The Ottoman Empire and the World Around It - Course Information

110 ~ THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE AND THE WORLD AROUND IT ~
Yet when using this model in order to explain eighteenth-century defeats, we
must keep in mind that the overall conditions under which Ottoman war financing
had to prove itself had now changed dramatically in comparison to the years
around 1600/1008–9. Therefore practices which had not been economically ruinous
in the sixteenth or seventeenth centuries may well have become so after
1768/1181–2. Most importantly, the principal opponent of the Ottomans was
now Russia, with its enormous resources in metals and timber. Due to a series of
measures, often quite brutal, aiming at economic and political ‘modernization’,
these had been made available to the armies of the tsars and tsarinas. An empire
based largely on semi-arid zones with limited ore deposits would have been hard
put to match this performance under almost any conditions. In addition, by the
late seventeenth century the Habsburg opponents of the Ottoman sultans also had
established centralized rule over many of their territories. They thus developed
the means to mobilize more effectively resources for war than had been true in
the sixteenth century, when in Bohemia, Austria or royal Hungary, the construction
of absolutism was as yet under way. 62
Ottoman commanders attempted to match these superior material resources by
fielding armies much larger than those of their opponents, and this practice must
have increased the load that peasants and artisans had to bear. 63 In an effort to
keep up with the Habsburg and Russian challenges, the Ottoman government of
the eighteenth century may well have carried the exploitation of its subjects to
lengths that caused the malfunctioning of the whole system. Such a mistake, after
all, would not in any way have been an Ottoman peculiarity: Historians of early
modern Europe today are of the opinion that seventeenth- and eighteenth-century
states to the west of the Ottoman frontier also were constantly ‘living beyond
their means’ when it came to the conduct of war. If the guideline of their rulers
had been economic rationality, which evidently it was not, these potentates
should have shunned armed conflict altogether. It is quite possible that similar
considerations applied to the Ottoman ruling group. 64
~ Logistics: cases of gunpowder
Ottoman wars have not exactly constituted a favourite subject for recent and
present-day historians. This may well something to do with the fact that the
Turkish Republic has managed to steer clear of most international conflicts since
its foundation in 1923. While Ottoman prowess in war has become significant
for the identity that a certain segment of Turkish society has fashioned for itself,
it is not an issue that professional historians have felt greatly inclined to stress.
Highlighting the state-building talents of Ottoman viziers and sultans, the professional
skills of architects and miniaturists, or even the commercial acumen of
foundation administrators and merchants fits much better into the self-image of
most modern Turkish intellectuals, and also into the concerns of many Ottomanists,
including the present author.