Chapter 23: Turkey, China, Japan, and the West Flashcards
Muhammad Ali
Muhamamd Ali was an Albanian Ottoman officer who gained power in the Ottoman Empire with a vision of expanding territory and implementing state-sponsored industrialization.
His power can be traced to the conflict with the Mamluks, who were a military class of former Turkish slaves who regained control of Egypt after FR occupation. After the sultan sent an Ottoman army to retake Egypt, local leaders selected Ali to be the new governor of Egypt. Over the next decade, Ali consolidated power by defeating Mamluk leaders, recapturing Arabia from the Islamic fundamentalist Wahhabis, and gaining control over Sudan.
When the sultan asked Ali to help stop Greece from gaining independence, Ali agreed to send an army and navy to Greece, in exchange for the control of the island of Crete. However, their forces were not strong enough to overthrow Greece’s supporters—Russia, FR, and GB—in the naval Battle of Navarino, so the Egyptian army was destroyed and Greece gained its independence.
Even after this loss, Ali sought control of Syria. His son Ibrahim led an Egyptian force to successfully seize Syria and went on to invade Anatolia. However, European powers intervened again and forced Egypt to withdraw so that the Europeans could decide what to do with the remains of the empire. They allowed Ali to rule in Egypt with severely limited powers until 1952.
Though Ali did not break with the sultan totally, he acted rather independently, because he introduced conscription to Egypt. Conscription compelled all men, even peasants, to become soldiers. By contrast, the sultan’s army was composed of Janissaries, a highly organized elite military unit whose members were paid regularly and wore distinctive uniforms, and citizens were solely recruited as the need arose. He pushed Egypt to industrialize, forming armament factories in Cairo and ship-building factories in Alexandria.
Selim III
[1789-1807] Reformist Sultan Selim III tried to reform the Ottoman army and bureaucracy after Europe, but Islamic scholars and Janissaries opposed these reforms. Islamic scholars fought the secularization of gov’t because it reduced the power of religion. The Janissaries resisted the reforms of their corps because they liked their privileges to quarterly pay, medical care, high standards of living, and considerable social status. Selim’s military reforms were thus limited to new forces of around 10,000 men, who were organized into European-style formations and used European weapons and tactics. [1807] Selim III was executed by conservatives supported by Janissaries.
Mahmud II
[1808-1839] Sultan Mahmud II enacted more successful reforms than Selim III, though it was by violent force. [1826] He abolished the corps of Janissaries, who had opposed him, and developed a new artillery unit trained by Europeans. When the Istanbul Janissaries revolted, he had them massacred, and those who survived were forced underground and thus became less threatening to the political balance. [1831] The abolishment of the feudal system marked the final defeat of the Janissaries’ power. Military officials were no longer able to collect taxes directly from the populace for their salaries. Instead, tax collections went directly to the central gov’t, which paid military personnel, thus ensuring their loyalty. [1839-1876] Reforms after Mahmud are called Tanzimat (reorganization) and included changes to stop corruption, improve education (ulama → secularization of schools and colleges), reform the legal system (Hatt-i Humayun), commercialize (commercial & penal codes), and strengthen Islam (cap → fez).
Qing Dynasty
[1644-1911] The Qing Dynasty was the final dynasty for China. It had many accomplishments, but Western intervention weakened it in the end. The dynasty was troubled from the start because it was ethnically Manchu, and the Chinese people were already distrustful of foreign rule.
Sun Yat-sen
Although many Chinese had united behind the empress to fight foreign influence, a revolutionary movement overthrew the empire and replaced it with a Chinese republic with Sun Yat-sen as its first leader. Although weak in the face of provincial warlords, the struggling republic tried to follow the three ideals of Sun Yat-sen, which he later elaborated upon in his book The Three People’s Principles: democracy, nationalism, and livelihood. By democracy, he meant sovereignty for those Chinese who were “able,” or active and pragmatic experts, in Confucian terms. By nationalism, he meant patriotism and loyalty, primarily to central authority. By livelihood, he meant an end to unequal distribution of wealth and economic exploitation. Though he was eventually ousted from power by a warlord, his ideas formed the basis of the Chinese Nationalist Party, Kuomintang, which ruled much of China for decades in the twentieth century.
Emperor Mutsuhito
Following the collapse of the shogunate, the new emperor who came into power established the [1868-1912] Meiji Era. His name was Emperor Mutsuhito, and he was interested in abolishing feudalism and reorganizing Japan into prefectures, districts administered by the central gov’t rather than provinces ruled by the daimyos, nobles who had supported the shogun. He was supported by young, energetic, far-sighted oligarchs, some of whom had been daimyos, but now were salaried members of the gov’t. Daimyos who disagreed with the new administration retired. He also showed willingness to meet with foreign envoys. Mutsuhito issued a number of reforms, including the [1868] Charter Oath, which formally abolished feudalism.
Battle of Navarino
When the sultan asked Muhammad Ali to help stop Greece from gaining independence, Ali agreed to send an army and navy to Greece, in exchange for the control of the island of Crete. However, their forces were not strong enough to overthrow Greece’s supporters—Russia, FR, and GB—in the naval Battle of Navarino, so the Egyptian army was destroyed and Greece gained its independence.
Janissaries
Though Ali did not break with the sultan totally, he acted rather independently, because he introduced conscription to Egypt. Conscription compelled all men, even peasants, to become soldiers. By contrast, the sultan’s army was composed of Janissaries, a highly organized elite military unit whose members were paid regularly and wore distinctive uniforms, and citizens were solely recruited as the need arose.
conscription
Though Ali did not break with the sultan totally, he acted rather independently, because he introduced conscription to Egypt. Conscription compelled all men, even peasants, to become soldiers. By contrast, the sultan’s army was composed of Janissaries, a highly organized elite military unit whose members were paid regularly and wore distinctive uniforms, and citizens were solely recruited as the need arose.
Cairo
Muhammad Ali pushed Egypt to industrialize, forming armament factories in Cairo.
Tanzimat
[1839-1876] Reforms after Mahmud are called Tanzimat (reorganization) and included changes to stop corruption, improve education (ulama or educated class of Muslim scholars → secularization of schools and colleges), reform the legal system (Hatt-i Humayun), commercialize (commercial & penal codes), and strengthen Islam (cap → fez).
[1856] The sultan issued an edict known as the Hatt-i Humayun (Ottoman Reform Edict) that updated the legal system, declaring equality for all men in education, gov’t appointments, and justice regardless of religion or ethnicity. The new legal system also regulated the millets, which were separate legal courts established by religious communities, each using its own set of religious laws. Christians in the Balkans protested the new regulations because they felt that their autonomy was being threatened. Muslims, on the other hand, protested the reforms because they conflicted with traditional values and practice.
Hatt-i Humayun
During the period of Turkish reorganization known as Tanzimat, [1856] the sultan issued an edict known as the Hatt-i Humayun (Ottoman Reform Edict) that updated the legal system. This edict declared equality for all men in education, gov’t appointments, and justice regardless of religion or ethnicity. The new legal system also regulated the millets, which were separate legal courts established by religious communities, each using its own set of religious laws. Christians in the Balkans protested the new regulations because they felt that their autonomy was being threatened. Muslims, on the other hand, protested the reforms because they conflicted with traditional values and practice.
Congress of Berlin
[early 1800s] With the help of Russia, Serbia created its own hereditary dynasty and [1878] legally became a separate state after the Congress of Berlin, which met to reorganize the Balkans after the brief Russo-Turkish War.
Russo-Turkish War
[early 1800s] With the help of Russia, Serbia created its own hereditary dynasty and [1878] legally became a separate state after the Congress of Berlin, which met to reorganize the Balkans after the brief Russo-Turkish War.
extraterritoriality
Extraterritoriality is the right of foreign residents in a country to live under the laws of their own country rather than those of their host country. Hence, foreigners could break an Ottoman law and not get punished for it. The Ottomans, like the Chinese and people in other places where foreigners successfully demanded extraterritoriality, found the practice demeaning.
Opium War
Though the Chinese were not receptive to other foreign products, the British had opium, which was grown in great quantities in British India and the Ottoman Empire for easy importation into China, where the Chinese people would become addicted to the substance. The Qing rulers had long forbade the importation of opium but did not enforce the law. However, as opium addiction became widespread, the Chinese gov’t acted and [1839] seized shipments. The British gov’t wanted to sell opium in China, so they fought in the Opium War, and the Chinese, who lacked a navy, quickly lost and were forced to negotiate the terms of the Treaty of Nanking. This treaty granted more trading rights to Europeans and allowed spheres of influence to form. British citizens in China were granted extraterritoriality.
Taiping Rebellion
Hong Xiuquan was a failed applicant for a civil service position, who, after converting to Christianity, believed himself to be the younger brother of Jesus. He thought that God wanted him to overthrow the Qing Dynasty and create a new Christian kingdom in Asia. [1851] A minor skirmish quickly turned into the Taiping Rebellion, in which starving peasants, workers, and miners joined with others who opposed Qing rule, and Hong quickly built an army of a million fighters against the imperial army. [1864] But the forces of the Qing, with help from some provincial warlords along with FR and GB intervention, were able to put down the rebellion. Confucian principles of behavior also helped the cause of the Qing: Chinese subjects were supposed to respect their rulers, just as the rulers had a duty to rule virtuously.
Self-Strenghtening Movement
This was the Chinese gov’t’s main reform effort of the late nineteenth century, targeting the nation’s internal and external problems. Its strategy in the reform efforts was to graft modern technology onto Chinese tradition instead of creating major change in cultural or political ideas. Gov’t officials hoped to strengthen China in its competition with foreign powers by advancing its military technology and readiness and by training Chinese artisans in the manufacture of items for shipyards and arsenals. FR and GB advisors helped Chinese reform efforts. The gov’t set up its own diplomatic corps and a customs service to help collect taxes on imports and exports, which was met with conflict when the regional warlords who helped stop the Taiping Rebellion demanded concessions for remaining loyal to the central gov’t.
