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Introduction
In marked contrast to the military and political successes of the 1300– 1683 era, defeats and territorial withdrawals characterized this long eighteenth century, 1683–1798. The political structure continued to evolve
steadily, taking new forms in a process that should be seen as transformation but not decline.
Central rule continued in a new and more disguised fashion as negotiation more frequently than command came to assure obedience. Important changes occurred in the Ottoman economy as well:
the circulation of goods began to increase; levels of personal consumption
probably rose, and the world economy came to play an ever-larger role
in the everyday lives of Ottoman subjects.
The wars of contraction, c. 1683–1798
On the international stage, military defeats and territorial contraction
marked the era, when the imperial Ottoman state was much less successful than before. At the outset, it seems worthwhile to make several general points.
First, at the bottom, the Ottoman defeats are as difficult to explain as the
victories of earlier centuries. Sometime during the early sixteenth century, as the wealth of the New World poured into Europe, the military balance shifted away from the Ottomans; they lost their edge in military
technology and used similar and then inferior weapons and tactics, battled European enemies.
Moreover, the earlier military imbalance between offensive and defensive warfare in favor of the aggressor had worked to the Ottomans’ advantage, but now defenses became more sophisticated
and vastly more expensive. Sultan Suleyman the Magnificent, whose reign
had seen so many successes, died before the walls of Szigetvar, poignantly
symbolizing the difficulty of attacking fortified cities that had become an
increasingly common feature of warfare.
Further, Western economies could better afford the mounting costs of the new technologies and defensive combat in part because of the vast infusion of wealth from
the New World. The story of Ottoman slippage and west European ascendancy is vastly more complicated, of course, and is continued in the subsequent chapters. Second, during the eighteenth century, absolute monarchies emerged in Europe that were growing more centralized than ever before.
To a certain extent, the Ottomans shared in this evolution but other states in
the world did not. The Iranian state weakened after a brief resurgence
in the earlier part of the century, collapsed, and failed to recover any
cohesive strength until the early twentieth century. Still further east, the
Moghul state and all of the rest of the Indian subcontinent fell under
French or British domination.
Third, the Ottoman defeats and territorial losses of the eighteenth century were a very grim business but would have been still greater except for the rivalries among west, east, and central European states. On a
number of occasions, European diplomats intervened in post-war negotiations with the Ottomans to prevent rivals from gaining too many concessions, thus giving the defeated Ottomans a wedge they employed
to retain lands that otherwise would have been lost.
Also, while it is easy to think of the era as one of unmitigated disasters since there were so many defeats and withdrawals, the force of Ottoman arms and diplomatic skills did win a number of successes, especially in the first half of the period.
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