Editing Ottoman Empire (section)

=== Decline and modernisation (1828–1908) ===
{{Main|Decline of the Ottoman Empire}}
[[File:Opening ceremony of the First Ottoman Parliament at the Dolmabahce Palace in 1876.jpg|thumb|Opening ceremony of the First [[General Assembly of the Ottoman Empire|Ottoman Parliament]] at the [[Dolmabahçe Palace]] in 1876. The [[First Constitutional Era]] lasted only two years until 1878. The Ottoman Constitution and Parliament were [[Second Constitutional Era|restored 30 years later]] with the [[Young Turk Revolution]] in 1908.]]

During the [[Tanzimat]] period (1839–1876), the government's series of constitutional reforms led to a fairly modern [[Conscription in the Ottoman Empire|conscripted army]], banking system reforms, the decriminalization of homosexuality, the replacement of religious law with secular law,<ref>{{Cite web |last=Ishtiaq |first=Hussain |title=The Tanzimat: Secular Reforms in the Ottoman Empire |url=http://faith-matters.org/images/stories/fm-publications/the-tanzimat-final-web.pdf |publisher=Faith Matters |access-date=11 October 2011 |archive-date=17 October 2016 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161017061131/http://faith-matters.org/images/stories/fm-publications/the-tanzimat-final-web.pdf |url-status=live }}</ref> and guilds with modern factories. The Ottoman Ministry of Post was established in Istanbul in 1840. American inventor [[Samuel Morse]] received an Ottoman patent for the telegraph in 1847, issued by Sultan [[Abdülmecid I|Abdülmecid]], who personally tested the invention.<ref>Yakup Bektas, [https://psi427.cankaya.edu.tr/uploads/files/Bektas%2C%20Ott%20Telegraphy%2C%201847-1880%20%282000%29.pdf "The sultan's messenger: Cultural constructions of ottoman telegraphy, 1847–1880."] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210909033749/https://psi427.cankaya.edu.tr/uploads/files/Bektas,%20Ott%20Telegraphy,%201847-1880%20(2000).pdf |date=9 September 2021 }} ''Technology and Culture'' 41.4 (2000): 669–696.</ref> The reformist period peaked with the Constitution, called the ''[[Kanûn-u Esâsî]]''. The empire's [[First Constitutional Era (Ottoman Empire)|First Constitutional era]] was short-lived. The parliament survived for only two years before the sultan suspended it.

The empire's Christian population, owing to their higher educational levels, started to pull ahead of the Muslim majority, leading to much resentment.<ref name="books.google_b">{{Cite book |last=Stone |first=Norman |title=Russia War, Peace And Diplomacy: Essays in Honour of John Erickson |publisher=Weidenfeld & Nicolson |date=2005 |isbn=978-0-297-84913-1 |editor-last=Mark Erickson, Ljubica Erickson |page=95 |chapter=Turkey in the Russian Mirror |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=xM9wQgAACAAJ |access-date=20 June 2015 |archive-date=14 January 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230114151034/https://books.google.com/books?id=xM9wQgAACAAJ |url-status=live }}</ref> In 1861, there were 571 primary and 94 secondary schools for Ottoman Christians, with 140,000 pupils in total, a figure that vastly exceeded the number of Muslim children in school at the time, who were further hindered by the amount of time spent learning Arabic and Islamic theology.<ref name="books.google_b"/> Author Norman Stone suggests that the Arabic alphabet, in which Turkish was written [[Turkish alphabet reform|until 1928]], was ill-suited to reflect the sounds of Turkish (which is a Turkic as opposed to Semitic language), which imposed further difficulty on Turkish children.<ref name="books.google_b"/> In turn, Christians' higher educational levels allowed them to play a larger role in the economy, with the rise in prominence of groups such as the [[Sursock family]] indicative of this.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Sursock House |url=https://sursockhouse.com/ |access-date=29 May 2018 |archive-date=25 May 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180525062827/https://sursockhouse.com/ |url-status=live }}</ref><ref name="books.google_b"/> In 1911, of the 654 wholesale companies in Istanbul, 528 were owned by ethnic Greeks.<ref name="books.google_b"/> In many cases, Christians and Jews gained protection from European consuls and citizenship, meaning they were protected from Ottoman law and not subject to the same economic regulations as their Muslim counterparts.{{Sfn|Rogan|2011|page=93}}

[[File:Turkish troops storming Fort Shefketil (cropped).jpg|Ottoman troops storming [[Shekvetili|Fort Shefketil]] during the [[Crimean War]] of 1853–1856|thumb]]

The [[Crimean War]] (1853–1856) was part of a long-running contest between the major European powers for influence over territories of the declining Ottoman Empire. The financial burden of the war led the Ottoman state to issue [[Ottoman public debt|foreign loans]] amounting to 5{{nbsp}}million pounds sterling on 4 August 1854.<ref>{{Cite book |last=V. Necla Geyikdagi |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=fGRMOzJZ4aEC&pg=PA32 |title=Foreign Investment in the Ottoman Empire: International Trade and Relations 1854–1914 |publisher=I.B.Tauris |date=2011 |isbn=978-1-84885-461-1 |access-date=20 June 2015 |archive-date=14 January 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230114151118/https://books.google.com/books?id=fGRMOzJZ4aEC&pg=PA32 |url-status=live }}</ref>{{rp|32}}<ref>{{Cite book |last=Douglas Arthur Howard |url=https://archive.org/details/historyofturkey00doug |title=The History of Turkey |publisher=Greenwood Publishing Group |date=2001 |isbn=978-0-313-30708-9 |page=[https://archive.org/details/historyofturkey00doug/page/71 71] |access-date=11 February 2013 |url-access=registration}}</ref>{{rp|71}} The war caused an exodus of the [[Crimean Tatars]], about 200,000 of whom moved to the Ottoman Empire in continuing waves of emigration.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Williams |first=Bryan Glynn |date=2000 |title=Hijra and forced migration from nineteenth-century Russia to the Ottoman Empire |journal=Cahiers du Monde Russe |volume=41 |issue=1 |pages=79–108 |doi=10.4000/monderusse.39 |doi-access=free}}</ref>{{rp|79–108}} Toward the end of the [[Caucasian Wars]], 90% of the [[Circassians]] were [[Ethnic cleansing of Circassians|ethnically cleansed]]<ref>Memoirs of Miliutin, "the plan of action decided upon for 1860 was to cleanse [ochistit'] the mountain zone of its indigenous population", per Richmond, W. ''The Northwest Caucasus: Past, Present, and Future''. Routledge. 2008.</ref> and exiled from their homelands in the Caucasus, fleeing to the Ottoman Empire,<ref>{{Cite book |last=Richmond |first=Walter |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=LQJyLvMWB8MC&pg=PA79 |title=The Northwest Caucasus: Past, Present, Future |publisher=Taylor & Francis US |date=2008 |isbn=978-0-415-77615-8 |page=79 |quote=the plan of action decided upon for 1860 was to cleanse [ochistit'] the mountain zone of its indigenous population |access-date=20 June 2015 |archive-date=14 January 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230114151038/https://books.google.com/books?id=LQJyLvMWB8MC&pg=PA79 |url-status=live }}</ref> resulting in the settlement of 500,000 to 700,000 Circassians in the Ottoman Empire.{{sfn|Hamed-Troyansky|2024|p=49}} Crimean Tatar refugees in the late 19th century played an especially notable role in seeking to modernise Ottoman education and in first promoting both [[Pan-Turkism]] and a sense of Turkish nationalism.<ref name="ReferenceA">Stone, Norman "Turkey in the Russian Mirror" pp. 86–100 from ''Russia War, Peace and Diplomacy'' edited by Mark & Ljubica Erickson, Weidenfeld & Nicolson: London, 2004 p. 95.</ref>

[[File:Charles Porion - The kings of Europe in Paris for the opening of the Exposition of 1867.jpg|thumb|The Kings of Europe are in [[Paris]] ([[Napoleon III]] is at the centre, Sultan [[Abdulaziz]] is second from right) for the opening of the [[Exposition Universelle (1867)|Universal Exposition of 1867]].|left|upright=1.3]]

In this period, the Ottoman Empire spent only small amounts of public funds on education; for example, in 1860–1861 only 0.2% of the total budget was invested in education.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Baten, Jörg |title=A History of the Global Economy. From 1500 to the Present. |date=2016 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |isbn=978-1-107-50718-0}}</ref>{{rp|50}} As the Ottoman state attempted to modernize its infrastructure and army in response to outside threats, it opened itself up to a different kind of threat: that of creditors. As the historian Eugene Rogan has written, "the single greatest threat to the independence of the Middle East" in the 19th century "was not the armies of Europe but its banks".{{Sfn|Rogan|2011|page=105}} The Ottoman state, which had begun taking on debt with the Crimean War, was forced to declare bankruptcy in 1875.{{Sfn|Rogan|2011|page=106}} By 1881, the Ottoman Empire agreed to have its debt controlled by the [[Ottoman Public Debt Administration]], a council of European men with presidency alternating between France and Britain. The body controlled swaths of the Ottoman economy, and used its position to ensure that European capital continued to penetrate the empire, often to the detriment of local Ottoman interests.{{Sfn|Rogan|2011|page=106}}

[[File:Ottomans 1875.png|thumb|The Ottoman Empire in 1875 under Sultan [[Abdulaziz]]]]

The Ottoman [[bashi-bazouk]]s suppressed the [[April Uprising|Bulgarian uprising]] of 1876, massacring up to 100,000 people in the process.<ref>{{Cite book |last1=Jelavich |first1=Charles |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=LBYriPYyfUoC&q=massacre+bulgarians++1876&pg=PA139 |title=The Establishment of the Balkan National States, 1804–1920 |last2=Jelavich |first2=Barbara |date=1986 |publisher=University of Washington Press |isbn=978-0-295-80360-9 |access-date=18 November 2020 |archive-date=14 January 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230114151039/https://books.google.com/books?id=LBYriPYyfUoC&q=massacre+bulgarians++1876&pg=PA139 |url-status=live }}</ref>{{rp|139}} The [[Russo-Turkish War (1877–1878)]] ended with a decisive victory for Russia. As a result, Ottoman holdings in Europe declined sharply: [[Principality of Bulgaria|Bulgaria]] was established as an independent principality inside the Ottoman Empire; [[United Principalities|Romania]] achieved full independence; and [[History of Serbia|Serbia]] and [[Montenegro]] finally gained complete independence, but with smaller territories. In 1878, [[Austria-Hungary]] unilaterally occupied the Ottoman provinces of [[Bosnia Vilayet|Bosnia-Herzegovina]] and [[Sanjak of Novi Pazar|Novi Pazar]].

British Prime Minister [[Benjamin Disraeli]] advocated restoring the Ottoman territories on the Balkan Peninsula during the [[Congress of Berlin]], and in return, Britain assumed the administration of [[Cyprus]] in 1878.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Taylor |first=A.J.P. |url=https://archive.org/details/struggleformaste00ajpt/page/228 |title=The Struggle for Mastery in Europe, 1848–1918 |publisher=Oxford University Press |date=1955 |isbn=978-0-19-822101-2 |location=Oxford |author-link=A. J. P. Taylor}}</ref>{{rp|228–254}} Britain later sent troops to [[Egypt]] in 1882 to put down the [[Urabi Revolt]] (Sultan [[Abdul Hamid II]] was too paranoid to mobilize his own army, fearing this would result in a coup d'état), effectively gaining control in both territories. Abdul Hamid II was so fearful of a coup that he did not allow his army to conduct war games, lest this serve as cover for a coup, but he did see the need for military mobilization. In 1883, a German military mission under General Baron [[Colmar Freiherr von der Goltz|Colmar von der Goltz]] arrived to train the Ottoman Army, leading to the so-called "Goltz generation" of German-trained officers, who played a notable role in the politics of the empire's last years.<ref>{{cite book |last=Akmeșe |first=Handan Nezir |title=The Birth of Modern Turkey The Ottoman Military and the March to World I |location=London |publisher=I.B Tauris}}</ref>{{rp|24}}

From 1894 to 1896, between 100,000 and 300,000 Armenians living throughout the empire were killed in what became known as the [[Hamidian massacres]].<ref>{{Cite book |last=Akçam |first=Taner |title=A Shameful Act: The Armenian Genocide and the Question of Turkish Responsibility |publisher=Metropolitan Books |date=2006 |isbn=978-0-8050-7932-6 |location=New York |url=https://archive.org/details/shamefulactarmen00ak/page/42 |author-link=Taner Akçam}}</ref>{{rp|42}}

In 1897 the population was 19{{nbsp}}million, of whom 14{{nbsp}}million (74%) were Muslim. An additional 20{{nbsp}}million lived in provinces that remained under the sultan's nominal suzerainty but were entirely outside his actual power. One by one the Porte lost nominal authority. They included Egypt, Tunisia, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Bosnia-Herzegovina, and Lebanon.<ref>Shaw, ''History of the Ottoman Empire'' 2:236.</ref>

As the Ottoman Empire gradually shrank, 7–9{{nbsp}}million Muslims from its former territories in the Caucasus, [[Crimea]], Balkans, and the [[Mediterranean]] islands migrated to Anatolia and [[Eastern Thrace]].<ref name="Karpat2004">{{Cite book |last=Kemal H Karpat |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=cL4Ua6gGyWUC |title=Studies on Turkish politics and society: selected articles and essays |publisher=Brill |date=2004 |isbn=978-90-04-13322-8}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last=Quataert |first=Donald |title=An Economic and Social History of the Ottoman Empire, 1300–1914 |date=1994 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |isbn=978-0-521-57456-3 |editor-last=İnalcık |editor-first=Halil |volume=2 |page=762 |chapter=The Age of Reforms, 1812–1914 |editor-last2=Donald Quataert}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |last=Shams El-Din |first=Osama |title=A Military History of Modern Egypt from the Ottoman Conquest to the Ramadan War |url=https://apps.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/a479427.pdf |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20231106154526/https://apps.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/a479427.pdf |archive-date=6 November 2023 |access-date=17 October 2023 }}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last=Trevor N. Dupuy |title=The Harper Encyclopedia of Military History |publisher=HarperCollins Publishers |year=1993 |isbn=978-0062700568 |pages=851}}</ref> After the Empire lost the [[First Balkan War]] (1912–1913), it lost all its [[Balkan peninsula|Balkan]] territories except [[East Thrace]] (European Turkey). This resulted in around 400,000 Muslims fleeing with the retreating Ottoman armies (with many dying from [[cholera]] brought by the soldiers), and 400,000 non-Muslims fled territory still under Ottoman rule.<ref>{{Cite web |last1=Zürcher |first1=Erik-Jan |title=Greek and Turkish refugees and deportees 1912–1924 |url=http://tulp.leidenuniv.nl/content_docs/wap/ejz18.pdf |url-status=dead |website=Turkology Update Leiden Project Working Papers Archive |publisher=[[Universiteit Leiden]] |date=January 2003 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070716155929/http://tulp.leidenuniv.nl/content_docs/wap/ejz18.pdf |archive-date=16 July 2007 |location=Leiden, Netherlands |access-date=21 June 2009 }}</ref> [[Justin McCarthy (American historian)|Justin McCarthy]] estimates that from 1821 to 1922, 5.5{{nbsp}}million Muslims died in southeastern Europe, with the expulsion of 5{{nbsp}}million.<ref name="McCarthy1995">{{Cite book |last=Justin McCarthy |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=1ZntAAAAMAAJ |title=Death and exile: the ethnic cleansing of Ottoman Muslims, 1821–1922 |publisher=Darwin Press |date=1995 |isbn=978-0-87850-094-9 |access-date=20 June 2015 |archive-date=14 January 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230114151042/https://books.google.com/books?id=1ZntAAAAMAAJ |url-status=live }}</ref><ref name="Carmichael2012">{{Cite book |last=Carmichael |first=Cathie |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ybORI4KWwdIC |title=Ethnic Cleansing in the Balkans: Nationalism and the Destruction of Tradition |publisher=Routledge |date=2012 |isbn=978-1-134-47953-5 |page=21 |quote=During the period from 1821 to 1922 alone, Justin McCarthy estimates that the ethnic cleansing of Ottoman Muslims led to the death of several million individuals and the expulsion of a similar number. |access-date=20 June 2015 |archive-date=14 January 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230114151042/https://books.google.com/books?id=ybORI4KWwdIC |url-status=live }}</ref><ref name="Buturovic2010">{{Cite book |last=Buturovic |first=Amila |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Kck_-B7MubIC |title=Islam in the Balkans: Oxford Bibliographies Online Research Guide |publisher=Oxford University Press |date=2010 |isbn=978-0-19-980381-1 |page=9 |access-date=20 June 2015 |archive-date=14 January 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230114151655/https://books.google.com/books?id=Kck_-B7MubIC |url-status=live }}</ref>