Six reasons that led to the fall of the Ottoman Empire

The Ottoman Empire was once one of the largest military and economic powers in the world, and in its golden age in the fifteenth century extended its control over an area that included not only its main lands in Asia Minor, but also a large part of southeastern Europe, the Middle East and North Africa.

Although the Ottoman Empire lasted for 600 years, it succumbed to what most historians describe as its slow and long-term decline, despite efforts to modernize.

The entry of the Ottoman Empire into World War I was a milestone in its history, and years after losing the war, the Treaty of Lausanne was signed in Switzerland in 1923, between Turkey - the heir of the Ottoman Empire - and the victorious powers in the war, which defined the borders of the modern state of Turkey, and its loss of the war was a pretext for the powers Europe to share the spoils of the Sultanate, which was known as the "sick man of Europe".

The empire was dismantled and its state ended in 1922, when the last of the Ottoman sultans, Mehmed VI, was overthrown, after he was isolated and left the Ottoman capital (Istanbul) on a British warship. The modern Turkish state was established on the ruins of the collapsed Ottoman Empire.

Although historians do not fully agree on the reasons for the tragic collapse of the Ottoman Empire, the History TV website has listed some influencing factors, including:

Agrarian character

While Europe was swept by the Industrial Revolution in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, the Ottoman economy remained dependent on agriculture.

The empire lacked the factories to keep up with Great Britain, France, and even Russia, according to Michael E., associate professor of Near Eastern Studies at Princeton University.

Reynolds.

As a result, the empire's economic growth was weak, and the agricultural surplus that the empire was producing went to pay off the loans of European creditors.

When World War I broke out, the Ottoman Empire did not have enough industrial expertise to produce the heavy weapons, ammunition, and iron and steel needed to build railroads to support the war effort.

Internal cohesion

The Ottoman Empire at its height included Bulgaria, Egypt, Greece, Hungary, Jordan, Lebanon, Palestine, Macedonia, Romania, Syria, parts of Arabia and the northern coast of Africa.

Reynolds argues that the enormous diversity of ethnicity, language, economy and geography did not suit modern homogeneous societies.

The various peoples who were part of the empire steadily rebelled.

By the 1870s, the empire had to allow Bulgaria and other countries independence, which was accompanied by the ceding of more territories.

After losing the Balkan Wars of 1912-13 to an alliance that included some of its former imperial possessions, the Ottomans were forced to give up all of their remaining European lands.

Education

Despite efforts to improve education in the eighteenth century, the Ottoman Empire lagged behind its European competitors in literacy, although there were a number of universities and specialized schools in its states.

“The human resources of the Ottoman Empire, like natural resources, were relatively underdeveloped,” Reynolds notes, adding that this meant the empire was suffering from a shortage of well-trained military officers, as well as engineers, writers, doctors and other professions.

Rivalry of Empires

Eugene Rogan, director of the Middle East Center at St. Antony's College, explained that the ambitions of European powers helped hasten the demise of the Ottoman Empire.

Both Russia and Austria sought to support rebellious nationalists in the Balkans to consolidate their influence there, and the British and French were keen to carve out the territories controlled by the Ottoman Empire in the Middle East and North Africa.

Conflict with Russia

"Neighboring Tsarist Russia - whose sprawling world also included Muslims - sought to become increasingly competitive," says Reynolds. "The Russian Empire was the biggest threat to the Ottoman Empire, and it was a real existential threat."

When the two empires took opposite positions in World War I, the Russians ended up collapsing first in part because Ottoman forces prevented Russia from getting supplies from Europe through the Black Sea, and Tsar Nicholas II and his Foreign Minister Sergei Sazanov resisted the idea of ​​negotiating a separate peace treaty with Russia. The Ottoman Empire, which might have saved Tsarist Russia from collapse.

World War

Standing with Germany in World War I was perhaps the most important reason for the demise of the Ottoman Empire.

Before the war, the Ottoman Empire had signed a secret treaty with Germany, which turned out to be a very poor choice.

In the conflict that followed, the Empire's army fought a bloody and brutal campaign on the Gallipoli Peninsula to protect Constantinople from invading Allied forces in 1915 and 1916.

Ultimately, the Ottoman Empire lost nearly half a million soldiers, mostly to disease, plus about 3.8 million more wounded in the war or disease.

In October 1918, the Ottomans signed an armistice with Great Britain, and they exited the war.

Some specialists argue that had it not been for the ill-fated choice of World War I, the Ottoman Empire might have survived and taken an opportunity to modernize and develop.

Cornell University historian Mustafa Minawi believes that the Ottoman Empire had the potential to develop into a multiethnic, multilingual federation.

But, instead - as Minawi sees - the First World War led to the disintegration of the empire, because "the Ottoman Empire sided with the losing side."

He noted that when the war ended, "the victors decided to divide the lands of the Ottoman Empire among themselves."