The struggle to modernize: the empire from 1789 to 1924
Selim III and the nizam-ı cedid
The 18th-century reform efforts culminated during the reign of Selim III (ruled 1789–1807), often considered the originator of modern reform in the Ottoman Empire. While he was still a prince, Selim developed plans for modernizing the Ottoman army. He came to the throne during the 1787–92 war with Austria and Russia and had to postpone serious reform efforts until its completion. Selim’s early efforts to modernize the Janissary corps created such opposition that thereafter he concentrated on creating a new European-style army called the nizam-ı cedid (“new order”), using modern weapons and tactics developed in Europe. The new force, never numbering more than 10,000 active soldiers, was trained in Istanbul and in a number of Anatolian provincial centres by officers and military experts sent by the different European powers that were competing for the sultan’s support. In order to avoid disrupting the established Ottoman institutions, it was financed by an entirely new treasury, called the irad-ı cedid (“new revenue”), whose revenues came from taxes imposed on previously untaxed sources and from the confiscation of some timars whose holders were not fulfilling their military and administrative duties to the state. Under the guidance of European technicians, factories were erected to manufacture modern weapons and ammunition, and technical schools were opened to train Ottoman officers. Limited efforts also were made to rationalize the Ottoman administrative machinery, but largely along traditional lines. The older military corps, however, remained intact and hostile to the new force, and Selim was therefore compelled to limit its size and use.
At the same time, much of Selim’s energy was diverted by the rise of powerful autonomous notables in southeastern Europe, Anatolia, and the Arab provinces, as well as by a French expedition to Egypt (1798–1801) under Napoleon Bonaparte (later Napoleon I). The French expedition eventually drew Selim into alliances with Great Britain and Russia, through which the French were driven out. The rise of nationalism among Ottoman subject peoples—stimulated by agents of Russia, Austria, and Revolutionary France—showed itself in the beginning of a Serbian revolution (1804) and a new war with Russia (1806–12) and made it impossible for Selim to resist the wishes of the Janissaries, who still formed the bulk of his army. Finally, the sultan’s personal weakness, which led him to desert the reformers and the new army whenever opposition became strong, left him with little significant support in 1807, when he was attacked and overthrown by a conservative coalition. While Selim was imprisoned in the palace, a conservative resurgence under the sultan Mustafa IV (ruled 1807–08) ended the reforms, and most of the reformers were massacred. An effort to restore Selim led by the Danubian notable Bayrakdar Mustafa Paşa led to Selim’s death and, after the short rule of Mustafa IV, the accession of his reforming cousin, Mahmud II (ruled 1808–39). Although Selim’s reforms were largely abandoned for some time, the greatly increased knowledge of the West in the Ottoman Empire—made possible by the schools established for the nizam-ı cedid and by the increased numbers of Westerners present in Istanbul during the era of the French Revolution—began the process by which Ottoman isolation was finally and definitively broken, setting the stage for the more significant reforms that transformed the empire during the remainder of the 19th century.
Stanford Jay ShawRule of Mahmud II
The triumph of the anti-reform coalition that had overthrown Selim III was interrupted in 1808 when the surviving reformers within the higher bureaucracy found support among the ayans of Rumelia (Ottoman possessions in the Balkans), who were worried by possible threats to their own position. The ayans were led by Bayrakdar (“Standard Bearer”) Mustafa Paşa. The forces of Mustafa and the grand vizier Çelebi Mustafa Paşa together recovered Istanbul, deposed Mustafa IV, installed Mahmud II—the son of Abdülhamid I—as ruler, and recommenced some of the reforming policies that had been initiated by Selim.
The ayans took care to protect their own interests by securing a Covenant of Union, which defined and guaranteed their rights against the central government. Their victory, however, was short-lived. A further Janissary uprising in November 1808 led to the death of Bayrakdar and to the reestablishment of conservative rule.
The Ottoman situation at the end of 1808 appeared desperate. Within the empire the authority of the central government was minimal. Control of North Africa had long since faded. In Egypt the Ottoman viceroy Muḥammad ʿAlī was laying the foundations for independent power. In Iraq the Georgian Mamluk pashas paid only lip service to the authority of the Sublime Porte (Ottoman government), as did various independent local governors in Syria. In Arabia the Wahhābīs mocked Ottoman pretensions. In all of Anatolia (Asia Minor) only two provinces were firmly under central control, while in the European provinces power had fallen into the hands of such formidable local notables as Ali Paşa Tepelenë, who controlled southern Albania, and Osman Pasvanoğlu, who dominated northern Bulgaria until his death in 1807. Serbia, under the leadership of George Petrović (Karageorge), had been in revolt since 1804; at first the Serbs had risen in desperation against the terrorist policies of the Janissaries—who had usurped the power of the local governor—but they subsequently had demanded autonomy and in 1807 allied themselves with Russia.
The external threat to the empire was no less ominous. Selim III had hoped to enlist French aid in order to recover territory lost to Russia; as a result, the Ottomans found themselves at war with both Russia, which invaded the principalities (i.e., Moldavia and Walachia; modern Romania) in November 1806, and Britain, which attempted to seize the Dardanelles with a naval force (February 1807) and invaded Egypt (March 1807). Meanwhile, Napoleon I, through the agreements of Tilsit (July 7 and 9, 1807) and Erfurt (October 12, 1808), abandoned active opposition to Russia and accepted its occupation of the principalities.
The preoccupation of the European powers with other interests helped the Ottomans ameliorate their international problems. Britain made peace on January 5, 1809, in the Treaty of Çanak. Through the Treaty of Bucharest (May 28, 1812) Russia returned the principalities to Ottoman rule, although Russia retained most of Bessarabia.
Internal reform
Mahmud II was then able to concentrate on internal reform. The basic element in Mahmud’s reforms was the reconstruction of the army to make it a fit instrument for preserving the Ottoman Empire against both the encroachments of European powers and the separatist ambitions of local potentates. That policy brought him into conflict with the Janissaries. In 1826 Mahmud set out his proposals for a new European-style army; on June 15 the Istanbul Janissaries mutinied in protest and were promptly and efficiently massacred by the sultan, an episode known as the “Auspicious Incident.”
As a tactician, Mahmud proved to be superior to Selim. He had the support of most of the higher ʿulamāʾ. Whereas in 1807 the Janissaries had enjoyed the approval of the population of Istanbul, in 1826 only two guilds gave them active help. Mahmud had built up a cooperative group among the Janissary officers and had carefully arranged to have loyal troops at hand. Perhaps most important of all, Mahmud made sure his proposals were perceived not as dangerous and infidel innovations but as a restoration of the military system of the Ottoman golden age.
The destruction of the old army was completed in 1831 by the final abolition of the timar system. The remaining timars were resumed by the government. Although the new army was outfitted, equipped, and trained in the style of European armies and helped by a succession of European advisers (including the future chief of the German General Staff, Helmuth von Moltke), it differed from the former army in its greater loyalty to the sultan. It thus became an instrument of political centralization, and it provided the major motive for modernization. The continuing effort to pay and equip the army and to train its officers and other specialized personnel in a sustained, but ultimately vain, attempt to keep pace with the European powers stimulated reform of the political and economic institutions of the Ottoman Empire. For example, the modernization of higher education began with the need to train officers, army doctors, and veterinary surgeons; that of the taxation system began with the need to pay the army; and that of the administration, with the need to collect the taxes. Ultimately the entire system of minimal government—by which political, economic, and social decisions were left to local organizations—was replaced by one in which the state centralized decisions in its own hands.
Move toward centralization
Mahmud began by curbing the power of rival claimants. He undermined the influence of the ʿulamāʾ and of popular religious organizations. He created a new directorate of evkâf (charitable endowments) in 1826, hoping to gain control of the hitherto independent financial base of ʿulamāʾ power. To make his power more effective, he built new roads and in 1834 inaugurated a postal service.
The central administration was reorganized. New European-style ministries were created to replace the ancient bottleneck of power caused by the vesting of full administrative responsibility in the grand vizier. New councils were established to assist in long-term planning; one, the Supreme Council of Judicial Ordinances (1838), subsequently became the principal legislative body. Bureaucrats were given greater security by the abolition of the practice of confiscating their property at death, while the opening of a translation bureau (1833) and the reopening of embassies abroad gave some the opportunity to learn European languages and encounter European ideas.
The reformed army and administration became the agents by which the sultan extended his authority over the semi-independent governors, local notables, valley lords, and other groups that had wielded political power in various parts of the empire. That process had begun immediately after 1812. The Serbian revolt had been temporarily suppressed in 1813, although it broke out again in 1815. Firm Ottoman governmental control was established over Anatolia, Iraq, and much of Rumelia.
The only local ruler who succeeded in asserting his own authority, unaided, against the Porte was Muḥammad ʿAlī of Egypt, who was carrying through a still more radical program of modernization. In 1831 Egyptian forces invaded Syria, routed the Ottomans at Konya (December 27, 1832), and threatened Istanbul. Mahmud was forced to seek Russian aid, and on July 8, 1833, he signed the Treaty of Hünkâr İskelesi (Unkiar Skelessi); Muḥammad ʿAlī was, for a time, left in possession of Syria, but Mahmud had not abandoned his claims. In 1839 he attacked the Egyptians; once more the Ottomans were defeated (June 24, 1839). With the help of the European powers (except France) through the Treaty of London (July 15, 1840), the Ottomans recovered Syria and eventually consolidated their authority there; but Muḥammad ʿAlī obtained recognition as hereditary ruler of Egypt (1841).
Attempts to extend Ottoman control in the European provinces, notably in Greece, Serbia, and the principalities, were frustrated. The Greek revolt was the product of the economic prosperity of the Napoleonic Wars and exposure to western European ideas and was a reaction against Ottoman centralization. The revolt was the result of the opposition of peasants and bandits to Ottoman authority and was instigated by plots of certain intellectuals organized through the political society Philikí Etaireía and led by Alexander Ypsilantis, who invaded Moldavia in March 1821. Ypsilantis was defeated, but an uprising began in the Peloponnese. A stalemate developed, but the Ottomans were reinforced in 1825 by Egyptian troops and threatened to put down the revolt. The destruction of the combined Ottoman and Egyptian fleets by Russian, French, and British naval forces at Navarino in the southwestern Peloponnese (October 20, 1827) prevented the Muslims from supplying their armies and made Greek independence inevitable. The Ottomans were forced to recognize Greek autonomy (1829) and independence (1832).
Similarly, Ottoman efforts to regain control of Serbia and the principalities were obstructed by Russian opposition, leading to the Russo-Turkish War (1828–29). By the Treaty of Edirne, on September 14, 1829, the Ottomans ceded to Russia the mouth of the Danube and important territories in eastern Asia Minor and conceded new privileges to the principalities and Serbia. Serbian autonomy was recognized in 1830 and was extended over the full area of the state in 1833.
By the time of the death of Mahmud II in 1839, the Ottoman Empire was diminished in extent; it was more consolidated and powerful than it had been at its height but was increasingly subject to European pressures, with Russia supporting and Britain opposing separatist movements and the other powers oscillating between. The cure, however, had begun. Mahmud had established the respectability of change, and its symbol was the replacement of the turban with the fez (1829).
The Tanzimat reforms (1839–76)
The Tanzimat is the name given to the series of Ottoman reforms promulgated during the reigns of Mahmud’s sons Abdülmecid I (ruled 1839–61) and Abdülaziz (ruled 1861–76). The best-known of those reforms are the Hatt-ı Şerif of Gülhane (Noble Edict of the Rose Chamber; November 3, 1839) and the Hatt-ı Hümayun (Imperial Edict; February 18, 1856).
Purpose of the Tanzimat
The Tanzimat has been the subject of much controversy. Many Western writers have dismissed the promises of reform as merely an Ottoman desire to win European diplomatic support at critical moments, and some features of the Tanzimat appear to support such a view. The promises of equality for Christian subjects were not always implemented—for example, it was proposed in 1855 to end the poll tax paid by non-Muslims and to allow them to enter the army, but the old poll tax was merely replaced by a new exemption tax levied at a higher rate, and Christians were still excluded from the army. It is also true that the timing of reform announcements coincided with crises: the 1839 edict came when the Ottomans needed European help against Muḥammad ʿAlī, the 1856 edict when the Ottomans needed European acceptance in the wake of the Crimean War (1853–56), and the 1876 constitution when European pressure for reforms was mounting.
That view of the Tanzimat, however, is based on a misconception of its purpose. Europeans, who were principally concerned with improving conditions for Ottoman Christians, looked first at those elements of the Tanzimat that appeared to be directed toward that goal (e.g., a proclamation in the 1839 edict of the principles of individual liberty, freedom from oppression, and equality before the law and a section of the 1856 edict that was concerned with the rights of Christians). To the Ottomans, however, the purpose of reform was to preserve the Ottoman state. Although the Ottomans found it necessary to make some concessions to European powers and to their own non-Muslim subjects and although some Tanzimat statesmen did consider equality to be an ultimate goal, it was the desire to preserve the state that brought about the mobilization of resources for modernization. The central reforms, therefore, were in the army, notably major reorganizations of 1842 and 1869 (the latter following the pattern of the successful Prussian conscript system); in the administration, both at the centre and in the provinces; and in society, through changes in education and law.
Reform in education
Before the reforms, education in the Ottoman Empire had not been a state responsibility but had been provided by the various millets; education for Muslims was controlled by the ʿulamāʾ and was directed toward religion. The first inroads into the system had been made with the creation of naval engineering (1773), military engineering (1793), medical (1827), and military science (1834) colleges. In that way specialized Western-type training was grafted onto the traditional system to produce specialists for the army. Similar institutions for diplomats and administrators were founded, including the translation bureau (1833) and the civil service school (1859); the latter was reorganized in 1877 and eventually became the political science department of the University of Ankara and the major training centre for higher civil servants.
In 1846 the first comprehensive plan for state education was put forward. It provided for a complete system of primary and secondary schools leading to the university level, all under the Ministry of Education. A still more ambitious educational plan, inaugurated in 1869, provided for free and compulsory primary education. Both schemes progressed slowly because of a lack of money, but they provided a framework within which development toward a systematic, secular educational program could take place.
By 1914 there were more than 36,000 Ottoman schools, although the great majority were small, traditional primary schools. The development of the state system was aided by the example of progress among the non-Muslim millet schools, in which the education provided was more modern than in the Ottoman schools; by 1914 those included more than 1,800 Greek schools with about 185,000 pupils and some 800 Armenian schools with more than 81,000 pupils. Non-Muslims also used schools provided by foreign missionary groups in the empire; by 1914 there were 675 U.S., 500 French Catholic, and 178 British missionary schools, with more than 100,000 pupils among them. Those foreign schools included such famous institutions as Robert College (founded 1863), the Syrian Protestant College (1866; later the American University of Beirut), and the Université Saint-Joseph (1875).
Reforms in law
Law, to a large extent, also had been the responsibility of the various millets. The Capitulations exempted foreigners and those Ottoman citizens on whom foreign consuls conferred protection from the application of criminal law. The Tanzimat reformers had two objects in the reform of law and legal procedure: to make Ottoman law acceptable to Europeans so that the Capitulations could be abolished and sovereignty recovered and to modernize the traditional Islamic law. Their efforts resulted in the promulgation of a commercial code (1850), a commercial procedure code (1861), a maritime code (1863), and a penal code (1858). French influence predominated in those, as it did in the civil code of 1870–76. Increasingly, the laws were administered in new state courts, outside the control of the ʿulamāʾ. Although they failed to achieve the purposes intended, they provided the basis for future success.
Obstructions to reforms
The Tanzimat reforms moved steadily in the direction of modernization and centralization. The reformers were handicapped by a lack of money and skilled men, and they were opposed by traditionalists who argued that the reformers were destroying the empire’s fundamental Islamic character and who often halted the progress of reform. Centralization, meanwhile, was slowed by interference from the major European powers, who obstructed the Ottoman attempt to recover power in Bosnia and Montenegro in 1853, forced the granting of autonomy to Mount Lebanon in 1861, and considered, but eventually rejected, intervention to prevent the Ottomans from suppressing a revolt in Crete in 1868. Although Britain and France helped the Ottomans resist Russian pressure during the Crimean War (1853–56), the Ottomans derived no real benefits from the peace settlement; new arrangements helped to bring about the unification of the principalities (1859) and paved the way for the emergence of independent Romania.
The 1875–78 crisis
The success of the Tanzimat reformers, ironically, created a systemic weakness as centralization removed the checks on the power of the sultan. After the death of the grand vizier Mehmed Emin Âli Paşa in 1871, Abdülaziz so abused his unrestrained authority that he contributed to a major crisis in 1875–78.
Drought in 1873 and floods in 1874 had produced widespread discontent and even famine among the Ottoman peasantry, who already were disturbed by the increased burdens of a landholding system that had spread in the Balkans in the 19th century and by increased taxation and greater liability to conscription resulting from the 1869 military reorganization. The burden of taxation had been aggravated by the Ottoman debt burden. The first Ottoman foreign loan was in 1854; by 1875 the nominal public debt was £200 million, with annual interest and amortization payments of £12 million, more than half of the national revenue. The Ottomans could meet only about half of their annual obligation, however, because a world financial crisis in 1873 had made new credit difficult to obtain.
Balkan discontent was fanned by nationalist agitation supported by Serbia and by émigré Slav organizations. It culminated in uprisings largely of Christian peasants against Muslim lords in Bosnia and Herzegovina (July 1875) and in Bulgaria (August 1876). Ottoman efforts to suppress the uprisings led to war with Serbia and Montenegro (July 1876) and to attempts by European powers to force Ottoman reforms.
Agreement among the European powers proved impossible, and, when the Ottomans rejected Russian demands, Russia decided to act alone and declared war (April 24, 1877). The war ended in defeat for the Ottomans, but their unexpected resistance at Plevna (modern Pleven, Bulgaria; July–December 1877) allowed other European powers, led by Britain, to intervene. According to the Treaty of San Stefano (March 3, 1878), the Ottomans were to recognize the independence of Romania, Serbia, and Montenegro and cede territory to them, concede autonomy to an extensive new state of Bulgaria, cede territory to Russia in the Dobruja (west of the Black Sea) and eastern Asia Minor, introduce various administrative reforms, and pay an indemnity.
Diplomatic pressure from other European powers led to the modification of those terms at the Congress of Berlin (June–July 1878). The major changes concerned autonomous Bulgaria, which was substantially reduced in size and divided into two parts, the northern part to have political and the southern (eastern Rumelia) to have administrative autonomy. The independence of Serbia, Montenegro, and Romania was recognized, but their territorial gains were much reduced. Russia retained its acquisitions of Kars and Batum in Asia Minor. Austria-Hungary was given control of Bosnia and Herzegovina and the strategic district of Novi Pazar in Serbia. By a separate convention Cyprus was put under British rule.
The settlement was a major defeat for the Ottomans. Eastern Rumelia was soon lost when it united with Bulgaria in 1885. The Ottoman territories in Europe were reduced to Macedonia, Albania, and Thrace, and European influence had attained new dimensions. Britain now proposed to supervise governmental reforms in the Asian provinces, although that was skillfully frustrated by Abdülhamid II (ruled 1876–1909). In addition, the Ottomans were soon forced to accept new financial controls. By the Decree of Muharrem (December 1881) the Ottoman public debt was reduced from £191 million to £106 million, certain revenues were assigned to debt service, and a European-controlled organization, the Ottoman Public Debt Administration (OPDA), was set up to collect the payments.
The OPDA subsequently played an important role in Ottoman affairs, acting as agent for the collection of other revenues and as an intermediary with European companies seeking investment opportunities. Its influence, however, should not be exaggerated. The OPDA remained under Ottoman political control, and its existence even enabled the Ottomans to add to the debt at the annual rate of £3 million throughout the reign of Abdülhamid; nor was the burden of repayments a major drain on the country’s resources. But taken in conjunction with the activities of European-controlled banks and with the tariff limitations imposed on the Ottomans by the Capitulations, the result was a distinct restriction on Ottoman ability to guide the allocation of resources.
The Ottoman constitution, 1876
Perhaps more significant than external changes were the internal political developments that brought about the first Ottoman constitution on December 23, 1876. The Tanzimat had produced three types of criticism within the Muslim community. The first was a simple traditionalist opposition. The second was a more sophisticated critique elaborated by certain intellectuals, many of whom had bureaucratic training and some knowledge of Western ideas. The third expressed a determination to control, and if necessary to depose, the sultan.
The intellectuals were known as the Young Ottomans. Although some had taken part in a secret society (the “Patriotic Alliance”) in 1865 and had some similarity of background, the Young Ottomans were not an organized political party; they are considered as a group largely through the accident of their assembly in Paris and London in 1867–71. Their political views ranged from secular, cosmopolitan revolutionism to profoundly Islamic traditionalism. Because his views occupied a middle ground among those intellectuals and because of his lucidity of expression, Namık Kemal (1840–88) has often been regarded as the representative figure, although he is no more representative than the others. His views, however, had the greatest effect on later reformers.
Kemal criticized the Tanzimat reformers for their indiscriminate adoption of Western innovations. While admiring much of Western civilization, he believed that the principles underlying its best institutions were to be found in Islam. In particular, he derived from early Islamic precept and practice the idea of a representative assembly that could check the unbridled power of the sultan and his ministers. He helped to form and popularize the idea of a constitution and of loyalty to the Ottoman fatherland. Like others, he was assisted by the development of an Ottoman press, which had its origins in the 1830s but had begun to express opinions—occasionally critical of the government—in the 1860s. During that decade two influential newspapers were established, the Tercüman-i ahval (1860) and the Tasvir-i efkâr (1862); along with later newspapers, those became the vehicles for Young Ottoman ideas.
However, it was the third line of criticism, that which sought to control the sultan, that was most important. Arising within the higher Ottoman bureaucracy itself, it was led by Midhat Paşa. Midhat and others became determined, because of their own exclusion from power and because of the disastrous results of Abdülaziz’s policies, to impose some check on the sultan’s power. The traditional check was deposition, and that was accomplished (May 30, 1876) following a riot by theological students and the removal of the hated grand vizier Mahmud Nedim Paşa. A new cabinet was formed, which included Midhat and other partisans of reform. A new sultan with a reputation for liberalism, Murad V (ruled 1876), was installed, but he quickly became insane and was deposed, replaced by Abdülhamid II. The experience convinced Midhat of the necessity of a permanent check upon the power of the sultan, such as could be provided by a representative assembly that would give ministers a basis of support independent of the sultan. Accordingly, Abdülhamid was persuaded to agree to a constitution.
Although there had been constitutional implications in earlier documents and although the development of councils—particularly provincial councils with their elected elements—had included parliamentary aspects, the December 23 document was the first comprehensive Ottoman constitution and (except for a Tunisian organic law of 1861) the first in any Islamic country. The constitution was derived entirely from the will of the ruler, who retained full executive power and to whom ministers were individually responsible. In legislation the sultan was assisted by a two-chamber parliament, the lower house indirectly elected and the upper house nominated by the ruler. Rights of ruler and ruled were set out, but the system it established might best be described as attenuated autocracy. Midhat has been criticized for accepting certain amendments demanded by Abdülhamid, including the then-notorious article 113, which gave the sultan the right to deport persons harmful to the state; but it is clear that the majority of Midhat’s colleagues were content with those amendments and that the amendments made little difference, so great were the sultan’s powers within and outside the constitution. The parliament summoned under the constitution in March 1877 was dissolved in less than a year and was not recalled until 1908. The liberals were exiled; some, including Midhat, were put to death.
Rule of Abdülhamid II
The reign of Abdülhamid II (1876–1909) is often regarded as having been a reaction against the Tanzimat, but, insofar as the essence of the Tanzimat reforms was centralization rather than liberalization, Abdülhamid may be seen as its fulfiller rather than its destroyer. The continued development of the army and administration, the formation of a gendarmerie, the growth of communications—especially the telegraph and railways—and the formation of an elaborate spy system enabled the sultan to monopolize power and crush opposition. His brutal repression of the Armenians in 1894–96 earned him the European title “red sultan.” But Abdülhamid’s reign also made positive advances in education (including the renovation of Istanbul University in 1900); legal reform, led by his grand vizier Mehmed Said Paşa; and economic development, through the construction of railways in Asia Minor and Syria with foreign capital and of the Hejaz Railway from Damascus to Medina with the help of subscriptions from Muslims in other countries.
Pan-Islamism
The Hejaz Railway constituted one element in Abdülhamid’s Pan-Islamic policies. Political Pan-Islamism had made its first appearance in Ottoman policy at the Treaty of Küçük Kaynarca (1774) with Russia, when the Ottoman sultan had made claims to religious jurisdiction over Muslims outside his territories, particularly those in Crimea. Some years later the theory was elaborated by the addition of the baseless legend that in 1517 the Abbasid caliphate had been transferred to the Ottoman sultan. With the extinction of many independent Muslim states and their absorption into the empires of European powers, that myth of the caliphate became a useful weapon in the Ottoman diplomatic armoury and was exploited by Abdülhamid as a means of deterring European powers from pressing him too hard, lest he create dissension within their own territories. In addition, stress on popular Islam through the press and other publications and through the sultan’s patronage of Sufi orders (tariqas) served to rally Muslim opinion within the empire behind him.
Preservation of the empire
Abdülhamid had reasonable success in preserving the empire after 1878. Apart from eastern Rumelia, no further territories were lost until 1908 (Ottoman authority in Tunisia, occupied by France in 1881, and Egypt, occupied by Britain in 1882, was already insignificant). In Crete the Ottomans suppressed revolts and defeated Greece when it intervened in 1897 in support of the Cretans. The European powers, however, forced Abdülhamid to concede autonomy to Crete. He was more successful in obstructing European efforts to force the introduction of substantial reforms in Macedonia. In Arabia the Ottomans continued the expansion of their power that had begun in the early 1870s.
The Young Turk Revolution of 1908
Several conspiracies took place against Abdülhamid. In 1889 a conspiracy in the military medical college spread to other Istanbul colleges. The conspirators came to call themselves the Committee of Union and Progress (CUP; İttihad ve Terakki Cemiyeti) and were commonly known as the Young Turks. When the plot was discovered, some of its leaders went abroad to reinforce Ottoman exiles in Paris, Geneva, and Cairo, where they helped prepare the ground for revolution by developing a comprehensive critique of the Hamidian system. The most noteworthy among those were Murad Bey, Ahmed Rıza, and Prince Sabaheddin. As editor of Mizan (“Balance”), published first in Istanbul (1886) and later in Cairo and Geneva, Murad Bey preached liberal ideas combined with a strong Islamic feeling; that may have contributed to his defection and return to Istanbul in 1897. Ahmed Rıza in Paris edited Meşveret (“Consultation”), in which he set out ideas of reform, strongly flavoured by Auguste Comte’s philosophy of positivism. His advocacy of a strong central government within the Ottoman Empire and the exclusion of foreign influence led to a major split within the Young Turk exiles at the 1902 Paris Congress; Ahmed Rıza clashed with Sabaheddin, who, with Armenian support, favoured administrative decentralization and European assistance to promote reform. Sabaheddin set up the League of Private Initiative and Decentralization.
The émigrés could supply literary sustenance to dissidents, but Abdülhamid could not be overthrown while the army remained loyal. The real origin of the Young Turk Revolution of 1908 lay in the discontent within the III Army Corps in Macedonia, where officers acted independently of the CUP in Paris. It is still unclear if a coordinated conspiracy existed in Macedonia or if a number of separate centres of disaffection, linked haphazardly through individuals, Sufi orders, Freemason lodges, and other means, coalesced in July 1908 under the banner of the CUP through the pressure of events. On July 3, 1908, Major Ahmed Niyazi, apparently fearing discovery by an investigatory committee, decamped from Resne with 200 followers, including civilians, leaving behind a demand for the restoration of the constitution. The sultan’s attempt to suppress the uprising failed, and rebellion spread rapidly. Abdülhamid was unable to rely on other troops, and on July 24 he announced the restoration of the constitution.
The young officers who had instigated the revolution, like their civilian supporters, were primarily concerned with preserving the Ottoman Empire; they feared that Hamidian policies and European interventions were endangering its existence. Grievances concerning personal matters such as salary and rank, however, also may have played a part. Though some writers have argued that a new type of officer, of lower social origin than officers from earlier generations, influenced the discontent, there is little evidence to support such a theory. It is clear, however, that the officers had not thought much beyond their demand for the restoration of a constitution that had proved ineffectual in 1877–78. They had no program of action and were content to leave government to the established bureaucrats.
In April 1909, however, an army mutiny in Istanbul (known because of the Julian calendar as the “31st March Incident”) exposed the weakness of the CUP and at the same time gave it a new opportunity. The mutiny resulted from the discontent of ordinary soldiers over their conditions and their neglect by college-trained and politically ambitious officers and from what they regarded as infidel innovations. They were encouraged by a religious organization known as the Mohammedan Union. The weakness of the government allowed the mutiny to spread, and, although order was eventually restored in Istanbul and more quickly elsewhere, a force from Macedonia (the Action Army), led by Mahmud Şevket Paşa, marched on Istanbul and occupied the city on April 24.
Dissolution of the empire
Abdülhamid was deposed and replaced by Sultan Mehmed V (ruled 1909–18), son of Abdülmecid. The constitution was amended to transfer real power to the parliament. The army and particularly Mahmud Şevket Paşa became the real arbiters of Ottoman politics.
Rise of the CUP
Although the removal of many of its political opponents had allowed the CUP to move into a more prominent position in government, it was still weak. It had a core of able, determined men but a much larger collection of individuals and factions whose Unionist affiliation was so weak that they easily merged into other parties. Although the CUP won an overwhelming majority in the election of April 1912, its support rapidly melted away following military losses to Italy. Evidence of army hostility finally forced the CUP out of office in July 1912, to be succeeded by a political coalition called the Liberal Union.
The Liberal Union, too, lost support following defeats in the Balkans. That provided the opportunity for a small group of CUP officers and soldiers to stage a coup (January 23, 1913), known as the Sublime Porte Incident, to force the resignation of the grand vizier Mehmed Kâmil Paşa and establish a new cabinet under Şevket Paşa. Şevket Paşa, however, was not a Unionist, and it was only after his assassination (June 11, 1913) that the CUP at last succeeded in establishing a Unionist-dominated government under Said Halim Paşa.
Internal developments
The disastrous results of the Young Turks’ external policies overshadowed the important internal developments of the years 1908–18. Further administrative reforms, particularly of provincial administration in 1913, led to more centralization, although by European standards the central Ottoman government remained relatively weak, particularly in the more distant provinces. The burden of taxation was well below that of European powers.
The Young Turks were the first Ottoman reformers to promote industrialization, with a Law for the Encouragement of Industry (1909, revised 1915). Although they had little success, they did build a framework for later state-directed economic planning. Considerable attention was given to education, especially to the neglected area of the primary level. The process of secularization of the law was carried much further. A major development in national journalism took place, and the status of women improved. The whole period was one of intense social and political discussion and change.
Turkish nationalism
The basic ideologies of the state remained Ottomanism and Islam, but a new sense of Turkish identity began to develop. That new concept was fostered by educational work of the Turkish Society (formed 1908) and the Turkish Hearth (formed 1912). A political twist was given by the adherents of Pan-Turkism and Pan-Turanianism. Pan-Turkism, which aimed at the political union of all Turkish-speaking peoples, began among Turks in Crimea and along the Volga River. Its leading exponent was Ismail Gasprinski (Gaspirali), who attempted to create a common Turkish language. Many Pan-Turkists migrated to Ottoman lands, especially after 1905. One of them, Yusuf Akçuraoğlu, argued in Üç tarz-ı siyaset (1903; “Three Kinds of Policy”) that Turkism provided a better basis for the Ottoman Empire than either Islam or Ottomanism. Pan-Turanianism developed from a much-disputed 19th-century theory of the common origin of Turkish, Mongol, Tungus, Finnish, Hungarian, and other languages; some of its advocates envisioned a great political federation of speakers of those languages, extending from Hungary eastward to the Pacific Ocean.
Those ideas, however, found little support within the Ottoman government. The accusation that the Young Turks pursued a deliberate policy of Turkification within the empire in order to alienate non-Turks and promote the rise of Arab and Albanian nationalism is an oversimplification. The extension of government activity inevitably brought with it the Turkish language, as it was the language of government. That produced some reaction from speakers of other languages, but the evidence suggests that it did not override basic feelings of Muslim solidarity, except among some small minorities. It was among the Christian groups that distinct separatist ideas were developed.
Foreign relations
The foreign relations of the Ottoman Empire under the Young Turks led to disaster. The 1908 revolution provided an opportunity for several powers to press their designs upon the empire. In October 1908 Austria-Hungary annexed Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Bulgaria proclaimed its independence. Italy seized Tripoli (Libya) and occupied the Dodecanese, a group of islands in the Aegean Sea; by the Treaty of Lausanne (October 18, 1912) Italy retained the former but agreed to evacuate the Dodecanese. In fact, however, it continued to occupy them.
The two Balkan Wars (1912–13) almost completed the destruction of the Ottoman Empire in Europe. In the first (October 1912–May 1913) the Ottomans lost almost all their European possessions, including Crete, to Bulgaria, Serbia, Greece, Montenegro, and the newly created state of Albania (Treaty of London, May 30, 1913). In the second (June–July 1913), fought between Bulgaria and the remaining Balkan states (including Romania) over the division of Macedonia, the Ottomans intervened against Bulgaria and recovered part of eastern Thrace, including Edirne. The Ottomans had lost more than four-fifths of the territory and more than two-thirds of the population of their European provinces.
The people
In 1914 the total population of the Ottoman Empire was approximately 25 million, of which about 10 million were Turks, 6 million Arabs, 1.5 million Kurds, 1.5 million Greeks, and 2.5 million Armenians. The population of the empire (excluding such virtually independent areas as Egypt, Romania, and Serbia) in the period immediately prior to the losses of 1878 is estimated to have been about 26 million. Natural increases and Muslim immigration from Russia and the Balkans virtually made up the losses, and in 1914 the population was increasingly homogeneous in religion and language, though a variety of languages continued to be spoken.
World War I, 1914–18
The Ottoman entry into World War I resulted from an overly hasty calculation of likely advantage. German influence was strong but not decisive; Germany’s trade with the Ottomans still lagged behind that of Britain, France, and Austria, and its investments—which included the Baghdad Railway between Istanbul and the Persian Gulf—were smaller than those of France. A mission to Turkey led by the German military officer Otto Liman von Sanders in 1913 was only one of a series of German military missions, and Liman’s authority to control the Ottoman army was much more limited than contemporaries supposed. Except for the interest of Russia in Istanbul and the straits between the Black and Mediterranean seas, no European power had genuinely vital interests in the Ottoman Empire. The Ottomans might have remained neutral, as a majority of the cabinet wished, at least until the situation became clearer. But the opportunism of the minister of war Enver Paşa, early German victories, friction with the Triple Entente (France, Russia, and Great Britain) arising out of the shelter given by the Ottomans to German warships, and long-standing hostility to Russia combined to produce an Ottoman bombardment of the Russian Black Sea ports (October 29, 1914) and a declaration of war by the Entente against the Ottoman Empire.
The Ottomans made a substantial contribution to the Central Powers’ war effort. Their forces fought in eastern Asia Minor (Anatolia), Azerbaijan, Mesopotamia, Syria and Palestine, and the Dardanelles, as well as on European fronts, and they held down large numbers of Entente troops. In September 1918 they dominated Transcaucasia. During the war the Young Turks also took the opportunity to attack certain internal problems—the Capitulations were abolished unilaterally (September 1914), the autonomous status of Lebanon was ended, a number of Arab nationalists were executed in Damascus (August 1915 and May 1916), and the Armenian community in eastern Asia Minor and Cilicia was massacred or deported to eliminate any domestic support for the pro-Christian tsarist enemy on the Eastern Front. Between 600,000 and 1,500,000 Armenians were killed in a genocide of the Armenian people.
After 1916, army desertions took place on a massive scale, and economic pressures became acute. The surrender of Bulgaria (September 28, 1918), which severed direct links with Germany, was the final blow. The CUP cabinet resigned on October 7, and a new government was formed under Ahmed Izzet Paşa on October 9. On October 30 the Ottomans signed the Armistice of Mudros.
Allied war aims and the proposed peace settlement
Entente proposals for the partition of Ottoman territories were formulated in a number of wartime agreements. By the Istanbul Agreements (March–April 1915), Russia was promised Istanbul and the straits; France was to receive a sphere of influence in Syria and Cilicia. Britain had already annexed Cyprus and declared a protectorate over Egypt. By the Anglo-French Sykes-Picot Agreement (January 3, 1916), the French sphere was confirmed and extended eastward to Mosul in Iraq. A British sphere of influence in Mesopotamia extended as far north as Baghdad, and Britain was given control of Haifa and Acre and of territory linking the Mesopotamian and Haifa-Acre spheres. Palestine was to be placed under an international regime. In compensation, the Russian gains were extended (April–May 1916) to include the Ottoman provinces of Trabzon, Erzurum, Van, and Bitlis in eastern Asia Minor. By the Treaty of London (April 26, 1915), Italy was promised the Dodecanese and a possible share of Asia Minor. By the Agreement of Saint-Jean-de-Maurienne (April 1917), Italy was promised a large area of southwestern Anatolia, including İzmir and an additional sphere to the north. Britain made various promises of independence to Arab leaders, notably in the Hussein-McMahon correspondence (1915–16), and in the Balfour Declaration (November 2, 1917) Britain promised to support the establishment of a national home for the Jewish people in Palestine.
The Russian withdrawal in 1917 and postwar bargaining led to some modifications of those agreements, and the Allied terms were not finally presented until 1920. By the Treaty of Sèvres (August 10, 1920), the Ottomans retained Istanbul and part of Thrace but lost the Arab provinces, ceded a large area of Asia Minor to a newly created Armenian state with access to the sea, surrendered Gökçeada and Bozcaada to Greece, and accepted arrangements that implied the eventual loss of İzmir to Greece. The straits were internationalized, and strict European control of Ottoman finances was established. An accompanying tripartite agreement between Britain, France, and Italy defined extensive spheres of influence for the latter two powers. The treaty was never ratified, however.
Mustafa Kemal (Atatürk), an Ottoman wartime general, led a resistance to the terms demanded by the Allies and asserted the inviolability of the Ottoman lands that were inhabited by Turks. A parliament convened in Ankara on April 23, 1920, declared that the sultan’s government had fallen under foreign control, and on November 1, 1922, the assembly abolished the sultanate altogether. Kemal’s determined struggle led to the conclusion of the Treaty of Lausanne on July 24, 1923, which superseded the efforts of the Treaty of Sèvres. The Republic of Turkey was proclaimed months later on October 29. On March 3, 1924, the Ottoman caliphate was abolished, and all members of the former dynasty were expelled from Turkey.
Malcolm Edward Yapp The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica