Latest / The Story of Turkey: From Byzantium to the Ottoman Empire to Today — Fexingo History / The Young Sultan Who Reformed an Empire
Transcript
- Lucas: Welcome back to The Story of Turkey. If you’ve been with us through the last few episodes, you know we’ve spent a lot of time looking at the physical bones of Istanbul—the walls, the harbors, the cisterns. But today, I want to talk about the political and military skeleton of the Ottoman Empire itself, specifically the moment it almost broke so it could be remade. Luna: You mean the Janissaries again? Lucas: Exactly. We covered their rise and their corruption in earlier episodes, but now we’re going to focus on the man who finally ended them: Sultan Mahmud II. He was only twenty-six when he took the throne in 1808, inheriting an empire that was being carved up by Russia, Britain, and France, while his own soldiers refused to follow orders. It’s a story of a young ruler who realized that saving the empire meant destroying its most powerful institution. Lucas: Before we get into the details of that bloody day in 1826, I just want to mention something real quick about how these shows stay free. A couple of dollars a month is genuinely what keeps these going—buy me a coffee dot com slash fexingo—if you've gotten something out of them. Luna: That helps keep the research deep, definitely. Lucas: It really does. So, let’s go back to 1808. Mahmud’s uncle, Selim III, had already tried to do what Mahmud would eventually succeed at. Selim created the Nizam-i Cedid, a new-style European army, because he saw that the old system was failing. But the Janissaries, feeling threatened, revolted and killed him. They then put another uncle on the throne, Abdulhamid I, who was weak and did nothing. When Abdulhamid died shortly after, they were forced to accept the twenty-six-year-old Mahmud as the next Sultan. Luna: So he starts with no power and enemies everywhere? Lucas: Precisely. He was trapped in Topkapı Palace, surrounded by men who could kill him at any moment. For the first twelve years of his reign, he had to play along. He pretended to respect the Janissaries’ privileges, even granting them extra pay and promotions, all while secretly plotting their destruction. He knew that if he moved too early, he’d end up like his uncle Selim. So he waited, and he watched. Lucas: During this time, the empire was crumbling. In the Balkans, rebellions fueled by Russian support were breaking away. In Egypt, the governor Muhammad Ali Pasha was becoming independent, refusing to send taxes to Istanbul. Mahmud needed a strong army to crush these rebels and stop the Russians from taking more territory. But the Janissaries were useless in battle—they hadn’t fought a real war in decades and were more interested in running businesses and trades within the city than serving the state. Luna: It sounds like a ticking time bomb. Lucas: It was. And the spark came in 1826. Mahmud decided it was time. He announced the formation of a new corps of soldiers, trained in European tactics, who would answer only to him. The Janissaries saw this as an existential threat. They marched on Topkapı Palace, demanding that Mahmud cancel the order and reaffirm their traditional rights. It looked like they might win again, just like they had done to Selim III. Lucas: But Mahmud had learned from his uncle’s mistakes. He didn’t try to fight them alone. He reached out to the Sheikh ul-Islam, the highest religious authority in the land, and convinced him to issue a fatwa declaring the Janissaries’ rebellion against the Sultan to be contrary to Islamic law. He called it Vaka-i Hayriye, or 'The Beneficial Event.' Then, he had the mosques of Istanbul ring their bells during prayer time, calling the faithful to defend the Sultan. Luna: He turned the whole city against them? Lucas: He mobilized the population. The regular citizens, who had long resented the Janissaries’ arrogance and lack of discipline, took up arms. Cannons were brought down from the palaces and aimed at the Janissary barracks. What followed wasn’t a battle; it was a slaughter. The Janissaries, caught off guard and outnumbered by both the new army and the angry mob, were crushed in At Meydanı, the Hippodrome field. Thousands were killed in just two days. Lucas: Those who survived were executed later, and the corps was completely dissolved. The physical barracks were demolished, and the land was scattered so no one could ever gather there again. It was a brutal, decisive end to an institution that had existed for nearly five hundred years. Mahmud had won, but the cost was high, and the work of rebuilding was just beginning. Luna: Did he face any backlash for such extreme violence? Lucas: There was shock, certainly, but also relief among many people who wanted stability. However, the real challenge was what came next. Mahmud had destroyed the Janissaries, but he had to replace them with something functional. He established the Asakir-i Mansure-i Muhammediye, the Victorious Soldiers of Muhammad, a standing army paid directly by the state and trained by European officers. This required massive amounts of money, which led to heavier taxation and further centralization of power. Lucas: Mahmud also began reforming the administration. He moved the government out of the chaotic Topkapı Palace into a new administrative complex near the sea, creating a more modern bureaucracy. He standardized titles, reorganized the provinces, and tried to curb the power of local governors who had become like kings in their own regions. He was trying to turn the Ottoman Empire into a modern nation-state, similar to what Prussia or France were doing. Luna: That sounds like a huge cultural shift for the region. Lucas: It was. He changed the dress code, introducing the fez as a standard headgear for officials to replace the turbans, which he associated with backwardness. He opened schools for engineering, medicine, and military science. He sent students abroad to learn Western technology. His goal was to preserve the empire by making it competitive with Europe, even if it meant adopting some European habits. Lucas: Unfortunately, Mahmud didn’t live to see the full fruits of his labor. He died in 1839, just as his grandson Abdulmejid I was ascending the throne. But the foundation he laid was solid. The Janissaries never returned, and the central government remained strong enough to hold the empire together for another fifty years, though it continued to face immense pressure. Luna: It’s amazing how much one person can change. Lucas: It is. Mahmud II was a controversial figure—some saw him as a tyrant for his brutality, others as a visionary who saved his country from oblivion. But without his ruthless decision in 1826, the Ottoman Empire might have collapsed entirely a century earlier. He showed that sometimes, survival requires tearing down the very thing that built you. Luna: Do you think the reforms stuck after he died? Lucas: Most of them did. The army stayed, the bureaucracy stayed, and the trend toward modernization continued under his successors, leading to the Tanzimat reforms. But the tension between tradition and modernity, between Islam and Europe, became the defining struggle of the late Ottoman period. Mahmud lit the fuse, and the rest of the nineteenth century was the explosion. Luna: That gives a lot of context to the fall later on. Lucas: Exactly. You can’t understand the final days of the Ottomans without understanding Mahmud’s gamble. He bet everything on the idea that the empire could be modernized, and for a while, it looked like he might just pull it off. It’s a compelling, if tragic, piece of history that connects directly to the Turkey we see today. Luna: Thanks for walking us through that. Lucas: My pleasure. Next time, we’ll look at how those reforms affected the everyday life of the people in the cities, especially the changing role of women in public space during the nineteenth century. Luna: I’m looking forward to that. Lucas: Until then, keep exploring.