- 25/06/2025
Documentary, The Ottomans 2 of 3 Europe's Muslim Emperors
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00:00On the edge of Europe is the city that was once the heart of a mighty empire.
00:16From here in Istanbul, the glories of the Ottoman Empire came to match those of ancient Rome.
00:22Ottoman rulers were of course known for their lavish lifestyles and their sumptuous buildings.
00:36For 600 years, from the Middle Ages to the 20th century, one dynasty of Ottoman Sultans from a single family ruled across huge swathes of the world.
00:47This is an empire of a million square miles, staggeringly wealthy, because it's staggeringly well organised.
01:00The empire stretched south to Baghdad and Cairo, controlling the holiest sites of Islam.
01:07But it also reached deep into Europe, taking in Sarajevo and threatening the gates of Vienna.
01:18It was the cradle of a civilisation and a culture which has infused Europe to Europe's benefit. Europe is the richer for it.
01:29In this series, I'm discovering why the Ottoman Empire seems to have vanished from our understanding of the history of Europe.
01:38Why its story is exciting global interest once more.
01:42And how this year's struggles at the heart of the Ottoman story have reignited on the streets they once ruled.
01:49From Syria to Turkey and Egypt.
01:51It's remarkable how some of the most important yet unresolved issues confronting us today were also faced by the Ottomans.
02:01The conflicts between the Christian West and the Muslim East.
02:05The need to reconcile secular politics with religious ideology.
02:09And balancing the demands of the clergy with the ambitions of the generals.
02:13All this was faced by one dynasty that ruled for 600 years across three continents.
02:24In this episode, I'm going to explore the huge contrasts in the times of two very different Ottoman sultans.
02:31The most famous, Suleiman the Magnificent in the 16th century.
02:36And the troubled reign of Abdul Hamid II in the 19th century.
02:48I want to know what a Muslim world run from Europe was really like.
02:53And how it has shaped the relationship between Islam and Europe today.
02:57Across the continents, down the centuries, I'll be trying to get to grips with what we all need to know today about Europe's Muslim Empress.
03:11This is the magnificent Topkapi Palace.
03:25The nerve center of the most powerful Muslim empire the world has ever seen.
03:46It was built by the Ottoman Sultan Mehmed II in the middle of the 15th century.
03:51Its commanding position overlooks Istanbul, the imperial capital he conquered from the Byzantines in 1453, declaring the Ottomans successors of the Roman Empire.
04:11And this is what the Ottoman sultans would have seen when they walk out onto this incredible balcony next to the treasury room in the Topkapi Palace.
04:19They would have been able to see, in one view, two of the three continents upon which their empire was built.
04:26Europe on that side and Asia on that side, separated only by the narrow waters of the Bosporus.
04:33And it just simply takes your breath away.
04:36Inside are a set of rooms which tell the story of the rise of the Ottoman Empire.
04:49The home of the Harim, where Christian slave girls captured in Europe provided heirs for the dynasty.
04:55The home of the treasury, where the empire's vast wealth was secured.
05:05The home of the sacred treasures of Islam, symbols of the Ottoman leadership of the Muslim world.
05:12This was the epicentre, the heart and soul of Ottoman imperial power.
05:21In 1520, 70 years after it was built, all this was inherited by the most famous of all the Ottoman sultans who led the Ottomans into their golden age.
05:27Suleiman, the Magnificent.
05:43Suleiman was a figure and a name to be conjured with in London as in every other capital city of Europe.
05:54Suleiman's name came up in Shakespeare. Suleiman's name was probably on the lips of everybody in the pub.
05:59A war leader and a great administrator, a man of considerable cultural achievement, a man who was interested in learning.
06:11Suleiman is one of the most impressive figures of the age.
06:14The empire Suleiman inherited had just expanded dramatically.
06:33After two centuries of Ottoman conquests in Christian Europe, his father had taken control of new lands across Africa and the Arab Muslim world.
06:44The capture of two cities unlocked vast lands.
06:49Defeating the Mamluk empire in modern day Syria gave the Ottomans lands extending to the sacred city of Jerusalem.
06:56Taking Cairo gave them territory as far as the holiest sites of Islam, Mecca and Medina.
07:07The Ottoman sultans now ruled over a vast Muslim population.
07:11And it altered the equilibrium of the states which had until that point been predominantly Christian.
07:17It was a change that sealed the future direction of the empire.
07:21For the Ottomans to take charge of the Arab Muslim world was a seismic shift.
07:36They'd emerged in the late 13th century in what's now Turkey as mercenary horsemen whose ancestors had converted to Islam centuries after most Arabs and who had traditionally worn their religion lightly.
07:51For the Arab world, the Ottoman conquest opened a whole new page in their history.
07:58Now for the first time they found themselves ruled, not from one of their own cities, but from distant Istanbul.
08:06The Ottoman conquest led to a shift of the center of gravity away from the Arab world.
08:13Suleiman had to assert the Ottomans' right to rule Arab Muslims from a European capital which 70 years before his accession was still a Christian city.
08:34Istanbul's culture, its language and its history were all quite different from those of Arab Muslims.
08:53The first mosque ever built by the Ottomans here shows how soon after they conquered the city they tried to give their imperial capital a direct connection to the founder of the faith.
09:09Just as the tradition of Saint Peter coming to Rome and being buried there gave the Pope his legitimacy in that city, the Ottomans discovered their own equivalents on this site.
09:21The Ottomans discovered the Ottomans discovered the Ottomans discovered the Ottomans discovered the Ottomans.
09:27Except the remains found here were said to be those of a famous close companion of the Prophet Muhammad, the Sahaba, or disciple-like figure, Ayub Ansari.
09:38The site of Ayub Ansari's supposed grave became very important for the Ottomans all through their history.
09:45It still has a great magic about it.
09:48Ayub Ansari died, according to tradition, during a 7th century attempt on Istanbul proposed by the Prophet himself.
10:01Then, 800 years later, Sultan Mehmed II's conquering regime miraculously found his remains.
10:09It's just a legend, probably that they did not find anything related to Ayub Ansari, but to make this newly taken Christian city the Islamic center of the world.
10:32In time, it became customary for new sultans to walk along this path to the shrine as part of their accession ceremony, hence its name, Accession Road.
10:57It's just a legend.
10:58It's just a legend.
10:59If Rome, a city 1,400 miles from Jerusalem, could become the center of Christian authority, then for the Ottomans, Istanbul, 2,000 miles from Mecca, could become the new center of Muslim authority.
11:22And as the Christian world had its Pope, the Muslim world had, from the time of the Prophet, a similar position, the Khalif.
11:32A title that, thanks to his father's conquests, Suleiman now inherited.
11:37They were sultans, but they also gave themselves the title of Khalif. In doing so, they made themselves not just the political leaders of the Muslim world, but the spiritual leaders too.
11:50The word Khalif means successor in Arabic. Basically, when Prophet Muhammad died, Muslims sat down and said, what are we going to do now?
12:03I mean, they have a political community. Who will be the leader? Who will lead it?
12:08The Ottomans, the Ottomans, the Ottomans, sultans defined themselves as, as caliphs, as successors to Prophet Muhammad.
12:15The title still resonated across the Muslim world.
12:21To support their claim to the title of Khalif, the Ottomans seized from their conquered Arab lands sacred treasures of unimaginable importance to Muslims.
12:36they took all the relics associated with the prophet muhammad from mecca as well as from cairo
12:47to bring back as a very sacred booty that would give the high seat of religiosity that the ottomans
12:54required tradition has it that this ornate trunk kept here in the palace of the sultans contains
13:01the mantle of the prophet a cloak that had belonged to the founder of the faith
13:08after the prophet's death muslim leaders had used the cloak to legitimize their power
13:16now the ottomans did the same
13:21even in the modern age the symbolism of the cloak and its connection to the prophet has a powerful
13:27appeal here in kandahar in 1996 as the taliban overran afghanistan the taliban leader mullah omar
13:36brandished another cloak claiming it had once belonged to the prophet muhammad
13:46sacred artifacts and the title khalif strengthened the ottomans legitimacy within the muslim world
13:53and beyond as a universal title the caliph was historically considered as a patron if not a
14:00ruler of all muslims and the ottomans very much play on this notion of patronage that they become the
14:07patrons and protectors of muslims everywhere
14:13the ottomans called themselves the guardians of the holy places
14:18now that's just words but they followed up on their words by putting a distinctive architectural stamp
14:30on mecca medina and jerusalem
14:34soliman the magnificent spent millions putting a new coat of decoration on the dome with the rock
14:42it glistened and shone in the sun it was brand new it was sparkling and it was very warmly received
14:50and above all it's an act of possession it's an act of appropriation it says there's a new boss and this is
14:59his mark and that was a message to the rest of the islamic world
15:11suleiman was caliph but he wasn't only interested in defining himself as the defender of the faith
15:18first and foremost he was emperor and he wanted to be as strong as possible in that role
15:23centered in the topkapi palace suleiman's imperial administration brought stability to his muslim empire
15:32of the 16th century that would be the envy of his successors and many in the modern world
15:46today sharia law and the tension between the power of the state and the power of religion
15:52divides almost every muslim country in the world the violence of the taliban
15:59the terrorism of al-qaeda and their affiliates the rise of the muslim brotherhood to power in egypt
16:07all are aspects of the struggle about how far sharia law should influence the daily and political life
16:14of muslim societies five centuries ago suleiman the magnificent tackled this dilemma head-on
16:22suleiman's legal reforms were so central to the success of the ottoman empire that many people
16:29regarded as the greatest gift he left to his people so much so in fact that while suleiman is
16:35known in the west as suleiman the magnificent in turkey he's known by another name the turks
16:41he's known as suleiman kanuni suleiman the lawgiver
16:49suleiman's dynamic ottoman state of the 16th century faced crimes not catered for by the sharia written
16:57nine centuries earlier one very good example is counterfeiting currency is this theft traditionally no
17:06theft has a very specific definition in islamic law which is to stick your hand into and in close
17:14place and snatch something out of it counterfeiting counterfeiting currency is not this
17:20forgery of official state papers what is this again it is not it does not fit under any of the classically
17:29defined headings of islamic jews putters the solution was the kanun suleiman's legal code
17:38that carefully balanced the sharia with the authority of the sultan and the needs of his empire
17:44what is really the concern in terms of power is the will of the sultan and that can go against the
17:51sharia uh in in some cases but what they do then is they twist either the sharia or the kanun the the
17:59regal law in order to make it comply with each other because it's essential that at a at an ideological
18:07level uh the religious law is not contradicted but really what makes the empire run is the sultan's law
18:19under sharia law even crimes of murder could be settled by family members paying off the victim's
18:26family with blood money suleiman's new legal system meant the state could have the last word
18:34basically they would say to litigants you can go to the sharia court you resolve your disputes you reach
18:40a settlement but after you reach a settlement we that is society we that is the sultan we that is
18:48the state have the right to adjudicate the same case according to another parallel legal system that most
18:54often results in imprisonment suleiman made sure that his laws were pre-eminent but he did it in a
19:02subtle way he wanted to make sure that he was not seen to be openly challenging sharia and in doing so
19:09he established a precedent which would be followed by ottoman rulers who came after him
19:14despite clashes on istanbul's streets this year the distinctive nature of turkey's history during and
19:24after ottoman times means these protests are quite different from those seen in the arab spring
19:31this is now a democratic country that's elected an openly islamic government after three generations of
19:38secular rule but right at the heart of these protests are threads that suleiman would have recognized
19:44well about the place of man's law and god's law under suleiman's ottoman empire there was a clear
19:53separation affairs of state were controlled by a prime minister called the grand vizier religious
20:00affairs were controlled by a new position the grand mufti they set up a hierarchy in a system that used
20:09to be not hierarchical they set up the head of the muslim clergy the mufti of istanbul call him the bishop
20:18if you want of istanbul to make things uh simple who basically rules over the entire clergy now this is
20:24something that did not exist in islam and this is what gives the ottomans the power to set up a
20:32structure that is centered and is dependent on the palace on the sultan it is about quote unquote
20:39nationalizing the clergy with a stable state supported by a clear separation of religious and secular
20:50power suleiman set about a physical transformation of his entire empire the way he did it underlines the
20:58sultan's power over his subjects one extraordinary story reveals how suleiman's reign saw the creation of
21:11ottoman buildings admired to this day and the greatest of these was built by this man
21:20this is suleiman's chief architect mimar sinan today he's little known outside turkey but he was without
21:32question one of the greatest figures behind the ottoman's enduring cultural legacy
21:39each age gets its great architect who fuses the ideas and the aesthetic
21:47and the politics of the age into iconic buildings sinan was that for the ottomans
22:00i've come to the buildings sinan saw as his own masterpiece
22:08the selamaya mosque in edinne
22:17it is seen as one of the greatest achievements of islamic architecture but there's something
22:25surprising about the man behind this exquisite building that historians including tayfo edodu
22:31have pieced together from details of his life
22:34sinan was most probably an orthodox christian
22:49that possibility holds deep ironies
22:52it seems sinan ultimately rose to hold his position as the ottoman's chief architect because like
22:59hundreds of thousands of ottoman subjects he was taken as a child from a christian family under a system
23:05known as the devshirme they were taken they were brought to istanbul they were converted to islam
23:14they were all slaves of the sultan it was a way of building a patrimonial army for the sultan a very
23:21close very loyal army this was a direct infringement of the holiness of the christian family and the idea
23:32that their children should be brought up as muslims that was deeply resented
23:44the fact sinan served in the sultan's elite army known as the janissaries is one of the key details of
23:50his life that have convinced many historians that he was indeed born a christian the muslim children
23:59according to rule ottoman rule could not be taken for janissaries army
24:10this twist in the story of the ottoman's greatest architect embodies the power of the sultan over his
24:16subjects talents but as the man behind so many mosques there was an added irony in the 15th century
24:24and for much of the 16th century it was permissible for us a sultan to build a mosque in the city only if
24:33he had defeated christians and sinan the muslim convert built this very mosque with the spoils of the
24:40ottoman conquest of christian cyprus sinan's enduring legacy changed the skyline of istanbul and cities
24:49throughout the empire he built 135 mosques and over 350 buildings in total dwarfing even the great
24:57achievements of sir christopher wren in england if he were in our society he'd be a lord with a string of
25:05initials after his name you you have the reports of one european monarch after another who go and see
25:24istanbul and they come back with baited breath and they say you have to see this to believe it
25:31they're blown away by this by the size and the splendor and the ambition of these building projects
25:43that was a rare kind of empire a rare kind of self-confidence europeans may have noted the
25:50magnificence of suleiman's court and his capital but they were also well aware of his military threat
26:00and the empire almost to the peak of its power he captured baghdad and brought modern-day iraq under
26:12his rule he did the same with budapest and hungary victory first at rhodes and then in key greek
26:19provinces gave him control of the eastern mediterranean the ottoman sultan really stood out as perhaps
26:30the most powerful man in the world in the 16th and 17th centuries ruling over this vast territory
26:38with all the wealth that the empire enjoyed the ottomans were able to put together an army that was
26:45really the fear of europe and in that sense you could point to the time of suleiman as a period in
26:51which europe was really in awe of and terrified by the ottoman empire
26:59such fear fed propaganda and there was plenty of it about on both sides including this woodcut by a
27:06contemporary of suleiman the german artist albrecht sturer it is no wonder that people in christian
27:14europe think of the turk as a figure of fear when you're thinking of the horsemen of the apocalypse
27:20the people that are going to bring the end of the world and you depict that in paintings as durer does
27:26one of the horsemen is depicted as a turk
27:28children are told that if they aren't quiet in the evenings if they don't come go to sleep a turk will
27:37get them if you asked any european who are the muslims they would have said the turks the ottomans
27:47they're the ones that we are afraid of
27:49but the question is what did europe mean to suleiman and what if anything did europe represent to the
28:03ottomans
28:08suleiman viewed european powers as rivals he could dominate but the fate of his dynastic family would
28:15remain entwined with the rival dynastic families of europe for centuries to come the growing influence
28:22of the great tsars of russia the newly protestant dynasty of tudor england and the holy roman empire
28:30of the catholic hapsburgs
28:35suleiman's time was a time of great personalities of rulers i mean there was henry viii of course
28:41there was ivan the terrible in russia and in europe the main his main rival for glory in this wider
28:50world of rulers was the hapsburg ruler charles v in austria and germany and really central europe
29:05suleiman's european campaigns were highly strategic
29:08and followed the pattern of his father's conquests in the arab lands
29:12triumphs in damascus and cairo had made the ottomans dominant across muslim arabia
29:18having taken hungary he was only one step away from his most strategic target the hapsburg capital
29:25vienna suleiman knew victory here would deliver vast tracts of europe into ottoman hands from spain
29:33to the netherlands they get to the walls of vienna but we are talking here about a non-western force
29:41that has got that far that in a sense seems to be dominating the agenda
29:49in a way yes there was a territorial contest and yes there was a religious contest to some degree but
29:57mostly it was largely when one could say that it was a contest between two great leaders
30:03who wanted to appear more magnificent than the other in suleiman's reign the ottomans had every
30:11reason to think theirs was the more magnificent dynasty ahead in wealth power and military technology
30:17after 46 years in power in 1566 suleiman the magnificent died he was laid to rest in the
30:28suleimania mosque built for him by sinan suleiman never captured vienna but in the following century
30:35his successors would target it once more and within a decade of suleiman's death major rifts in europe
30:42would play into the ottomans hands and give them a new ally england there's an absolutely key moment
30:50in the relationship between the ottomans and the english in the middle of the 16th century and that
30:57is in the year 1570 when the pope finally excommunicates elizabeth i the minute that happens
31:06england is free to trade with the ottomans
31:08the ottomans and protestant england had common ground in their opposition to europe's catholics
31:19just as the ottoman empire was reaching its peak europe was in turmoil and in conflict because
31:24of the divisions between protestants and catholic it was a golden opportunity to pursue a policy of
31:32divide and rule in the 1590s fresh from confronting the catholic spanish armada elizabeth the first
31:41herself entered into a correspondence in arabic with the ottoman court all part of this newfound
31:47axis of power the english hoped to build with the ottomans these exchanges between elizabeth
31:52the first and the ottoman sultan show the friendly exchange of gifts the relationship between the
31:59english and the ottomans was predominantly about trade but some have suggested that the politics
32:05of their relationship was made easier by the fact that they had a common enemy the habsburgs
32:12the habsburgs were really a global empire who was sort of squeezing everyone else out they were
32:18catholic on the other side you had the protestant powers rising who were hoping to elbow in on the
32:24resources and territories which were controlled by the habsburgs the ottomans for their part were keen
32:32to push the habsburgs back in central europe but the point was simply the enemy of my enemy is my friend
32:40the habsburgs
32:53a hundred and fifty years after suleiman had last tried ottoman forces once more attempted the
32:59unthinkable to defeat in the heart of europe the catholic habsburgs
33:04in 1683 the ottoman armies were here at the gates of vienna laying siege to the city that was then the
33:13capital of the habsburg empire
33:23the ottomans camped outside the city this moment had been feared since the days of suleiman
33:29the pope innocent the 11th made sure that military assistance came from bavaria saxony and poland
33:40the ottoman siege of vienna is still cited as a key foundation stone of a supposed clash of
33:46civilizations but was it
33:51for the christian forces preparing to defend vienna this was a holy war but for the ottoman sultans
33:58targeting vienna wasn't so much about converting christians
34:06what this really wasn't about was a religious war now it's understandable that that was how it was
34:12seen in christian europe and obviously if the ottomans had extended their power there would have been a
34:17completely different world for muslims in the area that they took over but this was not fundamentally
34:23about religion in 1683 this is about power
34:40on september the 12th 1683 the christian force reached the plains outside vienna where the ottomans awaited them
34:47of course it's taken as a major failure but more than the failure in 1683 what really throws the art and the
35:08ottomans off is the consequences of that failure that is the decade or so of wars that the austrians will
35:15organize against the ottomans after the defeat taking advantage of that defeat
35:24the ottomans didn't capture vienna and they lost hungary and as a result their pride their prestige
35:31was damaged and from this the future destiny of europe was shaped
35:36there remain very deep rooted memories of the ottoman threat in europe there are countries such as
35:47austria which continue to think of turkey in terms of that former threat
35:56the legacy of the ottoman empire is of the subjugation of european peoples and the expansion of
36:01territory by brutal military means i don't think we should attempt to glamorize it and i don't think
36:06we should feel the smallest nostalgia for it
36:11the defeat here in vienna would have a major impact on the ottomans and would define how europe
36:17would look at them for centuries to come
36:19it is understandable that the question of turkey joining the european union looks totally different
36:29if you're in vienna or if you're in cyprus to how it looks in britain because in britain of course we've
36:36never had the direct military challenge we were aware of the ottomans but they weren't so central a
36:42part of our anxieties or our fears to me this goes some way to explaining why for many europeans this
36:51was the defining moments which meant that any future european union would be a christian union
36:57after their defeat at vienna in the 18th century the ottomans would fall into a long period of decline
37:15the following two centuries would witness a profound shift in the balance of power between
37:20the ottomans and europe instead of the ottomans at the gates of vienna
37:24it would be the russians at the gates of istanbul in its arab lands the ottomans would be shut out of
37:30the holy sites and in europe the empire would be mocked not feared and propped up until it suited the
37:37great powers to carve it up the world was changing the west had taken off the west had developed
37:54in technology in military terms in educational terms it had had an enlightenment it's industrialization
38:03the coming of mass production that really marks out the european states from the rest of the world and
38:09actually explains the growth of empire apart from anything else that the fact that you've got machine
38:13guns steamships those are the things that mark the big differences the ottomans were not interested in
38:21international trade they didn't keep an eye open on the americas and their long-term fate was to be
38:28brought down by that provincialism they thought they were safe within their empire and the rest of the
38:35world developed at speed the ottomans were living in a rapidly changing world the industrial revolution in
38:46britain was about to reshape the country the french revolution would bring forward ideas and political
38:52movements based on equality and nationalism the entire social and industrial landscape of europe
38:59was being altered and the ottomans stood in danger of being left behind
39:03where once the ottomans had been conquerors now they faced invasion in the 1790s the shifting balance
39:16of power between europe and the ottomans had a landmark moment napoleon was able to invade ottoman
39:22in egypt demonstrating overwhelming superiority when the french first arrived off the coast of egypt in 1798
39:34egyptian society remained convinced that their society ottoman muslim was the superior society that
39:45they were in every ways a greater civilization than anything that europe had to throw at them
39:50so great was the shock then when the french armies landed and were able to deploy superior technology
40:00and superior tactics to inflict a series of defeats that led to the french occupation of egypt
40:10but soon after the french invasion of egypt a more dramatic demonstration of ottoman weakness
40:15came in 1805 this time it was not from europe but from within their arab muslim lands
40:25having been feared in europe for being muslim they now face rebellion for not being muslim enough
40:34the desert of modern-day saudi arabia was home to the wahhabis their challenge to the ottomans had
40:40echoes of the barbarians challenged to the romans the wahhabis brought a distinct form of islam that
40:46was to threaten the ottoman empire and their control of islam's holiest sites wahhabism is a puritanical
40:55and very austere interpretation of islam that seeks to return to the practice of islam as it was at the
41:01time of the prophet muhammad the central pillar of islam essential for all muslims who have the means
41:13is the hajj the pilgrimage to mecca which the ottomans had controlled since the 16th century
41:22even for someone brought up as a muslim one of the strangest paradoxes in this whole story
41:27and something that i think very few muslims realize in the 600 year history of the ottoman empire not
41:33one sultan performed the hajj themselves and to me that is extraordinary
41:47the wahhabi rebels wanted a return to core muslim doctrine and by the early years of the 19th century
41:54they'd swept down from the highlands and seized the holiest cities of mecca and medina from the ottomans
42:02then they declared that the holy sites were no longer part of the ottoman empire
42:06and began to prevent ottoman muslims entering the city and completing the hajj
42:12they started challenging the sultan in a very important uh aspect which is that he's not muslim enough
42:20he's not serious enough about protecting uh and upholding the principles of the faith this was a
42:26serious blow to the ottoman sultan who had as one of his most important and most prestigious titles
42:35the protector of the two holy sites the wahhabi revolt suspended ottoman control of the holy sites
42:44for more than a decade the ottomans eventually reclaimed mecca and medina but the revolt sowed the
42:51seeds of contemporary political fundamentalist islam it is the descendants of the wahhabis who now rule
42:57saudi arabia and today they are the protectors of the holy sites by the 19th century the ottoman's
43:13view of the world looked very different than in the times of suleiman now the very capital the dynasty
43:19won from the christian byzantine empire 400 years earlier and the strategic sea routes they controlled
43:26were being targeted by the ottoman's nearest neighbor russia at the heart of this threat was a russian
43:34ambition to conquer the ottoman empire seize control of istanbul restore it as the seat of
43:43eastern orthodox christianity and in the process gain access to the strategic straits that meant
43:51that the russians could from the black sea access the mediterranean at will the threat of a rise in
43:59russia was feared in european capitals in an unlikely twist the countries that once feared the ottomans
44:05now gave them economic and military backing for most of the 19th century britain sees the ottoman empire
44:14as a buffer which keeps russia out of the mediterranean and keeps russia away from from central
44:21asia is an important part therefore of britain's power politics by the middle of the 19th century power
44:29was no longer concentrated in the sultan's palace by the bosphorus the ottomans were now dependent on
44:35decisions made in european capitals of the great powers it was in this weakened state that the ottoman
44:42empire was given the title which would hang around its neck for the rest of the century the sick man of
44:48europe in 1876 the last of the long line of descendants of suleiman to have any hope of reviving the
44:57health of the ottoman empire came to the imperial throne the inheritance of sultan abdul hamid ii was
45:04the polar opposite of what greeted suleiman the magnificent this was an empire on a life support
45:10system an old world dynasty colliding with a modern world attempting to prove they could move with the
45:20times abdul hamid's 19th century predecessors had embarked on far-reaching modernization of ottoman society
45:27known by the turkish word for reorganization the tanzimat reforms tried at breakneck speed
45:34to catch up with europe in every area of social and economic life it's of course a message to the west
45:42that says we are moving in the direction of your model we are adopting your model for the reorganization
45:51of the army the organization of our finances the re-organization of and and really becomes an
45:57all-encompassing program of transformation of modernity of westernization it was one of the most
46:05ambitious and far-reaching programs of reform ever attempted and it could have worked
46:13one symbol of the change was in people's dress men in the empire had for centuries worn the turban
46:19but under the reforms it was deemed to be backwards and oriental a new hat the fez became the
46:25uniform of government officials and the army and then spread across society a huge western style
46:31factory was built on the banks of the bosphorus to churn out the new hats in their millions
46:37there are changes to do with education public transport there are changes to do with the attempt
46:42to help the economy so there are changes but they're not coming fast enough the sick man could have
46:49cured himself and the sick man rather late in the day realized what he needed to do but by that time
46:55the ottomans had become almost fossilized the fez like many of the tanzimat reforms was part of
47:05attempts not just to modernize but to bind the population of the empire behind a unified identity
47:13they previously called this identity ottomanism a concept that played up the diverse multi-ethnic multi-faith
47:21nature of ottoman peoples which had been a feature of the empire through the centuries
47:27but now they were confronting the rival idea that was tearing it apart nationalism
47:35one by one subject peoples in the european provinces who had accepted ottoman rule for centuries
47:43suddenly began to demand self-rule or even independence
47:5319th century russia used the power of nationalism and religion to loosen the ottomans grip on their
47:59european empire christians and muslims on a familiar collision course russia grieved over the fact that
48:10there were so many christians under muslim domination
48:19russia started to see the slow ottoman decline as an opportunity to install their influence
48:26influence in the balkans agitating through the local christian populations and that then accentuated
48:36this sense that it was a muslim christian clash going on the subject christian populations begin to think
48:44of rising and this leads in many cases to very severe reprisals from the turkish side in the 1870s word of the
48:56brutality of some ottoman reprisals began to make waves in europe there were a series of bulgarian
49:04nationalist attacks on ottoman positions in which both ottoman soldiers and muslim villagers were killed
49:10the ottomans responded both out of revenge and out of a wish to re-establish their control
49:16over the bulgarian territories but this retaliation grew increasingly violent and came to be picked up by
49:23the european press there is a huge outcry in europe because of press reports coming out of bulgaria
49:31which suggests that tens of thousands of bulgarian peasants have been massacred by marauding bashi
49:38bazooks the regular forces of the ottoman empire the press painted the new ottoman sultan
49:46abdul hamid ii as the red sultan as though his hands were personally bloodied by what was going on in
49:53bulgaria but in fact these figures appear to have been wildly exaggerated not the first time and not the
49:59last time that massacres in the balkans have been wildly exaggerated but by the time it had filtered
50:05through to the presses of europe it was a very simple case of violent nasty muslims killing poor
50:14defenseless christian peasants it's true to say that as the ottoman empire grows weaker so the position of
50:23the christians deteriorates the violence in the balkans created a wave of revulsion that swept across
50:31europe it brought two political giants into conflict in the house of commons now the prime minister
50:39benjamin disraeli discovered that in the aftermath of the massacres his policy of support for the ottomans
50:46was completely at odds with public opinion in britain up until now disraeli has been supporting the
50:53ottoman empire at all costs britain has been underwriting the ottoman empire and a lot of british
50:59businessmen and a lot of british british financiers have made a fortune out of the debt which is
51:06sustaining the ottoman empire so disraeli is representing real economic interest opposing disraeli
51:14and denouncing what he described as the bulgarian horrors was the other great statesman of the
51:19victorian age william gladstone gladstone understands that he can represent the ottoman empire as an
51:26essentially barbaric empire of uncontrollable muslims who will kill christian peasants at the drop of a hat
51:35and he will be able to denounced israeli's policy as immoral the controversy leads people to say it's
51:43totally wrong to keep in place the ottoman regime for great power reasons to keep russia at a distance
51:49because this is a barbaric regime what's interesting is you can see some of the language used in the late
51:5520th and early 21st century about autocratic islamic rulers like the shah of iran in the 1970s or
52:02president mubarak of egypt more recently and the idea being that you should not be sustaining them in power
52:08the british government withdrew their support which had held strong since the crimean war 20 years
52:15earlier when the french and british sent troops to bolster the ottomans against the russians
52:22but now the sick man was on his own the russians responded by marching into the balkans
52:28what i've got here is a collection of victorian newspapers from the 1870s and as you can see
52:36the war between russia and turkey was the big news of the day the ottomans and the russians had been
52:43to war many times previously but this was significant because this would be the war that would finally
52:49break the ottoman grip on its european territories
52:52two centuries after the ottoman stood at the gates of vienna the russian army soon stood at the gates
53:01of istanbul and the great powers forced the warring sides to a settlement led by bismarck the congress of
53:10berlin carved up most of the remaining ottoman lands in the balkans
53:24the ottoman centuries as a european power were passing into history
53:29and for its long mixed population trouble was being stored up
53:35the ottomans had controlled many of what we see as europe's pressure points
53:40kosovo serbia and here bosnia
53:50perhaps more than any people in today's europe it's those in sarajevo and bosnia
53:55who best understand the nature of nationalism the force that destroyed the ottoman empire
54:01and that re-emerged in the 1990s to destroy the state of yugoslavia
54:05i can't tell you what we had here that it was really hell
54:16it was hell
54:20with memories of the war still raw many in present-day sarajevo reject the lure of ethnic nationalism
54:27this multi-faith choir was set up to cross the lines that recently divided the nation
54:37and here today some lament the passing of the multiculturalism of the ottoman era
54:51during the ottoman period there was more respect
54:55for each other no matter what your religion is
54:59this is something that we can definitely take as a good thing from that period and allow people to
55:05be what they are
55:07i certainly hope that we can look at that period and pick up the tolerance that existed during that time
55:15and transfer it to this period if that's even possible
55:20in the case of the ottomans what is most impressive to us
55:26is that they were able to think through a system of government that did not depend on ethnic sovereignty
55:34at the end of the 19th century the ottoman empire lost most of the christian european territories
55:49captured from the byzantine empire over 500 years earlier the key territories of the empire were now
55:56turkey itself and the predominantly muslim provinces of north africa and arabia
56:02the late ottoman empire was a much more islamic empire than the earlier ottoman empire had been
56:07in terms of its demography the percentage of the population that was muslim was much higher
56:13after the balkan provinces had gained their independence
56:20in a bid to try to hold together what remained of the ottoman empire it was sultan abdul hamid ii
56:27more than any other of his predecessors who tried to tap into the unifying power of islam
56:35abdul hamid ii made more use of islam than any other caliph
56:41so he really tried to play the islam card he clearly saw the potential power of islam
56:47as a political ideology and as one of the glues that would hold the ottoman empire together
56:52but a new generation was growing up during abdul hamid's rule who were not calling for a more islamic
57:02empire they demanded a more modern empire and these young turks would come to play a central
57:09role in the ottoman's fate but events elsewhere in the ottoman's former lands were about to deliver
57:16their empire a final fatal blow on a sunday morning in june 1914 just by this bridge here in sarajevo
57:25a young nationalist saw a car carrying archduke franz ferdinand of austria and his wife trying to turn
57:32around the driver had taken the wrong route to the palace as the car tried to reverse the young
57:38nationalists stepped forward and shot the archduke and his wife as they were rushed to hospital few in
57:44bosnia or in europe realized that this assassination would lead to a chain of events that would end in
57:51the destruction of the ottoman empire and change the history of the world
58:00in the concluding episode i'll trace how events a hundred years ago mirrored those of today with
58:06protests on the streets of istanbul calling for change
58:09how the final death throes of the empire haunted its subjects and created a vacuum in the muslim world
58:18as the roles of sultan and caliph were abolished and ottoman lands carved up and how rising from the ashes
58:26was a new turkish state that many have held up as a model for the region the ottomans once ruled and that
58:33is now being forced into steering a path between its ottoman past and its modern-day destiny
58:42and you can see that next sunday night at nine here on bbc2
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