160 • 10 EUROPEAN INTERESTS AND IMPERIALISM
The Koprulu Family of Viziers
F
or most of its existence, Ottoman rule mixed a hereditary succession with
the promotion of administrators and military officers on the basis of
merit. The empire did have a long run of luck with its hereditary sultanate, but
after the reign of Suleyman I, weak and incompetent rulers inherited power.
Without strong and capable leaders, other problems—military, economic, and
governmental—became insurmountable. There is an old Turkish saying that
the fish begins to rot at the head, and so it was that problems in the sultanate
affected the rest of society.
The decline of the Ottoman Empire did not take place overnight but oc¬
curred over more than three hundred years. During this time, strong viziers
took firm hold of the reins of government in an effort to reverse the empire's
fortunes. The most famous of these men came from one family of Albanian
heritage, the Koprulus.
There is a pattern in the behavior of the Koprulu viziers. Each was given
dictatorial or near dictatorial powers by sultans or their regents (often their
mothers) who could not or would not rule directly. Each vizier could rule bru¬
tally, when needed, to root out corruption, rebellion, or incompetence. Most
of them used the stick far more often than the carrot to achieve their ends. Al¬
though the Koprulus, each one learning from his precursor in an informal ap¬
prenticeship, were quite effective at restoring order, none of their reforms
endured. This failure to reverse the Ottoman decline had many reasons, but
one of them lies in the very definition of Ottoman success.
Among other things, the subjects of the Ottoman Empire expected the gov¬
ernment to expand its borders. They wanted a strong government not only to
maintain stability and defend the faith but also to enlarge Dar al-Islam (the
land of Islam). Thus, ending corruption, suppressing rebellion, dismissing
the incompetent, and instituting discipline—all of which the Koprulus did
well—were not just ends in themselves but needed to support expansionist
war. Almost all of the Koprulus, having stabilized the empire, quickly directed
its renewed energies toward such wars. However, the reformed institutions
usually proved too fragile to withstand eventual defeat by a powerful Western
foe. Finally, the fifth Koprulu vizier, Huseyin, recognized the futility of these
efforts and negotiated the Treaty of Karlowitz (1699), in which the sultan ceded
Hungary to the Austrians, marking the beginning of the end, militarily and
diplomatically, of the Ottoman Empire.
Custom and tradition are hard to alter. They usually change only over long
periods of time or under extreme circumstances. The first four Koprulus used
their success to promote the age-old custom of expansive war. Only when the
empire's state of exhaustion became obvious did the fifth Koprulu change this
pattern of behavior. By then he had few other options.