by Mehrdad Kia
Some historians have identified the reign of Süleyman’s son, Selim II (1566–1574), as the beginning of the long process of decline, which culminated with the defeat of Ottoman forces outside Vienna in 1683 and the gradual retreat of the Ottoman state from southeast Europe. The decline of the empire did not, however, happen overnight. The process was already under way during the reign of Süleyman the Magnificent, but it did not manifest itself to outsiders until a century later.
MILITARY CHALLENGE FROM IRAN
The first signs of Ottoman military weakness appeared at the beginning of the 17th century on the battlefields of eastern Anatolia as a rejuvenated Iranian state under the charismatic Shah Abbas (1587–1629) attacked and defeated Ottoman forces in Azerbaijan and the south Caucasus. The Iranians moved at blazing speed, catching Ottoman garrisons in Azerbaijan and the Caucasus by surprise and capturing the city of Tabriz in 1603 and Nakhchivan in 1604. Shortly after, Yerevan (Erivan) and Kars were sacked. Using Armenia as his base, Shah Abbas invaded and occupied the entire eastern Caucasus as far north as Shirvan.
The crisis caused by the campaigns of Shah Abbas coincided with the death of Mehmed III (1595–1603) and the accession of Ahmed I (1603–1617), who mobilized a large force against Iran. When the two armies clashed in September 1605, however, the Iranians scored an impressive victory against the larger Ottoman force. In addition to Azerbaijan and the Caucasus, the Safavids captured southeastern Anatolia and Iraq. The defeat undermined the Ottoman rule in Anatolia and the Arab world. Kurdish and Turcoman tribal chiefs defected, and a series of revolts erupted, particularly in Syria, where the Kurds staged an uprising against the Ottoman state.
During the reign of Murad IV (1623–1640), the Ottomans tried to restore peace and order in Anatolia and remove Iranian forces from Iraq. After several long campaigns against Iran, the Ottoman army captured the city of Baghdad and re-established Ottoman control over the Arab Middle East that lasted until the end of the First World War. In May 1639, on the plain of Zahab near the town of Qasr-i Shirin/Kasr-i Şirin (in present-day western Iran), the Ottoman Empire and Iran signed a peace treaty that ended nearly one hundred forty years of hostility between the two Islamic states. The treaty established the Ottoman sultan as the master of Iraq while the Safavids maintained control over Azerbaijan and southern Caucasus.
KÖPRÜLÜ VIZIERS
When Murad IV died in February 1640, he was succeeded by his brother Ibrahim (1640–1648), who had lived his entire life in the royal harem and had no training or experience in ruling an empire. While Ibrahim became increasingly infatuated with the pleasures of the inner palace, his mother, his tutor, the grand vizier, the chief eunuch, and janissary commanders, vied for power and influence. When Ibrahim was murdered and his son, Mehmed IV (1648–1687), ascended the Ottoman throne, the new ruler remained a pawn at the hands of those who surrounded him—his grandmother, mother, the grand vizier, and the chief eunuch.
In 1656, the financial crisis, political chaos, and the failure of the Ottoman navy to lift the Venetian siege of the capital, finally forced the sultan to appoint Mehmed Köprülü as grand vizier, thus inaugurating the rise to power of a family of Köprülü ministers, who tried to restore the authority of the Ottoman state by imposing peace and order and introducing badly needed reforms.
The son of an Albanian father, the first Köprülü grand vizier, Mehmed Köprülü, had served many masters and patrons both within the palace and in various provinces, acquiring a reputation for competence and honesty. He and his son, Köprülüzade Fazil Ahmed, who succeeded his father in 1661 and dominated Ottoman politics until 1676, crushed antigovernment revolts in Anatolia and re-established the authority of the central government in the provinces. Both father and son pursued a foreign policy aimed at checking the Habsburg intervention in Transylvania and defeating the alliance of Catholic forces known as the Holy League, which had been organized under the leadership of the Pope. When Christian and Ottoman forces clashed near the village of St. Gotthard in August 1664, the Ottomans were defeated and lost many more men and much more equipment than the troops of the Holy League, which included Habsburg, Spanish, and French units. When the peace treaty was negotiated at Vasvár, however, the Habsburgs agreed to evacuate their troops, and Ottoman rule over Transylvania was once again secured.
When Köprülüzade Fazil Ahmed died in 1676, his brother-in-law, Merzifonlu Kara Mustafa Paşa, succeeded him. The new grand vizier pursued the policy of the two previous Köprülüs, focusing his energies on checking Russian advances on the northern shores of the Black Sea and crushing the Habsburg’s military machine. Convinced that the Habsburg military was on the verge of collapse and encouraged by the French, who viewed an Ottoman invasion as essential to their victory in the west, Kara Mustafa Paşa moved with a large army against Vienna in June 1683. By July, the Habsburg capital was under Ottoman siege. The Habsburg emperor had, however, organized a coalition that included Jan Sobieski of Poland, the Pope, the Spanish, and the Portuguese. In a fierce battle on September 12, the Ottoman forces were routed and 10,000 men were killed on the battlefield. The Ottoman army disintegrated and lost any semblance of organization and discipline, leaving behind its heavy cannon and badly needed supplies. The shocked Kara Mustafa Paşa tried to rally his army in Belgrade, but it was already too late. His enemies in Istanbul had convinced the sultan that his chief minister was solely responsible for the humiliating debacle at the gates of Vienna. On 25 December 1683, the grand vizier was executed by the order of his royal master.
MILITARY DEFEATS IN EUROPE AND LOSS OF CONFIDENCE
The execution of Kara Mustafa Paşa only exacerbated the political and military crisis. Without a commander capable of rallying the troops and facing a shortage of equipment and supplies, the Ottoman forces fell into disarray. Worse, a new Holy League was formed in 1684 that included the Habsburgs, Venice, Poland, the Pope, Malta, Tuscany, and later Muscovy (Russia). After repeated attempts to regain the territories they had lost, in November 1698 an Ottoman delegation began to negotiate a peace treaty with representatives of the Holy League powers. According to the Treaty of Karlowitz, signed in January 1699, the Habsburgs remained in control of Hungary and Transylvania while the Ottomans maintained their rule over the Banat of Temeşvár. Poland received Podolia (Podole), and Russia established its rule over Azov and the territory north of the Dniester. Venice emerged as the master of Dalmatia, the Morea, and several strategic islands in the Aegean. According to the terms of the treaty, the sultan was also forced to guarantee freedom of religion for his Catholic subjects. Thus, the Ottoman Empire entered the 18th century in turmoil and decline. The past glory of its able and charismatic sultans had become, by 1700, a distant memory. Long wars against the Habsburgs, Venice, Poland, and Russia had drained the resources of the state, which could not even pay the salaries of its officials and troops. Consequently, corruption and nepotism became rampant. Against this background, the Ottoman elite once again appealed to a member of the Köprülü family to save the empire. Amcazade Hüseyin Paşa became the grand vizier in September 1697 and embarked on another series of reforms aimed at reducing the financial burdens of the state without imposing heavier taxes on the peasantry. But, as would happen again and again over the next two hundred years, the new chief minister ran into formidable opposition from the traditional elite, who forced him to step down in September 1702.
CONFRONTING THE HABSBURG MONARCHY AND RUSSIA
Once again, the process of decline accelerated. Taxes remained uncollected, and government officials and troops were not paid their wages. The treasury was drained, and corruption spread to all levels of the civil administration. The reigning sultan, Mustafa II (1695–1703), spent much of his time in Edirne and did not even realize the severity of the political and economic crisis in the capital, where the troops, who were being sent on a military campaign to the southern Caucasus, refused to obey orders unless they were paid. With the army taking the lead, artisans, shopkeepers, merchants, and students
from various religious schools joined in a rebellion in July 1703. Mustafa II responded by dismissing his grand vizier, but the rebels, emboldened by the concessions from the sultan, began a march from Istanbul to Edirne. The sultan himself led his army against the rebels, but the fatal clash was avoided when the troops marching with the sultan defected and joined the rebels, forcing Mustafa II to abdicate in favor of his brother, Ahmed III (1703–1730).
The Ottomans tried to buy time and reorganize their army by keeping the empire out of war. Every effort was made to increase the revenue generated by the central government and reduce state expenditures. The memory of recent defeats and the humiliating Treaty of Karlowitz were still fresh in the minds of many Ottoman officials who wished to avoid another military debacle. The Ottoman refusal to initiate a military campaign, however, emboldened the Russian tsar, Peter the Great, who attacked and defeated a European ally of the sultan, Charles XII of Sweden, at Poltava in the summer of 1709. The Russians then moved their forces against the Ottoman Empire.
Fortunately for the Ottomans, the Habsburgs did not provide any support to Peter. With princes of Wallachia and Moldavia reneging on their promise to provide support for his troops, Peter, who had crossed the Pruth into Moldavia in July 1711, was forced to retreat. As the Russian army was about to cross the Pruth on its return journey, however, the Ottoman forces struck and surrounded the tsar and his troops. The founder of modern Russia and his army were at the mercy of the Ottoman grand vizier, who could have annihilated them in one blow. Recognizing the severity of his situation, Peter promised to surrender his cannonry, return the Ottoman-held territories he had occupied, and remove the forts he had built along the frontier with the Ottoman Empire. In return, the Ottomans allowed Russian merchants to trade freely in their territory and agreed to mediate a peace treaty between Russia and Sweden.
One of the most important implications of the Russo-Ottoman war was the change in the political structure of the principalities. The secret negotiations between the princes of Wallachia and Moldavia and the Russian government convinced the sultan that he should remove the native princes and replace them with governors (hospodars) appointed directly by the sultan. New governors were selected from among the Greek Phanariote families of Istanbul, who played an important role within the Ottoman state as dragomans (interpreters and translators) because of their diplomatic and linguistic abilities, which included a knowledge of Turkish and several European languages. As these new governors rose to power, the native populations in Wallachia and Moldavia began to develop a deep resentment toward the ascendancy of the Greek language and culture within their administrative system.
Despite the Ottoman peace with Russia, the internal court intrigues continued. The advocates of peace between Russia and the Ottoman Empire triumphed when a new treaty was signed between the two powers in June 1713. The tsar promised to abandon the territories he had occupied on the northern shores of the Black Sea, withdraw his forces from Poland, and allow Charles XII of Sweden to return to his country. The Russian retreat only emboldened the anti-Venice war party, which began to advocate fresh military campaigns to recapture the Morea in southern Greece. While the Ottoman forces attacked Venetian positions and regained control over the Morea in 1715, their advances against Croatia forced the Habsburgs to ally with the Venetians and declare war on the sultan.
Once again, confrontation with the Habsburg army proved to be disastrous for the Ottomans, whose forces were routed at Petrovaradin in August 1716. The Ottoman defenses collapsed, and they lost Temeşvár in September 1716, followed by Belgrade, which was taken by the Habsburgs in August 1717. These demoralizing defeats undermined the position of the war party in the court and allowed the sultan to appoint his closest advisor, Nevşehirli Damad Ibrahim Paşa, as his new grand vizier in May 1718.
Peace negotiations resulted in the signing of the Treaty of Passarowitz in July 1718. The Habsburgs received the Banat of Temeşvár and northern Serbia, including Belgrade and Oltenia (Wallachia west of the river Olt). They also received assurances that their merchants could operate freely in the sultan’s domains. Moreover, Catholic priests regained old privileges that allowed the Habsburg emperor to interfere in the internal affairs of the Ottoman Empire by acting as the champion and protector of the Catholic community.
THE TULIP PERIOD
The new grand vizier, Ibrahim Paşa, purged the sultan’s inner circle and installed his own men in key positions within the royal harem. To focus the sultan’s attention on sexual desires and personal fantasies, he ordered the construction of a palace named Saadabad (Place of Joy), which was to serve as the center for various royal entertainments. Designed after the Palace of Fontainebleau (Château de Fontainebleau) outside Paris, Saadabad emerged as the model for other palaces later built by the wealthy members of the ruling elite along the banks of the Bosphorus. Ibrahim Paşa himself built a palace on the Anatolian side of the strait. It contained gardens and fountains in the French style.
The tulip emerged as the popular flower of the time, which later came to be known as Lale Devri (the Tulip Period). During late night garden parties, turtles with candles on their backs moved through the tulip beds, while entertainers, including poets and musicians, performed their latest lyrics and songs for a dazzled audience that included foreign dignitaries and diplomats. If the lower classes could not afford to build palaces with gardens and fountains, they could still enjoy the increasing number of coffeehouses that served as centers of public entertainment.
The grand vizier, Ibrahim Paşa, understood that the empire needed to use diplomacy as the principal means of resolving conflict, reserving warfare as the last resort. He dispatched Ottoman ambassadors to European capitals, where they served not only as diplomats but also as informants who visited factories, hospitals, and zoos, reporting back to him on the latest European fort building techniques and other innovations. One of these innovations was the first printing press, which was introduced to the Ottoman Empire in 1727, and was immediately opposed by the religious establishment and the scribes who feared that it would put an end to their relevance in society. The grand vizier silenced the opposition by promising that the printing press would only be used for nonreligious publications, particularly in the arts and sciences.
A crisis in Iran and Ottoman intervention in that country’s internal affairs brought the Tulip Period to a sudden end. Ottoman– Iranian relations had remained peaceful following the campaigns of Murad IV and the signing of the Treaty of Qasr-i Shirin in 1639. In October 1722, however, an Afghan army, which had rebelled against the Safavid monarchy in Iran, sacked the Iranian capital, Isfahan, and deposed the reigning shah, Sultan Husayn. The sudden collapse of the Safavid state created opportunities as well as anxieties for the Ottomans. The sultan and his grand vizier could use the vacuum created by the disintegration of the Safavid state to occupy Iran’s western provinces and increase the revenue collected by the central government. But Ahmed III was not the only sovereign determined to conquer this valuable territory. Having triumphed over Sweden, the Russian tsar Peter the Great was determined to profit from the sudden disappearance of the Safavid dynasty in Iran, a country that could serve Russia as a land bridge to the warm waters of the Persian Gulf and the riches of India.
Despite early victories in Iran, the Ottomans soon ran into trouble after the Iranian leader, Nader Qoli (soon to become Nader Shah), struck back and pushed Ottoman forces out of western Iran in 1730. The decision to start a new campaign against Iran ignited an urban rebellion in Istanbul. The leader of the revolt was Patrona Halil, a member of the janissary corps, who denounced the sultan and his grand vizier as incompetent and corrupt. The rebels succeeded in forcing the sultan to dismiss his chief minister and eventually order his execution. The revolt, however, did not subside. Emboldened by their initial success, the rebels demanded the abdication of the sultan in favor of another member of the Ottoman ruling family. Without any power to resist the rebels, the palace deposed Ahmed III and replace
d him with Mahmud I (1730–1754). A few weeks later, the new sultan invited Patrona Halil to the palace, where he was murdered by the royal guards. His followers and supporters were also put to death. Meanwhile, the war with Iran continued with attacks and counter attacks from both sides until 1746, when the two Muslim states agreed to sign a peace treaty that restored the borders that had been stipulated by the Treaty of Qasr-i Shirin in 1639.
THREAT FROM RUSSIA
In the last years of Mahmud I’s reign, as well as the reigns of the next two sultans, Osman III (1754–1757) and Mustafa III (1757–1774), the Ottomans declined to play a role in the War of Austrian Succession (1740–1748) and the Seven Years’ War (1756–1763). Even the murder of the Iranian monarch, Nader Shah, in 1747, could not entice them to invade their old Shia nemesis to the east. Instead of using the long period of peace to reorganize the central administration and the army, however, the Ottomans fell into a deep sleep again. They were awakened from it in 1768, when Russia, under Catherine the Great (1762–1796), embarked on an aggressive campaign to establish her rule on the northern shores of the Black Sea.
After several initial successes against the Russians, the Ottoman forces suffered a devastating defeat in the summer of 1769. The victory allowed the tsarist forces to occupy Wallachia and Moldavia. A Russian naval force also attacked from the west and sank the Ottoman fleet, which had anchored at Çeşme, in 1770. After six years of war and intermittent negotiations, the Ottomans signed the peace treaty of Küçük Kaynarca with Russia in 1774. The treaty forced the new Ottoman sultan, Abdülhamid I (1774–1789), who came to the throne on the death of Mustafa III, to accept the independence of Crimea. In 1783, the Russians annexed the Crimea and established themselves as the dominant naval force in the Black Sea.