Committee of Union and Progress victory
137-674: The Vardar Army of the Ottoman Empire ( Turkish : Vardar Ordusu ) was one of the field armies under the command of the Western Army . It was formed during the mobilisation phase of the First Balkan War . On October 19, 1912, the army was structured as follows: On November 12, 1912, the army was structured as follows: On November 16, 1912, the army was structured as follows: Ottoman Empire The Ottoman Empire ( / ˈ ɒ t ə m ə n / ), also called
274-418: A letter of resignation at gunpoint. The letter addressed to the sultan read: His Peaceful and Sublime Excellency, Ahali ve cihet-i askeriyeden vuku bulan teklif üzerine huzur-ı şahanelerine istifanâme-i acizanemin arzına mecbur olduğum muhat-i ilm-i âlî buyuruldukta ol babda ve katibe-i ahvalde emr-ü ferman hazret-i veliyyü'l-emr efendimizindir. After Kâmil Pasha finished writing, Enver Bey immediately left
411-699: A calamitous end in 1683 when Grand Vizier Kara Mustafa Pasha led a huge army to attempt a second Ottoman siege of Vienna in the Great Turkish War of 1683–1699. The final assault being fatally delayed, the Ottoman forces were swept away by allied Habsburg, German, and Polish forces spearheaded by the Polish king John III Sobieski at the Battle of Vienna . The alliance of the Holy League pressed home
548-591: A constitutional monarchy. However, following the disastrous Balkan Wars , the CUP became increasingly radicalized and nationalistic, leading a coup d'état in 1913 that established a one-party regime. The CUP allied with the German Empire hoping to escape from the diplomatic isolation that had contributed to its recent territorial losses; it thus joined World War I on the side of the Central Powers . While
685-527: A coup against Kâmil Pasha's Freedom and Accord government. In addition, an animosity had already been brewing between Kâmil Pasha and the CUP since the 1908 Young Turk Revolution that had started the Second Constitutional Era . During the more than four years since, Kâmil Pasha had made a series of efforts to keep CUP members far from government and keep the army, which had many CUP members among its ranks, out of politics. By January 1913,
822-500: A coup, but he did see the need for military mobilization. In 1883, a German military mission under General Baron Colmar von der Goltz arrived to train the Ottoman Army, leading to the so-called "Goltz generation" of German-trained officers, who played a notable role in the politics of the empire's last years. From 1894 to 1896, between 100,000 and 300,000 Armenians living throughout the empire were killed in what became known as
959-496: A fairly modern conscripted army , banking system reforms, the decriminalization of homosexuality, the replacement of religious law with secular law, and guilds with modern factories. The Ottoman Ministry of Post was established in Istanbul in 1840. American inventor Samuel Morse received an Ottoman patent for the telegraph in 1847, issued by Sultan Abdülmecid , who personally tested the invention. The reformist period peaked with
1096-546: A favorable settlement to the disastrous war. Although the foreign crisis in the Balkans put a temporary halt to domestic politics, it did not stop them. Unlike his predecessor Ahmed Muhtar Pasha, who had been non-partisan, Kâmil Pasha was a passionate Freedom and Accord Party member and was determined to use his premiership to destroy the CUP. Using his friendly relations with the British, Kâmil Pasha also sat down to end
1233-475: A few hours, and the country would have been shamefully delivered to the enemy; our army has never been stronger, and I really see no reason that compels us to capitulate to such monstrous demands." Kâmil Pasha was replaced as Grand Vizier and Nazım Pasha as Minister of War by Mahmud Shevket Pasha , who took both posts. The new cabinet under Mahmud Shevket Pasha was made up of: Although the CUP appointed Grand Vizier Mahmud Shevket Pasha to lead their cabinet, he
1370-549: A figure that vastly exceeded the number of Muslim children in school at the time, who were further hindered by the amount of time spent learning Arabic and Islamic theology. Author Norman Stone suggests that the Arabic alphabet, in which Turkish was written until 1928 , was ill-suited to reflect the sounds of Turkish (which is a Turkic as opposed to Semitic language), which imposed further difficulty on Turkish children. In turn, Christians' higher educational levels allowed them to play
1507-508: A larger role in the economy, with the rise in prominence of groups such as the Sursock family indicative of this. In 1911, of the 654 wholesale companies in Istanbul, 528 were owned by ethnic Greeks. In many cases, Christians and Jews gained protection from European consuls and citizenship, meaning they were protected from Ottoman law and not subject to the same economic regulations as their Muslim counterparts. The Crimean War (1853–1856)
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#17327656585321644-687: A major center for its trade, contributing to its continued prosperity throughout the seventeenth and much of the eighteenth century. Under Ivan IV (1533–1584), the Tsardom of Russia expanded into the Volga and Caspian regions at the expense of the Tatar khanates. In 1571, the Crimean khan Devlet I Giray , commanded by the Ottomans, burned Moscow . The next year, the invasion was repeated but repelled at
1781-565: A new, non-partisan cabinet was formed by Ahmed Muhtar Pasha , an old military hero, which was known as the "Great Cabinet" (Turkish: Büyuk Kabine ) because it included three former Grand Viziers as ministers and sometimes as the "Father-Son Cabinet" (Turkish: Baba-Oğul Kabinesi ) because it included Ahmed Muhtar Pasha's son, Mahmud Muhtar Pasha , as Minister of the Navy. Although the Savior Officers had succeeded in making sure that
1918-541: A role as grand vizier for a future CUP cabinet before they undertook the coup, the contemporary French magazine L'Illustration said that his "strange fate was being persecuted by the former regime [of Kâmil Pasha's Freedom and Accord Party and then being included in its cabinet], and being cheered and treated in triumph by the new regime [of the CUP] and then being murdered by it." After this, Enver and Talaat Bey entered Grand Vizier Kâmil Pasha 's room and forced him to write
2055-521: A sense of Turkish nationalism. In this period, the Ottoman Empire spent only small amounts of public funds on education; for example, in 1860–1861 only 0.2% of the total budget was invested in education. As the Ottoman state attempted to modernize its infrastructure and army in response to outside threats, it opened itself up to a different kind of threat: that of creditors. As the historian Eugene Rogan has written, "the single greatest threat to
2192-610: A treaty for the end of the war at the London Peace Conference . The Great Powers–the British Empire , France , Italy , and Russia –had begun to engage in the relationship of Bulgaria with the Ottoman Empire, citing the 1878 Treaty of Berlin . The Great Powers gave a note to the Sublime Porte (the Ottoman government) that they wanted the Ottoman Empire to cede Adrianople ( Edirne ) to Bulgaria and
2329-435: A verdict which sentenced the organizers of the massacres, Talat, Enver, Cemal and others to death. The public support for the coup was questioned at the time by analysts, some of whom reported that the CUP was backed by only a small crowd of actual citizens who had been gathered only within the hour by provocative speeches made by CUP members. Eyewitnesses and newspapers reported very little actual popular participation in
2466-459: A victory over the Ottoman fleet at the Battle of Lepanto (1571), off southwestern Greece; Catholic forces killed over 30,000 Turks and destroyed 200 of their ships. It was a startling, if mostly symbolic, blow to the image of Ottoman invincibility, an image which the victory of the Knights of Malta over the Ottoman invaders in the 1565 siege of Malta had recently set about eroding. The battle
2603-457: Is considered one of the first violent coups d'état to take place in modern Turkish history, seen as some as establishing a precedent for future coups in the Republic of Turkey . After the coup, the CUP became increasingly nationalist and intolerant of opposition after seeing significant resistance from more liberal Ottoman parties like Freedom and Accord, as well as rebellions and wars against
2740-660: The Aegean islands under its control , most of which by that time had been captured by the Greek Navy , to the Great Powers themselves. Because of the losses experienced by the army so far in the war, the Kâmil Pasha government was inclined to accept the " Midye - Enez Line" as a border to the west and, while not outright giving Edirne to Bulgaria, favored transferring control of it to an international commission. After
2877-639: The Anatolian Beyliks . One of these, in the region of Bithynia on the frontier of the Byzantine Empire, was led by the Turkish tribal leader Osman I ( d. 1323/4), a figure of obscure origins from whom the name Ottoman is derived. Osman's early followers consisted of Turkish tribal groups and Byzantine renegades, with many but not all converts to Islam. Osman extended control of his principality by conquering Byzantine towns along
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#17327656585323014-583: The Balkans by the mid-14th century, transforming their petty kingdom into a transcontinental empire. The Ottomans ended the Byzantine Empire with the conquest of Constantinople in 1453 by Mehmed II , which marked the Ottomans' emergence as a major regional power. Under Suleiman the Magnificent (1520–1566), the empire reached the peak of its power, prosperity, and political development. By
3151-465: The Battle of Molodi . The Ottoman Empire continued to invade Eastern Europe in a series of slave raids , and remained a significant power in Eastern Europe until the end of the 17th century. The Ottomans decided to conquer Venetian Cyprus and on 22 July 1570, Nicosia was besieged; 50,000 Christians died, and 180,000 were enslaved. On 15 September 1570, the Ottoman cavalry appeared before
3288-728: The Bosporus Strait made it difficult to conquer. In 1402, the Byzantines were temporarily relieved when the Turco-Mongol leader Timur , founder of the Timurid Empire , invaded Ottoman Anatolia from the east. In the Battle of Ankara in 1402, Timur defeated Ottoman forces and took Sultan Bayezid I as prisoner, throwing the empire into disorder. The ensuing civil war lasted from 1402 to 1413 as Bayezid's sons fought over succession. It ended when Mehmed I emerged as
3425-610: The Bulgarian Tsardom of Vidin in 1396, regarded as the last large-scale crusade of the Middle Ages , failed to stop the advance of the victorious Ottomans. As the Turks expanded into the Balkans, the conquest of Constantinople became a crucial objective. The Ottomans had already wrested control of nearly all former Byzantine lands surrounding the city, but the strong defense of Constantinople's strategic position on
3562-599: The Cape of Good Hope in 1488 initiated a series of Ottoman-Portuguese naval wars in the Indian Ocean throughout the 16th century. Despite the growing European presence in the Indian Ocean, Ottoman trade with the east continued to flourish. Cairo, in particular, benefitted from the rise of Yemeni coffee as a popular consumer commodity. As coffeehouses appeared in cities and towns across the empire, Cairo developed into
3699-545: The Constitution of the Ottoman Empire and brought in multi-party politics with a two-stage electoral system ( electoral law ) under the Ottoman parliament . The constitution offered hope by freeing the empire's citizens to modernise the state's institutions, rejuvenate its strength, and enable it to hold its own against outside powers. Its guarantee of liberties promised to dissolve inter-communal tensions and transform
3836-605: The Entente powers moved the CUP closer to Germany ahead of World War I. While the inner circle of the CUP may already have decided earlier to stage a coup to regain power from the Freedom and Accord Party , the proximate occasion was the CUP's fear that the government would concede to a demand by the Great Powers that the town of Adrianople (a former Ottoman capital city from 1365 to 1453) be handed over to Bulgaria after
3973-474: The First Balkan War erupted early in October 1912, catching Ahmed Muhtar Pasha's administration off-guard. Martial law was declared, the new elections were cancelled on 25 October, and Ahmed Muhtar Pasha resigned as Grand Vizier on 29 October after just three months in the premier's office in order to defer to the premiership of Kâmil Pasha , who had good relations with the British and was expected to produce
4110-856: The Great Northern War of 1700–1721). Charles XII persuaded the Ottoman Sultan Ahmed III to declare war on Russia, which resulted in an Ottoman victory in the Pruth River Campaign of 1710–1711, in Moldavia. After the Austro-Turkish War , the Treaty of Passarowitz confirmed the loss of the Banat, Serbia, and "Little Walachia" (Oltenia) to Austria. The Treaty also revealed that the Ottoman Empire
4247-545: The Greek revolt (1821–1829) that ultimately ended with the formal independence of Greece in 1830. It was a costly enterprise for Muhammad Ali, who had lost his fleet at the Battle of Navarino in 1827. Thus began the first Egyptian–Ottoman War (1831–1833) , during which the French-trained army of Muhammad Ali, under the command of his son Ibrahim Pasha , defeated the Ottoman Army as it marched into Anatolia , reaching
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4384-795: The Greeks declared war on the Sultan. A rebellion that originated in Moldavia as a diversion was followed by the main revolution in the Peloponnese , which, along with the northern part of the Gulf of Corinth , became the first parts of the Ottoman Empire to achieve independence (in 1829). In 1830, the French invaded the Deylik of Algiers . The campaign that took 21 days, resulted in over 5,000 Algerian military casualties, and about 2,600 French ones. Before
4521-576: The Habsburg and Russian empires. The Ottomans consequently suffered severe military defeats in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, culminating in the loss of both territory and global prestige . This prompted a comprehensive process of reform and modernization known as the Tanzimat ; over the course of the 19th century, the Ottoman state became vastly more powerful and organized internally, despite suffering further territorial losses, especially in
4658-506: The Hamidian massacres . In 1897 the population was 19 million, of whom 14 million (74%) were Muslim. An additional 20 million lived in provinces that remained under the sultan's nominal suzerainty but were entirely outside his actual power. One by one the Porte lost nominal authority. They included Egypt, Tunisia, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Bosnia-Herzegovina, and Lebanon. As
4795-669: The Iberian Union . The Ottomans were holders of the Caliph title, meaning they were the leaders of Muslims worldwide. The Iberians were leaders of the Christian crusaders, and so the two fought in a worldwide conflict. There were zones of operations in the Mediterranean and Indian Ocean , where Iberians circumnavigated Africa to reach India and, on their way, wage war upon the Ottomans and their local Muslim allies. Likewise,
4932-708: The Köprülü era (1656–1703), effective control of the Empire was exercised by a sequence of grand viziers from the Köprülü family. The Köprülü Vizierate saw renewed military success with authority restored in Transylvania, the conquest of Crete completed in 1669, and expansion into Polish southern Ukraine , with the strongholds of Khotyn , and Kamianets-Podilskyi and the territory of Podolia ceding to Ottoman control in 1676. This period of renewed assertiveness came to
5069-578: The Oriental Crisis of 1840 . Muhammad Ali had close relations with France , and the prospect of him becoming the Sultan of Egypt was widely viewed as putting the entire Levant into the French sphere of influence. As the Sublime Porte had proved itself incapable of defeating Muhammad Ali, the British Empire and Austrian Empire provided military assistance, and the second Egyptian–Ottoman War (1839–1841) ended with Ottoman victory and
5206-528: The Raid on the Sublime Porte ( Turkish : Bâb-ı Âlî Baskını ), was a coup d'état carried out in the Ottoman Empire by a number of Committee of Union and Progress (CUP) members led by Ismail Enver Bey and Mehmed Talaat Bey , in which the group made a surprise raid on the central Ottoman government buildings, the Sublime Porte (Turkish: Bâb-ı Âlî ). During the coup, the Minister of War , Nazım Pasha ,
5343-534: The Sakarya River . A Byzantine defeat at the Battle of Bapheus in 1302 contributed to Osman's rise. It is not well understood how the early Ottomans came to dominate their neighbors, due to the lack of sources surviving. The Ghaza thesis popular during the 20th century credited their success to rallying religious warriors to fight for them in the name of Islam , but it is no longer generally accepted. No other hypothesis has attracted broad acceptance. In
5480-637: The Spanish garrison of Castelnuovo on the Adriatic coast ; the successful siege cost the Ottomans 8,000 casualties, but Venice agreed to terms in 1540, surrendering most of its empire in the Aegean and the Morea . France and the Ottoman Empire, united by mutual opposition to Habsburg rule, became allies. The French conquests of Nice (1543) and Corsica (1553) occurred as a joint venture between French king Francis I and Suleiman, and were commanded by
5617-512: The Treaty of Nasuh Pasha , which ceded the entire Caucasus, except westernmost Georgia, back into the possession of Safavid Iran . The treaty ending the Cretan War cost Venice much of Dalmatia , its Aegean island possessions, and Crete . (Losses from the war totalled 30,985 Venetian soldiers and 118,754 Turkish soldiers.) During his brief majority reign, Murad IV (1623–1640) reasserted central authority and recaptured Iraq (1639) from
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5754-615: The Turkish Empire , was an imperial realm that controlled much of Southeast Europe , West Asia , and North Africa from the 14th to early 20th centuries; it also controlled parts of southeastern Central Europe , between the early 16th and early 18th centuries. The empire emerged from a beylik , or principality , founded in northwestern Anatolia in c. 1299 by the Turkoman tribal leader Osman I . His successors conquered much of Anatolia and expanded into
5891-479: The millet system to enable Ottoman Muslim unity. The CUP government introduced several political and military reforms to the empire, including increasing centralization and carrying out military modernization efforts. Under coup leader Enver Bey (later Pasha), the Ottoman Empire moved towards a closer relationship with the German Empire , officially leading to the Ottoman–German Alliance being ratified
6028-406: The Arabic name ʿUthmān ( عثمان ). In Ottoman Turkish , the empire was referred to as Devlet-i ʿAlīye-yi ʿO s mānīye ( دولت عليه عثمانیه ), lit. ' Sublime Ottoman State ' , or simply Devlet-i ʿO s mānīye ( دولت عثمانيه ), lit. ' Ottoman State ' . The Turkish word for "Ottoman" ( Osmanlı ) originally referred to the tribal followers of Osman in
6165-668: The Balkan Peninsula during the Congress of Berlin , and in return, Britain assumed the administration of Cyprus in 1878. Britain later sent troops to Egypt in 1882 to put down the Urabi Revolt (Sultan Abdul Hamid II was too paranoid to mobilize his own army, fearing this would result in a coup d'état), effectively gaining control in both territories. Abdul Hamid II was so fearful of a coup that he did not allow his army to conduct war games, lest this serve as cover for
6302-445: The Balkans . Osman's son, Orhan , captured the northwestern Anatolian city of Bursa in 1326, making it the new capital and supplanting Byzantine control in the region. The important port of Thessaloniki was captured from the Venetians in 1387 and sacked. The Ottoman victory in Kosovo in 1389 effectively marked the end of Serbian power in the region, paving the way for Ottoman expansion into Europe. The Battle of Nicopolis for
6439-402: The Balkans, where a number of new states emerged. Beginning in the late 19th century, various Ottoman intellectuals sought to further liberalize society and politics along European lines, culminating in the Young Turk Revolution of 1908 led by the Committee of Union and Progress (CUP), which established the Second Constitutional Era and introduced competitive multi-party elections under
6576-449: The Bulgarian demand for the cession of the former Ottoman capital city of Adrianople (today, and in Turkish at the time, known as Edirne ) looming and the outrage among the Turkish populace as well as the CUP leadership, the CUP carried out the coup on January 23, 1913. After the coup, opposition parties like Freedom and Accord were subject to heavy repression. The new government led by Mahmud Şevket Pasha with Unionist support withdrew
6713-447: The CUP asked Sultan Mehmed V to dissolve the Chamber and announced its call for early general elections in January 1912. These early April 1912 general elections were known infamously as the "Election of Clubs" (Turkish: Sopalı Seçimler ) after the beating of opposition (Freedom and Accord) candidates for the Chamber of Deputies with weapons like clubs and sticks as well being marred by electoral fraud and violence in favor of
6850-445: The CUP rigged the general elections of 1912 with electoral fraud and violence against Freedom and Accord, earning them the nickname " Election of Clubs " (Turkish: Sopalı Seçimler ). In response, the Savior Officers (Turkish: Halâskâr Zâbitân ) of the army, partisans of Freedom and Accord determined to see the CUP fall, rose up in anger and caused the fall of the CUP's post-election Mehmed Said Pasha government. A new government
6987-454: The CUP termed Nazım Pasha's death during the coup a "regrettable accident", saying that it was unpremeditated but "unavoidable" under the circumstances. The CUP said that the fact Interior Minister Ahmet Reşit had been allowed to go unhurt proved that the coup leaders had desired to avoid bloodshed, since Ahmet Reşit was much more hostile towards the CUP than Nazım Pasha was. Because the CUP had favored Nazım Pasha and had claimed to offer him
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#17327656585327124-446: The CUP was thoroughly frustrated with Kâmil Pasha and Freedom and Accord. Although the coup was to be a surprise attack, the CUP had made definitive decisions to carry it out far in advance. Although he was killed during the coup, both the CUP and Freedom and Accord claimed that they had been planning to give Minister of the Navy Nazım Pasha a position in their next cabinet. The CUP's Talaat Bey went as far as to say some time after
7261-428: The CUP, complaining vocally about electoral fraud. At around this time, a group of military officers, uncomfortable with injustices it perceived within the military, organized itself into an armed organization known as the " Savior Officers " (Turkish: Halâskâr Zâbitân ) and made their presence known to the imperial government. The Savior Officers, quickly becoming partisans of Freedom and Accord, soon created unrest in
7398-468: The CUP. The fraud included early balloting, secret counting and reporting of votes, ballot stuffing, reapportioning electoral districts, and more, although the CUP still enjoyed genuine support outside of the cities. The results of the elections had CUP win 269 of 275 seats in the Chamber, with Freedom and Accord only netting 6 Deputies. Angered at their loss in the election, the leadership of Freedom and Accord sought extra-legal methods to regain power over
7535-432: The CUP. The leaders of the Savior Officers ( Turkish : Halâskâr Zâbitân ) escaped to Egypt and Albania . Another opposition leader Prince Sabahaddin , who had backed the Savior Officers against the CUP, fled to western Switzerland , where he would remain until 1919. The coup essentially led to the establishment of a dictatorial triumvirate known as the " Three Pashas ": the soon-to-be war minister, Enver Pasha ,
7672-445: The Chamber be dissolved for new elections within 48 hours. The CUP members in the Chamber condemned and censured this threat. However, thanks to a law he had passed through the Senate , Ahmed Muhtar Pasha was able, with the sultan's support, to dissolve the Chamber with ease on 5 August, after which Sultan Mehmed V immediately called for new elections by imperial decree. While preparations for new elections were underway, however,
7809-446: The Conqueror , reorganized both state and military, and on 29 May 1453 conquered Constantinople , ending the Byzantine Empire. Mehmed allowed the Eastern Orthodox Church to maintain its autonomy and land in exchange for accepting Ottoman authority. Due to tension between the states of western Europe and the later Byzantine Empire, most of the Orthodox population accepted Ottoman rule, as preferable to Venetian rule. Albanian resistance
7946-444: The Constitution, called the Kanûn-u Esâsî . The empire's First Constitutional era was short-lived. The parliament survived for only two years before the sultan suspended it. The empire's Christian population, owing to their higher educational levels, started to pull ahead of the Muslim majority, leading to much resentment. In 1861, there were 571 primary and 94 secondary schools for Ottoman Christians, with 140,000 pupils in total,
8083-482: The French invasion the total population of Algeria was most likely between 3,000,000 and 5,000,000. By 1873, the population of Algeria (excluding several hundred thousand newly arrived French settlers) had decreased to 2,172,000. In 1831, Muhammad Ali of Egypt revolted against Sultan Mahmud II due to the latter's refusal to grant him the governorships of Greater Syria and Crete , which the Sultan had promised him in exchange for sending military assistance to put down
8220-558: The Grand Vizier's building, in which Kâmil Pasha and his cabinet were in session. An aide-de-camp to the Grand Vizier, Ohrili Nâfiz Bey, heard the commotion and opened fire on the raid party but was unable to hit any of them. Himself wounded in the exchange, Ohrili Nâfiz Bey hid in the aide-de-camp office; when Mustafa Necip entered the office, Ohrili Nâfiz Bey shot and killed him but died himself of his wounds sustained from Mustafa Necip. An aid-de-camp and nephew of Nazım Pasha, Kıbrıslı Tevfik Bey, had also drawn his revolver and fired at
8357-458: The Great Cabinet was free of CUP members, the CUP's domination of the Chamber of Deputies had not changed. Soon, however, rumors began to circulate that the government would dissolve the Chamber of Deputies and call new elections. The rumors were confirmed when, a few days after Ahmed Muhtar Pasha took office, the Savior Officers sent another memorandum, this time to the President of the Chamber of Deputies (and CUP member), Halil Bey , demanding that
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#17327656585328494-405: The Iberians passed through newly-Christianized Latin America and had sent expeditions that traversed the Pacific to Christianize the formerly Muslim Philippines and use it as a base to attack the Muslims in the Far East . In this case, the Ottomans sent armies to aid its easternmost vassal and territory, the Sultanate of Aceh in Southeast Asia. During the 1600s, the world conflict between
8631-664: The Islamic clergy successfully objected under the grounds of theodicy . In 1754 the artillery school was reopened on a semi-secret basis. In 1726, Ibrahim Muteferrika convinced the Grand Vizier Nevşehirli Damat Ibrahim Pasha , the Grand Mufti , and the clergy on the efficiency of the printing press, and Muteferrika was later granted by Sultan Ahmed III permission to publish non-religious books (despite opposition from some calligraphers and religious leaders). Muteferrika's press published its first book in 1729 and, by 1743, issued 17 works in 23 volumes, each having between 500 and 1,000 copies. In North Africa, Spain conquered Oran from
8768-413: The Janissary revolted . Selim's efforts cost him his throne and his life, but were resolved in spectacular and bloody fashion by his successor, the dynamic Mahmud II , who eliminated the Janissary corps in 1826. The Serbian revolution (1804–1815) marked the beginning of an era of national awakening in the Balkans during the Eastern Question . In 1811, the fundamentalist Wahhabis of Arabia, led by
8905-402: The Magnificent (1520–1566) captured Belgrade in 1521, conquered the southern and central parts of the Kingdom of Hungary as part of the Ottoman–Hungarian Wars , and, after his historic victory in the Battle of Mohács in 1526, he established Ottoman rule in the territory of present-day Hungary and other Central European territories. He then laid siege to Vienna in 1529, but failed to take
9042-413: The Ottoman Caliphate and Iberian Union was a stalemate since both were at similar population , technology and economic levels. Nevertheless, the success of the Ottoman political and military establishment was compared to the Roman Empire , despite the difference in size, by the likes of contemporary Italian scholar Francesco Sansovino and French political philosopher Jean Bodin . In the second half of
9179-408: The Ottoman Empire from the ongoing London Peace Conference and resumed the war against the Balkan states to recover Edirne and the rest of Rumelia , but to no avail. After his assassination in June, the CUP would take full control of the empire, and opposition leaders would be arrested or exiled to Europe. Ottoman victory in the Second Balkan War and the recovery of Edirne in the face of pressure by
9316-467: The Ottoman Empire gradually shrank, 7–9 million Muslims from its former territories in the Caucasus, Crimea , Balkans, and the Mediterranean islands migrated to Anatolia and Eastern Thrace . After the Empire lost the First Balkan War (1912–1913), it lost all its Balkan territories except East Thrace (European Turkey). This resulted in around 400,000 Muslims fleeing with the retreating Ottoman armies (with many dying from cholera brought by
9453-406: The Ottoman Empire was once thought to have entered a period of decline after the death of Suleiman the Magnificent, modern academic consensus posits that the empire continued to maintain a flexible and strong economy, society and military into much of the 18th century. However, during a long period of peace from 1740 to 1768, the Ottoman military system fell behind those of its chief European rivals,
9590-403: The Ottoman admirals Hayreddin Barbarossa and Dragut . France supported the Ottomans with an artillery unit during the 1543 Ottoman conquest of Esztergom in northern Hungary. After further advances by the Turks, the Habsburg ruler Ferdinand officially recognized Ottoman ascendancy in Hungary in 1547. Suleiman died of natural causes during the siege of Szigetvár in 1566. Following his death,
9727-450: The Ottoman cause after World War I with nearby Russia broke out; these factions gained more power after the 1913 Ottoman coup d'état. The first major offensive the Turks undertook in World War I was an unsuccessful attempt to drive the Russians from the portion of Western Armenia they had taken in the Russo-Turkish War of 1877. After the failure of this expedition, the CUP's leaders, Enver , Cemal , and Talaat , were involved in ordering
9864-541: The Ottoman economy, and used its position to ensure that European capital continued to penetrate the empire, often to the detriment of local Ottoman interests. The Ottoman bashi-bazouks suppressed the Bulgarian uprising of 1876, massacring up to 100,000 people in the process. The Russo-Turkish War (1877–1878) ended with a decisive victory for Russia. As a result, Ottoman holdings in Europe declined sharply: Bulgaria
10001-481: The Ottoman government from non-Muslim nationalities in the Empire, such as the catastrophic Balkan Wars , which saw former Ottoman citizens of Bulgarian, Greek, Macedonian, and Armenian ethnicity actively fighting against the Empire and committing widespread ethnic cleansing against Ottoman Muslims . Though initially opposed in principle to the extension of local autonomy to the provinces, the CUP now seemed inclined to reconcile with those in favor of greater extension of
10138-555: The Ottomans were said to be declining, although this has been rejected by many scholars. By the end of Suleiman's reign, the Empire spanned approximately 877,888 sq mi (2,273,720 km ), extending over three continents. The Empire became a dominant naval force, controlling much of the Mediterranean Sea . The Empire was now a major part of European politics. The Ottomans became involved in multi-continental religious wars when Spain and Portugal were united under
10275-589: The Russian Empire (2 November 1914) and its allies France (5 November 1914) and the British Empire (5 November 1914) declared war on the Ottoman Empire. Also on 5 November 1914, the British government changed the status of the Khedivate of Egypt and Cyprus , which were de jure Ottoman territories prior to the war, to British protectorates . 1913 Ottoman coup d%27%C3%A9tat The 1913 Ottoman coup d'état (23 January 1913), also known as
10412-538: The Russian intervention, Sultan Mahmud II could have faced the risk of being overthrown and Muhammad Ali could have even become the new Sultan. These events marked the beginning of a recurring pattern where the Sublime Porte needed the help of foreign powers to protect itself. In 1839, the Sublime Porte attempted to take back what it lost to the de facto autonomous, but de jure still Ottoman Eyalet of Egypt , but its forces were initially defeated, which led to
10549-563: The Russians. After this treaty the Ottoman Empire was able to enjoy a generation of peace in Europe, as Austria and Russia were forced to deal with the rise of Prussia . Educational and technological reforms came about, including the establishment of higher education institutions such as the Istanbul Technical University . In 1734 an artillery school was established to impart Western-style artillery methods, but
10686-682: The Safavids. The resulting Treaty of Zuhab of that same year decisively divided the Caucasus and adjacent regions between the two neighbouring empires as it had already been defined in the 1555 Peace of Amasya. The Sultanate of Women (1533–1656) was a period in which the mothers of young sultans exercised power on behalf of their sons. The most prominent women of this period were Kösem Sultan and her daughter-in-law Turhan Hatice , whose political rivalry culminated in Kösem's murder in 1651. During
10823-455: The Sublime Porte to deliver the letter to Sultan Mehmed V in his palace, driving to the palace in the Sheikh ul-Islam 's (Şeyhülislam) car. After the coup, Enver Bey told a local Turkish correspondent for the French magazine L'Illustration (pictured on right): "I sincerely regret having been forced to intervene again to overthrow a government, but it was impossible to wait; a delay of
10960-554: The Sublime Porte with a group of CUP loyalists. When Enver Bey arrived in front of the Ministry of Public Works ( Turkish : Nafıa Nazırlığı ) building, fellow CUP members Ömer Naci [ tr ] and Ömer Seyfettin were already provoking a crowd that had gathered by loudly proclaiming that Kâmil Pasha was about to cede Adrianople to the Bulgarians. The speeches made by Ömer Naci and Ömer Seyfettin were effective, and
11097-521: The Turks, but was again defeated at the Second Battle of Kosovo in 1448. According to modern historiography, there is a direct connection between the rapid Ottoman military advance and the consequences of the Black Death from the mid-fourteenth century onwards. Byzantine territories, where the initial Ottoman conquests were carried out, were exhausted demographically and militarily due to
11234-592: The advantage of the defeat at Vienna, culminating in the Treaty of Karlowitz (26 January 1699), which ended the Great Turkish War. The Ottomans surrendered control of significant territories, many permanently. Mustafa II (1695–1703) led the counterattack of 1695–1696 against the Habsburgs in Hungary, but was undone at the disastrous defeat at Zenta (in modern Serbia), 11 September 1697. Aside from
11371-578: The al-Saud family, revolted against the Ottomans. Unable to defeat the Wahhabi rebels, the Sublime Porte had Muhammad Ali Pasha of Kavala , the vali (governor) of the Eyalet of Egypt , tasked with retaking Arabia, which ended with the destruction of the Emirate of Diriyah in 1818. The suzerainty of Serbia as a hereditary monarchy under its own dynasty was acknowledged de jure in 1830. In 1821,
11508-489: The autonomous Deylik of Algiers . The Bey of Oran received an army from Algiers, but it failed to recapture Oran ; the siege caused the deaths of 1,500 Spaniards, and even more Algerians. The Spanish also massacred many Muslim soldiers. In 1792, Spain abandoned Oran, selling it to the Deylik of Algiers. In 1768 Russian-backed Ukrainian Haidamakas , pursuing Polish confederates, entered Balta , an Ottoman-controlled town on
11645-600: The border of Bessarabia in Ukraine, massacred its citizens, and burned the town to the ground. This action provoked the Ottoman Empire into the Russo-Turkish War of 1768–1774 . The Treaty of Küçük Kaynarca of 1774 ended the war and provided freedom of worship for the Christian citizens of the Ottoman-controlled provinces of Wallachia and Moldavia. By the late 18th century, after a number of defeats in
11782-682: The capital Constantinople. After gaining the support of Prince Sabahaddin , another opposition leader, the Savior Officers published public declarations in newspapers. Finally, after giving a memorandum to the Military Council, the Savior Officers succeeded in getting Grand Vizier Mehmed Said Pasha (who they blamed for allowing the early elections that led to the CUP domination of the Chamber) and his government of CUP ministers to resign in July 1912. After Mehmed Said Pasha's resignation,
11919-459: The capture of Salonica ( Thessaloniki ), the birthplace of many progressive political leaders and movements of the era, by Greece in November 1912, many CUP members were arrested by Greek forces and exiled to Anatolia. At the same time, Freedom and Accord found itself on the brink of dissolution after inter-party conflicts. Left with little political power and flexibility, the CUP began to plan
12056-642: The century after Osman I, Ottoman rule had begun to extend over Anatolia and the Balkans . The earliest conflicts began during the Byzantine–Ottoman wars , waged in Anatolia in the late 13th century before entering Europe in the mid-14th century, followed by the Bulgarian–Ottoman wars and the Serbian–Ottoman wars in the mid-14th century. Much of this period was characterised by Ottoman expansion into
12193-448: The city of Kütahya within 320 km (200 mi) of the capital, Constantinople. In desperation, Sultan Mahmud II appealed to the empire's traditional arch-rival Russia for help, asking Emperor Nicholas I to send an expeditionary force to assist him. In return for signing the Treaty of Hünkâr İskelesi , the Russians sent the expeditionary force which deterred Ibrahim Pasha from marching any further towards Constantinople. Under
12330-634: The city. In 1532, he made another attack on Vienna, but was repulsed in the siege of Güns . Transylvania , Wallachia and, intermittently, Moldavia , became tributary principalities of the Empire. In the east, the Ottoman Turks took Baghdad from the Persians in 1535, gaining control of Mesopotamia and naval access to the Persian Gulf . In 1555, the Caucasus became partitioned for
12467-689: The civil strife, Austria-Hungary officially annexed Bosnia and Herzegovina in 1908. The last of the Ottoman censuses was performed in 1914 . Despite military reforms which reconstituted the Ottoman Modern Army , the Empire lost its North African territories and the Dodecanese in the Italo-Turkish War (1911) and almost all of its European territories in the Balkan Wars (1912–1913). The Empire faced continuous unrest in
12604-456: The coup or the events surrounding it. Reporter Georges Rémond said: This revolution is profoundly popular? I doubt it, and the lean applause of the crowd at the inauguration of the [new] Grand Vizier [ Mahmud Shevket Pasha ] and the Sheik ul-Islam [after the coup] has done nothing to soothe my uncertainty. Everything was done and carried out by a skilled politician, Talaat Bey , who masterminded
12741-477: The coup that the CUP had previously offered Nazım Pasha the position of grand vizier and the leadership its cabinet. On 23 January 1913, at 14:30, Lieutenant Colonel Enver Bey (later and better known as Enver Pasha ), one of the top leaders of the Committee of Union and Progress, was notified by a CUP member named Sapancalı Hakkı [ tr ] that everything was prepared for the raid as he waited in
12878-470: The coup, and the energetic soldier, Enver , aided by some officers of unfailing dedication and some dozens of patriots who were joined gradually few hundred protesters. Rémond said that preventing the minimalist coup would have taken at most 50 guards, and that the only reason that the Sublime Porte had been defenseless was because Kâmil Pasha wanted to call the bluff of any real threat the CUP, which he had sidelined politically, posed to his government. After
13015-571: The deportations and massacres of 1 and 1.5 million Armenians in 1915–1916 in what became known as the Armenian genocide . After World War I and the signing of the armistice of Mudros , the leadership of the Committee of Union and Progress and selected former officials were court-martialled with/including the charges of subversion of the constitution , wartime profiteering , and the massacres of both Armenians and Greeks . The court reached
13152-606: The disastrous results of the First Balkan War for the Ottoman Empire. In the 1908 elections , the Committee of Union and Progress (CUP) had only managed to win about 60 of the 288 seats in the Chamber of Deputies ( Turkish : Meclis-i Mebusân ), the popularly elected lower house of the General Assembly . Nevertheless, it was the largest party in the Chamber. The Freedom and Accord Party (Liberal Union/Entente)
13289-655: The eastern and southern frontiers by defeating Shah Ismail of Safavid Iran , in the Battle of Chaldiran . Selim I established Ottoman rule in Egypt by defeating and annexing the Mamluk Sultanate of Egypt and created a naval presence on the Red Sea . After this Ottoman expansion, competition began between the Portuguese Empire and the Ottomans to become the dominant power in the region. Suleiman
13426-514: The empire into a more harmonious place. Instead, this period became the story of the twilight struggle of the Empire. Members of Young Turks movement who had once gone underground now established their parties. Among them " Committee of Union and Progress ", and " Freedom and Accord Party " were major parties. On the other end of the spectrum were ethnic parties, which included Poale Zion , Al-Fatat , and Armenian national movement organised under Armenian Revolutionary Federation . Profiting from
13563-637: The empire was able to largely hold its own during the conflict, it struggled with internal dissent, especially the Arab Revolt . During this period, the Ottoman government engaged in genocide against Armenians , Assyrians , and Greeks . In the aftermath of World War I , the victorious Allied Powers occupied and partitioned the Ottoman Empire, which lost its southern territories to the United Kingdom and France . The successful Turkish War of Independence , led by Mustafa Kemal Atatürk against
13700-544: The end of the Caucasian Wars , 90% of the Circassians were ethnically cleansed and exiled from their homelands in the Caucasus, fleeing to the Ottoman Empire, resulting in the settlement of 500,000 to 700,000 Circassians in the Ottoman Empire. Crimean Tatar refugees in the late 19th century played an especially notable role in seeking to modernise Ottoman education and in first promoting both Pan-Turkism and
13837-523: The end of the seventeenth century, and instead the word increasingly became associated with the Greek population of the empire, a meaning that it still bears in Turkey today. In Western Europe, the names Ottoman Empire, Turkish Empire and Turkey were often used interchangeably, with Turkey being increasingly favoured both in formal and informal situations. This dichotomy was officially ended in 1920–1923, when
13974-484: The first time between the Safavids and the Ottomans, a status quo that remained until the end of the Russo-Turkish War (1768–1774) . By this partitioning as signed in the Peace of Amasya , Western Armenia , western Kurdistan , and Western Georgia fell into Ottoman hands, while southern Dagestan , Eastern Armenia , Eastern Georgia , and Azerbaijan remained Persian. In 1539, a 60,000-strong Ottoman army besieged
14111-461: The fourteenth century. The word subsequently came to be used to refer to the empire's military-administrative elite. In contrast, the term "Turk" ( Türk ) was used to refer to the Anatolian peasant and tribal population and was seen as a disparaging term when applied to urban, educated individuals. In the early modern period , an educated, urban-dwelling Turkish speaker who was not a member of
14248-416: The front of the Sublime Porte was soon filled with a crowd shouting slogans against Kâmil Pasha's government. Moreover, up to 60 CUP members were placed around the Sublime Porte's buildings. Enver Bey, along with confederates Talaat Bey, Sapancalı Hakkı, Yakub Cemil , Mustafa Necip [ tr ] , and about 50 others, entered the Sublime Porte compound of government buildings and made their way into
14385-648: The independence of the Middle East" in the 19th century "was not the armies of Europe but its banks". The Ottoman state, which had begun taking on debt with the Crimean War, was forced to declare bankruptcy in 1875. By 1881, the Ottoman Empire agreed to have its debt controlled by the Ottoman Public Debt Administration , a council of European men with presidency alternating between France and Britain. The body controlled swaths of
14522-515: The last Venetian stronghold in Cyprus, Famagusta. The Venetian defenders held out for 11 months against a force that at its peak numbered 200,000 men with 145 cannons; 163,000 cannonballs struck the walls of Famagusta before it fell to the Ottomans in August 1571. The Siege of Famagusta claimed 50,000 Ottoman casualties. Meanwhile, the Holy League consisting of mostly Spanish and Venetian fleets won
14659-545: The late 16th and early 17th centuries. With the Empire's population reaching 30 million people by 1600, the shortage of land placed further pressure on the government. In spite of these problems, the Ottoman state remained strong, and its army did not collapse or suffer crushing defeats. The only exceptions were campaigns against the Safavid dynasty of Persia, where many of the Ottoman eastern provinces were lost, some permanently. This 1603–1618 war eventually resulted in
14796-526: The loss of the Banat and the temporary loss of Belgrade (1717–1739), the Ottoman border on the Danube and Sava remained stable during the eighteenth century. Russian expansion , however, presented a large and growing threat. Accordingly, King Charles XII of Sweden was welcomed as an ally in the Ottoman Empire following his defeat by the Russians at the Battle of Poltava of 1709 in central Ukraine (part of
14933-735: The men, "What is going on? You came to raid the grand vizier's office?", using "ill-mannered" profanities in his rage, after which Enver Bey saluted him and tried to explain his intentions. At this time Yakub Cemil, approaching Nazım Pasha from the back while he was engaged with Enver Bey and the rest of the coup party, fired his gun at Nazım Pasha's right temple, killing him. Another account claimed that Enver Bey had tried to stop Yakup Cemil from killing Nazım Pasha, but Yakup Cemil had refused to listen. Yet another version of events held that either Enver Bey or Talaat Bey had accidentally killed Nazım Pasha while trying to protect themselves from gunfire from his aid-de-camp Kıbrıslı Tevfik Bey. In any case,
15070-667: The military supply-station inspectorate ( Turkish : menzil müfettişliği ) building near the Nuruosmaniye Mosque . After receiving this news, Enver Bey mounted a white horse waiting for him and began to ride the several blocks from Nuruosmaniye towards the Sublime Porte , which was a metonym referring to a group of government buildings that housed the offices of the Grand Vizier , his imperial government , and other state offices. At this time, Talaat Bey (later known as Talaat Pasha ) also began to make his way towards
15207-459: The military-administrative class typically referred to themselves neither as an Osmanlı nor as a Türk , but rather as a Rūmī ( رومى ), or "Roman", meaning an inhabitant of the territory of the former Byzantine Empire in the Balkans and Anatolia. The term Rūmī was also used to refer to Turkish speakers by the other Muslim peoples of the empire and beyond. As applied to Ottoman Turkish speakers, this term began to fall out of use at
15344-546: The need for greater numbers of Ottoman infantry equipped with firearms, resulting in a relaxation of recruitment policy. This contributed to problems of indiscipline and outright rebelliousness within the corps, which were never fully solved. Irregular sharpshooters ( Sekban ) were also recruited, and on demobilisation turned to brigandage in the Celali rebellions (1590–1610), which engendered widespread anarchy in Anatolia in
15481-421: The new conditions of the seventeenth century and remain powerful, both militarily and economically. Historians of the mid-twentieth century once characterised this period as one of stagnation and decline, but this view is now rejected by the majority of academics. The discovery of new maritime trade routes by Western European states allowed them to avoid the Ottoman trade monopoly. The Portuguese discovery of
15618-466: The newly established Ankara -based Turkish government chose Turkey as the sole official name. At present, most scholarly historians avoid the terms "Turkey", "Turks", and "Turkish" when referring to the Ottomans, due to the empire's multinational character. As the Rum Sultanate declined in the 13th century, Anatolia was divided into a patchwork of independent Turkish principalities known as
15755-476: The next year in 1914. Enver would enter the empire into World War I that same year as part of the Central Powers , on the side of Germany, in contrast to the overthrown Kâmil Pasha, who was partial towards the British. Although the CUP had worked with the Armenians to reinstall constitutional monarchy against Abdul Hamid II, factions in the CUP began to view the Armenians as a fifth column that would betray
15892-408: The occupying Allies, led to the emergence of the Republic of Turkey in the Anatolian heartland and the abolition of the Ottoman monarchy in 1922, formally ending the Ottoman Empire. The word Ottoman is a historical anglicisation of the name of Osman I , the founder of the Empire and of the ruling House of Osman (also known as the Ottoman dynasty). Osman's name in turn was the Turkish form of
16029-500: The ongoing First Balkan War diplomatically. However, the heavy Ottoman military defeats during the war continued to sap morale, as rumors that the capital would have to be moved from Constantinople to inland Anatolia spread. The Bulgarian Army had soon advanced as far as Çatalca , a western district of modern Istanbul. At this point, Kâmil Pasha's government signed an armistice with Bulgaria in December 1912 and sat down to draw up
16166-406: The plague, which facilitated Ottoman expansion. In addition, slave hunting was the main economic driving force behind Ottoman conquest. Some 21st-century authors re-periodize conquest of the Balkans into the akıncı phase , which spanned 8 to 13 decades, characterized by continuous slave hunting and destruction, followed by administrative integration into the Empire. The son of Murad II, Mehmed
16303-466: The raid party, his bullet also striking Mustafa Necip. After the raiders returned fire, Kıbrıslı Tevfik Bey was instantly killed. During the shooting, a secret police agent and an attendant of the Sheikh ul-Islam were also killed. Hearing the gunshots, Minister of War Nazım Pasha stepped out of his room and rushed towards the raid party. According to the memoirs of future Turkish president and prime minister Celâl Bayar , Nazım Pasha angrily shouted at
16440-578: The restoration of Ottoman suzerainty over Egypt Eyalet and the Levant . By the mid-19th century, the Ottoman Empire was called the " sick man of Europe ". Three suzerain states – the Principality of Serbia , Wallachia and Moldavia – moved towards de jure independence during the 1860s and 1870s. During the Tanzimat period (1839–1876), the government's series of constitutional reforms led to
16577-467: The sixteenth century, the Ottoman Empire came under increasing strain from inflation and the rapidly rising costs of warfare that were impacting both Europe and the Middle East. These pressures led to a series of crises around the year 1600, placing great strain upon the Ottoman system of government. The empire underwent a series of transformations of its political and military institutions in response to these challenges, enabling it to successfully adapt to
16714-555: The soldiers), and 400,000 non-Muslims fled territory still under Ottoman rule. Justin McCarthy estimates that from 1821 to 1922, 5.5 million Muslims died in southeastern Europe, with the expulsion of 5 million. The defeat and dissolution of the Ottoman Empire (1908—1922) began with the Second Constitutional Era , a moment of hope and promise established with the Young Turk Revolution . It restored
16851-413: The soon-to-be interior minister, Talaat Pasha , and the soon-to-be naval minister, Cemal Pasha . The Three Pashas, leading the CUP autocratically, would control the Empire until fleeing the country at the end of World War I . It established the CUP as the dominant party of Young Turks in the Empire; the rival Young Turks party, Freedom and Accord, would not regain power until the end of the war. The coup
16988-572: The start of the 17th century, the Ottomans presided over 32 provinces and numerous vassal states , which over time were either absorbed into the Empire or granted various degrees of autonomy. With its capital at Constantinople (modern-day Istanbul ) and control over a significant portion of the Mediterranean Basin , the Ottoman Empire was at the centre of interactions between the Middle East and Europe for six centuries. While
17125-673: The sultan and restored Ottoman power. The Balkan territories lost by the Ottomans after 1402, including Thessaloniki, Macedonia, and Kosovo, were later recovered by Murad II between the 1430s and 1450s. On 10 November 1444, Murad repelled the Crusade of Varna by defeating the Hungarian, Polish, and Wallachian armies under Władysław III of Poland and John Hunyadi at the Battle of Varna , although Albanians under Skanderbeg continued to resist. Four years later, John Hunyadi prepared another army of Hungarian and Wallachian forces to attack
17262-512: The terms of the Convention of Kütahya , signed on 5 May 1833, Muhammad Ali agreed to abandon his campaign against the Sultan, in exchange for which he was made the vali (governor) of the vilayets (provinces) of Crete , Aleppo , Tripoli , Damascus and Sidon (the latter four comprising modern Syria and Lebanon ), and given the right to collect taxes in Adana . Had it not been for
17399-574: The wars with Russia, some people in the Ottoman Empire began to conclude that the reforms of Peter the Great had given the Russians an edge, and the Ottomans would have to keep up with Western technology in order to avoid further defeats. Selim III (1789–1807) made the first major attempts to modernise the army , but his reforms were hampered by the religious leadership and the Janissary corps. Jealous of their privileges and firmly opposed to change,
17536-529: The years leading up to World War I , including the 31 March Incident and two further coups in 1912 and 1913 . The Ottoman Empire entered World War I on the side of the Central Powers and was ultimately defeated. The Ottoman participation in the war began with the combined German-Ottoman surprise attack on the Black Sea coast of the Russian Empire on 29 October 1914. Following the attack,
17673-455: Was a major obstacle to Ottoman expansion on the Italian peninsula. In the 15th and 16th centuries, the Ottoman Empire entered a period of expansion . The Empire prospered under the rule of a line of committed and effective Sultans . It flourished economically due to its control of the major overland trade routes between Europe and Asia. Sultan Selim I (1512–1520) dramatically expanded
17810-517: Was assassinated and the Grand Vizier , Kâmil Pasha , was forced to resign. Soon after the coup, the government fell into the hands of the CUP, now under the leadership of the triumvirate known as the " Three Pashas ", made up of Enver, Talaat, and Cemal Pasha . In 1911, the Freedom and Accord Party , Kâmil Pasha's party, was formed in opposition to the CUP and almost immediately won the by-elections in Istanbul (former Constantinople ). Alarmed,
17947-470: Was established as an independent principality inside the Ottoman Empire; Romania achieved full independence; and Serbia and Montenegro finally gained complete independence, but with smaller territories. In 1878, Austria-Hungary unilaterally occupied the Ottoman provinces of Bosnia-Herzegovina and Novi Pazar . British Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli advocated restoring the Ottoman territories on
18084-601: Was far more damaging to the Ottoman navy in sapping experienced manpower than the loss of ships, which were rapidly replaced. The Ottoman navy recovered quickly, persuading Venice to sign a peace treaty in 1573, allowing the Ottomans to expand and consolidate their position in North Africa. By contrast, the Habsburg frontier had settled somewhat, a stalemate caused by a stiffening of the Habsburg defenses. The Long Turkish War against Habsburg Austria (1593–1606) created
18221-403: Was formed under Ahmed Muhtar Pasha , but after a few months it too was dissolved in October 1912 after the sudden outbreak of the First Balkan War and military defeat. After receiving the permission of Sultan Mehmed V to form a new government in late October 1912, Freedom and Accord leader Kâmil Pasha sat down to diplomatic talks with Bulgaria after the unsuccessful First Balkan War. With
18358-542: Was founded on 21 November 1911 by those in opposition to the CUP, and immediately attracted 70 Deputies to its ranks. Only 20 days after its formation, Freedom and Accord won the December 1911 by-elections conducted in Constantinople by one vote. The ruling CUP, seeing the potential of Freedom and Accord to win next year's general elections, took several precautions. Hoping to thwart the nascent Freedom and Accord's efforts to grow its ranks and better organize itself,
18495-484: Was genial towards the now-opposition Freedom and Accord Party . When one of Nazım Pasha's relatives assassinated him in revenge in June 1913, the CUP used the opportunity to crack down on the opposition. Twelve men held responsible by the CUP for Mahmud Shevket Pasha's death, including Nazım Pasha's relative, were convicted for murder and hanged. The opposition parties, already sidelined by the coup, were heavily repressed by
18632-477: Was on the defensive and unlikely to present any further aggression in Europe. The Austro-Russian–Turkish War (1735–1739), which was ended by the Treaty of Belgrade in 1739, resulted in the Ottoman recovery of northern Bosnia , Habsburg Serbia (including Belgrade), Oltenia and the southern parts of the Banat of Temeswar ; but the Empire lost the port of Azov , north of the Crimean Peninsula, to
18769-486: Was part of a long-running contest between the major European powers for influence over territories of the declining Ottoman Empire. The financial burden of the war led the Ottoman state to issue foreign loans amounting to 5 million pounds sterling on 4 August 1854. The war caused an exodus of the Crimean Tatars , about 200,000 of whom moved to the Ottoman Empire in continuing waves of emigration. Toward
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