OTTOMAN EMPIRE

Ch. 1 Rogan

Arab world made entrance into international relations following ww1 in Versailles peace conference.

They sought self determination but encountered 2 problems:

1.       There was no consensus amongst the arabs on the post war state structure they sought.

2.       Europeans also stood in their way because of disparities in structural power in negotiating with the Europeans who harboured imperial interests in the eastern Mediterranean and whose soldiers still occupied Egypt, Syria, Palestine, and Iraq.

OTTOMAN DIPLOMACY

Ottoman Empire always conducted foreign relations through capital of Istanbul.

·         Europeans sent ambassadors to ottoman empire but never vice versa.

·         All communication was done through European merchants residing in ottomans.

·         First treaty of capitulations was drafted in Genoa in 135, followed by similar treaties in Florence and Venice.

·         1535a commercial treaty was signed by French and ottomans and a formal negotiated capitulation was created in 1569. England in 1580.

·         Ottomans were power in region and had little interests in western Christian Europe.

·         Ottoman sultan, Selim 3, establishes embassies in London, Vienna, berlin, and paris in the 1790s bt was bad timing because of the Napoleonic wars.

·         Eurpoe began to intervene in ottoman affairs to prevent fall of the sultans governmentduring the 2 egyptian crisises. During the Egyptian crises it lead the Europeans to enter ottoman domains to contain ambitions of Egyptian governor Mehmet Ali Pasha and each other.

·         The London convention of 1840 resolved the second crisis and marked the entrance of ottomans into the European state system.

·         British prime minister lord palmerston drafted a secret self deying protocol adopted by Britain, Austria, Prussia, and Russia, pledging no power would seek territorial or commercial gains in the ottoman empire to the exclusion of any other power.

·         Ottomans formally joined the eurpean system in 1856 when they signed the treaty of paris.

·         Ottoman forein ministry established in 1836.

·         By 1878 palmerstons 1840 self denying protocol had lapsed.  Ottomans declared bankruptcy to European creditors in 1875.

·         Battles with Bulgarian nationalistits seeking independence from ottoman rule led to war with Russia in 1877-78.

·         Ottomans lost war and lots of territory. Britain claimed Cyprus, france got Tunisia,

·         The treaty of berlin the ottomans were forced to give up 2/5s of their territory.

·         1883 britain occupied Egypt formely ottoman empire.