The Ottoman Empire was a Muslim Turkish state that encompassed Anatolia,
southeastern Europe, and the Arab Middle East and North Africa from the
14th to the early 20th century. It succeeded both the BYZANTINE EMPIRE,
whose capital, Constantinople (modern ISTANBUL), it made its own in 1453,
and the Arab CALIPHATE, whose mantle of descent from Muhammad it claimed
after conquest of Egypt in 1517. The Ottoman Empire was finally broken
up at the end of World War I, when its heartland of Anatolia became the
Republic of TURKEY.
The empire was temporarily disrupted by the invasion of the Tatar conqueror TIMUR, who defeated and captured the Ottoman sultan BAYEZID I at the Battle of Ankara (1402). However, Mehmed I (1389?-1421), the Restorer, succeeded in reuniting much of the empire, and it was reconstituted by MURAD II and MEHMED II. In 1453, Mehmed II conquered Constantinople, the last Byzantine stronghold. Both sultans developed the devshirme system of recruiting young Christians for conversion to Islam and service in the Ottoman army and administration; the Christians in the army were organized into the elite infantry corps called the
The empire reached its peak in the 16th century. Sultan SELIM I (r.
1512-20) conquered Egypt and Syria, gained control of the Arabian Peninsula,
and beat back the Safavid rulers of Iran at the Battle of Caldiran (1514).
He was succeeded by SULEIMAN I (the Magnificent, r. 1520-66), who took
Iraq, Hungary, and Albania and established Ottoman naval supremacy in the
Mediterranean. Suleiman codified and institutionalized the classic structure
of the Ottoman state and society, making his dominions into one of the
great powers of Europe.
Under the structure formalized in the 16th century, the Ottoman Empire was dominated by a small ruling class that achieved its power and wealth as a result of the status of its members as slaves (kapikullari) of the sultan. This elite group included both the older Turko-Islamic aristocracy--descendants of the Turkoman principalities of Anatolia, the Seljuks, and members of the Muslim bureaucracy and army of the caliphate--and the newer devshirme class of Christian converts and their descendants. The sultans played these two groups off against each other to enforce standards of honesty and obedience. To ensure that the sultan was the sole focus of loyalty, Mehmed II began the practice of executing all brothers of the reigning sultan so that the succession would fall, without question, to one of his sons.
The functions of the ruling class were limited to exploiting the resources
of the empire, largely for its own benefit; expanding and defending the
state and maintaining order; and preserving the faith and practice of Islam
as well as the religions of all the subjects of the sultan. For these purposes
the class was organized into four administrative institutions: that of
the palace, which was in charge of housing, supporting, and maintaining
the sultan and making sure that the system worked; and those of administration
and finance, the military, and culture and religion. The vast subject class
was left to carry out all other functions of state through autonomous religious
communities called millets--for the Jews, the Armenian Christians, the
Greek Orthodox Christians, and the Muslims--and through artisans' guilds
and popular mystic orders and confederations, which together formed a substratum
of popular society.
The decline of the empire began late in the 16th century. It was caused by a myriad of interdependent factors, among which the most important were the triumph of the devshirme class, the flight of the Turko-Islamic aristocracy, and degeneration in the ability and honesty both of the sultans and of their ruling class. The devshirme divided into many political parties that fought for power, manipulated sultans, and used the government for their own benefit. Corruption, nepotism, inefficiency, and misrule spread. The empire, however, survived for 3 centuries longer because Europe was unaware of the extent of its weakness, and the mass of Ottoman subjects were protected from the worst results of the decay by their millets and guilds. Starting in the 17th century, moreover, a few members of the ruling class temporarily remedied the abuses by forcefully restoring Ottoman institutions and practices to the pattern in which they had operated successfully in previous centuries. In the process they ruthlessly executed the incompetent and the corrupt and confiscated their properties. Chief among these traditionalist reformers were Sultan Murad IV (r. 1623-40) and the KOPRULU family of grand viziers (chief executive officers), who dominated the administration from 1656 to 1702.
The empire experienced its first major defeat by Europeans in the Battle
of LEPANTO (1571), when its fleet was destroyed by a Christian coalition.
Nonetheless it recovered dominance of the eastern Mediterranean, capturing
Crete from the Venetians in 1669. In the east, moreover, Murad IV reconquered
(1638) part of Persia, which had asserted its independence under Shah ABBAS
I. This apparent military revival encouraged Grand Vizier Kara Mustafa
Pasha to attempt an invasion of central Europe. Following its failure to
take Vienna (1683), however, the Ottoman army collapsed. Major territories
were lost to its European enemies in the ensuing war, which culminated
in the Treaty of Karlowitz (1699). During the 18th century, a series of
wars with Russia (see RUSSO-TURKISH WARS) and Austria accelerated the decline
and loss of territory. At the same time large sections of the provinces
remaining under Ottoman control fell under the sway of provincial notables,
whose connection with the sultans was nominal.
Sultan SELIM III (r. 1789-1807) attempted to reform the Ottoman system by destroying the Janissary corps and replacing it with the nizam-i jedid (new order) army modeled after the new military institutions being developed in the West. This attempt so angered the Janissaries and others with a vested interest in the old ways that they overthrew him and massacred most of the reform leaders. Defeats at the hands of Russia and Austria, the success of national revolutions in Serbia and Greece, and the rise of the powerful independent Ottoman governor of Egypt, MUHAMMAD ALI, so discredited the Janissaries, however, that Sultan MAHMUD II was able to massacre and destroy them in 1826.
Mahmud then inaugurated a new series of modernistic reforms, which involved the destruction of the traditional institutions and their replacement with new ones imported from the West--and in all areas of Ottoman life, not just the military. These reforms were continued and brought to their culmination during the Tanzimat reform era (1839-76) and the reign (1876-1909) of ABD AL-HAMID II. The scope of government was extended and centralized as reforms were made in administration, finance, education, justice, the economy, communications, and the army; even the millets were forced to democratize and accept lay participation in their governance.
Financial mismanagement and incompetence, along with national revolts
in the Balkans and eastern Anatolia, the French occupation of Algeria and
Tunisia, and the takeover by the British in Egypt and the Italians in Libya,
threatened to end the very existence of the empire, let alone its reforms.
By this time the Ottoman sultanate was known as the "Sick Man of Europe,"
and European diplomacy focused on the so-called EASTERN QUESTION--how to
dispose of the Sick Man's territories without upsetting the European balance
of power. Abd al-Hamid II, however, rescued the empire, at least temporarily,
by reforming the Ottoman financial system, manipulating the rivalries of
the European powers, and developing the pan-Islamic and pan-Turkic movements
to undermine the empires of his enemies. The sultan granted a constitution
and parliament in 1876, but he soon abandoned them and ruled autocratically
so as to achieve his objectives as rapidly and efficiently as possible.
He became so despotic that liberal opposition arose under the leadership
of the YOUNG TURKS, many of whom were forced to flee to Europe to escape
his police.
In 1908 a revolution led by the Young Turks forced Abd al-Hamid to restore the parliament and constitution. After a few months of constitutional rule, however, a counterrevolutionary effort to restore the sultan's autocracy led the Young Turks to dethrone Abd al-Hamid completely in 1909. He was replaced by Mehmed V Rashid (r. 1909-18), who was only a puppet of those controlling the government.
Rapid modernization continued during the Young Turk era (1908-18), with particular attention given to modernizing the cities, agriculture and industry, and communications and also to the secularization of the state and the emancipation of women. However, the Young Turk leader Enver Pasha (1881-1922), who was virtual dictator from 1913, involved the empire in World War I on the side of Germany and Austria-Hungary. The defeat of these Central Powers led to the breakup and foreign occupation of the Ottoman Empire. The Turks accepted the resulting independence of their Arab and Balkan provinces, but the attempt of the victorious Allies to control the Anatolian territory left to the Turks and to turn parts of it, as well as eastern Thrace, over to other powers led to the Turkish war for independence (1918-23). Under the leadership of Kemal ATATURK, the Turkish nationalists overturned the postwar settlement embodied in the Treaty of Sevres (1920) and established the Republic of Turkey, formally recognized by the Treaty of Lausanne (see LAUSANNE, TREATY OF) in 1923.
Stanford J. Shaw
Bibliography: Cook, M. A., The History of the Ottoman Empire (1976); Findley, Carter, Bureaucratic Reform in the Ottoman Empire: 1789-1922 (1980); Inalcik, Halil, The Ottoman Empire: The Classical Age, 1300-1600 (1973); Itzkowitz, Norman, The Ottoman Empire and Islamic Tradition (1972; repr. 1980); Kasaba, Resat, The Ottoman Empire and the World Economy (1988); Kinross, Lord, The Ottoman Centuries: The Rise and Fall of the Turkish Empire (1977); Lewis, Bernard, The Emergence of Modern Turkey, 2d. ed. (1968); Pamuk, Sevket, The Ottoman Empire and European Capitalism (1987); Pitcher, Donald E., An Historical Geography of the Ottoman Empire (1968; repr. 1984); Shaw, Stanford J., History of the Ottoman Empire and Modern Turkey, 2 vols. (vol. 2 coauthored with Ezel Kural Shaw; 1976-77); Swallow, Charles, The Sick Man of Europe: The Ottoman Empire to Turkish Republic, 1789-1923 (1973).