The Ottoman Empire was a Muslim Turkish state that encompassed Anatolia,southeastern Europe, and the Arab Middle East and North Africa from the14th to the early 20th century. It succeeded both the BYZANTINE EMPIRE,whose capital, Constantinople (modern ISTANBUL), it made its own in 1453,and the Arab CALIPHATE, whose mantle of descent from Muhammad it claimedafter conquest of Egypt in 1517. The Ottoman Empire was finally brokenup at the end of World War I, when its heartland of Anatolia became theRepublic of TURKEY.
The empire was temporarily disrupted by the invasion of the Tatar conquerorTIMUR, who defeated and captured the Ottoman sultan BAYEZID I at the Battleof Ankara (1402). However, Mehmed I (1389?-1421), the Restorer, succeededin reuniting much of the empire, and it was reconstituted by MURAD II andMEHMED II. In 1453, Mehmed II conquered Constantinople, the last Byzantinestronghold. Both sultans developed the devshirme system of recruiting youngChristians for conversion to Islam and service in the Ottoman army andadministration; the Christians in the army were organized into the eliteinfantry corps called the
The empire reached its peak in the 16th century. Sultan SELIM I (r.1512-20) conquered Egypt and Syria, gained control of the Arabian Peninsula,and beat back the Safavid rulers of Iran at the Battle of Caldiran (1514).He was succeeded by SULEIMAN I (the Magnificent, r. 1520-66), who tookIraq, Hungary, and Albania and established Ottoman naval supremacy in theMediterranean. Suleiman codified and institutionalized the classic structureof the Ottoman state and society, making his dominions into one of thegreat powers of Europe.
Under the structure formalized in the 16th century, the Ottoman Empirewas dominated by a small ruling class that achieved its power and wealthas a result of the status of its members as slaves (kapikullari) of thesultan. This elite group included both the older Turko-Islamic aristocracy--descendantsof the Turkoman principalities of Anatolia, the Seljuks, and members ofthe Muslim bureaucracy and army of the caliphate--and the newer devshirmeclass of Christian converts and their descendants. The sultans played thesetwo groups off against each other to enforce standards of honesty and obedience.To ensure that the sultan was the sole focus of loyalty, Mehmed II beganthe practice of executing all brothers of the reigning sultan so that thesuccession would fall, without question, to one of his sons.
The functions of the ruling class were limited to exploiting the resourcesof the empire, largely for its own benefit; expanding and defending thestate and maintaining order; and preserving the faith and practice of Islamas well as the religions of all the subjects of the sultan. For these purposesthe class was organized into four administrative institutions: that ofthe palace, which was in charge of housing, supporting, and maintainingthe sultan and making sure that the system worked; and those of administrationand finance, the military, and culture and religion. The vast subject classwas left to carry out all other functions of state through autonomous religiouscommunities called millets--for the Jews, the Armenian Christians, theGreek Orthodox Christians, and the Muslims--and through artisans' guildsand popular mystic orders and confederations, which together formed a substratumof popular society.
The decline of the empire began late in the 16th century. It was causedby a myriad of interdependent factors, among which the most important werethe triumph of the devshirme class, the flight of the Turko-Islamic aristocracy,and degeneration in the ability and honesty both of the sultans and oftheir ruling class. The devshirme divided into many political parties thatfought for power, manipulated sultans, and used the government for theirown benefit. Corruption, nepotism, inefficiency, and misrule spread. Theempire, however, survived for 3 centuries longer because Europe was unawareof the extent of its weakness, and the mass of Ottoman subjects were protectedfrom the worst results of the decay by their millets and guilds. Startingin the 17th century, moreover, a few members of the ruling class temporarilyremedied the abuses by forcefully restoring Ottoman institutions and practicesto the pattern in which they had operated successfully in previous centuries.In the process they ruthlessly executed the incompetent and the corruptand confiscated their properties. Chief among these traditionalist reformerswere Sultan Murad IV (r. 1623-40) and the KOPRULU family of grand viziers(chief executive officers), who dominated the administration from 1656to 1702.
The empire experienced its first major defeat by Europeans in the Battleof LEPANTO (1571), when its fleet was destroyed by a Christian coalition.Nonetheless it recovered dominance of the eastern Mediterranean, capturingCrete from the Venetians in 1669. In the east, moreover, Murad IV reconquered(1638) part of Persia, which had asserted its independence under Shah ABBASI. This apparent military revival encouraged Grand Vizier Kara MustafaPasha to attempt an invasion of central Europe. Following its failure totake Vienna (1683), however, the Ottoman army collapsed. Major territorieswere lost to its European enemies in the ensuing war, which culminatedin the Treaty of Karlowitz (1699). During the 18th century, a series ofwars with Russia (see RUSSO-TURKISH WARS) and Austria accelerated the declineand loss of territory. At the same time large sections of the provincesremaining under Ottoman control fell under the sway of provincial notables,whose connection with the sultans was nominal.
Sultan SELIM III (r. 1789-1807) attempted to reform the Ottoman systemby destroying the Janissary corps and replacing it with the nizam-i jedid(new order) army modeled after the new military institutions being developedin the West. This attempt so angered the Janissaries and others with avested interest in the old ways that they overthrew him and massacred mostof the reform leaders. Defeats at the hands of Russia and Austria, thesuccess of national revolutions in Serbia and Greece, and the rise of thepowerful independent Ottoman governor of Egypt, MUHAMMAD ALI, so discreditedthe Janissaries, however, that Sultan MAHMUD II was able to massacre anddestroy them in 1826.
Mahmud then inaugurated a new series of modernistic reforms, which involvedthe destruction of the traditional institutions and their replacement withnew ones imported from the West--and in all areas of Ottoman life, notjust the military. These reforms were continued and brought to their culminationduring the Tanzimat reform era (1839-76) and the reign (1876-1909) of ABDAL-HAMID II. The scope of government was extended and centralized as reformswere made in administration, finance, education, justice, the economy,communications, and the army; even the millets were forced to democratizeand accept lay participation in their governance.
Financial mismanagement and incompetence, along with national revoltsin the Balkans and eastern Anatolia, the French occupation of Algeria andTunisia, and the takeover by the British in Egypt and the Italians in Libya,threatened to end the very existence of the empire, let alone its reforms.By this time the Ottoman sultanate was known as the "Sick Man of Europe,"and European diplomacy focused on the so-called EASTERN QUESTION--how todispose of the Sick Man's territories without upsetting the European balanceof power. Abd al-Hamid II, however, rescued the empire, at least temporarily,by reforming the Ottoman financial system, manipulating the rivalries ofthe European powers, and developing the pan-Islamic and pan-Turkic movementsto undermine the empires of his enemies. The sultan granted a constitutionand parliament in 1876, but he soon abandoned them and ruled autocraticallyso as to achieve his objectives as rapidly and efficiently as possible.He became so despotic that liberal opposition arose under the leadershipof the YOUNG TURKS, many of whom were forced to flee to Europe to escapehis police.
In 1908 a revolution led by the Young Turks forced Abd al-Hamid to restorethe parliament and constitution. After a few months of constitutional rule,however, a counterrevolutionary effort to restore the sultan's autocracyled the Young Turks to dethrone Abd al-Hamid completely in 1909. He wasreplaced by Mehmed V Rashid (r. 1909-18), who was only a puppet of thosecontrolling the government.
Rapid modernization continued during the Young Turk era (1908-18), withparticular attention given to modernizing the cities, agriculture and industry,and communications and also to the secularization of the state and theemancipation of women. However, the Young Turk leader Enver Pasha (1881-1922),who was virtual dictator from 1913, involved the empire in World War Ion the side of Germany and Austria-Hungary. The defeat of these CentralPowers led to the breakup and foreign occupation of the Ottoman Empire.The Turks accepted the resulting independence of their Arab and Balkanprovinces, but the attempt of the victorious Allies to control the Anatolianterritory left to the Turks and to turn parts of it, as well as easternThrace, over to other powers led to the Turkish war for independence (1918-23).Under the leadership of Kemal ATATURK, the Turkish nationalists overturnedthe postwar settlement embodied in the Treaty of Sevres (1920) and establishedthe Republic of Turkey, formally recognized by the Treaty of Lausanne (seeLAUSANNE, TREATY OF) in 1923.
Stanford J. Shaw
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