Transcription
In the mid-1500s, the Ottoman Empire seemed unstoppable. It had been expanding incredibly fast, subjugating the Balkans and Hungary. If the expansion continued, then perhaps the Ottomans would soon push deep into Europe, maybe even conquering the likes of Austria or Italy. It looked like the very heart of Christendom was under threat. The people of Europe were genuinely terrified. Their fear is well captured.
In the words of the Austrian ambassador to Constantinople, he wrote, "On the side of the Turks are the resources of a mighty empire, unimpaired strength, unity, and discipline. On our side is poverty, and a broken spirit. Our soldiers are insubordinate. There is contempt for discipline. Drunkenness and deborty arrive. Worst of all, the enemy is accustomed to victory and us to defeat. Can we doubt what the result will be? When the Turks have conquered Persia, they will fly at our throats, supported by the might of the whole East. How prepared we are, I dare not say."
As you can see, it seemed to be only a matter of time before Europe was conquered and Christendom destroyed. As I'm sure you know, that is not what happened. In fact, although nobody knew it at the time, in the mid-1500s, the Ottomans had actually reached the height of their power. For the next century and a half, their empire was reasonably stable. But after that, it would go into a brutal, rapid decline. It was repeatedly defeated in war, and by the 1800s, it had become known as the sick man of Europe. In fact, it was so weak that Russia could have easily marched south, captured Constantinople, and ended the Ottoman Empire entirely. The only thing that was stopping them from doing that was political pressure from Britain and France. Essentially, the Ottoman Empire was so weak that the only thing stopping its collapse was that its existence was convenient for other nations. In fact, the European powers actually referred to the question of what to do with the crumbling empire as simply the eastern question. Essentially, they had to decide the empire's fate, and they didn't know what to do with it.
So, how did that happen? How did one of the most powerful empires in history suffer such an astonishing decline? Why did it lose so many wars? And why wasn't it able to reform itself? In this video, I'm going to answer all those questions. But first, let's have a quick overview of the history, the rise and fall of the Ottoman Empire.
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In the late 1200s, the Anatolian Peninsula was a patchwork of small states. For centuries, it had been part of the Byzantine Empire. But by the 1200s, the Byzantine Empire was very weak and had lost a lot of territory. Gradually, the region had been colonized by Turkish tribes that had divided it up into small principalities. The Ottoman Empire started its life as one of those small principalities. It was founded in 1299 by a man named Osman, and over the next few decades, it would expand incredibly fast. Within only a 100 years, they had conquered a huge amount of territory, taking advantage of the weakness of the Byzantine Empire. The European powers did try to stop the expansion with two crusades, but both attempts failed. The Ottomans were here to stay.
However, they did suffer a big defeat in 1402 at the hands of a warlord named Timur from Central Asia. The Sultan was captured in the battle, leading to a civil war breaking out between his sons. The empire was on the verge of collapse. Luckily for the Ottomans, no other power was able to take advantage of the chaos that they were in. Within a few years, one of his sons was able to take control of the empire and start rebuilding.
The Ottomans kept expanding and soon their attention turned towards the one major city that they hadn't yet conquered, Constantinople. Constantinople was much smaller and less important than it had been before, but it was still well protected behind its enormous walls. In 1453, after a long siege and the use of giant cannons, the Ottomans were able to capture Constantinople. The city became the new capital of the Ottoman Empire and marked the beginning of its golden age.
After capturing Constantinople, the Ottomans continued to expand. They took Egypt, Syria, and territory in the Balkans. Those regions were very rich and gave the empire control of the holy cities of Mecca and Medina. Then in 1520, the throne was taken by perhaps the most important sultan of all of Ottoman history, Suleiman the Magnificent. In his 46-year reign, Suleiman would take the empire to the height of its power, the point when it seemed unstoppable.
In 1526, he defeated the Hungarians at the Battle of Mohács. The victory was crushing and led to the total destruction of Hungary. Then in 1529, Suleiman laid siege to Vienna, an event that sent shock waves throughout Christian Europe. Now, Suleiman wasn't able to take the city, partly due to just bad luck with the weather. However, it was still a terrifying moment for the Europeans to have the Ottomans knocking on their door like that. Suleiman also had success in the east, getting control over modern-day Iraq and Eastern Anatolia.
However, Suleiman's impact went far beyond warfare. He also reformed the empire's legal system. He replaced the web of custom Islamic law and royal decrees into a single organized set of laws. That earned him the title the lawgiver and helped create a more stable and efficient government. Suleiman also supported architecture, literature, and the arts, overseeing a cultural golden age. By the time of Suleiman's death in 1566, the Ottoman Empire was one of the most respected and feared states in the world.
However, with his death, the empire's golden age came to an end. Suleiman's son, Selim II, was incompetent and came to be known as Selim the drunkard. He oversaw the Ottomans' biggest ever naval defeat, the Battle of Lepanto in 1571. The battle was catastrophic for the Ottomans. They lost almost 200 ships and 20,000 men. Although they did quickly rebuild their ships, their dominance at sea was never the same.
Over time, the empire started to face more problems such as inflation and corruption. The powerful elite soldiers known as Janissaries began to meddle more and more in politics. In 1622, they actually killed the sultan Osman II because he wanted to reform the army. Over the next decades, sultans came and went, but the problems continued to get worse. Despite that, the Ottomans actually tried again to go on the offensive in Europe. In 1683, they laid siege to Vienna for a second time, and again, they failed to take the city. That act of aggression triggered an enormous war with the European powers, what became known as the Great Turkish War.
The Great Turkish War was a disaster for the Ottomans. Over 16 years, they lost battle after battle and were pushed a long way back. Eventually, in 1699, the empire was forced to sign the Treaty of Karlowitz, giving up a huge amount of territory, including Hungary and the Balkans. For the first time in its history, the Ottoman Empire was not growing, it was shrinking.
Throughout the 1700s, the empire struggled to address its problems and reverse its decline. In 1730, there was another Janissary revolt in Istanbul which forced the Sultan to abdicate. As you can see, there were many different factions within the empire, all vying for power. The empire also continued to lose wars and territory, particularly against Russia and Austria.
One of the empire's biggest problems was actually the economy. After the discovery of the Americas, trade routes shifted to the Atlantic. So the Ottomans were no longer the center of global commerce as they once had been. Another problem was government corruption which was rampant. Officials often acted in their own interests rather than for the good of the empire. Also, the military was starting to get outdated. While Europe was undergoing a military revolution, developing better weapons and tactics, the Ottoman army remained stagnant. Efforts to reform the military usually faced resistance from those who had power and privileges under the old system.
Some sultans did desperately try to stop the decay. In 1757, the throne was taken by Mustafa III, who wanted to implement reforms. Mustafa was one of the few sultans of the period to truly understand the seriousness of the empire's problems. He tried to increase the power of the central government and reduce corruption. He also tried to strengthen the military, even bringing in foreign advisers. Unfortunately though, his reign was cut short and full of obstacles, and many of his plans weren't carried out.
For the rest of its life, the Ottoman Empire would suffer humiliation after humiliation until its eventual collapse. The first was in the 1770s when Russia launched a major invasion of the Balkans. The Ottoman army was totally unprepared and outmatched, and the empire suffered a crushing defeat. The war ended with the treaty of Küçük Kaynarca in 1774, which was one of the most humiliating agreements the empire ever signed. Most importantly, it gave Russia the title of protector of Christians in the Ottoman Empire. That clause would go on to have long-lasting consequences. From that point on, Russia used its title of protector as an excuse to interfere in Ottoman affairs again and again. A few years later in 1783, Russia took even more territory when it officially annexed Crimea. That was another deep humiliation for the empire. Crimea had been an important Muslim stronghold for centuries, and its loss was seen by many as a blow to Islam itself.
Also, inside the empire itself, there began to be significant unrest. Local revolts broke out all over the place in regions like Syria, Egypt, and Albania. Many regional leaders acted like petty kings, ignoring orders from Constantinople. In some cases, they collected their own taxes, raised their own armies, and ruled almost independently. The central government had barely any control over the empire.
Over the next few years, more sultans came to the throne trying to save the empire, but their efforts were in vain. For example, in 1789, Selim III came to power. Selim was young, well-educated, and deeply aware of the empire's problems. He wanted to totally transform the empire and modernize it from the ground up. Inspired by what was happening in Europe, Selim launched a wide-ranging program of reforms to rebuild the army, improve the economy, and strengthen the central government.
Selim's most ambitious idea was to create a completely new army trained and equipped in the European style. He believed that the old Janissary corps was too corrupt and outdated to be fixed. His new army was disciplined, better armed, and trained by European officers. However, the reforms caused a major backlash. The Janissaries saw them as a threat to their power and privileges. Religious conservatives also opposed the changes, accusing Selim of copying infidel ideas that eventually led to a Janissary revolt in 1807. Selim was forced to step down and a year later he was murdered in prison, killed by those who feared he might return.
Throughout the 1800s, the empire staggered on, barely surviving. Numerous regions would rise up in a bid for independence, and many of them would achieve it. In 1804, the Serbs rebelled, beginning a decades-long revolution that would eventually see them win independence. Then in 1821, it was the Greeks' turn to demand independence. At first, the Ottoman response was brutal. Villages were burned and rebel leaders were executed. However, the revolt kept growing. After a few years, it was clear that the empire couldn't put down the rebellion on its own. The Sultan appealed to the governor of Egypt for assistance. Now, Egypt was on paper part of the Ottoman Empire, but in practice, it was governed pretty much autonomously. It was almost independent. Egyptian troops were sent and were able to crush the Greek rebels. However, their brutality horrified the public in Europe. In Britain, France, and Russia, sympathy for the Greek cause was strong, and so they decided to intervene. In 1827, they sent their navies to Greece, and at the Battle of Navarino, they destroyed the Ottoman navy in a single day. The Greeks were then able to formally break away from the Ottoman Empire.
The mid-1800s saw a four decades-long period of attempted reform, what was known as the Tanzimat. It was one final attempt to get the empire back on its feet and reclaim some prestige, but like with previous reforms, it pretty much failed. Then in the 1850s, another war broke out with Russia. Britain and France came to the aid of the Ottomans, and they were able to win the war against the Russians. The victory did bring the Ottomans a short burst of prestige and temporarily checked Russian expansion. However, it was clear to everyone that the Ottomans had only won because of European help, not because of their own strength.
At the peace talks that ended the war, Britain and France insisted that the Ottomans make sweeping internal changes. In particular, they demanded complete legal equality for all subjects, Muslims, Christians, and Jews alike. In theory, everyone would now have the same rights to hold public office, join the army, and use the same courts. There was also going to be better protection for life, property, and religious freedom. The European powers wanted to see that the Ottoman Empire was becoming a modern, civilized state worthy of equal standing.
There was also a push to modernize the empire's infrastructure. The Ottomans borrowed heavily from European banks to build railways, telegraph lines, and modern ports. A new navy was constructed, and European-style schools were opened in major cities. Istanbul, in particular, began to look more like a European city with grand boulevards and street lighting. However, all that investment came at a huge cost. The empire's finances were already weak, and the rapid borrowing pushed it deeper into debt. The government relied on high-interest foreign loans that were going to be hard to pay back. Much of the money that was borrowed was wasted through corruption or poor planning. By the 1870s, debt repayments were consuming a huge amount of the state's income, leaving little for the army or domestic needs.
Eventually, in 1876, the Ottoman Empire defaulted on its debts. The default led to even more European involvement in Ottoman affairs. European creditors like Britain and France weren't willing to let the empire simply walk away from its obligations. In 1881, the Ottomans were forced to accept the creation of the Ottoman Public Debt Administration, an institution largely controlled by foreign powers. It had the authority to directly collect taxes and divert them straight to paying off foreign creditors.
The next few years saw more regions rebel and fight for their independence. That led to another war with Russia and, in turn, the loss of even more territories in the Balkans. From then on, it was only a matter of time before the empire collapsed. The final death blow was the First World War. The Ottomans didn't initially want to enter the war, but eventually joined on the side of Germany. When Germany lost the war, the Ottoman Empire finally collapsed. It was carved up into numerous nations, giving rise to many of the borders that the region has today.
So that was the history of the Ottoman Empire from its rise to its total collapse. Now for the question of the video, why did the empire get so weak? Well, before answering that question, we first need to talk about a different but related question. When exactly did the empire's decline begin? You see, there is actually quite a debate amongst historians over when exactly the decline started.
For a long time, historians thought that the decline started in 1566 with the death of Suleiman the Magnificent. The story went that Suleiman's reign was a golden age, and that after his death, the sultans were all incompetent. People viewed it essentially as a long, slow decline from Suleiman's death until the empire's collapse in 1918.
Other historians argue that in reality, the Ottoman Empire was actually fairly stable for over a century after Suleiman's death. They argue that it was only after the Great Turkish War at the end of the 1600s that the empire truly began its decline. That does seem to make some sense when we remember that the Great Turkish War started because the Ottomans laid siege to Vienna. It was an attempt to expand their empire. Of course, that century can't have been that bad for them if they were contemplating trying to capture Vienna and invade Western Europe. It essentially comes down to a question of how do we view that century after the death of Suleiman the Magnificent? Should it be viewed as a period of decline, stability, perhaps even stagnation? Wikipedia seems to be very determined that we all think of it as a period of quote unquote transformation, which to me doesn't make a whole lot of sense.
In this video, I'm not going to take a position on that question, but rather focus on something the historians do all agree on: that is that during that period the empire had some enormous problems. So what were some of those problems? Well, I think a first major issue was simply that many of the advantages that the Ottomans had had during their expansion were neutralized. Essentially, other nations caught up with them. So what are the advantages that I'm talking about? Well, there are two things in particular that I want to focus on: their use of cannons and their elite troops called Janissaries.
Now, regarding cannons, the Ottomans didn't necessarily start using them earlier than other nations, but they did get good at using them quicker. More than anything, they took the potential of artillery more seriously and made greater use of it. For example, the Ottomans had a dedicated artillery corps long before most other states did. It was made up of professional gunners, powder makers, engineers, and logistical crews to keep everything running. That put the Ottomans far ahead of most of the other powers of the time. Most European armies didn't get that sort of professional artillery corps until the late 1400s or even 1500s.
Also extremely important is that the Ottoman cannons were very good quality. Their cannons were made of bronze and were cast in one piece. Many armies at the time were using wrought iron cannons. They were made from multiple flat bars which were then hammered into shape, and then rings were used to force them into the shape of a tube. The Ottoman bronze cannons had a whole load of advantages over wrought iron. Since they were cast in one piece, they had fewer structural weaknesses, which meant that they could tolerate more powerful explosions. They also lasted longer. A well-made bronze cannon could last decades if maintained, whereas wrought iron ones often wore out or burst sooner. Also, casting them in one piece meant that they had smoother balls and more consistent shapes, which allowed for better accuracy. Finally, bronze doesn't rust like iron does, which made bronze cannons easier to maintain and better for naval use.
Perhaps the best example of the Ottomans being very innovative and aggressive in their use of cannons is actually the siege of Constantinople of 1453. For centuries, Constantinople had been the capital of the Byzantine Empire. But by that point, the Byzantine Empire was very weak. However, for the Ottomans to take Constantinople was not going to be easy. The city had survived 20 sieges over the centuries thanks to its huge double walls and strategic seaside position. Three decades earlier, the Ottomans had tried a siege, but their cannons hadn't been strong enough to destroy the walls. However, the Ottomans learned from their mistake. They contracted one of the most skilled metallurgists of the age, a Hungarian named Urban. Urban was able to make a cannon of monstrous proportions, a 26 ft long barrel capable of firing a stone ball weighing over half a ton. In fact, the gun was so big that when testing it, they had to give a day's notice to nearby civilians to stop them from panicking. The massive cannon worked well, and so it was sent to destroy the walls of Constantinople. The bombardment would have been an astonishing sight, with huge stone balls crashing into the walls, shaking them and crushing stone against stone. The relentless pounding eventually broke down the outer wall, allowing the Ottomans to move their guns closer and fire directly into Constantinople. Eventually, the Turks were able to force open one of the gates and storm the city. It isn't an overstatement to say that it was artillery that won the battle for the Ottomans. Over the course of the siege, they had fired over 5,000 cannonballs and used about 55 tons of gunpowder.
As you can see, cannons were crucial to the rapid expansion of the Ottoman Empire. However, by the mid-1500s, their advantage in artillery had been largely neutralized, mainly because the other powers had simply caught up with them. In fact, while the Ottomans were at one point the innovators in artillery, they actually came to be out-innovated towards the end of the 1500s. The Europeans developed smaller, more maneuverable cannons which were easier to use on the battlefield. That meant that in open battles, European armies could bring their artillery to bear more quickly and effectively, giving them a tactical advantage. The Ottomans, meanwhile, continued relying on their traditional tactics with very heavy cannons that gradually became outdated.
Another important development was the invention of star forts, which were far more resistant to the Ottoman cannons during sieges. The shape of the star forts gave the defender overlapping fields of fire, so the attackers weren't able to find a blind spot. Star forts also had thick, sloped walls which could better absorb and deflect cannon fire. That made the kind of dramatic breaches that Ottoman siege guns once produced far less likely. As a result, sieges became more prolonged and costly, and ultimately less likely to be successful.
Another big advantage that the Ottomans had had during their expansion period was their Janissary system. The Janissaries were the empire's elite troops, and they were recruited through a very unique conscription system. Essentially, Ottoman officials would go to Christian villages in the Balkans and choose boys who were to become Janissaries. The boys would be forcibly taken from their families and sent to Istanbul, where they would be made to convert to Islam and given extensive military training. The idea of recruiting Janissaries like that was that it meant that their ties to their families had been cut. So, in theory, they had complete loyalty to the Sultan, that was supposed to make them a fanatically devoted and highly professional fighting force.
However, perhaps the biggest advantage of the Janissaries was actually far more mundane than that. It was that they were simply a professional standing army at a time when that basically didn't exist. In fact, some historians have actually said that the Janissaries were the first modern standing army in Europe. The fact that they were professional meant that they could become extremely skilled warriors. They trained year-round in every modern battle tactic and weapon, becoming expert archers and handgunners. They were an enormous asset on the battlefield. No other state in Eastern Europe could field a permanent standing army so large, well-funded, and well-trained.
However, over time, the advantage of the Janissaries waned. For a start, other states in Europe also started to make their own professional standing armies. It became the norm. Also, the quality of the Janissaries as soldiers declined over time. What had initially been a brilliant system to create loyal, extremely skilled soldiers gradually became corrupt as the empire expanded. Positions became hereditary, passed from father to son. Also, the need for more troops led to relaxing the rules, and so the corps was flooded with recruits who hadn't had the rigorous training and discipline. The number of Janissaries ballooned from about 10,000 in the 1400s to over 50,000 by the 1600s. Essentially, the Janissaries increased in quantity and declined in quality.
In fact, the decline in quality of the Janissaries can actually be seen on the battlefield. A good example is the siege of Khotyn of 1621, fought against Poland. The Ottomans had a huge numerical advantage, over 100,000 troops to Poland's 40,000. Also, many of the Ottoman troops were Janissaries, supposedly elite troops. In reality, the Janissaries performed extremely badly and were forced to break off the siege. A big part of their problem is that they were using tactics that were out of date. That was in large part because they had refused reforms and so they got stuck in their ways. That meant that over time, what had been some of the elite troops of Europe were gradually surpassed.
Moving on from cannons and Janissaries, another major issue that the Ottomans faced was losing global economic importance during the age of exploration. You see, for a long time, the Ottoman Empire was the bridge between Europe, the Middle East, and Asia. It had an extremely strategic position at the intersection of three continents that allowed it to monopolize many of the most lucrative trade routes in the world and become incredibly rich. For centuries, goods flowing between Europe, the Middle East, and India pretty much had to pass through Ottoman lands or waters. Spices from India, silk from China, or precious gems from Persia all traveled along trade routes that the Ottomans controlled. Of course, all that wealth allowed them to spend a lot on their military. It was a key part of how they expanded and became so powerful.
However, in the late 1400s, that privileged position was challenged by two major developments. The first was when Portuguese explorers like Vasco da Gama found out that it was possible to get to India by sailing around Africa. That meant that the Europeans could import goods directly into their own ports rather than having to go through the Ottoman Empire. The amount that trade flows shifted is astonishing. By the 1500s, more than 3/4 of the pepper that was imported into Europe came through Portugal. The figure was probably similar for other spices. As you would imagine, that loss of trade revenue was a disaster for the Ottomans.
But then there was a second big development that made them less powerful. That was of course the discovery of the Americas in 1492, that again moved trade away from the Ottoman Empire, this time towards the Atlantic. Cities such as Lisbon, Antwerp, and London became crucial trade hubs and began to eclipse the great Ottoman cities. The loss of that key position in global trade was very bad news for the Ottomans. It made them less rich, less powerful, and less important.
Apart from the rapid decline in trade, the discovery of the Americas also brought another economic problem to the empire: inflation. In the mid-1500s, Spain conquered large parts of Central and Southern America, which gave them access to a huge amount of gold and silver. Those precious metals were then extracted from the Americas and brought back to Europe. The Ottoman Empire was at that point operating on a silver currency. So, the influx of all that silver dramatically reduced the value of the Ottoman currency. That led to enormous inflation. In fact, prices rose five-fold.
The inflation was incredibly destabilizing for the empire. There was a Janissary revolt when they noticed that their wages were worth less. They demanded an increase in their salaries and also the execution of two officials, including the chief treasurer. The sultan was forced to accept the demands. He raised their salaries and executed the officials. Now, the government did try to tackle the inflation, but they really had no idea what to do. To be honest, there isn't much that they could have done. As long as they had a currency that was based on silver, and the supply of silver was increasing dramatically, there was always going to be inflation. Nevertheless, they did try. One thing they tried was price controls. They issued price lists setting maximum prices for things like bread and meat in an attempt to protect consumers. In theory, merchants who overcharged would face harsh penalties. In practice though, enforcing the prices was pretty much impossible. Also, merchants simply hoarded goods, which led to shortages.
Now, I should point out that the mass disruption because of the silver from the New World affected all of Europe. It wasn't just an Ottoman problem. In fact, it's actually known as the Spanish price revolution, and it was a big issue in many different countries.
Now then, I want to talk about some of the problems that the Ottomans faced that were unique to them. Problems that weren't faced by other nations of Europe. One is that they had an extremely corrupt and dysfunctional court. Of course, all the courts of the time had some corruption, but I think the Ottoman court was particularly corrupt because it had a few features that other courts didn't have. In particular, I'm talking about the Sultan's Harem.
The Harem was essentially a whole palace within a palace, filled with wives, concubines, and female relatives all vying for influence. Now, in theory, the Harem was a private domestic space, but in practice, it was a vicious political arena. At the center of it all was the Sultan's mother, who had the title Valide Sultan. She often had enormous power, controlling who became a concubine and what status they were given. She could use her influence to promote allies or undermine rivals in the court. Of course, the Sultan's mother would have most influence if the Sultan himself was unable to govern. That might happen if he was too young or mentally unfit. In such cases, the Sultan's mother might become regent and would herself be able to create laws. For the Sultan's concubines, the ultimate goal was, of course, to bear a son and then have him become heir to the throne. That made the Harem a high-stakes political arena with fierce competition. Rivalries could lead to violence or even assassinations.
Overall, women could have a lot of power in the Ottoman Empire. In fact, the two centuries before 1700 are sometimes referred to as the Sultanate of Women because they were so dominant during that period. A good example of one of those incredibly powerful women was a woman named Kösem Sultan. Kösem began her rise as one of the wives of Sultan Ahmed I in the early 1600s. However, Ahmed would die very young at the age of 27, and so the throne passed to his brother. That could very easily have been the end of Kösem's role in politics. After all, she was just one of the many wives of a dead sultan. In fact, she would actually go on to dominate Ottoman politics for decades. She was an incredibly skilled political mover and was eventually able to get two of her sons onto the throne. During the reign of her sons, she wielded a lot of influence, appointing the officials that she wanted and deciding Ottoman foreign policy.
However, the influence of Kösem wasn't always good for the empire. She often backed people based on loyalty rather than merit, which led to corruption. When her grandson, Mehmed IV, came to power, she actually tried to get him replaced because he wasn't easy enough to influence. She wanted a more pliable candidate that she could control. That brought her into conflict with her daughter-in-law and Mehmed IV's mother, Turhan. The rivalry between the two women escalated into a full-on power struggle, with both of them recruiting allies in the court. Eventually, in 1651, Kösem was assassinated on the orders of Turhan. She was allegedly strangled with a curtain in her chambers. That type of power struggle wasn't unique. Those sorts of shenanigans were constantly going on in the Ottoman court.
Something that I really want to emphasize is that the Harems were absolutely enormous, up to a whopping 500 people. Now, it's important to point out that the Harem wasn't just women. There were also famously the eunuchs. The eunuchs had many different roles within the Harem, such as administering it and guarding the women. They were men who had been enslaved at a young age and then castrated and brought to Constantinople. Now, I think a lot of people are not aware that many of the eunuchs actually had their entire genitalia removed, not just their testes. That was mainly true of the so-called black eunuchs, eunuchs that had been enslaved from Africa. Normally, the mutilation would happen in Sudan or Egypt, and they would arrive in Constantinople already like that. The reason that eunuchs were employed in the Harems was of course because they couldn't have intercourse with the women. Also, they couldn't have children, so they couldn't build dynasties of their own.
However, eunuchs did often become major political players in the court. There was actually a position of chief eunuch, which was one of the most powerful positions in the empire. The chief eunuch had a lot of influence over who was appointed to the offices of state. He could even shape foreign policy or tax policy. The eunuchs' access to the women of the Harem also meant that they were involved in the constant power struggles. Overall, I think the existence of the Harem was a destabilizing influence on the Ottoman Empire. Having this large institution with a lot of scheming people brought a huge amount of chaos to the Ottoman court. I think the main reason that it existed in the Ottoman Empire, but not to the same extent in the courts of Europe, is that it came directly out of Islamic law, in particular the fact that in Islam it is permitted for a man to have multiple wives. Now, in theory, the Sultan could have only four wives. All the other women were concubines. In practice though, the distinction didn't actually mean anything. Crucially, the son of a concubine had just as much chance of taking the throne as the son of a wife. In fact, almost all of the Sultans were the sons of concubines rather than official wives.
In Western Europe, nothing like that existed. Now, it goes without saying that many European kings did have mistresses, but their children weren't legitimate. They were viewed as bastards. That meant that there was far less ambiguity over who was heir to the throne. The Ottoman Sultans, on the other hand, could have a huge number of sons, all of them legitimate. For example, Murad III is known to have had at least 27.
That led to another source of chaos within the Ottoman Empire: the succession disputes. You see, in most of Europe, when a ruler died, his firstborn son would take the throne. That, at least in theory, allowed for a smooth transition of power, as there was no ambiguity over who would take the throne. However, the Ottomans had a system that was much more prone to civil war. When the Sultan died, the throne was left open to be contested amongst his sons. That seemingly crazy succession rule came from the Ottomans' roots as a Turkic tribal society. In that sort of very small society, the rule did have the advantage that it ensured that the most capable, ruthless leader would rise to the top. However, once the empire was very big, the succession rule was a recipe for disaster, causing constant chaos.
Now, the problems with that system were very obvious. And so, in the mid-1400s, Sultan Mehmed II decided to do something about it. His solution to the problem was perhaps even more insane than the problem itself. Mehmed came up with what was known as the fratricide rule. Essentially, any new Sultan could legally execute all his brothers immediately upon accession to the throne. Now, as crazy as that might sound, it did actually stop the civil wars from happening. However, it was far from a good solution to the problem. For a start, a huge number of brothers were often executed when a Sultan took the throne. The most extreme example of that was Mehmed III, who took the throne and then executed a whopping 19 brothers. It was the largest mass fratricide in Ottoman history.
Some of the stories relating to succession are borderline farcical. For example, when Selim II died in 1574, his firstborn son Murad was far away from the capital at the time. Because of that, Murad's mother was afraid that one of his half-brothers would be able to claim the throne before him. To prevent that, she actually concealed the Sultan's death for 12 days. She comically hid the dead body of her husband in an ice box. That gave her son enough time to secretly come to Istanbul and take the throne. If it hadn't worked, the empire might once again have fallen into a civil war.
Eventually, in 1603, there was another attempt to reform the crazy system. A new Sultan tried to introduce something more like the European system, where the eldest male relative was heir to the throne. To try to avoid any challenges to the rule, all the younger princes had to be confined to luxurious but isolated palace apartments, cut off from education and politics. The idea was to ensure that they couldn't make alliances with military figures or factions in the palace. That meant that the successor could peacefully ascend to the throne without anyone challenging his claim. However, it's easy to imagine how that could go wrong. It meant that the throne would often be taken by someone who was elderly, untrained, or psychologically broken from decades of seclusion. A good example of that was Mustafa I. Mustafa had severe mental issues, and so he became known as Mustafa the Mad. Supposedly, he had a habit of knocking the turbans off his advisors' heads and pulling their beards. He refused to believe that his dead nephew was dead and spent his days searching for him inside the palace. He was eventually deposed because of his madness. As you can see, successions were still a huge issue in the Ottoman system.
One final major source of corruption and chaos in Ottoman politics was something that I've mentioned already, the Janissaries. One of the biggest problems with the Janissaries was that they were extremely rebellious and insubordinate. In fact, throughout the history of the Ottoman Empire, there were at least 15 major revolts by the Janissaries. Even when they weren't in open revolt, the Janissaries were often uncooperative or causing trouble.
A good example of that is from the siege of Vienna of 1529. Just to remind you, there were two sieges of Vienna, and this was the first of the two. The siege was dragging on, and winter was fast approaching. Eventually, the Janissaries decided that they had had enough, and so they demanded an increase in their pay. If they didn't get their way, they threatened to break off the siege and go home. The Sultan had no choice but to accept their demands.
Another good example was the Battle of Khotyn of 1621, that I briefly mentioned earlier. Just to remind you, that was against Poland, and the Ottomans had a huge advantage in numbers but still lost. Well, after that defeat, the Sultan blamed the Janissaries for the poor performance. He said that it had been their refusal to modernize that cost them the battle. In response, the Janissaries actually staged a coup and assassinated him. As shocking as that might sound, it wasn't the only time that the Sultan was killed by the Janissaries. In the 1800s, Sultan Selim III was also assassinated by the Janissaries, and for exactly the same reason. He was trying to force them to reform, and they didn't want to. Of course, if the Janissaries were willing to assassinate Sultans, then they were also willing to assassinate other members of the court, and that also happened a lot. For example, in 1603, they assassinated a eunuch because he was getting too powerful. In fact, they killed the eunuch in front of the Sultan, who was weeping but powerless to stop them. As you can see, the Janissaries were a law unto themselves, and overall I think they were very bad for the running of the empire. They were a source of corruption and instability.
So, those are a few of the problems that existed for a long time in the Ottoman Empire. For the rest of the video, I want to focus in particular on the period after 1700. As I mentioned earlier, there is debate amongst historians over whether the century before 1700 was a period of decline or not. What historians can all agree on is that after 1700, the empire went into a pretty fast decline.
Just to remind you, the Ottomans laid siege to Vienna for the second time in 1683, which triggered the Great Turkish War. They would go on to lose that war, which cost them a lot of territory in the Balkans, including Hungary. Over the next decades, they would continue to lose power and fall behind the rest of Europe. For me, the first event that really signifies the arrival of true Ottoman weakness was actually the war with Russia that started in 1768. Now, that war wasn't just important because the Ottomans lost it, but also because of how much decline we can see in the Ottoman military relative to previous wars. For example, the Ottomans actually fought a war with Russia three decades earlier in the 1730s. And in that war, they were actually able to put up a pretty good fight. The war ended as a stalemate, and the Russians weren't able to achieve a decisive victory. However, the war of 1768, on the other hand, was extremely one-sided. From the start, the Russians were totally dominant. They totally outclassed the Ottomans.
When we look at some specific battles, it's astonishing how hopeless the Ottomans were. For example, at the Battle of Kagul, about 20,000 Russians managed to route an Ottoman force almost 10 times its size. They lost about a thousand men, while the Ottomans lost over 20,000. At the Battle of Kosutza, 8,000 Russians were able to defeat an Ottoman force of 40,000. As you can see, the Ottoman forces were a long, long way off the quality of the Russians. It was in large part because they were using outdated tactics and their supply chains were badly managed. I think that war shows us that by the end of the 1700s, the Ottomans were well into their decline. They had already fallen a long way behind the rest of Europe. It's worth pointing out that that humiliating loss came less than a century after the Ottomans had been laying siege to Vienna. In only 91 years, they went from threatening to invade Western Europe to being extremely weak. As you can see, the power dynamics of Europe changed incredibly fast.
Now, another reason that the war is so significant is because I think Russia almost certainly had the capability to take Constantinople. They destroyed entire Ottoman field armies, and Ottoman morale was absolutely shattered. The only thing stopping the Russians was Britain and France. They absolutely didn't want to see Russia take Constantinople, as it would have dramatically changed the power balance between them. What that means for the Ottoman Empire though is that from that point onwards, it essentially only existed because Britain and France wanted it to. They decided its fate, and at any minute they could give Russia the green light to go ahead and end it. Essentially, the Ottoman Empire was a kind of zombie empire, kept alive because it was convenient for other powers. It was in that state that the Ottoman Empire continued to exist for another century and a half.
Now, I want to talk more about that period and in particular why the empire remained so weak. It's worth remembering that it didn't necessarily have to be the case. Theoretically, the empire might have been able to reform itself and solve some of its problems. Now, I want to address the question of why it didn't do that. Why was it totally unable to get out of the rut that it found itself in? Well, perhaps the most important thing to focus on is that the Ottomans totally failed to industrialize. You see, by the 1800s, perhaps the most important thing determining how rich and powerful a country was was how industrialized it was. Unfortunately for the Ottomans, they totally failed at that.
To get a sense of how little they industrialized, it's worth looking at the empire at the very end of its life, just before World War I. In particular, what matters is how it compared to other nations at the time. Now, one of the key stats for determining how industrialized a country was was how much of the population worked in agriculture. As societies started using machines, more and more people left the fields and started working in factories. The two most industrialized nations were Britain and Germany, so they had relatively low proportions of the population working in agriculture. In Germany, it was about 33%, while in Britain, it was a minuscule 12%. In the Ottoman Empire, on the other hand, there was still a whopping 80% of the population working in agriculture. Only about 10% of Ottoman GDP came from industry. That of course meant that the Ottoman economy as a whole was tiny compared with other nations. Its GDP was about a tenth of the likes of the UK or Germany. When we control for population, the gap narrows, but is still very big. As you can see, Ottoman GDP per capita was less than a third of some of the other powers.
Of course, since it was far less industrialized, it had far fewer factories. For example, Britain had tens of thousands of factories. Lancashire alone had over 2,000 cotton mills. However, in the Ottoman census of 1915, there were only a measly 282 factories listed. It was a similar story when it came to railways. As you can see, in 1914, the Ottomans had laid only about 10% as much railway as Germany or France, even though it was five times the size in terms of territory.
So, hopefully by now I've persuaded you that the Ottomans totally failed to industrialize. But the question remains, why was that the case? Well, one of the biggest reasons was the existence of what were known as guilds. Now, guilds existed in
Many societies in the medieval age. They were a bit like state sanctioned labor unions or cartels. In order to have a certain profession, for example, a blacksmith, you needed to have the approval of the blacksmith's guild.
However, in Europe, guilds began declining in the late 1700s. That was because the Europeans began to embrace the ideas of free market capitalism, and guilds were essentially barriers to new entrance. They stifled competition. For example, in France, guilds were actually banned in 1791 as a way to ensure free enterprise after the French Revolution. Similarly, the British government passed a series of laws in the 1800s that took almost all the power away from guilds.
However, in the Ottoman Empire, guilds survived much longer with some functions persisting right up until the empire's collapse. They operated under formal charters issued by the Sultan and were supervised by state officials. One unique feature of the Ottoman guilds is that they had a very close relationship with the genistries. To be backed by such an elite and organized armed group gave them a power that most European guilds never had.
There are many examples of the guilds hurting progress in the Ottoman Empire. One good example comes from the early 1700s when the Ottomans were just starting to use the printing press. The printing press was of course a threat to the calligraphy trade and so the calligraphers guild wanted to ban it, calling it an instrument of the devil. When it was clear that it wasn't going to be totally banned, they pressured authorities to limit what could be printed to only certain types of texts. Religious texts, for example, were not allowed.
Overall, guilds tried to maintain the monopolies on the production of almost every product. Needless to say, when industrialization started in other nations, the Ottoman guilds fiercely resisted it. They petitioned the Sultan to shut down outsiders who set up workshops without guild approval. They didn't want any competition from new entrance into the market. That severely stifled innovation at a period when the other great powers were advancing incredibly fast.
Aside from guilds, another drag on economic growth was that the Ottoman Empire didn't have much of a financial sector. In Western Europe, banks and wealthy investors provided the massive funds needed to build factories and railroads. However, the Ottoman Empire had far less of that in part because charging interest is not allowed under Islamic law. That meant that big projects had to rely on the government or well-connected individuals for funding. Generally the investment would go to the wrong things and there was a huge amount of waste. Also it meant that the empire's industrialization efforts were vulnerable to state budget crisis.
So the inability to industrialize was a major reason the Ottoman Empire was never able to get back on its feet. Another was that the empire was simply rotten to the core. Perhaps the most dysfunctional part of it was the tax system. In particular, how the peasants were taxed. The system was essentially feudal. The way things worked was that all land was officially owned by the Sultan, but then the rights to tax the land were sold off to private tax farmers. They paid for the rights upfront and then squeezed as much as they could out of the villages to make a profit. They would often hire middlemen along the way. As you can imagine, it led to a huge amount of corruption and only a small share of the tax money ever actually reached the central government. By the late 1700s, the central government was receiving only about 2 to 3% of the total amount that was taxed.
The military system was also incredibly dysfunctional in large part because of the Janiseries. They were absolutely determined not to modernize. In the early 1800s, Sultan Selm III did try to reform them. So they staged a coup to bring him down. That coup triggered a long power struggle between the Janiseries and the next Sultan Mahmud II. Mahmood knew that the Janiseries were a huge obstacle to reform. So he wanted to finally bring them down. However, he couldn't move against them immediately because they still had enormous power in the empire. He spent years building up loyal forces in secret while pretending to respect the janitor's privileges.
Finally in 1826 he made his move. When the Janiseries revolted again, Mahmood ordered his loyal troops to crush them. The result was a massacre that wiped out most of the Janiseries in what became known as the apicious incident. He executed roughly 6,000 of them and formally abolished the core, ending their obstructive power once and for all.
With the Janiseries gone, Mahmud II was finally free to modernize the army along European lines, creating a new military trained and equipped more like those of Western powers. The demise of the Janiseries was followed by other big attempts to reform the empire. The most famous were the Tanzimat reforms which started in 1839. The Sultan published an ambitious list of things that he hoped to achieve. The practice of tax farming was to be abolished, ending the corrupt system where individuals bought rights to collect taxes. In its place, the Sultan proclaimed a centralized tax system, again based on modern European systems. The reforms would also end religious discrimination, meaning that all subjects would have the same rights. Finally, regarding the military, the reforms would replace the semifudal levies with a modern conscription system that would draw up soldiers in proportion to each province's population. It was essentially the first time universal conscription was introduced in the Ottoman Empire, completely reforming the army.
Unfortunately, the reforms had limited success. They didn't address some of the major economic problems in the empire such as the power of the guilds. Conservative Muslim elites also rejected the idea of equality amongst all religions. In some regions, the attempt to implement equal rights actually led to violence. There was also anger over the attempt at conscription. There was a carve out for Christians where they could pay a fee instead of doing service that wasn't available to Muslims which led to resentment and ultimately violence.
The Ottoman Empire stumbled on for a few more decades before it finally collapsed. During that period, there were even more attempts at reform, but none of them achieved anything. I think more than anything, the problem was simply that Constantinople just wasn't able to get enough power over its territories. Constantinople couldn't reform the empire because it simply didn't have control over it. It was a pitiful end for the empire that had once been so powerful that it struck fear into the hearts of European Christians.