Saviour Officers victory
170-668: The 1912 Ottoman coup d'état (17 July 1912) was a coup by military memorandum in the Ottoman Empire against the Committee of Union and Progress by a group of military officers calling themselves the Saviour Officers ( Ottoman Turkish : Halâskâr Zâbitân ) during the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire . The coup occurred in the context of increasing distrust in the CUP's political agenda,
340-614: A Freedom and Accord partisan. The Ottoman Empire's defeat in the Balkan Wars was largely attributed to partisanship and lack of discipline within the military. This defeat gave the CUP the casus belli to return to power. In January 1913, the leadership of the CUP staged a coup , forcing the Freedom and Accord government of Kâmil Pasha to resign at gunpoint. The leaders of the Saviour Officers escaped to Egypt and Albania . Only in 1914 would
510-654: A Serbian nationalist and the resulting Austro-Hungarian plan for military action against Serbia was a major precipitating event of the First World War (1914–1918) The Italo-Turkish War illustrated to the French and British governments that Italy was more valuable to them inside the Triple Alliance than being formally allied with the Entente . In January 1912, the French diplomat Paul Cambon wrote to Raymond Poincaré that Italy
680-672: A calamitous end in 1683 when Grand Vizier Kara Mustafa Pasha led a huge army to attempt a second Ottoman siege of Vienna in the Great Turkish War of 1683–1699. The final assault being fatally delayed, the Ottoman forces were swept away by allied Habsburg, German, and Polish forces spearheaded by the Polish king John III Sobieski at the Battle of Vienna . The alliance of the Holy League pressed home
850-566: A clear advantage. The Italian Navy had seven times the tonnage of the Ottoman Navy and was better trained. In January 1912, the Italian cruiser Piemonte , with the Soldato class destroyers Artigliere and Garibaldino , sank seven Ottoman gunboats ( Ayintab , Bafra , Gökcedag , Kastamonu , Muha , Ordu and Refahiye ) and a yacht ( Sipka ) in the Battle of Kunfuda Bay . The Italians blockaded
1020-494: A coup, but he did see the need for military mobilization. In 1883, a German military mission under General Baron Colmar von der Goltz arrived to train the Ottoman Army, leading to the so-called "Goltz generation" of German-trained officers, who played a notable role in the politics of the empire's last years. From 1894 to 1896, between 100,000 and 300,000 Armenians living throughout the empire were killed in what became known as
1190-618: A cult of patriotic sacrifice in which the colonial war was celebrated in an aggressive and imperialistic way. The ideology of "crusade" and "martyrdom" characterised the funerals. The result was to consolidate Catholic war culture among devout Italians, which was soon expanded to include Italian involvement in the Great War (1915–1918). That aggressive spirit was revived by the Fascists in the 1920s to strengthen their popular support. The resistance in Libya
1360-526: A diplomatic exchange of notes. The agreement stipulated that Italy would support British control in Egypt, and that Britain would likewise support Italian influence in Libya. In 1902, Italy and France had signed a secret treaty which accorded freedom of intervention in Tripolitania and Morocco . The agreement, negotiated by Italian Foreign Minister Giulio Prinetti and French Ambassador Camille Barrère , ended
1530-491: A fairly modern conscripted army , banking system reforms, the decriminalization of homosexuality, the replacement of religious law with secular law, and guilds with modern factories. The Ottoman Ministry of Post was established in Istanbul in 1840. American inventor Samuel Morse received an Ottoman patent for the telegraph in 1847, issued by Sultan Abdülmecid , who personally tested the invention. The reformist period peaked with
1700-545: A figure that vastly exceeded the number of Muslim children in school at the time, who were further hindered by the amount of time spent learning Arabic and Islamic theology. Author Norman Stone suggests that the Arabic alphabet, in which Turkish was written until 1928 , was ill-suited to reflect the sounds of Turkish (which is a Turkic as opposed to Semitic language), which imposed further difficulty on Turkish children. In turn, Christians' higher educational levels allowed them to play
1870-478: A guerrilla war with local mujahideen . Many local Libyans joined forces with the Ottomans because of their common faith against the "Christian invaders" and started bloody guerrilla warfare . Italian authorities adopted many repressive measures against the rebels, such as public hangings as retaliation for ambushes. On 23 October 1911, over 500 Italian soldiers were slaughtered by Turkish troops at Sciara Sciatt , on
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#17328511631332040-503: A larger role in the economy, with the rise in prominence of groups such as the Sursock family indicative of this. In 1911, of the 654 wholesale companies in Istanbul, 528 were owned by ethnic Greeks. In many cases, Christians and Jews gained protection from European consuls and citizenship, meaning they were protected from Ottoman law and not subject to the same economic regulations as their Muslim counterparts. The Crimean War (1853–1856)
2210-613: A major center for its trade, contributing to its continued prosperity throughout the seventeenth and much of the eighteenth century. Under Ivan IV (1533–1584), the Tsardom of Russia expanded into the Volga and Caspian regions at the expense of the Tatar khanates. In 1571, the Crimean khan Devlet I Giray , commanded by the Ottomans, burned Moscow . The next year, the invasion was repeated but repelled at
2380-532: A new general election was called. This time, the CUP was restricted by the government. Some Unionist leaders thought of boycotting the election, but Talat convinced the Central Committee to participate in the process. On October 8, Montenegro declared war on the Ottoman Empire, beginning the Balkan Wars , and these elections were ultimately shelved. Muhtar Pasha resigned, he was to be succeeded by Kâmil Pasha ,
2550-457: A sense of Turkish nationalism. In this period, the Ottoman Empire spent only small amounts of public funds on education; for example, in 1860–1861 only 0.2% of the total budget was invested in education. As the Ottoman state attempted to modernize its infrastructure and army in response to outside threats, it opened itself up to a different kind of threat: that of creditors. As the historian Eugene Rogan has written, "the single greatest threat to
2720-461: A strong influence over public opinion, but it was in opposition and also divided on the issue. It acted ineffectively against military intervention. The future Italian fascist leader Benito Mussolini , who was then still a left-wing Socialist, took a prominent antiwar position. A similar opposition was expressed in Parliament by Gaetano Salvemini and Leone Caetani . An ultimatum was presented to
2890-581: A transcontinental empire. The Ottomans ended the Byzantine Empire with the conquest of Constantinople in 1453 by Mehmed II , which marked the Ottomans' emergence as a major regional power. Under Suleiman the Magnificent (1520–1566), the empire reached the peak of its power, prosperity, and political development. By the start of the 17th century, the Ottomans presided over 32 provinces and numerous vassal states , which over time were either absorbed into
3060-454: A victory over the Ottoman fleet at the Battle of Lepanto (1571), off southwestern Greece; Catholic forces killed over 30,000 Turks and destroyed 200 of their ships. It was a startling, if mostly symbolic, blow to the image of Ottoman invincibility, an image which the victory of the Knights of Malta over the Ottoman invaders in the 1565 siege of Malta had recently set about eroding. The battle
3230-542: A war that was lasting much longer than expected. Italy occupied twelve islands in the sea, comprising the Ottoman province of Rhodes , which then became known as the Dodecanese, but that raised the discontent of Austria-Hungary , which feared that it could fuel the irredentism of nations such as Serbia and Greece and cause imbalance in the already-fragile situation in the Balkan area. The only other relevant military operation of
3400-618: The Anatolian Beyliks . One of these, in the region of Bithynia on the frontier of the Byzantine Empire, was led by the Turkish tribal leader Osman I ( d. 1323/4), a figure of obscure origins from whom the name Ottoman is derived. Osman's early followers consisted of Turkish tribal groups and Byzantine renegades, with many but not all converts to Islam. Osman extended control of his principality by conquering Byzantine towns along
3570-723: The Anglo-Russian Convention and the establishment of the Triple Entente , Tsar Nicholas II and King Victor Emmanuel III made the 1909 Racconigi Bargain in which Russia acknowledged Italy's interest in Tripoli and Cyrenaica in return for Italian support for Russian control of the Bosphorus . However, the Italian government did little to realise that opportunity and so knowledge of the Libyan territory and resources remained scarce in
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#17328511631333740-512: The Arab Revolt . During this period, the Ottoman government engaged in genocide against Armenians , Assyrians , and Greeks . In the aftermath of World War I , the victorious Allied Powers occupied and partitioned the Ottoman Empire, which lost its southern territories to the United Kingdom and France . The successful Turkish War of Independence , led by Mustafa Kemal Atatürk against
3910-700: The Balkan League was completed in 1912, with the First Balkan War (1912–1913) beginning by a Montenegrin attack on 8 October 1912, ten days before the Treaty of Ouchy. The swift and nearly-complete victory of the Balkan League astonished contemporary observers. However, none of the victors were happy with the division of captured territory, which resulted in the Second Balkan War (1913) in which Serbia, Greece,
4080-458: The Battle of Molodi . The Ottoman Empire continued to invade Eastern Europe in a series of slave raids , and remained a significant power in Eastern Europe until the end of the 17th century. The Ottomans decided to conquer Venetian Cyprus and on 22 July 1570, Nicosia was besieged; 50,000 Christians died, and 180,000 were enslaved. On 15 September 1570, the Ottoman cavalry appeared before
4250-702: The Bosporus Strait made it difficult to conquer. In 1402, the Byzantines were temporarily relieved when the Turco-Mongol leader Timur , founder of the Timurid Empire , invaded Ottoman Anatolia from the east. In the Battle of Ankara in 1402, Timur defeated Ottoman forces and took Sultan Bayezid I as prisoner, throwing the empire into disorder. The ensuing civil war lasted from 1402 to 1413 as Bayezid's sons fought over succession. It ended when Mehmed I emerged as
4420-642: The Bulgarian Tsardom of Vidin in 1396, regarded as the last large-scale crusade of the Middle Ages , failed to stop the advance of the victorious Ottomans. As the Turks expanded into the Balkans, the conquest of Constantinople became a crucial objective. The Ottomans had already wrested control of nearly all former Byzantine lands surrounding the city, but the strong defense of Constantinople's strategic position on
4590-583: The Cape of Good Hope in 1488 initiated a series of Ottoman-Portuguese naval wars in the Indian Ocean throughout the 16th century. Despite the growing European presence in the Indian Ocean, Ottoman trade with the east continued to flourish. Cairo, in particular, benefitted from the rise of Yemeni coffee as a popular consumer commodity. As coffeehouses appeared in cities and towns across the empire, Cairo developed into
4760-534: The Constitution of the Ottoman Empire and brought in multi-party politics with a two-stage electoral system ( electoral law ) under the Ottoman parliament . The constitution offered hope by freeing the empire's citizens to modernise the state's institutions, rejuvenate its strength, and enable it to hold its own against outside powers. Its guarantee of liberties promised to dissolve inter-communal tensions and transform
4930-522: The First Treaty of Lausanne , which is often also called Treaty of Ouchy to distinguish it from the 1923 Treaty of Lausanne , (the Second Treaty of Lausanne). The main provisions of the treaty were as follows: Subsequent events prevented the return of the Dodecanese to Turkey, however. The First Balkan War broke out shortly before the treaty had been signed. Turkey was in no position to reoccupy
5100-808: The Great Northern War of 1700–1721). Charles XII persuaded the Ottoman Sultan Ahmed III to declare war on Russia, which resulted in an Ottoman victory in the Pruth River Campaign of 1710–1711, in Moldavia. After the Austro-Turkish War , the Treaty of Passarowitz confirmed the loss of the Banat, Serbia, and "Little Walachia" (Oltenia) to Austria. The Treaty also revealed that the Ottoman Empire
5270-534: The Greek revolt (1821–1829) that ultimately ended with the formal independence of Greece in 1830. It was a costly enterprise for Muhammad Ali, who had lost his fleet at the Battle of Navarino in 1827. Thus began the first Egyptian–Ottoman War (1831–1833) , during which the French-trained army of Muhammad Ali, under the command of his son Ibrahim Pasha , defeated the Ottoman Army as it marched into Anatolia , reaching
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5440-720: The Greeks declared war on the Sultan. A rebellion that originated in Moldavia as a diversion was followed by the main revolution in the Peloponnese , which, along with the northern part of the Gulf of Corinth , became the first parts of the Ottoman Empire to achieve independence (in 1829). In 1830, the French invaded the Deylik of Algiers . The campaign that took 21 days, resulted in over 5,000 Algerian military casualties, and about 2,600 French ones. Before
5610-497: The Hamidian massacres . In 1897 the population was 19 million, of whom 14 million (74%) were Muslim. An additional 20 million lived in provinces that remained under the sultan's nominal suzerainty but were entirely outside his actual power. One by one the Porte lost nominal authority. They included Egypt, Tunisia, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Bosnia-Herzegovina, and Lebanon. As
5780-646: The Iberian Union . The Ottomans were holders of the Caliph title, meaning they were the leaders of Muslims worldwide. The Iberians were leaders of the Christian crusaders, and so the two fought in a worldwide conflict. There were zones of operations in the Mediterranean and Indian Ocean , where Iberians circumnavigated Africa to reach India and, on their way, wage war upon the Ottomans and their local Muslim allies. Likewise,
5950-690: The Köprülü era (1656–1703), effective control of the Empire was exercised by a sequence of grand viziers from the Köprülü family. The Köprülü Vizierate saw renewed military success with authority restored in Transylvania, the conquest of Crete completed in 1669, and expansion into Polish southern Ukraine , with the strongholds of Khotyn , and Kamianets-Podilskyi and the territory of Podolia ceding to Ottoman control in 1676. This period of renewed assertiveness came to
6120-620: The Oriental Crisis of 1840 . Muhammad Ali had close relations with France , and the prospect of him becoming the Sultan of Egypt was widely viewed as putting the entire Levant into the French sphere of influence. As the Sublime Porte had proved itself incapable of defeating Muhammad Ali, the British Empire and Austrian Empire provided military assistance, and the second Egyptian–Ottoman War (1839–1841) ended with Ottoman victory and
6290-472: The Sakarya River . A Byzantine defeat at the Battle of Bapheus in 1302 contributed to Osman's rise. It is not well understood how the early Ottomans came to dominate their neighbors, due to the lack of sources surviving. The Ghaza thesis popular during the 20th century credited their success to rallying religious warriors to fight for them in the name of Islam , but it is no longer generally accepted. No other hypothesis has attracted broad acceptance. In
6460-410: The Saviour Officers ( Halâskâr Zâbitân ) clique, and requested President of the Ottoman Assembly Halil Bey to disband the CUP dominated parliament. During this time, the units sent to Albania to put down the revolt joined the rebels and took to the mountains, much like the Unionists themselves did in 1908 . These officers being affiliated with the Saviour Officers, they delivered an ultimatum that
6630-405: The Second Constitutional Monarchy and to restore the Sultan-Caliph Abdul Hamid II his powers. The countercoup was put down by a constitutionalist force which marched on the capital: the Action Army ( Hareket Ordusu ), and Abdul Hamid II was deposed for his half-brother Mehmed V . While the CUP was back in power and purged reactionaries from government, it was not fully in control, and elements in
6800-477: The Spanish garrison of Castelnuovo on the Adriatic coast ; the successful siege cost the Ottomans 8,000 casualties, but Venice agreed to terms in 1540, surrendering most of its empire in the Aegean and the Morea . France and the Ottoman Empire, united by mutual opposition to Habsburg rule, became allies. The French conquests of Nice (1543) and Corsica (1553) occurred as a joint venture between French king Francis I and Suleiman, and were commanded by
6970-454: The Treaty of Nasuh Pasha , which ceded the entire Caucasus, except westernmost Georgia, back into the possession of Safavid Iran . The treaty ending the Cretan War cost Venice much of Dalmatia , its Aegean island possessions, and Crete . (Losses from the war totalled 30,985 Venetian soldiers and 118,754 Turkish soldiers.) During his brief majority reign, Murad IV (1623–1640) reasserted central authority and recaptured Iraq (1639) from
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7140-434: The United Kingdom had agreed to the French occupation of Tunisia and British control over Cyprus respectively, which were both parts of the declining Ottoman state. When Italian diplomats hinted about possible opposition to the Anglo-French maneuvers by their government, the French replied that Tripoli would have been a counterpart for Italy, which made a secret agreement with the British government in February 1887 via
7310-413: The Young Turk Revolution and the Second Constitutional Era . The revolution resulted in the Sultan Abdul Hamid II announcing the restoration of the Ottoman Constitution on 24 July 1908 and an election to elect a new parliament. The 1908 election put the CUP firmly in the legislature, while the main opposition was the Liberty Party . The 31 March Incident (13 April 1909) was an attempt to dismantle
7480-446: The 14th to early 20th centuries; it also controlled parts of southeastern Central Europe , between the early 16th and early 18th centuries. The empire emerged from a beylik , or principality , founded in northwestern Anatolia in c. 1299 by the Turkoman tribal leader Osman I . His successors conquered much of Anatolia and expanded into the Balkans by the mid-14th century, transforming their petty kingdom into
7650-444: The 1920 Treaty of Sèvres , which was never ratified, Italy was supposed to cede all of the islands except Rhodes to Greece in exchange for a vast Italian zone of influence in southwest Anatolia . However, the Greek defeat in the Greco–Turkish War and the foundation of modern Turkey created a new situation that made the enforcement of the terms of that treaty impossible. In Article 15 of the 1923 Treaty of Lausanne , which superseded
7820-434: The 1920 Treaty of Sèvres, Turkey formally recognised the Italian annexation of the Dodecanese. The population was largely Greek, and by treaty in 1947, the islands eventually became part of Greece. As the Dodecanese were part of Italy, the local population was not affected by the subsequent population exchange between Greece and Turkey , and a small community of Dodecanese Turks has remained to this day. In his book Primo,
7990-422: The 1923 Treaty of Lausanne . The war is considered a precursor of the First World War . Members of the Balkan League , seeing how easily Italy defeated the Ottomans and motivated by incipient Balkan nationalism , attacked the Ottoman Empire in October 1912, starting the First Balkan War a few days before the end of the Italo-Turkish War. The Italo-Turkish War saw some technological changes , most notably
8160-425: The 31 March Incident meant the Chamber of Deputies , now dominated by Freedom and Accord, held that prerogative, no longer the Sultan. Grand Vizier Said Pasha , at this point a reluctant Unionist partisan, attempted to get parliamentary approval for a constitutional amendment which would return to the Sultan the power of parliamentary dissolution, but when Freedom and Accord blocked this proposal, he resigned. Though
8330-406: The Arabic name ʿUthmān ( عثمان ). In Ottoman Turkish , the empire was referred to as Devlet-i ʿAlīye-yi ʿO s mānīye ( دولت عليه عثمانیه ), lit. ' Sublime Ottoman State ' , or simply Devlet-i ʿO s mānīye ( دولت عثمانيه ), lit. ' Ottoman State ' . The Turkish word for "Ottoman" ( Osmanlı ) originally referred to the tribal followers of Osman in
8500-486: The Balkan Peninsula during the Congress of Berlin , and in return, Britain assumed the administration of Cyprus in 1878. Britain later sent troops to Egypt in 1882 to put down the Urabi Revolt (Sultan Abdul Hamid II was too paranoid to mobilize his own army, fearing this would result in a coup d'état), effectively gaining control in both territories. Abdul Hamid II was so fearful of a coup that he did not allow his army to conduct war games, lest this serve as cover for
8670-416: The Balkan Wars, followed shortly by World War I (which found Turkey and Italy again on opposing sides), meant that the islands were never returned to the Ottoman Empire. Turkey gave up its claims on the islands in the Treaty of Lausanne , and the Dodecanese continued to be administered by Italy until 1947, when after the Italian defeat in World War II, the islands were ceded to Greece. The invasion of Libya
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#17328511631338840-445: The Balkans . Osman's son, Orhan , captured the northwestern Anatolian city of Bursa in 1326, making it the new capital and supplanting Byzantine control in the region. The important port of Thessaloniki was captured from the Venetians in 1387 and sacked. The Ottoman victory in Kosovo in 1389 effectively marked the end of Serbian power in the region, paving the way for Ottoman expansion into Europe. The Battle of Nicopolis for
9010-428: The Balkans to the Italian declaration of war was immediate. The first draft by Serbia of a military treaty with Bulgaria against Turkey was written by November 1911, with a defensive treaty signed in March 1912 and an offensive treaty signed in May 1912 focused on military action against Ottoman-ruled Southeastern Europe. The series of bilateral treaties between Greece , Bulgaria , Serbia and Montenegro that created
9180-422: The British. Giolitti refused. Italy declared war on 29 September 1911. The Italian army was ill-prepared for the war and was not informed of the government's plans for Libya until late September. The army had a shortage of soldiers as the class of 1889 was demobilized before the war started. Military operations started with the bombardment of Tripoli on 3 October. The city was conquered by 1,500 sailors, much to
9350-453: The CUP became increasingly radicalized and nationalistic, leading a coup d'état in 1913 that established a one-party regime. The CUP allied with the German Empire hoping to escape from the diplomatic isolation that had contributed to its recent territorial losses; it thus joined World War I on the side of the Central Powers . While the empire was able to largely hold its own during the conflict, it struggled with internal dissent, especially
9520-407: The CUP violently returned to power on 23 January 1913, with the Raid on the Sublime Porte . The coup was one of the central events of the politically volatile 1912–13 years, which saw political instability due to the power struggle between the CUP and Freedom and Accord, as well as the newly sparked Balkan Wars . The Committee of Union and Progress (CUP) was a revolutionary group that instigated
9690-446: The CUP, after accusing central committee members Mehmed Talat , Mehmed Cavid , and Hüseyin Cahid of being seduced by Zionism and Freemasonry . Cavid would subsequently resign his post as minister of finance . On 30 September 1911, Unionist İbrahim Hakkı Pasha resigned as Grand Vizier following the outbreak of the Italo-Turkish War . When Tripolitanian MPs proposed to put him on trial for failing to stop Italian occupation of
9860-446: The Conqueror , reorganized both state and military, and on 29 May 1453 conquered Constantinople , ending the Byzantine Empire. Mehmed allowed the Eastern Orthodox Church to maintain its autonomy and land in exchange for accepting Ottoman authority. Due to tension between the states of western Europe and the later Byzantine Empire, most of the Orthodox population accepted Ottoman rule, as preferable to Venetian rule. Albanian resistance
10030-444: The Constitution, called the Kanûn-u Esâsî . The empire's First Constitutional era was short-lived. The parliament survived for only two years before the sultan suspended it. The empire's Christian population, owing to their higher educational levels, started to pull ahead of the Muslim majority, leading to much resentment. In 1861, there were 571 primary and 94 secondary schools for Ottoman Christians, with 140,000 pupils in total,
10200-400: The Empire or granted various degrees of autonomy. With its capital at Constantinople (modern-day Istanbul ) and control over a significant portion of the Mediterranean Basin , the Ottoman Empire was at the centre of interactions between the Middle East and Europe for six centuries. While the Ottoman Empire was once thought to have entered a period of decline after the death of Suleiman
10370-421: The Freedom and Accord Party was ascendant in the chamber, it did not have an empire wide political apparatus and was averse to an election. Mehmed V reappointed Said Grand Vizier, despite disapproval from Freedom and Accord and the President of the Senate : Ahmed Muhtar Pasha . Said Pasha again introduced a constitutional amendment to the Chamber that would give the Sultan prerogative to dissolve parliament, and it
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#173285116313310540-482: The French invasion the total population of Algeria was most likely between 3,000,000 and 5,000,000. By 1873, the population of Algeria (excluding several hundred thousand newly arrived French settlers) had decreased to 2,172,000. In 1831, Muhammad Ali of Egypt revolted against Sultan Mahmud II due to the latter's refusal to grant him the governorships of Greater Syria and Crete , which the Sultan had promised him in exchange for sending military assistance to put down
10710-405: The Iberians passed through newly-Christianized Latin America and had sent expeditions that traversed the Pacific to Christianize the formerly Muslim Philippines and use it as a base to attack the Muslims in the Far East . In this case, the Ottomans sent armies to aid its easternmost vassal and territory, the Sultanate of Aceh in Southeast Asia. During the 1600s, the world conflict between
10880-664: The Islamic clergy successfully objected under the grounds of theodicy . In 1754 the artillery school was reopened on a semi-secret basis. In 1726, Ibrahim Muteferrika convinced the Grand Vizier Nevşehirli Damat Ibrahim Pasha , the Grand Mufti , and the clergy on the efficiency of the printing press, and Muteferrika was later granted by Sultan Ahmed III permission to publish non-religious books (despite opposition from some calligraphers and religious leaders). Muteferrika's press published its first book in 1729 and, by 1743, issued 17 works in 23 volumes, each having between 500 and 1,000 copies. In North Africa, Spain conquered Oran from
11050-456: The Italian ambassador on 28 July that he would support Italy, not the Ottomans. On 19 September, Grey instructed Permanent Under-Secretary of State Sir Arthur Nicolson, 1st Baron Carnock that Britain and France should not interfere with Italy's designs on Libya. Meanwhile, the Russian government urged Italy to act in a "prompt and resolute manner". In contrast to its engagement with the Entente powers, Italy largely ignored its military allies in
11220-480: The Italian armies poured onto the coasts of Libya, facing numerous problems during their landings and deployments. One of these problems was that the Ottoman vice admiral in 1911, Bucknam Pasha , was at first successfully blockading the Italians from landing on the Tripolitanian coast. The Italians believed that a force of 20,000 would be able to take over Libya. The force was able to capture Tripoli, Tobruk, Derna, Bengasi, and Homs between 3 and 21 October. However,
11390-408: The Italian ships took no casualties and also no direct hits from any of the Ottoman warships. Italy had feared that the Ottoman naval forces at Beirut could be used to threaten the approach to the Suez Canal . The Ottoman naval presence at Beirut was completely annihilated and casualties on the Ottoman side were heavy. The Italian Navy gained complete naval dominance of the southern Mediterranean for
11560-451: The Italians could easily extend their occupation of the country, seizing East Tripolitania, Ghadames , the Djebel and Fezzan with Murzuk during 1913. The outbreak of the First World War with the necessity to bring back the troops to Italy, the proclamation of the Jihad by the Ottomans and the uprising of the Libyans in Tripolitania forced the Italians to abandon all occupied territory and to entrench themselves in Tripoli, Derna, and on
11730-413: The Italians suffered a defeat at Shar al-Shatt , with at least 21 officers and 482 soldiers dead. The Italians executed 400 women and 4,000 men through firing squads and hanging in retaliation. The corps was consequently enlarged to 100,000 men who had to face 20,000 Libyans and 8,000 Ottomans. The war turned into one of position. Even the Italian utilisation of armoured cars and air power, both among
11900-413: The Janissary revolted . Selim's efforts cost him his throne and his life, but were resolved in spectacular and bloody fashion by his successor, the dynamic Mahmud II , who eliminated the Janissary corps in 1826. The Serbian revolution (1804–1815) marked the beginning of an era of national awakening in the Balkans during the Eastern Question . In 1811, the fundamentalist Wahhabis of Arabia, led by
12070-412: The Libyans were estimated at 3,500, but they were being constantly reinforced, and a general assault on the Italian position was expected. The Italian and Turkish forces in Tripoli and Cyrenaica were constantly reinforced since the Ottoman withdrawal to the interior enabled them to reinforce their troops considerably. Lacking a considerable navy, the Ottomans were not able to send regular forces to Libya,
12240-515: The Magnificent (1520–1566) captured Belgrade in 1521, conquered the southern and central parts of the Kingdom of Hungary as part of the Ottoman–Hungarian Wars , and, after his historic victory in the Battle of Mohács in 1526, he established Ottoman rule in the territory of present-day Hungary and other Central European territories. He then laid siege to Vienna in 1529, but failed to take
12410-454: The Magnificent, modern academic consensus posits that the empire continued to maintain a flexible and strong economy, society and military into much of the 18th century. However, during a long period of peace from 1740 to 1768, the Ottoman military system fell behind those of its chief European rivals, the Habsburg and Russian empires. The Ottomans consequently suffered severe military defeats in
12580-527: The Ottoman Caliphate and Iberian Union was a stalemate since both were at similar population , technology and economic levels. Nevertheless, the success of the Ottoman political and military establishment was compared to the Roman Empire , despite the difference in size, by the likes of contemporary Italian scholar Francesco Sansovino and French political philosopher Jean Bodin . In the second half of
12750-573: The Ottoman Empire gradually shrank, 7–9 million Muslims from its former territories in the Caucasus, Crimea , Balkans, and the Mediterranean islands migrated to Anatolia and Eastern Thrace . After the Empire lost the First Balkan War (1912–1913), it lost all its Balkan territories except East Thrace (European Turkey). This resulted in around 400,000 Muslims fleeing with the retreating Ottoman armies (with many dying from cholera brought by
12920-494: The Ottoman Empire, mostly inhabiting Istanbul, Izmir, and Thessaloniki, dealing with trade and industry. The sudden declaration of war shocked both the Italian community living in the Empire as well as the Ottoman government. Depending on the mutual friendly relations, the Ottoman Government had sent their Libyan battalions to Yemen in order to suppress local rebellions, leaving only the military police in Libya. Therefore,
13090-557: The Ottoman admirals Hayreddin Barbarossa and Dragut . France supported the Ottomans with an artillery unit during the 1543 Ottoman conquest of Esztergom in northern Hungary. After further advances by the Turks, the Habsburg ruler Ferdinand officially recognized Ottoman ascendancy in Hungary in 1547. Suleiman died of natural causes during the siege of Szigetvár in 1566. Following his death,
13260-547: The Ottoman commander, Enver Bey , attacked the Italian positions on the plateau. The larger Italian fire drove back the Ottoman soldiers, who were surrounded by a battalion of Alpini and suffered heavy losses. A later Ottoman attack had the same outcome. Then, operations in Cyrenaica ceased until the end of the war. Although some elements of the local population collaborated with the Italians, counterattacks by Ottoman soldiers with
13430-532: The Ottoman economy, and used its position to ensure that European capital continued to penetrate the empire, often to the detriment of local Ottoman interests. The Ottoman bashi-bazouks suppressed the Bulgarian uprising of 1876, massacring up to 100,000 people in the process. The Russo-Turkish War (1877–1878) ended with a decisive victory for Russia. As a result, Ottoman holdings in Europe declined sharply: Bulgaria
13600-471: The Ottoman government supported a great number of young officers to travel to the area in order to rally the locals and coordinate the resistance. Enver Bey , Mustafa Kemal Bey , Ali Fethi Bey , Cami Bey , Nuri Bey and many other Turkish officers managed to reach Libya, traveling under secret identities such as covering as a medical doctor , journalist among others. The Ottoman Şehzade Osman Fuad had also joined these officers, granting royal support to
13770-470: The Ottoman government, led by the Committee of Union and Progress (CUP), on the night of 26–27 September 1911. Through Austro-Hungarian intermediation, the Ottomans replied with the proposal of transferring control of Libya without war and maintaining a formal Ottoman suzerainty . That suggestion was comparable to the situation in Egypt , which was under formal Ottoman suzerainty but was under de facto control by
13940-513: The Ottomans did not have a full army in Tripolitania . Many of the Ottoman officers had to travel there by their own means, often secretly, through Egypt since the British government would not allow Ottoman troops to be transported en masse through Egypt. The Ottoman Navy was too weak to transport troops by sea. The Ottomans organised local Libyans for the defence against the Italian invasion. Between 1911 and 1912, over 1,000 Somalis from Mogadishu ,
14110-547: The Ottomans were said to be declining, although this has been rejected by many scholars. By the end of Suleiman's reign, the Empire spanned approximately 877,888 sq mi (2,273,720 km ), extending over three continents. The Empire became a dominant naval force, controlling much of the Mediterranean Sea . The Empire was now a major part of European politics. The Ottomans became involved in multi-continental religious wars when Spain and Portugal were united under
14280-476: The Ottomans, and Romania took almost all of the territory that Bulgaria had captured in the first war. In the wake of the enormous change in the regional balance of power, Russia switched its primary allegiance in the region from Bulgaria to Serbia and guaranteed Serbian autonomy from any outside military intervention. The assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand , the heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne, by
14450-526: The Red Sea ports of the Ottomans and actively supplied and supported the Emirate of Asir , which was also then at war with the Ottoman Empire. Then, on 24 February, in the Battle of Beirut , two Italian armoured cruisers attacked and sank an Ottoman casemate corvette and six lighters , retreated and returned and then sank an Ottoman torpedo boat . Avnillah alone suffered 58 killed and 108 wounded. By contrast,
14620-771: The Russian Empire (2 November 1914) and its allies France (5 November 1914) and the British Empire (5 November 1914) declared war on the Ottoman Empire. Also on 5 November 1914, the British government changed the status of the Khedivate of Egypt and Cyprus , which were de jure Ottoman territories prior to the war, to British protectorates . Italo-Turkish War Mobilisation 1911: 89,000 troops 14,600 quadrupeds 2,550 wagons 132 field guns 66 mountain guns 28 siege guns The Italo-Turkish or Turco-Italian War ( Turkish : Trablusgarp Savaşı , "Tripolitanian War", Italian : Guerra di Libia , "War of Libya")
14790-588: The Russian intervention, Sultan Mahmud II could have faced the risk of being overthrown and Muhammad Ali could have even become the new Sultan. These events marked the beginning of a recurring pattern where the Sublime Porte needed the help of foreign powers to protect itself. In 1839, the Sublime Porte attempted to take back what it lost to the de facto autonomous, but de jure still Ottoman Eyalet of Egypt , but its forces were initially defeated, which led to
14960-546: The Russians. After this treaty the Ottoman Empire was able to enjoy a generation of peace in Europe, as Austria and Russia were forced to deal with the rise of Prussia . Educational and technological reforms came about, including the establishment of higher education institutions such as the Istanbul Technical University . In 1734 an artillery school was established to impart Western-style artillery methods, but
15130-617: The Safavids. The resulting Treaty of Zuhab of that same year decisively divided the Caucasus and adjacent regions between the two neighbouring empires as it had already been defined in the 1555 Peace of Amasya. The Sultanate of Women (1533–1656) was a period in which the mothers of young sultans exercised power on behalf of their sons. The most prominent women of this period were Kösem Sultan and her daughter-in-law Turhan Hatice , whose political rivalry culminated in Kösem's murder in 1651. During
15300-432: The Saviour Officers, which are often referred to as the military wing of the Freedom and Accord Party. By the summer of 1912, the pro-CUP Grand Vizier Said Pasha resigned under Savior Officer pressure, completing the coup. Said Pasha turned over the premiership to Ahmed Muhtar Pasha 's non-partisan Great Cabinet . With his resignation from the Balkan Wars, Kâmil Pasha 's partisan Accordist ministry came to power, until
15470-521: The Triple Alliance. Giolitti and Foreign Minister Antonino Paternò Castello agreed on 14 September to launch a military campaign "before the Austrian and German governments [were aware] of it". Germany was then actively attempting to mediate between Rome and Constantinople, and Austro-Hungarian Foreign Minister Alois Lexa von Aehrenthal repeatedly warned Italy that military action in Libya would threaten
15640-508: The Turks, but was again defeated at the Second Battle of Kosovo in 1448. According to modern historiography, there is a direct connection between the rapid Ottoman military advance and the consequences of the Black Death from the mid-fourteenth century onwards. Byzantine territories, where the initial Ottoman conquests were carried out, were exhausted demographically and militarily due to
15810-524: The advantage of the defeat at Vienna, culminating in the Treaty of Karlowitz (26 January 1699), which ended the Great Turkish War. The Ottomans surrendered control of significant territories, many permanently. Mustafa II (1695–1703) led the counterattack of 1695–1696 against the Habsburgs in Hungary, but was undone at the disastrous defeat at Zenta (in modern Serbia), 11 September 1697. Aside from
15980-515: The al-Saud family, revolted against the Ottomans. Unable to defeat the Wahhabi rebels, the Sublime Porte had Muhammad Ali Pasha of Kavala , the vali (governor) of the Eyalet of Egypt , tasked with retaking Arabia, which ended with the destruction of the Emirate of Diriyah in 1818. The suzerainty of Serbia as a hereditary monarchy under its own dynasty was acknowledged de jure in 1830. In 1821,
16150-519: The area, the CUP blocked the motion, increasing partisanship. A meeting in October by all of the parliament's major politicians: Krikor Zohrab , Cavid, Talat, Halil Menteşe , Hakkı, Vartkes Serengülian , and Karekin Pastermadjian was held, the agenda being the CUP's lack of commitment to constitutional government, and a potential way to resolve differences between the CUP and opposition. The CUP rejected
16320-464: The army that a new impartial and technocratic government would be formed and that he would facilitate negotiations for the selection of premier. Gazi Ahmed Muhtar Pasha , a war hero, was finally selected, with the hope that his appointment would stop partisanship in the army. Muhtar Pasha 's government, known as the "Great Cabinet", included prestigious statesmen, and they easily received a vote of confidence. The CUP though, notwithstanding its majority in
16490-485: The autonomous Deylik of Algiers . The Bey of Oran received an army from Algiers, but it failed to recapture Oran ; the siege caused the deaths of 1,500 Spaniards, and even more Algerians. The Spanish also massacred many Muslim soldiers. In 1792, Spain abandoned Oran, selling it to the Deylik of Algiers. In 1768 Russian-backed Ukrainian Haidamakas , pursuing Polish confederates, entered Balta , an Ottoman-controlled town on
16660-579: The border of Bessarabia in Ukraine, massacred its citizens, and burned the town to the ground. This action provoked the Ottoman Empire into the Russo-Turkish War of 1768–1774 . The Treaty of Küçük Kaynarca of 1774 ended the war and provided freedom of worship for the Christian citizens of the Ottoman-controlled provinces of Wallachia and Moldavia. By the late 18th century, after a number of defeats in
16830-572: The capital of Italian Somaliland , served as combat units along with Eritrean and Italian soldiers in the Italo-Turkish War. Most of the Somalian troops stationed would return home only in 1935, when they were transferred back to Italian Somaliland in preparation for the invasion of Ethiopia . The first disembarkation of Italian troops occurred on 10 October. Having no prior military experiences and lacking adequate planning for amphibious invasions,
17000-686: The century after Osman I, Ottoman rule had begun to extend over Anatolia and the Balkans . The earliest conflicts began during the Byzantine–Ottoman wars , waged in Anatolia in the late 13th century before entering Europe in the mid-14th century, followed by the Bulgarian–Ottoman wars and the Serbian–Ottoman wars in the mid-14th century. Much of this period was characterised by Ottoman expansion into
17170-448: The city of Kütahya within 320 km (200 mi) of the capital, Constantinople. In desperation, Sultan Mahmud II appealed to the empire's traditional arch-rival Russia for help, asking Emperor Nicholas I to send an expeditionary force to assist him. In return for signing the Treaty of Hünkâr İskelesi , the Russians sent the expeditionary force which deterred Ibrahim Pasha from marching any further towards Constantinople. Under
17340-611: The city. In 1532, he made another attack on Vienna, but was repulsed in the siege of Güns . Transylvania , Wallachia and, intermittently, Moldavia , became tributary principalities of the Empire. In the east, the Ottoman Turks took Baghdad from the Persians in 1535, gaining control of Mesopotamia and naval access to the Persian Gulf . In 1555, the Caucasus became partitioned for
17510-554: The civil strife, Austria-Hungary officially annexed Bosnia and Herzegovina in 1908. The last of the Ottoman censuses was performed in 1914 . Despite military reforms which reconstituted the Ottoman Modern Army , the Empire lost its North African territories and the Dodecanese in the Italo-Turkish War (1911) and almost all of its European territories in the Balkan Wars (1912–1913). The Empire faced continuous unrest in
17680-777: The coast between Tobruk and Solum to prevent contraband and troops from entering across the Egyptian frontier, and the naval blockaders guarded the coast as well as capturing several sailing ships laden with contraband. Italian troops landed at Tobruk after a brief bombardment on 4 December 1911, occupied the seashore, and marched towards the hinterlands facing weak resistance . Small numbers of Ottoman soldiers and Libyan volunteers were later organized by Captain Mustafa Kemal Atatürk . The small 22 December Battle of Tobruk resulted in Mustafa Kemal's victory. With that achievement, he
17850-467: The coast of Cyrenaica. The Italian control over much of the interior of Libya remained ineffective until the late 1920s when forces under the Generals Pietro Badoglio and Rodolfo Graziani waged bloody pacification campaigns. Resistance petered out only after the execution of the rebel leader Omar Mukhtar on 15 September 1931. The result of the Italian colonisation for the Libyan population
18020-641: The conflict, Italian forces also occupied the Dodecanese islands in the Aegean Sea . Italy agreed to return the Dodecanese to the Ottoman Empire in the Treaty of Ouchy in 1912. However, the vagueness of the text, combined with subsequent adverse events unfavourable to the Ottoman Empire (the outbreak of the Balkan Wars and World War I ), allowed a provisional Italian administration of the islands, and Turkey eventually renounced all claims on these islands in Article 15 of
18190-539: The country became alarmed at the manner in which the CUP was becoming increasingly authoritarian. In government with the CUP was the War Minister Mahmud Shevket Pasha , a confederate with the CUP during the 31 March Incident by organizing the Action Army, but now skeptical of the party's intentions. A group of officers led by CUP member and hero of the revolution Mehmed Sadık would separate from
18360-514: The earliest in modern warfare, had little effect on the initial outcome. In the first military use of heavier-than-air craft , Capitano Carlo Piazza flew the first reconnaissance flight on 23 October 1911. A week later, Sottotenente Giulio Gavotti dropped four grenades on Tajura (Arabic: تاجوراء Tājūrā’, or Tajoura) and Ain Zara in the first aerial bombing in history. Technologically and numerically superior Italian forces easily managed to take
18530-582: The eastern and southern frontiers by defeating Shah Ismail of Safavid Iran , in the Battle of Chaldiran . Selim I established Ottoman rule in Egypt by defeating and annexing the Mamluk Sultanate of Egypt and created a naval presence on the Red Sea . After this Ottoman expansion, competition began between the Portuguese Empire and the Ottomans to become the dominant power in the region. Suleiman
18700-483: The empire conduct an election , this was after the CUP took control over the government following Mahmud Shevket's assassination. CUP governments continued up until the end of the First World War . Ottoman Empire The Ottoman Empire ( / ˈ ɒ t ə m ə n / ), also called the Turkish Empire , was an imperial realm that controlled much of Southeast Europe , West Asia , and North Africa from
18870-514: The empire into a more harmonious place. Instead, this period became the story of the twilight struggle of the Empire. Members of Young Turks movement who had once gone underground now established their parties. Among them " Committee of Union and Progress ", and " Freedom and Accord Party " were major parties. On the other end of the spectrum were ethnic parties, which included Poale Zion , Al-Fatat , and Armenian national movement organised under Armenian Revolutionary Federation . Profiting from
19040-531: The end of the Caucasian Wars , 90% of the Circassians were ethnically cleansed and exiled from their homelands in the Caucasus, fleeing to the Ottoman Empire, resulting in the settlement of 500,000 to 700,000 Circassians in the Ottoman Empire. Crimean Tatar refugees in the late 19th century played an especially notable role in seeking to modernise Ottoman education and in first promoting both Pan-Turkism and
19210-515: The end of the seventeenth century, and instead the word increasingly became associated with the Greek population of the empire, a meaning that it still bears in Turkey today. In Western Europe, the names Ottoman Empire, Turkish Empire and Turkey were often used interchangeably, with Turkey being increasingly favoured both in formal and informal situations. This dichotomy was officially ended in 1920–1923, when
19380-476: The enthusiasm of the interventionist minority in Italy. Another proposal for a diplomatic settlement was rejected by the Italians, and so the Ottomans decided to defend the province. On 29 September 1911, Italy published the declaration of their direct interest towards Libya. Without a proper response, the Italian forces landed on the shores of Libya on 4 October 1911. A considerable number of Italians were living within
19550-763: The evolution of that first aggression." Unlike the British-controlled Egypt, the Ottoman Tripolitania vilayet , which made up modern-day Libya, was core territory of the Empire, like that of the Balkans. The coalition that had defended the Ottomans during the Crimean War (1853–1856), minimised Ottoman territorial losses at the Congress of Berlin (1878) and supported the Ottomans during the Bulgarian Crisis (1885–88) had largely disappeared. The reaction in
19720-542: The fallout of the Italo-Turkish War , and rising political polarization. In late 1911, anti-CUP opposition consolidated into the Freedom and Accord Party , and both sides sought to abuse constitutional law for their own gain. After the CUP's election victory in the 1912 election , widely deemed fraudulent, Freedom and Accord members recruited army officers serving in Albania to their cause in protest. They organized themselves into
19890-480: The first time between the Safavids and the Ottomans, a status quo that remained until the end of the Russo-Turkish War (1768–1774) . By this partitioning as signed in the Peace of Amasya , Western Armenia , western Kurdistan , and Western Georgia fell into Ottoman hands, while southern Dagestan , Eastern Armenia , Eastern Georgia , and Azerbaijan remained Persian. In 1539, a 60,000-strong Ottoman army besieged
20060-538: The following years. The removal of diplomatic obstacles coincided with increasing colonial fervor. In 1908, the Italian Colonial Office was upgraded to a Central Directorate of Colonial Affairs. The nationalist Enrico Corradini led the public call for action in Libya and, joined by the nationalist newspaper L'Idea Nazionale in 1911, demanded an invasion. The Italian press began a large-scale lobbying campaign for an invasion of Libya in late March 1911. It
20230-456: The fourteenth century. The word subsequently came to be used to refer to the empire's military-administrative elite. In contrast, the term "Turk" ( Türk ) was used to refer to the Anatolian peasant and tribal population and was seen as a disparaging term when applied to urban, educated individuals. In the early modern period , an educated, urban-dwelling Turkish speaker who was not a member of
20400-400: The help of local troops confined the Italian army to the coastal region. In fact, by the end of 1912 the Italians had made little progress in conquering Libya . The Italian soldiers were in effect besieged in seven enclaves on the coasts of Tripolitania and Cyrenaica . The largest was at Tripoli and extended barely 15 kilometers (9.3 miles) from the town. At sea, the Italians enjoyed
20570-406: The historic rivalry between both nations for control of North Africa . The same year, the British government promised Italy that "any alteration in the status of Libya would be in conformity with Italian interests". Those measures were intended to loosen Italian commitment to the Triple Alliance and thereby weaken Germany , which France and Britain viewed as their main rival in Europe. Following
20740-622: The independence of the Middle East" in the 19th century "was not the armies of Europe but its banks". The Ottoman state, which had begun taking on debt with the Crimean War, was forced to declare bankruptcy in 1875. By 1881, the Ottoman Empire agreed to have its debt controlled by the Ottoman Public Debt Administration , a council of European men with presidency alternating between France and Britain. The body controlled swaths of
20910-721: The integrity of the Ottoman Empire and create a crisis in the Eastern Question , which would destabilise the Balkan Peninsula and the European balance of power . Italy also foresaw that result since Paternò Castello, in a July report to the king and Giolitti, laid out the reasons for and against military action in Libya, and he raised the concern that the Balkan revolt, which would likely follow an Italian attack on Libya, might force Austria-Hungary to take military action in Balkan areas claimed by Italy. The Italian Socialist Party had
21080-561: The intervention of Ottoman artillery threatened the Italian line, and the Libyans attempted to surround the Italian troops. Further Italian reinforcements, however, stabilised the situation, and the battle ended in the afternoon with an Italian victory. On 14 September, the Italian command sent three columns of infantry to disband the Arab camp near Derna. The Italian troops occupied a plateau and interrupted Ottoman supply lines . Three days later,
21250-473: The islands while its main armies were engaged in a bitter struggle to preserve its remaining territories in the Balkans. To avoid a Greek invasion of the islands, it was implicitly agreed on that the Dodecanese would remain under neutral Italian administration until the conclusion of hostilities between the Greeks and the Ottomans, after which the islands would revert to Ottoman rule. Turkey's continued involvement in
21420-507: The last Venetian stronghold in Cyprus, Famagusta. The Venetian defenders held out for 11 months against a force that at its peak numbered 200,000 men with 145 cannons; 163,000 cannonballs struck the walls of Famagusta before it fell to the Ottomans in August 1571. The Siege of Famagusta claimed 50,000 Ottoman casualties. Meanwhile, the Holy League consisting of mostly Spanish and Venetian fleets won
21590-540: The late 16th and early 17th centuries. With the Empire's population reaching 30 million people by 1600, the shortage of land placed further pressure on the government. In spite of these problems, the Ottoman state remained strong, and its army did not collapse or suffer crushing defeats. The only exceptions were campaigns against the Safavid dynasty of Persia, where many of the Ottoman eastern provinces were lost, some permanently. This 1603–1618 war eventually resulted in
21760-482: The late 18th and early 19th centuries, culminating in the loss of both territory and global prestige . This prompted a comprehensive process of reform and modernization known as the Tanzimat ; over the course of the 19th century, the Ottoman state became vastly more powerful and organized internally, despite suffering further territorial losses, especially in the Balkans, where a number of new states emerged. Beginning in
21930-542: The late 19th century, various Ottoman intellectuals sought to further liberalize society and politics along European lines, culminating in the Young Turk Revolution of 1908 led by the Committee of Union and Progress (CUP), which established the Second Constitutional Era and introduced competitive multi-party elections under a constitutional monarchy. However, following the disastrous Balkan Wars ,
22100-423: The loss of the Banat and the temporary loss of Belgrade (1717–1739), the Ottoman border on the Danube and Sava remained stable during the eighteenth century. Russian expansion , however, presented a large and growing threat. Accordingly, King Charles XII of Sweden was welcomed as an ally in the Ottoman Empire following his defeat by the Russians at the Battle of Poltava of 1709 in central Ukraine (part of
22270-459: The military-administrative class typically referred to themselves neither as an Osmanlı nor as a Türk , but rather as a Rūmī ( رومى ), or "Roman", meaning an inhabitant of the territory of the former Byzantine Empire in the Balkans and Anatolia. The term Rūmī was also used to refer to Turkish speakers by the other Muslim peoples of the empire and beyond. As applied to Ottoman Turkish speakers, this term began to fall out of use at
22440-439: The need for greater numbers of Ottoman infantry equipped with firearms, resulting in a relaxation of recruitment policy. This contributed to problems of indiscipline and outright rebelliousness within the corps, which were never fully solved. Irregular sharpshooters ( Sekban ) were also recruited, and on demobilisation turned to brigandage in the Celali rebellions (1590–1610), which engendered widespread anarchy in Anatolia in
22610-421: The new conditions of the seventeenth century and remain powerful, both militarily and economically. Historians of the mid-twentieth century once characterised this period as one of stagnation and decline, but this view is now rejected by the majority of academics. The discovery of new maritime trade routes by Western European states allowed them to avoid the Ottoman trade monopoly. The Portuguese discovery of
22780-421: The new parliament should be dissolved and an impartial government under Kâmil Pasha be promulgated. Shevket immediately resigned from his ministry in support of the Saviour Officers, leaving the CUP isolated, and starting a wave of resignations from Said Pasha's cabinet. On 16 June 1912 after the Unionist dominated parliament voted Said Pasha their confidence, he resigned anyway. On July 19, Mehmed V announced to
22950-404: The newly established Ankara -based Turkish government chose Turkey as the sole official name. At present, most scholarly historians avoid the terms "Turkey", "Turks", and "Turkish" when referring to the Ottomans, due to the empire's multinational character. As the Rum Sultanate declined in the 13th century, Anatolia was divided into a patchwork of independent Turkish principalities known as
23120-401: The news of the massacre from getting out, the incident soon became internationally known. The Italians started to show photographs of the massacred Italian soldiers at Sciara Sciat to justify their revenge. Italian diplomats decided to take advantage of the situation to obtain a favourable peace deal. On 18 October 1912, Italy and the Ottoman Empire signed a treaty in Ouchy in Lausanne called
23290-408: The occupying Allies, led to the emergence of the Republic of Turkey in the Anatolian heartland and the abolition of the Ottoman monarchy in 1922, formally ending the Ottoman Empire. The word Ottoman is a historical anglicisation of the name of Osman I , the founder of the Empire and of the ruling House of Osman (also known as the Ottoman dynasty). Osman's name in turn was the Turkish form of
23460-474: The outskirts of Tripoli . This massacre occurred, at least in part, reportedly due to the rape and sexual assault of Libyan and Turkish women by the Italian troops. Nevertheless, as a consequence, on the next day the 1911 Tripoli massacre had Italian troops systematically murder thousands of civilians by moving through local homes and gardens one by one, including by setting fire to a mosque with 100 refugees inside. Although Italian authorities attempted to keep
23630-409: The parliament, lost its executive power. Although Ahmed Muhtar Pasha and his cabinet were non-partisan, the Saviour Officers pressured Ahmed Muhtar Pasha's government to dissolve the parliament, costing the CUP its last stronghold, on August 4. This was again done through the Senate, which voted to dissolve the Chamber and Mehmed V subsequently enacted their vote. With the Chamber of Deputies dissolved,
23800-406: The plague, which facilitated Ottoman expansion. In addition, slave hunting was the main economic driving force behind Ottoman conquest. Some 21st-century authors re-periodize conquest of the Balkans into the akıncı phase , which spanned 8 to 13 decades, characterized by continuous slave hunting and destruction, followed by administrative integration into the Empire. The son of Murad II, Mehmed
23970-430: The proposals from Zohrab, increasing polarization. In November 1911, the opposition consolidated into the Freedom and Accord Party , with Sadık as the party's vice president and Damat Ferid Pasha as president. The Unionists immediately called for the Mehmed V to dissolve parliament and call an election, with the hope that they could stop the momentum of the new opposition party, but constitutional amendments passed after
24140-413: The resistance. During the war, Mustafa Kemal Bey, the future founder of the Republic of Turkey , was wounded by shrapnel to his eye. The cost of the war was defrayed chiefly by voluntary offerings from Muslims; men, weapons, ammunition and all kinds of other supplies were constantly sent across to the Egyptian and Tunisian frontiers, not withstanding their neutrality. The Italians occupied Sidi Barrani on
24310-437: The rest of the war. Although Italy could extend its control to almost all of the 2,000 km of the Libyan coast between April and early August 1912, its ground forces could not venture beyond the protection of the navy's guns and so were limited to a thin coastal strip. In the summer of 1912, Italy began operations against the Ottoman possessions in the Aegean Sea with the approval of the other powers, which were eager to end
24480-411: The restoration of Ottoman suzerainty over Egypt Eyalet and the Levant . By the mid-19th century, the Ottoman Empire was called the " sick man of Europe ". Three suzerain states – the Principality of Serbia , Wallachia and Moldavia – moved towards de jure independence during the 1860s and 1870s. During the Tanzimat period (1839–1876), the government's series of constitutional reforms led to
24650-439: The shores. However, the Italians still could not penetrate deep inland. The Libyans and Turks, estimated at 15,000, made frequent attacks day and night on the strongly-entrenched Italian garrison in the southern suburbs of Benghazi . The four Italian infantry regiments on the defensive were supported by the cruisers San Marco and Agordat . The Italians rarely attempted a sortie. An attack of 20,000 Ottoman and local troops
24820-467: The sixteenth century, the Ottoman Empire came under increasing strain from inflation and the rapidly rising costs of warfare that were impacting both Europe and the Middle East. These pressures led to a series of crises around the year 1600, placing great strain upon the Ottoman system of government. The empire underwent a series of transformations of its political and military institutions in response to these challenges, enabling it to successfully adapt to
24990-427: The soldiers), and 400,000 non-Muslims fled territory still under Ottoman rule. Justin McCarthy estimates that from 1821 to 1922, 5.5 million Muslims died in southeastern Europe, with the expulsion of 5 million. The defeat and dissolution of the Ottoman Empire (1908—1922) began with the Second Constitutional Era , a moment of hope and promise established with the Young Turk Revolution . It restored
25160-562: The sultan and restored Ottoman power. The Balkan territories lost by the Ottomans after 1402, including Thessaloniki, Macedonia, and Kosovo, were later recovered by Murad II between the 1430s and 1450s. On 10 November 1444, Murad repelled the Crusade of Varna by defeating the Hungarian, Polish, and Wallachian armies under Władysław III of Poland and John Hunyadi at the Battle of Varna , although Albanians under Skanderbeg continued to resist. Four years later, John Hunyadi prepared another army of Hungarian and Wallachian forces to attack
25330-470: The summer was an attack of five Italian torpedo boats in the Dardanelles on 18 July. With a decree of 5 November 1911, Italy declared its sovereignty over Libya. Although the Italians controlled the coast, many of their troops had been killed in battle and nearly 6,000 Ottoman soldiers remained to face an army of nearly 140,000 Italians. As a result, the Ottomans began using guerrilla tactics. Indeed, some "Young Turk" officers reached Libya and helped organize
25500-403: The terms of the Convention of Kütahya , signed on 5 May 1833, Muhammad Ali agreed to abandon his campaign against the Sultan, in exchange for which he was made the vali (governor) of the vilayets (provinces) of Crete , Aleppo , Tripoli , Damascus and Sidon (the latter four comprising modern Syria and Lebanon ), and given the right to collect taxes in Adana . Had it not been for
25670-449: The use of airplanes in combat . On 23 October 1911, an Italian pilot, Capitano Carlo Piazza, flew over Turkish lines on the world's first aerial reconnaissance mission, and on 1 November, the first aerial bomb was dropped by Sottotenente Giulio Gavotti , on Turkish troops in Libya , from an early model of Etrich Taube aircraft. The Turks , using rifles, were the first to shoot down an airplane. Another use of new technology
25840-466: The wars with Russia, some people in the Ottoman Empire began to conclude that the reforms of Peter the Great had given the Russians an edge, and the Ottomans would have to keep up with Western technology in order to avoid further defeats. Selim III (1789–1807) made the first major attempts to modernise the army , but his reforms were hampered by the religious leadership and the Janissary corps. Jealous of their privileges and firmly opposed to change,
26010-410: The years leading up to World War I , including the 31 March Incident and two further coups in 1912 and 1913 . The Ottoman Empire entered World War I on the side of the Central Powers and was ultimately defeated. The Ottoman participation in the war began with the combined German-Ottoman surprise attack on the Black Sea coast of the Russian Empire on 29 October 1914. Following the attack,
26180-449: Was "more burdensome than useful as an ally. Against Austria, she harbours a latent hostility that nothing can disarm". The tensions within the Triple Alliance would eventually lead Italy to sign the 1915 Treaty of London , which had it abandon the Triple Alliance and join the Entente. In Italy itself, massive funerals for fallen heroes brought the Catholic Church closer to the government from which it had long been alienated. There emerged
26350-407: Was a costly enterprise for Italy. Instead of the 30 million lire a month judged sufficient at its beginning, it reached a cost of 80 million a month for a much longer period than was originally estimated. The war cost Italy 1.3 billion lire , nearly a billion more than Giovanni Giolitti estimated before the war. This ruined ten years of fiscal prudence. After the withdrawal of the Ottoman army
26520-400: Was a major obstacle to Ottoman expansion on the Italian peninsula. In the 15th and 16th centuries, the Ottoman Empire entered a period of expansion . The Empire prospered under the rule of a line of committed and effective Sultans . It flourished economically due to its control of the major overland trade routes between Europe and Asia. Sultan Selim I (1512–1520) dramatically expanded
26690-421: Was a network of wireless telegraphy stations established soon after the initial landings. Guglielmo Marconi , the inventor of wireless telegraphy, came to Libya to conduct experiments with the Italian Corps of Engineers. Italian claims to Libya date back to the Ottoman defeat by the Russian Empire during the War of 1877–1878 and subsequent disputes thereafter. At the Congress of Berlin in 1878, France and
26860-400: Was again blocked by Freedom and Accord. On 18 January, 1912 Article 7 of the constitution was employed; the Senate voted to dissolve the Chamber of Deputies and Mehmed V obliged. In April 1912, elections were held for a new session of parliament. However the CUP employed electoral fraud and violence at a massive scale, winning all but 15 seats in the Chamber of Deputies, to the point that it
27030-453: Was an important experience for the young officers of the Ottoman Army, such as Mustafa Kemal Bey , Enver Bey , Ali Fethi Bey , Cami Bey , Nuri Bey and many others. These young officers were to perform important military duties and accomplishments in the First World War, led the Turkish independency war and found the Republic of Turkey. Because of the First World War, the Dodecanese remained under Italian military occupation. According to
27200-411: Was assigned to Derna War quarters to coordinate the field on 6 March 1912. The Libyan campaign ground to a stalemate by December 1911. On 3 March 1912, 1,500 Libyan volunteers attacked Italian troops who were building trenches near Derna. The Italians, who were outnumbered but had superior weaponry, held the line. A lack of coordination between the Italian units sent from Derna as reinforcements and
27370-414: Was established as an independent principality inside the Ottoman Empire; Romania achieved full independence; and Serbia and Montenegro finally gained complete independence, but with smaller territories. In 1878, Austria-Hungary unilaterally occupied the Ottoman provinces of Bosnia-Herzegovina and Novi Pazar . British Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli advocated restoring the Ottoman territories on
27540-528: Was fancifully depicted as rich in minerals and well-watered, defended by only 4,000 Ottoman troops. Also, its population was described as hostile to the Ottomans and friendly to the Italians, and they predicted that the future invasion would be little more than a "military walk". The Italian government remained committed into 1911 to the maintenance of the Ottoman Empire, which was a close friend of its German ally. Prime Minister Giovanni Giolitti rejected nationalist calls for conflict over Ottoman Albania , which
27710-484: Was far more damaging to the Ottoman navy in sapping experienced manpower than the loss of ships, which were rapidly replaced. The Ottoman navy recovered quickly, persuading Venice to sign a peace treaty in 1573, allowing the Ottomans to expand and consolidate their position in North Africa. By contrast, the Habsburg frontier had settled somewhat, a stalemate caused by a stiffening of the Habsburg defenses. The Long Turkish War against Habsburg Austria (1593–1606) created
27880-410: Was fought between the Kingdom of Italy and the Ottoman Empire from 29 September 1911 to 18 October 1912. As a result of this conflict, Italy captured the Ottoman Tripolitania Vilayet , of which the main sub-provinces were Fezzan , Cyrenaica , and Tripoli itself. These territories became the colonies of Italian Tripolitania and Cyrenaica , which would later merge into Italian Libya . During
28050-422: Was known as the "election of clubs". The election results immediately caused an uproar against the CUP. Moreover, because of the war in Libya and the start of Albanian revolt , CUP lost its former support and prestige. This time, Freedom and Accord was pushing for the Chamber's dissolution so it could win in a new election. By June, Colonel Sadık and staff major Gelibolulu Kemal ( later surnamed Şenkil) would form
28220-409: Was on the defensive and unlikely to present any further aggression in Europe. The Austro-Russian–Turkish War (1735–1739), which was ended by the Treaty of Belgrade in 1739, resulted in the Ottoman recovery of northern Bosnia , Habsburg Serbia (including Belgrade), Oltenia and the southern parts of the Banat of Temeswar ; but the Empire lost the port of Azov , north of the Crimean Peninsula, to
28390-423: Was part of a long-running contest between the major European powers for influence over territories of the declining Ottoman Empire. The financial burden of the war led the Ottoman state to issue foreign loans amounting to 5 million pounds sterling on 4 August 1854. The war caused an exodus of the Crimean Tatars , about 200,000 of whom moved to the Ottoman Empire in continuing waves of emigration. Toward
28560-402: Was repulsed on 30 November with considerable losses. Shortly afterward, the garrison was reinforced by the 57th infantry regiment from Italy. The battleship Regina Elena also arrived from Tobruk. During the night of 14 and 15 December, the Ottomans attacked in great force but were repulsed with aid of the fire from the ships. The Italians lost several field guns. At Derna , the Ottomans and
28730-462: Was seen as a possible colonial project, as late as the summer of 1911. However, the Agadir Crisis in which French military action in Morocco in July 1911 would lead to the establishment of a French protectorate , changed the political calculations. The Italian leadership then decided that it could safely accede to public demands for a colonial project. The Triple Entente powers were highly supportive. British Foreign Secretary Edward Grey stated to
28900-401: Was that by the mid-1930s it had been cut in half due to emigration, famine, and war casualties. The Libyan population in 1950 was at the same level as in 1911, approximately 1.5 million. In 1924, the Serbian diplomat Miroslav Spalajković could look back on the events that led to the First World War and its aftermath and state of the Italian attack, "all subsequent events are nothing more than
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