The Ottoman Empire In 1300s: A. D.

Every empire falls eventually. The same can be said about the Ottoman Empire. The empire began its long journey in 1300’s A.D. The Ottoman Turks are named after one of their past ruler, Osman. He was the first to invade and conquer areas and cities, which would become the great Ottoman Empire. The greatest accomplishment was the invasion of Constantinople, the capital of the Byzantine Empire. This demolished the already weak and dissolving realm. With the new conquered land the Ottoman Turks renamed the city Istanbul and essential made it their own capital of their newly created Ottoman Empire. From this city the Ottoman Turks worked outward to gain land, thus building their empire with their central point being Istanbul. Gradually, the Ottoman

The only downside to the ordeal was that if they did not practice the Muslim faith they had to pay a tax. This was because the Ottoman Empire itself is an Islamic state. Some cities that were conquered found that they did not mind the tax because previous conquers demanded more money in taxes with a lot more restrictions. Because of this experience the people of the cities the Ottomans came to conquer almost welcomed them. Another ramification for the people overrun by the Ottoman Empire was that if you were a non-Muslim you could rise to a high position in the bureaucracy with ease. Later on in the last century, around 1856, the empire declared equality for all Ottoman citizens officially except when it came to religious practices. The subject of social status in the empire and how it was connected with religion was becoming an intense topic. This was because the Ottoman Empire was, at this time designed in the Millet System. The Millet System is a system in which communities were organized and based on religion. For example all the Orthodox and Armenian Christians lived together and then all the Jews etc. This led to the belief that the sultan, or head of state, which was a religious leader, had no power or that he had no legitimacy. All of this tension led to revolution and infighting within the Ottoman Empire such as the Greek

This was a continuous normal situation for them. They main wars they fought were the Balkan Wars then, the Crimean War, The Russo-Turkish War and finally the World War One. To summarize, the Crimean War was essentially a race of all the European powers to see who could conquer the Ottoman Empire’s declining territories first from 1854 – 1856. The Balkan Wars from 1912 – 1913 however were fought because the countries that had recently become independent formed the Balkan League. This was done because even though they were considered “independent” their ethnic population was still largely under Ottoman rule. The Ottoman Empire lost this war as well as most of its western territories. Then the Russo-Turkish War was between the Ottoman Empire and the Eastern Orthodox who was allied with and led by Russia. Theses wars led to the financial debt of the empire. It did not have the money to fight a war so the Ottomans borrowed vast amounts of money from other countries. This was yet another reason they fell. They could no longer afford to protect themselves. They also put themselves in a difficult position by creating huge amounts of debt. There was also however quite a lot of infighting or revolts within the empire also. The land or geographical expanse of the Ottoman Empire was too great of it to protect itself during its decline. The empire didn’t have the means, resources or money to properly protect it. They were unable to