The History of Ottoman Empire - IV - (1601-1700)
Some of the Historians blame someone Selim II (1566-1574), the son of Suleiyman I for the decline of the Ottoman Empire,. It's clear that Selim was the first disinterested Sultan among the Ottomans. Addicted to sexual and alcholic pleasures, Selim, known in Islamic history as "Selim the Drunkard," retired almost completely from the decision-making and administrative apparatus of the Ottoman state.
The process of the Sultan's disengagement with government actually began with Suleiyman. Towards the end of his life, weary, tired, and broken by the executions of his two favorite sons, Suleyman withdrew into his great Topkapi palace and handed the reigns of government over to his Grand Vezir . This was the model that his son would follow. In addition, however, Suleiyman abandoned with his son Selim a tradition among the Ottoman Sultans: raising his child to become Sultan. The sons of the Sultan were expected to participate in government and military training and campaigns; only this period of apprenticeship would make them worthy of the Sultanate. Suleiyman had done this with his older children, particularly Mustafa. But Mustafa and Bayazid betrayed him. Selim, then, lived a very isolated existence in the harem of Topkapi palace. He was not trained in government or military affairs, so there was little reason for him to take any interest in them. Selim II reigned for only eight years, but he set the precedent for Ottoman rule for the next two centuries and the great Empire, the great Caliphate that stood as a lion before the advancing mercantile and military expansion against Europe, slowly crumbled under European pressure. At the beginning of the seventeenth century, the Ottoman Empire was still the most powerful state in the world both in wealth and military capability. The personal style of government, however, cultivated among the earlier Sultans had gone away completely. In place of Sultanic government, the bureaucracy pretty much ran the show. Power struggles among the various elements of the bureaucracy: the grand Vezir , the Diwan , or supreme court, and especially the military, the Janissaries, led to a constant shifting of government power. Islamic historians point out that the growth of bureaucratic power and the disinterest of the Sultans led to corrupt and predatory local government which eroded popular support. Western historians point to internal decline in the bureaucracy along with increased military efficiency of European powers as the principle reason for the decline of the Empire. However it may be, the decline of the Ottomans was a staggered affair lasting over two centuries. The Empire itself would exist until World War I, at which point it was finally erased from the maps by European powers.Perhaps the most significant innovation in Sultanic government was the preservation of the brothers of the Sultan. While Sultanic succession is hotly disputed among both Islamic and Western historians, it seems clear that the Ottomans believed that the Sultan was selected primarily through divine kut , which in Turkish means "favor." All the members of the ruling family, according to some historians, had an equal claim to the throne. This explains the Ottoman practice of killing the brothers of the Sultan and their sons; the purpose of this practice was to obviate rebellion or rival claims to the throne. In the late sixteenth century, the Ottoman Sultans abandoned this practice, yet still distrusted filial loyalty. So the brothers of the Sultan were locked away in the harem in the palace. While they lived in luxury, they were still forced to live in small rooms and often in isolated conditions. the Sultans abandoned the practice of training their sons to assume the Sultanate by having them serve in the government and the military. In both Islamic and Western histories of the Ottomans, this decline in the Sultanate is regarded as one of the prime causes of its decline.
As a result of the disintegration of the instituion of the Sultanate, power had to go somewhere. It principally went to the Janissaries, the military arm of the government. Throughout the seventeenth, the Janissaries slowly took over the military and administrative posts in offices on to their sons, mainly by bribing officials. Because of this practice, Ottoman government soon began to be ruled by a military feudal class. Under the early Ottomans, position in the government was determined solely through merit. After the sixteenth century, position in government was largely determined by hereditary. The quality of the administration and bureaucracy declined precipitiously.
Mehmet Koprulu
The most significant figure among the Ottomans of the seventeenth century was Mehmet Koprulu (1570-1661), who, as Grand Vezir , halted the general decline of Ottoman government by rooting out corruption all through the imperial government and returned to the old Ottoman practice of closely observing local government and rooting out injustice. He also tried to revive the Ottoman practice of conquest and protecting Muslim countries from European expansion. Although it didn't happen in his lifetime, this new expansionist policy would begin the steady stream of military defeats against European powers that would slowly contract the Empire.
Wars with Austria
Shortly after Mehmet Koprulu died, his brother-in-law, Kara Mustafa, took over the military and put into practice Koprulu's new expanionist policies. His first target was the Hapsburg Empire of Austria. He wanted nothing less than the complete conquest of Austria, so he marched straight for the capital, Vienna. In 1683, with Vienna under siege, the Ottomans were defeated by an alliance of European forces and by the heavy artillery that had come into practice among European armies. While this defeat initiated a long period peace in the relationships between the Ottomans and the Europeans, it also effectively ended the Ottoman wars of conquest, and the end of conquest also began the steady deterioration of Ottoman power over European territories
In 1699, the Ottomans signed the Peace of Karlowitz. In this treaty, the Ottomans handed over to Austria the provinces of Hungary and Transylvania, leaving only Macedonia and the Balkans under Ottoman control, but the Balkans had begun to destabilize after the Ottoman defeat of 1683.
