The Eighteenth Century: the Westernizers 383
power officially recognised.9 Mahmud first had to carry on the war against
Russia and Austria, begun during the last years of Selim’s reign partly due to
the first Serbian uprising (1804–13), and was obliged to cede territory in the
Danube and the Caucasus as part of the Treaty of Bucharest (1812). Internally
(after a second janissary revolt in 1809) he was more successful: the Ottoman
government managed to subdue centrifugal trends in Epirus (Tepedelenli Ali
Pasha, who effectively controlled most of the south-western Balkan peninsu-
la) and the Arabian peninsula (although this was done through the governor
of Egypt, Mehmet Ali Pasha, later a major centrifugal figure himself ), as well
as other provinces (e.g. Crete, where Mahmud’s governors finally purged the
powerful janissary aghas in the mid-1810s). On the other hand, the Ottomans
had to deal with the first major breakaway from their rule, the Greek War of
Independence (1821). The struggle of the Christian subjects for independence
had been increasingly marked from the late eighteenth century due to several
factors, among which one should not neglect (as pertaining to our subject)
their alienation from state assets,10 together with other, more well-known rea-
sons such as the influence of the French Revolution, the rise of nationalism,
economic factors, and so on.
Confronted with all these challenges, Mahmud resumed effectively the
reform policies of Selim: the first step, which will also mark the end of the
present book, was the notorious Vak’a-i hayriyye or “auspicious event”, namely,
the destruction of the janissaries in 1826; after initiating a military reform that
seemed a timid effort to revive Selim’s Nizam-i Cedid, Mahmud decisively sup-
pressed an attempted janissary rebellion by virtually exterminating a large part
of them with heavy artillery. The corps was abolished throughout the empire
(as was the Bektaşi order of dervishes, which was associated with them) and a
new regular army was created in their place. Arguably, this was the prerequi-
site for the beginning of the long Tanzimat (i.e. reforms) period, which is more
usually associated with the clothing laws of 1829 (establishing a uniform head-
gear for all subjects, Christian and Muslim), the almost concurrent educational
9 See the full text and literature in Akyıldız 1998 (and the English translation in Akyıldız –
Hanioğlu 2006), and cf. Berkes 1964, 90–92; Ortaylı 1995, 29–30; Salzmann 1993; Yaycıoğlu
2008, 428–466; Yaycıoğlu 2010, 700–707; Yaycıoğlu 2012, 449–450; Hanioğlu 2008, 57–58. A
similar understanding of state power can be seen in the slightly earlier Hüccet-i Şer’iyye
(1807; marking Selim III’s fall), agreed upon by “firstly our lord the Sultan ... secondly by
the high officials of the state” (Beydilli 2001, 45; cf. Yıldız 2008, 457–472).
10 More particularly, Baki Tezcan (Tezcan 2010a, 235–237) argues that while the earlier
Ottoman power-holders were restricted to the military elite, with Muslim and Christian
urban and rural delveers sharing the same fate as the reaya, the growing participation of
a large Muslim strata in political power through the intermediary of janissary enrolment
had the side-effect of alienating the Christian subjects.