Ottoman Decline - 1571-1918
The Ottomans had always dealt with the European states from a position of strength. Treaties with them took the form of truces approved by the sultan as a favor to lesser princes, provided that payment of tribute accompanied the settlement. The Ottomans were slow to recognize the shift in the military balance to Europe and the reasons for it. They also increasingly permitted European commerce to penetrate the barriers built to protect imperial autarky. Some native craft industries were destroyed by the influx of European goods, and, in general, the balance of trade shifted to the disadvantage of the empire, making it in time an indebted client of European producers.
European political intervention followed economic penetration. In 1536 the Ottoman Empire, then at the height of its power, had voluntarily granted concessions to France, but the system of capitulations introduced at that time was later used to impose important limitations on Ottoman sovereignty. Commercial privileges were greatly extended, and residents who came under the protection of a treaty country were thereby made subject to the jurisdiction of that country's law rather than Ottoman law, an arrangement that led to flagrant abuses of justice.
The last thirty years of the sixteenth century saw the rapid onset of a decline in Ottoman power symbolized by the defeat of the Turkish fleet by the Spanish and Portuguese at the Battle of Lepanto in 1571 and by the unbridled bloody succession struggles within the imperial palace, the Seraglio of Constantinople.
In the last half of the seventeenth century the Ottoman Empire reached its greatest geographical extent. The Ottoman dominion now covered a wider space on the map than it had done at any earlier moment. Suleiman in all his glory had not reigned over Cyprus, Crete, and Podolia. Prior to 1683 the advance of the Ottoman Turks had been pretty uniformly successful. In Asia they had established themselves as masters of Asia Minor, Armenia, Syria, the ottoman Caucasia, the Euphrates valley, and the shore of the Empire. In Africa their conquering armies had appropriated Egypt, Tripoli, Tunis, and Algeria. In Europe they had subjugated the Tatars and Cossacks immediately north of the Black Sea; they had conquered the entire Balkan peninsula, including present-day Greece, Bulgaria, Rumania, Bessarabia, Bukowina, Transylvania, Hungary, Bosnia, Herzegovina, Serbia, Montenegro, and Albania; they had even exacted tribute from the Austrian Habsburgs; they had made the Black Sea, the Aegean, and the eastern Mediterranean their own, and occupied the islands of Cyprus, Crete, and Rhodes, as well as the smaller islands of the Aegean.
In the latter part of the sixteenth century, and most of the seventeenth century, the chief wars were with Venice and with Austria. The battle of Lepanto (1571), in which the Ottoman fleet was overthrown by the combined fleets of Venice and Spain, was the first great Ottoman reverse at sea ; and the battle of St. Gothard (1664), near Vienna, in which Montecuculi defeated the Vizier Kiuprili, the first great Ottoman reverse on land. In 1683 Vienna was besieged by the Turks, but was relieved by John Sobieski and Charles of Lorraine ; in 1687 the Turks were again defeated at Mohacz, and in 1697 (by Prince Eugene) at Szenta. Then followed the Treaty of Carlowitz in 1699, by which Mustapha II agreed to renounce his claims upon Transylvania and a large part of Hungary, to give up the Morea to the Venetians, to restore Podolia and the Ukraine to Poland, and to leave Azov to the Russians. Eugene's subsequent victories at Peterwardein and Belgrade obliged the Porte to give up, by the Treaty of Passarowitz in 1718, Temeswar, Belgrade, with a part of Servia and Walachia ; but the Turks on the other hand took the Morea from Venice, and by the Treaty of Belgrade in 1739 regained Belgrade, Servia and Little Walachia, while for a time they also regained Azov.
The immediate occasion of the reversal of Turkish fortunes was the counter success of the expedition led by John Sobieski, the patriot Polish king, which in 1683 relieved the the Turks to beleaguered city of Vienna and turned back the tide of Turkish conquest. But the real cause of subsequent Ottoman disasters was the decay of political institutions within the huge empire and the growing weakness of the army - a cause which has been explained in an earlier chapter. After 1683, as the Turkish tide gradually receded. The tide turned for ever. From that time the Ottomans, like his Byzantine predecessor, had periods of revival and recovery, but on the whole frontier steadily contracted.
The first great blow to the integrity and independence of the Ottoman Empire was dealt in the war which was ended by the Peace of Carlowitz. Hungary and Peloponnesos were won back for Christendom ; so was Podolia. At the next stage the Turk gained at one end and lost at the other, winning back Peloponnesos, winning Mykonos and Tenos, but losing on the Save and the Danube. The next stage shows the Ottoman frontier again in advance ; but in later days it again fell back. And the change which has given Bosnia and Herzegovina to the master of Dalmatia, Ragusa, and Cattaro, has, besides throwing back the frontier of the Turk, redressed a very old geographical wrong. Ever since the first Slavonic settlements, the inland region of northern Illyricum has been more or less thoroughly cut off from the coast cities which form its natural outlets. Whatever may be the fate of those lands, the body was again joined to the mouth, and the mouth to the body.
The same arrangements which transferred the 'administration' of Bosnia and Herzegovina to the King of Hungary and Dalmatia, transferred another part of the Ottoman dominion to a more distant European power on terms which are still less easy to understand. The Greek island of Cyprus passed to English rule.
During the eighteenth century, the Ottoman Empire was almost continuously at war with one or more of its enemies -- Persia, Poland, Austria, and Russia. Under the humiliating terms of the Treaty of Kuchuk-Kaynarja that ended the Russo-Ottoman War of 1768-74, the Porte abandoned the Tartar khanate in the Crimea, granted autonomy to the Trans-Danubian provinces, allowed Russian ships free access to Ottoman waters, and agreed to pay a large war indemnity.
During the former half of the eighteenth century the shiftings of the Ottoman territory to the north were towards all on the side of Austria or Hungary, whichever the northern neighbor of the Turk is to be called.
The Turk saw a new enemy appear towards the end of the seventeenth century, one who was, before the end of the eighteenth, to stand forth as his chief enemy. In modern times the most determined enemy of the Ottoman Empire has been Russia. During two centuries that country fought eight wars with Turkey and stripped her of much of her European territory. In the last two of these wars (1853 and 1877) the Turkish Empire was only saved by the intervention of the other European powers in her favor. Turkey had conquered and held her provinces by force, and by force they were wrested from her weakened grasp.
Under Peter the Great Azof was won by Russia and lost again. Sixty years later great geographical changes took place in the same region. Russia, which had been making steady advances under Peter the Great and subsequently, now became the great opponent of Turkey. In the middle of the eighteenth century the Ottoman Empire still embraced a large part of Southern Russia.
The victories of Catharine II's general Romanzoff in the war between 1768 and 1774 determined the political superiority of Russia. At the Peace of Kutcbuk-Kainargi, in 1774, AbdulHamid was obliged to renounce his sovereignty over the Crimea, to yield to Russia the country between the Bog and the Dnieper, with Kinburn and Azov, and to open his seas to the Russian merchant ships. By the Treaty of Kainardji, the dependent khanate of Crim - the old Tauric Chersonesos and the neighboring lands - was released from the superiority of the Sultan. This was a natural step towards its annexation by Russia, which thus again made her way to the Euxine.
By the Peace of Jassy, 1792, which closed the war of 1787-91, Russia retained Taurida and the country between the Bug and the Dniester, together with Otrhakov and gained some accessions in the Caucasus. The Bug was now the frontier; presently, by the Russian annexation of Oczakow and the land of Jedisan, it fell back to the Dniester. In the long series of wars which followed the French revolution the Ottoman Empire first found herself opposed to France, in consequence of Bonaparte's campaign in Egypt, and finally to Russia, who demanded a more distinct recognition of her protectorate over the Christians, and to whom, by the Peace of Bucharest, May 28, 1812, was ceded that part of Moldavia and Bessarabia which were beyond the Pruth. By the Treaty of Bucharest the frontier alike of the dominion and of the overlordship of the Turk fell back to the Pruth and the lower Danube. Russia thus gained Bessarabia and the eastern part of Moldavia. By the Treaty of Hadrianople she further won the islands at the mouth of the Danube.
The Treaty of Paris restored to Moldavia a small part of the lands ceded at Bucharest, so as to keep the Russian frontier away from the Danube. This last cession, with the exception of the islands, was recovered by Russia at the Treaty of Berlin. But changes of frontier in those regions no longer affect the dominion of the Turk. In 1817 Mahmud II was obliged to give up the principal mouth of the Danube to Russia. Further disputes ended in the Porte making other concessions, which tended towards loosening the connection of Servia, Moldavia and Walachia with Turkey.
The losses which the Ottoman power had undergone at the hands of its independent neighbours, Russia, Montenegro, and Austria or Hungary, must be distinguished from the liberation of certain lands from Turkish rule to form new or revived European states. In 1821, the Greeks rose against their oppressors and by the aid of European powers threw off the hated yoke.
In 1821 broke out the war of Greek independence. Tbe remonstrances of Britain, France and Russia against the cruelties with which the war against the Greeks was carried on proving of no avail, those powers attacked and destroyed the fleet of Mahmud at Navarinp (1827). In 1820 the massacre of the Janizaries took place at Constantinople, after a revolt. In 1828-29 the Russians crossed the Balkans and took Adrianople, the war being terminated by the Peace of Adrianople (1829). In that year Turkey had to recognize the independence of Greece. Egypt and Syria passed from Turkish control in 1840. In 1831-33 Mehemet AH, nominally Pasha of Egypt, but real ruler both of that and Syria, levied war against his sovereign in 1833, and threatened Constantinople ; when the Russians, who had been called on for their aid by the sultan, forced the invaders to desist. In 1840 Mehemet AH again rose against his sovereign ; but through the active intervention of Great Britain, Austria and Russia was compelled to evacuate Syria, though he was, in recompense, recognized as hereditary viceroy of Egypt.
The next important event in the history of the Ottoman Empire was the war with Russia in which Turkey became involved in 1853, and in which she was joined by England and France in the following year. This war, known as the Crimean war (which see), terminated with the defeat of Russia, and the conclusion of a treaty at Paris on March 30, 1850, by which the influence of Russia in Turkey was greatly reduced. The principal articles were the abolition of the Russian protectorate over the Danubian principalities (Moldavia and Walachm, united in 1861 as the principality of Roumania), the rectification of the frontier between Russia and Turkey, and the cession of part of Bessarabia to the latter power.
Servia, Roumania, and Bulgaria passed from Turkish control in 1878. The kingdom of Hungary and its dependent lands might fairly come under this head, and the circumstances of their liberation differ from the liberation of Greece or Servia or Bulgaria. But it is important to bear in mind that the Turk had to be driven from Hungary, no less than from Greece, Servia, and Bulgaria. If the Turk has ruled at Belgrade, at Athens, and at Tirnovo, he ruled at Buda no less. All stand in the same opposition to Tzetinje, where he has never ruled.
As the Servian people was the only one among the south-eastern nations of which any part maintained its abiding independence, so the enslaved part of the Servian people was the first among the subject nations to throw off the yoke. But the first attempt to form anything like a free state in south-eastern Europe was made among a branch of the Greek nation, in the socalled Ionian Islands. But the form which the attempt took was no lessening of the Turkish dominion, but its increase. By the peace of Campoformio, the islands, ceded to with the few Venetian points on the mainland, were to pass to France.
While Servia and Greece were under the immediate rule of the Turk, the Rouman lands of Walachia and Moldavia always kept a certain measure of separate being. The Turk named and deposed their princes, but they never came under his direct rule. After the Treaty of Paris, the two principalities, being again allowed to choose for themselves, took the first step towards union by choosing the same prince. Then followed their complete union as the Principality of Roumania, paying tribute to the Turk, but otherwise free. The last changes have made Roumania, as well as Servia, an independent state. Its frontier towards Russia, enlarged at Paris, was cut short at Berlin. But this last treaty restored to it the land of Dobrutcha south of the Danube, thus giving the new state a certain Euxine seaboard.
In 1875 the people of Herzegovina, unable to endure any longer the mis-government of the Turks, broke into rebellion. A year later the Servians and Montenegrino likewise took up arms, and though the former were unsuccessful and obliged to abandon the war, the Montenegrins still held out. Meantime the great powers of Europe were pressing reforms on Turkey, and at the end of 1876 a conference met at Constantinople wltk the view of making a fresh settlement of the relations between her and her Christun provinces. All the recommendations of the conference were, however, rejected by Turkey ; and in April following, Rushia, which had been coming more and more prominently forward as the champion of the oppressed provinces and had for months been massing troops on both the Asiatic and the European frontier of Turkey, issued a warlike manifesto and commenced hostile operations in both parts of the Turkish Empire. It was immediately Joined by Roumania, who on the 22d of May (1877) declared its independence. The progress of the Russians was at first rapid ; but the Turks offered an obstinate resistance. After the fall of Kars, however, November 18, and the fall of Plevna, December 10, the Turkish resistance completely collapsed.
On March 3, 1878, Turkey was compelled to agree to the Treaty of San Stefane, in which she accepted the terms of Russia. The provisions of this treaty were, however, considerably modified by the Treaty of Berlin concluded on July 13th following, by which Roumnniu. Servia and Montenegro were declared independent ; Roumanian Bessarabia was ceded to Russia ; Austria was empowered to occupy Bosnia and Herzegovina; and Bulgaria was erected into a principality [it became an independent monarchy in 1908, and in the same year Bosnia and Herzegovina were annexed to the Austrian Empire].
While Servia and Roumania had been wholly freed from the yoke, a part of Bulgaria was raised to that position of practical independence which they formerly held. The Russian Treaty of San Stefano decreed a tributary principality of Bulgaria, otsan whose boundaries came most nearly to those of the third Bulgarian kingdom at its greatest extent. But it was to have what no Bulgarian state had had before, a considerable Aegean seaboard. This would have had the effect of splitting the immediate dominion of the Turk in two. It would also have had the real fault of adding to Bulgaria some districts which ought rather to be added to free Greece. By the Treaty of Berlin the Turk was to keep the whole north coast of the Aegean, while the Bulgarian nation was split into three parts, in three different political conditions.
The oldest and latest Bulgarian land, the land between Danube and Balkan, forms, with the exception of the corner ceded to Roumania, the tributary Principality of Bulgaria. The land immediately south of the southern Bulgaria of history - northern Roumelia, according to the compass - received the diplomatic name of Eastern Roumelia. Its political condition was described as 'administrative autonomy,' a halfway house, it would seem, between bondage and freedom. Meanwhile in the old Macedonian land, the land for which Basil and Samuel strove so stoutly, the question between Greek and Bulgarian was held to be solved by handing over Greek and Bulgarian alike to the uncovenanted mercies of the Turk.
The main events in the history of the Ottoman Empire since the conclusion of the Treaty of Berlin were the French invasion of Tunis in 1881, which soon after was formally placed under the protectorate of the French ; the treaty with Greece, executed under pressure of the Great Powers in 1881, by which Turkey ceded to Greece almost the whole of Thesealy and a strip of Epirus ; the occupation of Egypt by Great Britain in 1882 ; and the revolution at Philippopolis in 1885, when the government of Eastern Roumelia was overthrown, and the union of that province with Bulgaria proclaimed. A constitution panted in 1876 was quickly revoked by the reigning sultan, Abdul Hamid II. who reigned as an autocrat until 1908, when he was obliged to yield to the demands of the Young Turk reform party and restore the constitution and legislature.
The abuses of the Turkish Government were innumerable, and finally the Young Turk Party was formed by the more enlightened people of the country. With the first years of the twentieth century its activity increased. The sway of the Sultan Abd-ul-Hamid II had long been sustained by bribes, spies, and murders, until the unendurable point had been reached. In April, 1909, a reactionary military outbreak, supposed to be fomented by the sultan, led to the capture of the city by a revolutionary army and his deposition. On April 27, bis brother, Mohammed Rechad, succeeded as Mohammed V.
In 1911 Tripoli was severed from the Ottoman Empire by Italy. In 1912, the Balkan States combined in an attempt to extend their territories at the expense of Turkey. In the war that followed the allies were victorious, but the breakdown of the alliance at the close of the war gave Turkey an opportunity to regain a part of her European territory, including Adrianople, the ancient capital of the Ottoman Empire. The Balkan wars (1912-13) and the Great War (1914-18) reduced the great empire to a total area (estimated) of 174.900 sq. miles and a population of but 8,000,000.
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