these troops and other defense costs, a system of tax farming was instituted.

The Christian boys compulsorily recruited to meet the civil and military needs of the Empire were made at least nominal converts to Islam. Some were attached to the bureaucracy or to the Palace; most of these recruits, however, were incorporated into the Janissary corps, the standing infantry of the Ottoman Empire. Often associated with the Janissaries were certain of the dervish orders, especially the Bektaşi (see ch. 11, Religion). Originally an elite corps and a highly respected fighting force, the Janissaries eventually became a liability to the Empire because they did not maintain their discipline.

At the head of the Ottoman Empire was the Sultan-Caliph, an absolute ruler subject in theory only to the seriat (the body of traditional basic Islamic law). Since the bureaucracy upon which he relied was composed chiefly of those recruited by devşirme, enterprising recruits could work their way to the highest political positions of the Empire. Presiding over the religious establishment, or ulema, was the Şeyh-ul-Islam, the Chief Mufti of the capital. In time the Ottoman Government became known to Europeans as the Sublime Porte, the translated name of the official residence of the Grand Vizier. The Grand Vizier, who presided over the council of ministers, was the highest civilian official of the Empire. He remained so, until the Constitution of 1876 abolished the position in favor of a prime minister in the European fashion.

The Ottoman Empire entered its period of decline with the death of Süleyman. His successors were unable to maintain the internal cohesion of the widespread Ottoman domain. Moreover, political power was increasingly shared by influential women in the harem and the viziers. The decay of the government was accompanied by economic mismanagement and the gradual loss of commerce as Europe turned to South Asia and to East Asia for trade. The influx of gold and silver from the New World also played a part in the financial crises of the Ottoman Empire. The Janissary corps reflected the tendency toward decadence through a loss of internal discipline.

The lack of any formidable opponent helped to maintain the territorial integrity of the sprawling Empire during this long period. Europe was rent by warfare; the Persian Empire was disintegrating. The Venetians, aided by Philip II of Spain, defeated the Ottoman fleet at Lepanto in 1571, but deserted by their allies, they ceded Cyprus to the Turks. In 1669 the Turks won Crete from the Venetians, but they suffered three defeats in the Balkans between 1664 and 1700. Repulsed twice by the Austrians

in attempts to seize Vienna, the Turks were then defeated by the combined forces of the Austrians, the Venetians, the Poles, and the Russians. The Treaty of Karlowitz of 1699 was the first treaty signed by Turkey as a defeated power. At the expense of the Empire, the victors made territorial gains such as the cession of Azov to Russia, its first southern port on the sea of Azov, which is connected to the Black Sea by the Kerch Strait.

At first the Ottoman Empire dealt with the states of Western Europe from a position of strength; however, the advantage in military power gradually shifted to the West as a result of more efficient organization and technical innovations. The Ottomans were slow to recognize this shift of power and slow to cultivate relations with European states.

Religious considerations affected the evolving relationship between the Ottoman Empire and its European neighbors. Millions of Christians and Jews lived in the Empire and were organized into millets (religious communities). Religious persecution was rare. The Ottomans conceived of themselves, however, as ghazis fighting to spread Islam from the dar al-Islam (abode of Islam) to dar al-Harb (abode of war). The Ottoman Empire of the period was either a formidable enemy, as it was to Russia or a valuable ally, as it was to France.

Notable in the early contact between the Ottoman Turks and the Christian Europeans were relations between the Ottoman Empire and France. In 1525 the Ottomans responded to an appeal from Francis I of France to aid him against the Hapsburgs, then the dominant force on the Continent.

Subsequent French influence in the Ottoman Empire was marked by a treaty between Süleyman and Francis I in 1535. What began as a concession from an Empire at the height of its powers evolved into the extensive system of capitulations that was to trouble Ottoman-European relations. These capitulations gave the European powers commercial and financial privileges that, in time, became extensive. Those residents of the Empire under European protection were subject to European rather than Ottoman law. Rights originally confined to foreign residents under the capitulations were extended to non-Moslem inhabitants of the Empire through a system of berats, documents issued to show an individual was under foreign diplomatic protection.

Foreigners were long known as Franks within the Ottoman Empire as one consequence of this early French influence. Capitulations were extended from time to time, notably to Great Britain (1579), Austria (1615), Holland (1680), and Sweden (1737). In 1830 the United States and Turkey signed a treaty containing a "most favored nation" clause.

A series of Turkish defeats in the latter half of the 17th century stimulated Ottoman interest in Europe; however, contact was limited until the 19th century. One reason for this was the shortage of Ottoman Turks fluent in European languages because there was no interest in studying them. Until about 1825 most translation work was done by dragomen, interpreters, drawn from the religious minorities of the Empire.

The expansion of Russia posed the most serious external threat to the Ottoman Empire in the 18th and 19th centuries. The dominant Russian interest was the drive for year-long access to the sea. The Treaty of Karlowitz of 1699 gave Russia a port close to the Black Sea, but control of the Straits, and therefore access to the Mediterranean, remained in Ottoman hands. At first other European nations supported Russian expansion at the expense of the Empire. By the 19th century, however, they were interested in limiting the growth of Russian power; consequently they bolstered the then faltering Ottoman Empire.

Initial Russian actions against the Turks were generally unsuccessful, but by 1774 Russia had won the concessions embodied in the Treaty of Küçük Kaynarca (Kutchuk Kainardji). Turkey. yielded some territory between the mouths of the Dnieper and the Bug Rivers and agreed to protect Christian subjects of the Ottomans. As Russian pressure upon the Ottoman Empire continued, Great Britain emerged as the protector of Turkish territorial integrity.

THE LAST STAGES OF EMPIRE

By the beginning of the 19th century the Ottoman Empire was considered the "Sick Man of Europe" by the European powers. Territorial loss followed territorial loss, and the fate of the Empire became ultimately an important concern of European diplomacy. Reform efforts, such as the Tanzimat, were not adequate to restore internal health, for the forces of nationalism had begun to take hold of the subject peoples.

The Napoleonic Era (1796-1815) affected the Ottoman Empire to a lesser degree than it did the European powers. Napoleon's invasion of Egypt indirectly helped Mohammed Ali (1805-48) to become the Sultan's pasha in that country. The shifting alliances of the period found the Turks fighting for and against the French at various times. The Napoleonic Era is important for the impetus it gave the spread of the ideas of the French Revolution and the feeling of nationalism that seeped into the Ottoman Empire.

The Eastern Question

Throughout the 19th and early 20th centuries, Russia, Great Britain, Germany, France, and Austria-Hungary were concerned

with the Eastern Question. In essence the Eastern Question involved the decline of the Ottoman Empire, and the anticipated benefit that each power expected to derive from the steady weakening of the Ottoman state. This problem stood high on the diplomatic agenda of Europe and had both strategic and religious implications.

The first of the Ottoman crises to precipitate the involvement of the European powers was the Greek War of Independence (1821-29). Russia, France, and Great Britain supported the Greeks; a French-British fleet defeated the Turkish navy at Navarino Bay in 1827, while Russian forces moved against Turkey. Greece received its independence by the Treaty of Adrianople (1829) and the Protocol and Convention of London (1830).

Mohammed Ali, the Pasha of Egypt, was the next to trouble the internal peace of the Empire. In 1831 having introduced modern techniques into Egypt and its army with the help of French advisers, he invaded Syria, with French diplomatic backing, and pursued the Sultan's armies into Anatolia. Austria and Russia succeeded in pressuring Mohammed Ali to withdraw to Syria but not before the Russians had imposed the Treaty of Hunkar Iskelesi (1833) on Turkey as a price for their military assistance. Under this treaty the Straits were to be closed to any power at war with Russia. When war broke out again in 1839, the Sultan received European backing and Mohammed Ali was forced to retire to Egypt, where he was made hereditary pasha under nominal Ottoman suzerainty. After the Suez Canal was completed in 1869, British control over Egypt increased and British interest in the Straits declined.

The Ottoman Empire was subsequently involved in two conflicts with Russia. A French and Russian dispute concerning their respective rights in the Holy Places of Palestine led eventually to the Crimean War (1853-55), a bloody and costly conflict in which France, England, Turkey, and later Sardinia, fought Russia. The Treaty of Paris of 1856, which admitted Turkey to the loosely organized Concert of Europe, made few territorial changes. The Sultan, however, undertook to carry out internal reforms designed to improve the situation of his non-Moslem subjects.

During the Russo-Turkish War of 1877-78 Turkey and Russia were the major combatants. The Russian action was prompted by Turkish repression of nationalist agitation in the Balkans, principally Bulgaria. The other European powers were unwilling to accede to the harsh terms that the victorious Russians imposed upon the Ottoman Empire in the Treaty of San Stefano. The Congress of Berlin called to review the situation resulted in a treaty that gave Bulgaria independence but returned Macedonia