Wars with Austria

Shortly after Mehmet Koprulu died, his brother-in-law, Kara Mustafa, took over the military and put into practice Koprulu's new expanionist policies. His first target was the Hapsburg Empire of Austria. He wanted nothing less than the complete conquest of Austria, so he marched straight for the capital, Vienna. In 1683, with Vienna under siege, the Ottomans were defeated by an alliance of European forces and by the heavy artillery that had come into practice among European armies. While this defeat initiated a long period peace in the relationships between the Ottomans and the Europeans, it also effectively ended the Ottoman wars of conquest, and the end of conquest also began the steady deterioration of Ottoman power over European territories

In 1699, the Ottomans signed the Peace of Karlowitz. In this treaty, the Ottomans handed over to Austria the provinces of Hungary and Transylvania, leaving only Macedonia and the Balkans under Ottoman control, but the Balkans had begun to destabilize after the Ottoman defeat of 1683.

During the eighteenth century, the Ottoman Empire was almost continuously at war with one or more of its enemies--Persia, Poland, Austria, and Russia. War with Russia, in fact, dominates the Ottoman scene from much of the eighteenth century; the two states clashed on 1711, between 1768 and 1774, and again between 1787 and 1792. In all these wars of the eighteenth century, there were no clear victors or losers. Under the humiliating terms of the Treaty of Kuchuk-Kaynarja that ended the Russo-Ottoman War of 1768-74, the Porte abandoned the Tartar khanate in the Crimea, granted autonomy to the Trans-Danubian provinces, allowed Russian ships free access to Ottoman waters, and agreed to pay a large war indemnity.

The Emergence of Peter the Great

Peter the Great created a new nation, no less expansionist in character than the Ottoman Empire. Since 1689 Tsar at Moscow, Peter the Great had embarked on a policy of seeking "access to the seas". In the north this meant the "cold seas": the Baltic and the Golf of Finland. On that coast he founded a city which was to become his new capital, St Petersburg. In the south this meant the "warm seas": the Sea of Asov and the Black Sea, with an eye to the Mediterranean. This of course meant taking Constantinople.

During his campaigns in the north, Peter the Great had incurred the enmity of the Swedes. The King of Sweden, Carl XII, invaded Russia but was defeated by the Russians at Poltava in 1709. To escape being taken prisoner Carl XII sought asylum in Turkey together with Mazeppa the Commander-in-Chief of the Cossacks, who had taken his side. Carl XII, whom the Turks called "Demirbachly" ('Iranhead'), and Mazeppa were granted asylum by Sultan Ahmed III (1703-1730). Through his ambassador, Tolstoy, Peter the Great demanded that they'd be extradited. Ahmed III refused and declared proudly that "such a notion was an infringement of the sacred right to hospitality, which had always been law in Islamic countries". Since the Russians insisted, Ahmed III had Ambassador Tolstoy thrown into the "Prison of the Seven Towers" ('Yedikule') at Constantinople. That meant war in 1711.

This war began auspiciously for Peter the Great. But very soon the Turks recovered their losses to defeat him decisively on the Pruth on 28th July 1711. For some unknown reason, Ahmed III was not able to take advantage of his victory. Instead of taking Peter the Great captive, which would have radically altered the course of history, he contented himself - greatly to the disgust of Carl XII - with a truce. Peter the Great was forced by the terms of the Treaty of Pruth to withdraw the permanent ambassador to Constantinople and to abandon his negotiators, Shafirov and Sheremetyev, to the Turks as hostages. In addition, he had to cede Asov, which had been Russian since 1700.

But for Peter the Great this humiliating treaty was only a chance to catch his breath. War flared up again that same year and did not end until the Peace of Adrianople in 1712. Since Peter the Great was reluctant to fulfil the terms of the treaty, and above all, unwilling to raze a number of fortresses which he had erected on the east coast of the Black Sea, hostilities continued. Peace was not declared until 1713, when the Treaty of Adrianople was confirmed by the intercession of the "maritime powers" (England and Holland with French support). The maritime powers thought it prudent to side with Turkey in order to block Russia's expansion towards the Mediterranean.

Turkey accepted this treaty of sorts because Austria had formed an offensive alliance with Venice, which the Sublime Porte (this was what the Ottoman Sultanate was called) regarded as an infringement of the Treaty of Carlovitz. War broke out again. Turkey was now able to count on Russia's remaining neutral. Despite this advantage fortune was not on Turkey's side. Turkey recaptured Belgrade, only to lose it again, and with it Albania,Dalmatia and Herzegovina. The intercession of England saved Turkey from disaster because it forced both sides to respect the Peace of Passarovitz. Russia had become a European power and the Austro-Hungarian monarchy had maintained its supremacy in Southeastern Europe.

At Constantinople Mahmud I (1730-1754) succeeded Ahmed III. At St Petersburg Catherine I succeeded her husband, Peter the Great (1725-172 7). The Russian government continued the policy of seeking access to the "warm seas" begun by Peter the Great. Allied with Austria, the Empress Anna (1730-1740) went to war against Turkey and, unlike Austria, won splendid victories: in 1737 Ochakov was taken and in 1739 Moldavia was occupied. For the first time the Russians began to entertain the notion of taking Constantinople and re-establishing the ancient Byzantine Empire. This time Mahmud was more successful against Austria.

He recaptured Belgrade and soon (1739) peace was declared there through the intercession of France. It was the most favourable treaty which the Porte had ever managed to obtain. The Turks kept Belgrade, the Russians lost the right of navigation on the Black Sea. They would henceforth be forced to carryon trade there with foreign ships flying the Turkish flag. However they regained the right to keep a permanent ambassador at Constantinople and the Tsarina was acknowledged by the Sultan.

But everything changed when Catherine II (1762-1796) was crowned. Under the sway of her favourite, Gregory Alexandrovich Potemkin, the 'Semiramis of the North' turned her attention to the southern regions of her Empire. By ukase on 15th December 1783, the Tsarina annexed all regions designated as "Ukraine", which means in Russian "border lands". With one stroke of her pen she abolished the office of the Hetman, the
Sultan Mustafa II (1757-1774) did not allow himself to be deceived by their intentions. After a long interval he declared war on Catherine II in 1768. It was a devastating war, lasting for six years and fought on both land and sea. It was all the more devastating because the Tsarina had declared the intention of "doing away with Turkey once and for all" and had refused to accept any foreign intercession.

While hostilities commenced simultaneously in the Balkans, the Crimea and on the Caucasian-Georgian border, a Russian fleet, which came from the Sea of Asov, ravaged the Turkish Black Sea coast and even showed signs of forcing an opening through the straits. At the same time a second Russian fleet sailed from the Baltic to the Mediterranean, where it was supported by a British fleet under Admiral Elphinstone. After attempting a landing in Greece, the Russians and British clashed with the Turks on 5th July 1770 at Chesme (C;:e_me), near the island of Chios. The Turkish Mediterranean fleet perished. Elphinstone then attempted to force a passage through the Dardanelles in order to appear before Constantinople and join forces with the Russian Black Sea fleet. But he had to give up this plan because the Russians, for some unknown reason, did not co-operate.

This series of setbacks made the Turks urge peace negotiations but the Russians dawdled. The war dragged on and the Turks were able to drive the Russians back across the Danube (1773), albeit not for long. Soon afterwards they attacked again in Dobruja but failed to capture Silestre and Warna. During this streak of bad luck, Mustafa III died on 24th December 1773 and was succeeded by his brother, Abdul-Hamid I, who reigned from 1774 to 1789.
The Peace of Kaynarca

Abdul-Hamid I did everything in his power to save what he could. He began negotiations with the Russians, who went to negotiate the Peace of Ki.i_iil Kaynarca on 21st July 1774. The negotiations only lasted for seven hours. As usual, when peace must be made at any cost, the Russian conditions were draconian in their harshness. The Russians secured the right of free navigation on the Black Sea, unobstructed passage into the Mediterranean, respectful treatment of their ambassadors, free access to the Holy Sepulchre for Russian pilgrims to Jerusalem and protection for all Christians on Ottoman soil. This last was a concession which later generated severe conflicts since this privilege had already been granted to the French by Suleiman the Magnificent.

Moreover, Abdul-Hamid I lost the Sea of Asov and the Crimea and had to renounce all claim to Moldavia and Wallachia.

The Triumph of Catherine II

At the end of this victorious campaign the 'Semiramis of the North', whose head had been turned by passion and by fame, started on a triumphal progress through the five provinces of the Ukraine which she had gained for the crown. She journeyed round the Black Sea coast in a calash and visited the former seat of the Crime an Khans. Then she was present at the founding of Odessa. "The entire journey was an enchantment", writes Brian-Chaninov. "It was a whirl of triumphal arches, salutes, ringing of bells, of light and sound and fireworks, of plays and banquets." As a crowning touch she gave her friend Potemkin the title of Duke of Tauris as a sign of her favour.

In the meantime Abdul-Hamid I was languishing in his palace on the Bosporus. He sought for ways of expunging the disgrace of the Treaty of Kaynarca. He had to wait for twelve years. In 1786, on England's intercession, he gained the support of Sweden and even Poland, which Russia, Austria and Prussia had considerably weakened when Poland was first partitioned in 1772. He attacked Russia again. An attempt to take back the Crimea failed and the campaign was generally unsuccessful. But his adversaries were also exhausted and indifferent. The Treaty of Yassy (Ya<;) in 1792 relieved Turkey of some of the burden imposed by the Treaty of Kaynarca. Nevertheless the Ottomans had to renounce their claim to the Crimea and Bessarabia. Abdul-Hamid died in 1789 and his successor, Selim III (1789 - 1807), signed the treaty.

Yet at this time the Great Powers had more pressing problems than paying heed to Turkey. Their interests no longer lay in the east but in the west. At Paris the Revolution had triumphed.

The Turn of the Century: Bonaparte's Expedition to Egypt (1798 - 1801)

Bonaparte's policies in Egypt had three objectives: First, to free Egypt from the arbitrary rule of the Mamelukes, who had plundered the land; second, to set up a purely Egyptian regime at Cairo; and finally, to effect these changes without arousing the ire of the Porte. These were contradictory, almost irreconcilable goals. Talleyrand had for a while entertained the notion of travelling to Constantinople himself in order to ensure that Selim III would continue to favour France. Ultimately he decided against this since he did not want to jeopardize his career by fostering foolish projects.

After he had defeated the Mamelukes near the Pyramids on 21st July 1798 and their Generals Ibrahim and Murad had fled respectively to the Sinai Peninsula and Upper Egypt, Bonaparte entered Cairo. Here he was wildly acclaimed by a bewildered populace, which soon gave him the title of "Sultan Kebir", meaning "Great Sultan". From Cairo he was able to gain control of the Nile Delta.

But he was unable to break the resistance of the Mamelukes, who were supported by the Beduins of the Nile valley, although he made several thrusts as far as Aswan. Nor was he able to establish himself on the west coast of the Red Sea.

Consequently he was soon "encircled in his own conquests". The attempt to secure his flank against the newly arrived Turkish troops, who were supported by the English Navy, by waging war against Syria failed at Akko (March - May 1799). In the meantime Nelson had destroyed the French fleet, which was anchored at Abukir, in a battle at sea on 1st August 1798. The Mamelukes had appealed for help to the Sultan at Constantinople. Selim III sent an army of 40,000 men under the command of Mustafa Pasha to the Nile delta but it was decisively defeated by Murat's cavalry (land battle on 25th July 1799). Mustafa Pasha and half of the Janissaries were taken prisoners. Bonaparte, however, who was becoming increasingly convinced of the futility of the whole undertaking without reinforcements and accompanied by alarming news from Paris, decided to return clandestinely to France.

On 25th August 1799 he left Egypt and reached Paris on 16th October in time to execute the coup d'etat of 18th Brumaire. Unwittingly Napoleon had left behind in Egypt a man, who was to continue and complete the liberation of Egypt, Mehmed Ali. He was an Ottoman officer, born on 15th August 1769 in the Macedonian city of Karola.
In the meantime Selim III had been deposed by a conspiracy of the Jannissaries and was murdered in prison on 29th May 1807. He was succeeded as Sultan-Caliph by Mahmud II.

Egypt was evacuated on 2nd September 1801 and under the First Consul France hastened to restore diplomatic relations with the Porte. The hegemony of Selim III over Egypt was acknowledged under the condition that the English should not be allowed into the country (the Preliminary Peace of Paris, October 1801). In the following year these terms were confirmed in the Treaty of Amiens (27th March 1802), which was not signed by the Porte itself. Then Napoleon sent the young General Sebastiani to Constantinople under orders to negotiate a new, separate alliance. Sebastiani was so successful in fulfilling his mission that the Russians objected. They countered with the Serbian Declaration of Independence (1803), which they supported. War with Russia seemed inevitable.

The implications of the decline of Ottoman power, the vulnerability and attractiveness of the empire's vast holdings, the stirrings of nationalism among its subject people, and the periodic crises resulting from these and other factors became collectively known to European diplomats in the nineteenth century as "the Eastern Question." In 1853 Tsar Nicholas I of Russia described the Ottoman Empire as "the sick man of Europe." The problem from the viewpoint of European diplomacy was how to dispose of the empire in such a manner that no one power would gain an advantage at the expense of the others and upset the political balance of Europe.

European historians tend to present Ottoman decline solely from the perspective of the wars with Europe. While these wars were significant, Ottoman decline was more pronounced internally and economically in the eighteenth century. There are two overwhelming aspects of this decline: meteoric population increase and the refusal to modernize.

For all that we say about Ottoman decline, the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries were periods of relative prosperity. As a result, however, the population of the Empire doubled .This eventually produced endemic unemployment and famine when the economic resources of the country could not support such a large population.

The wealth of the Ottomans was largely due to their presence on trade routes. The Empire stood astride the crossroads of all the continents and sub-continents: Africa, Asia, India, and Europe. However, European expansion created new trade routes that bypassed Ottoman territories. Vast amounts of revenue began to disappear from the economy. Because the state collected tariffs on all good passing through the Empire, the imperial government itself lost vast amounts of its revenue.

In addition, the Ottomans did not industrialize in the way Europeans were doing in the eighteenth century. Remember: industrialization isn't mechanization . It principally involves a complete overhaul of labor practices. The Ottomans retained old labor practices, in which production was concentrated among craft guilds. Increasingly, the economic relationships between the Ottomans and the Europeans shifted gears. Europeans increasingly bought only raw materials from the Ottomans, and then shipped back finished products manufactured in Europe. Since these finished products were produced with new, industrial methods, they were far cheaper than similar products produced in Ottoman territories. This practice effectively destroyed the Ottoman craft industries in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries.

The first nineteenth-century crisis to bring about European intervention was the Greek War of Independence (1821-32). The river Pruth was agreed as the frontier between the two countries and Walachia and Moldavia returned to Turkey. The Greeks of Morea now rose in rebellion. It was put down but England, France and Russia formed an alliance. They destroyed the Ottoman-Egyptian fleet at Nevarin and Russia seized Walachia and Moldavia once more. The fortress of Calas, Ibrael, Isakchi, Tolchi, Machin and Silistre were lost and Russian forces advanced as far as Edirne and the eastern region of Anatolia. The Peace of Edirne ended the war with large parts of Anatolia abandoned to the Russians. In 1830 Turkey accepted the establishment of an independent Greek Empire

Muhammad Ali, an Ottoman officer who had been designated pasha of Egypt by the sultan in 1805, had given substantial aid to the Ottoman cause in the Greek war. When he was not rewarded as promised for his assistance, he invaded Syria in 1831 and pursued the retreating Ottoman army deep into Anatolia. In desperation, the Porte appealed to Russia for support. Britain then intervened, constraining Muhammad Ali to withdraw from Anatolia to Syria. The price the sultan paid Russia for its assistance was the Treaty of Hünkar Iskelesi of 1833. Under this treaty, the Bosporus and Dardanelles straits were to be closed on Russian demand to naval vessels of other powers.

War with Muhammad Ali resumed in 1839, and Ottoman forces were again defeated. Russia waived its rights under the 1833 treaty and aligned itself with British efforts to support the Ottoman Empire militarily and diplomatically. Under the London Convention of 1840, Muhammad Ali was forced to abandon his claim to Syria, but he was recognized as hereditary ruler of Egypt under nominal Ottoman suzerainty. Under an additional protocol, in 1841 the Porte undertook to close the straits to warships of all powers
Most manifestations of decline were only continuations and elaborations of earlier conditions. In the later Ottoman period, however, a new factor of decline was added: the weakness of the central government resulted in the loss of control of most of the provinces to the local ruling notables, called ayan or derebeyis ("lords of the valley") in Anatolia and klephts or hayduks in Europe, who took more or less permanent control of large areas, creating a situation that in many ways resembled European feudalism much more than the traditional Ottoman timar system ever did.

In the Balkans and Anatolia local rulers solidified their positions by taking advantage of currents of local nationalism that were arising among the Balkan Christians. The notables formed private armies of mercenaries and slaves, which they sometimes used to provide important contributions to the Ottoman armies in return for recognition of their autonomy by the sultans. These rulers were able to exercise almost complete authority, collecting taxes for themselves and sending only nominal payments to the treasury, thus further increasing its problems.

France now occupied Algeria. Mehmet Ali Pasha, the Governor of Egypt, rebelled and advanced as far as Kutahia Sultan Mahmoud asked Russia for help and this was agreed in 1833. As part of the agreement Mehmet Ali Pasha was made Governor of Syria and Governorship of Adana was abandoned to Ibrahim Pasha.

The Ottoman Empire fought two more wars with Russia in the nineteenth century. The Crimean War (1854-56) pitted France, Britain, and the Ottoman Empire against Russia. Under the Treaty of Paris, which ended the war, Russia abandoned its claim to protect Orthodox Christians in the Ottoman Empire and renounced the right to intervene in the Balkans
The first major Ottoman war, the Crimean War (1854-1856), came with Russia. Like so many of the later conflicts with Europe, this one was initiated not by the Ottomans, but by the Europeans. Russia was primarily interested in territory. Throughout the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, Russia had slowly been annexing Muslim states in Central Asia. By 1854, Russia found itself near the banks of the Black Sea. Anxious to annex territories in Eastern Europe, particularly the Ottoman provinces of Moldavia and Walachia (now in modern day Czechoslovakia), the Russians went to war with the Ottomans on the flimsiest of pretexts: the Ottomans had granted Catholic France the right to protect Christian sites in the Holy Land (which the Ottomans controlled) rather than Orthodox Russia. That, according to the Russians, justified going to war with the Ottomans.

The war soon became a European war when Britain and France allied with the Ottomans in order to protect their lucrative trade interests in the region. The war ended badly for the Russians, and the Paris peace of 1856 was unfavorable to them. In textbooks, the Crimean War is presented entirely from the perspective of the Europeans, for it brought home the fact that more European powers were willing to overthrow the old order than to maintain it. It had, though, important consequences for the Ottoman Empire, as well. From this point onwards, the Ottoman Empire saw itself as being heavily controlled by Europeans. The Crimean War initiated a decline in Ottoman morale and a helplessness. Europeans, for their part, no longer saw the Ottomans as an equal force to be reckoned with, but as a tool to be used in larger European concerns.
The Balkan Rebellion

The expansionist Russians desired several key territories from the Ottomans, and the only thing that really prevented them from aggressively annexing them was the balance of power in Europe. In particular, they feared Austria and Germany, which did not want to see Russia in control of eastern Europe. The real prize for the Russians was the city of Istanbul, which the Russians still called Constantinople. If they could seize this city, that meant that they would control all trade between Europe and Asia that proceeded through the Black Sea. The Ottomans, for their part, had lost morale. The old military state, confident in its ability to protect the Islamic world from European predation, was crumbling in its confidence because of a series of defeats and draws in wars with Russia.

In 1875, the Slavic people living in the Ottoman provinces of Bosnia and Herzegovina (currently the state of Bosnia-Herzegovina), led an uprising against the Ottomans in order to gain their freedom. The general weakness of the Ottomans led two independent, neighbor Slavic states, Montenegro and Serbia, to aid the rebellion. Within a year, the rebellion spread to the Ottoman province of Bulgaria. The rebellion was part of a larger political movement called the Pan-Slavic movement, which had as its goal the unification of all Slavic people&emdash;most of whom were under the control of Austria, Germany, and the Ottoman Empire&emdash;into a single political unity under the protection of Russia. Anxious also to conquer the Ottomans themselves and seize Istanbul, the Russians allied with the rebels, Serbia, and Montenegro and declared war against the Ottomans.

The war went very badly for the Ottomans, and by 1878 they had to sue for peace. Under the peace treaty, the Ottomans had to free all the Balkan provinces, including Bosnia, Herzegovina, and Bulgaria. Russia also took substantial amounts of Ottoman territory as "payment" for the war. The Ottomans fell out of the picture, but the Russian victory produced a European crisis over the expansion of Russia. That, however, is not our concern.

War resumed between Russia and the Ottoman Empire in 1877. Russia opened hostilities in response to Ottoman suppression of uprisings in Bulgaria and to the threat posed to Serbia by Ottoman forces. The Russian army had driven through Bulgaria and reached as far as Edirne when the Porte acceded to the terms imposed by a new agreement, the Treaty of San Stefano. The treaty reduced Ottoman holdings in Europe to eastern Thrace and created a large, independent Bulgarian state under Russian protection.

Refusing to accept the dominant position of Russia in the Balkans, the other European powers called the Congress of Berlin in 1878. At this conclave, the Europeans agreed to a much smaller autonomous Bulgarian state under nominal Ottoman suzerainty. Serbia and Romania were recognized as fully independent states, and the Ottoman provinces of Bosnia and Herzegovina were placed under Austrian administration. Cyprus, although remaining technically part of the Ottoman Empire, became a British protectorate. For all its wartime exertions, Russia received only minor territorial concessions in Bessarabia and the Caucasus. In the course of the nineteenth century, France seized Algeria and Tunisia, while Britain began its occupation of Egypt in 1882. In all these cases, the occupied territories formerly had belonged to the Ottoman Empire.

Date: 2015-02-03; view: 771