Why the great Ottoman Empire collapsed: New findings of historians

2024 Author: Richard Flannagan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-15 23:55

The Ottoman Empire was one of the largest military and economic states in the world. At its peak in the 16th century, it controlled vast territories, including not only Asia Minor, but also most of southeastern Europe, the Middle East and North Africa. The borders of this powerful state stretched from the Danube to the Nile. No one could compare with the military power of the Ottomans, trade was super profitable, and achievements in various fields of science, from architecture to astronomy, were incredibly impressive. So why did such a great power disintegrate?

The superpower of its time, the powerful Ottoman Empire, existed for six hundred years. Its greatest heyday was at the end of the 15th century and the end of the 16th century. Not long enough in the light of such a science as history. The empire gradually fell into decay, despite all the efforts that were made by its rulers. It finally disintegrated after the battles on the side of Germany in the First World War and defeat. After that, the empire was dissolved by agreement and completely ceased to exist in 1922. The last Ottoman Sultan Mehmed VI was overthrown and left the capital Constantinople (now Istanbul) on a British warship. From the fragments of the Ottoman Empire, modern Turkey arose.

What caused such a deafening collapse of the once impressive Ottoman Empire? Historians have not fully agreed on this point, but they highlight six key facts in the process.

#1. The Ottoman Empire was a predominantly agrarian state

While Europe was swept by the industrial revolution in 1700-1918, the Ottoman economy was still too dependent on agriculture. According to Michael Reynolds, an assistant professor of Middle Eastern Studies at Princeton University, the empire lacked factories and factories to keep up with Britain, France and Russia.

As a result, the economic growth of the empire was very weak. All profits from agriculture went to pay off debts to European creditors. Then the world was engulfed in the fire of the First World War. The Ottoman Empire simply did not have the necessary production facilities in order to produce heavy weapons and ammunition. There were no industrial enterprises in the country that produced steel and iron. These materials are incredibly important for the construction of railways and for the production of all types of weapons.

# 2. The territories of the Ottoman state were too scattered

At the peak of its development, the Ottoman Empire included: Bulgaria, Egypt, Greece, Hungary, Jordan, Lebanon, Israel, Palestine, Macedonia, Romania, Syria, part of Arabia and the African north coast. Even if hostile external forces did not ultimately undermine the integrity of the empire, Professor Reynolds does not think that it had many chances to remain in its original form and develop into a modern democratic multiethnic society. In terms of the vast diversity of the empire in terms of ethnicity, language, economy, and geography, the state simply had no chance of remaining united. After all, homogeneous societies are much easier to democratize than such heterogeneous ones.

The various peoples that made up the empire became more and more rebellious. By the 1870s, the Ottomans were forced to allow Bulgaria and other countries to become independent. The state ceded more and more of its territories. After losing the Balkan Wars at the beginning of the 20th century to the coalition, which included some of its former imperial possessions, the Ottoman Empire was forced to abandon the entire remaining European territory.

# 3. The population of the Ottoman Empire was illiterate

In the 19th century, modernization touched the field of education in the Ottoman Empire. All heroic efforts in this regard have yielded little. The Muslim superpower still lagged far behind its European competitors in literacy. By all expert estimates, by 1914, only five to ten percent of the inhabitants of the Ottoman Empire could read. The human resources of the Ottomans were as poorly developed as their natural resources. The state had a catastrophic shortage of good specialists and representatives of various professions. For example, officers, engineers, doctors and many others.

#4. The Ottoman Empire was drained of blood by hostile states

The collapse of the Ottoman Empire was greatly accelerated by the exorbitant ambitions of the European states. This opinion is expressed by Eugene Rogan, director of the Middle East Center at St. Anthony's College. Russia and Austria supported rebel nationalists in the Balkans to increase their influence in the region. France and Britain sought to carve up Ottoman territories in the Middle East and North Africa.

#5. The rivalry with Russia turned out to be fatal

The Russian Empire, adjacent to the Ottomans, became an increasingly formidable rival to the Muslims. “Tsarist Russia was the biggest threat to the Ottoman state and was ultimately one of the reasons for its downfall,” says Reynolds. Empires occupied opposing sides in World War I. The Russians were first defeated. This was partly due to the fact that the Ottomans did not allow Russia to receive supplies from Europe through the Black Sea. Tsar Nicholas II and his Foreign Minister Sergei Sazanov strongly opposed the idea of concluding a separate peace with the Ottoman Empire, which could save Russia.

# 6. In World War I, the Ottomans chose the wrong side

Germany's commitment to World War I was arguably the most important cause of the collapse of the Ottoman Empire. Before the war, they signed a secret treaty with the Germans, which turned out to be a very unfortunate idea. In the ensuing conflict, the Ottoman army waged a brutal bloody campaign in the Gallipoli Peninsula to defend Constantinople from the Allied invasion in 1915 and 1916. Ultimately, the empire lost almost half a million soldiers. Most of them died from diseases, about 3.8 million became disabled. In October 1918, the empire signed a truce with Great Britain and ended the war.

If not for the fateful decision to side with Germany in the First World War, then, as many scholars argue, the empire could have maintained unity. Mostafa Minawi, a historian at Cornell University, believes the Ottoman state had enormous potential to become a modern multi-ethnic and multilingual federal power. Instead, the First World War triggered the collapse of the great empire. The Ottomans joined the losing side. As a result, when the war ended, the division of the territories of the Ottoman Empire was decided by the victors.

Many great empires of the past disappeared into the sands of time along with powerful civilizations. Read about because of what collapsed 6 of the most highly developed ancient civilizations, in our other article.