This research addresses the era of Ottoman reforms, the reasons behind the empire’s fall, and the conditions leading to the establishment of the modern Turkish Republic by Mustafa Kemal, known as Atatürk, or “Father of the Turks.”
An Empire of Necessity
Some individuals who have read the previous article titled “Between History and Politics: Ottoman Rule over Arabs: Conquest or Occupation?” might wonder why this empire fell despite its considerable strength, especially after learning about the tightly-knit Ottoman system. As mentioned in that article, the Ottoman state went through multiple phases, each with its unique circumstances, and the professionalism required in historical studies necessitates the acknowledgment of these phases rather than reducing them to periods of strength and prosperity or decline and decadence. This empire reached its zenith during the reign of its tenth sultan, Suleiman the Magnificent, who ruled for 46 uninterrupted years; however, this lengthy reign led to vulnerabilities for the sultan, resulting in paranoia about those around him—from his chief minister, Ibrahim Pasha, to his own sons. This initiated a tragic cycle of bloodshed, culminating in the murder of the grand vizier, his eldest son, Mustafa, and others, leading to Selim II, known as “the Drunkard,” ascending the throne.
Selim “the Drunkard” was a weak character, deeply immersed in alcohol, and he left the affairs of state in the hands of his viziers, notably grand vizier Sokullu Mehmed Pasha, a Serbian Orthodox who reached Istanbul through the devshirme system and married two influential Ottoman women. The Ottoman navy, thanks to the efforts of Hayreddin Barbarossa, of Greek-Albanian origin, was the strongest naval force in the world. However, following his time, the navy began to decline and suffered a significant defeat at the naval Battle of Lepanto against the Catholic Holy League led by Spain in 1571, resulting in the loss of Ottoman maritime dominance and leading to the Spanish Armada becoming the preeminent naval force until its eventual defeat by the English fleets during the Anglo-Spanish War (1585-1604).
After losing maritime sovereignty to the Spanish, English, and Portuguese, the Ottoman land army remained extensively powerful until the third siege of Vienna in 1683, where it failed to penetrate the city and was defeated by the Catholic alliance. As a consequence, they lost their military land dominance, and their armies no longer instilled fear in Europe as they once did, while European armies advanced technologically, whereas the Ottoman forces clung to their outdated combat doctrines.
The once-mighty Ottoman Empire became a shadow of its former self, falling under the influence of Western European consuls, and its fate rested on the decisions made by these nations. The significant transformations that took place in Russia hindered this decision; Russia transitioned from a tsarist state controlling Eastern Slavic lands (now Russia, Eastern Ukraine, and Belarus) into the Russian Empire by 1721, evolving to be closer to Europe. This expansion came alongside a comprehensive modernization effort by Peter the Great at a time when Western European powers were engrossed in expanding into the New World (the Americas) and were reluctant to exhaust their energy in confrontation with rising Russian power. Thus, they found it beneficial to preserve the Ottoman state as a functional entity for Western interests against Russia, forming a buffer between them, especially since the Ottomans had become tamed and no longer posed a threat to Europe. Their economy was under the control of these nations through debts and trade privileges, making the continued existence of the empire, later dubbed “the sick man of Europe,” a necessity for serving Western interests; this delayed its official collapse until 1923, even though it effectively fell around 1683.
To understand the nature of current Turkish-Russian relations, it is essential to examine this historical period and its ongoing role, contributing later to Turkey’s NATO membership in 1952, supported by Western interests to counter the Soviet Union. Since that time, Western powers have regarded Turkey as a functional state capable of fulfilling various roles in service to Western interests, establishing a buffer with Russia as its power grew.
Factors Leading to the Fall of the Ottoman Empire
Many have discussed the factors behind the fall of the Ottoman state. Given the current cultural defeat suffered by Muslims, which has influenced their interpretation of history, there are almost two prevailing perspectives on the causes of this empire’s downfall. The first sees it as the result of a Western conspiracy and the role of global Zionism in dismantling the empire, an opinion embraced by political Islamist movements and the ruling Justice and Development Party, including President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, who has publicly expressed this view multiple times. The influence of this perspective is evident in Turkish historical drama, particularly the series “Abdul Hamid II,” which narrates the life of the sultan. The second viewpoint considers the fall of the empire to be a rescue for Turkey from annihilation, a necessary course of action. This opinion is primarily held by secular intellectual circles.
Analyzing the reasons for this fall beyond political and ideological agendas cannot be constrained to a single cause; rather, it stemmed from several factors, some primary and some secondary, with a focus on the main contributors.
The fall of the Ottoman state was a natural and logical consequence of the decline of Muslim intellectualism, of which the Ottomans were no exception. If there is blame directed at them, it is for failing, given their leadership of the Islamic world, to implement the necessary development and modernization to keep pace with the spirit of the times and the remarkable scientific advancements of that era. If we consider the map of the Ottoman Empire, it would be classified as a “dormant empire,” large in territory yet confined to its regional land boundaries. Such empires are characterized by an exceedingly slow rate of modernization and a tendency toward conservatism and imitation due to somewhat homogeneous populations under their rule. Conversely, maritime expansionist empires, which extend beyond their regional confines and encompass distant territories from the empire’s center—like the British, French, and currently American empires—exhibit greater flexibility, an ability to adapt to the times, anticipate new changes, and employ modern tools for governance.
Examining the Ottoman Empire’s golden age in the 16th century reveals an empire expanding its geographical scope while relying on traditional means of governance that did not evolve significantly after Suleiman the Magnificent. Meanwhile, the Christian Western world made significant strides towards rapid progress, which the Ottomans and the broader Muslim community did not match. The fall of Constantinople (Istanbul) in 1453 sent shockwaves across Europe, marking the end of the Eastern Roman Empire, which had a legacy of 1480 years of imperial rule beginning in 27 BC. This historical epicenter of global Orthodoxy fell to Muslim Turks, but the key difference between Western and Muslim thought at the time lay in the West’s capacity to learn from mistakes and study its history critically. In contrast, the Muslim mindset was plagued by emotional triads (emotions, instincts, and grudges) during periods of decline, resulting in despair and resignation. The Western intellect transformed the fall into a source of strength, marking the event as the end of the Middle Ages and the heart of the Renaissance. Europe began rethinking its geographical terrain and seized Granada in 1492 as the last Muslim holdout on the Iberian Peninsula, expelling all Muslims from Western Europe a mere 39 years after the fall of Constantinople.
The “liberation” of Granada coincided with explorers such as Christopher Columbus seeking new routes to the world outside Muslim control, leading to Italian navigator Amerigo Vespucci’s discoveries of the Americas, expanding Western territories by approximately 42,549,000 square km in this new world. The riches in gold, silver, and precious metals fueled astonishing economic growth, while the Ottomans and Muslims were still embroiled in the old world and unaware of the monumental transformations taking place, including the discovery of an entirely new world.
To the east, a new spirit emerged within the tsarist regime of Russia, pulling it from its isolation and stagnation, leading to scientific, intellectual, and military revivals under Peter the Great’s expansions. Russia first acquired deep-water ports on warm, ice-free coasts, overcoming previous limitations that confined trade to frozen seas for at least six months a year, leaving it vulnerable to several foreign powers, including the Ottomans.
Accompanying this economic development was a technological and scientific progression, a movement for self-critique that did not sever ties with the past, and a calm re-evaluation of European history to understand the reasons behind its earlier setbacks. This spurred the Reformation initiated by Czech reformer Jan Hus in 1415, the first of many attempts culminating in German monk Martin Luther’s successful translation of the Christian Bible from elite Latin into popular German by 1522. The intellectual explosion in Europe led to bloody disputes, ultimately culminating in the creation of democratic systems that emerged from the struggles for ideological dominance, reaching a tipping point that necessitated consensus, culminating in the French Revolution and the spring of Europe, transforming monarchies into constitutional systems.
The environment of reconciliation in Europe following the Peace of Westphalia in 1648 fostered scientific and artistic movements alongside economic and social advancements leading to the Industrial Revolution, steam power, and the rise of gigantic commercial ships. The surplus European power that previously fueled internecine struggles began to shift outward, birthing the colonial phenomenon as the West expanded across the continents, while the Islamic world, under Ottoman leadership, remained in deep stagnation, redirecting its surplus strength into internal conflicts.
All these causes were sufficient for the dynasty’s fall. Its survival depended on Western powers’ need to counter Russia, and upon this need evaporating after the West reached an understanding with Russia, the Triple Entente alliance was formed, incorporating Russia, France, and Britain, beginning in 1894.
The Ottoman system was designed for an expansionist state, primarily reliant on conquest and warfare for its economic resources, failing to recognize that territorial expansion has a limit that would necessitate a halt. It could not manage this transition or capitalize on the massive financial resources gained from these conquests to foster a true renaissance. Instead, the sultans extravagantly spent on the construction of mosques, religious establishments, palaces, roads, and acquiring rare valuables to flaunt, neglecting the human element, resulting in a lack of investment in their populace—a tendency that continues in the region today, where some Arab regimes regard investing in infrastructure as more beneficial than supporting human capital.
Ongoing military expansion perpetually refreshed the bureaucratic structure, integrating talents through the devshirme system. However, with this expansion stalling, the Ottoman bureaucracy fell into stagnation, aged population and leaders were unable to keep pace with modernity, becoming a negative force in decision-making, a hindrance to progress, amid the rise of corruption and bribery in their ranks.
The Ottoman military, originally established on enslaved soldiers who were forbidden to marry and lacked monthly salaries, became a burden rather than a source of strength for the empire, leading to persistent demands for warfare fueled by societal forces wanting to alleviate debts owed to merchants. Without consideration for foreign policy or appropriate timing for conflict, to secure immunity from them, the state became embroiled in various wars that ultimately turned detrimental and violated previous treaties. During these wars, before achieving the desired military victories for favorable political terms, the army often rebelled, demanding a share of the spoils and seeking to return to the capital. When the sultans recognized this military malfunction and the need to reform the military bureaucracy, it was too late; thus, Sultan Osman II’s attempts to eliminate the Janissaries resulted in his murder in 1622, after enduring humiliation in Istanbul, serving as a warning to any future sultan who might attempt military reform. The sultans lived in fear of the military’s power, especially as their focus turned inward after the lack of a foreign enemy; ultimately, military power overthrew and appointed sultans. Only Sultan Mahmud II was able to alter this situation in 1826, 204 years after Osman II’s initial attempt, following a significant divergence between the Ottoman state and the West.
The legitimacy of the rule that relied on the survival of the fittest, or what might be termed “social Darwinism,” was no longer valid with wars ceasing and the onset of the so-called “slothful sultans” obsessed with indulgence in pleasures and harems, not leading military campaigns. Suleiman the Magnificent was the first to establish a law later in his life that indicated it was unnecessary for the sultan to participate in military campaigns.
The practice of killing the sultan’s brothers to ensure stable governance and avoid internal strife from sibling rivalries became unacceptable, especially following the tragedy of Sultan Muhammad III, who murdered all 19 of his brothers upon ascending the throne. Sultan Ahmed I revised the law in 1603, placing princes in a “cage” instead of executing them; this cage was an isolated palace from which the prince could not escape, and no one could enter, not even their mother, except under exceptional circumstances determined by the sultan himself. These princes were oblivious to the external world, living only for eating, sleeping, and engaging with concubines. One can speculate how these individuals, perpetually feeling their lives were at risk, were taken from their confinements and thrust into leadership of a vast empire without any such experience, facing significant psychological turmoil.
The Ottoman palaces turned into retreats for psychologically and mentally disturbed individuals. The servants, being forcibly castrated slaves, lost their identities and were confined to serve in palaces with no means of escape. The concubines were abducted from their countries and forced to adopt a new language and culture. Many converted to Islam, seeking power, while being barred from exiting the palace or associating with anyone but the sultan or princes. The princes remained under house arrest, waiting for death while suffering from obsessive-compulsive disorder. The sultan grew suspicious of everyone—including the concubines, slaves, viziers, military, and imprisoned brothers. The sultanas developed an insatiable thirst for power to compensate for their loss. Life in these palaces is best imagined as a depiction of hell, devoid of any compassion or mercy due to their past humiliations, leading those who learn of Ottoman court tales to deeply experience sorrow and depression.
The so-called “Harem Sultanate,” wherein women interfered in governance, forming factions within the palace and exerting control over sultans and ministers, began during Suleiman the Magnificent’s reign as he granted his Ukrainian wife, Hurrem Sultan (“Roxelana”), significant powers. This practice became customary afterward, with some sultanas effectively ruling, including Safiye Sultan, of Italian Catholic origin, and Kösem Sultan, a Greek Orthodox, who ruled the empire for 40 years, many of whom provided favors to their native lands and European monarchs at the state’s expense, marked by extreme severity and a lack of compassion, and most were psychologically unwell due to their trauma and abduction experiences.
Secret organizations were a principal feature within the Ottoman state, proliferating throughout the administrative, palace, military, Sufi movements, and various religious and nationalist organizations. They formed assassination squads and covert operatives within the Ottoman ruling circles, substantially contributing to state decline and disintegration.
Ultimately, one cannot deny the influence of external and internal scheming, popularly dubbed “conspiracies,” and the alliances of internal forces with foreign ones at times. However, the state had been rotten at its roots and was effectively collapsing over two centuries before its official demise; its survival was contingent on Western powers’ need to use it as a counter to Russia, as previously mentioned, exemplified by the later experiences of Muhammad Ali and Ibrahim Pasha in Egypt. Thus, it was swiftly eliminated once its functional role expired.
Additionally, it is essential to note that the era had shifted by the dawn of the last century, and the existence of autocratic empires, particularly those that failed to evolve, was no longer acceptable. The last four empires of this kind, including the Ottoman, Austro-Hungarian, German, and Russian empires, fell during World War I.
The Era of Ottoman Reforms
Ottoman reforms refer to administrative, military, political, legal, and economic reforms aimed at enhancing decentralization through self-governing provinces, including elected councils, laws for religious, ethnic, and gender minorities, and the establishment of a higher “parliament” in the capital, Istanbul, representing all provinces, nationalities, and religious sects.
This process unfolded over several phases, beginning in 1839 and can be succinctly referred to as the “Ottoman constitutional provisions.” Given the complexity of these laws and their numerous details, one can refer to a comprehensive study prepared by Lebanese Arab historian Wajih Khatir.
This bundle of laws, referred to as the first Constitution of 1876 and the second work (“the Constitution”) of 1908, was characterized by an attempt to address all issues that the empire faced throughout its history, at a time when its territory was shrinking to encompass present-day Turkey and its European Balkan neighbors and the Arab Eastern provinces and Hijaz. Ottoman sultans began using the title “Caliph of Muslims” starting with Sultan Abdul Hamid II in 1876, aimed at reinforcing bonds between Turkey and the Islamic world. Although these reforms were necessary and reflected the aspirations of various peoples and intellectual elites within the empire, they ultimately failed to rise to the occasion or sustain the Ottoman state and were a significant factor in accelerating its demise.
The primary issue concerning these reforms was their late arrival, occurring when the civilizational gap between the Ottoman state and the West was significantly pronounced. The Turkish elite suffered from the same ailments as the current Arab elites, lacking the ability to think critically about the reasons behind the state’s decline and the condition of Muslims, failing to grasp the factors behind the Christian West’s resurgence. They mistakenly believed that progress and backwardness could be reversed by hastily implementing a set of ready theories that would immediately transform the situation and assumed that democracy and constitutions were the paths to uplift underdeveloped nations. They did not realize that the West developed into a democracy organically and that justice prevailed over brute force, nor did they appreciate the vast differences between Eastern Muslim societies and Western Christian nations. They pursued their reforms urgently and without any gradual planning, attempting to achieve what the West took centuries to realize in a matter of years.
This transitional process turned into a vengeful act against past legacies, and the impulsive desire for political modernization exceeded what the state or its citizens could absorb. Ignoring scientific, technical, and economic progress and reducing advancement solely to political and superficial social aspects led to the failure of this transformation, rendering it a chaotic disaster similar to the events in Egypt in the mid-1970s or the hasty modernization attempts of the 1960s or the Soviet “perestroika” of the 1980s. The consequences of this policy resulted in an imbalance within society, sparked sharp discord between those advocating radical integration with the West and others reacting by clinging even more staunchly to old traditions and a conservative spirit.
Intense polarization transferred from Istanbul to other provinces as nationalist demands rose, with populations in the Balkans, Greece, and Armenia asserting their rights for national self-determination. This was followed by Turks’ calls for a Turkish nation-state that would have no relation to Islam or other ethnic groups.
At that time, the dominant opinion among Arabs was to preserve the caliphate and transform it into a contemporary democratic union. Many Arab intellectuals supported this vision, but they soon realized the impossibility of achieving it due to Turkish elites, represented by the Committee of Union and Progress and the Young Turks, rejecting any notions of equality or alliance between Arabs and Turks. After losing all European territories, they pushed for central integrative unity, asserting Istanbul’s supremacy over all Arab regions. They employed repression and excessive force to coerce Arabs into accepting the status quo, culminating in the actions of the Ottoman governor of Syria and the Levant, Jamal Pasha, known as “the butcher,” who executed batches of Arab intellectuals, first on August 21, 1915, in Beirut’s Piazza, and again on May 6, 1916, in a square in Damascus later named “Martyrs’ Square.” Alongside this, the status of Sharif Hussein of Mecca was marginalized, rejecting telegrams and pleas for the clemency of the intellectuals and forcing Arabs to learn the Turkish language, referred to as “forcible Turkification.”
The Arabs were the last nationality within the diverse peoples ruled by the Ottoman Empire to demand their national rights. It is baffling that some Arabs still attribute the empire’s downfall to the Arabs, which can only be described as a complete ignorance of the historical period or deliberate distortion to serve a specific ideology. After enduring the tribulations that left them hopeless for a genuine union with the Turks, they distanced themselves and sought to establish an Arab nationalist association. The pioneers of Arab nationalism during that time included proponents of union with Turkey, such as Sati’ al-Husri, author of “Arabism First,” a staunch defender of Turkey who called for union with it, and Aziz Pasha, who held the position of Chief of Staff of the Great Arab Revolt declared by Sharif Hussein in Hijaz and later became the spiritual father of the “Free Officers” movement. Sharif Hussein himself and his sons supported this union, only declaring the revolt after becoming disillusioned by the Turks.
Atatürk and the Path to the Republic
Frequently, one may hear negative descriptions of Turkey’s founding father Mustafa Kemal, particularly following the rise of Islamist rhetoric on the political stage, labeling him as a traitor, an agent, of Jewish roots designed to undermine Islam from within. If such discourse served political motives and promoted an Islamic caliphate project, one might understand its political rationale. However, treating these narratives as factual is less comprehensible, as the repeated myths have come to be perceived as the truth. This narrative crisis stems not only from the blatant distortion of history, but also from a deeper issue: the distortion of national memory and the creation of a confused mentality among its people. When a nation’s memory is warped, it loses its capacity for sound evaluation of its own experiences, repeating its errors due to ignorance of their existence, and constructing notions about its reality and visions for its future based on myths mistaken for reality, which exacerbates its crisis and cultural isolation—a plight that affects Muslims generally and Arabs in particular to this day.
Mustafa Kemal began his life as an officer in the Ottoman army, believing in the Ottoman state and the Sublime Porte, loyal to the Ottoman Sultan, and participated in numerous wars for the empire. He served in the Ottoman army in Syria, Palestine, fought in Libya, the Balkans, and World War I, defending the Ottoman sultanate with ferocity and honor. He only turned against Sultan Mehmed VI after the latter surrendered to Allied forces and ordered Kemal to disband the Ottoman armies, a demand he refused, perceiving it as an affront to the Turkish nation and its history. In response, the sultan branded him a rebel and established the “Caliphate Army” with Allied forces to confront Kemal and the officers who resisted surrender in 1920.
The greater tragedy that could have erased Turkey from history was the Treaty of Sèvres, signed on August 10, 1920, which the Ottoman Sultan approved, dividing modern Turkey among Greece, Armenia, Britain, France, and Italy, granting the Kurds their own state and leaving Turkey with a small, demilitarized zone in Asia, while placing Istanbul under the protection of American, French, British, and Italian forces.
Kemal fought against all these combined forces, defeating them collectively and compelling the West to amend the Treaty of Sèvres with a new agreement known as the Treaty of Lausanne on July 24, 1923, under which Turkey attained its recognized boundaries today. Meanwhile, Sultan Mehmed VI fled on November 17, 1922, aboard a British warship to Italy.
The majority of the Turkish populace supported Mustafa Kemal at that time, affording him the title Atatürk (“Father of the Turks”) for his esteemed contributions to Turkey. Public sentiment was overwhelmingly in favor of dethroning the Ottomans and deeming them traitors, which explains the sultan’s flight, as he found no supporters among the populace.
Naturally, Atatürk’s position as a national symbol became solidified; he transformed into a Turkish nationalist icon, a figure no political leader or party could disregard. Even the Justice and Development Party, led by Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, prominently features Atatürk’s image in its meetings, unwilling to dismiss him, given that he has become an integral part of the Turkish Republic and its history. A year following the abolition of the sultanate in 1924, Atatürk abolished the position of caliph held by Abdul Mejid II, justifying its dissolution by asserting that the caliphate had lost its function, and the Turkish people, along with other Muslim communities, had revolted against it—given the disintegration of the empire, the title had become meaningless.
Conclusion
The laws of the Ottoman reforms represented the last opportunity to forge a union that could unite the peoples of the region with Turkey. Personally, I believe such a union would still benefit both parties. However, as previously mentioned, these reforms were hampered by their persistent delay and the Turkish intellect’s inability to orchestrate a transition from absolute autocratic rule to a modern, enlightened government. It is also impossible to ignore the role of Western colonialism in hindering the natural development of Islamic culture, forcing a particular path of development adopted by certain Arab and Islamic elites, without grasping its immense challenges within the vastly differing civilizational, cultural, and religious contexts; this has led to a distorted situation that persists in our countries to this day.
