Westernization of the Ottoman Empire ••• 177other schools were set up to teach European marching music and military
sciences. A secondary school system was formed to help boys to bridge the
transition from the mosques that provided most primary education to
these new technical colleges and military academies.
It was hard to create schools in Istanbul based on French, German, or
Italian models. The first teachers were all European. So, too, were the books
they assigned. As a result, the boys had to master French or German before
they could study medicine, engineering, or science. Even now this situation
persists in the Middle East, due to the rapid growth of human knowledge.
University students in Turkey, Iran, Israel, and (to a lesser extent) the Arab
countries still use European or US textbooks for specialized courses in en¬
gineering, medicine, business, and even the humanities. But the problem
was more acute 175 years ago in the Ottoman Empire. Printed books in
any language were rare, and books on the sciences had yet to be written
in Turkish. Some French and German textbooks were translated, but never
enough of them. Special courses were set up to train Turkish Muslims to
become government interpreters, replacing the Greeks who could no
longer be trusted now that there was an independent Greece. Like Mehmet
Ali, Mahmud started a journal to print government announcements. He
also sent some of his subjects to study in European universities, military
academies, and technical institutes.
The general aim of the Ottoman reforms was to transfer power from the
traditional ruling class to the sultan and his cabinet. Government min¬
istries were reorganized to end overlapping jurisdictions and superfluous
posts. Mahmud abolished the system of military land grants (timars) that
had sustained the sipahis throughout Ottoman history. He could not imi¬
tate Mehmet Ali by putting all farmland under state control—the Ottoman
Empire was larger and more diverse than Egypt—but he could at least tax
the rural landlords. Building better roads aided the centralization of power.
Mahmud had to overcome opposition from local and provincial officials,
feudal sipahis, conservative government clerks, and the ulama. Too few
Ottomans shared Mahmud's dream of an empire reformed and invigor¬
ated, like Peter the Great's Russia. It would not benefit them enough.
Military Defeat and European Protection
Westernizing reform in the Ottoman Empire had another grave fault: It did
not stop the army from losing wars. In 1829 the Greeks won their indepen¬
dence, although their tiny kingdom in the Morea held only a minority of
Greek-speaking people. Their success was due mainly to intervention by
Russia, which fought the Ottomans again between 1827 and 1829 and also