Q. & A. 711 to 1707 with solved Papers css 1971 to date

Ottoman State System and their Decline 853
Thus Saleem earned the enmity both of the old army authorities and of the established civil service. When his new army marched to the Balkans to put down a rising, the old army at Constantinople rose and killed him.
The new Sultan Mahmud 11(1807 - 1839) was no less a zealous reformer. He managed to recreate Saleem’s new army under another name and to persuade the ulema to proclaim his reforms to be in accordance with the spirit of Islam. Having thus gathered support for his reforms, he exterminated the Janissary Corps. This made a formidable impression and the Reform Party considered it as the beginning of a new era. but the first consequences were disastrous. The strength of the empire was weakened to a degree which made itself felt in the development between Russia, Great Britain, France and Prussia about the Greek question (1827) which prevented the Turks from suppressing the Greek insurrection. One of the consequences of the agreement between the Powers was the destruction of the Turko-Egyptian fleet in the Gulf of Navarino (October 1827) without previous declaration of war by the English, French and Russian naval forces.’War with Russia followed in 1828. The Russians occupied Rumania, took Kars and occupied Adrianople. By the treaty of Adrianople, Turkey had to accept complete independence of Greece.
Mahmud continued the consolidation of his authority in the interior. The principal agent of his policy was the Grand wazir, Rashid Pasha. After his death in 1836, he was replaced by Hafiz Pasha. The latter, unlike Rashid. was in favour of the introduction of modern tactics into the Turkish army. In his successful expedition north of Mesopotamia, he was accompanied by the Prussian lieutenant, Von Moltke, one of the army instructors sent by the king of Prussia. These military measures of Mahmud had also in view the strengthening of the frontier on the Syrian side, in order to be prepared for a new conflict with Muhammad ’Ali, the Pasha of Egypt, who had become independent. In 1839, Hafiz was again appointed as Seri-Askar in Kurdistan. He crossed the Euphrate to fight the Egyptian forces but was completely beaten by the Egyptians under Ibrahim Pasha son of Muhammad ’Ali.
The task which Mahmud had set himself of reforming the empire after European model was beset by enormous difficulties, owing to the traditional views and institutions of the Turkish people. But he succeeded in reforming the army and exterminating the

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Janisiaries who had become the greatest source of trouble. The ni0sf useful work was done by the Persian military instructors. By sendm young officers to the military schools of Western Europe, Mahrnud prepared a more efficient military organization. In the government there developed a cabinet of ministers after the Western fashion. BV a firman of October 1826 Mahmud abolished the Sultan’s right of confiscating the properties of the State functionaries after their death The Tanzimat were the continuation of the work of Sultans Saleem in and Mahmud II, undertaken to save the Ottoman State which had become enfeebled internally. Mahmud II had succeeded by getting rid of the feudal system at home and the reactionary « element of the Janissaries, in centralising and consolidating his power in home affairs, but he had been unable to avoid the loss of Greece and Egypt. In the period from 1839 to the end of the Crimean War, the soul of the reforms was Mustafa Rashid Pasha. In the second period from 1836 the activities of the reformers were directed by ’Ali Pasha and Fuwad Pasha ; the great figure in the third period (from 187i) was Midhat Pasha. The Tanzimat began with the royal proclamation known as the Khatti Sharif of Gulhane. In it the Sultan announced that he wished the honour and property of all his subjects to be secure ; that the farming out of taxes (iltizam) would be abolished and that recruitment for the army would be done in a more regular fashion ; all criminals would be tried in public and all subject of whatever religion would be considered equal before the law. These measures, it was said, meant a complete break with the ancient principles.
By changing the old structure, the Tanzimat created a host of new problems. Four groups of interests had to be dealt with : (I) civilian officials and military officers who in the old order had been the slaves of the Sultan ; (2) the free Muslim subjects of whom the ulema were the most notable section ; (3) non-Muslim subjects ; (4) foreign interests. The consolation of the first two groups proved more easy ; religion united them and Mahmud II and ’Abdul Majid had renounced their rights as sovereigns over the lives and property of the officials ; the ending of the feudal system by Mahmd II had also been favourable to the combination of the Muslim elements. But to give the Christian and Jewish subjects equal rights threatened
Ottoman State System and their Decline 855
these elements to deprive them of the considerable autonomy which they had enjoyed since Muhammad the Conqeror. The problems raised by the enrolment of non-Muslims in the army showed that the Jews and Christians themselves did not regard the granting of equal rights as an unmitigated boon. Again, the realization of the reforms was bound to be in great partillusory so long as the privileged position of the foreigners known as extra-territoriality continued to exist in striking opposition to the centralization of power which was the in aim of the reforms.
The Tanzimat were thus carried on in a troubled atmosphere. A Grand wazir could hardly carry through the programme peacefully. There were sudden falls from power followed by unexpected returns. There were also periods when foreign intervention called for new efforts. This was the case with the deliberations which preceded the Peace Conference in Paris. Turkey’s allies then wanted the Sultan to bind himself by an international agreement to carry out the reforms, which were still in abeyance. The result was Khatti Humayuni of February 1856 which was only nominally a spontaneous act of the Sultan. The Khatti Humayuni was simply a more detailed confirmation of the promises made in 1839 regarding the equality of the treatment of the nonMuslims ; it was particularly laid down that mixed tribunals shall be instituted for law suit between Muslims and non-Muslims and that the laws relating to them shall be codfiTf-J a”- soon as possible. One further important point in the Tanzimat was the right conceded to ioreign powers to acquire landed property in Turkey.
The work of the Tanzimatists was based on the ideas of the, ”French Revolution”, which had given birth to the ideais of -Nationalism and Democracy. ”The Tanzimatists,” says Halide Edib: ”took up Democracy. Their hearts rang in passionate response to the declaration of the Rights of Man. And because within their remembrance and their past history Islam only had made as grand a declaration, the ideal they offered to t?>c empire had its roots in Islamic and Turkish consciousness. The Christian part of the ” Ottomans, on the other hand, took to Nationalism. The Tanzimatists never realized or admitted that any such explosive and separatist sentiment could be genuine, regarding it as entirely a reaction against

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bad government. They were convinced that reform, good government and the preaching and practising of democratic principles would cure the non-Muslim subjects of the empire of their nationalism.
Throughout the Tanzimat period there were no terrorist measures ; the new policy of the ’Union of Elements was to be carried out entirely by persuasion and appeal to interests and loyalties . Therefore, all the efforts and reforms of the Tanzimatists were mostly for the benefit of the prodigal Son of the Ottoman State, that is, for the Christian who was no longer content to remain in the Ottoman fold.9
In addition to the ideal of democracy, the Tanzimat introduced the idea of individual freedom and created a desire among the educated people to have a voice in the government. The result was that a movement for constitutional government developed with a nucleus of writers and statesmen known as the Young Turks. It was felt that administrative, legal and religious reforms were not sufficient to remedy the evils. The real root of the evil was the autocratic system of government in which the people at large had no voice.
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