from page 28 The great Muslim empires, the Ottoman and the Mogul, were not more successful in their attempts to stave off European domination. The Ottoman Empire had reached the height of its power in the 1500's, but since that time it had steadily declined. Gradually, portions of the empire had broken away. By 1850, Egypt and Arabia had gained autonomy, and Algeria was controlled by France. In the Balkans Greece won independence in 1830. The Ottoman empire, which suffered a series of defeats by Austrian and Russian armies, was reluctant to modernize its institutions because pious Muslims felt that the whole Islamic character of the state would be endangered.
1854 -1856 The Crimean War, where Ottomans were fighting together with French and British forces, ended with a victory over the Russians. Ironically, the victory cost the Turks more than earlier defeats at Russian hands had ever done, because it became clear that the survival of the Ottoman empire depended on the support of one or another of the European Great Powers. Britain and France had an interest to prevent the collapse of the Turkish empire because they considered it a block against the expansion of Russia or Austria into the Balkans. Until 1870's Great Britain played the role of primary protector of the Sultan; later the Germans played the same role. The belated attempt of the Sultan to modernize the army backfired in 1908 when young officers - the Young Turks - organized a coup d'etat. The political fortunes of Islam reached their low point at the close of World War I when the Ottoman empire was partitioned among the victors. |
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