Did the Turks attain Enlightenment trough defeat in walfare?
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Abstract
In this study of the relationship between the European Enlightenment and
the Ottoman Empire, I believed initially that one would find a clear progression of European ideas and influence of the eighteenth century not so
much in the spheres of religion, philosophy and literature but possibly in the
field of advanced European technology with regard to military reform. What I
have discovered, largely by making detailed analyses of technical experts such
as Baron de Tott, reports of European ambassadors and observations of other
European military officers, is that indeed there were very serious attempts by
the progressive-minded sultans and their vezirs to bring about a reform of the
Ottoman armed forces. In the first instance, however, there was such a
cultural gap between the ordinary Ottoman recruit, often devoid of military
discipline and any knowledge of modem machinery, that European military
instructors required a long time period to turn these recruits into enlightened
modern soldiers. If the vezirs and the society permitted a serious period of
training, the young Ottoman troops became quite proficient in such areas as
maintaining and firing the then modem artillery. A second major observation,
however, is to note what a crippling stranglehold the ranking members of the
Ulema maintained over not only the ordinary recruit, but also the highestranking members of the entourages of the sultans. Thus, almost throughout the
period of detailed study, from roughly 1730 to 1839, the Ulema and the
reactionary former elite troops, the Janissaries, were able to interrupt or to
thwart any consistent reform. Only with the serious influence of dedicated
German officers in the nineteenth century, after the Janissaries and the Ulema
had been discredited in the 1830s, did the Ottomans begin to create a modern
army.
the Ottoman Empire, I believed initially that one would find a clear progression of European ideas and influence of the eighteenth century not so
much in the spheres of religion, philosophy and literature but possibly in the
field of advanced European technology with regard to military reform. What I
have discovered, largely by making detailed analyses of technical experts such
as Baron de Tott, reports of European ambassadors and observations of other
European military officers, is that indeed there were very serious attempts by
the progressive-minded sultans and their vezirs to bring about a reform of the
Ottoman armed forces. In the first instance, however, there was such a
cultural gap between the ordinary Ottoman recruit, often devoid of military
discipline and any knowledge of modem machinery, that European military
instructors required a long time period to turn these recruits into enlightened
modern soldiers. If the vezirs and the society permitted a serious period of
training, the young Ottoman troops became quite proficient in such areas as
maintaining and firing the then modem artillery. A second major observation,
however, is to note what a crippling stranglehold the ranking members of the
Ulema maintained over not only the ordinary recruit, but also the highestranking members of the entourages of the sultans. Thus, almost throughout the
period of detailed study, from roughly 1730 to 1839, the Ulema and the
reactionary former elite troops, the Janissaries, were able to interrupt or to
thwart any consistent reform. Only with the serious influence of dedicated
German officers in the nineteenth century, after the Janissaries and the Ulema
had been discredited in the 1830s, did the Ottomans begin to create a modern
army.
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