THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE

Rise to Power

Osman I (1299-1326)

0n 27 July declared independence from Seljuk Anatolia empire
In the early 14th Century Osthman or Osman I (1259-1326) founded an Empire that would last for over 6 centuries and shake the world with it's might.

Following the defeat of the Seljuks by the Mongols in 1293 Osman I emerged as the leader of the Turks in fighting the Tottering Byzantine Empire.

The initial areas of expansion under Osman I and his successors Orkhan (ruled 1326-59) .

were western Asia Minor and southeastern Europe, primarily the Balkan Peninsula.


1354 Gallipoli is taken by the Ottoman Turks, giving them their first foothold in Europe


Murad I (ruled 1359-89)

1389 Victory at Kosovo gives the Ottoman Turks control over Serbia, which becomes a vassal state

Murad I conquerored Thrace, Northwest of Constantinople and moved his capital to Edrine, formally Adrianople.

This conquest effectively cut Constantinople from the outside world and sealed the fate of the Byzantines forever.

Edrine also gave the Ottomans routes of invasion towards the north alowing the Ottomans to continue to expand their lands.


Bayazid I (1389-1402)
1393 The Ottoman sultan Bayazid I brings the Slav kingdom of Bulgaria under his control.



Mohammed II (ruled 1451-81).

It was he who completed the siege of Constantinople in 1453 and made it the capital of the Ottoman Empire.
The whole Balkan Peninsula south of Hungary was incorporated as well as the Crimea on the north coast of the Black Sea.
Asia Minor was completely subdued.
In addition to conquering a large empire,
Mohammed II worked strenuously for consolidation and an adequate administrative and tax system.


He was assisted by the fact that the whole Byzantine bureaucratic structure fell into his hands.
Although Islamic, Ottoman sultans were not averse to using whatever talent they could attract or capture.

Gunpowder technology was a significant element in these Ottoman successes.

Islamic Ideology

The Ottomans built on the Islamic government traditions of the Seljuk Empire of the Middle Ages.
which prided itself on being the defender of Islam in its time.
The Ottomans saw themselves in the same light.
As the empire grew and expanded through the centuries, the Ottomans formalized their position as the defenders of Islam.
with the sultans taking on the title of khalifah (caliph) of the Muslim world.
The law of the land was the Shariah,

The Golden Age

Three Sultans rueld during the Empire's Golden Age;
Bayezid II (1481-1512),
Selim I (1512-20),
Suleyman I the Magnificent (1520-66).

Bayezid expanded the Empire in the Balkans and made outposts along the Black Sea, he also put down the revolts in Anatolia.
He also turned the Ottoman Fleet into a major power, the navy was greatly expanded and Eastern and Byzantine influences were put together to make an effective fleet.
Later in his life he was displaced by his more militant son, Selim I....


Selim first defeated all opposition to his position,
he killed many of his advisories and even all but one of his sons!
He established control over the army also, which wanted to raise it's own canidate.


During his shrot but expansionistic rule the Emprie expanded into Syria, Mesopotamia, Arabia and Egypt.

Selim became the leader of the Islamic religion through his rule of Mecca and the Holy Places in Arabia and elsewhere.

Another benefit of his rule was his effort to control the Trade Lines heading East-West.

This forced European countries to seek ways through Afrika and partly the Ottoman Empire is responsible for forcing Europe into the discovery of the Americas....


Süleyman, came to the throne in an enviable situation.
New revenues from the expanded empire left him with wealth and power unparalleled in Ottoman history.
In his early campaigns he captured Belgrade (1521) and Rhodes (1522) and broke the military power of Hungary.

In 1529 he laid siege to Vienna, Austria, but was forced to withdraw for lack of supplies.

He also waged three campaigns against Persia.

Algiers in North Africa fell to his navy in 1529 and
Tripoli (now Libya) in 1551.
The Ottoman Empire under Süleyman had reached it's hieght but it lasted only for a short while....


Decline of the Ottoman Sultanate


Change in International Trade Route

From the sixteenth century onward, the commercial power of western European states with an Atlantic seaboard began to be felt in the Ottoman Empire.
During the sixteenth century, the Portuguese, having established themselves in the Indian Ocean,
tried with partial success to gain a monopoly of the trade from southeast Asia to Europe,
which had previously passed through Egypt and the Gulf and provided a source of revenue for the Ottoman sultans.
Ottoman attempts to dislodge the Portuguese from Diu in Gujarat in 1538 and from Hormuz in 1552, and to encounter them in the open sea, failed.
By the seventeenth century, when the Dutch, English, and French began to dominate long-distance trade in the Indian Ocean, the Ottoman presence was no longer significant.
These powers came to play an important role in the Ottoman economy, in the mid-seventeenth century even supplying coin to the Ottoman currency market.


Jews in the Ottoman Empire
For centuries, the Ottoman Empire was the refuge of the Jews of Europe, who did not have the freedom of religion in Europe that the citizens of the Ottoman Empire did.
Jews expelled from Spain in 1492 found refuge in the Balkans and elsewhere in Ottoman territory,
where the sultan decreed they should be welcomed. Famously, Sultan Abdulmecid rejected the Christian “blood libel” against the Jews.
Jews and Christians held significant posts such as ambassadors and court physicians.
Christians and Jews could become viziers as several did at various times.
Christians in the Ottoman Empire
In the late seventeenth century, some Greek Christians who had served in diplomatic posts were rewarded with the designation hospodar (prince) and governed the provinces of Moldavia and Walachia on behalf of the sultan.

Millet is an Ottoman Turkish term for a legally protected religious minority

It comes from the Arabic word milla for confessional community.
The millet was an alternative to autonomous territories for dealing with minority groups.
The millet system has a long history in the Middle East, and is closely linked to Islamic rules on the treatment of non-Muslim minorities.
The Ottoman term specifically refers to the separate legal courts pertaining to personal law
under which minorities were allowed to rule themselves with fairly little interference from the Ottoman government.
The main millets were the Jewish, Greek, and Armenian ones (which included gypsies, Georgian Orthodox, and several other communities).
By the nineteenth century there were 14 millets. A wide array of other groups such as Catholics Protestants were under a wakil or representative who was not officially head of a millet.

Tanzimat


Reform program in the Ottoman Empire from 1839 until 1876.

Tanzimat is Turkish for "reorganization", and was a program that based itself on the changes started by sultan Mahmud 2.

The actual program was started under sultanAbdülmecid 1.

The Tanzimat program was one of highest importance to the Ottoman Empire.


It was initiated by reformists who understood why the empire was growing weaker while neighbour countries were growing stronger.
The situation was clearly illustrated by numerous military defeats.
Inside the empire also, there were many dangerous tensions that could lead to conflicts and demands of autonomy.
This had already happened in Egypt, when Muhammad Ali achieved autonomy.

One characteristic of the Tanzimat that made it hard to accept for many,
was that it had been formed upon European ideas and ideals.
And Europe was considered the lands of the infidels.

The reforms of the Tanzimat was administered under the Grand Vizier.
The most known of the Tanzimat viziers was Mustafa Resid Pasha, who served altogether 6 terms.

While the Tanzimat program might have saved the Ottoman Empire, or at least prolonged its existence, one may assert that it came too late.
But even more grave, it was discontinued by sultan Abdülaziz' abuse of politics and little respect for the reforms.

• The program
It contained new regulations in several fields:

New administration:

Provincial representative assemblies were established
Administrative councils were established
elected from the district level to that of the provinces.
Abolishment of the traditional land-tenure regime.
Focused on equality between different communities and classes.
state courts that ruled independent of the religiously learned.
The local administrations started to function as parts of large state structure.
New codes of commercial and criminal law were introduced.
The registration of land.
Municipalities and their powers.
Additional laws were also issued to organize the matters of trade, official transactions.


In that same context, the 1876 constitution was issued under the name
"the Fundamental Law of the Sultanate," though during that period,
the term constitution generally referred to the entirety of the Tanzimat, not only the fundamental law.


Standardized system of taxation:
Earlier there had been abuses in many provinces,
allowing local rulers to enrich themselves on the locals.
The system of taxation also applied to military conscription and training,
a system that now was regulated, and involved less pressure on the locals.

New Millitary system Replacing janissaries:
The military establishment was the Tanzimat's first priority.
At the time, traditional Ottoman armies-the Janissaries and the Sipahi-had fallen from their glory
and their weakness contrasted highly with European armies, which, since the 18thcentury, began displaying a high level of organization, training, and skill.
The Ottoman Empire now introduced a conscript system based upon Prussian patterns.
This involved the total end of the system, from which the Janissaries had been recruited.

Rights of the individual:
No matter what race or religion a citizen had, his or her security of life, property and honour was guaranteed inside the empire.
In return, the state demanded that all citizens were loyal to the sultan and the Ottoman administration.

Secular school system:
Earlier, Islam had been the foundation for schooling.
Now, modern ideals were introduced instead.


Other Reforms

guarantees to ensure the Ottoman subjects perfect security for their lives, honour, and property (1839);
• the introduction of the first Ottoman paper banknotes (1840);
• the opening of the first post offices of the empire (1840);
• the reorganization of the finance system (1840);
• the reorganization of the Civil and Criminal Code (1840);
• the establishment of the First Ottoman Parliament (1876);
• the reorganization of the army and a regular method of recruiting, levying the army, and fixing the duration of military service (1843–44);
• the adoption of an Ottoman national anthem and Ottoman national flag (1844);
• the first nationwide Ottoman census in 1844 (only male citizens were counted);
• the first national identity cards (1844);
• the institution of a Council of Public Instruction (1845) and the Ministry of Education .
• the establishment of the first modern universities and teacher school 1848);
• the establishment of the Ministry of Healthcare (1850);
• the Commerce and Trade Code (1850);
• the establishment of the Academy of Sciences (1851)
• the establishment of the modern Municipality of Istanbul and the City Planning Council (1855);
• promising full legal equality for citizens of all religions (1856);
• non-Muslims were allowed to become soldiers (1856);
• various provisions for the better administration of the public service and advancement of commerce;
• the establishment of the Ottoman Central Bank (originally established as the Bank-ı Osmanî in 1856,)



Effects of the Tanzimat reforms
Although the Edict of Gülhane and the Tanzimat provided strong guidelines for society, it was not a constitution. It did not replace the authority of the sultan.
The reforms peaked in 1876 with the implementation of an Ottoman constitution checking the autocratic powers of the Sultan.

State institutions were reorganized; laws were updated according to the needs of the changing world; modern education, clothing, architecture, arts, and lifestyle were encouraged.
This reorganization and addition of state institutions resulted in an enormous increase in the number of bureaucrats in the Ottoman Empire

Causes of the Decline Of Ottoman Empire

There are numerous reasons for the decline and fall of the Ottoman Empire. The three most important reasons are the following:

Failure to Modernize:
The leaders of the Ottoman Empire did not invest in modern technologies and
did not take advantage of the Scientific Revolution in Europe and Enlightenment.
Religious Authorities in the Ottoman Empire prevented modernization reforms.

The Tanzimat Reforms that did come were too little too late.
Additionally, Muslims had distinct privileges that non-Muslims (Jews and Christians) were not entitled to, leading to inequality and resentment.
This led to stagnation in Ottoman development whereas the rest of Europe was advancing rapidly.

Some individuals wanted to push for greater technological and social advancement, calling themselves the Jön Türkler (Young Turks).
These people would ultimately lead the overthrow of the government and the establishment of the Turkish Republic.

Ethnic Nationalism:

Especially in the Balkans, but also to a limited degree elsewhere in the empire, people were swept up in the cause of nationalism.
This happened especially among the Christian minorities of Southeastern Europe because of the inequalities they faced.
The Greeks, Serbs, Bulgarians, and Romanians all declared independence and fought the Ottoman Armies to gain that independence.
This led to a large decrease in Ottoman territory and a drain on the Ottoman Army and Janissary Recruitment.
There were also bitter fights between these newly independent states,
especially between Greece and Bulgaria over who would get to claim regions still under Ottoman control like Thrace and Macedonia.

Economic and Military Pressures:
This period was also notable for Austrian and Russian Imperialism which led to numerous wars between those two empires and the Ottoman Empire.
These were incredibly draining on the Ottoman treasury and exhausting for the Ottoman Army.
The Ottoman Empire racked up incredible debts to continue arming themselves with hand-me-down weapons from Western countries.
The over-expansion of the Ottoman Empire in World War I ended up destroying the country.

The tough feudal Turkish cavalry
Second, the tough feudal Turkish cavalry that had been the backbone of the army in the mobile wars of conquest
were less useful to the sultans who now needed professional garrisons to run the frontier forts.
Without wars of conquest to occupy and enrich them, they became restless and troublesome to the central government.
That combined with the problems from the Janissaries, caused revolts that further disrupted the empire.
(Eventually, the Janissaries would become so troublesome that one sultan would have to surround and massacre them.)
Both of these military problems, the failure to keep up with the West and the increasingly rebellious army,
fed back into the empire's economic decline, which further aggravated its military problems.
Internally, the Ottomans suffered from three major problems.

Sultans were less capable and energetic

First of all, after Suleiman's death, the sultans were less capable and energetic, being raised and spending their time increasingly at court with all its harem intrigues.
Without the sultan's strong hand at the helm, corruption became a major problem.

Janissaries became a virtual hereditary caste

Second, the Janissaries became a virtual hereditary caste,
demanding increasingly more pay while they also grew soft and lazy.
Finally, the size of the empire created problems.
The sultan was expected to lead the army, setting out with it each spring from the capital.
This meant that as the frontiers expanded, it took the army longer to reach the enemy,
thus shortening the campaign season to the point where it was very hard to conquer new lands.
This especially hurt the Turks at the siege of Vienna in 1529.
They did not reach the city until September, and winter set in early with disastrous results for the troops not used to European winters.
Because of these factors, the Turks made few new conquests after 1565 and, as a result, gained no significant new revenues and plunder.
Two external economic factors also hurt the Ottomans, both of them stemming from the Age of Exploration then taking place.

Lost monopoly on the spice trade going to Europe

For one thing, the Portuguese circumnavigation around Africa to India had opened a new spice route to Asia.
Therefore, the Turks lost their monopoly on the spice trade going to Europe, which cost them a good deal of much needed money.


Spanish Empire in the Americas that was bringing a huge influx of gold and silver to Europe

The other problem came from the Spanish Empire in the Americas that was bringing a huge influx of gold and silver to Europe.
This triggered rampant inflation during the 1500’s, which worked its way eastward into the Ottoman Empire.
This inflation, combined with the other factors hurting the empire's revenues, led to serious economic decline.
Economic decline hurt the empire militarily
That economic decline hurt the empire militarily in two ways that fed back into further economic decline.
First of all, after 1600, the Turks lost their technological and military edge.
While European armies were constantly upgrading their artillery and firearms, the Ottomans let theirs stagnate,
thus putting them at a disadvantage against their enemies.
Also, as Turkish conquests ground to a halt, a stable frontier guarded by expensive fortresses evolved,
which drained the empire of even more money.
At the same time, Europeans were reviving the Roman concept of strict drill and discipline to create much more efficient and reliable armies.
However, the Turks failed to adapt these techniques and, as a result, found themselves increasingly at a disadvantage when fighting against European armies.


The following centuries saw the Ottoman Empire suffer from steady political and economic decay.
By the 1800's, its decrepit condition would earn it the uncomplimentary title of "The Sick Man of Europe".
Finally, the shock of World War I would destroy the Ottoman Empire once and for all,
breaking it into what have become such Middle Eastern nations as Turkey, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Lebanon, and Israel.