Part 5, the Ottoman Empire

art 5 out of 5.5 Why are the Ottomans all Assho..wait who are the hell are the Ottomans?
Sigh…here is the problem about "IB World Topics" is that is a lie. Like most of the IB program it isn't teaching you stuff, its just teaching you how to repeat things. So despite being in "world history", in reality this means, "history according to white people" because lets be honest, we (America ) have are not interested in these little things like non white cultures (we barely even talk about China until the age of imperialism.) One of the examples of this is the Ottoman Empire, we only learn about them in context to WWI, where they come off as an inept empire on its last legs. The Ottomans through was one of the most powerful and culturally advanced civilizations in western history lasting about 700 years. Of course we don't learn about the early parts of the Ottoman Empire, because that was Pre industrial European history, and nobody but Eastern Europeans care about that. So lets sum up one of the oldest and most advanced cultures of Europe shall we? To understand the Ottomans we have to go back to the 1200s when they were founded by Oshman I, and to do that we have to understand the Romans. Basically the Roman Empire, the greatest Empire in Western History, and possibly the world, was divided into two eventually, with Rome being the Western Half of Europe (France, England, Spain, Italy, North Africa and parts of Germany) and eastern Rome centered in Constantinople (now Istanbul) which was Greece, the Middle East, The Balkans, Turkey, Macedonia, and later North Africa. When Western Rome fell, the Eastern Rome was called the Byzantine Empire and ruled the east for thousand years. While the Romans started out pagan, they eventually became Christian, and spread Christianity around the world, so by the time Byzantium came to power, it was fully Christian, through Orthodox not catholic (we will cover Christianity types later). Thus while Western Europe was in a state of chaos and confusion (Dark Ages) Byzantium, centered in Greece and Turkey, was the cultural center of the world, rivaling China. Its main rival was the Persian empire in modern Iran, which they finally defeated. However, something new emerged. The Muhammad the Prophet was supposedly visited by an angel in 610, and started to spread his faith across the world. Now in the Middle East, there are three traditional centers of power. Iran/Iraq's main city of Baghdad, Egyptian city of Alexandria (later Cairo), and finally Syria/Jerusalem. With Mohammad’s rise, the new power center of Mecca in Arabia emerged (we will cover the Arabs later). Anyways, the Byzantine Empire spend most of its energy holding off the three separate Islamic Empires, centered in Arabia, Baghdad, and Alexandra respectfully (they didn't exist as the same time), and here we have the crusades and all that jazz. Then Genghis Khan, the worlds greatest Badass, came in form Mongolian and took over all of Russia. Because he was really scary, lot of tribes who use to live in central Russia fled into other areas, such as the Bulgurs (Bulgaria), Hungarians (Hungry), Cossacks (Western Russia) and finally the Turks (Turkey). At the time that was owned by the Byzantine Empire, and the Turkish tribes, who were not united were held off. However Oshman I united the Turks together and created the Ottomant Turks who under Mehmed II destroyed the Byzantine Empire once and for all and turned its greatest city, Constantinople into his new capital, Istanbul. The ottoman Turks converted to Islam, however they are not what we would call "normal Muslims" they aren't Arabic, Persian, African or even Europeons, they were originally Asians, so the rest of the Islamic world never really liked them. However the Ottomans went "Screw you" and took them over. This is the
Ottoman Empire at its height

(Actually it was a little bigger, they owned Spain indirectly), The Ottoman Empire united the Arabic world (except notably the sect in Iran, but we will cover that much later) and almost destroyed Christianity once and for all. However they were stopped by the Christians in Hungry and Malta and after that the whole empire just kinda fell apart. If they weren't conquering something, they just couldn't keep all of these people under control and so the Empire started to decay. Its notable that when Europe was in the middle ages, and your ability to get ahead in life was based on birth, the Ottomans who allowed commoners to gain power but when Europe started to invent Democracies, the Ottoman Empire started to look bad in comparison. Its various subject people's started to rebel and break off or get taken over by England, Russia or France. Ironically, the Empire, the first nation to use cannons to destroy a city, defeated by the guns and cannons of the west. So, by the time WWI comes about, the Ottoman Empire on their last legs, they lasted 700 years, and it was a good run, so we shouldn't mock them they way we mock say, the Russians. The biggest problem was the biggest problem for India and China. They cultures were advanced, civilized and powerful, but they just couldn't defeat the technologically advanced Western Europe. But they didn't want to give up on their ancient traditions, because they were proud of their way of life. So they couldn't advance but couldn't compete. They tried again and again to reform, but the conservatives in the nations always objected, and the subjected peoples kept breaking off. They couldn't get an industry working because they didn't have a capitalistic culture, they couldn't get modern technology cause they were too divided and not wealthy enough, they couldn't become Europeans because they were Islamic and Asian besides, but they refused to become a colony. Things were made worst by the Europeans supporting the rebellion of its colonies, like Greece, and later the Balkans, as well as the middle east. Now this is the Ottoman Empire right before the War

Now everybody knew that the Ottoman Empire was going to collapse, it was called the sick man of Europe due to its internal strife, political corruption, inept rulers (inbreeding), and the fact that they were broke or in dept to Europe. In fact, for awhile the only thing that kept the Empire standing was it was a sort of buffer state, as England, France, Austria, and Russia all wanted to take over as much of it as possible, but they also didn't want any other nation to take it. So they would try to keep the ottoman in power just so they could keep Russian from nabbing the whole empire, while the rest of Europe nicked bits and pieces. several wars were fought between European powers not against the Ottoman empire but instead over who gets to take its land. Its like somebody who got stabbed in a stomach, and all of his friends are fighting to call dibs on his stuff before he even died. Now in 1908 through, everything..kinda changed. The young Turks, a reformist government took over, and made a really honest to god attempt to reform the dying empire, and weirdly enough, were actually doing kinda well, the empire was getting back on its feet, still shaky, but doing kinda good. This didn't last long through, because they entered WWI which was a horrible idea. Anyways, last things to note
1) the Turks still own the Holy City of Jerusalem, which is sacred to every single Jewish, Christian and Islamic sect, as well as a few ethnic groups.
2) They are not what we call "normal" Islam, they follow a different faith and view the church as sort of a separate institution than the state to a lesser extent. Thus the Arabic, Persian, and other non Turkish Muslims hate them.
3) There is a group of people in Eastern Turkey called the Armenians. They are Christians, through they follow their own version of Christianity and they have a very long lasting hatred with the Turks. Its a...long story, but they kill 1.5 million of them later.
4) They HATE the Greeks. The feeling is mutual. They still hate each other. They have fought