Decay of The Ottoman Empire

From 1299–1923, The Ottomans were one of the most powerful empires in the world. During the 16th and 17th centuries was perhaps the height of this vast power under the rule of Suleiman the Magnificent. However, although it may have been powerful, there were bad times as well as good. In the worse days, the Ottoman Empire was referred to as the “Sick Man of Europe” due to the fact that it was increasingly falling under the financial control of the European powers and had lost territory in a series of disastrous wars. There were several reasons for this gradual decline, some being internal decay and the influence and/or ineffectiveness of the Janissaries.

Internally, the Ottomans suffered from three major problems. First of all, after Suleiman's death, the sultans were less capable and energetic, being raised and spending more of their time with the harems. Without the sultan's leadership at the helm, corruption became a major problem. Second, the Janissaries became a hereditary caste, demanding increasingly more pay while they also grew soft and lazy. In Ottoman Turkish, Janissary meant “new soldier”, which is pretty self explanatory as to what their role in society was . They were an elite infantry that also served as the bodyguards of the Sultan. As time went on, the Janissaries gained power, they used this power to control the government. They tried all that they could in order to maintain the traditional ways of their power, basically becoming rich thugs. There was a janissary revolt in 1826 which was responded to by Mahmud II, who ultimately led to the demise of these “new soldiers” . The final issue was that the size of the empire began to create problems. The sultan was expected to lead the army, setting out with it each spring from the capital. This meant that as the frontiers expanded, it took the army longer to reach the enemy, thus shortening the campaign season to the point where it was very hard to conquer new lands. This especially