Ottoman Empire

The **Ottoman Empire**, also known as the **Sublime Ottoman State**, was a country that existed from the century until its collapse during the Ottoman Civil War (1926–1931). During its highest peaks in the 16th century, it was a major superpower. However, by the end of the 1910s, the Ottoman Empire was on the verge of collapse, and after the death of Mehmed VI in 1926, revolutionary forces decided to act up against the Ottoman Empire.

## History

### Early Years

The Ottoman beylik's first capital was located in Bursa in 1326. Edirne which was conquered in 1361 was the next capital city. After largely expanding to Europe and Anatolia, in 1453, the Ottomans nearly completed the conquest of the Byzantine Empire by capturing its capital, Constantinople during the reign of Mehmed II. Constantinople was made the capital city of the Empire following Edirne. The Ottoman Empire would continue to expand into the Eastern Anatolia, Central Europe, the Caucasus, North and East Africa, the islands in the Mediterranean, Greater Syria, Mesopotamia, and the Arabian peninsula in the 15th, 16th and 17th centuries.

The Ottoman Empire's power and prestige peaked in the 16th and 17th centuries, particularly during the reign of Suleiman the Magnificent. The empire was often at odds with the Holy Roman Empire in its steady advance towards Central Europe through the Balkans and the southern part of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth. In addition, the Ottomans were often at war with Persia over territorial disputes, which allowed them to inherit the Timurid Renaissance. At sea, the empire contended with the Holy Leagues, composed of Habsburg Spain, the Republic of Venice and the Knights of St. John, for control of the Mediterranean. In the Indian Ocean, the Ottoman navy frequently confronted Portuguese fleets in order to defend its traditional monopoly over the maritime trade routes between East Asia and Western Europe; these routes faced new competition with the Portuguese discovery of the Cape of Good Hope in 1488.

The Treaty of Karlowitz in 1699 marked the beginning of Ottoman territorial retreat; some territories were lost by the treaty: Austria received all of Hungary and Transylvania except the Banat; Venice obtained most of Dalmatia along with the Morea (the Peloponnesus peninsula in southern Greece); Poland recovered Podolia.

### Beginning of the End

The 19th century brought great decline to the once prosperous Middle East. An inability to effectively industrialize, constant foreign meddling in its affairs, and a troubling hold on a lot of its provinces meant that the Ottoman Sultanate had fallen back well behind the European powers by 1876. Nonetheless, the Ottomans reformed, and despite the issues these posed on a local level - where tribal issues and a corrupt bureaucracy reigned supreme - light could be seen. Prompted by Mahmud II in the early 19th century and further pursued by the Young Ottomans, radical changes were introduced in the Empire. Land ownership was restructured, the Janissaries eradicated, central rule reestablished in regions such as Mosul and Al-Hasa, and a constitution promulgated. The focus of these reformers was based on the idea of Ottomanism, and attempted to foster a common identity for all its inhabitants besides their local one. It would not be enough. With Abdulhamid II‘s rise to power in 1876, drastic changes would come once again.

Under the pretext of the Russo-Turkish War, the constitution was abolished and the parliament shut down. This period, later to be known as the Hamidian Era, saw a radical centralisation of power under the figure of the Sultan-Caliph. With a constant threat by Christian powers, the Sultan turned towards Pan-Islamism based on the prestige of the Caliphate. Despite enjoying great popularity among the Sunni Muslim population, it would alienate the religious minorities, which the Empire had plenty of. Furthermore, Abdulhamid's absolute rule fostered great discontent amongst a population which became increasingly familiar with Western ideas.

This resistance would consolidate itself in the shape of the “**CUP**”, or “Committee of Union and Progress”. A coup d'état in 1908 made Ottoman politics, long suppressed by the Sultan, burst into the open. Dozens upon dozens of parties would attempt to find a seat within the newly restored parliament as it seemed that Ottoman decline was finally at its end. The united democratic forces would, however, not endure - and quickly split between the decentralists and the centralists. Through a tumultuous 5 years, these two sides would battle for control as the ideals of democracy and freedom of thought they once held so dearly were slowly moved to the sidelines. In 1913, with the Raid on the Sublime Porte, the game was over: The centralist CUP, with significant public figures such as the Three Pashas (Enver, Djemal and Talaat), would eradicate all remaining power of the decentralists and shape the nation in their image. Under great threat by Russians, British and Frenchmen, they ultimately strengthened ties with the German Empire, like Abdulhamid II had done it before.

### The early 20th Century

#### Young Turk movement

The dissolution of the Ottoman Empire (1908–1926) began with the Second Constitutional Era, a moment of hope and promise established with the Young Turk Revolution. It restored the Ottoman constitution of 1876 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 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 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 the years leading up to World War I, including the 31 March Incident and two further coups in 1912 and 1913.

#### The First Great War

The Young Turk government had signed a secret treaty with Germany and established the Ottoman-German Alliance in August 1914, aimed against the common Russian enemy but aligning the Empire with the German side. The Ottoman Empire entered the First Great War after the *Goeben* and *Breslau* incident, in which it gave safe harbour to two German ships that were fleeing British ships. These ships then—after having officially been transferred to the Ottoman Navy, but effectively still under German control—attacked the Russian port of Sevastopol, thus dragging the Empire into the war on the side of the Central Powers, in which it took part in the Middle Eastern theatre. There were several important Ottoman victories in the early years of the war, such as the Battle of Gallipoli and the Siege of Kut, but there were setbacks as well, such as the disastrous Caucasus Campaign against the Russians. The United States never declared war against the Ottoman Empire.

In 1915, as the Russian Caucasus Army continued to advance in eastern Anatolia with the help of Armenian volunteer units from the Caucasus region of the Russian Empire, and aided by some Ottoman Armenians, the Ottoman government decided to issue the Tehcir Law, which started the deportation of the ethnic Armenians, particularly from the provinces close to the Ottoman-Russian front, resulting in what became known as the Armenian genocide. Through forced marches and gang skirmishes, the Armenians living in eastern Anatolia were uprooted from their ancestral homelands and sent southwards to the Ottoman provinces in Syria and Mesopotamia. Estimates vary on how many Armenians perished, but scholars give figures ranging from 300,000 (per the modern Turkish state), 600,000 (per early estimates by Western researchers) to up to 1.5 million (per modern Western and Armenian scholars).

The Arab Revolt which began in 1916 turned the tide against the Ottomans at the Middle Eastern front, where they initially seemed to have the upper hand during the first two years of the war.