire system was regulated from above by means of the administrative Kanun
, i.e. laws, a system based upon the Turkic Yasa
and Töre
which were developed in the pre-Islamic era. The kanun
law system, on the other hand, was the secular law of the sultan, and dealt with issues not clearly addressed by the sharia system.
These court categories were not, however, wholly exclusive in nature: for instance, the Islamic courts — which were the Empire's primary courts — could also be used to settle a trade conflict or disputes between litigants of differing religions, and Jews and Christians often went to them so as to obtain a more forceful ruling on an issue. The Ottoman state tended not to interfere with non-Muslim religious law systems, despite legally having a voice to do so through local governors. The Islamic Sharia
law system had been developed from a combination of the Qur'ānThe Qur’an is the central religious text of Islam...
; the HadīthHadith are oral traditions relating to the words and deeds of the Islamic prophet Muhammad. Hadith are regarded by traditional schools of jurisprudence as important tools for determining the Muslim way of life, the sunnah. Hadith were originally oral traditions of Muhammad's actions and customs...
, or words of the prophetIn religion, a prophet is a person who has been contacted by, or has encountered, the supernatural or the divine, and serves as an intermediary with humanity, delivering this newfound knowledge from the supernatural entity to other humans...
MuhammadMuhammad ibn ‘Abdullāh , is the founder of the religion of Islam [ إِسْلامْ ] and is regarded by Muslims as a messenger and prophet of , the last and the greatest law-bearer in a series of Islamic prophets as taught by the...
; ijmā' Ijmā' is an Arabic term referring ideally to the consensus of the ummah .The hadith of Muhammad which states that "My community will never agree upon an error" is often cited as support for the validity of ijmā'...
, or
consensusConsensus in the English language is defined firstly as unanimous or general agreement; and secondly group solidarity of belief or sentiment. Ideally, achieving consensus requires serious treatment of every group member's considered opinion...
of the members of the
Muslim communityUmmah is an Arabic word meaning "community" or "nation". It is commonly used to mean either the collective nation of states, or the whole Arab world...
;
qiyasIn Sunni Islamic jurisprudence,the qiyas is the process of analogical reasoning in which the teachings of the Quran are compared and contrasted with those of the Hadith, i.e., in order to make an analogy with a known injunction to a new injunction...
, a system of analogical reasoning from previous precedents; and local customs. Both systems were taught at the Empire's law schools, which were in Constantinople and Bursa.
TanzimatThe Tanzimat , meaning reorganization of the Ottoman Empire, was a period of reformation that began in 1839 and ended with the First Constitutional Era in 1876. The Tanzimat reform era was characterized by various attempts to modernize the Ottoman Empire, to secure its territorial integrity against...
reforms, had a drastic effect on the law system. In 1877, the
civil lawPrivate law is that part of a legal system that involves relationships between individuals. This includes the law of contracts or torts and the law of obligations...
(excepting
family lawFamily law is an area of the law that deals with family-related issues and domestic relations including:*the nature of marriage, civil unions, and domestic partnerships;...
) was codified in the
MecelleThe Mecelle code was the civil code of the Ottoman Empire in the late 19th and early 20th centuries...
code. Later codifications covered
commercial lawCommercial law is the body of law that governs business and commercial transactions. It is often considered to be a branch of civil law and deals with issues of both private law and public law....
,
penal lawIn the most general sense, penal is the body of laws that are enforced by the State in its own name and impose penalties for their violation, as opposed to civil law that seeks to redress private wrongs...
and
civil procedureCivil procedure is the body of law that sets out the rules and standards that courts follow when adjudicating civil lawsuits...
.
Military
The first military unit of the Ottoman State was an army that was organized by
Osman IOsman I, Osman Gazi or Othman I El-Gazi Ottoman: عثمان بن أرطغرل, or Osman Bey or I.Osman or Osman Sayed II) was the leader of the Ottoman Turks, and the founder of the dynasty that established and ruled the Ottoman Empire...
from the tribesmen inhabiting western Anatolia in the late 13th century. The military system became an intricate organization with the advance of the Empire. The Ottoman military was a complex system of recruiting and fief-holding. The main corps of the Ottoman Army included
JanissaryThe Janissaries comprised infantry units that formed the Ottoman sultan's household troops and bodyguards...
,
SipahiSipahi was the name of several Ottoman cavalry corps...
,
AkıncıAkıncı were irregular light cavalry of the Ottoman Empire's military. When the preexisting Turkish ghazis were incorporated into the Ottoman Empire's military they become known as "Akıncı." They were one of the first divisions to face the opposing military and were known for their prowess in battle...
and
MehterânOttoman military bands are thought to be the oldest variety of military marching band in the world. Though they are often known by the Persian-derived word mahtar in the West, that word, properly speaking, refers only to a single musician in the band...
. The Ottoman army was once among the most advanced fighting forces in the world, being one of the first to employ
musketA musket is a muzzle-loaded, smooth bore long gun, which is intended to be fired from the shoulder.Usually, the musket is thought to be the weapon that replaced the arquebus, and was in turn replaced by the rifle...
s and
cannonA cannon is any tubular piece of artillery that uses gunpowder or other usually explosive-based propellants to launch a projectile. Cannon vary in caliber, range, mobility, rate of fire, angle of fire, and firepower; different forms of cannon combine and balance these attributes in varying degrees,...
s. The Ottomans began using
falconsThe falconet or falcon was a light cannon developed in the late 15th century. During middle ages guns were decorated with engravings of reptiles, birds or beasts depending on their size: a snake for the culverin, as the handles on the early cannons were often decorated to resemble serpents...
, which were short but wide cannons, during the
Siege of Constantinople (1422)The first full-scale Ottoman Siege of Constantinople took place in 1422 as a result of the Byzantine Emperor Manuel II's attempts to interfere in the succession of Ottoman Sultans, after the death of Mehmed I in 1421...
. The Ottoman cavalry depended on high speed and mobility rather than heavy armour, using bows and short swords on fast
TurkomanThe Turkoman horse, or Turkmene, was an Oriental horse breed from Turkmenistan, now extinct. Modern descendants include the Akhal-Teke and the Yamud horse breeds. Horses bred in Turkmenistan are still referred to as Turkoman, and have similar characteristics...
and
ArabianThe Arabian or Arab horse is a breed of horse that originated in the Middle East. With a distinctive head shape and high tail carriage, the Arabian is one of the most easily recognizable horse breeds in the world. It is one of the oldest horse breeds, with archaeological evidence of horses that...
horses (progenitors of the Thoroughbred racing horse); and often applied tactics similar to those of the
Mongol EmpireThe Mongol Empire was an empire from the 13th and 14th century spanning from Eastern Europe across Asia. It is the largest contiguous empire in the history of the world...
, such as pretending to retreat while surrounding the enemy forces inside a crescent-shaped formation and then making the real attack. The decline in the army's performance became evident from the mid 17th century and after the
Great Turkish WarThe Great Turkish War refers to a series of conflicts between the Ottoman Empire and contemporary European powers, then joined into a Holy League, during the second half of the 17th century.-1667-1683:...
. The 18th century saw some limited success against Venice, but in the north the European-style Russian armies forced the Ottomans to concede land. The modernization of the Ottoman Empire in the 19th century started with the military. In 1826 Sultan
Mahmud IIMahmud II
was the 30th Sultan of the Ottoman Empire from 1808 until his death in 1839. He was born at Topkapi Palace, Istanbul, the son of Sultan Abdul Hamid I. His reign is notable mostly for the extensive legal and military reforms he instituted...
abolished the Janissary corps and established the modern Ottoman army. He named them as the
Nizam-ı CedidThe Nizam-ı Cedid was a series of reforms carried out by the Ottoman Empire sultan Selim III during the late eighteenth century in a drive to catch up militarily and politically with the Western Powers...
(New Order). The Ottoman army was also the first institution to hire foreign experts and send its officers for training in western European countries. Consequently, the
Young TurksThe Young Turks were a coalition of various groups favoring reformation of the administration of the Ottoman Empire. The movement was against the monarchy of Ottoman Sultan and favored a re-installation of the shortlived Kanûn-ı Esâsî constitution...
movement first began when these relatively young and newly trained men returned with their education.
The
Ottoman NavyThe Ottoman Navy was established in the early 14th century. During its long existence it was involved in many conflicts; refer to list of Ottoman sieges and landings and list of Admirals in the Ottoman Empire for a brief chronology.-Rise :...
vastly contributed to the expansion of the Empire's territories on the European continent. It initiated the conquest of
North AfricaNorth Africa or Northern Africa is the northernmost region of the African continent, linked by the Sahara to Sub-Saharan Africa.Geopolitically, the UN definition of Northern Africa includes the following seven countries or territories; Algeria, Egypt, Libya, Morocco, Sudan, Tunisia,Mauritania, and...
, with the addition of
AlgeriaAlgeria , officially the People's Democratic Republic of Algeria, is a country located in North Africa. It is the largest country on the Mediterranean sea, the second largest on the African continent and the eleventh-largest country in the world in terms of land area.It is bordered by Tunisia in...
and
EgyptEgypt , officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, is a country mainly in North Africa, with the Sinai Peninsula forming a land bridge in Western Asia...
to the Ottoman Empire in 1517. Starting with the loss of
AlgeriaAlgeria , officially the People's Democratic Republic of Algeria, is a country located in North Africa. It is the largest country on the Mediterranean sea, the second largest on the African continent and the eleventh-largest country in the world in terms of land area.It is bordered by Tunisia in...
(1830) and
GreeceGreece , officially the Hellenic Republic , is a country in southeastern Europe, situated on the southern end of the Balkan Peninsula....
(1821), Ottoman naval power and control over the Empire's distant overseas territories began to decline. Sultan
AbdülazizAbdülaziz I or Abd Al-Aziz, His Imperial Majesty was the 32nd Sultan of the Ottoman Empire and reigned between 25 June 1861 and 30 May 1876...
(reigned 1861–1876) attempted to reestablish a strong Ottoman navy, building the largest fleet after those of Britain and France. The shipyard at Barrow, United Kingdom built its first
submarineA submarine is a watercraft capable of independent operation below the surface of the water. It differs from a submersible, which has only limited underwater capability...
in 1886 for the Ottoman Empire. However, the collapsing Ottoman economy could not sustain the fleet's strength for too long. Sultan Abdülhamid II distrusted the admirals who sided with the reformist Midhat Pasha, and claimed that the large and expensive fleet was of no use against the Russians during the Russo-Turkish War (1877–1878). He locked most of the fleet inside the
Golden HornThe Golden Horn is a historic inlet of the Bosphorus dividing the city of Istanbul and forming the superb natural harbor that has sheltered Greek, Roman, Byzantine, Ottoman and other ships for thousands of years...
, where the ships decayed for the next 30 years. Following the
Young Turk RevolutionThe Young Turk Revolution of 1908 reversed the suspension of the Ottoman parliament by Sultan Abdul Hamid II, marking the onset of the Second Constitutional Era...
in 1908, the
Committee of Union and ProgressThe Committee of Union and Progress began as a secret society established as the "Committee of Ottoman Union" in 1889 by the medical students İbrahim Temo, Abdullah Cevdet, İshak Sükuti and Hüseyinzade Ali...
sought to develop a strong Ottoman naval force. The Ottoman Navy Foundation
was established in 1910 in order to purchase new ships through public donations.
The Ottoman Air ForceThe Ottoman Air Force was founded in June 1909, making it one of the first combat aviation organizations in the world. Its formation came about after the Ottoman Empire sent two Turkish pilots to the International Aviation Conference in Paris...
was founded in June 1909, making it one of the first combat aviation organizations in the world. The Ottoman Empire started preparing its first pilots and planes, and with the founding of the Hava Okulu (Air Academy) in
ConstantinopleIstanbul is the largest city in Turkey and fifth largest city proper in the world with a population of 12.6 million. Istanbul is also a megacity, as well as the cultural and financial centre of Turkey. The city covers 39 districts of the Istanbul province...
on July 3, 1912, the Empire began to tutor its own flight officers. The founding of the Air Academy quickened advancement in the military aviation program, increased the number of enlisted persons within it, and gave the new pilots an active role in the
Armed ForcesThe Turkish Armed Forces consist of the Army, the Navy , and the Air Force of the Republic of Turkey and Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus. The Gendarmerie and the Coast Guard operate as components of the internal security forces in peacetime, and are subordinate to the Turkish Ministry of...
. In May 1913 the world's first specialized Reconnaissance Training Program was activated by the Air Academy and the first separate Reconnaissance division was established by the Air Force. In June 1914 a new military academy, Deniz Hava Okulu (Naval Aviation Academy) was founded. With the outbreak of
World War IWorld War I , also known as the First World War, the Great War, and the War to End All Wars, was a global military conflict which involved most of the world's great powers, assembled in two opposing alliances: the Triple Entente and the Triple Alliance...
, the modernization process stopped abruptly. The Ottoman Air Force fought on many fronts during
World War IWorld War I , also known as the First World War, the Great War, and the War to End All Wars, was a global military conflict which involved most of the world's great powers, assembled in two opposing alliances: the Triple Entente and the Triple Alliance...
, from
GaliciaGalicia is a historical region in East-Central Europe, currently divided between Poland and Ukraine, named after the Ukraіniаn city of Halych. The nucleus of historic Galicia is formed of three regions of western Ukraine: Lviv, Ternopil and Ivano-Frankivsk.-Tribal area:The region has a turbulent...
in the west to the
CaucasusThe Caucasus or Caucas is a geopolitical region between at the border of Europe and Asia. It is home to the Caucasus Mountains, including Europe's highest mountain ....
in the east and
YemenYemen , officially the Republic of Yemen is a country located on the Arabian Peninsula in Southwest Asia...
in the south.
See also
- Assyrian war of independence
The Assyrian War" was a temporarily successful war of independence waged by the Assyrian Patriarch and the chiefs The Assyrian War" was a temporarily successful war of independence waged by the Assyrian Patriarch and the chiefs The Assyrian War" was a temporarily successful war of independence...
- Barbary pirates
- Crimean Khanate
The Crimean Khanate or the Khanate of Crimea was a Crimean Tatar state from 1441 to 1783. Its native name was Crimean Yurt The Crimean Khanate or the Khanate of Crimea was a Crimean Tatar state from 1441 to 1783. Its native name was Crimean Yurt...
- Culture of the Ottoman Empire
The culture of the Ottoman Empire evolved over several centuries as the ruling administration of the Turks absorbed, adapted and modified the cultures of conquered lands and their peoples...
- Greek war of independence
The Greek War of Independence was a successful war of independence waged by the Greek revolutionaries between 1821 and 1829, with later assistance from several European powers, against the Ottoman Empire, who were assisted by their vassals, the Egyptian Khedivate and partly the Vilayet of...
- Hbaline
Hbaline is a small village in Jbeil-Lebanon located 44 km north of Beirut and at an altitude of 540 meters, just above Amchit and Gherfine...
- List of Ottoman Grand Viziers
- List of Ottoman Kaptan Pashas
- List of Pasha and Dey of Algiers
- Ottoman Court Positions
The Ottoman Court was an elaborate society of royalty and nobility. Beneath the ruling nobles however, existed a grand hierarchy of people, effectively slaves, who were the Sultan's to command as he pleased....
- Science and Technology in the Ottoman Empire
Science and Technology in the Ottoman Empire covers the topics related to achievements and distinguished events that happened during the existence of the empire. The study of scientific, cultural and intellectual aspects of Ottoman history is a very new area...
- World War I
World War I , also known as the First World War, the Great War, and the War to End All Wars, was a global military conflict which involved most of the world's great powers, assembled in two opposing alliances: the Triple Entente and the Triple Alliance...
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