The View from the Bridge - Strolling Through Istanbul: The Classic Guide to the City - page 12

after losing wars with European powers. Within, the Empire was
weakened by anarchy and rebellion and its people were sufering even
more grievously than before. This led to social and political unrest,
particularly among the subject Christians, who now began to nourish
dreams of independence.
During this period the Ottoman Empire was being increasingly
influenced by developments in western Europe, particularly by
the liberal ideas which brought about the French Revolution. This
eventually led to a movement of reform in the Ottoman Empire. The
first sultan to be deeply influenced by these western ideas was Selim
III, who ruled from 1789 till 1807. Selim attempted to improve
and modernize the Ottoman army by reorganizing and training
it according to western models. By this he hoped to protect the
Empire from encroachments by foreign powers and from rebellion
and anarchy within its own borders. But Selim's eforts were resisted
and eventually frustrated by the Janissaries, the elite corps of the old
Ottoman army, who felt that their privileges were being threatened
by the new reforms. The Janissaries were finally crushed in 1826 by
Sultan Mahmut II, who thereupon instituted an extensive programme
of reforms in all of the basic institutions of the Empire, reshaping
them along modern western lines. This programme continued for
a time during the reigns of Mahmut's immediate successors, Abdül
Mecit I and Abdül Aziz. The reform movement, or Tanzimat, as it
was called, culminated in 1876 with the promulgation of the first
Ottoman constitution and the establishment of a parliament, which
met for the first time on 19 March of the following year. But this
parliament was very short-lived, for it was dissolved on 13 February
1878 by Sultan Abdül Hamit II, then in the second year of his long
and oppressive reign. Nevertheless, the forces of reform had now
grown too strong to be held down permanently. The pressures they
generated eventually led, in 1909, to the deposition of Abdül Hamit
and to the restoration of the constitution and the parliament in that
same year. But the next decade, which seemed so full of promise
at its beginning, was a sad and bitter one for Turkey. The country
found itself on the losing side in the First World War, after which
the victorious Allies proceeded to divide up the remnants of the