328 chapter 8
of Humbaracı Ahmed Pasha, started to organize the bombardier corps along
European lines, as well as a school of military engineers (Hendeshane); both
institutions functioned intermittently (occasionally meeting with strong re-
actions) until 1750.8 Wars in the east continued, with the Ottomans suffering
heavy losses at the hands of the new Afshar dynasty of Iran, while war with
Russia was resumed in 1736 and with Austria a year later. The Ottoman army
managed to retake the Serbian and Bosnian lands that had earlier been lost
to the Habsburgs, while the Russian campaigns ended in stalemate, rather
than in Istanbul’s favor, in 1739. A new and disastrous (for both sides) war with
Iran merely resulted in the restoration of the old boundary in 1746. A long pe-
riod of peace followed, lasting until 1768 (and thus covering the rest of the
reign of Mahmud I, as well as that of Osman III [1754–57] and, partly, that of
Mustafa III [1757–74]).
This period is among the least studied by Ottomanists: it is generally accept-
ed that, with no imminent threat apparent, military and other reforms gradu-
ally came to a halt. Power in the provinces increasingly passed into the hands
of the ayan and derebey families, i.e. dynasties of notables who had gained a
certain degree of autonomy, mostly through tax-farming and the decentral-
ized means of recruiting troops and supplies for the state. Among these fami-
lies, the Çapanoğlu and the Karaosmanoğlu in central and western Anatolia
respectively, the al-Azm in Damascus, and the Buşatlı in northern Albania may
be mentioned.9 During the vizierate of Koca Mehmed Ragıb Pasha, and es-
pecially from 1757 until his death in 1763, there was an effort to enforce the ex-
isting laws and regulations related to the legal system, tax-farming, and public
order, but these had no great results or continuity. Ragıb Pasha tried to mod-
ernize some military segments, to impose discipline, and to inspect the army
registers; one of these measures, it should be noted, was the decisive end to the
extensive powers of the palace’s chief eunuch, who was stripped of the admin-
istration of the sultanly vakfs in 1757.10 In light of previous developments, it is
tempting to see here an effort to enhance the autonomy of the governmental
apparatus vis-à-vis the court.
That is not to say that we should view this period as one of stagnation or
decay. For one thing, even if such characterizations are valid from the point
of view of the state, they are influenced by a teleological approach that views
8 Bonneval also wrote two advice-style treatises (Yeşil 2011b); see below, chapter 9.
9 Salzmann 1993; McGowan 1994; Nagata 2005; Yaycıoğlu 2012.
10 Barnes 1987, 68–69. On the relationship between the great vakfs and the state, cf. Kunt
1994, 190; Sariyannis 2013, 114–115. On Rağıb Paşa see the article of Mesut Aydıner in
Diyanet Vakfı İslam Ansiklopedisi.