The Second Siege of Vienna in 1683, by Frans

Geffels (1624–1694)
This period of renewed assertiveness came to a calamitous end in 1683 when Grand
Vizier Kara Mustafa Pasha led a huge army to attempt a second Ottoman siege
of Vienna in the Great Turkish War of 1683–1699. The final assault being fatally
delayed, the Ottoman forces were swept away by allied Habsburg, German, and Polish
forces spearheaded by the Polish king John III Sobieski at the Battle of Vienna. The
alliance of the Holy League pressed home the advantage of the defeat at Vienna,
culminating in the Treaty of Karlowitz (26 January 1699), which ended the Great Turkish
War.[104] The Ottomans surrendered control of significant territories, many
permanently.[105] Mustafa II (1695–1703) led the counterattack of 1695–1696 against the
Habsburgs in Hungary, but was undone at the disastrous defeat at Zenta (in modern
Serbia), 11 September 1697.[106]

Military defeats
Aside from the loss of the Banat and the temporary loss of Belgrade (1717–1739), the
Ottoman border on the Danube and Sava remained stable during the eighteenth
century. Russian expansion, however, presented a large and growing
threat.[107] Accordingly, King Charles XII of Sweden was welcomed as an ally in the
Ottoman Empire following his defeat by the Russians at the Battle of Poltava of 1709 in
central Ukraine (part of the Great Northern War of 1700–1721).[107] Charles XII
persuaded the Ottoman Sultan Ahmed III to declare war on Russia, which resulted in an
Ottoman victory in the Pruth River Campaign of 1710–1711, in Moldavia.[108]

Austrian troops led by Prince Eugene of

Savoy capture Belgrade in 1717. Austrian control in Serbia lasted until the Turkish victory in
the Austro-Russian–Turkish War (1735–1739). With the 1739 Treaty of Belgrade, the Ottoman
Empire regained northern Bosnia, Habsburg Serbia (including Belgrade), Oltenia and the
southern parts of the Banat of Temeswar.
After the Austro-Turkish War, the Treaty of Passarowitz confirmed the loss of the Banat,
Serbia, and "Little Walachia" (Oltenia) to Austria. The Treaty also revealed that the
Ottoman Empire was on the defensive and unlikely to present any further aggression in
Europe.[109] The Austro-Russian–Turkish War (1735–1739), which was ended by
the Treaty of Belgrade in 1739, resulted in the Ottoman recovery of
northern Bosnia, Habsburg Serbia (including Belgrade), Oltenia and the southern parts
of the Banat of Temeswar; but the Empire lost the port of Azov, north of the Crimean
Peninsula, to the Russians. After this treaty the Ottoman Empire was able to enjoy a
generation of peace in Europe, as Austria and Russia were forced to deal with the rise
of Prussia.[110]

Educational and technological reforms came about, including the establishment of

higher education institutions such as the Istanbul Technical University.[111] In 1734 an
artillery school was established to impart Western-style artillery methods, but the Islamic
clergy successfully objected under the grounds of theodicy.[112] In 1754 the artillery
school was reopened on a semi-secret basis.[112] In 1726, Ibrahim Muteferrika convinced
the Grand Vizier Nevşehirli Damat Ibrahim Pasha, the Grand Mufti, and the clergy on
the efficiency of the printing press, and Muteferrika was later granted by Sultan Ahmed
III permission to publish non-religious books (despite opposition from
some calligraphers and religious leaders).[113] Muteferrika's press published its first book
in 1729 and, by 1743, issued 17 works in 23 volumes, each having between 500 and
1,000 copies.[113][114]

In North Africa, Spain conquered Oran from the autonomous Deylik of Algiers. The Bey
of Oran received an army from Algiers, but it failed to recapture Oran; the siege caused
the deaths of 1,500 Spaniards, and even more Algerians. The Spanish also massacred
many Muslim soldiers.[115] In 1792, Spain abandoned Oran, selling it to the Deylik of
Algiers.

Ottoman troops attempting to halt the advancing Russians

during the Siege of Ochakov in 1788
In 1768 Russian-backed Ukrainian Haidamakas, pursuing Polish confederates,
entered Balta, an Ottoman-controlled town on the border of Bessarabia in Ukraine,
massacred its citizens, and burned the town to the ground. This action provoked the
Ottoman Empire into the Russo-Turkish War of 1768–1774. The Treaty of Küçük
Kaynarca of 1774 ended the war and provided freedom of worship for the Christian
citizens of the Ottoman-controlled provinces of Wallachia and Moldavia.[116] By the late
18th century, after a number of defeats in the wars with Russia, some people in the
Ottoman Empire began to conclude that the reforms of Peter the Great had given the
Russians an edge, and the Ottomans would have to keep up with Western technology
in order to avoid further defeats.[112]

Selim III receiving dignitaries during an audience at the

Gate of Felicity, Topkapı Palace. Painting by Konstantin Kapıdağlı.
Selim III (1789–1807) made the first major attempts to modernise the army, but his
reforms were hampered by the religious leadership and the Janissary corps. Jealous of
their privileges and firmly opposed to change, the Janissary revolted. Selim's efforts
cost him his throne and his life, but were resolved in spectacular and bloody fashion by
his successor, the dynamic Mahmud II, who eliminated the Janissary corps in 1826.

The siege of the Acropolis in 1826–1827 during

the Greek War of Independence
The Serbian revolution (1804–1815) marked the beginning of an era of national
awakening in the Balkans during the Eastern Question. In 1811, the fundamentalist
Wahhabis of Arabia, led by the al-Saud family, revolted against the Ottomans. Unable to
defeat the Wahhabi rebels, the Sublime Porte had Muhammad Ali Pasha of Kavala,
the vali (governor) of the Eyalet of Egypt, tasked with retaking Arabia, which ended with
the destruction of the Emirate of Diriyah in 1818. The suzerainty of Serbia as a
hereditary monarchy under its own dynasty was acknowledged de jure in 1830.[117][118] In
1821, the Greeks declared war on the Sultan. A rebellion that originated in Moldavia as
a diversion was followed by the main revolution in the Peloponnese, which, along with
the northern part of the Gulf of Corinth, became the first parts of the Ottoman Empire to
achieve independence (in 1829). In 1830, the French invaded the Deylik of Algiers. The
campaign took 21 days, and resulted in over 5,000 Algerian military casualties,[119] and
about 2,600 French ones.[119][120] Before the French invasion the total population of
Algeria was most likely between 3,000,000 and 5,000,000.[121] By 1873, the population of
Algeria (excluding several hundred thousand newly arrived French settlers) had
decreased to 2,172,000.[122] In 1831, Muhammad Ali of Egypt revolted against
Sultan Mahmud II due to the latter's refusal to grant him the governorships of Greater
Syria and Crete, which the Sultan had promised him in exchange for sending military
assistance to put down the Greek revolt (1821–1829) that ultimately ended with the
formal independence of Greece in 1830. It was a costly enterprise for Muhammad Ali,
who had lost his fleet at the Battle of Navarino in 1827. Thus began the first Egyptian–
Ottoman War (1831–1833), during which the French-trained army of Muhammad Ali,
under the command of his son Ibrahim Pasha, defeated the Ottoman Army as it
marched into Anatolia, reaching the city of Kütahya within 320 km (200 mi) of the
capital, Constantinople.[123]: 95 In desperation, Sultan Mahmud II appealed to the empire's
traditional arch-rival Russia for help, asking Emperor Nicholas I to send an
expeditionary force to assist him.[123]: 96 In return for signing the Treaty of Hünkâr İskelesi,
the Russians sent the expeditionary force which deterred Ibrahim Pasha from marching
any further towards Constantinople.[123]: 96 Under the terms of the Convention of Kütahya,
signed on 5 May 1833, Muhammad Ali agreed to abandon his campaign against the
Sultan, in exchange for which he was made the vali (governor) of
the vilayets (provinces) of Crete, Aleppo, Tripoli, Damascus and Sidon (the latter four
comprising modern Syria and Lebanon), and given the right to collect taxes
in Adana.[123]: 96 Had it not been for the Russian intervention, Sultan Mahmud II could
have faced the risk of being overthrown and Muhammad Ali could have even become
the new Sultan. These events marked the beginning of a recurring pattern where the
Sublime Porte needed the help of foreign powers to protect itself. [123]: 95–96

In 1839, the Sublime Porte attempted to take back what it lost to the de
facto autonomous, but de jure still Ottoman Eyalet of Egypt, but its forces were initially
defeated, which led to the Oriental Crisis of 1840. Muhammad Ali had close relations
with France, and the prospect of him becoming the Sultan of Egypt was widely viewed
as putting the entire Levant into the French sphere of influence.[123]: 96 As the Sublime
Porte had proved itself incapable of defeating Muhammad Ali,[124][125] the British
Empire and Austrian Empire provided military assistance, and the second Egyptian–
Ottoman War (1839–1841) ended with Ottoman victory and the restoration of Ottoman
suzerainty over Egypt Eyalet and the Levant.[123]: 96

By the mid-19th century, the Ottoman Empire was called the "sick man of Europe".
Three suzerain states – the Principality of Serbia, Wallachia and Moldavia – moved
towards de jure independence during the 1860s and 1870s.

Decline and modernisation (1828–1908)

Main article: Decline of the Ottoman Empire
 Opening ceremony of the First Ottoman Parliament at
the Dolmabahçe Palace in 1876. The First Constitutional Era lasted only two years until 1878.
The Ottoman Constitution and Parliament were restored 30 years later with the Young Turk
Revolution in 1908.
During the Tanzimat period (1839–1876), the government's series of constitutional
reforms led to a fairly modern conscripted army, banking system reforms, the
decriminalization of homosexuality, the replacement of religious law with secular
law,[126] and guilds with modern factories. The Ottoman Ministry of Post was established
in Istanbul in 1840. American inventor Samuel Morse received an Ottoman patent for
the telegraph in 1847, issued by Sultan Abdülmecid, who personally tested the
invention.[127] The reformist period peaked with the Constitution, called the Kanûn-u
Esâsî. The empire's First Constitutional era was short-lived. The parliament survived for
only two years before the sultan suspended it.

The empire's Christian population, owing to their higher educational levels, started to
pull ahead of the Muslim majority, leading to much resentment.[128] In 1861, there were
571 primary and 94 secondary schools for Ottoman Christians, with 140,000 pupils in
total, a figure that vastly exceeded the number of Muslim children in school at the time,
who were further hindered by the amount of time spent learning Arabic and Islamic
theology.[128] Author Norman Stone suggests that the Arabic alphabet, in which Turkish
was written until 1928, was ill-suited to reflect the sounds of Turkish (which is a Turkic
as opposed to Semitic language), which imposed further difficulty on Turkish
children.[128] In turn, Christians' higher educational levels allowed them to play a larger
role in the economy, with the rise in prominence of groups such as the Sursock
family indicative of this.[129][128] In 1911, of the 654 wholesale companies in Istanbul, 528
were owned by ethnic Greeks.[128] In many cases, Christians and Jews gained protection
from European consuls and citizenship, meaning they were protected from Ottoman law
and not subject to the same economic regulations as their Muslim counterparts. [130]

Ottoman troops storming Fort Shefketil during

the Crimean War of 1853–1856