Ottoman Sultanate
 | The lore below may contain rough and vague ideas. If you want to help write the article or flesh out the lore below, we'd be happy to have you over at the RTL Discord Server for some brainstorming. |
| Ottoman Empire | |
|---|---|
| The Sublime Ottoman State | |
| دولت عليه عثمانيه | |
| 1299 - 1940 | |
.svg) | |
| Established | 1299 (in Söğüt) |
| Capital | Ḳosṭanṭīnīye (Constantinople) |
| Largest City | Ḳosṭanṭīnīye (Constantinople) |
| Government Type |
|
| Languages |
|
| Currency | Gulden |
The Ottoman Empire (Ottoman Turkish: دولت عليه عثمانيه Devlet-e Aliye-yi Uthmaniye, lit. 'The Sublime Ottoman State'; Turkish: Osmanlı İmparatorluğu) was a transcontinental empire that controlled much of Southeastern Europe, Western Asia, and Northern Africa between the 14th and early 20th centuries.
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.
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)
Since the 1870s, the British already had solid ambitions in taking Egypt, a strategic control point, from the Ottomans. The war was spurred on by a recommendation from British secretary of war, Wendell Monaghan, who 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.