The Ottoman Empire, 1700–1922

Introduction

During the long nineteenth century, 1798–1922, the earlier Ottoman patterns of political and economic life remained generally recognizable. In many respects, this period continued processes of change and transformation that had begun in the eighteenth century, and sometimes before. Territorial losses continued and frontiers shrank; statesmen at the center and in the provinces continued their contestations for power and access to taxable resources; and the international economy loomed ever more important. And yet, much was new. The forces triggering the territorial losses became increasingly complex, now involving domestic rebellions as well as the familiar imperial wars. Domestically, the central state became more powerful and influential in everyday lives than ever before in Ottoman history, extending its control ever more deeply into society. Its primary tools of control changed from consumption competitions and tax farms to a much larger and professional military and bureaucracy. As a part of the effort to more fully control its population, the state redefined the status of Muslims and non-Muslims and, after some delay sought, towards the end of the period, to re-order the legal status of women as well. And finally, a new and deadly element evolved in the Ottoman body politic – inter-communal violence among Ottoman subjects – that attested to the power of these accelerating political and economic changes.

The wars of contraction and internal rebellions

By the twentieth century, the Ottoman Empire in Europe had receded to a small coastal plain between Edirne and Istanbul.