Daily Life In The Ottoman Empire (6 page)

The Ottoman constitution did not prevent another military
confrontation with Russia. Continuous palace intrigues convinced Abdülhamid II
to dismiss Midhat Paşa, who was sent into exile in February 1877, an event
that was soon followed by a Russian declaration of war in April. The Ottoman
forces delayed the Russian southward incursion for several months at Plevna
(Pleven) in Bulgaria, but by December, the tsarist army was encamped a mere 12
kilometers outside Istanbul. On 3 March 1878, the Treaty of San Stefano was
signed between Russia and the Ottoman Empire. Among other things, it called for
the establishment of an autonomous Bulgarian state, stretching from the Black
Sea to the Aegean, which Russia would occupy for two years. Serbia, Romania,
and Montenegro were also to be recognized as independent states, while Russia
received Batumi in southern Caucasus, as well as the districts of Kars and
Ardahan in eastern Anatolia. Additionally, the Ottoman government was obliged
to introduce fundamental reforms in Thessaly and Armenia. Other European powers
could not tolerate the rapid growth of Russian influence in the Balkans and the
Caucasus. They agreed to meet in Berlin at a new peace conference designed to
partition the European provinces of the Ottoman Empire in such a way as to
prevent the emergence of Russia as the dominant power in the region.

DISINTEGRATION OF THE EMPIRE IN THE
BALKANS

The Congress of Berlin, which began in June 1878, was a
turning point in the history of the Ottoman Empire and southeast Europe. When
the congress ended a month later, the Ottoman Empire was no longer a political
and military power in the Balkans. The Ottomans lost eight percent of their
territory and four and a half million of their population. The majority of
those who left the empire were Christians, while tens of thousands of Muslim
refugees from the Balkans and the Caucasus fled into the interior of the
empire. The large Bulgarian state that had been created three months earlier at
the Treaty of San Stefano was divided into three separate entities. The region
north of the Balkan Mountains and the area around Sofia were combined into a
new autonomous Bulgarian principality that would recognize the suzerainty of
the sultan, but for all practical purposes act as a Russian satellite. The
region lying between the Rhodope and Balkan mountains, which corresponded with
Eastern Rumelia, was established as a semiautonomous region under its own
Christian governor, who was to be appointed by the sultan and supervised by
European powers. The third area of Thrace and Macedonia remained under Ottoman
rule.

The Berlin Congress did not provide Greece with any new
territory. Instead, the powers asked that Greece and the Ottoman Empire enter
into negotiations on establishing the future of their boundaries, including the
status of Thessaly and Epirus. Austria was granted the right to occupy and
administer Bosnia-Herzegovina as well as the
sancak
of Novi Pazar, a
strip of land that separated Serbia from Montenegro. Further, while the
Congress recognized Serbia, Romania, and Montenegro as independent states, the
Romanian state was forced to hand southern Bessarabia to Russia and, in return,
receive Dobrudja and the Danube Delta. Russia also received the districts of
Batumi, Kars, and Ardahan, thereby establishing military control over the
eastern shores of the Black Sea and a strategically important land bridge to
Anatolia.

The British received the island of Cyprus, which contained
a Greek majority and a Turkish minority population. By handing
Albanian-populated areas and towns to Montenegro and Greece, the European
powers ignited a new nationalist movement among a proud people who had
faithfully served the Ottoman state on many occasions in the past. Thus,
Albania, with its emerging national movement, would replicate the model set by
the Serbs, the Romanians, and the Bulgarians and demand independence.

Although Serbia, Montenegro, Romania, and Bulgaria gained
their independence or autonomy in 1878, the Congress of Berlin left the newly
independent states dissatisfied and hungry for more territory. The Romanians
were angry because they were forced to cede the rich and productive Bessarabia
in return for gaining the poor and less productive Dobrudja. The Bulgarians were
outraged because they lost the greater Bulgarian state, which had been created
by the Treaty of San Stefano. Serbia gained limited territory, but it did not
satisfy the voracious appetite of Serbian nationalists who dreamed of a greater
Serbia with access to the sea. Montenegro received a port on the Adriatic, but,
as in the case of Serbia, it did not acquire the towns and the districts it had
demanded. Of all the participants in the Congress, Russia was perhaps the most
frustrated. In return for its massive human and financial investment in the war
against the Ottoman Empire, it had received only southern Bessarabia in the
Balkans, while the Austrians, who had opportunistically sat on the sidelines,
had been awarded Bosnia-Herzegovina.

These frustrated dreams turned the Balkan Peninsula into a
ticking bomb. By carving the Ottoman Empire into small and hungry independent
states, the European powers laid the foundation for intense rivalries.
Thirty-six years after the conclusion of the Berlin Congress, the Balkan
tinderbox exploded on 28 June 1914, when Serbian nationalists assassinated the
Austrian crown prince, Archduke Franz Ferdinand, in Sarajevo, sparking the
First World War.

ABDÜLHAMID II

With the removal of Midhat Paşa in 1877, the center of
power began to shift back from the office of the grand vizier to the sultan.
Despite the defeat at the hands of the Russians and the territorial losses
imposed by the Congress of Berlin, the new sultan, Abdülhamid II (1876–1909), remained
committed to the reforms introduced during the Tanzimat period. Indeed, it was
during his reign that a new and Western-educated officer corps emerged.
Ironically, the same officers would play an important role in deposing the
sultan in April 1909. In addition to emphasizing military training, the sultan
expanded elementary and secondary education (including the opening of a new
school for girls in 1884), introduced a modern medical school, and established
the University of Istanbul. To create a modern communication system for the
empire, he developed telegraph services and the Ottoman railway system,
connecting Istanbul to the heartland of the Arab world as far south as the holy
city of Medina in Hejaz. The Hejaz railroad, which was completed in July 1908,
allowed the sultan to dispatch his troops to the Arab provinces in case of a
rebellion.

As with the reforms introduced by the men of Tanzimat, the
principal objective of Abdülhamid II’s modernization schemes was to establish a
strong and centralized government capable of maintaining the territorial
integrity of the empire. In practical terms, this meant suppressing uprisings
among the sultan’s subjects and defending the state against the expansionist
policies of European powers. Despite the sultan’s best efforts, however, the
empire continued to lose territory.

Building on their occupation of Algeria in 1830, the French
imposed their rule on Tunisia in May 1881. A year later, the British invaded
and occupied Egypt. In addition to these losses, the Ottoman Empire also
continued to lose territory in the Balkans. After the Congress of Berlin, the
only area left under Ottoman rule was a relatively narrow corridor south of the
Balkan Mountains that stretched from the Black Sea in the east to the Adriatic
in the west, incorporating Thrace, Thessaly, Macedonia, and Albania. Greece,
Serbia, Montenegro, and Bulgaria coveted the remaining territory of the dying
Ottoman Empire. In accordance with the promises made at the Congress of Berlin,
the Ottomans handed much of Thessaly and a district in Epirus to Greece in July
1881. Despite these gains, Greece continued to push for additional territorial
concessions including the island of Crete, where several uprisings, encouraged
by Athens, forced the sultan in 1898 to agree to the creation of an autonomous
Cretan state under Ottoman suzerainty. The island finally became part of Greece
in December 1913.

Aside from the military disasters and territorial losses
that the empire suffered, the reign of Abdülhamid II proved to be a period of
significant social, economic, and cultural transformation. The autocratic
sultan continued with the reforms that had been introduced by the men of
Tanzimat. There was, however, a fundamental difference. The statesmen of the
Tanzimat had begun their governmental careers as translators and diplomats
attached to Ottoman embassies in Europe, and thus wished to emulate European
customs and institutions. Abdülhamid II, in contrast, may have been a
modernizer, but one who believed strongly in preserving the Islamic identity of
the Ottoman state. With the loss of its European provinces, the number of
Christian subjects of the sultan decreased and Muslims began to emerge as the
empire’s majority population. The Muslim population was not only loyal to the
sultan but also felt a deep anger toward the sultan’s Christian subjects for
allying themselves with the imperial powers of Europe in order to gain their
independence. Abdülhamid II understood the new mood among his Muslim subjects
and countered European imperial designs by appealing to Pan-Islamism, or the
unity of all Muslims, under his leadership as the caliph, or the religious and
spiritual leader of the Islamic world.

A view of Istanbul between 1880
and 1890.

YOUNG TURKS SEIZE POWER

Despite Abdülhamid II’s best efforts to preserve the
territorial integrity of the empire and to modernize the Ottoman society, the
government failed to neutralize the opposition of the young, educated, and
secular minded elements in the society. As early as 1889, small groups of
patriotic students, civil servants, and army officers had organized secret
societies. Princes of the royal family, government officials, teachers,
artists, and army officers educated and trained in modern schools and military
academies, had concluded that the restoration of the 1876 constitution and the
establishment of a new government based on a parliament were the only means
through which the Ottoman Empire could be saved from further disintegration. As
the police began to crack down on the opposition, some chose exile over
imprisonment and settled in European capitals, where they published newspapers
that denounced the autocratic policies of the sultan. Others recruited young
cadets and organized secret cells among army units stationed in the Balkans and
the Middle East. This diverse group of antigovernment Ottoman intellectuals and
activists, who were known in Europe as
Jeunes Turcs,
or the Young Turks,
organized themselves as the Committee of Union and Progress (CUP).

Revolution came, unexpectedly, from Macedonia in July 1908,
when army officers loyal to CUP revolted and demanded the restoration of the
1876 constitution. After a faint effort to suppress the rebellion, Abdülhamid
II concluded that resistance was futile. On 23 July, he restored constitutional
rule and ordered parliamentary elections throughout the empire. As the news of
the revolution spread, massive celebrations erupted, particularly in Istanbul,
where Turks, Jews, Armenians, and Arabs joined hands and embraced in the streets
of the capital. Among the deputies to the new parliament, which opened on 17
December, there were 142 Turks, 60 Arabs, 25 Albanians, 23 Greeks, 12
Armenians, 5 Jews, 4 Bulgarians, 3 Serbs, and 1 Romanian.

The Young Turks had convinced themselves that the
restoration of the parliamentary system of government would secure the support
of European powers for the preservation of the territorial integrity of the
Ottoman Empire. They were mistaken. Shortly after the victory of the
revolution, the Austro-Hungarian Empire formally annexed Bosnia-Herzegovina,
while Greece seized the island of Crete, and Bulgaria unified with Eastern
Rumelia, which had remained an autonomous province under the nominal rule of
the Ottoman sultan.

Meanwhile, an attempted counter coup by supporters of
Abdülhamid II in April 1909 provided an excuse for the two chambers of
parliament to depose the sultan and replace him with his younger brother, who
ascended the throne as Mehmed V (1909–1918). The center of power had shifted
once again, this time from the palace to the army, the bureaucracy, and the
parliament. The central government, however, continued to be plagued by
internal factionalism and growing opposition from both conservative and liberal
groups and parties. The weakness of the government was demonstrated by its
failure to respond effectively to the unrest in Albania, the uprising of Imam
Yahya in Yemen, and the Italian invasion of Tripoli and Benghazi in Libya. The
Italian attack on the Dardanelles and the occupation of the Dodecanese Islands
in May 1912 forced the Ottoman government to accept the loss of Libya and sue
for peace.