Foreign relations of the Ottoman Empire
The foreign relations of the Ottoman Empire were characterized by competition with the Persian Empire to the east, Russia to the north, and Austria to the west. The control over European minorities began to collapse after 1800, with Greece being the first to break free, followed by Serbia. Egypt was lost in 1798–1805. In the early 20th century Austria-Hungary annexed Bosnia and Herzegovina, the Bulgarian Declaration of Independence soon followed. The Ottomans lost nearly all their European territory in the First Balkan War. The Ottoman Empire allied itself with the Central Powers in the World War I, and was defeated. During the war, the British successfully mobilized Arab nationalism, and the Ottoman Empire thereby lost its Arab possessions, and itself soon collapsed in the early 1920s.
Structure
The Ottoman Empire's diplomatic structure was unconventional and departed in many ways from its European counterparts. Traditionally, foreign affairs were conducted by the Reis ül-Küttab who also had other duties. In 1836, a Foreign Ministry was created.Finance
After 1600, wars were increasingly expensive and the Empire never had an efficient system of taxation. The Porte relied on loans from merchants and tax farming, whereby local elites collected taxes. The winner in a war acquired new territory—the local leadership usually stayed the same, only they now collected taxes for the winning government. The war's loser often paid cash reparations to the winner, who thereby recouped the cost of the war.Ambassadors
Ambassadors from the Ottoman Empire were usually appointed on a temporary and limited basis, as opposed to the resident ambassadors sent by other European nations. The Ottomans sent 145 temporary envoys to Venice between 1384 and 1600. The first resident Ottoman ambassador was not seen until Yusuf Agah Efendi was sent to London in 1793.Ambassadors to the Ottoman Empire began arriving shortly after the fall of Constantinople. The first was Bartelemi Marcello from Venice in 1454. The French ambassador Jean de La Forêt arrived in 1535. In 1583, the ambassadors from Venice and France would attempt unsuccessfully to block English diplomat William Harborne from taking up residence in Istanbul. This move was repeated by Venice, France and England in trying to block Dutch ambassador Cornelius Haga in 1612.
Capitulations
Capitulations were trade deals with other countries. They were a unique practice of Muslim diplomacy that was adopted by Ottoman rulers. In legal and technical terms, they were unilateral agreements made by the Sultan to a nation's merchants. These agreements were temporary, and subject to renewal by subsequent Sultans. The origins of the capitulations comes from Harun al Rashid and his dealings with the Frankish kingdoms, but they were also used by both his successors and by the Byzantine Empire.In June 1580 came the first capitulatory agreement with England. The English acquired privileges formerly limited to France and Venice. The Porte broadened English extraterritorial rights by successive renewals and expansions.
The Ottoman-French Treaty of 1740 marked the apogee of French influence in the Ottoman Empire in the eighteenth century. In the following years the French had an unchallenged position in Levant trade and in transportation between Ottoman ports. Near contemporary Ottoman capitulations to European powers such as Great Britain and the Dutch Republic in 1737, the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies in 1740, Denmark–Norway in 1756 and Prussia in 1761 were to offset and balance the capitulations granted to France in 1740.
Military organization
Sultan Selim III in 1789 to 1807 set up the "Nizam-i Cedid" army to replace the inefficient and outmoded imperial army. The old system depended on Janissaries, who had largely lost their military effectiveness. Selim closely followed Western military forms. It would be expensive for a new army, so a new treasury was established. The result was the Porte now had an efficient, European-trained army equipped with modern weapons. However it had fewer than 10,000 soldiers in an era when Western armies were ten to fifty times larger. Furthermore, the Sultan was upsetting the well-established traditional political powers. As a result, it was rarely used, apart from its use against Napoleon's expeditionary force at Gaza and Rosetta. The new army was dissolved by reactionary elements with the overthrow of Selim in 1807, but it became the model of the new Ottoman Army created later in the 19th century.1200–1500
, the Seljuk Turks were overwhelmed by a Mongol invasion, and they lost control of Anatolia. By 1290, Osman I established supremacy over neighboring Turkish tribes, forming the start of the Ottoman Empire. The Byzantine Empire was shrinking, but it held tenaciously onto its capital at Constantinople.The Ottoman domain became increasingly powerful and by 1400 was a crucial part of the European states system and actively played a role in their affairs, due in part to their coterminous periods of development. In 1413–1421, Mehmed I "The Restorer" reestablished central authority in Anatolia. He expanded the Ottoman presence in Europe by the conquest of Wallachia in 1415. Venice destroyed the Ottoman fleet of Gallipoli in 1416, as the Ottomans lost a naval war. In the reign of Murad II there were successful naval wars with Venice and Milan. The Byzantine Empire lost virtually all its territory in Anatolia. However, the Ottomans failed in their attempted invasions of Serbia and Hungary; they besieged Constantinople. Christians from Central Europe launch the last Crusade in 1443–1444, pushing the Ottomans out of Serbia and Wallachia. This Crusade ended in defeat when the Ottomans were victorious at Varna in November 1444.
Mehmed the Conqueror scored the most famous victory in Ottoman history when his army finally on 29 May 1453, captured Constantinople and brought an end to the Byzantine Empire. Towards the end of the 15th century, the Ottomans began to play a larger role in the Italian Peninsula. In 1494, both the Papacy and the Kingdom of Naples petitioned the Sultan directly for his assistance against Charles VIII of France in the First Italian War. The Ottomans continue to expand, and on 28 July 1499 won their greatest naval victory over Venice, in the first battle of Lepanto.
1500–1800
Ottoman policy towards Europe during the 16th century was one of disruption against the Habsburg dynasties. The Ottomans collaborated with Francis I of France and his Protestant allies in the 1530s while fighting the Habsburgs. Although the French had sought an alliance with the Ottomans as early as 1531, one was not concluded until 1536. The sultan then gave the French freedom of trade throughout the empire, and plans were drawn up for an invasion of Italy from both the north and the south in 1537.Selim I
The most dramatic successes came during the short reign of Selim I, as Ottoman territories were nearly doubled in size after decisive victories over the Persians and Egyptians.Selim I defeated the Mameluke army that controlled Egypt in 1517. He conquered Egypt, leaving the Mamelukes as rulers there under a Turkish governor general. Selim I moved south and took control of Mecca and the West Arabian Coast, suppressed revolts in Anatolia and Syria, and formed an alliance with Algiers. He died in 1520 as he was preparing an invasion of the island of Rhodes.
;Mughals
Babur's early relations with the Ottomans were poor because Selim I provided Babur's rival, Ubaydullah Khan, with powerful matchlocks and cannons. In 1507, when ordered to accept Selim I as his rightful suzerain, Babur refused and gathered Qizilbash servicemen in order to counter the forces of Ubaydullah Khan during the Battle of Ghazdewan in 1512. In 1513, Selim I reconciled with Babur, dispatched Ustad Ali Quli and Mustafa Rumi, and many other Ottoman Turks, in order to assist Babur in his conquests; this particular assistance proved to be the basis of future Mughal-Ottoman relations. From then on, he also adopted the tactic of using matchlocks and cannons in field, which gave him an important advantage in India. Babur referred to this method as the "Ottoman device" due to its previous use by the Ottomans during the Battle of Chaldiran.
Humayun maintained a cordial relationship with Suleiman the Magnificent and handed him a letter through the shipwrecked Ottoman admiral Sidi Ali Reis, who acted as an intermediary. Humayun acknowledged Suleiman as the caliph owing to Suleiman's control of Mecca and Medina, but maintained that Humayun was Suleiman's equal in every way. This letter remained unacknowledged. Humayun's son and successor Akbar had a much colder relationship with the Ottomans. Akbar mostly maintained contacts with the Uzbeks and Safavids, but never really had any dialogue with the Ottomans until the 1580s. Akbar often sent political adversaries to Mecca for the hajj, but his initial conflict with the Ottomans happened due to members of his household being mistreated there. In the 1580's, Ottoman officials in the Hijaz humiliated ladies belonging to Akbar's household when they stayed in Mecca and Medina. The Ottomans alleged that the Mughals overstayed beyond the hajj in Mecca and were engaged in haram activities. Whatever the case, Akbar stopped sending caravans to Mecca after this, depleting a large source of revenue for the Ottomans. This could also be because Akbar became really interested in syncretic religions at this time, eventually leading to his creation of Din-i Ilahi, which combined Hinduism, Islam, and Christianity. Akbar still purported to be the caliph, which he bolstered by conquering the Gujarat Sultanate, an Ottoman ally. Partially in response, Akbar planned a joint Mughal-Portuguese invasion of Yemen. The Portuguese were always interested in controlling the trade routes of the region, especially Aden, which lay on the crucial Bab el-Mandeb strait linking the Red Sea to the Indian Ocean. The Portuguese were present in Goa, and their envoys there tried to conspire with Akbar in order to launch the invasion, which was uncovered by Ottoman spies. The invasion never materialized for reasons unknown.
The Ottoman-Mughal relationship improved under subsequent emperors. Jahangir and Shah Jahan felt threatened by Persia and sought an Ottoman alliance to check a strong Persia on the borders of the Mughal Empire. Both monarchs rationalized such an alliance as a Sunni one against the Shia Safavids. Tensions arose when Shah Jahan conquered Kandahar from the Safavids, as the Ottomans feared that the Mughals were expanding too far westwards and would eventually reach their own lands. The Ottomans thus secretly supported the Safavids when they retook Kandahar in 1649. When the Mughals briefly moved into Balkh and overthrew its Uzbek rulers in order to reclaim their old homeland, the Uzbek ruler Nazr Muhammad Khan fled to Persia and sent a letter to the Ottoman Sultan Mehmed IV asking him to intervene. Mehmed IV and Shah Jahan exchanged a series of letters where both rulers accused their counterpart of misidentifying their own titles. Mehmed IV ultimately claimed that he was the caliph of all Muslim rulers, which affirmed his standing to mediate the Mughal-Uzbek issue. Aurangzeb did not attempt to maintain significant relations with the Ottomans as under his reign, Maratha power was curtailed and most of India was under his rule, making it unnecessary for him to need foreign aid. The Mughal Empire declined rapidly after Aurangzeb, with only Farrukhsiyar attempting to cultivate the relationship further before it ultimately broke up.