The Decline of the Ottoman Empire

For a long time the Ottoman Empire was known as the Sick Man of Europe. This appellation is surprising, given that this behemoth had once ruled over a larger region of the Earth than any single nation had ruled in a long time. The British Empire, at this time, would grow and eclipse the Ottoman but in a much different and more commercial way. The Ottoman Empire was a direct descendant of a conquering band of Islamic fighters who had ruled militarily over their subject peoples just like many other medieval and feudal warriors in Europe centuries before.

The decline had perhaps begun as far back as 1683, when the centuries-long Ottoman advance into Europe was finally stopped at the gates of Vienna. At that time, the Ottomans had ruled over most of Southeastern Europe, all of Anatolia, pieces of modern-day Russia, Palestine, Syria, the Arabian Peninsula and a wide strip of North Africa that included Egypt, Cyrenaica and Tunis. Observers recognized a decline in the following century but the Empire remained an incredibly powerful force that no single European nation dared to defy.

However, as the long nineteenth century elapsed, the decline of vigor in the Empire became much more noticeable. This decline was obvious in military spheres as the Empire failed to overcome revolutionary challenges in its bordering regions, such as in Southeastern Europe and in North Africa. It was also an economic decline as well as a simple decline in morals and will among the rulers of the Empire.

As the Empire fell apart, the increasingly powerful nations of Western Europe and the Russian empire all became mutually concerned about the coming break up. Obviously, each of these nations was self-interested in terms of territorial or commercial expansion. However, there was also concern about maintaining order. No one wanted to see the Empire suddenly go under and leave behind a chaotic mess of ethnic minorities trying to establish conflicting territories and domains.

The resulting decline, thus, was not one of outright rebellion and sudden overturning of centuries-old styles of government and lifestyles. Instead, the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire occurred slowly, with many nations breaking away in steps. The first step was sometimes a separation through the establishment of local rule followed by a declaration of independence that was virtually a fait accompli, as happened in Egypt. A succession of treaties and revolutions led to the ultimate destruction of the Empire after WWI and the establishment of the modern nation of Turkey in 1923.

Causes Behind the Decline

All empires decline eventually. There are many reasons behind the typical imperial decline. By nature, these entities are composed of disparate groups of people and this diversity naturally brings about certain frictions which wear down the military bonds that initially united them. Furthermore, many empires experience a certain moral rot among its leadership which leads to a carelessness in rulers.

The decline of the Ottoman Empire was characterized by these issues but also experienced struggles unique to its framework as a nominally Muslim composite of nations. Among the unique issues impacting the Ottoman Empire was the slow decrease in tax revenue. As in most nations dominated by Muslims during this period, there was a special tax levied on non-Muslims in the Ottoman lands. After the initial conquests, contrary to popular belief, most people remaining in the Empire were Christians or members of other religions. They supplied the Muslim conquerors with significant revenue every year.

Over time, however, conversions to Islam increased. By 1900, the percentage of Christians in the country had dropped to nearly 20%.The majority of citizens were paying significantly less in taxes due to their membership in the Islamic religion. As conquests of new land petered out and the size of the Empire stabilized, it had few new resources to support the administration and the army. In fact, its revenue was constantly shrinking. By the 19^th century, this dearth had created a desperate financial situation not only for the Ottomans but for many Muslim-dominated nations.

The army of the Ottomans had also suffered significant depredations for similar reasons. The vanguard of the army had always been the Janissaries. Companies of these elite shock troops were always formed with Christian children who were taken from their homes at young ages and raised in camps. Two things began to diminish the strength of this force: fewer homes from which to find potential soldiers and less military activity as the Empire stabilized its size among other nations. For centuries, the Ottoman Empire had grown aggressively, each generation of soldiers invigorated by combat. As these prospects became scarcer, soldiers lost opportunities to hone their skills. The Empire was losing its strength.

Imperial Losses Prior to the Long Nineteenth Century

There had been territorial losses in Europe during the 17^th century. However, these had often been offset by gains in Russia, Africa and Asia. Beginning in the 18^th century, though, the Empire began to lose comparatively small pieces of property along the Black Sea and in Central Asia.

The French Conquest of Egypt

During the French Revolution, an expedition led by Napoleon conquered Egypt in 1798. This conquest was short-lived but it had a serious impact on the population, which was restive thereafter.  A civil war erupted between various s ethnic and national groups in Egypt in 1801. In 1805, an Ottoman military officer named Muhammad Ali took over the country. Egypt remained nominally Ottoman but was actually a separately managed territory under Ali for decades.

Autonomy for Serbia

For centuries, the Serbs had agitated for separation from the Empire in one way or another.  In 1812, they achieved autonomy under a truce but were re-annexed to the Empire the following year. A subsequent uprising gained a form of autonomy in which the Sultanate of Constantinople granted Serbia its own parliament, constitution and monarchy. As the Empire continued to crumble, this autonomy became real independence before the end of the 19^th century.

Greek Independence

By 1830, the Empire was also forced to recognize, through international treaties, the independence of a Greek state. At the time, this Greek kingdom occupied only a fraction of modern Greek territory, mostly the Peloponnesus and some portion of the peninsula just to the North, including ancient Attica and Euboea. It became an outpost of independence completely encircled by Ottoman possessions in the Levant and the Balkans.

The Crimean War

This virtual stalemate between Russia and the European powers allied with the Empire technically restored some territory to the Ottomans. However, in practice, these territories became independent and reinforced the unspoken acceptance that the Empire was ready to be partitioned. Territories freed by these struggles eventually united to become an independent territory that would grow into the modern-day nation of Romania.

Bulgaria

With Romania free and Serbia inching its way toward complete independence, territories just south of them began to move toward autonomy. The Principality of Bulgaria was finally recognized as a vassal state under the Ottomans by the Treaty of Berlin in 1878.

The late 19^thcentury in Eastern Europe was characterized by more struggles against the Ottomans and among the nations who had so recently won their independence. The Balkan Wars of 1912 to 1913 resulted in the loss of almost all of the Ottoman Empire’s European territories, some of which it had held for several centuries. 

The significance of this decline should not be overlooked. It was conflict between these newborn nations which set off the First World War that would end the prior World Order and lay the groundwork for the politics of the 20^th century. With the Ottoman decline and eventual extinction in the 1920s, the last remnants of the medieval world, besides a handful of token royals in some European countries, were thrown into the dustbin and modernism was finally unleashed.

The French Revolution: The Beginning of the Long 19th Century

Many historians have chosen to begin the 19^th century in 1789 due to the French Revolution. This event, rather than the American Revolution, set off a chain of events that would finally culminate in the First World War in 1914. The participants in the Revolution tried to kick out the weakened columns supporting the ancient political structures that governed Europe. Ultimately, they failed. But the feudal institutions would suffer a mortal blow that would take a little more than 125 years to kill them finally.

France in 1789

While the condition of the common people in France at this time was deplorable compared to the much-improved lives of the English populace, things had actually gotten better for the French as they recovered in the two centuries since the religious wars of the late 1500s. Under Louis XIV, the nation had shed the vestiges of medieval feudalism and become a more modern nation with a centralized government.

Politically, things had improved as well. There was a greater concern for human rights. The famous Bastille, a prison which had held many poor souls incommunicado for years, was actually almost empty by the time it was stormed.

Perhaps the general improvement in conditions had made people more conscious of their suffering and their poverty. Perhaps close contact and communication with England, as evidenced by the lives and letters of great men like Voltaire, convinced people that things could and should be much better.

The successful revolution in America had also probably given people ideas but the relationship between the two movements should not be exaggerated. The liberal ideals at play in French society were present, to some degree, in the British colonies of North America but the revolution that occurred there was driven much more by the desire for self-government and the righteous anger of those who resented the actions of British soldiers during the early stages of the war.

Nevertheless, there were genuine spurs to dissatisfaction at this time. People had perceived the leaders of the nation as bunglers ever since the Sun King had died. Furthermore, the nation was in the grip of an economic crisis that was not the first in a long string of financial debacles that had characterized the century. The major issue of the moment was national debt. Louis XVI had lowered government spending but had not been able to get the Parlement to agree with him.

The bloodshed that was to come, though, was not due simply to financial disagreements. Many issues had been bubbling under the surface of French society for a long time. The desire for religious freedom, freedom of the presses and ongoing desire to oust an apparently useless and feeble aristocracy motivated many people to action when the moment finally appeared propitious. That moment came when King Louis XVI, frustrated by his inability to get Parlement to act, called for a meeting of the Estates General in 1787.

The Calling of the Estates General

In those days, after the November election of a new government, the United States scheduled a five-month hiatus to allow for the necessary movements and adjustments needed for new representatives and executives to take over. Therefore, though Louis XVI had called for the Estates General in in 1787, it was not able to meet until 1789.

The Estates General consisted of representatives of the three recognized classes of people in France. The First Estate was the clergy of the Roman Catholic Church. The Second Estate was the nobility. The Third Estate was the remainder of the populace whose sentiments were largely voiced by members of the growing middle class, which had money but lacked the pedigree of the nobility.

Representatives of these three elements of society had not met since 1614. According to the rules of their conference, each estate voted as a whole on any issue and two estates could overrule a third. Not surprisingly, this made it easy for the nobility and the clergy, which constituted a small percentage of the whole society, to ignore the wishes of the majority.

The Declaration of a National Assembly

King Louis XVI had come to power during a financial crisis and the economic pressure had never really let up during his reign. A previous assembly of important personages in France had failed to reach agreement about the matters at hand. The ongoing nature of the financial issues and the long wait between the calling of the assembly and the time it actually convened allowed a general populace, with access to printing presses, to motivate and agitate others about these matters.

Elections determined the representatives in the early spring of 1789 and they met on May 5^th. Twelve hundred members convened in Versailles. Just over 600 of them were of the Third Estate. As the month passed, they failed to agree on the matter of verification of the members. They never arrived at a discussion of the crises that drew them together.

In June, a Catholic clergyman known as Abbe Sieyes called for the members of the Third Estate to meet and they did so under the name Communes, or the Commons. They invited the other estates but did not wait for them. Soon, a majority of the clergy had joined this ad hoc legislative body and several dozen nobles as well. The gathering became known as the National Assembly.

The Storming of the Bastille

In tense moments, actions intended for one end can be misinterpreted as something else entirely. King Louis XVI dismissed one of his ministers in early July and begun restructuring his finance ministry. That and the arrival of soldiers near the assembly spurred many common people in Paris to revolt. By July 14^th, public stability had been undermined enough that a mob was able to take the Bastille after several hours of siege. The commander was decapitated and his head carried out for public view on a pike. All seven prisoners were released.

The bloody riots grew more chaotic. The mayor of the city was ripped to pieces later that same day. The King braved the rebellious crowd on July 17^th go try to restore order. Soon, the people were crying out Vive la Nation and Vive le Roi to their monarch bearing one of their own tri-colore hats.

This moment of concord did not stop the spread of disturbances and the loss of civil authority in various locations around the country. Some people were arming themselves in support of popular sovereignty. Others, especially among the people of rural areas, feared foreign invasion as a result of the discord and armed themselves to defend the country.

Transition from Monarchy to Constitution

As the months passed, the government of the French nation slowly transitioned from what had previously been recognized as an absolute monarchy to a constitutional state. The transition was anything but peaceful for two key reasons. First, the National Assembly spent all this time making declarations about human rights and preparing a constitution. In the meantime, the nation starved. Second, the Church and the nobility were not about to let go so easily of their control over this society.

The Church had actually participated more or less willingly in this transition. Many country priests were wholeheartedly in favor of it. However, when the Assembly began to address economic matters in late 1789, one of its first moves was to eliminate the right of the Church to its tithes. This was just the first of many moves to redistribute Church assets in order to revitalize and modernize the French economy. Resistance began to build up among the clergy.

By July of 1790, the incremental changes in governance had become wholesale transformations of the state. The Assembly, increasingly fractured but still dominated by reformers, had voted to put the property of the Church in France at the disposal of the nation. Monastic vows were abolished and monks and nuns were encouraged to leave their orders. A new paper currency known as assignats was circulating.

Priests were now to be paid by the state, which also took over the former responsibilities of the Church in teaching the young and healing the sick. Priests and bishops were to be elected by local groups and take oaths to the new state.

This legislation was not realized throughout the nation. Many Catholics protested this handling of the Church. In the end, only 24% of the clergy was even willing to take the oath. The others risked banishment and worse punishment instead.

The Execution of King Louis XVI

After 1790 became 1791, the King was not the only person in France who feared for his position as well as his life amid the tumult of radical change. Dressed as common servants, the King and his family fled the Palace and attempted to reach the Austrian border on June 20^th. They were caught at Varennes and returned to the Palace, where they remained under guard.

This disturbed surrounding monarchs and governments even more than the prior unrest. An émigré collection of nobles was already voicing disregard for the Assembly, which had officially transformed itself into a constitutional monarchy by late 1791. As nations made threats both open and covert, the French populace reacted with militarization.

All this time, Paris had been locally under the governance of a revolutionary assemblage known as the Paris Commune. In the summer of 1792, popular militias supported by the radical ideas of this body attacked the palace, killed the Swiss guards and captured the King and his family. The most radical members of the National Convention then governing the country met to support the Paris Commune’s actions.

Threatened, the Convention declared war against Austria in April, 1792. Prussia soon came to Austria’s aid. On September 20^th, French forces finally won a victory over the Prussians who had invaded effortlessly that summer.

That same day, the Convention began writing a new constitution, abolished the monarchy and declared a republic. Later, September 22^nd of that year would be remembered as the first day of Year One in the new calendar of revolutionary France.

There remained the question of what to do with the King. As the new republic won victories in the field throughout the fall, it gained confidence politically as well. The imprisoned monarch was perceived to be in cahoots with these foreign powers against the French people. In January 1793, the Convention voted by a slim majority to execute him. On January 21^st, he was guillotined.

The National Convention at War

Most European states at least expressed hostility toward the new regime in France after the execution of Louis XVI. The year 1793 brought many defeats and invasions of French territory. However, the allied powers were not organized enough to take swift advantage of French disunity. In 1794, major reversals saw revolutionary French forces regain lost territory and even conquer Holland. By mid-1795, most of the allies had declared peace with France. Only Britain and Austria remained technically at war with France.

The Reign of Terror

Since July 1793, the National Convention had passed wartime control into the hands of a smaller group of men known as the Committee of Public Safety. Led for much of this time by men such as Maximilian Robespierre, this group was determined to root out all domestic enemies of the new regime. They called for the beheading of tens of thousands of men and women, sometimes for the merest suspicion of betrayal or disloyalty.

By July 1794, the leaders of the Committee had turned on one another. Robespierre, among others, was executed by guillotine on July 28. The committee lost influence over the next year

The Directory

A new constitution created an executive body of five men known as the Directory. They headed a government primarily composed of 500 representatives and 250 senators. To elect these bodies, the universal male suffrage of prior revolutionary elections had been revised to a more limited suffrage that was based on property.

The Revolution, though, had not come to an end. There were few willing to vocalize desires to put Louis XVIII on the throne. The Directory led the nation through a stormy four years that required them to use the army to quell both royalist and more revolutionary attempts to regain control. Eventually, this reliance on the army led to the heightened appreciation of one of the most successful generals: Napoleon Bonaparte.

In late 1799, Napoleon led a coup which installed a ruling Consulate. Thus began another brief but significant era in French history, which would lead to a renewed monarchy under this Corsican soldier.