Ten Minute History - The Fall of the Ottoman Empire and the Birth of the Balkans (Short Documentary)

18:04 and the Ottoman Empire looks like this Europe was in the mists of the French Revolutionary Wars which had seen an invasion of Egypt in 1798 alongside the British the Ottomans pushed the French out and during the chaos a man caught Muhammad Ali an officer from the albanian provinces seized control of Egypt in 1805 becoming its Viceroy the early 19th century also saw a revolt in Serbia which began in 1804 in response to their treatment by the ottomans the Serbians asked Russia for help which the Russians gave during the Russo Oxman war which began in 1806 so the man in charge of the Ottoman Empire at this point was Sultan Selim the third who was primarily a reformer and a moderniser one of these reforms was the modernization of the army this was resisted by the Janissaries in order of what was originally elite slave soldiers but over time had become a corrupt bloated group of politically active freemen Selim created a new core of infantrymen called the new order which doesn't sound menacing at all the Janissaries revolted to pose Selim in 1807 and replaced him of the new Sultan Mustafa the fourth Mustafa immediately faced a counter rebellion and so he ordered that Selim be killed as well as any other potential heirs to secure his position he didn't quite get them all though and so the rebel army deposed him in favor of his brother who became sold to man-bird ii in 1808 in 1812 the ottomans signed a peace treaty with the Russians yielding this territory so the Serbian Revolution was still ongoing at this point and after a brief Ottoman reconquest Serbia was granted the status of a semi independent principality in 1817 this would not be the last Ottoman defeat in the Balkans though as demonstrated by the Greek war of independence which began in 1821 the Ottomans failed to suppress the revolution and so mama turned to Muhammad Ali of Egypt to help which he did Ali was much more successful than Mamet had been and within three years the revolt was essentially broken the Greek war of independence had caught the eye of the major powers though and Russia Britain and France had been trying to pressure the ottomans into letting Greece go which they refused domestically Mamet was attempting to modernize the Ottoman state and like his predecessor he ran into opposition from the Janissaries the Janissaries revolted but unlike the last time the Sultan's forces won and after crushing them in 1826 Mahmud had the Janissaries dissolved Mahmud oversaw further reforms including granting greater rights to the Christian and Jewish minorities strengthening the state by clamping down on tribal allegiances and also relaxing clothing laws which broke down social barriers in 1827 a naval standoff off the coast of Greece here between the Great Powers and the Ottomans hot and the Ottoman Navy was crushed French forces then landed in Greece and the Egyptians soon after left in 1830 the great powers recognized Greece as an independent republic and later a kingdom also France to cow G Rhea the weakness shown by the central Ottoman state was capitalized upon by Muhammad Ali in 1831 Egypt which Muhammad Ali had grown to this invaded and swept across the Levant and into Anatolia by 1832 the Egyptian territory looked like this and it looked like the Egyptians were just about to depose the Sultan but in a strange twist of events the Russians intervened and blocked the route to Constantinople Britain and France put pressure on our lien so in 1833 a peace treaty was concluded which gave Egypt control of this territory but it was still technically a vassal of the Ottomans tensions between Muhammad Ali and the Ottoman Sultan remained throughout the 1830s and he's culminated in a second war beginning in 1839 shortly after its outbreak mammoth ii died and was succeeded by his son abdul majeed the war went pretty poorly for the ottomans at first even though they started in it was only through the intervention of Russia Prussia Britain and the Austrian Empire that Muhammad Ali agreed to peace in 1841 this peace gave this territory back to the Ottomans and saw Ali's family recognized as the legitimate rulers of Egypt the reason the European powers were desperate to intervene was that they wanted a weak Ottoman Empire that they could exploit if the modernizing an assertive Egypt were to have won the war then the European powers could have been shut out and lost their influence in the region the most important aspect of international diplomacy for the Ottomans in the second half of the 19th century was its relationship with Russia so Russia considered itself the protector of all Christians within the Ottoman Empire and France under Napoleon the third wish to take that mantle for itself the Russians demanded that their position be respected these demands weren't met and war the Russians invaded the Balkan principalities of Moldavia and Wallachia thus beginning the Crimean War France and Britain worried about Russia becoming too powerful chose to intervene on the side of the Ottomans alongside the Sardinians long story short the Russians did well initially the Allies invaded Crimea hence the name a bunch of people died in the Russian - an internal problem suit for peace in 1856 the peace didn't really change much except he prevented the militarization of the Black Sea which weakened Russia it also demanded that the Ottomans give Christians equal rights to Muslims which to be fair to them they were doing anyway the Ottoman decline had been halted but only temporarily and only because it suited some of the great powers the next couple of decades were fairly quiet for the Ottomans barring a failed rebellion in Crete in the unification of Wallachia and Moldavia in 1862 and what would later be called Romania this period also importantly saw the Ottoman Empire used more foreign credit furthermore the Egyptians began to drift further away from the Ottoman orbit when the Suez Canal was opened in 1869 giving France and Britain a financial stake there so the 1870s was a decade of immense difficulty for the Ottomans in 1871 a crop failure led to a revolt in Bosnia and Herzegovina which in turn led to these provinces not paying their taxes which put strain on the Ottoman finances this combined with the inefficiencies of the Ottoman bureaucracy the lavish lifestyle of its sultan abdul aziz and the immense cost of the armed forces led the ottomans to default in 1876 to make matters worse hurts governor went into full revolt in 1875 in bulgaria followed suit the following year things got even worse when sultan abdul aziz was overthrown in a coup and replaced by his nephew Murad v Murad had a long and successful reign by which I meant he was in charge for 93 days before he himself was overthrown in favour of his brother abdul hameed ii abdul hameed attempted to bring in some reforms the most notable being the ottoman Constitution of 1876 this allowed for elections and took some power from the Sultan but ultimately it would be repealed only two years later abdul hameed early reign got off to a rocky start when both Serbia Montenegro declared war the Ottomans were able to crush the uprising in Bulgaria and they did so brutally which brought international condemnation especially from Russia the great powers sought to find a solution to the Balkan crisis but the ottomans rejected the demands and so war Romania still an ottoman vassal allowed Russia to cross through its territory and soon after declared its independence the Russian troops reached Bulgarian alongside the fences from Bulgarian Serbs and Montenegrins the ottomans didn't fare too well after pressure from the other great powers the Russians sued for peace and the Ottomans were forced to sign the Treaty of San Stefano in 1877 which turned the Balkans from this to this the Bulgarian state was supposed to be a Russian puppet which would give Russia access to the Mediterranean ports which Britain did not like because Britain like Russia trapped in the Black Sea as a response the Congress of Berlin was called the next year and the territories were rearranged by the great powers in the end this was agreed on Romania Serbia and Montenegro became fully independent Bosnia and Herzegovina were occupied by Austria Hungary and Bulgaria was to be a semi independent principality onto the rule of Prince Alexander the first another treaty saw Britain gained Cyprus France gained Tunisia and Greece gained this territory to make things worse for the Ottomans the Great Powers created the Ottoman public debt administration to make sure that the Empire never defaulted on its debts the opda took over a significant chunk of the Ottoman economy and created monopolies and products like tobacco and cotton in order to guarantee that foreign investors would get their money for an influence increase when the British occupied Egypt in 1882 mostly to secure the Suez Canal from revolt in Egypt but also because they could the Ottoman Empire was not without power though it was importantly one of the few independent Muslim states in the world and the Sultan was the Calif the latest in the line of succession to the Prophet Muhammad and the spiritual head of Islam the Ottomans wanted to keep this status and so Abdul Hameed sought to modernize the state to protect it this included wide-ranging educational reform including universal education but also saw the creation of an intrusive state surveillance apparatus state surveillance was needed to root out opposition to the Sultan which have been growing through many secret societies which operated both inside and outside of the Empire the most notable of these being the committee of Union and progress and the Young Turks the Young Turk revolution broke out in 1908 in Macedonia with the intent of preventing the carving up of the Empire's Balkan provinces by the great powers and reissuing the Constitution of 1876 capitalizing on the internal chaos Bulgaria declared independence Greece and excrete and austria-hungary formally annex Bosnia and Herzegovina but it was basically there's already the Revolution was successful sort of and the Sultan conceded to the Young Turks demands before too much damage was done things wouldn't settle down though since the counter coup was launched the next year by the more religiously conservative officers in the army this coup failed abdul hameed ii was blamed and later deposed in favour of his brother Mehmet v the new Sultan along with important reformers like Ismail Enver sought to unify and strengthen the Empire these reforms went quite well at first but again trouble came a-knockin this time in the shape of a boot a boot called Italy who invaded the Ottoman province of Tripolitania now known as Libya in 1911 the italians won handily taking the north african territories in these islands seeing how weak the ottomans were many Balkan nations capitalized and invaded beginning the first balkan war the ottomans lost albania became independent and the balkans went from this to this bulgaria was unhappy with these gains and so about four seconds after this the second Balkan war began the ottomans sided with Serbia Greece and Romania Bulgaria lost and the Balkans were carved up again so the next year 1914 was a big year for the Ottoman since World War one long story short the war was lost and after the Ottoman surrender the British and French under the sykes-picot agreement carved up the empire the Turks were not happy about having their country occupied and so fought back against the Allied powers beginning the Turkish war of independence they were led by a man could mustafa kemal in the 1920 election saw his party victorious the British unhappy with this dissolved the Parliament and so Kemal founded a new seat of power the Grand National Assembly in Ankara war broke out soon afterwards and within three years against all odds the Turkish were victorious driving out the occupying powers and asserting their independence in these borders the last Sultan Mehmet the sick was deposed and the position of Sultan abolished in 1922 thus formally ending the 600 year old Ottoman Empire the next year on October 29th 1923 the Republic of Turkey was declared with Kemal as its first president in 1934 he would be granted the title Ataturk the father of the Turks I hope you enjoyed this episode and thank you for watching there are some book recommendations in the description below if you'd like to know more you

Channel: History Matters

Views: 3,292,447

Keywords: Ten, History, documentary, short, animated, minute, Ottomans, Ottoman Empire, Serbia, Bulgaria, Greece, Greek War of Independence, Greek Revolution, Albania, Romania, Crimean War, Balkans, Balkan War, First, Second, Egypt, Suez Canal, Muhammad, Ali, Mehmed, Sultan, Caliph, map, fall of the Ottoman Empire, ww1, World War One, Turkey, Ataturk

Id: 96n33WWgE9g

Length: 10min 0sec (600 seconds)

Published: Tue Apr 17 2018