I read something like: "The end of the 18th century was... [a] difficult period for the Ottomans, where the Empire was facing multi-thronged issues, including a humiliating defeat against Russia in 1774 and Napoleon’s invasion of Egypt in 1798, as well as serious challenges to the Sultan’s authority coming from local notables all corners of the Empire. There was (yet again) a sense of shock and existential crisis among the political and intellectual elites..."
And I think: Yes, there is often a sense of shock and existential crisis among the political-intellectual élite. But in the 1400s, 1500s, and 1600s the Ottoman Empire quickly squelched uppity local notables, and it were the powers on its borders that had to fear humiliating military defeats as the Ottoman Empire excelled all of its neighbors in its ability to organize resources, mobilize and supply a large well-trained and -disciplined army and navy, and acquire and utilize new military technologies. What is this contrast between the internal and external situation of the Ottoman Empire in the 1500s on the one hand and the 1770-1810 period on the other but what one could correctly call a "relative decline"? Yes, intellectuals paint false and fictional idealized pictures of a glorious ideal past—it is one of the things that they do. But the intellectuals were not wrong in seeing that there were very important and significant things that the Russian Empire of Tsaritsa Ekaterina Velikaya and the First French Republic could do that the Ottoman Empire could not match.
Thank you very much for your insightful comment Brad, I appreciate it.
Yes, it was obvious that some things were not going right. I think some modern scholars even differentiate now between the 17th and 18th centuries and argue that conditions pointed to a "relative decline" as you put it for the 18th century. My point was about how we cannot look at that period wholesale and simply argue that it was obvious that the Ottomans were doomed to fail. They were much more resilient and much more dynamic (as opposed to "static," which was how the Orientalists tended to portray the Ottomans for the period in question) in adapting themselves to new circumstances than was assumed earlier.
Oh yes. The image of the Ottomans as ever becoming in any sense "static"—any sort or Wittfogelian constant water monopoly-empire oriental-despotism unchanging stasis—was never based on anything other than total fantasy. I mean, in 1453 at one end of the Mashriq Mehmet the Conquerer assembles the largest and most disciplined army with the finest artillery park in the world, and in 1505 at the other end of the Mashriq Babur conquers all of north India with the remnants of the army with which he lost his campaign to become Emir of Samarkand, after all. Then the Mashriq was the most lively and successful political-military-cultural civilization humanity had. And it did not stay the same. Not at all!
Reminds me of “the fall of the Roman Empire” myth that overlooked its continuation through the Byzantine Empire for nearly a millennium. I suspect that elements of the Romano-Byzantine tradition survived the Ottoman conquest, too.
Yes, the Ottomans adopted a lot of their institutional frameworks from the Byzantines, so that is definitely one way the Romano-Byzantine tradition survived the collapse of the Byzantine Empire.
I think this is very interesting, and I think part of the pushback I’ve seen in the comments is because of a difference in how you view the word ‘decline’ from the popular imagination. As Brad and several other point out, the Ottoman Empire in the 18th century is clearly a less capable, more divided state than that of the 16th century. You respond by saying that the 18th century empire had institutional innovations and was much more creative and dynamic than it is given credit for. And that there was nothing ‘inevitable’ about what happened over the next few centuries. That is totally fair, and it is a reasonable, and even necessary pushback. That being said, the point that in the 17th century, the Ottomans nearly took Vienna, while in the early 20th century, the empire didn’t exist anymore, means something, and most people think of that as a ‘decline.’
I think it’s similar in a lot of ways to the revisiting of the ‘fall of the Roman Empire,’ pointing out that there is massive continuity, and not a total collapse and total replacement. That’s very true, and it’s important to point out. But when historians say “the Roman Empire never really fell,” there’s a point at which they’re ignoring the way a layperson would think, which is “the Roman Empire was there, and then it wasn’t. There are ruins we can see. How is that not a fall?” Same thing with the argument about whether the medieval period should be called “the Dark Ages.” I think sometimes historians need to reckon with the fact that the basic, simplistic view of a historical period, while untrue in many ways, and utterly unsophisticated, still expresses truths.
Yes, I tried to make a relatively academic debate more accessible to a general audience and I realize that I could make my point more clearly. I'm thinking about writing a short sequel to this piece, addressing some of the arguments that you and others have advanced. The great thing about this whole exchange is it made me think of what I have written from a different perspective, which is a plus for me.
Anyway, thank you again for your comment. I really appreciate it!
One thing that strikes me is the progressive inability for the ottomans to project force. From 1689 onwards pieces of the empire were either taken from them or left of their own accord. During the 18th century this process accelerated with the collapse of the northern Black Sea, and continued incursions into the balkans by the HRE. By the early 19th century Greece, Egypt and the Maghreb had gone their own way. By the end of ww1 the empire was gone and turkey was having to fight for the borders it has today. At each stage of this retreat the ottomans were outclassed militarily and strategically in a way that was unprecedented. From mehemet 2’s innovations in the siege of Constantinople in the 15 th century to inability to defeat Russia in 1877 despite having better equipment, there seems to have been a fundamental shift in the ability to project force and sustain military operations. Hence the decline narrative.
Fascinating essay. Without explicitly stating it, you and other “revisionist” scholars of the Ottoman period seem to be pushing back against an ethno-nationalist narrative of “lost” historical greatness. This is commendable in a time when “narrative” has overtaken objectivity in academic history circles. I look forward to your future essays
I don‘t know if the Ottoma Empire declined. It seems to me that it could not keep up with other powers in Europe, above all Czarist Russia (itself not exactly in pole position). What did the Ottomans fail to do what for example Japan managed to accomplish at the same time?
That’s a great question. I know there are some studies that look at this exact topic but I can’t think of one off the top of my head. I’ll try to find them and let them know.
The difficulty with doing a serious comparative study between the Ottoman Empire and Japan in the 19th century is that it would require one to learn Ottoman Turkish and Japanese at the minimum. As you can appreciate, not many people can do that.
Promoting a myth of decline (with a need to return to a mythic past has been promoted by others such as Augustus Caesar and Donald Trump. Are we feeing revitalized lately?
Interesting how the concept of decline is actually determined. In the last few years I have worked with quite a few YouTubers who of course wanted me to research the military sides of history😅😅, and from that point of view, an Ottoman decline seems rather unquestionable, but from other points of view the empire still went on quite all right in the 18th century and only became known as the Sick Man of Europe only in the 19th century.
Yes, the point I was trying to make was that the Empire was very good at adapting to the circumstances, especially in the 17th and 18th centuries.
Even in the 19th century, they tried different strategies to hold the empire together (the creation of the Ottomanism ideology was foremost among them) but, as was the case with almost all empires, they reached a point where their presence did not make sense anymore.
Very interesting piece, fed to me by Substack's random algorithms. I'll take a look at the rest, but I think the main issue that folks are seeing is what I tend to call 'expert disease,' where the expert is so deep into the material that they don't know what other people don't know (obligatory XKCD: https://xkcd.com/2501/):
"The rough framework that people have in their mind when they ask this question goes something like this: the Ottoman Empire was established in the late 13th century, became this huge power that dominated Eastern Europe, northern Africa, and the Middle East in the 15th and 16th centuries, reached its peak politically, economically, and culturally around the early 17th century, and then gradually declined and collapsed by the end of the First World War."
I mean, you may live in fairly rarified circles, or, you know, in Turkey, where I'm sure there's greater awareness of Ottoman history, but my expectation is that this is wildly more than a random conversational partner would actually know, which was that there was an Ottoman Empire (after all you said you're a historian who studies it, right?) and now there isn't (or at least, they've never heard of it, and basically nowhere calls itself an Empire anymore). So 'oh, tell me about its decline' seems to be a pretty safe question.
Yes, I think I'm partially guilty of the "expert disease" you mentioned. I tried to make an academic debate more accessible to a general readership, but I guess I may have done a more comprehensive job of it.
I hope to write a sequel to this in the future, addressing some of the points that people raised in the comments. It was definitely an informative experience for me.
I think the point I am trying to make is that it is not really apt to look at the Ottoman Empire in the 17th or 18th centuries and argue that it was already doomed to failure and dissolution, which took place at the beginning of the 20th century. They could adapt to their circumstances and did try different strategies to keep the Empire going. Some of these were “successes,” and some were “failures.”
In the end, the Empire collapsed because the age of the empires came to an end. They tried to come up with an umbrella ideology (Ottomanism) and an imperial identity (“we are all Ottomans”) to hold together the different ethnic and religious groups, but it never worked. The same was true for the Austria-Hungarian Empire, which also came to an end with the Great War.
I’m not sure if this makes sense. The reason I didn’t address your question directly was because I think it is not the most accurate framework to think about late Ottoman history. Obviously, please let me know if you disagree.
Thanks for the answer. I certainly don't know enough to disagree.
I think it is somewhat natural to assume that all empires must have a period of decline preceding a fall - that some internal weakness is what allowed the structure to later be brought down, like a great building with fractures in its pillars.
I think all empires eventually came face to face with the same dilemma at some point: how to reconcile the imperial framework with the idea of "nations" and "nation-states." And none of them, including the British and the French, could square that circle and ended up dissolving.
Somebody on Notes suggested a better framework to think about the Ottoman case. I'm posting a link here. They basically articulated what I had in mind much better than I could:
Comments like these really make my day and help me to keep going. I’m very glad that you found my article helpful. And thank you again for letting me know. It means a lot.
Hello Paul, thank you for your comment and I'm very sorry about the delayed response.
I think my general point is that it is not very helpful to look at the Ottoman Empire in the 17th and 18th centuries from the perspective/framework of decline. It's too reductionist of a view. It's better to see it as a period of crisis and adaptation. This way, we can get a clearer subtler, and more nuanced understanding of what went on at that time period.
Not true. Say what one will about the Ottomans, but they excelled at selecting (not always voluntarily hehe) for excellence and training capable administrators. And Devschirme aside, you might want to look at who ran Wallachia all those years and what ethnicity they tended to be. For sure things had gotten a little rusty and laggy pre Tanzimat. But truth is only the Japanese managed to pull off the Big Catchup... Just look at late Qing China.
"Although we obviously cannot rely on one single element in explaining how the decline theory came about, we can argue that a key factor in this process was the source base the scholars used while constructing their arguments. When analyzed closely, we can see that historians who propagated an “Ottoman decline” at least partly based their theories on Ottoman literary works, especially a type of “mirrors for princes” literature called nasihatnames. Cemal Kafadar, a prominent historian of the early modern Ottoman Empire, captures this beautifully, arguing that the concept of the Ottoman decline has been “the legacy of Ottoman historical consciousness.”1 What Kafadar means here is that the advocates of the decline theory took Ottoman literary forms such as nasihatnames, well, a little too literally, in constructing the idea of a decline"
What? No. I think the Ottoman empire declined because it gradually lost in relative power and then stopped existing
I'm coming from a perspective about as far from Turkish as possible, from a long line of silent-meeting Quakers (very anti-hierarchical, abolitionist, pacifist and worshipping only "the inner light of truth"; low-profile, tiny, yet long controlling most British mining and banking, e.g Barclays), having in 1990 spent a semester studying Byzantine and Greek history on Crete, as well as later studies on Eastern Europe, including areas formerly under the Ottoman Empire (areas where many consider Vlad the Impaler a bit soft on Turks), and studying Roman and other ancient history...
Like Rome, but to an even greater degree, the Ottoman Empire was completely, fractally corrupt and malevolent from its beginnings. The power and successes of both were more because than despite their corruption, cruelty and rapacity. What needs explaining is not their ultimate downfall, but how they managed to function at all, let alone for so long. Did the corruption just get too, er, Byzantine? Or was it the efforts to reform, the soft-hearted coddling of slaves, the corrosive influence of metastatic honesty that caused the fabric of these empires to fall apart, like trying to wash a garment made of dirt?
I read something like: "The end of the 18th century was... [a] difficult period for the Ottomans, where the Empire was facing multi-thronged issues, including a humiliating defeat against Russia in 1774 and Napoleon’s invasion of Egypt in 1798, as well as serious challenges to the Sultan’s authority coming from local notables all corners of the Empire. There was (yet again) a sense of shock and existential crisis among the political and intellectual elites..."
And I think: Yes, there is often a sense of shock and existential crisis among the political-intellectual élite. But in the 1400s, 1500s, and 1600s the Ottoman Empire quickly squelched uppity local notables, and it were the powers on its borders that had to fear humiliating military defeats as the Ottoman Empire excelled all of its neighbors in its ability to organize resources, mobilize and supply a large well-trained and -disciplined army and navy, and acquire and utilize new military technologies. What is this contrast between the internal and external situation of the Ottoman Empire in the 1500s on the one hand and the 1770-1810 period on the other but what one could correctly call a "relative decline"? Yes, intellectuals paint false and fictional idealized pictures of a glorious ideal past—it is one of the things that they do. But the intellectuals were not wrong in seeing that there were very important and significant things that the Russian Empire of Tsaritsa Ekaterina Velikaya and the First French Republic could do that the Ottoman Empire could not match.
Yours,
Brad DeLong
Thank you very much for your insightful comment Brad, I appreciate it.
Yes, it was obvious that some things were not going right. I think some modern scholars even differentiate now between the 17th and 18th centuries and argue that conditions pointed to a "relative decline" as you put it for the 18th century. My point was about how we cannot look at that period wholesale and simply argue that it was obvious that the Ottomans were doomed to fail. They were much more resilient and much more dynamic (as opposed to "static," which was how the Orientalists tended to portray the Ottomans for the period in question) in adapting themselves to new circumstances than was assumed earlier.
Again, thank you very much for your comment!
Oh yes. The image of the Ottomans as ever becoming in any sense "static"—any sort or Wittfogelian constant water monopoly-empire oriental-despotism unchanging stasis—was never based on anything other than total fantasy. I mean, in 1453 at one end of the Mashriq Mehmet the Conquerer assembles the largest and most disciplined army with the finest artillery park in the world, and in 1505 at the other end of the Mashriq Babur conquers all of north India with the remnants of the army with which he lost his campaign to become Emir of Samarkand, after all. Then the Mashriq was the most lively and successful political-military-cultural civilization humanity had. And it did not stay the same. Not at all!
Reminds me of “the fall of the Roman Empire” myth that overlooked its continuation through the Byzantine Empire for nearly a millennium. I suspect that elements of the Romano-Byzantine tradition survived the Ottoman conquest, too.
Thank you for your comment!
Yes, the Ottomans adopted a lot of their institutional frameworks from the Byzantines, so that is definitely one way the Romano-Byzantine tradition survived the collapse of the Byzantine Empire.
I think this is very interesting, and I think part of the pushback I’ve seen in the comments is because of a difference in how you view the word ‘decline’ from the popular imagination. As Brad and several other point out, the Ottoman Empire in the 18th century is clearly a less capable, more divided state than that of the 16th century. You respond by saying that the 18th century empire had institutional innovations and was much more creative and dynamic than it is given credit for. And that there was nothing ‘inevitable’ about what happened over the next few centuries. That is totally fair, and it is a reasonable, and even necessary pushback. That being said, the point that in the 17th century, the Ottomans nearly took Vienna, while in the early 20th century, the empire didn’t exist anymore, means something, and most people think of that as a ‘decline.’
I think it’s similar in a lot of ways to the revisiting of the ‘fall of the Roman Empire,’ pointing out that there is massive continuity, and not a total collapse and total replacement. That’s very true, and it’s important to point out. But when historians say “the Roman Empire never really fell,” there’s a point at which they’re ignoring the way a layperson would think, which is “the Roman Empire was there, and then it wasn’t. There are ruins we can see. How is that not a fall?” Same thing with the argument about whether the medieval period should be called “the Dark Ages.” I think sometimes historians need to reckon with the fact that the basic, simplistic view of a historical period, while untrue in many ways, and utterly unsophisticated, still expresses truths.
Thank you very much for your insightful comment.
Yes, I tried to make a relatively academic debate more accessible to a general audience and I realize that I could make my point more clearly. I'm thinking about writing a short sequel to this piece, addressing some of the arguments that you and others have advanced. The great thing about this whole exchange is it made me think of what I have written from a different perspective, which is a plus for me.
Anyway, thank you again for your comment. I really appreciate it!
One thing that strikes me is the progressive inability for the ottomans to project force. From 1689 onwards pieces of the empire were either taken from them or left of their own accord. During the 18th century this process accelerated with the collapse of the northern Black Sea, and continued incursions into the balkans by the HRE. By the early 19th century Greece, Egypt and the Maghreb had gone their own way. By the end of ww1 the empire was gone and turkey was having to fight for the borders it has today. At each stage of this retreat the ottomans were outclassed militarily and strategically in a way that was unprecedented. From mehemet 2’s innovations in the siege of Constantinople in the 15 th century to inability to defeat Russia in 1877 despite having better equipment, there seems to have been a fundamental shift in the ability to project force and sustain military operations. Hence the decline narrative.
Fascinating essay. Without explicitly stating it, you and other “revisionist” scholars of the Ottoman period seem to be pushing back against an ethno-nationalist narrative of “lost” historical greatness. This is commendable in a time when “narrative” has overtaken objectivity in academic history circles. I look forward to your future essays
Thank you very much Ken. I’m glad you liked the article!
I don‘t know if the Ottoma Empire declined. It seems to me that it could not keep up with other powers in Europe, above all Czarist Russia (itself not exactly in pole position). What did the Ottomans fail to do what for example Japan managed to accomplish at the same time?
That’s a great question. I know there are some studies that look at this exact topic but I can’t think of one off the top of my head. I’ll try to find them and let them know.
The difficulty with doing a serious comparative study between the Ottoman Empire and Japan in the 19th century is that it would require one to learn Ottoman Turkish and Japanese at the minimum. As you can appreciate, not many people can do that.
Promoting a myth of decline (with a need to return to a mythic past has been promoted by others such as Augustus Caesar and Donald Trump. Are we feeing revitalized lately?
Interesting how the concept of decline is actually determined. In the last few years I have worked with quite a few YouTubers who of course wanted me to research the military sides of history😅😅, and from that point of view, an Ottoman decline seems rather unquestionable, but from other points of view the empire still went on quite all right in the 18th century and only became known as the Sick Man of Europe only in the 19th century.
Yes, the point I was trying to make was that the Empire was very good at adapting to the circumstances, especially in the 17th and 18th centuries.
Even in the 19th century, they tried different strategies to hold the empire together (the creation of the Ottomanism ideology was foremost among them) but, as was the case with almost all empires, they reached a point where their presence did not make sense anymore.
Very interesting piece, fed to me by Substack's random algorithms. I'll take a look at the rest, but I think the main issue that folks are seeing is what I tend to call 'expert disease,' where the expert is so deep into the material that they don't know what other people don't know (obligatory XKCD: https://xkcd.com/2501/):
"The rough framework that people have in their mind when they ask this question goes something like this: the Ottoman Empire was established in the late 13th century, became this huge power that dominated Eastern Europe, northern Africa, and the Middle East in the 15th and 16th centuries, reached its peak politically, economically, and culturally around the early 17th century, and then gradually declined and collapsed by the end of the First World War."
I mean, you may live in fairly rarified circles, or, you know, in Turkey, where I'm sure there's greater awareness of Ottoman history, but my expectation is that this is wildly more than a random conversational partner would actually know, which was that there was an Ottoman Empire (after all you said you're a historian who studies it, right?) and now there isn't (or at least, they've never heard of it, and basically nowhere calls itself an Empire anymore). So 'oh, tell me about its decline' seems to be a pretty safe question.
Thank you very much for your comment!
Yes, I think I'm partially guilty of the "expert disease" you mentioned. I tried to make an academic debate more accessible to a general readership, but I guess I may have done a more comprehensive job of it.
I hope to write a sequel to this in the future, addressing some of the points that people raised in the comments. It was definitely an informative experience for me.
If the "declinist" narrative is inaccurate, is it more correct to speak of a sudden, catastrophic collapse?
I mean, the Ottoman Empire *was* a Great Power, right? Then it was gone. If the graph of this is not long, it must be steep.
I think the point I am trying to make is that it is not really apt to look at the Ottoman Empire in the 17th or 18th centuries and argue that it was already doomed to failure and dissolution, which took place at the beginning of the 20th century. They could adapt to their circumstances and did try different strategies to keep the Empire going. Some of these were “successes,” and some were “failures.”
In the end, the Empire collapsed because the age of the empires came to an end. They tried to come up with an umbrella ideology (Ottomanism) and an imperial identity (“we are all Ottomans”) to hold together the different ethnic and religious groups, but it never worked. The same was true for the Austria-Hungarian Empire, which also came to an end with the Great War.
I’m not sure if this makes sense. The reason I didn’t address your question directly was because I think it is not the most accurate framework to think about late Ottoman history. Obviously, please let me know if you disagree.
Thanks for the answer. I certainly don't know enough to disagree.
I think it is somewhat natural to assume that all empires must have a period of decline preceding a fall - that some internal weakness is what allowed the structure to later be brought down, like a great building with fractures in its pillars.
I think all empires eventually came face to face with the same dilemma at some point: how to reconcile the imperial framework with the idea of "nations" and "nation-states." And none of them, including the British and the French, could square that circle and ended up dissolving.
Somebody on Notes suggested a better framework to think about the Ottoman case. I'm posting a link here. They basically articulated what I had in mind much better than I could:
https://substack.com/@contarini1/note/c-84117268?utm_source=activity_item
This is an area of history that I’m woefully unschooled in. Thanks for helping me catch up!
Comments like these really make my day and help me to keep going. I’m very glad that you found my article helpful. And thank you again for letting me know. It means a lot.
I'm not sure I can understand your premise. Is it that the Ottoman Empire did not decline? And anyone who argues it declined is no longer in fashion?
My general reaction to your article is that the current trends in scholarship seem misplaced. Trying to ignore the obvious through a focus on details.
Hello Paul, thank you for your comment and I'm very sorry about the delayed response.
I think my general point is that it is not very helpful to look at the Ottoman Empire in the 17th and 18th centuries from the perspective/framework of decline. It's too reductionist of a view. It's better to see it as a period of crisis and adaptation. This way, we can get a clearer subtler, and more nuanced understanding of what went on at that time period.
Thank you. That is a helpful frame to better learn about the Ottoman Empire. I look forward to reading more of your work.
Thank you Paul, I really appreciate it!
Enlightening! Thank you
Thank you for your comment, and I'm really happy that you found the article useful!
Low investment in R&D, and human capital. No meritocracy across ethnic groups in public service (sort of reverse DEI).
Not true. Say what one will about the Ottomans, but they excelled at selecting (not always voluntarily hehe) for excellence and training capable administrators. And Devschirme aside, you might want to look at who ran Wallachia all those years and what ethnicity they tended to be. For sure things had gotten a little rusty and laggy pre Tanzimat. But truth is only the Japanese managed to pull off the Big Catchup... Just look at late Qing China.
I think you are right. I was off base with the reverse DEI crack. :(
"Although we obviously cannot rely on one single element in explaining how the decline theory came about, we can argue that a key factor in this process was the source base the scholars used while constructing their arguments. When analyzed closely, we can see that historians who propagated an “Ottoman decline” at least partly based their theories on Ottoman literary works, especially a type of “mirrors for princes” literature called nasihatnames. Cemal Kafadar, a prominent historian of the early modern Ottoman Empire, captures this beautifully, arguing that the concept of the Ottoman decline has been “the legacy of Ottoman historical consciousness.”1 What Kafadar means here is that the advocates of the decline theory took Ottoman literary forms such as nasihatnames, well, a little too literally, in constructing the idea of a decline"
What? No. I think the Ottoman empire declined because it gradually lost in relative power and then stopped existing
I'm coming from a perspective about as far from Turkish as possible, from a long line of silent-meeting Quakers (very anti-hierarchical, abolitionist, pacifist and worshipping only "the inner light of truth"; low-profile, tiny, yet long controlling most British mining and banking, e.g Barclays), having in 1990 spent a semester studying Byzantine and Greek history on Crete, as well as later studies on Eastern Europe, including areas formerly under the Ottoman Empire (areas where many consider Vlad the Impaler a bit soft on Turks), and studying Roman and other ancient history...
Like Rome, but to an even greater degree, the Ottoman Empire was completely, fractally corrupt and malevolent from its beginnings. The power and successes of both were more because than despite their corruption, cruelty and rapacity. What needs explaining is not their ultimate downfall, but how they managed to function at all, let alone for so long. Did the corruption just get too, er, Byzantine? Or was it the efforts to reform, the soft-hearted coddling of slaves, the corrosive influence of metastatic honesty that caused the fabric of these empires to fall apart, like trying to wash a garment made of dirt?