Transcript Ottoman Reading - APEuropeanHolden2010

***Ottoman Empire: External Pressures from Europe or Internal Ignorance***
A. Trade Routes
B. Ottoman Empire and Industry
C. Greek Independence of 1821
The wealth of the Ottomans was largely
due to their presence on trade routes. The
Empire stood at the crossroads of all the
continents and sub-continents: Africa, Asia,
India, and Europe. However, European
expansion created new trade routes that
bypassed Ottoman territories. Vast
amounts of revenue began to disappear
from the economy since the state collected
tariffs on all good passing through the
Empire.
The Ottomans kept their old labor
practices, in which production was
concentrated among craft guilds and
made by hand. Therefore Europeans
produced products with new, industrial
methods; hence, they were far cheaper
than similar products produced in Ottoman
territories. Many Ottoman began to buy
British and French goods.
The revolution that broke out in Greece in
1821 was primarily a nationalist uprising
rather than liberal revolution. Greece was
part of the Ottoman Empire, whose vast
territories were gradually being recessed
throughout the 18th century and early 19th
centuries. The Ottoman Empire’s military
was unable to defeat this nationalistic
movement and Greece gained its
independence.
D. The Crimean War
The first major Ottoman war was the Crimean War (1854-1856). Like so many of the
later conflicts with Europe, this one was initiated not by the Ottomans, but by the
Europeans. Russia was primarily interested in territory. Throughout the seventeenth and
eighteenth centuries, Russia had slowly been annexing Muslim states in Central Asia.
By 1854, Russia found itself near the banks of the Black Sea. Anxious to annex
territories in Eastern Europe, particularly the Ottoman provinces of Moldavia and
Walachia (now in modern day Czechoslovakia), the Russians went to war with the
Ottomans on the flimsiest of pretexts: the Ottomans had granted Catholic France the
right to protect Christian sites in the Holy Land (which the Ottomans controlled) rather
than Orthodox Russia. That, according to the Russians, justified going to war with the
Ottomans. The war soon became a European war when Britain and France allied with
the Ottomans in order to protect their lucrative trade interests in the region. The war
ended badly for the Russians, and the Paris peace of 1856 was unfavorable to them.
E. The Balkan Rebellion of 1876
In 1875, the Slavic peoples living in the Ottoman provinces of Bosnia and Herzegovina
led an uprising against the Ottomans in order to gain their freedom. The general
weakness of the Ottomans led the two independent, neighboring Slavic states,
Montenegro and Serbia, to aid the rebellion. Within a year, the rebellion spread to the
Ottoman province of Bulgaria. The rebellion was part of a larger political movement
called the Pan-Slavic movement, which desired to unify all Slavic people. The war went
very badly for the Ottomans because of the decline of janissaries and inability to
modernize like Europe. By 1878 they had to sue for peace. Under the peace treaty, the
Ottomans had to free all the Balkan provinces, including Bosnia, Herzegovina, and
Bulgaria.
F. Heavy Loans
The Ottoman Empire had a dual economy in the nineteenth century consisting of a
large subsistence sector and a small colonial-style commercial sector linked to
European markets and controlled by foreign interests. The empire's first railroads, for
example, were built by foreign investors to bring the cash crops of Anatolia's coastal
valleys--tobacco, grapes, and other fruit--to Smyrna (Izmir) for processing and export.
The cost of maintaining a modern army without a thorough reform of economic
institutions caused expenditures to be made in excess of tax revenues. Heavy
borrowing from foreign banks in the 1870s to reinforce the treasury and the
undertaking of new loans to pay the interest on older ones created a financial crisis
that in 1881 obliged the Porte to surrender administration of the Ottoman debt to a
commission representing foreign investors. The debt commission collected public
revenues and transferred the receipts directly to creditors in Europe.