Disintegration of the Ottoman Empire

• Mehmet II "The Conqueror":

• Bayezid II

• Selim I

• Suleyman I "The Magnificient": In 1536, the Ottomans
  entered an agreement with the French that permitted them to trade
  throughout Ottoman lands. Total religious liberty was also given to the
  French. They were granted the right to maintain the guard the Holy
  Places, which created a French protectorate over the Catholics in the
  Ottoman Empire. With the death of Suleiman, the era of voluntary
  capitulations ended. As the 17th c. began, the Ottomans saw themselves
  further and further weakened by military losses, a crippling inflation
  and a major decline in administrative integrity. The era of forced
  capitulations had begun.

Foreign Interventions into Ottoman Internal Affairs:
The Great Powers interfered with the internal affairs of the Ottoman
Empire on a regular basis. Their excuse has always been the
"ill-treatment of the minorities" within the Empire. The external
interference would act as the major factor influencing the Haik
Revolution, next to in importance, perhaps, the spread east of the
romantic ideals of the French Revolution in the late 18th c. and the
German Nationalistic movement in the early 19th c. The reaction to
Ottoman rule was fueled by the revolutionary ideas of the French
Revolution and the nationalistic currents of the anti-Napoleonic
movements, particularly in Germany.

• Mustafa II and Karlowitz: Ottomans met major defeat on
  the European battlefield for the first time during the second siege of
  Vienna between July 17 and September 12, 1683. In the words of Bernard
  Lewis: "For most of the 17th century, …fill in…p 16-19 and to form alliances with European powers against other European powers".

• Ascent of Principality of Muscowy to Imperial Russia:
  Ivan The Terrible (1533-1584) stands at the beginning of modern Russian
  history. The following is excerpted from A.J. Grant’s ‘A History of
  Europe: Part III – Modern Europe Including Great Britain’ (Longmans,
  Green and Co., NY, 1930). Ivan favored the middle and lower
  classes, opened his country to the commerce of Western Europe, and
  showed some interest in learning. Upon the extinction of his blood line
  in 163, a boy of 16, Michael Romanoff, was chosen and nearly all the
  rulers of Russia since that date have been descended from him. The
  great epoch in the history of Russia came when in 1689 Peter the Great
  mounted the throne, which he occupied until 1725. This ferocious tyrant
  was passionately interested in science and in industry, and anxious,
  above all things, to introduce the civilization of Europe into his own
  semi-barbarous land, despite a dogged resistance from the habits and
  traditions of the people supported by the Church. From early youth, he
  had been attracted by ships and sea-faring life. It was largely that he
  might know how to organize a fleet that he set out on his famous
  travels which took him to Holland, England, and France. On his return,
  he built a considerable navy, and sailing with it down the river Don,
  appeared before Azov and took that strong Turkish fortress (August 6,
  1696). The open sea was always in his thoughts, and he was shut
  out from the entirely. In the south, the Turkish power controlled the
  shores of the Black Sea; in the north access to the Baltic was barred
  by Poland and, above all, by Sweden. Peter invaded the Swede King
  Charles XII’s Baltic provinces while the latter was in Saxony; but was
  unable to hold them. Charles, in an act that preceded Napoleon and
  Hitler, determined to march on Moscow and capture it. But the
  resistance of the Russians grew fiercer as their own country was
  invaded and Charles abandoned the idea. Ivan later took from Sweden all
  the provinces lying round the Gulf of Findland, where he founded the
  city of St. Petersburg. In 1721, he was acclaimed as ‘Father of the
  Fatherland, Peter the Great, and Emperor of all Russians’.The most
  remarkable of Peter’s successors was Catherine II, the German wife of
  Peter III, who, in 1762, gained the throne by the deposition and murder
  of her husband.As part of their policies of becoming an Empire,
  Russians intervened with the Turco-Persian war of 1723-1727 by sending
  troops to the Caspian Sea and seizing the Khanate of Kuba, to the north
  of Baku. Some 40 years later, for the first time, they acquired the
  coveted right of interfering with internal affairs of the Ottoman
  Empire. The events in Poland lead to the Russo-Turkish war of 1768,
  which ended with heavy Ottoman territorial losses in the Balkans and in
  Transcaucasia (Kabartay on Elbrus). With the treaty of Kucuk Kaynarca,
  signed in 1774 between Sultan Mustafa III and Empress Catherine II (The
  Great), Russians obtained the right to intervene on behalf of the
  Orthodox Christian population of the Ottoman Empire. Also, the Crimean
  Tatars were made independent of the Ottoman Empire, thus giving Russia
  an outlet to the Black Sea.In 1787, Catherine the Great of Russia and
  Emperor Joseph II of Austria-Hungary met at Kherson in the Crimea, just
  north of Yalta, and devised a plan to partition the Ottoman Empire’s
  European territories of Wallachia, Moldavia; to establish an Orthodox
  Greek state, which would be called Dacia; and to create a
  Greek-Orthodox New Byzantium when Constantinople would fall.From 1796
  to 1828, a series of Russian victories over Persia, culminating with
  the treates of Goulistan (1813) and Turkmenchai (1828), granted the
  Russians vast territories in the Caucusus, including Baku, Karabag,
  Georgia, Erevan, Nachitchevan and, most importantly, Echmiadzin where
  the See of Orthodox Haik resided. Next to 1774, 1828 would thus be the
  second turning point in the enless and unscrupulous Russian
  exploitation of Haik subjects towards the fulfilment of their imperial
  ambitions in the centuries to come. Next, Tzar Nicholas I (1825-1855)
  created what would later become the Soviet Republic of Armenia, by
  uniting the khanates of Erivan and Nachitchevan and declaring himself
  King of Armenia, akin to his title in Europe, King of Poland. He would
  also coin the term "The Sick Man of Europe" when referring to the
  Ottoman Empire ( Sam Weems,
  Armenia:The Secret of a Terrorist Christian State"With the Crimean War,
  which raged from 1854 to 1856, Britain realized for the first time the
  severity of Russian expansionist threat. She interfered on behalf of
  the Ottoman Empire, thus forcing the Vienna Peace Treaty, in which the
  Russian protectorate over the Orthodox Christian subjects of the
  Ottoman Empire was lifted.

• Greek War of Independence: Meanwhile in the west, the
  foundation of Greece as a nation independent of the Ottoman Empire in
  1826 set a precedent for similar nationalistic movements in the
  Balkans, precipitating the death and exile of millions of Muslim from
  the area into Anatolian soil. In his classic 1897 study The War of Greek Independence: 1821-1833, W. Allison Phillips writes the following: "Everywhere,
  indeed, the conduct of the insurrection was characterized by the same
  treachery and unbounded cruelty. It may perhaps be permissible to make
  allowances for the excesses of a wild people, whose passionate hatred,
  suppressed for centuries, had at least found a vent. But nothing can
  excuse the callous treachery which too often precceded deeds of blood;
  and since Europe passed a heavy judgment on the cruel reprisals of the
  Trk, historical justice does not allow us to hide the crimes by which
  they were instigated". The Greek War would also cause the weakening
  of Ottoman forces in the East, from which the Russians benefited
  maximally by moving into Asia Minor, all the way to Erzourum, and
  forcing the Treaty of Edirne in 1839, in which the Caucuses fell
  entirely into Russian hands.

• The Balkan Problem: In this section, we once again refer to the words of A.J. Grant in his History of Europe.
  The preponderance of Germany in Europe after 1871 was unquestioned, and
  Bismark used the prestige of the country to draw to his side the
  Emperors of Russia and Austria. This is what is called the League of
  the Three Emperors. Western Europe remained at peace, if not peaceful,
  and t seemed as though in the West, the State System had reached its
  permanent form. But the Balkan Peninsula was continually agitated by
  movements and alarms; and every great diplomatic change in Europe down
  to the war of 1914 has been closely related to some development in the
  Balkans. The decadence and disintegration of Turkey have gone on
  continuously; and nearly all round her circumference there has been a
  narrowing of her frontiers and the formation of new states. The two
  forces that have constantly undermined the power of Turkey are religion
  and nationality in close alliance. The majority of the population of
  the Turkish dominions in Europe are Christians of the Eastern or
  "orthodox" Church, and the Muslim yoke has pressed on them with
  irritating and oppressive force. They have all felt moreover that the
  Turks are aliens, and they have been accustomed to look to Russia for
  protection and sympathy. Greece had established itself in the south in
  complete independence as early as 1829. The mountain state of
  Montenegro in the west, after heroic combats, had won for itself
  practical independence, though the Turkish government had never
  recognized its independence. To the north of Danube, Roumania possessed
  self-government but remained nominally within the limits of the Ottoman
  Empire. South of the Danube, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia abd above
  all Bulgaria, were in continual unrest. The Turks were conscious of the
  weakness of their hold upon these peoples and looked to austere methods
  to keep them in subordination. There were many promises of reform, but
  they came to little or nothing. In 1875, the mutterings of rebellion
  developed into open defiance of the Turkish power in Bosnia and
  Herzegovina. The insurgents won some early successes, but then they
  were overwhelmed by the Turkish armies. At the same time the
  Bulgarians, who were on the eve of a similar movement of independence,
  were crushed by the Turks.It was recognized by diplomatists that the
  Balkan peninsula was the storm-center of Europe. Russia and Austria
  were interested as neighbor; Great Britain because of her commercial
  interests in the Mediterranean. There were conferences, proposals and
  counter-proposal at plenty. At last, in 1877, Russia sent an ultimatum,
  and as her demands were not accepted, war came at once. The other great
  powers stood aloof and looked on at the duel.In the war, both the
  Turkish troops and their commanders showed unexpected powers, and it
  seemed for a time as though the Russians might be driven back behind
  the Danube, but in the end, the numbers wealth and organization of
  Russia and the corruption of the Turkish government produced their
  inevitable results. The Russians, helped only by the Roumanians,
  penetrated in the neighborhoods of Constantinople and Turkey lay at
  their mercy. The treaty of San Stefano was forced upon the Turks, and,
  if it had been put into effect, Turkey would have ceased to be an
  important power in Europe. But here the European powers again
  intervened, Great Britain under Disraeli taking a leading part. The
  power of Germany and the influence of Bismarck were displayed by the
  choice of Berlin as the site of a European Congress, which led up,
  after much discussion, to the Treaty of Berlin. The deep humiliation of
  Turkey, implied in the Treaty of San Stefano, was avoided in the Berlin
  treaty, but her loss in territory and prestige was great. Romania,
  Montenegro and Serbia were declared sovereign and independent states.
  Bosnia and Herzegovina, while remaining nominally within the Turkish
  dominions, were placed under the administration of Austria. Instead of
  the greate state of Bulgaria, which had been planned by the treaty of
  San Stefano, a comparatively small State with that name was
  established, stretching only as far south as the Balkan mountains, but
  enjoying practical independence. To the south of the mountains, a state
  was created under the name of Roumelia, with large powers of
  self-government, but still under the suzerainty of the Sultan,. Great
  Britain claimed and obtained Cyprus as the reward of its services in
  defence of the Sultan. But there too, nomilal suzerainty of the Sultan
  was still maintained.