Ottoman Empire

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"Turkish Empire" redirects here. For empires with Turkic origins, see List of Turkic
dynasties and countries.
Not to be confused with Ottoman Caliphate.

The Sublime Ottoman State

‫دولت عليه عثمانیه‬

Devlet-i ʿAlīye-i ʿOsmānīye

1299–1922

Flag
(1844–1922)

Coat of arms
(1882–1922)

Motto: ‫دولت ابد مدت‬

Devlet-i Ebed-müddet
("The Eternal State")

Anthem: various
The Ottoman Empire at its greatest extent, under Sultan Mehmed IV

Söğüt[1]
Capital
(c. 1299–1335)
Bursa[2]
(1335–1363)
Adrianople (Edirne)[2]
(1363–1453)
Constantinople (present-day Is
tanbul)[note 1]
(1453–1922)

Common languages Ottoman Turkish (Official)

Arabic (liturgical language;
among Arabic-speaking citizens)
Greek (some of the sultans
and among Greek-speaking community)
Persian (diplomacy, poetry,
historiographical works, literary works,
taught in state schools)[5][6]
Chagatai (decrees in the 15th
century) [7]

French (Foreign language
among educated people in post-
Tanzimat/the late empire)[8]
many others

Religion Sunni Islam

School: Hanafi
Creed: Maturidi

Demonym(s) Ottoman

Government Absolute monarchy

(1299–1876; 1878–1908; 1920–1922)
 and caliphate (1517–1924[9])
Constitutional monarchy
(1876–1878; 1908–1920)

Sultan  
• c.1299–1323/4 (first) Osman I
• 1918–1922 (last) Mehmed VI
Caliph  
• 1517–1520 (first) Selim I[10][note 2]
• 1922–1924 (last) Abdülmecid II
Grand Vizier  
• 1320–1331 (first) Alaeddin Pasha
• 1920–1922 (last) Ahmet Tevfik Pasha

Legislature General Assembly

• Unelected upper house Chamber of Notables

• Elected lower house Chamber of Deputies

History  

• Founded c. 1299
• Interregnum 1402–1413
• Transformation to empire 1453
• 1st Constitutional 1876–1878
• 2nd Constitutional 1908–1920
• Raid on the Sublime 23 January 1913
Porte
• Sultanate abolished[note 3] 1 November 1922
• Republic of 29 October 1923
Turkey established [note 4]

• Caliphate abolished 3 March 1924

Area
1451[11] 690,000 km2 (270,000 sq mi)
1521[11] 3,400,000 km2 (1,300,000 sq mi)
1683[11][12] 5,200,000 km2 (2,000,000 sq mi)
1844[13] 2,938,365 km2 (1,134,509 sq mi)

Population
• 1912[14] 24,000,000

Currency Akçe, Para, Sultani, Kuruş, Lira

Preceded by Succeeded by
 Sultanate of Rum Turkey
Anatolian beyliks Hellenic Republic
Byzantine Empire Caucasus
Viceroyalty
Kingdom of Bosnia
Bosnia and
Second Bulgarian Herzegovina
Empire Revolutionary
Serbian Despotate Serbia
Kingdom of Hungary Albania
Kingdom of Croatia Kingdom of
League of Lezhë Romania
Principality of
Mamluk Sultanate Bulgaria
Hafsid Kingdom Eastern Rumelia
Aq Qoyunlu Emirate of Asir
Hospitaller Tripoli Kingdom of Hejaz
Kingdom of Tlemcen OETA
Empire of Trebizond Mandatory Iraq
Principality of French Algeria
Samtskhe
Despotate of the British Cyprus
Morea French Tunisia
Zeta Italian Tripolitania
Italian Cyrenaica
Sheikhdom of
Kuwait
Kingdom of
Yemen
Sultanate of Egypt

The Ottoman Empire (/ˈɒtəmən/; Ottoman Turkish: ‫دولت عليه عثمانيه‬ Devlet-i ʿAlīye-i

ʿOsmānīye, literally "The Sublime Ottoman State"; Modern Turkish: Osmanlı
İmparatorluğu or Osmanlı Devleti; French: Empire ottoman)[note 5][15] was a state[note 6] that
controlled much of Southeastern Europe, Western Asia, and Northern Africa between
the 14th and early 20th centuries. It was founded at the end of the 13th century in
northwestern Anatolia in the town of Söğüt (modern-day Bilecik Province) by
the Turkoman[16][17] tribal leader Osman I.[18] After 1354, the Ottomans crossed into Europe
and with the conquest of the Balkans, the Ottoman beylik was transformed into a
transcontinental empire. The Ottomans ended the Byzantine Empire with the
1453 conquest of Constantinople by Mehmed the Conqueror.[19]
During the 16th and 17th centuries, at the height of its power, under the reign
of Suleiman the Magnificent, the Ottoman Empire was a multinational,
multilingual empire controlling most of Southeastern Europe, Central Europe, Western
Asia, parts of Eastern Europe, the Caucasus, Northern Africa, and the Horn of Africa.
[20]
 At the beginning of the 17th century, the empire contained 32 provinces and
numerous vassal states. Some of these were later absorbed into the Ottoman Empire,
while others were granted various types of autonomy over the course of centuries. [note 7]
With Constantinople (modern-day Istanbul) as its capital and control of lands around
the Mediterranean Basin, the Ottoman Empire was at the centre of interactions between
the Eastern and Western worlds for six centuries. While the empire was once thought to
 have entered a period of decline following the death of Suleiman the Magnificent, this
view is no longer supported by the majority of academic historians. [21] The empire
continued to maintain a flexible and strong economy, society and military throughout the
17th and for much of the 18th century.[22] However, during a long period of peace from
1740 to 1768, the Ottoman military system fell behind that of their European rivals,
the Habsburg and Russian empires.[23] The Ottomans consequently suffered severe
military defeats in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, which prompted them to initiate
a comprehensive process of reform and modernisation known as the Tanzimat. Thus,
over the course of the 19th century, the Ottoman state became vastly more powerful
and organised, despite suffering further territorial losses, especially in the Balkans,
where a number of new states emerged.[24]
With the 1913 coup d'état bringing the nationalistic and radical Committee of Union and
Progress to power, the empire allied itself with Germany hoping to escape from the
diplomatic isolation which had contributed to its recent territorial losses, and thus
joined World War I on the side of the Central Powers.[25] While the Empire was able to
largely hold its own during the conflict, it was struggling with internal dissent, especially
with the Arab Revolt in its Arabian holdings. During this time, genocide was committed
by the Ottoman government against the Armenians, Assyrians, and Greeks.[26] The
Empire's defeat and the occupation of part of its territory by the Allied Powers in
the aftermath of World War I resulted in its partitioning and the loss of its Middle Eastern
territories, which were divided between the United Kingdom and France. The
successful Turkish War of Independence led by Mustafa Kemal Atatürk against the
occupying Allies led to the emergence of the Republic of Turkey in the Anatolian
heartland and the abolition of the Ottoman monarchy.[27]

Contents

 1Name
 2History
o 2.1Rise (c. 1299–1453)
o 2.2Expansion and peak (1453–1566)
o 2.3Stagnation and reform (1566–1827)
 2.3.1Revolts, reversals, and revivals (1566–1683)
 2.3.2Military defeats
o 2.4Decline and modernization (1828–1908)
o 2.5Defeat and dissolution (1908–1922)
 2.5.1Young Turk movement
 2.5.2World War I
 2.5.2.1Genocides
 2.5.2.2Arab Revolt
 2.5.2.3Treaty of Sèvres and Turkish War of Independence
 3Historiographical debate on the Ottoman state
 4Government
o 4.1Law
o 4.2Military
 5Administrative divisions
 6Economy
 7Demographics
o 7.1Language
o 7.2Religion
 7.2.1Islam
 7.2.2Christianity and Judaism
o 7.3Social-political-religious structure
 8Culture
o 8.1Education
o 8.2Literature
o 8.3Media
o 8.4Architecture
o 8.5Decorative arts
o 8.6Music and performing arts
o 8.7Cuisine
 9Science and technology
 10Sports
 11See also
 12Notes
 13References
 14Further reading
o 14.1General surveys
o 14.2Early Ottomans
o 14.3Diplomatic and military
o 14.4Specialty studies
o 14.5Historiography
 15External links

Name
Main article: Names of the Ottoman Empire

A Dutch map from 1635, referring to as "Turkish Empire" (TVRCICVM IMPERIVM) to the Ottoman Empire.

The word Ottoman is a historical anglicisation of the name of Osman I, the founder of

the Empire and of the ruling House of Osman (also known as the Ottoman dynasty).
Osman's name in turn was the Turkish form of the Arabic name ʿUthmān (‫)عثمان‬.
In Ottoman Turkish, the empire was referred to as Devlet-i ʿAlīye-yi ʿOsmānīye ( ‫دولت عليه‬
‫)عثمانیه‬,[28] literally "The Supreme Ottoman State", or alternatively ʿOsmānlı Devleti ( ‫عثمانلى‬
‫)دولتى‬. In Modern Turkish, it is known as Osmanlı İmparatorluğu ("The Ottoman Empire")
or Osmanlı Devleti ("The Ottoman State").
The Turkish word for "Ottoman" (Turkish: Osmanlı) originally referred to the tribal
followers of Osman in the fourteenth century. The word subsequently came to be used
to refer to the empire's military-administrative elite. In contrast, the term "Turk" (Türk)
was used to refer to the Anatolian peasant and tribal population and was seen as a
disparaging term when applied to urban, educated individuals. [29] In the early modern
period, an educated, urban-dwelling Turkish-speaker who was not a member of the
military-administrative class would often refer to himself neither as an Osmanlı nor as
a Türk, but rather as a Rūmī (‫)رومى‬, or "Roman", meaning an inhabitant of the territory of
the former Byzantine Empire in the Balkans and Anatolia. The term Rūmī was also used
to refer to Turkish-speakers by the other Muslim peoples of the empire and beyond.
[30]
 As applied to Ottoman Turkish-speakers, this term began to fall out of use at the end
of the seventeenth century, and instead the word increasingly became associated with
the Greek population of the empire, a meaning that it still bears in Turkey today. [31]
In Western Europe, the names Ottoman Empire, Turkish Empire and Turkey were
often used interchangeably, with Turkey being increasingly favoured both in formal and
informal situations. This dichotomy was officially ended in 1920–23, when the newly
established Ankara-based Turkish government chose Turkey as the sole official name.
At present, most scholarly historians avoid the terms "Turkey", "Turks", and "Turkish"
when referring to the Ottomans, due to the empire's multinational character. [32]

History
Main article: History of the Ottoman Empire
See also: Territorial evolution of the Ottoman Empire
Rise (c. 1299–1453)
Main article: Rise of the Ottoman Empire
Further information: Osman I, Ottoman dynasty, and Gaza Thesis
As the Seljuk Sultanate of Rum declined in the 13th century, Anatolia was divided into a
patchwork of independent Turkish principalities known as the Anatolian Beyliks. One of
these beyliks, in the region of Bithynia on the frontier of the Byzantine Empire, was led
by the Turkish tribal leader Osman I (d. 1323/4), a figure of obscure origins from whom
the name Ottoman is derived.[33] Osman's early followers consisted both of Turkish tribal
groups and Byzantine renegades, with many but not all converts to Islam. [34] Osman
extended the control of his principality by conquering Byzantine towns along
the Sakarya River. A Byzantine defeat at the Battle of Bapheus in 1302 contributed to
Osman's rise as well. It is not well understood how the early Ottomans came to
dominate their neighbours, due to the lack of sources surviving from this period.
The Gaza Thesis theory popular during the twentieth century credited their success to
their rallying of religious warriors to fight for them in the name of Islam, but it is now
highly criticised and no longer generally accepted by historians, and no consensus on
the nature of the early Ottoman state's expansion has replaced it. [35]
The Battle of Nicopolis in 1396; painting from 1523

In the century after the death of Osman I, Ottoman rule began to extend over Anatolia
and the Balkans. The earliest conflicts began during the Byzantine–Ottoman wars,
waged in Anatolia in the late 13th century before entering Europe in the mid-14th
century, followed by the Bulgarian–Ottoman wars and the Serbian–Ottoman
wars waged beginning in the mid 14th century. Much of this period was characterized
by Ottoman expansion into the Balkans. Osman's son, Orhan, captured the
northwestern Anatolian city of Bursa in 1326, making it the new capital of the Ottoman
state and supplanting Byzantine control in the region. The important port city
of Thessaloniki was captured from the Venetians in 1387 and sacked. The Ottoman
victory in Kosovo in 1389 effectively marked the end of Serbian power in the region,
paving the way for Ottoman expansion into Europe. [36] The Battle of Nicopolis for
the Bulgarian Tsardom of Vidin in 1396, widely regarded as the last large-
scale crusade of the Middle Ages, failed to stop the advance of the victorious Ottoman
Turks.[37]

Part of a series on the

History of the
Ottoman Empire

Timeline
 Rise (1299–1453)[show]

Classical Age (1453–1566)[show]

Transformation (1566–1703)[show]

Old Regime (1703–1789)[show]

Decline & Modernization (1789–1908)[show]

Dissolution (1908–1922)[show]

Historiography (Ghaza, Decline)

 v
 t
 e

As the Turks expanded into the Balkans, the conquest of Constantinople became a

crucial objective. The Ottomans had already wrested control of nearly all former
Byzantine lands surrounding the city, but the strong defence of Constantinople's
strategic position on the Bosphorus Strait made it difficult to conquer. In 1402, the
Byzantines were temporarily relieved when the Turco-Mongol leader Timur, founder of
the Timurid Empire, invaded Ottoman Anatolia from the east. In the Battle of Ankara in
1402, Timur defeated the Ottoman forces and took Sultan Bayezid I as a prisoner,
throwing the empire into disorder. The ensuing civil war, also known as the Fetret Devri,
lasted from 1402 to 1413 as Bayezid's sons fought over succession. It ended
when Mehmed I emerged as the sultan and restored Ottoman power. [38]
The Balkan territories lost by the Ottomans after 1402, including Thessaloniki,
Macedonia, and Kosovo, were later recovered by Murad II between the 1430s and
1450s. On 10 November 1444, Murad repelled the Crusade of Varna by defeating the
Hungarian, Polish, and Wallachian armies under Władysław III of Poland (also King of
Hungary) and John Hunyadi at the Battle of Varna, although Albanians
under Skanderbeg continued to resist. Four years later, John Hunyadi prepared another
army of Hungarian and Wallachian forces to attack the Turks, but was again defeated at
the Second Battle of Kosovo in 1448.[39]
Expansion and peak (1453–1566)
Main article: Growth of the Ottoman Empire

Sultan Mehmed II's entry into Constantinople; painting by Fausto Zonaro (1854–1929)

The Battle of Mohács in 1526[40]

Barbarossa Hayreddin Pasha defeats the Holy League of Charles V under the command of Andrea Doria at
the Battle of Preveza in 1538

The son of Murad II, Mehmed the Conqueror, reorganized both state and military, and
on 29 May 1453 conquered Constantinople. Mehmed allowed the Orthodox Church to
maintain its autonomy and land in exchange for accepting Ottoman authority. [41] Due to
tension between the states of western Europe and the later Byzantine Empire, the
majority of the Orthodox population accepted Ottoman rule as preferable to Venetian
rule.[41] Albanian resistance was a major obstacle to Ottoman expansion on the Italian
peninsula.[42]
In the 15th and 16th centuries, the Ottoman Empire entered a period of expansion. The
Empire prospered under the rule of a line of committed and effective Sultans. It also
flourished economically due to its control of the major overland trade routes between
Europe and Asia.[43][note 8]
Sultan Selim I (1512–1520) dramatically expanded the Empire's eastern and southern
frontiers by defeating Shah Ismail of Safavid Iran, in the Battle of Chaldiran.[44][45] Selim I
established Ottoman rule in Egypt by defeating and annexing the Mamluk Sultanate of
Egypt and created a naval presence on the Red Sea. After this Ottoman expansion,
competition began between the Portuguese Empire and the Ottoman Empire to become
the dominant power in the region. [46]
Suleiman the Magnificent (1520–1566) captured Belgrade in 1521, conquered the
southern and central parts of the Kingdom of Hungary as part of the Ottoman–
Hungarian Wars,[47][48][failed verification] and, after his historic victory in the Battle of Mohács in
1526, he established Ottoman rule in the territory of present-day Hungary (except the
western part) and other Central European territories. He then laid siege to Vienna in
1529, but failed to take the city.[49] In 1532, he made another attack on Vienna, but was
repulsed in the Siege of Güns.[50][51] Transylvania, Wallachia and, intermittently, Moldavia,
became tributary principalities of the Ottoman Empire. In the east, the Ottoman
Turks took Baghdad from the Persians in 1535, gaining control of Mesopotamia and
naval access to the Persian Gulf. In 1555, the Caucasus became officially partitioned for
the first time between the Safavids and the Ottomans, a status quo that would remain
until the end of the Russo-Turkish War (1768–74). By this partitioning of the Caucasus
as signed in the Peace of Amasya, Western Armenia, western Kurdistan, and Western
Georgia (incl. western Samtskhe) fell into Ottoman hands,[52] while
southern Dagestan, Eastern Armenia, Eastern Georgia, and Azerbaijan remained
Persian.[53]
In 1539, a 60,000-strong Ottoman army besieged the Spanish garrison
of Castelnuovo on the Adriatic coast; the successful siege cost the Ottomans 8,000
casualties,[54] but Venice agreed to terms in 1540, surrendering most of its empire in
the Aegean and the Morea. France and the Ottoman Empire, united by mutual
opposition to Habsburg rule, became strong allies. The French conquests
of Nice (1543) and Corsica (1553) occurred as a joint venture between the forces of the
French king Francis I and Suleiman, and were commanded by the Ottoman
admirals Barbarossa Hayreddin Pasha and Turgut Reis.[55] A month before the siege of
Nice, France supported the Ottomans with an artillery unit during the 1543
Ottoman conquest of Esztergom in northern Hungary. After further advances by the
Turks, the Habsburg ruler Ferdinand officially recognized Ottoman ascendancy in
Hungary in 1547. Suleiman I died of natural causes in his tent during the Siege of
Szigetvár in 1566.
By the end of Suleiman's reign, the Empire spanned approximately 877,888 sq mi
(2,273,720 km2), extending over three continents. [56] In addition, the Empire became a
dominant naval force, controlling much of the Mediterranean Sea.[57] By this time, the
Ottoman Empire was a major part of the European political sphere. The Ottomans
became involved in multi-continental religious wars when Spain and Portugal were
united under the Iberian Union, the Ottomans as holders of the Caliph title, meaning
leader of all Muslims worldwide, and Iberians, as leaders of the Christian crusaders,
were locked in a worldwide conflict, with zones of operations in the Mediterranean
Sea[58] and Indian Ocean[59] where Iberians circumnavigated Africa to reach India, and on
their way, wage wars upon the Ottomans and their local Muslim allies. Likewise, the
Iberians passed through newly-Christianized Latin America and had sent
expeditions that traversed the Pacific in order to Christianize the formerly
Muslim Philippines and use it as a base to further attack the Muslims in the Far East.
[60]
 In this case, the Ottomans sent armies to aid its easternmost vassal and territory,
the Sultanate of Aceh in Southeast Asia.[61][62] During the 1600s the worldwide conflict
between the Ottoman Caliphate and Iberian Union was a stalemate since both powers
were at similar population, technology and economic levels. Nevertheless, the success
of the Ottoman political and military establishment was compared to the Roman Empire,
by the likes of the contemporary Italian scholar Francesco Sansovino and the French
political philosopher Jean Bodin.[63]
Stagnation and reform (1566–1827)
Revolts, reversals, and revivals (1566–1683)
Main article: Transformation of the Ottoman Empire
Further information: Ottoman Decline Thesis

The extent of the Ottoman Empire in 1566, upon the death of Suleiman the Magnificent
Ottoman miniature about the Szigetvár campaign showing Ottoman troops and Tatars as avant-garde

In the second half of the sixteenth century, the Ottoman Empire came under increasing
strain from inflation and the rapidly rising costs of warfare that were impacting both
Europe and the Middle East. These pressures led to a series of crises around the year
1600, placing great strain upon the Ottoman system of government. [64] The empire
underwent a series of transformations of its political and military institutions in response
to these challenges, enabling it to successfully adapt to the new conditions of the
seventeenth century and remain powerful, both militarily and economically. [21]
[65]
 Historians of the mid-twentieth century once characterized this period as one of
stagnation and decline, but this view is now rejected by the majority of academics. [21]
The discovery of new maritime trade routes by Western European states allowed them
to avoid the Ottoman trade monopoly. The Portuguese discovery of the Cape of Good
Hope in 1488 initiated a series of Ottoman-Portuguese naval wars in the Indian
Ocean throughout the 16th century. Despite the growing European presence in the
Indian Ocean, Ottoman trade with the east continued to flourish. Cairo, in particular,
benefitted from the rise of Yemeni coffee as a popular consumer commodity. As
coffeehouses appeared in cities and towns across the empire, Cairo developed into a
major center for its trade, contributing to its continued prosperity throughout the
seventeenth and much of the eighteenth century. [66]
Under Ivan IV (1533–1584), the Tsardom of Russia expanded into the Volga and
Caspian region at the expense of the Tatar khanates. In 1571, the Crimean khan Devlet
I Giray, commanded by the Ottomans, burned Moscow.[67] The next year, the invasion
was repeated but repelled at the Battle of Molodi. The Ottoman Empire continued to
invade Eastern Europe in a series of slave raids,[68] and remained a significant power in
Eastern Europe until the end of the 17th century. [69]
The Ottomans decided to conquer Venetian Cyprus and on 22 July 1570, Nicosia was
besieged; 50,000 Christians died, and 180,000 were enslaved. [70] On 15 September
1570, the Ottoman cavalry appeared before the last Venetian stronghold in Cyprus,
Famagusta. The Venetian defenders would hold out for 11 months against a force that
would come to number 200,000 men with 145 cannons; 163,000 cannonballs struck the
walls of Famagusta before it fell to the Ottomans in August 1571. The Siege of
Famagusta claimed 50,000 Ottoman casualties.[71] Meanwhile, the Holy
league consisting of mostly Spanish and Venetian fleets won a victory over the Ottoman
fleet at the Battle of Lepanto (1571), off southwestern Greece; Catholic forces killed
over 30,000 Turks and destroyed 200 of their ships. [72] It was a startling, if mostly
symbolic,[73] blow to the image of Ottoman invincibility, an image which the victory of the
Knights of Malta against the Ottoman invaders in the 1565 Siege of Malta had recently
set about eroding.[74] The battle was far more damaging to the Ottoman navy in sapping
experienced manpower than the loss of ships, which were rapidly replaced. [75] The
Ottoman navy recovered quickly, persuading Venice to sign a peace treaty in 1573,
allowing the Ottomans to expand and consolidate their position in North Africa. [76]
By contrast, the Habsburg frontier had settled somewhat, a stalemate caused by a
stiffening of the Habsburg defences .[77] The Long Turkish War against Habsburg Austria
(1593–1606) created the need for greater numbers of Ottoman infantry equipped with
firearms, resulting in a relaxation of recruitment policy. This contributed to problems of
indiscipline and outright rebelliousness within the corps, which were never fully solved. [78]
[obsolete  source]
 Irregular sharpshooters (Sekban) were also recruited, and on demobilization
turned to brigandage in the Jelali revolts (1590–1610), which engendered widespread
anarchy in Anatolia in the late 16th and early 17th centuries. [79] With the Empire's
population reaching 30 million people by 1600, the shortage of land placed further
pressure on the government.[80][obsolete  source] In spite of these problems, the Ottoman state
remained strong, and its army did not collapse or suffer crushing defeats. The only
exceptions were campaigns against the Safavid dynasty of Persia, where many of the
Ottoman eastern provinces were lost, some permanently. This 1603–1618 war
eventually resulted in the Treaty of Nasuh Pasha, which ceded the entire Caucasus,
except westernmost Georgia, back into Iranian Safavid possession.[81] The treaty ending
the Cretan War (1645–1669) cost Venice much of Dalmatia, its Aegean island
possessions, and Crete. (Losses from the war totaled 30,985 Venetian soldiers and
118,754 Turkish soldiers.)[82]

The Second Siege of Vienna in 1683 by Frans Geffels

During his brief majority reign, Murad IV (1623–1640) reasserted central authority and
recaptured Iraq (1639) from the Safavids.[83] The resulting Treaty of Zuhab of that same
year decisively divided the Caucasus and adjacent regions between the two
neighbouring empires as it had already been defined in the 1555 Peace of Amasya. [84][85]
The Sultanate of women (1623–1656) was a period in which the mothers of young
sultans exercised power on behalf of their sons. The most prominent women of this
period were Kösem Sultan and her daughter-in-law Turhan Hatice, whose political
rivalry culminated in Kösem's murder in 1651. [86] During the Köprülü Era (1656–1703),
effective control of the Empire was exercised by a sequence of Grand Viziers from the
Köprülü family. The Köprülü Vizierate saw renewed military success with authority
restored in Transylvania, the conquest of Crete completed in 1669, and expansion
into Polish southern Ukraine, with the strongholds of Khotyn and Kamianets-
Podilskyi and the territory of Podolia ceding to Ottoman control in 1676.[87]
This period of renewed assertiveness came to a calamitous end in 1683 when Grand
Vizier Kara Mustafa Pasha led a huge army to attempt a second Ottoman siege
of Vienna in the Great Turkish War of 1683–1699. The final assault being fatally
delayed, the Ottoman forces were swept away by allied Habsburg, German, and Polish
forces spearheaded by the Polish king John III Sobieski at the Battle of Vienna. The
alliance of the Holy League pressed home the advantage of the defeat at Vienna,
culminating in the Treaty of Karlowitz (26 January 1699), which ended the Great Turkish
War.[88] The Ottomans surrendered control of significant territories, many permanently.
[89]
 Mustafa II (1695–1703) led the counterattack of 1695–96 against the Habsburgs in
Hungary, but was undone at the disastrous defeat at Zenta (in modern Serbia), 11
September 1697.[90]
Military defeats
Aside from the loss of the Banat and the temporary loss of Belgrade (1717–39), the
Ottoman border on the Danube and Sava remained stable during the eighteenth
century. Russian expansion, however, presented a large and growing threat.
[91]
 Accordingly, King Charles XII of Sweden was welcomed as an ally in the Ottoman
Empire following his defeat by the Russians at the Battle of Poltava of 1709 in central
Ukraine (part of the Great Northern War of 1700–1721).[91] Charles XII persuaded the
Ottoman Sultan Ahmed III to declare war on Russia, which resulted in an Ottoman
victory in the Pruth River Campaign of 1710–1711, in Moldavia.[92]

Austrian troops led by Prince Eugene of Savoy capture Belgrade in 1717

After the Austro-Turkish War of 1716–1718, the Treaty of Passarowitz confirmed the

loss of the Banat, Serbia and "Little Walachia" (Oltenia) to Austria. The Treaty also
revealed that the Ottoman Empire was on the defensive and unlikely to present any
further aggression in Europe.[93] The Austro-Russian–Turkish War (1735–1739), which
was ended by the Treaty of Belgrade in 1739, resulted in the recovery of Serbia and
Oltenia, but the Empire lost the port of Azov, north of the Crimean Peninsula, to the
Russians. After this treaty the Ottoman Empire was able to enjoy a generation of peace,
as Austria and Russia were forced to deal with the rise of Prussia.[94]
Educational and technological reforms came about, including the establishment of
higher education institutions such as the Istanbul Technical University.[95] In 1734 an
artillery school was established to impart Western-style artillery methods, but the Islamic
clergy successfully objected under the grounds of theodicy.[96] In 1754 the artillery school
was reopened on a semi-secret basis. [96] In 1726, Ibrahim Muteferrika convinced the
Grand Vizier Nevşehirli Damat İbrahim Pasha, the Grand Mufti, and the clergy on the
efficiency of the printing press, and Muteferrika was later granted by Sultan Ahmed III
permission to publish non-religious books (despite opposition from
some calligraphers and religious leaders).[97] Muteferrika's press published its first book
in 1729 and, by 1743, issued 17 works in 23 volumes, each having between 500 and
1,000 copies.[97][98]

Ottoman troops attempting to halt the advancing Russians during the Siege of Ochakov in 1788

In Ottoman North Africa, Spain conquered Oran from the Ottoman Empire (1732).

The bey received an Ottoman army from Algiers, but it failed to recapture Oran; the
siege caused the deaths of 1,500 Spaniards, and even more Algerians. The Spanish
also massacred many Muslim soldiers.[99] In 1792, Spain abandoned Oran, selling it to
the Ottoman Empire.
In 1768 Russian-backed Ukrainian Haidamakas, pursuing Polish confederates,
entered Balta, an Ottoman-controlled town on the border of Bessarabia in Ukraine,
massacred its citizens, and burned the town to the ground. This action provoked the
Ottoman Empire into the Russo-Turkish War of 1768–1774. The Treaty of Küçük
Kaynarca of 1774 ended the war and provided freedom to worship for the Christian
citizens of the Ottoman-controlled provinces of Wallachia and Moldavia. [100] By the late
18th century, after a number of defeats in the wars with Russia, some people in the
Ottoman Empire began to conclude that the reforms of Peter the Great had given the
Russians an edge, and the Ottomans would have to keep up with Western technology
in order to avoid further defeats.[96]
Selim III (1789–1807) made the first major attempts to modernize the army, but his
reforms were hampered by the religious leadership and the Janissary corps. Jealous of
their privileges and firmly opposed to change, the Janissary revolted. Selim's efforts
cost him his throne and his life, but were resolved in spectacular and bloody fashion by
his successor, the dynamic Mahmud II, who eliminated the Janissary corps in 1826.
Selim III receiving dignitaries during an audience at the Gate of Felicity, Topkapı Palace. Painting by Konstantin
Kapıdağlı.

The Serbian revolution (1804–1815) marked the beginning of an era of national

awakening in the Balkans during the Eastern Question. In 1811, the fundamentalist
Wahhabis of Arabia, led by the al-Saud family, revolted against the Ottomans. Unable to
defeat the Wahhabi rebels, the Sublime Porte had Mohammad Ali the Great,
the vali (governor) of Egypt tasked with retaking Arabia, which ended with the
destruction of the Emirate of Diriyah in 1818. The Suzerainty of Serbia as a hereditary
monarchy under its own dynasty was acknowledged de jure in 1830.[101][102] In 1821,
the Greeks declared war on the Sultan. A rebellion that originated in Moldavia as a
diversion was followed by the main revolution in the Peloponnese, which, along with the
northern part of the Gulf of Corinth, became the first parts of the Ottoman Empire to
achieve independence (in 1829). In 1830, the French invaded Ottoman Algeria, which
was lost to the empire; between 500,000 and 1,000,000 Algerians were killed, [103][104] while
French forces suffered only 3,336 killed in action. [105] In 1831, Mohammad Ali revolted
with the aim of making himself sultan and founding a new dynasty, and his French-
trained army under his son Ibrahim Pasha defeated the Ottoman Army as it marched on
Constantinople, coming within 320 km (200 mi) of the capital.[106] In desperation, the
Sultan Mahmud II appealed to the empire's traditional archenemy Russia for help,
asking Emperor Nicholas I to send an expeditionary force to save him. [107] In return for
signing the Treaty of Hünkâr İskelesi, the Russians sent the expeditionary force, which
deterred Ibrahim from taking Constantinople.[107] Under the terms of Peace of Kutahia,
signed on 5 May 1833 Mohammad Ali agreed to abandon his claim to the throne, in
exchange for which he was made the vali of the vilayets (provinces) of Crete, Aleppo,
Tripoli, Damascus and Sidon (the latter four comprising modern Syria and Lebanon),
and given the right to collect taxes in Adana.[107] Had it not been for the Russian
intervention, it is almost certain Mahmud II would have been overthrown and
Mohammad Ali would have become the new sultan, marking the beginning of a
recurring pattern where the Sublime Porte needed the help of outsiders to save itself. [108]
The Greek War of Independence (1821–1829) against the Ottomans

In 1839, the Sublime Porte attempted to take back what it lost to the de facto
independent vilayet of Egypt, and suffered a crushing defeat, leading to the Oriental
Crisis as Mohammad Ali was very close to France, and the prospect of him as Sultan
was widely viewed as putting the entire empire into the French sphere of influence. [107] As
the Sublime Porte had proved itself incapable of defeating the Egyptians, Britain, and
Austria intervened to defeat Egypt.[107] By the mid-19th century, the Ottoman Empire was
called the "sick man" by Europeans. The suzerain states – the Principality of Serbia,
Wallachia and Moldavia – moved towards de jure independence during the 1860s and
1870s.
Decline and modernization (1828–1908)
Main article: Decline of the Ottoman Empire
During the Tanzimat period (1839–1876), the government's series of constitutional
reforms led to a fairly modern conscripted army, banking system reforms, the
decriminalization of homosexuality, the replacement of religious law with secular
law[109] and guilds with modern factories. The Ottoman Ministry of Post was established in
Istanbul in 1840. American inventor Samuel Morse received an Ottoman patent for the
telegraph in 1847, which was issued by Sultan Abdülmecid who personally tested the
new invention.[110] The reformist period peaked with the Constitution, called the Kanûn-u
Esâsî. The empire's First Constitutional era was short-lived. The parliament survived for
only two years before the sultan suspended it.

Romania, fighting on the Russian side, gained independence from the Ottoman Empire in 1878 after the end
of Russo-Turkish War.

The Christian population of the empire, owing to their higher educational levels, started
to pull ahead of the Muslim majority, leading to much resentment on the part of the
latter.[111] In 1861, there were 571 primary and 94 secondary schools for Ottoman
Christians with 140,000 pupils in total, a figure that vastly exceeded the number of
Muslim children in school at the same time, who were further hindered by the amount of
time spent learning Arabic and Islamic theology. [111] Author Norman Stone further
suggests that the Arabic alphabet, which Turkish was written in until 1928, was very ill-
suited to reflect the sounds of the Turkish language (which is a Turkic as opposed to
Semitic language), which imposed a further difficulty on Turkish children. [111] In turn, the
higher educational levels of the Christians allowed them to play a larger role in the
economy, with the rise in prominence of groups such as the Sursock family indicative of
this shift in influence.[112][111] In 1911, of the 654 wholesale companies in Istanbul, 528
were owned by ethnic Greeks.[111] In many cases, Christians and also Jews were able to
gain protection from European consuls and citizenship, meaning they were protected
from Ottoman law and not subject to the same economic regulations as their Muslim
counterparts.[113]
The Bulgarian martyresses (1877) by Konstantin Makovsky, a Russian propaganda painting which depicts the
rape of Bulgarian women by the bashi-bazouks during the April Uprising, with the purpose of mobilizing public
support for the Russo-Turkish War (1877–78).[114][115] Unrestrained by the laws that governed regular soldiers in
the Ottoman Army, the bashi-bazouks became notorious for preying on civilians. [116]

The Crimean War (1853–1856) was part of a long-running contest between the major

European powers for influence over territories of the declining Ottoman Empire. The
financial burden of the war led the Ottoman state to issue foreign loans amounting to
5 million pounds sterling on 4 August 1854. [117][118] The war caused an exodus of
the Crimean Tatars, about 200,000 of whom moved to the Ottoman Empire in
continuing waves of emigration.[119] Toward the end of the Caucasian Wars, 90% of
the Circassians were ethnically cleansed[120] and exiled from their homelands in the
Caucasus and fled to the Ottoman Empire,[121] resulting in the settlement of 500,000 to
700,000 Circassians in Turkey.[122][page  needed][123][124] Some Circassian organisations give much
higher numbers, totaling 1–1.5 million deported or killed. Crimean Tatar refugees in the
late 19th century played an especially notable role in seeking to modernize Ottoman
education and in first promoting both Pan-Turkism and a sense of Turkish nationalism.
[125]

In this period, the Ottoman Empire spent only small amounts of public funds on
education; for example in 1860–61 only 0.2 percent of the total budget was invested in
education.[126] As the Ottoman state attempted to modernize its infrastructure and army in
response to threats from the outside, it also opened itself up to a different kind of threat:
that of creditors. Indeed, as the historian Eugene Rogan has written, "the single greatest
threat to the independence of the Middle East" in the nineteenth century "was not the
armies of Europe but its banks".[127] The Ottoman state, which had begun taking on debt
with the Crimean War, was forced to declare bankruptcy in 1875. [128] By 1881, the
Ottoman Empire agreed to have its debt controlled by an institution known as
the Ottoman Public Debt Administration, a council of European men with presidency
alternating between France and Britain. The body controlled swaths of the Ottoman
economy, and used its position to ensure that European capital continued to penetrate
the empire, often to the detriment of local Ottoman interests. [128]
The Ottoman bashi-bazouks brutally suppressed the Bulgarian uprising of 1876,
massacring up to 100,000 people in the process. [129] The Russo-Turkish War (1877–
78) ended with a decisive victory for Russia. As a result, Ottoman holdings in Europe
declined sharply: Bulgaria was established as an independent principality inside the
Ottoman Empire; Romania achieved full independence;
and Serbia and Montenegro finally gained complete independence, but with smaller
territories. In 1878, Austria-Hungary unilaterally occupied the Ottoman provinces
of Bosnia-Herzegovina and Novi Pazar.
British Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli advocated for restoring the Ottoman territories
on the Balkan Peninsula during the Congress of Berlin, and in return, Britain assumed
the administration of Cyprus in 1878.[130] Britain later sent troops to Egypt in 1882 to put
down the Urabi Revolt – Sultan Abdul Hamid II was too paranoid to mobilize his own
army, fearing this would result in a coup d'état – effectively gaining control in both
territories. Abdul Hamid II, popularly known as "Abdul Hamid the Damned" on account
of his cruelty and paranoia, was so fearful of the threat of a coup that he did not allow
his army to conduct war games, lest this serve as the cover for a coup, but he did see
the need for military mobilization. In 1883, a German military mission under General
Baron Colmar von der Goltz arrived to train the Ottoman Army, leading to the so-called
"Goltz generation" of German-trained officers who were to play a notable role in the
politics of the last years of the empire. [131]
From 1894 to 1896, between 100,000 and 300,000 Armenians living throughout the
empire were killed in what became known as the Hamidian massacres.[132]
In 1897 the population was 19 million, of whom 14 million (74%) were Muslim. An
additional 20 million lived in provinces which remained under the sultan's nominal
suzerainty but were entirely outside his actual power. One by one the Porte lost nominal
authority. They included Egypt, Tunisia, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Bosnia-Herzegovina, and
Lebanon.[133]
As the Ottoman Empire gradually shrank in size, some 7–9 million Muslims from its
former territories in the Caucasus, Crimea, Balkans, and the Mediterranean islands
migrated to Anatolia and Eastern Thrace.[134] After the Empire lost the First Balkan
War (1912–13), it lost all its Balkan territories except East Thrace (European Turkey).
This resulted in around 400,000 Muslims fleeing with the retreating Ottoman armies
(with many dying from cholera brought by the soldiers), and with some 400,000 non-
Muslims fleeing territory still under Ottoman rule.[135] Justin McCarthy estimates that
during the period 1821 to 1922, 5.5 million Muslims died in southeastern Europe, with
the expulsion of 5 million.[136][137][138]
 

Sultan Abdul Hamid II going to the Friday Prayer (Friday Procession)

 

Opening ceremony of the First Ottoman Parliament at the Dolmabahçe Palace in 1876. The First

Constitutional Era lasted for only two years until 1878. The Ottoman Constitution and Parliament
were restored 30 years later with the Young Turk Revolution in 1908.
 

Ottoman troops storming Fort Shefketil during the Crimean War of 1853–1856

 


 Belgrade, c. 1865. In 1867, Britain and France forced the Ottoman military to retreat from northern
Serbia, securing its de facto independence (formalized after the Russo-Turkish War of 1877–78 and
the Congress of Berlin in 1878.)

Defeat and dissolution (1908–1922)

Main articles: Dissolution of the Ottoman Empire and History of the Ottoman Empire
during World War I

Mehmed V was proclaimed Sultan of the Ottoman Empire after the Young Turk Revolution.

Young Turk movement

The defeat and dissolution of the Ottoman Empire (1908–1922) began with the Second
Constitutional Era, a moment of hope and promise established with the Young Turk
Revolution. It restored the Ottoman constitution of 1876 and brought in multi-party
politics with a two-stage electoral system (electoral law) under the Ottoman parliament.
The constitution offered hope by freeing the empire's citizens to modernize the state's
institutions, rejuvenate its strength, and enable it to hold its own against outside powers.
Its guarantee of liberties promised to dissolve inter-communal tensions and transform
the empire into a more harmonious place.[139] Instead, this period became the story of the
twilight struggle of the Empire.

Declaration of the Young Turk Revolution by the leaders of the Ottoman millets in 1908

Members of Young Turks movement who had once gone underground now established
their parties.[140] Among them "Committee of Union and Progress", and "Freedom and
Accord Party" were major parties. On the other end of the spectrum were ethnic parties,
which included Poale Zion, Al-Fatat, and Armenian national movement organized
under Armenian Revolutionary Federation. Profiting from the civil strife, Austria-Hungary
officially annexed Bosnia and Herzegovina in 1908. The last of the Ottoman
censuses was performed in 1914. Despite military reforms which reconstituted
the Ottoman Modern Army, the Empire lost its North African territories and the
Dodecanese in the Italo-Turkish War (1911) and almost all of its European territories in
the Balkan Wars (1912–1913). The Empire faced continuous unrest in the years leading
up to World War I, including the Ottoman countercoup of 1909, the 31 March
Incident and two further coups in 1912 and 1913.
World War I
Main articles: Ottoman entry into World War I and Ottoman Empire during World War I
The war began with the Ottoman surprise attack on the Russian Black Sea coast on 29
October 1914. Following the attack, Russia and its allies, France and Britain declared
war on the Ottomans. There were several important Ottoman victories in the early years
of the war, such as the Battle of Gallipoli and the Siege of Kut.

The Armenian Genocide was the Ottoman government's systematic extermination of its Armenian subjects. An
estimated 1.5 million people were killed.

Genocides
Main articles: Late Ottoman genocides, Armenian Genocide, Greek genocide,
and Seyfo
In 1915 the Ottoman government and Kurdish tribes in region started the extermination
of its ethnic Armenian population, resulting in the death of up to 1.5 million Armenians in
the Armenian Genocide.[141] The genocide was carried out during and after World War I
and implemented in two phases: the wholesale killing of the able-bodied male
population through massacre and subjection of army conscripts to forced labor, followed
by the deportation of women, children, the elderly and infirm on death marches leading
to the Syrian desert. Driven forward by military escorts, the deportees were deprived of
food and water and subjected to periodic robbery, rape, and systematic massacre.[142]
[143]
 Large-scale massacres were also committed against the
Empire's Greek and Assyrian minorities as part of the same campaign of ethnic
cleansing.[144]
Arab Revolt