Ottoman Sultanate

Ottoman Empire
The Sublime Ottoman State
دولت عليه عثمانيه (Ottoman Turkish) Османлы Императорлуғу‎ (Turkish Cyrillic)
Established	1299 (in Soegoet)
Capital	Ḳosṭanṭīnīye (Constantinople)
Largest City	Ḳosṭanṭīnīye (Constantinople)
Government Type	Caliphate (1517-) Constitutional Monarchy Absolute Monarchy Military State
Languages	Ottoman Turkish (Official) Persian (Diplomatic) Arabic Greek others
Currency	Ottoman lira

The Ottoman Empire (Ottoman Turkish: دولت عليه عثمانيه‎ Devlet-e Aliye-ye Osmaniye, lit. 'The Sublime Ottoman State'; Turkish: Osmanli Imparatorluğu, Османлы Императорлуғу) is a transcontinental empire that controlled much of Southeastern Europe, Western Asia, and Northern Africa.

History

The Ottoman Empire was founded as a small beylik just northwest of the Byzantine capital of Constantinople. Over the 14th century, they had crossed into Europe, relocated their capital, and assimilated smaller Turkic states either through conquest or declarations of allegiance. By the 15th century, the state grew into a mighty empire spanning the Balkans, northern Africa, and the middle east. In the subsequent centuries, the Ottomans began to move more precariously, shifting their focus from expansion to stabilizing their vast empire and preserving its power in the region.

Late Ottoman Empire

The Great Turkish War, and the Austro-Turkish Wars

In the 1680s, a series of conflicts erupted between the Ottoman Empire and the Holy League consisting of the Holy Roman Empire, Poland-Lithuania, Venice, Russia, called the Great Turkish War. In the resulting war, the Turks lost their hold in Hungary.

The Turks would lose even more territory in Europe following the subsequent Austro-Turkish Wars in the 1730s, when Austria annexed Banat, Slavonia, and Serbia in the resulting treaty. These defeats pushed the Ottomans into a path of reform and establishing closer ties with the rest of the European states to improve their diplomatic standing among the nations in the coming years.

An Era of Prestige

Early Reforms & Pax Ottomanica (1748-1790)

Shortly after the end of the Austro-Turkish Wars came the rise of Bayezid III the Pleasant into power. Bayezid III witnessed the slow decline of Ottoman territory and wished to pull the empire away from what he called the "path to decrepitude." The reform period started when Bayezid issued the 1747 Edict of Reorganization. Under the reform period, the Ottomans established better diplomatic ties with Genoa, France, and Great Britain. Bayezid III imported minds and talents from western Europe, most notably Genoa and Florence (Tuscany). His reign was most prominently known for the importation and translation of works of science, philosophy, and literature from French, English, Dutch, and German sources into not only Ottoman Turkish (which was used by the elite) but also in vernacular Turkish (primarily spoken in rural areas). This period was known as the Ottoman Renaissance or, more widely, Pax Ottomanica. It was an unprecedented era of political, economic, and cultural prominence during which the empire of the Ottomans ranked among the most powerful and influential in Europe and Asia. Pax Ottomanica would continue to the reign of Bayezid III's successor, Mahmud.

Victory in the Franco-Ottoman War (1811-1814)

In the midst of the French revolutionary period, Pax Ottomanica was broken in 1811 when the French Republic declared war on the Ottoman Empire. After defeating the archduchy of Austria and the rest of the Holy Roman Empire during the French Revolutionary Wars, the autocratic leader of the French, Austinu Spiga, shifted his focus on realizing his ambition of toppling the famed Ottoman Empire. For three-quarters of a century, the Ottomans had been at peace. Now their military might was once again tested, this time by the French.

The Ottoman military was not considered the best at the time. However, their familiarity with the region, plus a series of tactical and logistical blunders by the French, gave the Ottomans an advantage. This gave them a string of victories in battles on the Balkans. Eventually, with Austinu Spiga's grip over Austria loosening, the Ottomans were able to push through and liberate Austria from the French. By 1813, the combined strengths of Austrian, Ottoman, and British forces quickly began to overrun French-occupied territory in Europe.

The wars ended in defeat for the French and victory for the Ottomans and their allies. During the Congress of Vienna in 1814, the Ottomans had a firm upper hand on the negotiation table due to their efforts in the war. They were able to gain favorable concessions from France, including the payment of a huge indemnity and the cession of the island of Malta to the Ottomans. The end of the war also ushered in a new era of cooperation between Austria and the Ottomans, the former being indebted to the latter. The aftermath of the war gave the Ottoman Empire a renewed (and inflated) sense of nationalistic fervor, which seemed to negate the earlier theses of Ottoman decline.

The Suez Canal

In the 1810s, the Ottoman government started considering ideas construct a canal connecting the Red Sea to the Meditteranean. This was motivated by the desire to connect Constantinople with the pilgrimage routes and to assert its position on the Indian Ocean. The canal was financed by the Ottoman government, Britain, and Genoa. Construction started in 1820 and was finished by 1836. In 1837, the Treaty of Edirne was signed between Britain and the Ottoman Empire, guaranteeing the British free access through the canal. This guarantee would later be violated by the Ottomans in 1884 and their charter revoked, leading to the 1885 Anglo-Turkish War.

Late 19th century, and the Ottoman Decline

Contrary to expectation, the Ottomans saw stagnation and languished for the rest of the 19th century. The prestige brought with their victories during the French revolution made the absolutist Ottoman state complacent. This became evident during the late 19th century when the empire's military prowess was tested in two simultaneous wars against the Russians and British.

Russo-Ottoman War (1884-1885)

The Russo-Ottoman War of 1884 erupted due to Russian ambitions in controlling the Black Sea. The Russians hoped to capture Constantinople, but the Ottomans were able to leverage their terrain advantage and successfully defended the city. However, the constant attacks by the Russians eventually started to overwhelm the Ottoman military. In early 1885, the Ottomans also faced another threat in the south: the British, who had ambitions to take control of Egypt. This pressured the Ottomans to sue the Russians for peace. In the resulting Treaty of Angorra (1885), the Ottomans ceded the Crimean peninsula to Russia, ending the nearly four hundred years of Ottoman presence in the region.

Anglo-Turkish War (1885)

Britain's diplomatic support to Russia during the Russo-Ottoman War soured their relations with the Ottoman Empire. As a response, in July 1884, the Ottomans boycotted the British and revoked their free access to the canal. This was in violation of the Treaty of Edirne (1836) which guaranteed the British free access. The British secretary of war, Wendell Monaghan, strongly advocated for a war against the Ottomans. Monaghan reported the outdated military tactics used by the Ottomans in their fight against the Russians, promising an easy victory. In 1885, the British sent an expedition force to Egypt, shortly gaining control of the region. Multiple skirmishes between the Ottomans and British ensued, but the war quickly ended in the same year with the war-exhausted Ottomans relinquishing control of Egypt.

Ottoman Reform Period

Establishment of the Ottoman Grand Congress (1888)

The humiliating defeats in 1885 served as a wake-up call for the empire. The wars and hardships associated with the aftermath pushed the Ottoman state into reform. In 1888, mounting pressure from the public led to the establishment of the Ottoman Grand Congress. Thus started the Ottoman reform period, putting the people at the forefront of running the country along with the Ottoman sultan.

Clash of Ideologies: Hatayism and Orkhonism

The period between 1890-1901 saw two large political movements vying for power in the Grand Congress. The Hatayists (named after the ancient kingdoms in Anatolia) advocated for the secularization of the state and social equality. The Orkhonists, on the other hand, promoted the Turkification of the state. Both groups were nationalist by definition but had different means for achieving national ambitions.

Orkhonists seize power (1903)

In 1910, the new sultan, Bejazid IV, rose to power after the death of his predecessor. Bejazid, while claiming to have a centrist stance like his predecessor, was heavily sympathetic to the Orkhonists. Soon enough, a political alliance between the Orkhonists and Bejazid IV formed, making them more popular among the public. The Orkhonists were able to capture the majority in the Grand Congress. The Orkhonist party, led by Hamza Ishakoghlu (later adopting the surname Kojundschu, by Surname Edict of 1912), enacted multiple laws to realize their ambitions. Among them is the Turkish Settlement and Nationality Law, which aimed to create an Ottoman national identity by using Islam as a unifying force, and by resettling Turkish-speaking families to far-flung regions where they only make a minority, and vice-versa. The use of the common Turkish language was also promoted, instead of Ottoman Turkish, which had a lot of Arabic and Persian influences. Through these steps, Kojundschu hoped to meld all the groups in the empire into one people: the Ottoman nationality. Throughout the early 19th century, areas around Jazira, Macedonia, and coastal Levantine cities would shift towards a more Turkish identity.

Christian Immigration Wave

Despite heavy national enthusiasm for the new reforms, one group became alienated: the Ottoman Christians. Historically, Ottoman Christians were considered dhimmi (meaning "protected") under Ottoman law in exchange for loyalty to the state and payment of the jizya tax. However, the new policies of the Orkhonist government severely limited their opportunities inside the empire. The Russian Empire, which was seen as the traditional protector of the Christians in the Ottoman empire, issued diplomatic protests and denounced the new government. However, this did very little to stop the new policies from being enacted. These caused waves of emigration of Orthodox Greeks, Armenians, and Christian Arabs into Russia, and more often into the Americas.

Ottoman Ambitions in the 1910s-1920s

Since the death of Kojundschu in 1914, fellow Orkhonist Oguen Oesstekin took over leadership of the party. On the same year, Össtekin became the Grand Vizier of the Ottoman Empire. Under Össtekin, the Ottoman empire began to slide to a dictatorial form of government gradually. To maintain their popularity, the Össtekin and the Orkhonist party began to consolidate military power and looked outward. Anti-Russian and Anti-British revanchist propaganda was scattered throughout the empire. They renewed a territorial claim in Crimea (which was taken by Russia during the 1884-1885 Russo-Ottoman War), after the sultan's familial relations with the old Crimean Giray dynasty. They also promoted the idea of a Greater Ottoman state, one that controlled Egypt and therefore controlled the Mediterranean. Throughout the 1920s, the state would enter a rapid pace of industrialization and militarization. They found an ally in Austria and France, who also had their own resentments against the British and Russians. In 1929, the three states formed the Tripartite Coalition, which strengthened their relationship and cooperation.