The Ottoman Empire and the World Around It - Course Information

~ ON SOVEREIGNTY AND SUBJECTS ~ 61
had regulated the presence of many European merchants from the fifteenth or
sixteenth century onwards, were increasingly turned into a source of privilege
particularly by French and English consuls or ambassadors. Given the increased
political impact of the latter, moreover, many Ottoman non-Muslim subjects
tended to use ambassadorial protection in order to acquire tax-exemptions. This
was usually achieved by claiming a position as a translator (dragoman) to a European
consulate, even though in quite a few instances, the ‘translators’ did not
even reside in the place where they were supposedly officiating. 136
In all probability, the advantage enjoyed by non-Muslim merchants was
resented by Muslim traders and craftsmen, as the latter did not have access to
outside protectors. To what extent this tension became politically relevant before
the end of the eighteenth century is not easy to tell. However, the Izmir pogrom
against non-Muslims of 1770/1183–4, after the Ottoman naval defeat at Çeşme,
does seem to point to resentments that may have begun to accumulate even in the
period under investigation here. 137 From the Ottoman government’s point of
view, this abuse of ambassadorial and consular privileges cancelled out the gains
from dues and taxes which non-Muslim traders would otherwise have paid. In
addition, having its subjects ‘slip away’ in this fashion involved a galling loss of
prestige to the Ottoman administration.
Official protests were therefore numerous, yet of limited effectiveness. For,
from the viewpoint of the European ambassadors and consuls, it was a longstanding
custom to surround oneself with a substantial number of protégés; a
numerous retinue enhanced the status of a consul or ambassador, above all
among his European competitors. 138 Furthermore the payments made to the
embassies and consulates in exchange for ‘protection’ formed a significant
source of financial gain. 139 Considerations of this kind seem to have outweighed
the constant friction with the Ottoman authorities which this practice necessarily
entailed.
An ‘ideological’ factor also was of some importance; while in the sixteenth or
even the early seventeenth century, the power of the sultans had been respected
and even feared, this was no longer true after the numerous Ottoman defeats in
the wars of 1683–1718/1094–1131. Thus in the eighteenth century, although
there was as yet no nationalism among the Muslim and non-Muslim subjects of
the Ottoman Empire, a discourse concerning the latter’s ‘despotic character’ and,
perhaps more pertinently, its ‘decline’ was gaining in importance. 140 Outside
intervention could comfortably be legitimized in this fashion. In addition, oldstyle
discourses concerning the sultans as threats to Christendom, common
enough in the fifteenth or sixteenth century, had by no means disappeared in the
1720s/1132–42 or even the 1730s/1142–52. To the contrary, in the thinking of the
staunchly Catholic governing class of the Habsburg Empire, and also in the ruling
group of the expanding Russian state of Tsar Peter I, religiously motivated
opposition to the Ottomans was now being overlaid with the ‘decline’ discourse,
which was to assume such an overwhelming dominance in the nineteenth and
twentieth centuries. 141