The Ottoman Empire: The “Sick Man of Europe,” 1829 – 1876

  • As the industrializing and colonizing powers of the world [Western European nations in the 1800s] built their empires, they cast predatory gazes on the weaknesses of many of the formerly powerful empires around them.
  • The closest geographically, the Ottoman Empire, had been in continuous decline since it lost control of Hungary in 1699.
  • In 1829, the British, French, and Russians gave their support to Greece as it won its independence from the Ottomans, and aided three Balkan states – Serbia, Wallachia, and Moldavia – gaining recognition as autonomous provinces with limited self-government, although still formally under the Ottoman Empire.
  • In the aftermath of these imperial defeats, Muhammad (Mehemet) Ali seized his opportunity to make Egypt effectively independent of the Ottomans in 1832; the Saud family had already won similar autonomy for parts of Arabia in the early nineteenth century; and the French began their occupation of Algeria in 1830.
  • The Ottoman Empire was unable to hold on to its territories.
  • It had become the “sick man of Europe.”
  • Traditionally, the Ottomans had organized people by the millet system, which differentiated subjects by religious communities.
  • Each millet had a religious leader responsible for enforcing its religion’s laws and customs and for collecting taxes on behalf of the imperial government.
  • Asserting that sometimes the influence of religion in the empire’s organization created religious antagonisms, the Western, industrializing powers, used religious affiliations as an entering wedge in their move to further weaken and dismember the Ottoman Empire.
  • Under these circumstances, different religious groups within the empire looed outward to their co-religionists in other countries for protection, if necessary.
  • The Greek Orthodox community, in particular, looked toward Russia; the Roman Catholics looked to France, and Protestants to Britain.
  • Religious missions from these countries received special privileges within the Ottoman Empire, and often served as bases for trade and intelligence-gathering as well.
  • Foreigners trading within the empire were permitted the right to trial by judges of their own nation.
  • The Ottoman theory and practice of government was quite different from those of Western Europe, where the unified nation-state was becoming the norm.
  • In addition, the Ottomans had not kept up with the industrial development of the rest of Europe.
  • In the 1840s Sultan Abdul Mejid enacted the Tanzimat (Restructuring) reforms to bring the Ottoman legal code and its social and educational standards into closer conformity with those of Western European states, but with very limited success because of internal opposition.
  • The reforms created a new Western-oriented elite that threatened traditional government and its administrative and military officials.
  • The Crimean War of 1854 – 1856 further revealed the weakness of the Ottoman system.
  • On the north shore of the Black Sea, the major powers of Europe confronted one another in a conflict that tested their abilities both to fight wars and to negotiate diplomatic settlements.
  • The war began as Russia, seeking a warm-water port, probed Ottoman strength by attacking it in the Crimean peninsula.
  • France and Britain came to the aid of the Ottomans, pushing back the Russian assault and restoring Crimea to the Ottomans.
  • Austria seized this opportunity to occupy Wallachia and Moldavia, and the final peace treaty ending the war recognized both Romania and Serbia as self-governing principalities, free of Ottoman control, and under the protection of other European powers.
  • In an attempt to remedy its weaknesses, the Ottoman government issued the Hatt-i Humayun edict in 1856.
  • This once again ushered in numerous changes to conform to Western European standards, including equality under a common law for all citizens, tax reform, security of property, the end of torture, more honest administration, and greater freedom of the press.
  • The Young Turks, a group of modernizing intellectuals, were delighted, and nationalistic Armenians, Bulgars, Macedonians, and Cretans hoped for greater autonomy.
  • A change of sultan in 1876, however, brought a reverse of all these policies and aspirations.
  • The Young Turks went into exile, and Bulgarian and Armenian nationalists were massacred.
  • A weak Ottoman Empire left a power vacuum in southeast Europe, which invited continuing foreign intervention and competition.
  • A new Russian attack through the Balkans reached Istanbul itself in 1877.
  • Britain threatened to go to war with Russia, but Bismarck convened an international conference in Berlin in 1878 to resolve the conflict through diplomacy.
  • War was averted for the moment, but tensions ran high.
  • The mixture of Ottoman weakness, aggressive expansionism on the part of other European countries, assertive nationalism in the Balkans, and increasing militarization with increasingly powerful weapons threatened a later, larger war.
  • It arrived in 1914.

Roman Law:

  • The most lasting contribution of Rome was its system of laws.
  • From the tradition of the Twelve Tables came a desire to extend Roman standards of justice; legal principles included innocence until proven guilty and the right of defendants to confront accusers.

The Reed Flute; Rumi

[Translation by Coleman Barks and John Moyne]

Listen to the story told by the reed,
of being separated.
“Since I was cut from the reedbed,
I have made this crying sound.
Anyone apart from someone he loves
understands what I say.
Anyone pulled from a source
longs to go back.
At any gathering I am there,
mingling in the laughing and grieving,
a friend to each, but few
will hear the secrets hidden
within the notes. No ears for that.
Body flowing out of spirit,
spirit up from body: no concealing
that mixing. But it's not given us
to see the soul. The reed flute
is fire, not wind. Be that empty.”
Hear the love fire tangled
in the reed notes, as bewilderment
melts into wine. The reed is a friend
to all who want the fabric torn
and drawn away. The reed is hurt
and salve combining. Intimacy
and longing for intimacy, one
song. A disastrous surrender
and a fine love, together. The one
who secretly hears this is senseless.
A tongue has one customer, the ear.
A sugarcane flute has such effect
because it was able to make sugar
in the reedbed. The sound it makes
is for everyone. Days full of wanting,
let them go by without worrying
that they do. Stay where you are
inside sure a pure, hollow note.
Every thirst gets satisfied except
that of these fish, the mystics,
who swim a vast ocean of grace
still somehow longing for it!
No one lives in that without
being nourished every day.
But if someone doesn't want to hear
the song of the reed flute,
it's best to cut conversation
short, say good-bye, and leave.