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External Threats and Internal Transformations
The
Ottoman Empire had a dual economy in the nineteenth century consisting
of a large subsistence sector and a small colonial-style commercial
sector linked to European markets and controlled by foreign interests.
The empire's first railroads, for example, were built by foreign
investors to bring the cash crops of Anatolia's coastal valleys--tobacco,
grapes, and other fruit--to Smyrna (Izmir) for processing and export.
The cost of maintaining a modern army without a thorough reform
of economic institutions caused expenditures to be made in excess
of tax revenues. Heavy borrowing from foreign banks in the 1870s
to reinforce the treasury and the undertaking of new loans to pay
the interest on older ones created a financial crisis that in 1881
obliged the Porte to surrender administration of the Ottoman debt
to a commission representing foreign investors. The debt commission
collected public revenues and transferred the receipts directly
to creditors in Europe.
The 1860s and early 1870s saw the emergence
of the Young Ottoman movement among Western-oriented intellectuals
who wanted to see the empire accepted as an equal by the European
powers. They sought to adopt Western political institutions, including
an efficient centralized government, an elected parliament, and
a written constitution. The "Ottomanism" they advocated
also called for an integrated dynastic state that would subordinate
Islam to secular interests and allow non-Muslim subjects to participate
in representative parliamentary institutions.
In
1876 the hapless sultan was deposed by a fetva (legal opinion) obtained
by Midhat Pasha, a reformist minister sympathetic to the aims of
the Young Ottomans. His successor, Abdül Hamid II (r. 1876-1909),
came to the throne with the approval of Midhat and other reformers.
In December of that year, on the eve of the war with Russia, the
new sultan promulgated a constitution, based on European models,
that had been drafted by senior political, military, and religious
officials under Midhat's direction. Embodying the substance of the
Young Ottoman program, this document created a representative parliament,
guaranteed religious liberty, and provided for enlarged freedom
of expression. Abdül Hamid II's acceptance of constitutionalism
was a temporary tactical expedient to gain the throne, however.
Midhat was dismissed in February 1877 and was later murdered. The
sultan called the empire's first parliament but dissolved it within
a year.
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