The decline of Ottoman power was due to the union, starting from the 17th century , of various elements of crisis: the inability of scientific and technological evolution, the intrusiveness of the clergy and Janissaries on the government, the widespread corruption, the precariousness of the roles of the noble stratum, the weight which has become increasingly unbearable an enormous military apparatus not supported by sufficient productive forces.
The attempt made by Osman II (1618-22) to reorganize power led to his assassination by the Janissaries .
During the eighteenth century the military power of the empire entered an irreversible crisis; and it emerged clearly in the course of the wars not only with Austria , but also and above all with Russia than Peter I the Great had raised to European power.
In 1718 the empire lost the Banat and Serbia .
In 1774 Russia took Crimea , extending its influence on the Black Sea and the Balkans . Istanbul he was less and less able to control the provinces and in the first place Egypt and the Barbary states.
The empire, attacked by Napoleon in 1798-1801 , was saved from collapse only by the victory of the English fleet in Abukir (1798).
But the internal crisis - in vain opposed by the sultan Selim III (1789-1807) - continued, and in 1807-1808 the Janissaries revolted.
Egypt in 1805 it became de facto autonomous under the pasha Mehmet Alì .
A moment of momentary recovery was the energetic reforming action of Mahmud II (1808-1839) , which destroyed the body of the Janissaries in 1826 .
But in 1812 the sultan had to give up Bessarabia to Russia .
When you think of the Ottoman Empire today, the first thing that comes to mind is its downfall. One thinks of the sick man on the Bosphorus of the 19th century, of the lost First World War and finally of Atatürks assumption of power and thus the end of the empire. And before? You can find an answer