A Concise History of the Middle East

178 • 11 WESTERNIZING REFORM IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY

took land east of the Black Sea. Ibrahim's advances into Syria were another

blow to the Ottoman Empire, especially when Mahmud's new army failed

to dislodge them. Outside help would be needed if the empire were to sur¬

vive. The first choice should have been France, but it was backing Mehmet

Ali and Ibrahim, so Mahmud turned instead to his mighty northern neigh¬

bor. In a treaty bearing the euphonious name of Hunkar-Iskelesi, Russia

agreed in 1833 to defend the territorial integrity of the Ottoman Empire. It

meant that the fox would guard the henhouse!

This pact between two states that had fought four wars in sixty years

shocked the West. Britain believed that the Hunkar-Iskelesi Treaty gave Rus¬

sian warships the right to pass through the Straits, from which Western

naval vessels were barred, and it railed against the threat of Russian control

of Istanbul. How could the British outbid the Russians? Luckily, the Otto¬

mans wanted more trade with Britain. In a commercial treaty signed in

1838, the Ottoman government increased Britain's Capitulatory privileges

and limited to 9 percent its import tariffs on British manufactures. This low

rate stimulated British exports to the empire, thus wiping out many Otto¬

man merchants and artisans who could not compete against the West's

more mechanized factories. One unexpected result of the 1838 treaty was to

increase Britain's economic interest in the Ottoman Empire and hence its

desire to keep it alive. That outcome soon benefited the Turks.

The Tanzimat Era

Mahmud II died while Ibrahim's army was invading Anatolia, whereupon
his navy, laboriously rebuilt with British and US help after the Greek war
for independence, defected to Alexandria. Mahmud was succeeded by his
young son, Abdulmejid (r. 1839-1861). Although he seemed ill prepared
to rule, Abdulmejid reigned during the greatest Ottoman reform period,
the era of the Tanzimat ("reorganizations"). The Tanzimat's guiding ge¬
nius was Mahmud's foreign minister, Mustafa Reshid, who happened to
be in London seeking British aid against Mehmet Ali at the time Abdul¬
mejid took over. Advised by the British and Reshid, the new sultan issued
a decree called the "Noble Rescript (Hatt-i-Sherif) of the Rose Chamber,"
authorizing the creation of new institutions to safeguard the basic rights
of his subjects, to assess and levy taxes fairly, and to conscript and train
soldiers. Tax-farming, bribery, and favoritism would end. But how would
these promises, revolutionary for the Ottoman Empire, be fulfilled? The
answer is that Reshid led some young and able officials who believed that
liberal reforms would save the Ottoman Empire. Most aspects of Ottoman
public life were restructured: A state school system was set up to train