Daily Life In The Ottoman Empire (4 page)

The Ottomans tried to buy time and reorganize their army by
keeping the empire out of war. Every effort was made to increase the revenue
generated by the central government and reduce state expenditures. The memory
of recent defeats and the humiliating Treaty of Karlowitz were still fresh in
the minds of many Ottoman officials who wished to avoid another military
debacle. The Ottoman refusal to initiate a military campaign, however,
emboldened the Russian tsar, Peter the Great, who attacked and defeated a
European ally of the sultan, Charles XII of Sweden, at Poltava in the summer of
1709. The Russians then moved their forces against the Ottoman Empire.

Fortunately for the Ottomans, the Habsburgs did not provide
any support to Peter. With princes of Wallachia and Moldavia reneging on their
promise to provide support for his troops, Peter, who had crossed the Pruth
into Moldavia in July 1711, was forced to retreat. As the Russian army was
about to cross the Pruth on its return journey, however, the Ottoman forces
struck and surrounded the tsar and his troops. The founder of modern Russia and
his army were at the mercy of the Ottoman grand vizier, who could have
annihilated them in one blow. Recognizing the severity of his situation, Peter
promised to surrender his cannonry, return the Ottoman-held territories he had
occupied, and remove the forts he had built along the frontier with the Ottoman
Empire. In return, the Ottomans allowed Russian merchants to trade freely in
their territory and agreed to mediate a peace treaty between Russia and Sweden.

One of the most important implications of the Russo-Ottoman
war was the change in the political structure of the principalities. The secret
negotiations between the princes of Wallachia and Moldavia and the Russian
government convinced the sultan that he should remove the native princes and
replace them with governors (
hospodars)
appointed directly by the
sultan. New governors were selected from among the Greek Phanariote families of
Istanbul, who played an important role within the Ottoman state as dragomans
(interpreters and translators) because of their diplomatic and linguistic
abilities, which included a knowledge of Turkish and several European
languages. As these new governors rose to power, the native populations in
Wallachia and Moldavia began to develop a deep resentment toward the ascendancy
of the Greek language and culture within their administrative system.

Despite the Ottoman peace with Russia, the internal court
intrigues continued. The advocates of peace between Russia and the Ottoman
Empire triumphed when a new treaty was signed between the two powers in June
1713. The tsar promised to abandon the territories he had occupied on the
northern shores of the Black Sea, withdraw his forces from Poland, and allow
Charles XII of Sweden to return to his country. The Russian retreat only
emboldened the anti-Venice war party, which began to advocate fresh military
campaigns to recapture the Morea in southern Greece. While the Ottoman forces
attacked Venetian positions and regained control over the Morea in 1715, their
advances against Croatia forced the Habsburgs to ally with the Venetians and
declare war on the sultan.

Once again, confrontation with the Habsburg army proved to
be disastrous for the Ottomans, whose forces were routed at Petrovaradin in
August 1716. The Ottoman defenses collapsed, and they lost Temeşvár in
September 1716, followed by Belgrade, which was taken by the Habsburgs in
August 1717. These demoralizing defeats undermined the position of the war
party in the court and allowed the sultan to appoint his closest advisor, Nevşehirli
Damad Ibrahim Paşa, as his new grand vizier in May 1718.

Peace negotiations resulted in the signing of the Treaty of
Passarowitz in July 1718. The Habsburgs received the Banat of Temeşvár and
northern Serbia, including Belgrade and Oltenia (Wallachia west of the river
Olt). They also received assurances that their merchants could operate freely
in the sultan’s domains. Moreover, Catholic priests regained old privileges
that allowed the Habsburg emperor to interfere in the internal affairs of the
Ottoman Empire by acting as the champion and protector of the Catholic
community.

THE TULIP PERIOD

The new grand vizier, Ibrahim Paşa, purged the
sultan’s inner circle and installed his own men in key positions within the
royal harem. To focus the sultan’s attention on sexual desires and personal
fantasies, he ordered the construction of a palace named Saadabad (Place of
Joy), which was to serve as the center for various royal entertainments. Designed
after the Palace of Fontainebleau (Château de Fontainebleau) outside Paris,
Saadabad emerged as the model for other palaces later built by the wealthy
members of the ruling elite along the banks of the Bosphorus. Ibrahim Paşa
himself built a palace on the Anatolian side of the strait. It contained
gardens and fountains in the French style.

The tulip emerged as the popular flower of the time, which
later came to be known as Lale Devri (the Tulip Period). During late night
garden parties, turtles with candles on their backs moved through the tulip
beds, while entertainers, including poets and musicians, performed their latest
lyrics and songs for a dazzled audience that included foreign dignitaries and
diplomats. If the lower classes could not afford to build palaces with gardens
and fountains, they could still enjoy the increasing number of coffeehouses
that served as centers of public entertainment.

The grand vizier, Ibrahim Paşa, understood that the
empire needed to use diplomacy as the principal means of resolving conflict,
reserving warfare as the last resort. He dispatched Ottoman ambassadors to
European capitals, where they served not only as diplomats but also as
informants who visited factories, hospitals, and zoos, reporting back to him on
the latest European fort building techniques and other innovations. One of
these innovations was the first printing press, which was introduced to the
Ottoman Empire in 1727, and was immediately opposed by the religious
establishment and the scribes who feared that it would put an end to their
relevance in society. The grand vizier silenced the opposition by promising
that the printing press would only be used for nonreligious publications,
particularly in the arts and sciences.

A crisis in Iran and Ottoman intervention in that country’s
internal affairs brought the Tulip Period to a sudden end. Ottoman– Iranian
relations had remained peaceful following the campaigns of Murad IV and the
signing of the Treaty of Qasr-i Shirin in 1639. In October 1722, however, an
Afghan army, which had rebelled against the Safavid monarchy in Iran, sacked
the Iranian capital, Isfahan, and deposed the reigning shah, Sultan Husayn. The
sudden collapse of the Safavid state created opportunities as well as anxieties
for the Ottomans. The sultan and his grand vizier could use the vacuum created
by the disintegration of the Safavid state to occupy Iran’s western provinces
and increase the revenue collected by the central government. But Ahmed III was
not the only sovereign determined to conquer this valuable territory. Having
triumphed over Sweden, the Russian tsar Peter the Great was determined to
profit from the sudden disappearance of the Safavid dynasty in Iran, a country
that could serve Russia as a land bridge to the warm waters of the Persian Gulf
and the riches of India.

Despite early victories in Iran, the Ottomans soon ran into
trouble after the Iranian leader, Nader Qoli (soon to become Nader Shah),
struck back and pushed Ottoman forces out of western Iran in 1730. The decision
to start a new campaign against Iran ignited an urban rebellion in Istanbul.
The leader of the revolt was Patrona Halil, a member of the janissary corps,
who denounced the sultan and his grand vizier as incompetent and corrupt. The rebels
succeeded in forcing the sultan to dismiss his chief minister and eventually
order his execution. The revolt, however, did not subside. Emboldened by their
initial success, the rebels demanded the abdication of the sultan in favor of
another member of the Ottoman ruling family. Without any power to resist the
rebels, the palace deposed Ahmed III and replaced him with Mahmud I
(1730–1754). A few weeks later, the new sultan invited Patrona Halil to the
palace, where he was murdered by the royal guards. His followers and supporters
were also put to death. Meanwhile, the war with Iran continued with attacks and
counter attacks from both sides until 1746, when the two Muslim states agreed
to sign a peace treaty that restored the borders that had been stipulated by
the Treaty of Qasr-i Shirin in 1639.

THREAT FROM RUSSIA

In the last years of Mahmud I’s reign, as well as the
reigns of the next two sultans, Osman III (1754–1757) and Mustafa III
(1757–1774), the Ottomans declined to play a role in the War of Austrian
Succession (1740–1748) and the Seven Years’ War (1756–1763). Even the murder of
the Iranian monarch, Nader Shah, in 1747, could not entice them to invade their
old Shia nemesis to the east. Instead of using the long period of peace to
reorganize the central administration and the army, however, the Ottomans fell
into a deep sleep again. They were awakened from it in 1768, when Russia, under
Catherine the Great (1762–1796), embarked on an aggressive campaign to
establish her rule on the northern shores of the Black Sea.

After several initial successes against the Russians, the
Ottoman forces suffered a devastating defeat in the summer of 1769. The victory
allowed the tsarist forces to occupy Wallachia and Moldavia. A Russian naval
force also attacked from the west and sank the Ottoman fleet, which had
anchored at Çeşme, in 1770. After six years of war and intermittent
negotiations, the Ottomans signed the peace treaty of Küçük Kaynarca with
Russia in 1774. The treaty forced the new Ottoman sultan, Abdülhamid I
(1774–1789), who came to the throne on the death of Mustafa III, to accept the
independence of Crimea. In 1783, the Russians annexed the Crimea and
established themselves as the dominant naval force in the Black Sea.

The devastating loss of the Crimea did not end the
confrontation with Russia. Conflict between the two powers erupted again in
1787. A year later, the Austrians also declared war on the Ottoman Empire. Once
again the war dragged on for several years, with the Ottomans receiving support
from Sweden and Prussia. By 1791, when the sultan signed the peace treaty of
Sistova with the Austrians, the Ottoman forces were exhausted. The defeat at
the hands of the Russians in 1792 forced the sultan to sign the peace treaty of
Jassy (Iaşi/Yassy), which allowed Russia to expand its territories along
the northern shores of the Black Sea.

GOVERNMENTAL REFORMS

The new sultan, Selim III (1789–1807), who had watched the
abysmal performance of his armies, embarked on a new campaign to reform the
Ottoman military organization. He introduced the
Nizam-i Cedid
(New
Army) units, which were organized and trained in accordance with European
military techniques. The first modern military hospital was also completed a
year later and, in 1795, the first military engineering school was established.
Meanwhile, the events unfolding in Europe began to cause anxieties for the
sultan. The French Revolution, which began in 1789, and the subsequent
execution of Louis XVI in 1791 shocked the Ottomans, who viewed the French
monarch as a friend and an ally. Even more worrisome was the occupation of
Egypt by a French expeditionary force headed by Napoleon Bonaparte in the
summer of 1798. The French invasion forced the sultan to seek the support of
Russia and England. After defeating the French at Acre and suffering a defeat
at the hands of the French at Abukir, the Ottoman-English alliance forced
Bonaparte out of Egypt in 1799. Ottoman-French ties were restored in 1806, when
Russia moved its forces against Wallachia and Moldavia.

Meanwhile, in 1807, the growing opposition to Selim III’s
reforms brought the religious establishment, the janissaries
,
and the
anti-reform elements within the government together in a united front. When the
revolt broke out, Selim hesitated and did not use his new army to crush the
rebellion. Emboldened by their initial success, the rebels demanded the
deposition of Selim III and the accession of Mustafa IV (1807–1808) as his
successor. The pro-Selim III provincial notables (
ayans)
, however,
refused to accept defeat and mobilized their forces against the new sultan and
his supporters in Istanbul. The powerful
ayan
Bayrakdar Mustafa Paşa
of Rüsçuk (modern-day Ruse in northeastern Bulgaria), who supported Selim III,
attacked Istanbul to remove Mustafa IV and reinstate the deposed sultan.
Mustafa IV responded by ordering the execution of Selim III and his cousin,
Mahmud II, the two male members of the Ottoman royal house who could replace
him. The executioners succeeded in their mission to murder Selim III, but
Mahmud II managed to escape and find refuge in Bayrakdar Mustafa Paşa’s
camp, where he remained until Mustafa IV was deposed and he could assume the
throne.

RISE OF NATIONALISM IN THE BALKANS

Starting with Serbia in 1804 and Greece in 1821, nationalist
revolutions erupted among the Christian subjects of the sultan. In each case,
the nationalists were supported by one or more European imperial powers that
intended to use the eruption of antigovernment uprisings as a justification to
intervene and undermine Ottoman power and authority in the Balkans. As a
multiethnic, multilinguistic, and multireligious empire that recognized the
supremacy of religious identity, the Ottoman state failed to develop an
antibiotic for the bacteria called nationalism. The Ottoman system was built on
the principle of dividing the population of the empire into separate and
distinct religious communities, or
millets.
The
millet
system had
worked well in an era when religious identity reigned supreme. Ironically, the
preservation of national cultures within the framework of religious communities
allowed distinct ethnic and linguistic feelings and identities to survive. By
the end of the 18th century, under the influence of the French Revolution, a
modern intelligentsia imbued with nationalistic ideas began to challenge the
ideological hegemony of the traditional religious hierarchies that had
historically collaborated with the Ottoman regime.