Download Charlotte Racioppo HIST 491 11/29/15 Defeat and Deposition

Racioppo 1
Charlotte Racioppo
HIST 491
11/29/15
Defeat and Deposition: Increasing Problems in the Ottoman Empire
At its height, the Ottoman Empire controlled territory from the coast of the Arabian Sea in
the east to northern Algeria in the west, a massive state with a palpable presence in both the Middle
East and Europe. Ruled by absolutist sultans and harnessing one of the most efficient, successful
military forces in the world at the time, a small Turkic state established by a regional chief in the
early 1300s was able to grow into an international power. This extensive success was temporary,
however, and the Ottoman Empire soon became wracked by civil unrest, military incompetence,
and ineffectual administration. As with most empires, especially one with such a diverse
population, the 18th century saw a multitude of differing and often clashing ideologies struggling
to find purchase in Ottoman life – thus the Empire’s politics, economics, social stratification, and
military structure became ideological battlegrounds for the forces of modernization and
conservatism. Coupled with the increasing power of European rivals, Sultans were frequent
participants in an ever-changing balancing act of domestic disorganization and foreign threat,
problems that manifested themselves in the form of various disastrous events. In particular, the
Ottoman defeat at Vienna in 1683 and the deposition of Sultan Ahmed III in 1730 signaled a
marked change in the success of the empire, and the issues they highlighted – the declining power
of the Ottoman military, the violent conservative response to reform, and a definitive shift in the
Racioppo 2
Empire’s power struggle against the West – would haunt the ruling administration for years to
come.
Battle of Vienna – September 11th-12th, 1683
Arguably the most famous Ottoman ruler, Sultan Suleiman I (1520-1566) led his people in
the first Ottoman siege of Vienna in 1529 following the conquest of Eastern Hungary, a military
campaign that would place all of Hungary, and vast amounts of former Hapsburg territory, under
Ottoman control if successful. Facing an onslaught of obstructions, however - inclement weather,
illness, loss of heavy artillery, discontent among Ottoman forces, arrival of European
reinforcements – Suleiman and the remaining Ottoman force chose to retreat, laying waste to the
Hapsburg-controlled areas in the east as they went.1 While not entirely a failure, Suleiman’s
inability to capture the Austrian capital signaled a halt to Ottoman expansionism in the West, an
unofficial delineation of conquest that provided Western powers with a sense of their rival’s
strategic limits.
A century and a half later the Ottomans were again en route to Vienna – this time under
the orders of Sultan Mehmed IV’s Grand Vezir, Merzifonlu Kara Mustafa Pasha – in a brash
attempt to defy the failure of 1529 and reestablish Ottoman dominance in Europe. However,
Mehmed himself was intent not to escalate tensions in Hungary, a sentiment that went unheeded
by his Grand Vezir.2 Propelled by the idea of an Ottoman-controlled Hungary (both with direct
Ottoman oversight and through the Hungarian Calvinist Imre Thokoly as a vassal), as well as the
promise of French passivity in any Ottoman-Hapsburg conflict, Mustafa Pasha marched with the
1. Spencer Tucker, Battles that Changed History: An Encyclopedia of World Conflict (Santa Barbara: ABC-CLIO,
2010), 168-169.
2. Caroline Finkel, Osman’s Dream (New York: Basic Books, 2005), 284.
Racioppo 3
imperial Ottoman army to besiege the Hapsburg city of Vienna.3 The siege itself lasted nearly two
months, in which time Mustafa Pasha’s forces did little else than unsuccessfully whittle away at
Vienna’s defenses.4 At the same time, a number of European nations scrambled to form alliances
and successfully rallied to the threatened Austrian capital, finally culminating in the September
12th Battle of Vienna and Ottoman defeat.
How did the Ottoman army, one that prided itself on military efficiency and dominance,
fall to an unprepared and decidedly outnumbered European coalition? Mustafa Pasha, a formidable
military mind in his own right,5 commanded a force backed by a significant contingent of
Janissaries, the Christian slave army whose diligence and cohesion made them one of the Empire’s
greatest military assets.6 Hearing of the coming invasion, “the [Hapsburg] Emperor and his court
deserted the city…and retreated to Passau,”7 leaving Vienna a virtual power vacuum for two
months before a coalition of Polish, German, and Austrian forces could reach the city. And the
Ottomans were even supported by Thokoly’s Transylvanian contingent, leveraging their numbers
to somewhere around 200,000 against a garrison of 15,000 besieged Viennese.8 Despite these
advantages, however, the Ottoman force was not powerful enough to effectively breach the city’s
defenses before Polish King John III Sobieski’s forces were able to close in and drive them back.
What was left of Mustafa Pasha’s army “retreated in disorder, cold and hungry.”9
3. Finkel, Osman’s Dream, 284.
4. Finkel, Osman’s Dream, 285.
5. Mustafa Pasha had extensive military experience, having commanded Ottoman armies during the conquest of
Kamenets Podolsky in 1672 and again in 1674 in the capture of Uman. (Alan Palmer, The Decline and Fall of the
Ottoman Empire (Faber & Faber, 2011).)
6. Ga ́bor A ́goston and Bruce Alan Masters, Encyclopedia of the Ottoman Empire (Infobase Publishing, 2009), 2224.
7. Finkel, Osman’s Dream, 284-285.
8. Tucker, Battles that Changed History, 215.
9. Finkel, Osman’s Dream, 284, 287.
Racioppo 4
Thus was the final nail driven into the proverbial coffin of Ottoman military dominance in
the West. The siege that would have reversed the unofficial boundary of Western expansion for
the Ottomans was instead made all the more substantial, its traditionally formidable army stifled
by Mustafa Pasha’s poor strategizing and the strength of a renewed Europe. Even the strength of
the Janissary corps was insufficient to overcome the might of their Western foes – where the
kingdoms of Europe had once been fearful of the Sultan’s armies, they found themselves able to
rout the Ottomans even when at a tactical disadvantage. This military ineptitude of the Ottoman
Empire was as uncharacteristic as it was widespread: the mines placed by Ottoman sappers to
weaken Vienna’s walls were quickly discovered and disarmed; the Ottomans were forced to rely
on light, outdated guns as no heavy artillery had been brought; and having suffered significant
losses since the beginning of the siege, Mustafa Pasha’s troops were unable to stifle the arrival of
Sobieski’s Polish relief army.10 Rather than prove the Ottoman war machine to be stronger than in
its 1500s heyday, it showed itself to be a weaker, disorganized iteration – not a shadow of its
former self, but definitively an empire on the decline. Over the coming years, as the Ottomans
desperately tried to rectify such military inferiority, their competition in the West was able to take
increasingly more advantage.
The Deposition of Ahmed III – September 28th, 1730
Sultan Ahmed III (1703-1730) was the son of Mehmed IV, ascending the throne after a
popular uprising led to the forced deposition of his brother Sultan Mustafa II (1695 -1703).11 The
first half of Ahmed’s reign (1703-1718) was marked by intensive military campaigning during
10. Tucker, Battles that Changed History, 216.
11. As a result of this revolt, Ahmed moved the court from Edirne to Istanbul, taking up residence at Topkapi
Palace.
Racioppo 5
which he recovered a portion of the territory lost with the Treaty of Karlowitz;12 the latter half saw
the Sultan become a major proponent of secularization during a period known as the Tulip Era
(1718-1730),13 with the Empire’s societal focus shifting towards a pleasure culture in which
government-sponsored arts, fashion, and entertainment flourished.14
Such government extravagance, however, was not enough stifle the rising discontent of the
Empire’s diverse population – in fact, the luxurious lifestyles promoted during the Tulip Era
compounded with preexisting problems, unsettling societal norms and in great part sparking the
rebellion that was to follow. Traditionalist factions like the ulema and a significant portion of the
Janissary corps were nursing grievances on the basis of government extravagance and intolerable
reform, and to the great dismay of the ulema in particular, Ahmed’s policies often included the
promotion of secular, non-Ottoman lifestyles.15 For the socially conservative, “the insouciance of
the Ottoman court and grandee households was becoming increasingly resented, and by the time
statesmen came to appreciate this, it was too late to deflect popular restiveness.”16 Not the only
dissatisfied demographic, a significant portion of Istanbul’s population became composed of
displaced refugees following the territorial losses of Belgrade to Austria in 171817 and Tabriz to
Iran in 1730.18 Dissatisfied with urban life, this new percentage of the Istanbul populace felt
underserved by the military force that failed to maintain control of their homes, bearing very little
love for Ahmed’s regime.
12. Most notably, the Ottomans were able to recover the Peloponnese from Venice in 1715. (A ́goston and Masters,
Encyclopedia of the Ottoman Empire, 25.)
13. A ́goston and Masters, Encyclopedia of the Ottoman Empire, 25.
14. Madeline C. Zilfi, “Women and Society in the Tulip Era, 1718-1730” in Women, the Family, and Divorce Laws
in Islamic History (Syracuse University Press, 1993), 290.
15. Such policies included the establishment of European embassies and the promotion of government-sponsored
entertainment. (Zilfi, “Women and Society,” 290-291.)
16. Finkel, Osman’s Dream, 351.
17. Finkel, Osman’s Dream, 338.
18. Finkel, Osman’s Dream, 352.
Racioppo 6
Those that gathered to protest the Sultan’s administration in September of 1730 were
largely “tradesmen and former soldiers, numbering some 25-30 men in all.”19 Their leader, an
Albanian Janissary named Patrona Halil, denounced Ahmed’s loss of territory in Iran, citing it as
an affront to Islam that the Sultan had “[surrendered] Sunni territory to infidels.” 20 Thus, those
with political or economic grievances who may have already resented Ahmed’s rule were provided
with a religious angle, rallying the working class and fueling the preexisting indignation of the
ulema. Rather than take immediate action and repress the rebellion, however, Ahmed and his
retinue made their way from Uskudar in urban Istanbul to Topkapi in order to escape the rebel
threat, spending the night in deliberation yet finding no solution, temporary or otherwise. In the
wake of Ahmed’s inaction, the crowd of disillusioned middle class expanded to include those
displaced from their homes outside Istanbul and a number of Janissaries.21 This development in
particular immensely weakened the Sultan’s position; while he had made efforts to curtail their
influence, the Janissary corps was still the major force behind both Ottoman military power and
the Sultan’s personal ability to exert force on the populace. Losing support of the Janissaries
greatly deprived Ahmed of his policing capabilities, and made him incredibly distrustful of any
attempt at repressing the rebels through a show of force now that any of his troops could be
sympathetic to their cause.22 Their demands, although vague, specified that 37 government
officials, including Ahmed’s Grand Vezir Damad Ibrahim and Ibrahim’s son-in-law, be turned
over to them to “answer charges,” though what those charges were was unclear.23 That a significant
portion of Istanbul’s population was making demands of the Sultan was in and of itself not
19. Finkel, Osman’s Dream, 353.
20. Stanford J. Shaw, History of the Ottoman Empire and Modern Turkey: Volume 1, Empire of the Gazis: The Rise
and Decline of the Ottoman Empire 1280-1808 (Cambridge University Press, 1976), 240.
21. Finkel, Osman’s Dream, 353.
22. Ibid.
23. Ibid.
Racioppo 7
especially shocking – Ahmed came to power after the deposition of his brother, and such
expressions of political disapproval were not unheard of, if not sanctioned. The rebels’ motivations
for insurrection, however, indicated a paradigm shift in the interactions between Sultan and
subjects.
Patrona Halil’s rebellion was significant in its manifestation of ideological discrepancies
among the Empire’s diverse populations, a literal conflict between “’the modernizers’ (ruling elite)
and ‘the conservatives’ (the religious establishment or ulema and the Janissaries).” 24 The
extravagance of Ahmed’s court during the Tulip Era and the progressive measures that followed
threatened the conservative population: secularization could usurp the power of the ulema in
spheres both clerical and societal, and the Janissaries would lose their sociopolitical status if the
government promoted social mobility (not to mention the likely loss of military exclusivity should
Ottoman interests become focused on domestic matters rather than territorial expansion). As a
result, the Janissaries’ loyal, militant persona took on greater elements of independence and
demilitarization, becoming more an obstinate political faction constantly working to maintain its
privileges than an army loyal to the Sultanate. In addition, Ahmed’s policies were centered on
reform, and often Western-influenced reform at that. The popular insurrection of 1730 was a clear
statement that “those Sultans who desired reform too ardently were deposed, their Grand Viziers
killed, usually in a cruel manner…[and] served notice to a ‘reforming’ Sultan and his ministers
that more imitation of Europe would not be tolerated.”25 (Olson, 1974, p. 330) Such sentiment
would be echoed in the future with the deposition and execution of Sultan Selim III (1789-1807),
24. A ́goston and Masters, Encyclopedia of the Ottoman Empire, 25.
25. Robert W. Olson, “The Esnaf and the Patrona Halil Rebellion of 1730: A Realignment in Ottoman Politics?”
Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient 17, no. 3 (September 1974): 330.
Racioppo 8
another reformer known for his “New Order” policies, and even the tense relationship between the
constitutionalizing Young Turks and Sultan Abdulhamid (1876-1909).
Ahmed’s inability to assuage these competing forces is indicative of a weakened central
government as well. For years, the Ottoman Empire relied heavily on centralization and an
absolutist monarch – while it is not the single turning point in Ottoman politics, Ahmed’s
reluctance to exercise full oversight over the rebellion inherently weakens the central government.
It appears less effective and, as multiple uprisings have proven, that alone is often enough to justify
a forcible ousting of the reigning political authority. In addition, the execution of Damad Ibrahim
was a self-inflicted blow to Ahmed’s position – caving to Patrona Halil’s demands only showed
the populace that the Sultan was fallible and could be influenced by the common people, even if
their petition was unfair or unclear. The absolutism that the Sultanate thrived upon was no longer
definitive enough to command the respect of the people, who now exercised political clout derived
only from sharing a goal with the more stubborn and historically powerful conservative factions.
The Sick Man of Europe
The seventeenth and eighteenth centuries proved less than ideal for the Ottoman Empire.
A state once so successful under Sultans like Suleiman I (1520-1566) found itself struggling to
compete with its neighbors, European and otherwise, as well as a citizenry that expressed their
dissatisfaction with increasing (and more dangerous) frequency. Failed military campaigns such
as 1683’s Vienna became opportunities for the West to reclaim some of the power, not to mention
land, lost to the Ottomans in previous years, and emphasized an unfamiliar and disconcerting lack
of Ottoman military prowess. Conservative forces such as the ulema and the Janissaries, still
wielders of immense social capital, allied themselves with a disgruntled Istanbul populace against
Racioppo 9
reform, succeeding in deposing the Sultan but weakening the same central government that could
prevent decentralization and the stripping of their own power. This era marked the beginning of
the end for the Ottoman Empire; and the reforms that could modernize the state and perhaps keep
it afloat amidst a changing global atmosphere were vehemently rejected by Ottoman factions
whose power relied on maintaining the policies of older generations. Like many empires before,
the Ottomans’ vast territory, immensely diverse population, and empirical competitors eventually
proved too much to balance while still retaining a popular, modern state, an insurmountable array
of issues that would finally resolve with the Empire’s dissolution in 1922.
Racioppo 10
Works Cited
Tucker, Spencer. Battles that Changed History: An Encyclopedia of World Conflict.
Santa Barbara: ABC-CLIO, 2010.
Palmer, Alan. The Decline and Fall of the Ottoman Empire. London: Faber & Faber, 2011.
A ́goston, Ga ́bor, and Masters, Bruce Alan. Encyclopedia of the Ottoman Empire. Infobase
Publishing, 2009
Olson, Robert W.. “The Esnaf and the Patrona Halil Rebellion of 1730: A Realignment in
Ottoman Politics?” Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient 17, no. 3
(September 1974): 329–44.
Shaw, Stanford J.. History of the Ottoman Empire and Modern Turkey: Volume 1, Empire of the
Gazis: The Rise and Decline of the Ottoman Empire 1280-1808. Cambridge University
Press, 1976.
Finkel, Caroline. Osman’s Dream. New York: Basic Books, 2005.
Zilfi, Madeline C. “Women and Society in the Tulip Era, 1718-1730.” In Women, the Family,
and Divorce Laws in Islamic History, 290-303. Syracuse University Press, 1993.