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40/40 A* AQA A-Level History NEA
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40/40 A* AQA A-LEVEL HISTORY NEA (2024), ‘In the context of the years 1804-1923, the ‘era of national awakening’ in the Balkans was the main
reason for the decline of the Ottoman Empire.’ Assess the validity of this statement.
From the turn of the 19th century, existing Ottoman decline was hastened, as a combination of internal failures
and external pressures contributed to its destruction. The 1804 Serbian Uprising was a crucial catalyst in the
Empire’s fortunes, ushering in a century of nationalist movements which precipitated the territorial breakdown
of the Empire. The revolts occurred regularly across nearly all Balkan countries and were major flashpoints,
undermining Ottoman authority and splintering the Empire along ethnic and religious lines. Another key factor
in the Empire’s decline was its numerous internal problems. Economic backwardness and administrative
incompetence ensured that the Empire remained behind European countries until its eventual dissolution,
when the 1923 Treaty of Lausanne proclaimed the new sovereign state of Turkey. Reform attempts were made
with varying levels of success but couldn’t stem the decline. A final, and ultimately decisive, factor was the
Empire’s disastrous foreign policy. This included military incompetence abroad but was mainly the continued
and intrusive role of the great European Powers in Ottoman affairs. European involvement was constant from
1804-1923 and was crucial in determining the Empire’s fate. It aggravated the Empire’s internal issues and
prevented Ottoman recovery by supporting insurgent movements and ensuring wider territorial concessions.
By 1800, the Empire was ‘an Islamic fortress under siege’ 1, with Sultan Selim facing enormous problems that
would continuously plague the Empire throughout the following decades. The Empire was strongly agrarian,
poverty and corrupted tax collection methods were widespread and were complemented by the structuring of
the state – Islam reigned supreme from a centralised Istanbul power base, with large Christian minorities
subject to oppression that included the restriction of landowning to Muslims only. It is unsurprising, therefore,
that another issue was the growing divisions across an Empire structured entirely upon religious lines. Citizens
had been divided for centuries into millets2, but by 1804 control of certain territories was declining, with
regional power vacuums emerging. This was a key change; internal matters had been kept constant for
hundreds of years, and the reduction in control of the very structure of Ottoman society threatened to have
destabilising knock-on effects.
This proved true with the 1804 Serbian Uprising. Although a nationalist movement at heart, the revolt was
triggered by the imposition of brutal Janissary3 rule in the Serbian provinces, meaning Dahi4 rule was favoured
over Sultan loyalty. This early example of insurgency highlights a link between the factors of nationalism and
internal weaknesses – although ‘the era of national awakening’ was nationalist by name, its foundations were
often inherently social and inspired by floundering Ottoman control. The Uprising fatally splintered the Empire
that had been loosely held together despite its ethno-religious heterogeneity, setting the precedent for a
constant of movements for autonomy in the 19th century, spurring on rebellion in many other Balkan provinces.
It was followed by a Second Serbian Uprising in 1815-1817.
Dennis P. Hupchick places weight on these nationalist movements and their relationship with foreign
intervention when assessing Ottoman decline. He argues that ethnic rebellions spread from events in Serbia
and Greece to most of the Balkans at various stages, implying that the nationalist front took many forms. He
argues that this nationalist wave alone was enough to ‘spell doom’ for the Empire, but nevertheless stresses
the crucial role of ‘the European Great Powers and Russia’ (motivated by self-interest) in worsening the
problems of revolt for the ruling Ottomans, arguing that ‘the nationalist movements…became pawns in
imperialist policies.’
Hupchick is right to stress that the nationalist front took many forms. ‘The era of national awakening’ was
constant throughout 1804-1923, and, as Hupchick outlines, spread to most of the Balkans. Although the
Serbian Uprising ‘set the example’ for other Christian minorities, by 1878 revolts had occurred in nine
countries.5 There is also evidence of cooperation between different ethnic groups, such as in the early 1860s
with the Serbian government and Bulgarian revolutionaries. These movements fundamentally destroyed the
1
Mansfield, Peter, A History of the Middle East, (Penguin Books, 1992), p. 35
2
Socially divided blocs based on religious affiliations
3
Ottoman infantry units
4
Regional masters
5
Serbia, Greece, Albania, Wallachia, Montenegro, Bosnia, Macedonia, Bulgaria & Cyprus
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