by Mehrdad Kia
The devastating loss of the Crimea did not end the confrontation with Russia. Conflict between the two powers erupted again in 1787. A year later, the Austrians also declared war on the Ottoman Empire. Once again the war dragged on for several years, with the Ottomans receiving support from Sweden and Prussia. By 1791, when the sultan signed the peace treaty of Sistova with the Austrians, the Ottoman forces were exhausted. The defeat at the hands of the Russians in 1792 forced the sultan to sign the peace treaty of Jassy (Iaşi/Yassy), which allowed Russia to expand its territories along the northern shores of the Black Sea.
GOVERNMENTAL REFORMS
The new sultan, Selim III (1789–1807), who had watched the abysmal performance of his armies, embarked on a new campaign to reform the Ottoman military organization. He introduced the Nizam-i Cedid (New Army) units, which were organized and trained in accordance with European military techniques. The first modern military hospital was also completed a year later and, in 1795, the first military engineering school was established. Meanwhile, the events unfolding in Europe began to cause anxieties for the sultan. The French Revolution, which began in 1789, and the subsequent execution of Louis XVI in 1791 shocked the Ottomans, who viewed the French monarch as a friend and an ally. Even more worrisome was the occupation of Egypt by a French expeditionary force headed by Napoleon Bonaparte in the summer of 1798. The French invasion forced the sultan to seek the support of Russia and England. After defeating the French at Acre and suffering a defeat at the hands of the French at Abukir, the Ottoman-English alliance forced Bonaparte out of Egypt in 1799. Ottoman-French ties were restored in 1806, when Russia moved its forces against Wallachia and Moldavia.
Meanwhile, in 1807, the growing opposition to Selim III’s reforms brought the religious establishment, the janissaries , and the anti-reform elements within the government together in a united front. When the revolt broke out, Selim hesitated and did not use his new army to crush the rebellion. Emboldened by their initial success, the rebels demanded the deposition of Selim III and the accession of Mustafa IV (1807–1808) as his successor. The pro-Selim III provincial notables (ayans), however, refused to accept defeat and mobilized their forces against the new sultan and his supporters in Istanbul. The powerful ayan Bayrakdar Mustafa Paşa of Rüsçuk (modern-day Ruse in northeastern Bulgaria), who supported Selim III, attacked Istanbul to remove Mustafa IV and reinstate the deposed sultan. Mustafa IV responded by ordering the execution of Selim III and his cousin, Mahmud II, the two male members of the Ottoman royal house who could replace him. The executioners succeeded in their mission to murder Selim III, but Mahmud II managed to escape and find refuge in Bayrakdar Mustafa Paşa’s camp, where he remained until Mustafa IV was deposed and he could assume the throne.
RISE OF NATIONALISM IN THE BALKANS
Starting with Serbia in 1804 and Greece in 1821, nationalist revolutions erupted among the Christian subjects of the sultan. In each case, the nationalists were supported by one or more European imperial powers that intended to use the eruption of antigovernment uprisings as a justification to intervene and undermine Ottoman power and authority in the Balkans. As a multiethnic, multilinguistic, and multireligious empire that recognized the supremacy of religious identity, the Ottoman state failed to develop an antibiotic for the bacteria called nationalism. The Ottoman system was built on the principle of dividing the population of the empire into separate and distinct religious communities, or millets. The millet system had worked well in an era when religious identity reigned supreme. Ironically, the preservation of national cultures within the framework of religious communities allowed distinct ethnic and linguistic feelings and identities to survive. By the end of the 18th century, under the influence of the French Revolution, a modern intelligentsia imbued with nationalistic ideas began to challenge the ideological hegemony of the traditional religious hierarchies that had historically collaborated with the Ottoman regime.
Despite the Serbian revolt that forced the Ottomans to grant autonomy to a small Serbian principality in 1814–1815 and the Greek Revolution, which succeeded in establishing an independent Greece in 1832, Mahmud II was determined to reassert the authority of the central government by building a modern army. As long as the janissaries survived, however, the antireform forces could always rely on their support to challenge the authority of the central government. Thus, the sultan abolished the janissary corps in June 1826, but he could not create a new and strong army overnight. The absence of a well-trained army undermined Ottoman attempts to maintain their rule over Greece. But if the loss of Greece struck a devastating blow to Ottoman prestige and power, it was the revolt of Muhammad Ali (Mehmed Ali), the governor of Egypt, that brought the empire to the verge of extinction.
CHALLENGE FROM EGYPT
Muhammad Ali, originally an Albanian from northern Greece, had emerged as the master of Egypt after building a strong and modern army with direct assistance and support from France. Mahmud II, who was fully aware of Muhammad Ali’s successes and his newly acquired military capability, asked for his support when the Greek Revolution erupted. The defeat in Greece, however, forced the governor of Egypt to withdraw his troops. Moreover, he lost his fleet during the Greek campaign, and he could not receive any satisfactory compensation from the sultan in Istanbul. The battles of the Greek Revolution had demonstrated that the Ottoman army was in a sorry state. Initially, Muhammad Ali had thought of building his own kingdom in North Africa by attacking Algeria and Tunisia, but the French had acted faster by attacking and occupying Algiers in July 1830.
With North Africa falling into the hands of the French, Muhammad Ali and his son Ibrahim Paşa, who acted as his father’s army commander, turned their attention eastward and attacked Palestine and Syria in October 1831. In May 1832, the town of Acre fell, followed by Damascus in June. By July, Ibrahim Paşa had routed Ottoman forces twice and established his rule over the entire country. As in the case of the Greek Revolution, the sultan refused an offer for a negotiated settlement, which allowed the Egyptian army to push into Anatolia and defeat the Ottoman troops who had been sent from Istanbul. By February 1833, the Egyptians had reached Kütahya in western Anatolia. Mahmud II responded to the military reverses by opening negotiations with European powers with the aim of securing their support against his rebellious subject. When the British and Austrians turned down the request, the sultan asked for military intervention from Russia, which agreed to provide it. While the arrival of the Russian fleet, in February 1833, prevented Muhammad Ali from marching his troops to Istanbul, it could not dislodge the Egyptian forces from their newly conquered territories in Anatolia. To end the crisis, the sultan agreed to sign the Treaty of Kütahya in April, and appointed Muhammad Ali the governor of Syria. In July of the same year, he also signed the Treaty of Hünkar Iskelesi with Russia, an eight-year defense pact that obligated the Ottoman government to close the straits to all ships at time of war between Russia and a foreign power.
Despite the peace with Muhammad Ali, the sultan was anxious to strengthen his army and strike back at the disloyal governor of Egypt. The British, greatly alarmed by the growing power and influence of Russia, viewed Muhammad Ali as an ally of France, whose policies toward the Ottoman Empire had forced the sultan to depend on the Russians for his survival. Meanwhile, the sultan hoped to utilize British anxiety over Muhammad Ali to gain their support for a campaign against him.
In 1838, the tension between the sultan and Muhammad Ali erupted again when the latter stated his intention to declare his independence from the Ottoman Empire. When his closest ally, France, opposed this provocative move, Muhammad Ali backed down. The sultan was determined to secure the support of Great Britain in a campaign to destroy Muhammad Ali. Using this opportunity to expand its economic interests in the region, the British government signed a commercial treaty with the Ottoman state in August 1838 that confirmed British capitulatory privileges and opened the Ottoman markets to British investment and trade. Despite warnings from the British, Mah
mud II mobilized a force against Muhammad Ali’s army in Syria. Once again, however, Egyptian forces under the command of Ibrahim Paşa defeated the Ottoman army, which had attacked Syria in June 1839. Less than a week later, Mahmud II died in Istanbul after a long battle with tuberculosis.
TANZIMAT
To halt the disintegration of the Ottoman state, a small group of Ottoman officials used the death of Mahmud II to embark on a new program of governmental reforms, which came to be known as Tanzimat (Reorganization). On 3 November 1839, the new Ottoman sultan, Abdülmecid (1839–1861), ordered his ministers and dignitaries as well as representatives of foreign powers, to gather in the rose garden of the Topkapi Palace, where his foreign minister, Mustafa Reşid Paşa, read a decree entitled Hatt-i ¸Serif-i Gülhane, the Noble Rescript of the Rose Garden. The document guaranteed the subjects of the sultan security of life, honor, and property. It also promised a regular system for assessing and levying taxes, as well as a just system of conscription and military service. The royal rescript also committed the central government to a number of essential reforms such as establishing a new penal code, eradicating bribery, and creating a regular and just tax system that would eliminate inequities and special privileges, such as tax farming. Thus, the imperial decree demonstrated a new commitment by the sultan and his advisors to the rule of law, the equality and fair treatment of all Ottoman subjects regardless of their religion and ethnicity, and the establishment of a new justice system that protected their life and property against arbitrary attacks and confiscation.
In addition to the modernization of the empire’s infrastructure, the Tanzimat period also witnessed a significant transformation in the Ottoman educational system. Mahmud II had introduced the Ruşdiye (adolescent) schools, which provided a secular education for male students who had completed the mekteps (the traditional schools devoted to the study of the Quran). The principal objective for the creation of modern schools was to train a new educated elite capable of administering an empire. The fear of opposition from conservatives, however, slowed down educational reform and forced the reformers to attach modern schools to various governmental ministries and bureaus. Thus, the first medical and engineering schools in the Ottoman Empire were introduced as academic units within a military school. The introduction of modern educational institutions also suffered from a lack of adequate funding and the absence of well-trained teachers and instructors. Despite these difficulties, a new bureaucracy, which was four to five times larger than the imperial administration and relied heavily on graduates from the modern schools, was created.
Finally, the men of Tanzimat tried to create a modern financial structure and an efficient tax collection system that would provide the central treasury with sufficient funds to support governmental reforms. The “main thrust” of their financial reforms was “to simplify the collection of revenues” by delegating “the responsibility of tax collection to the salaried agents of the government, rather than governors, holders of prebendal grants, or other intermediaries of the classical system.”
Despite their best efforts to focus on reform, the men of the Tanzimat faced serious challenges both from internal rebellions and foreign aggression that ultimately undermined their efforts and resulted in the disintegration of the empire. In October 1840, the Ottomans and the British began to exert military pressure on Muhammad Ali, forcing his troops to evacuate Palestine and Syria in February 1841. The sultan, however, issued a decree granting Muhammad Ali and his family the right to rule Egypt. The second important foreign policy crisis of the Tanzimat era was the Crimean War, which forced the Ottoman Empire to declare war on Russia in October 1853. By acting as the big brother and protector of Serbia, the Danubian Principalities, and the sultan’s Orthodox Christian subjects, Russia intended to replace both the Ottoman Empire and Austria as the dominant power in the Balkans. The ultimate goal of Russian foreign policy was to create a series of satellite states that depended on Russian protection and support for their political survival. During this time, Catholic and Orthodox churches debated over their right to various holy sites in Jerusalem, with Russia championing the Orthodox position and France that of Rome. In 1852, the Ottoman government announced its decision on the question of Christian Holy Places in Palestine and sided with the French position. The Russian government was outraged, and Tsar Nicholas I ordered a partial mobilization of his army to back a new series of demands, including the Russian right to protect the sultan’s Orthodox Christian subjects. Confident that it would receive support from Great Britain, France, and Austria, the Ottoman government rejected the Russian demands. When the tsarist forces invaded the Danubian Principalities, the Ottoman Empire declared war on Russia.
As the British and the French naval forces crossed the Turkish Straits on their way to the Black Sea, the Ottomans fought the Russian navy at Sinop, where the Ottoman fleet was destroyed and thousands of sailors were killed. After negotiations collapsed in March 1854, France and Great Britain declared war on Russia. Fearing an attack from Austria, the Russian forces withdrew from Wallachia and Moldavia. The military campaigns that followed, particularly the attack on Sevastopol, which was occupied in October 1855, forced Russia to sue for peace.
While the representatives of European powers were arriving at the peace conference in Paris in February 1856, the sultan, under pressure from France and Great Britain, issued a second major reform decree, the Hatt-i Hümayun, or the Imperial Rescript, committing his government to the principle of equality of all Ottoman subjects. The Treaty of Paris, signed in March 1856, forced Russia to withdraw from Wallachia and Moldavia, which, along with Serbia, were to regain their autonomy under Ottoman rule. Russia’s access to the Danube was blocked by its surrender of southern Bessarabia to Moldavia. That famous river, as well as the Turkish Straits, was declared open to ships of all countries and the Black Sea was demilitarized. Russia was also obliged to withdraw its forces from eastern Anatolia, including the city of Kars, which it had occupied during the war. The Crimean War and the Treaty of Paris resulted in the de facto inclusion of the Ottoman Empire in the “Concert of Europe” that had tried to maintain the balance of power on the continent since the defeat of Napoleon and the convening of the Congress of Vienna in 1814. The territorial integrity of the Ottoman Empire was, thus, theoretically preserved and Russia’s expansion into southeast Europe contained.
With Russian aggression checked, the leaders of Tanzimat could once again focus on the implementation of their reform agenda. The Crimean War had been very costly and forced the Ottoman government to apply for high interest loans that eventually undermined the economic independence of the state. The accumulation of significant debt to European banks and the continuous struggle to generate sufficient revenue to repay them undermined efforts to reform the government for the remainder of the 19th century.
OTTOMAN CONSTITUTION
After the death of li Paşa, the last great statesman of the Tanzimat era in September 1871, several grand viziers came and went, while Sultan Abdülaziz (1861–1876) became increasingly involved in running the everyday affairs of the empire, thus introducing an element of chaos. Then, in the early hours of Tuesday, 30 May 1876, a small group of officials and army commanders led by the reform-minded statesman Midhat Paşa, who had served as governor of Nish (1861–1868) and Baghdad (1869–1872), carried out a peaceful military coup. A nephew of Abdülaziz, Prince Murad, was brought out of his residence to the ministry of war and declared the new sultan.
Before the new monarch could establish himself, however, news of Abdülaziz’s sudden death was announced to a shocked populace. The body of the deposed sultan had been discovered in his private bedroom, his wrists slashed with a pair of scissors, leading many to conclude that he had been murdered. To diffuse the rumors of assassination, the government called on doctors from several foreign embassies in Istanbul to examine the body and offer their medical opinion on the cause of death, which was officially declared a suicide. The events profoundly affected the ne
w sultan, Murad, who suffered a nervous breakdown. Accordingly, Midhat and his colleagues decided to depose Murad in favor of his brother, who ascended the Ottoman throne in August as Abdülhamid II. Meanwhile, Midhat Paşa was appointed grand vizier in December, and shortly after, the first Ottoman constitution was introduced.
These momentous events in Istanbul took place in the context of major developments in European power politics and another crisis in the Balkans that erupted when Serbia and Montenegro attacked the Ottoman Empire in July 1876. With chaos and uncertainty reigning in Istanbul and revolt and instability spreading to the rural communities in Bosnia-Herzegovina, Russia had pushed for military intervention by Serbia and Montenegro. This Pan-Slavic project designed by Russia failed when Ottoman troops struck back, defeating the Serbs and forcing them to sue for peace. Russia then instigated a nationalist uprising in Bulgaria, which was crushed by Ottoman forces with heavy casualties and massacres of the civilian population. This allowed the tsar to demand that the Ottoman Empire introduce reforms and grant autonomy to the Bulgarian people. Recognizing the threat of Russian intervention in the Balkans, the British government intervened and called for the convening of an international conference to meet in Istanbul with the intention of diffusing the possibility of another war between Russia and the Ottoman Empire. On the first day of the conference, 23 December 1876, however, the Ottoman delegation shocked the European participants by announcing that a constitution had been promulgated and that any attempt by foreign powers to press the Ottoman state into introducing reforms in its European provinces was unnecessary since, under the new political regime, all Ottoman subjects would be treated as equals with their rights protected and guaranteed by the government.