PRINCIPLES OF ATATÜRK

AND HİSTORY OF
TURKİSH REVOLUTION I
zeynep.saygin@atlas.edu.tr
SULTAN MAHMUD II AND HIS INITIAL
YEARS
• Sultan Mahmud II came to the Ottoman throne on July 28, 1808
• He was the male member of the Ottoman dynasty left
• Had Mustafa IV been successful he would have been killed just like his uncle
Selim III
• His reign was marked internally by the Janissary uprisings and problems the local
notables
• Indeed, a deed of agreement was reached between the Sultan and local notables
• On the military front, he devdealth with the revolts by Serbians and Greeks as a
result of the rise of nationalizm in the Balkans, wars with Russia, dealings with
the Egyptian gavernor and a major loss of a sea battle at Navarino which
eventually led to Greek independence
• Mahmud II was more cunning than hi
uncle Selim III when he started his
westernization and reforms
• He had to walk a very tight line to keep
the balance among different interest
groups mostly the ayans as local power
groups who had taken over both lands
and administrative functions of the
traditional elite
• One of the most important alliance he
formed was with Alemdar Mustafa Pasha
• Alemdar Mustafa Pasha was a powerful
figure who had saved Mahmud and had
become a staunch supporter of the
reforms
• He was appointed as the Grans vizier by
Mahmud II
• In late 1808, Alemdar convened an
imperial assembly
• In late 1808, Alemdar convened an
imperial assembly to which he invited
high official, governors, pashas and ayans
• Also, a number of ulema and high state
officials attended the assembly
• The attendants produced the Sened-i
İttifak (Deed of Agreement) reached
between the central government and
local interest groups
• It was unwillingly approved by the Sultan
• Nevertheless the aim of this document
was to ensure that the ayans in different
districts would respect the central
government
• With Sened-i İttifak Alemdar Mustafa
Pasha sought to integrate the provincial
notables into the imperial system
• It time it gave ayans rights and defined
their obligantions
• It however failed as ayans did not unite
under one roof
• Also its architect Alemdar died during a
revolt by the Janissaries who were aganist
the new reforms
• As a result the document was not put into
practice but its legacy survived
• After the Sened-i İttifak Alemdar Mustafa
Pasha sought ways to redtore nizam-ı
Cedid but under a different name Sekban-
ı Cedid which was made part of the
kapıkulu army
• Nationalism is an ideology that implies one’s loyalty and devotion to
the nation-state
• In this wa, it surpasses any individual or group interests
• At the end of the eighteenth century with the Frenc Revolution in
1789 nationalism prevailed around the world
• As a result the Ottoman as a multi-religious and multiethnic empire
were challednged by the nationalist waves initiated by Ottoman Serbs
and Greeks
• In 1804 Serbs had rebelled aganist teh local Janissary garrison in
Serbia
• The insurraction had been supreddes but in 1815 it resarted now
under a new Serbia leader Milos Obreneic who who pushed the
boundaries of the Serbian Principilaty between Belgrad and Nish
• An agreement was reached between MilosObrenovic and the
Ottoman center
• Both sides agreenin that Serbian Principality would pay yearly tribue
and the Ottomans would retain a garrison in some major towns
• Serbia became independent much later
• It was realized after the Ottoman-Russian war of 1877-1878
• Serbs were the first nation to rebel against the Ottoman Empire
• The first nation to gain independence from the Ottoman Empire was
Greece
ABOLITION OF THE
JANISSARY CORPS AND
THE REFORMS DURING
THE POST 1826 ERA
• As elite military forces and standing army, the
Janissaries fought t the center of the armies
• They were highly respected for their military
achievements and thus they were the fear of the
Europeans for a long time
• Over time the Janissaries came to represent status
quo because in they were involved in craft and
craft activities
• In some cases, their relatives and sons were
registered in the military corps which was strictly
against the new regulations
• In the fifteenth and the sixteenth centuries they
became very powerful in the political system
• In the nineteenth century they were very
much against the adaptation of European
reforms in the army
• The continuous losses anainst the
adversaries of the Ottoman state
diminished their reputation as a powerful
army
• The insurrection in 1821 alsı proved that
they were incapable of defeating the
rebels
• Consequently in addition to improving
the artillery and the navy on May 28 1826
a new army was formed to be trained and
equipped in the European military norms
• Mahmud II decided to enroll 150 men
from each Janissary battalion to the new
corps called eşkinciyan
• In order not to face any reaction he did
not utter the word reform
• In the end the Janissary corps and their symbols were abolished
• This event that marked their end was widely know as the Auspicious
Event (Vaka-yı Hayriye) indeed a victory
• However, those who opposed the abolition of the Janissaries cam eto
see it as an inauspicious event (Vaka-yı Şeriye)
• Following Vaka-yı Hayriyye the Bektaşi order was abolished as well
• Their conves were destroyed or put under the supervision of the
orthodox Sunni orders
• It was the post 1826 era that Mahmud
started his reform program
• He abandoned the eşkinci unit and
created a new army called Muallem
Asakir-I Mansure-I Muhammediye (The
Trained Victorious Soldiers of
Mohammed)
• The Mansure troops were appointed a
commander-in-chef called Serasker and
by putting soldiers under his control
autonomy of different corps came to an
end
• Sultan Mahmud revived the vaval and
military schools of the late eighteenth
century
• In 1827 he established a military medical
school to train doktors for the new army
and in 1834 Mekteb-i Ulum-ı Harbiiye
(the school of Military Sciences)
• The Ottomans relied on foreign nationals
to do the translations on their
interactions with the gerat Powers
• The increasing relations with the west
necessitated that çivil servants who
worked for the Palace to learn the
languages of the west
• Tercüme Odası (The Translation Office)
was founded in 1821
• The purpose pf this school/Office was to
train civil servants in foreign languages
and educate translators for the Palace
• The 1829 Clothing Law introduced unity
and uniformity among the bureaucrats
• The civil servants were required to follow
the dress code
• For example the most important name
with translation terms is Ahmet Vefik
Pasha
THE GÜLHANE
DEGREE
• The news of the Ottoman defeat at Nizip by
the Egyptian forces came after Mahmud’s
death in 1839
• With his death his two sons came to the
Ottoman throne
• His elder son Abdülmecid succeeded him
• The son continued wit the modernizing
reforms, which his father had already started
• These efforts required help from Europe and
produced the Tanzimat wich means ordering,
regulating or restructuring and as a noun it
denotes reforms
• In the history of the Ottoman Empire, Tanzimat was also the name
given to the period from 1839 to the Constitutional era starting
in1876
• During this period Sultan Abdülmecid, Sultan Abdülaziz and Sultan
Murad V were in power