Decline of the Ottoman Empire

¶ … Decline of the Ottoman Empire

Today, there may be a few people alive who personally experienced the fall of the Ottoman Empire, but like their World War II counterparts in America and Europe today, the empire is a rapidly fading living memory, but like the war, it remains much more than a historical footnote. The legacy of the Ottoman Empire can be found in a modern secular Turkish nation today that is poised to join the European Union as an equal partner in the international community. The causes for the downfall of the Ottoman Empire seem fairly concrete to some who believe that the economy was in a horrid state and that most were near starvation while others think that the internal economy was doing just fine and it was only the external economic trade that was failing. This paper provides an overview of the events leading up to the collapse of the Ottoman Empire in 1922, followed by an analysis of the events surrounding the internal and external economic conditions of the empire as it was declining through its ultimate collapse. A summary of the research will be provided in the conclusion.

Review and Discussion

Background and Overview. In his essay on modern Turkey, Thomas B. Allen asked several Turks, "What is a Turk today?" "I don't believe anyone is Turkish, whatever that means," responded one resident. "Look at us! A mix of Turks, Arabs, Jews, Greeks, Iranians, Armenians, Kurds." The polyglot nature of the modern nation of Turkey is the legacy of the Ottoman Empire, of course. According to Stanford J. Shaw, the Ottoman Empire was created by Turkish tribes in Anatolia. During the 15th and 16th centuries, it was one of the most powerful states in the world. The empire endured more than 600 years and only ended in 1922, when it was replaced by the Turkish Republic and various successor states in southeastern Europe and the Middle East. At its prominence, the Ottoman Empire included a majority of southeastern Europe to Austria, including modern Hungary, Serbia, Bosnia, Romania, Greece, and Ukraine; Iraq, Syria, Israel, and Egypt; North Africa as far west as Algeria; and most of the Arabian Peninsula. Shaw notes that the term Ottoman is a dynastic appellation derived from Osman (Arabic: 'Uthman), the nomadic Turkmen chief who established both the dynasty and the empire.

Impact of Internal and External Pressures on Ottoman Decline. In his book, Death and Exile: The Ethnic Cleansing of Ottoman Muslims, 1821-1922, McCarthy suggests that the actual causes of the collapse of the Ottoman Empire, although exhaustively studied, remain better described than understood, and that there has been no general agreement among historians as to the single-most important cause: "Had the Ottomans been able to properly defend their empire, the mortality and migration of the Muslims surely would not have occurred. There is no consensus among historians as to the causes of Ottoman weakness." The slow degradation of the traditional Ottoman administrative system has been widely cited as contributing to the empire's internal weakness, just as external market changes adversely affected the Ottoman economy. "Like peoples in most of the world, the Ottomans participated only marginally in the intellectual, scientific, and industrial revolutions that reshaped and empowered Europe. When they perceived their weakness, the Ottomans were without the financial wherewithal and administrative power to change quickly." While constant military pressure from their adversaries made such rapid changes critical for their survival, McCarthy notes that the Ottomans were unable or at least reluctant to imitate the technologies that the Europeans were using to achieve improved trade and industrialization.

According to McCarthy, in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the reasons for the failing Ottoman economy mostly stemmed from internal problems such as a lack of capital, inadequate skilled manpower, and insufficient capital goods; however, the Ottomans could not be held accountable for all of the effects of the international invisible hand at work:

Some of the Ottoman's problems were simply the workings of the world market." For example, increasingly modern methods of transport enabled European countries with advanced production capabilities to send products more quickly and cheaply to underdeveloped regions where people were desperate for goods they were unable to produce themselves. In this environment, the European nations were in a position to demand more favourable terms from the Ottomans, and the Europeans exacted a series of trade capitulations that forced the Ottomans to accept disadvantageous terms of trade.

As pronounced as these external influences were on the Ottomans, there were significant internal pressures taking place as well. For example, by the end of the 19th century, the Muslim proportion of the population of Constantinople, previously stable at around 60%, had decreased to about 44% and by 1900, the population of the city reached a million. During this period in history, other international cities such as Vienna and Prague were becoming distinctly German or Czech in character; however, in Constantinople, the balance of forces between the Palace, the Sublime Porte, the embassies, the mosques, the Patriarchates, the barracks, the bazaars and the port kept Constantinople a truly international community. According to Mansel, "Economically as well as diplomatically, it became part of the system of Europe. European banks were built in Galata, and took control of the government debt, the tobacco industry and much else." The influences of Western nations on the Ottomans were profound across the board, and affected the very way of life that had been in place for centuries. For example, Mansel points out that "From the sultan down, the Ottoman elite wore clothes modeled on, and often made in, western Europe." Some Europeans even threatened the most sacred Ottoman buildings in the city; during this period, magnificent panels of Iznik tiles were taken from imperial mosques, and sold to western museums such as the Louvre and the Victoria and Albert Museum, while the last powerful sultan, Abdulhamid II, who reigned from 1876-1909, was still on the throne.

During its final years as the capital of the Ottoman Empire, Constantinople assumed a more prominent position as a city of the world than ever before. The city was unique in that it was both the seat of the Muslim caliphate as well as the capital of the last independent Muslim state to resist the advance of European imperialism; as a result, Constantinople attracted increasing numbers of Muslims from Bosnia to Sumatra; however, in November 1914, the decision of the Minister of War Enver Pasha to ally with Germany and Austria-Hungary in World War I led to the empire's defeat and foreign occupation. Following the war years, the Khilafat movement was supported by Indian Muslims, Gandhi and some Hindus, and eventually developed into a sometimes-violent mass nationalist protest opposed to the occupation of Constantinople, the "seat of the caliphate" by British, French and Italian troops in 1919-24.

In 1922, two major events took place that set the wheels in motion for much of what was to follow in the 20th century. Mansel reports that the first event was an invasion of Anatolia by the Greeks that was defeated by Turkish nationalist forces in 1922; the second event was the expulsion of the last Ottoman sultan the same year. At that point in time, Constantinople started to lose its multinational character. The saviour of Turkey from the Greeks was the enormously popular Mustafa Kemal, who established Ankara as the nation's new capital; thereafter, there was a mass exodus of Greeks and Armenians from Constantinople, as well as from the rest of Turkey.

Mustafa Kemal (later known as Ataturk, or Father of the Turks) emerged from the Independence War with great prestige. "He had truly been the saviour of his nation. After the war he used his prestige to shape the new nation politically, socially, and economically."

In 1922, the Grand National Assembly had abolished the sultanate in favour of a republic; the modern state of Turkey was formally declared on October 29, 1923. "The new capital was in Ankara, not the Ottoman city, Istanbul. A radical break with the tradition of centuries was underway."

The impact of the external influences at this point in Turkey's history seems to have been the predominate influence on how the Turks organized themselves internally as well. According to McCarthy, the wars had forced the Turkish people to reexamine their relationship with the rest of the world and to come together under a common leader in order to survive. McCarthy writes: "The Turks themselves had changed in the wars. They now identified themselves as Turks. Through the Ottoman centuries the Turks had been the mainstay of a great empire. The Ottoman Empire long had been called 'Turkey' in the West, and the sultans were indeed proud of their Turkish nomadic ancestors, but the Ottomans never identified themselves as a Turkish Empire." In the past, the Ottomans had viewed themselves as an Islamic Empire, an important consideration since this position represented the last in a long succession of great Muslim empires that traced its origins to the successors of the Prophet Muhammad himself. The Ottoman court, administrative, and military language were all Turkish; however, high culture in the Empire was cosmopolitan and popular culture in Anatolia and Thrace could only be called "Turkish." According to McCarthy, three primary factors ultimately decided the fate of the Muslims of Ottoman Europe, the Crimea, the Caucasus, and Anatolia: 1) the military and economic weakness of the Ottoman Empire, 2) nationalism among Ottoman Christian peoples, and 3) Russian imperial expansion.

Much like the United States outspending the Soviet Union to win the Cold War, the Ottoman Empire was not able to maintain any degree of parity with the European powers and by 1800, Ottoman Empire government was internally weak, and found that it was not able to support its antiquated Ottoman military system, much less a modern army and navy that would be capable of defending the empire against its increasing powerful adversaries. McCarthy reports that the reforms of the 19th century had built up the Ottoman forces to a level that enabled the Ottomans to subjugate their internal enemies and expand centralized control of the empire, but they were unable to stand against their external enemies. "The armies of the European Powers were better trained, had better weapons, and in far greater numbers than the Ottoman forces. Beset by strong opponents, the Ottomans had no "breathing space" to put their house in order." The empire needed more time to respond to these external threats, but the European nations did not allow them the time they needed to build the infrastructure needed to support a modern nation, nor did they allow time for build a modern military force. McCarthy reports that the Ottoman armies fought wars in 1806-12, 1828-29, 1832-33, 1839-40, 1853-56, 1877-78, 1897, 1911-13, 1914-18, and 1919-23, as well as dealing with major insurrections in 1804, 1815-17, 1821-30, 1866-68, 1875, 1876, and 1896-97. As a result, "Armies that should have been in training were continually forced to fight unprepared and were decimated again and again." The revenues the empire needed to modernize were diverted to these failed military enterprises, failures that also resulted in the loss of territory and morale. "In short, Ottoman weakness caused Ottoman losses, and the losses kept the Ottomans too weak to rebound." It was also Ottoman weakness that allowed the nationalism of the various Ottoman minority groups to come into play.