Abstract
Western liberal imperialism has often been analyzed in relation to its point of origin, namely Western Europe. There are, however, fewer studies on its impact on the rest of the world, especially studies narrated from the vantage point of the “receiving” empires such as the Ottoman, Persian, and the Chinese. This oversight may partly be because almost all of them met their demise either at the end of World War I or closely thereafter. Yet such analyses are necessary precisely because of the common fate of these empires, a fate that ultimately articulates the destructive impact of Western European liberal imperialism.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
Notes
Fatma Müge Göçek, Rise of the Bourgeoisie, Demise of Empire: Ottoman Westernization and Social Change (New York: Oxford University Press, 1996), see especially pp. 18–19.
The policies Russia adopted varied from the defeat and partition of the Empire to the establishment of a virtual protectorate over a weak and subservient Ottoman state. See İlkay Sunar, “State and economy in the Ottoman Empire,” in The Ottoman Empire and the World—Economy, ed. Huri İslamoğlu–İnan (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987), p. 77.
The regret felt by the British cabinet for leaving the Ottoman state alone and thereby forcing them into an agreement with Russia is best expressed by Lord Palmerstone who stated that “No British cabinet at any period … ever made so great a mistake in regard to foreign affairs.” G. D. Clayton, Britain and the Eastern Question: Missolonghi to Gallipoli (London: University of London Press, 1974), pp. 63, 90.
Taner Timur, “Osmanli ve Batilila¸sma (Westernization and the Ottomans).” In Osmanli Çalışmaları Ankara (İmge Kitabevi, 1989), p. 86. In 1838, Ibrahim Pasha again threatened, and was then confronted by a coalition of Russia, Prussia, Austria and Britain that thoroughly defeated him.
Şevket Pamuk, “Osmanlı Imparatorluğu’nda Yabancı Sermaye: Sektörlere ve Sermayeyi İhraç Eden Ülkelere Göre Dağılımı, 1854–1914 (Foreign Capital in the Ottoman Empire distributed in accordance to Sectors and Countries that Export Capital, 1854–1914),” ODTü Gelişme Dergisi, Vol. 2 (Özel Sayısı, 1978), p. 148.
Yaqub N. Karkar, Railway Development in the Ottoman Empire 1856–1914 (New York: Vantage Press, 1972), p. 79.
Orhan Kurmuş, Emperyalizmin Türkiye’ye Girişi (İstanbul: Bilim Yayınları, 1974), pp. 88–98, 242, 248ff. The British also built railroads on the European lands of the Ottoman Empire with similar economic intentions. See
Bilmez Bülent Can, Demiryolundan Petrole Chester Projesi (1908–1923) (From Railroads to Petroleum: The Chester Projcst 1908–23) (İstanbul: Türkiye Ekonomik ve Toplumsal Tarih Vakfi, 2000), p. 44.
Murat Üzyüksel, Hicaz Demiryolu (The Hidjaz Railroad) (İstanbul: Tarih Vakfi, 2000), p. 49.
Donald C. Blaisdell, European Financial Control in the Ottoman Empire, A Study of the Establishment, Activities, and Significance of the Administration of the Ottoman Public Debt (New York: Columbia University Press, 1929), pp. 108–47.
David B. Ralston, Importing the European Army: The Introduction of European Military Techniques and Institutions into the Extra-European World, 1600–1914 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1990), pp. 11, 62–9.
İbrahim Sivrikaya, “Osmanlı İmparatorluğu İdaresindeki Aşiretlerin Eğitimi ve İlk Aşiret Mektebi (The Tribal Education under Ottoman Imperial rule and the First Tribal School,” Belgelerle Türk Tarihi Dergisi XI/63 (1972), p. 17;
Alişan Akpınar, Osmanlı Devletinde Aşiret Mektebi (Tribal School in the Ottoman State) (İstanbul: Aram Yayınları, 1997), pp. 25, 27.
Auler Pascha, Die Hedschasbahn: auf Grund einer Besichtigungsreise und nach amtlichen Quellen (Petermann’s geographische Mitteilungen Bd 154, 1906), p. 64; Kodaman, p. 89. For detailed information, see Bayram Kodaman, “II. Abdülhamid ve Aşiret Mektebi (Sultan Abdulhamid II and the School for Tribes).” Türk Kültürü Araştirmalari XV/1–2 (1976).
Previously there had been few if any people of Arab origin in the higher echelons of the Ottoman state. For instance, of the 215 grand viziers who had served until then, none had been of Arab origin. By 1886, the number of Arab officers in the Ottoman military had reached 3,200. See Hasan Kayali Jön Türkler ve Araplar: Osmanlıcılık, Erken Arap Milliyetçiliği ve İslamcılık (1908–1918) (Young Turks and the Arabs: Ottomanism, early Arab Nationalism and Islamism, 1908–1918) (İstanbul 1998), pp. 21, 37–8.
Donald Quataert, The Ottoman Empire, 1700–1922 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), p. 82.
Bayram Kodaman, Sultan II. Abdülhamid Devri Doğu Anadolu Politikasİ (The Eastern Anatolian Policy During the Reign of Sultan Abdülhamid II) (Ankara: TKAE, 1987), p. 82,
François Georgeon, “Son Canlaniş (1878–1908) (The Last Revival, 1878–1908),” in Osmanli İmparatorluğu Tarihi II Robert Mantran, ed. (İstanbul: CEM, 1995), p. 148.
Haluk Ülman, Birinci Dünya Savaşı’na Giden Yol (The Path leading to World War I) (Ankara, 1973), p. 144.
For detailed information, see Cezmi Eraslan, II.Abdülhamid ve İslam Birliği (İstanbul: Ötüken, 1992), pp. 217–27.
Şerif Mardin writes that sultan Abdülhamit II sustained his pro-Islamist policy “in Central Asia, North Africa and the Far East through such agents.” See Şerif Mardin, “İslamcılık (Ilamism),” in Türkiye’de Din ve Siyaset (Religion and Politics in Turkey), M. Türköne and T. Önder, eds. (İstanbul: iletişim Yayınları, 1991), p. 16.
İhsan Süreyya Sırma, Osmanlı Devleti’nin Yıkılışinda Yemen İsyanları (The Yemen Rebellions in the Demise of the Ottoman Empire) (İstanbul: Zafer, 1994), pp. 76–8.
Tahsin Paşa, Tahsin Paşa’nın Yıldız Hatıraları (Palace Memoirs of Tahsin Pasha) (İstanbul 1990), p. 349.
Max Roloff-Breslau, Arabien und seine Bedeutung für die Erstaerkung des Osmanenreiches (Leipzig, 1915), pp. 13–14.
Azmi Özcan, Pan-İslamizm, Osmanlı Devleti, Hindistan Müslümanları ve İngiltere (1877–1914) (Pan-Islamism, the Ottoman State, Indians Muslims and Britain, 1877–1914) (İstanbul: İSAM, 1992), pp. 172–3; Kayali, p. 45.
İlber Ortaylı “19. Yüzyılda Panislamizm ve Osmanlı Hilafeti (Panislamism and the Ottoman Caliphate in the 19th Century.” Türkiye Günlüğü 31 (1994), pp. 27–8.
Eraslan, p. 195; Hulusi Yavuz, Osmanlı Devletı ve İslamiyet (Ottoman State and Islam) (İstanbul: İz Yayıncılık, 1991), pp. 95–110.
Hugo Grothe, Meine Studienreise durch Vorderasien, 1906–1907 (Halle, 1908), p. 38;
H. Von Kleist, “Die Hedjasbahn.” Asien 6 (1906), p. 84.
Orhan Koloğlu, Abdülhamit Gerçeği (The Reality of Abdülhamit II) (İstanbul: Gür Yayınları, 1987), pp. 193–200; “Dünya Siyaseti ve İslâm Birliği (Islamic Unity and World Politics).” Tarih ve Toplum 83 (1990), p. 13.
Mümtaz’er Türköne, Siyasi İdeoloji Olarak İslamcılığın Doğuşu (The Emergence of Islamism as a Political Ideology) (İstanbul: İletişim Yayınları, 1991), p. 171. Concerning how the colonized Muslim countries’ interests in the Ottoman Empire preceded sultan Abdülhamid II’s rule, see pp. 145–71.
Kemâl H. Karpat, “Pan-İslamizm ve İkinci Abdülhamid: Yanliş Bir Görüşün Düzeltilmesi (Pan-Islamism and Abdülhamid II: The Correction of an Erroneous View),” Türk ünyasini Araştirmalari Dergisi 47 (1987), p. 27.
İhsan Süreyya Sırma, “Ondokuzuncu Yüzyıl Osmanlı Siyasetinde Büyük Rol Oynayan Tarikatlara Dair Bir Vesika (A Document concerning the Religious Orders that Played a Significant Role in 19th CenturyOttoman Policy),” İstanbul üniversitesi, Edebiyat Fakültesi Tarih Dergisi 31 (1977), p. 186.
Koloğlu, pp. 200–12; Karpat, pp. 13–14, 28. The exact quotation from the sultan’s memoir is as follows: “I knew Cemalettin Afghani quite well. He was in Egypt and he was a dangerous man. He had once proposed to me to get all Central Asian Muslims to rebel by pretending to be the mahdi (prophesied redeemer of Islam). I knew I would not have been capable of doing so. He was also in the pay of the British and the British had prepared the man to test me.” See İsmet Bozdağ, Sultan Abdülhamid’in Hatira Defteri (The Memoirs of sultan Abdülhamid II) (İstanbul: Pinar, 1985), p. 73.
For the account of an Indian Muslim merchant’s dreams based on the caliphate dissolving after his visit to the imperial capital and his astonishment at the discrepancy between the level of governance at the seat of Islam as opposed to British rule in India, see Arnold J. Toynbee, 1920’lerde Türkiye: Hilafetin İlgasi (Turkey in the 1920s: The Abolition of the Caliphate) (İstanbul: Hasan Aktaş, 1998), p. 55. See too
Chedo Mijatovich, “Abd ul Hamid,” Die Zukunft 47 (1908), p. 296.
The German emperor Kaiser Wilhelm II echoed the sultan’s pan-Islamism when he visited the sultan in 1898 and delivered a speech in Damascus where he declared himself the protector of the world’s 300 million Muslims—a provocative move given that the majority of these Muslims were under French, British and Russian colonial rule. Germany deployed pan-Islamism again during World War I, supported by Enver Pasha who also mobilized the secret paramilitary Special Organization to incite rebellions in the Muslim colonies of the Allied Powers and traveled to Central Asia himself without success. See Philip H. Stoddard, Teşkilât-ı Mahsusa (The Special Organization) (İstanbul: Arba, 1993), pp. 59, 93, 94, 15–16, 20, 31.
See Donald Quataert, “Clothing Laws, State, and Society in the Ottoman Empire, 1720–1829,” International Journal of Middle East Studies 29/3 (August, 1997): 403–25 for an extensive discussion, especially pp. 403–9, 411–4, 421. See also
Şerif Mardin, “Super Westernization in Urban Life in the Ottoman Empire in the lAst Quarter of the Nineteenth Century,” pp. 135–63 in Religion, Society and Modernity in Turkey (Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 2006), especially pp. 139–42, 144, 148, 151–2, 156, 162.
Bernard Lewis, The Emergence of Modern Turkey (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002), p. 87
Berkes, The Development of Secularism in Turkey (Montreal, 1964), pp. 97–8.
Hayrullah Efendi [1818–1866], Avrupa Seyahatnamesi (European Travelbook) (Ankara: Kültür Bakanliği, 2002), p. xiv.
Halid Ziya Uşakligil [1869–1945], Kirk Yil: Anilar (Forty Years: Memories) (İstanbul: İnkılap, 1987), pp. 547–8.
Fatih Gilmanoğlu Kerimi [1870–1945], İstanbul Mektupları (İstanbul Letters) (İstanbul: çağrı, 2001), pp. 317–21.
Rahmi Apak [1889–1969], Yetmişlik bir Subayin Hatiralari (Memoirs of a Seventy Year old Colonel) (Ankara: TTK, 1998), pp. 14, 19.
Faik Tonguç, Birinci Dünya Savaşinda bir Yedeksubayin Anıları (The Memoirs of a Reserve Officer during World War I) (İstanbul: İş Bankası, 1999), pp. 22–3, 28.
Fevzi Güvemli [1903–1972], Bir Zamanlar Ordu: Anılar (Ordu Once upon a time: Memories) (Ankara: Kültür Bakanlığı, 1999), p. 5.
İsmail Habib Sevük [1892–1954], O Zamanlar: 1920–1923 (Those Days, 1920–1923) (İstanbul: Cumhuriyet, 1937), p. 286.
Editor information
Copyright information
© 2012 Matthew P. Fitzpatrick
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Müge-Göçek, F., Özyüksel, M. (2012). The Ottoman Empire’s Negotiation of Western Liberal Imperialism. In: Fitzpatrick, M.P. (eds) Liberal Imperialism in Europe. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137019974_9
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137019974_9
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, New York
Print ISBN: 978-1-349-43739-9
Online ISBN: 978-1-137-01997-4
eBook Packages: Palgrave History CollectionHistory (R0)