The Eighteenth Century: the Traditionalists 329
(Europe-oriented) reform as progress and any other change as decline. From
another pespective, the process of the janissaries turning into a large “third
estate”, in a stable alliance with the artisan guilds, had, by the early eighteenth
century, culminated in a well-balanced sharing of power, one which may not
have helped Ottoman warfare but which did offer much-needed internal
peace. To quote Baki Tezcan, during this period, the empire11
was functioning much more smoothly as the royal authority had finally
accepted the power of the web that surrounded it ... [T]he eighteenth
century was more peaceful internally than the [pre-1703] period ... What
was most striking about it, however, was its political leadership ... Unlike
most of their predecessors during the age of the patrimonial empire,
these grand viziers ... came from the ranks of the socioeconomic elite.
The relatively smooth functioning of the [Ottoman] Empire in the
eighteenth century was the result of the fine balance that the various rep-
resentatives of Ottoman social classes had reached after a long period of
political struggles.
... In consequence, the eighteenth century was the most peaceful one
in terms of political conflicts between the janissaries and the court; yet at
the same time, it was also a century of major territorial losses, contribut-
ing to the long-term territorial decline. Not surprisingly, an army centered
upon a public corporation of middle and lower middle class merchants
and craftsmen failed to perform successfully as a professional military
organization.Warfare was resumed again in Poland in 1768, in an attempt to thwart
Catherine the Great’s Mediterranean ambitions. Soon the Russians occu-
pied the Danubian principalities, while they also incited a rebellion in the
Peloponnese (the “Orlov revolt” of 1770) and sent a fleet to the Aegean, destroy-
ing the Ottoman fleet in Çeşme. With the treaty of Küçük Kaynarca, in 1774, the
Ottomans managed to keep much of the territory lost to Russia, but the latter
imposed an immense war indemnity, made the Ottomans accept the indepen-
dence of the Crimea, and claimed the position of protector of the Orthodox
Christian subjects of the sultan. As shall be seen, this devastating war proved to
be a turning point in the reform efforts of the Ottoman government. Mustafa’s
successor, Abdülhamid I (1774–89), was determined to import whatever
knowledge was considered necessary to restore Ottoman military might. He
assigned to Baron François de Tott, an advisor to his predecessor, the task of
11 Tezcan 2010a, 195–196 and 241; cf. Quataert 1993.