Ottoman stagnation debate continuation

[Indicus]

Also, what do mean by "they are only considered failures because they lost"? Please don't take this as an offense, but that's quite a circular reasoning.

My point is, victory was in the cards in many of their nineteenth-century conflicts such as the Greek War of Independence and the 1877-78 war, and if they had won those conflicts, their reforms would be considered successes. But they lost those winnable wars, and so we like to call the attempts to reform failures.

My point is, we should not blame Ottoman failure on a failure to reform, but on failing to do well with horrible geopolitics.

 

[Jürgen]

Because I find this discussion very interesting, I gave begun rereading a book about this subject. It 's named the Muslim Discovery of Europe, and it gives some interesting perspectives why the Muslim world wasn't able to adopt European advances in time.

 

[Jürgen]

My point is, victory was in the cards in many of their nineteenth-century conflicts such as the Greek War of Independence and the 1877-78 war, and if they had won those conflicts, their reforms would be considered successes. But they lost those winnable wars, and so we like to call the attempts to reform failures.

My point is, we should not blame Ottoman failure on a failure to reform, but on failing to do well with horrible geopolitics.

The problem was that the Ottomans had brought themselves in that situation. The Ottomans wasn't the Qing, where the European dominance came suddenly as a storm. The Ottomans was a integrated part of the European alliance network, if any "non-European" state should have been able to adapt, it was them. But they failed and that failure was on all points, they failed to see the danger early enough, they failed to reform early enough and they failed geopolitical.

 

[Lampiao]

My point is, victory was in the cards in many of their nineteenth-century conflicts such as the Greek War of Independence and the 1877-78 war, and if they had won those conflicts, their reforms would be considered successes. But they lost those winnable wars, and so we like to call the attempts to reform failures.

My point is, we should not blame Ottoman failure on a failure to reform, but on failing to do well with horrible geopolitics.

I would agree with you if we were talking about one or two revolts, but the Ottomans faced countless uprisings over and over again and pretty muhc failed to create a long lasting functional state in a geographical area that they have controlled for more than three hundred years.

 

[Lampiao]

Because I find this discussion very interesting, I gave begun rereading a book about this subject. It 's named the Muslim Discovery of Europe, and it gives some interesting perspectives why the Muslim world wasn't able to adopt European advances in time.

I love this subject. Although I have to admit that I have little knowledge about the history of science I suppose that we can blame the Ottomans for the Islamic "intelectual stagnation" since they're the closest to Europe? Perhaps a subject for another thread?

 

[Indicus]

The problem was that the Ottomans had brought themselves in that situation. The Ottomans wasn't the Qing, where the European dominance came suddenly as a storm. The Ottomans was a integrated part of the European alliance network, if any "non-European" state should have been able to adapt, it was them. But they failed and that failure was on all points, they failed to see the danger early enough, they failed to reform early enough and they failed geopolitical.

They did not fail to see the danger early enough. The danger was seen as early as the 1790s by Selim III, though much like other European states, they later attempted to put a lid on it and only reformed in the mid-19th century. They did not fail to reform. In fact, they actually had a parliament in the 1870s, before Russia, a Christian state! Their military was successfully reformed to become equal to Europe, and the Tanzimat reforms were extremely successful. And while they did fail geopolitically, they only failed because of a few events and wars.

I would agree with you if we were talking about one or two revolts, but the Ottomans faced countless uprisings over and over again and pretty muhc failed to create a long lasting functional state in a geographical area that they have controlled for more than three hundred years.

Well, let's begin with a rather late POD, during the 1877-78 war. They could have won, I don't doubt that. And if they did, the Ottoman parliament would have been retained, and thus the Balkans would have continued to elect representatives, removing a lot of dissent there. And the rise of Turkish nationalism that came afterwards would not occur, as the Ottomans would continue to be centred in the Balkans. The Ottomans would have no hope at this point of being as great as they were at the time of Suleiman the Magnificent, of course, but they could be a great power here.

And it is here that a single war means a stable Ottoman state. Subsequently, we would unanimously consider the Ottoman reforms a success, rather than hold a lengthy argument on the matter.

I love this subject. Although I have to admit that I have little knowledge about the history of science I suppose that we can blame the Ottomans for the Islamic "intelectual stagnation" since they're the closest to Europe? Perhaps a subject for another thread?

Here, the issue is tarring the entire Islamic world with one brush. For instance, India is arguably part of the Islamic world, even if it's not majority-Muslim. Yet, Indians independently conceived of Tycho Brahe's model of the planets, invented the seamless celestial globe before Europe did, and had numerous medicinal discoveries that caused waves when they were translated into Latin by European traders in the early modern era.

But yeah, this belongs in another thread.

 

[Jürgen]

I love this subject. Although I have to admit that I have little knowledge about the history of science I suppose that we can blame the Ottomans for the Islamic "intelectual stagnation" since they're the closest to Europe? Perhaps a subject for another thread?

No the book comes with the theory that there's fundamental institutional reasons for it. It's important to get that Europe was not the centre of Christianity, it was the fringe, a pretty undeveloped barbarian fringe, which existed in a post-Roman collapse. It lost its centre to Islam, this created a need in Europe to understand Islam, the fact that the centre of Christian civilization was under Arab rule, meant that Europeans focused on importing knowledge from the Muslims and created a cultural curiosity about other religions.

The Muslims on the other hand controlled their centre, they was the centre of civilization. They was also the new way, while the Christians was the old way, so there was nothing, they could learn from Christians, because they was impoverished people who hadn't embrace modernity (Islam), so in the cases Muslim looked abroad, they looked to China and India not to the Evening Land. This attitude made it hard for the Muslims to learn from Christians or it was only worsen that if they had to interact with the Christian states, they could just use their Christian or Jewish subjects to do so. It created a fundamental complacency for Muslims in their interaction with Christianity and Europe.

 

[Nassirisimo]

Because I find this discussion very interesting, I gave begun rereading a book about this subject. It 's named the Muslim Discovery of Europe, and it gives some interesting perspectives why the Muslim world wasn't able to adopt European advances in time.

I'd try to move beyond the Bernard Lewis if I were you. While certainly an academic titan of his time, academia has come a long way since he was active and his work is certainly outdated, or just straight out wrong in certain areas (Persia of 1730 was certainly not "more backward" than the Ottoman Empire).

As for the main question of the thread, I do think that resources play a part in the loss of Ottoman pre-eminence over Europe. In the 18th century, many European nations developed what was known as the "fiscal-military state", able to raise relatively large amounts of taxes to pay for large and professional armies and navies. Those which struggled to impose some form of centralised government and a powerful military, such as Commonwealth Poland, fell by the wayside. In some respects the Ottomans were more fortunate than the Poles, strategically protected by the Mountainous Balkans and the Black Sea, which only ceased to be an Ottoman Lake toward the end of the 18th century.

The Ottoman Empire of the 18th century had the kind of population to equal the greatest European powers, but what it lacked was the centralised state structure. Much of the Ottoman Empire was untaxable by the central authorities, leaving the resources that were actually available to the Ottoman Government rather sparing when compared to France, a European power with a comparable population. This fiscal weakness meant that the Ottomans could not sustain the kind of army that the Europeans had, leading to a military imbalance that was only just there in 1700, but that was all too evident in 1800.

This fiscal weakness was in a large part due to the decentralisation of the Empire. This was in part due to the centrifugal geography of the Empire, with centers of population often split by arid or mountainous areas. This being said, there were a few population cores that could have developed into thriving commercial regions along the lines of Southeast England, though until the 19th century this by and large did not happen. I think that in some respects this can be decoupled from the decline in Ottoman military-political power, as a number of European countries, such as Russia, remained socially backward while managing to establish themselves as major military powers in a way that the Ottomans weren't after 1877 in particular. I would like to elaborate on this another time as it is 10:36pm here and I have work tomorrow...

 

[Jürgen]

They did not fail to see the danger early enough. The danger was seen as early as the 1790s by Selim III, though much like other European states, they later attempted to put a lid on it and only reformed in the mid-19th century. They did not fail to reform. In fact, they actually had a parliament in the 1870s, before Russia, a Christian state! Their military was successfully reformed to become equal to Europe, and the Tanzimat reforms were extremely successful. And while they did fail geopolitically, they only failed because of a few events and wars.

1790 was in best case a century too late and I would argue the warning signs already began a century earlier than that. The Ottomans had a Empire almost the size of the Roman one, and they ended up in a permanent conflict against the Austrians, who at the same time had to deal with France and its vassals. Russia a country suffering one humiliation after another was able to push the Ottomans vassal out. There was warning sign after warning sign, and they only began discovering it after they had lost half their empire in Europe.

 

[Nassirisimo]

1790 was in best case a century too late and I would argue the warning signs already began a century earlier than that. The Ottomans had a Empire almost the size of the Roman one, and they ended up in a permanent conflict against the Austrians, who at the same time had to deal with France and its vassals. Russia a country suffering one humiliation after another was able to push the Ottomans vassal out. There was warning sign after warning sign, and they only began discovering it after they had lost half their empire in Europe.

I would suggest reading up on the short reign of Osman II. There were those in the Ottoman Empire who were aware of the changing balance of power quite early on in the Empire's history (the Ottomans were still kicking ass for much of the 17th century). The problem for the Ottomans in terms of enacting meaningful reforms was not a lack of awareness among the Empire's rulers, but rather a desire by internal factions such as the Janissaries to shore up their own power.

 

[Jürgen]

I would suggest reading up on the short reign of Osman II. There were those in the Ottoman Empire who were aware of the changing balance of power quite early on in the Empire's history (the Ottomans were still kicking ass for much of the 17th century). The problem for the Ottomans in terms of enacting meaningful reforms was not a lack of awareness among the Empire's rulers, but rather a desire by internal factions such as the Janissaries to shore up their own power.

The point even if you kick ass, the warning signs show themselves earlier. Let me give a Danish example. Denmark won the Kalmar War against Sweden, but all the sign of the rising Swedish Empire was there, and the superiority of the Swedish military model. But the Danish king learned nothing from it, or he didn't learn anything which wasn't counterproductive. The results was several humiliating Danish defeats several decades later, where Denmark lost one third of its possessions. If the king had tried to reform the army after Swedish pattern, not only would the Wars with Sweden had been avoided, the Danish phase of the 30YW would likely have been a success.

 

[123456789blaaa]

You know, when I started this thread, I was expecting a 1 on 1 debate with some comments by other members here and there. I don't know if @Lampiao expected this but the tide of responses after my first reply basically meant that I would have to spend a decent chunk of time writing down an answer. Having said that, I have found the time almost 3 months later.

Well, I stand by my opinion. They took too much time to change. By the mid 1800's the "perfect storm" was already created, they'd a much more radical change than they were willing to do.



European Philihellenism surely helped the revolt, but you can't simply say Nationalistic revolts happened because of foreign influence. As Indicus mentioned, they happen because of harsh rule, as pretty much like the French, American, or any other revolution in the world. Also, you can't simply butterfly away Philihellenism from the Western mentality (this forum is a living proof of this); thus you can't simply start a massacre of Christian Greeks and not piss the Christians and Philihellenes off. Of course they'd react to defend their Christian borthers, as they did during the rest of 19th century countless times.

Firstly, they took "too long" to change because of bad luck. If you have reason to believe that (for example) the lack of Selim III's overthrow wouldn't have greatly accelerated the pace and scope of reform, then say it. Secondly, you haven't demonstrated why the mid-1800's is "too late". For example, how do you envision the Ottomans failing if they had won the 1877-78 war when all the events that led to the OTL dismemberment are butterflied away?

I didn't say that revolts happened only because of foreign influence. Of course they rebelled because of harsh rule. I just see no reason to believe that harsh rule was inevitable. The Serbs rebelled in the name of the Emperor against rapacious local elites like the Janissaries. The Emperor had actually given them autonomy previously which local elites had taken away. If the central government had been able to implement strong central rule, the Serb revolt wouldn't have happened in the first place. Similarly, I see no reason why a stronger Ottoman government couldn't implement central control and grant autonomy to the Greeks. Furthermore, a professional army would allow the central government to stop relying on uncontrollable unprofessional military forces and stem any revolt that did happen quickly and efficiently. Navarino happened against the wishes of most of the Christian governments-which is probably why it didn't happen until 6 years into the Greek revolt.

It's not that the Ottoman government didn't recognize there was a problem, or that it refused to emulate European ideas and undertake major changes. At the highest level, the Ottoman reform projects were often well-intentioned, radical and fairly comprehensive.
In practice, however, the Ottoman reforms were slow and cumbersome to start and even slower to implement, heavily watered-down and only somewhat effective. They were more than a little prone to reactionary backswings - Selim III's appeasement of the Janissaries (which led to the Serbian uprising, among other consequences) represents an early example of that. And the reform's impact in the provinces was diminished to a trickle by the resistance of provincial elites (which the state was often unable and/or unwilling to seriously confront).

When the Balkan peoples revolted - and it was hardly surprising that they did, again and again - the Ottomans responded with extreme violence, ensuring the affected regions will be simmering hotbeds of separatism even if the revolt in question is defeated.

And as for European powers...sure, some powers screwed the Ottomans over at various points and hindered the reform movement. But some European powers were defending and helping the Ottomans at various points, and assisting the reform movement. The Ottoman Empire wasn't alone against the world or something. It had about as many enemies - and as many allies - as it could reasonably expect.

Also this idea of they fell because "Europeans kept screwing them over." is silly in a way. Not that the Europeans didn't try doing that and succeeding on a number of occasions but that is what countries always do. The Ottomans weren't just poor victims who dealt with their rivals only with total honesty and fairness. They did their share of screwing people over. The thing is it was a symptom not the cause of the fall of the Ottoman Empire. When they were strong they could prevent themselves being screwed over however as it got weaker it got harder and harder to prevent.

Sure they reformed but not at the same rate as Europe which was problem. It might not have been stagnating in absolute terms but it sure was in relative and it is the relative that counts. In say 1850 it could beat any 1820 European Army but so what? They wouldn't be fight 1820 European Armies but 1850 ones. At its height it was at the gates of Vienna. It was a mere shadow of its former self by the end of WWI. Vibrant societies don't allow that to happen.

I honestly could not give less of a shit on whether the Ottomans were "poor victims". That's completely irrelevant to the topic of the thread. The point is that the Ottomans only fell because of negative European interference. I don't care if that's what they could "reasonably expect". Treating countries like anthropomorphic personifications is useless when discussing historical facts. The question under discussion here is whether or not geopolitical bad luck caused the failure of the OE. Yes countries will always try to screw other countries when it benefits them. So? I'm not making a moral judgement here. I'm-again-discussing historical facts. I believe it is a fact that Napoleons actions caused the overthrow of the reformists in 1808. I believe it is a fact that the 1877-78 war caused the fall of the first constitutional regime. Whether or not this was moral is off-topic. I never said that the Ottomans dealt only with honesty and fairness with their rivals-this is a very stupid strawman and i have no idea why you're bringing it up. Stick to the topic of the thread.

In OTL the Ottomans reforms obviously weren't enough. This is not the topic under discussion. We know that in OTL, the Ottoman regime weakened and fell. The discussion is on whether or not this was inherent or the result of bad luck. You talk about reforming as if its solely the result of willpower and not subject to the conditions of the environment. Selim III didn't appease the Janissaries because he was a retard. He did it because he understood his actual situation instead of flying off into an imaginary dreamland where you can do anything if you try hard enough.

"Vibrant societies don't allow that to happen" is an unsourced assertion that doesn't mean anything. What does "vibrancy" even mean? Does it allow a society to ignore political, environmental, social, and economic factors? You're using circular reasoning. "The Ottomans failed, thus they never had the capacity to succeed because they failed".

I think the fall of the Ottoman Empire was unavoidable, knowledge and know how moved from "Europe" not the other way around, but it wasn't something which was universal embraced, it something which was adopted by the Christian minorities and which didn't spread to the rest of population, because to the Muslims Europe offered nothing of value, at least not before the French rudely awaken them. The Greek and Serbs rebelled after several hundred years of Ottoman mismanagement of the Balkans. The Balkans wasn't a especially poor region of Europe before the Ottomans, but they have still not come back after Ottoman rule, and in fact the shorter Ottoman rule were in the different areas if the region, the better off they are today. The Ottomans offered their Christian subject nothing, to them the Sultan was just a bigger bandit, who plundered his Balkan possession and left a impoverished backwater behind.

Today if you visit Central Europe and the Balkans, the most of former subjects of the Habsburg remember them fondly, and Austrians in general have a okay reputation. The former subjects of the Ottoman despise their former dynasty and the Turks. I think that sums up why the Ottoman ended up the sick man of Europe.

The actions of the Ottomans before the 19th c are irrelevant. Demonstrate how the Ottomans "mismanaged" the Balkans when they reformed and why that makes failure inevitable. You haven't backed up any of your statements. In fact, I know that your statements about the Ottomans offering their Christian subjects nothing is false. Christians were able to get many high-ranking positions in the administration and were overrepresented in the first Ottoman parliament. High ranking Greeks in Istanbul were-as a group-more favorable towards the Ottoman government than they were towards Greece because they benefited from being part of the Ottoman government.

The feelings of modern day people on the Ottomans are irrelevant. People on the streets don't have anything more than superficial historical knowledge.

Is that really an excuse? Stopped by wars? The Ottoman Empire was hardly the only country in the 19th century that had wars. They made a number of mistakes.

So what if other countries had wars? They weren't in the same situation that the Ottomans were in. It's absurd to act as if every country is on a level playing field and only fall because of incompetence. How can someone compare Britain, a country that has some of the biggest natural advantages out there, with the OE? Obviously the Ottomans weren't perfect. So? That's not what's under discussion here. All countries make mistakes. The questions is whether or not those mistakes made the Ottomans dismemberment inevitable or whether they could have succeeded despite those mistakes.

I don't understand your reasoning here. They didn't evolve because they didn't have to? That's the exact mentality that lead to decay of most non-Western societies. Western Europe was already "on the top of the world" by the 16th century, if you allow me this kitsch metaphore, still, Europeans kept evolving and constantly changing (mostly because they constantly fought each other).



Also, what do mean by "they are only considered failures because they lost"? Please don't take this as an offense, but that's quite a circular reasoning.

Non-Western societies aren't a single homogenous group. Lumping them all together under the banner of "stagnation" and "decay" stinks of the some of worst Orientalist tropes. Do you think people in Madagascar can just pull a printing press out of their ass? Saying that Europeans kept evolving and changing mostly because they constantly fought each other is both a severe oversimplification and incredibly demeaning to non-European societies. Have you heard of India? And "on top of the world" by the 16th century? What are you talking about?

The problem was that the Ottomans had brought themselves in that situation. The Ottomans wasn't the Qing, where the European dominance came suddenly as a storm. The Ottomans was a integrated part of the European alliance network, if any "non-European" state should have been able to adapt, it was them. But they failed and that failure was on all points, they failed to see the danger early enough, they failed to reform early enough and they failed geopolitical.

Why do you feel the need to post a bunch of assertions but leave out the actual arguments? If you think there were reasons as to why the Ottomans were doomed, then actually make an effort to debate.

I would agree with you if we were talking about one or two revolts, but the Ottomans faced countless uprisings over and over again and pretty muhc failed to create a long lasting functional state in a geographical area that they have controlled for more than three hundred years.

You didn't actually engage with his points. You just said that the Ottomans had a bunch of uprisings and were dismembered. This is not in dispute.

 

[John Fredrick Parker]

I will grant that there's certainly a good case to be made that the Ottomans suffered from a lot of geopolitical bad luck circa the 19th century, and that with a bit of better luck (say during the 1877 War) they could have emerged a modern, functioning state.

However, I think there's another valid narrative that this period was one of good geopolitical luck, wherein the Ottoman Empire got a long series of second chances that, in the end, failed to be sufficiently utilized. The fact that the French Invasion of Egypt gave the Porte a wake up call, while ending in abysmal failure; that Napoleon decide to invade Russia, at the cusp of what easily could have been the start of an earlier and more sudden partitioning; that Russia's subsequent maneuvers in the region were thwarted by European powers, ensuring that the loss of ottoman territory would be far slower than what it otherwise would have been; and Germany being generally supportive in the late 19th and early 20th century, including not supporting Russia's maximalist designs in 1878, at the cost of their alliance -- all of this goes to show at the very least that, if outside factors played a large role in limiting the effectiveness of the Tanzimat period, they are also no small part of the reason said reforms got as far as they did.

Again, I'm not saying the Ottomans weren't screwed; just offering a different AH perspective on the period.

 

[123456789blaaa]

I will grant that there's certainly a good case to be made that the Ottomans suffered from a lot of geopolitical bad luck circa the 19th century, and that with a bit of better luck (say during the 1877 War) they could have emerged a modern, functioning state.

However, I think there's another valid narrative that this period was one of good geopolitical luck, wherein the Ottoman Empire got a long series of second chances that, in the end, failed to be sufficiently utilized. The fact that the French Invasion of Egypt gave the Porte a wake up call, while ending in abysmal failure; that Napoleon decide to invade Russia, at the cusp of what easily could have been the start of an earlier and more sudden partitioning; that Russia's subsequent maneuvers in the region were thwarted by European powers, ensuring that the loss of ottoman territory would be far slower than what it otherwise would have been; and Germany being generally supportive in the late 19th and early 20th century, including not supporting Russia's maximalist designs in 1878, at the cost of their alliance -- all of this goes to show at the very least that, if outside factors played a large role in limiting the effectiveness of the Tanzimat period, they are also no small part of the reason said reforms got as far as they did.

Again, I'm not saying the Ottomans weren't screwed; just offering a different AH perspective on the period.

All you're doing is quibbling about the relative meaning of "good" and "bad". The debate is about whether or not the Ottomans were inherently due to fail.

 

[John Fredrick Parker]

The debate is about whether or not the Ottomans were inherently due to fail.

Well, I'm with you on that much -- they absolutely were not. I just saw your previous posts referring to their "bad luck", and wanted to offer a little perspective on that. Apologies if that's getting too off topic.

 

[123456789blaaa]

Well, I'm with you on that much -- they absolutely were not. I just saw your previous posts referring to their "bad luck", and wanted to offer a little perspective on that. Apologies if that's getting too off topic.

My problem is that even if we say that the Ottomans actually had "good luck" it doesn't change the substance of my points or my opponents points at all. Yes the Ottomans had good stuff happen to them as well as bad stuff. Does this really matter to the debate at hand? My point is that the Ottomans weren't able to take full advantage of the good things because of the bad things.

 

[Indicus]

1790 was in best case a century too late and I would argue the warning signs already began a century earlier than that. The Ottomans had a Empire almost the size of the Roman one, and they ended up in a permanent conflict against the Austrians, who at the same time had to deal with France and its vassals. Russia a country suffering one humiliation after another was able to push the Ottomans vassal out. There was warning sign after warning sign, and they only began discovering it after they had lost half their empire in Europe.

A century earlier than that, the Ottoman Empire was literally besieging Vienna. Literally being able to besiege Vienna isn’t a “warning sign” at all.

 

[H.Flashman(VC)]

Please define failing in this context. Because being destroyed in WO I after four years isn't a mark of a failed state in my opinion or is it?
The empire failed in changing a large part of the population in ottoman citizens. Is that what you mean?

 

[Lampiao]

My point is that the Ottomans weren't able to take full advantage of the good things because of the bad things.

The debate is about whether or not the Ottomans were inherently due to fail.

I don't have time to answer thoroughly regarding your historical arguments now, but nice necro. i'll point out to the apparent incoherence (IMHO) in your argument here. You talk a lot about bad luck, but it isn't like successful nations are always lucky. I mean, there are particular events that are crucial to history, but, when you point to innumerous events, it simply stops being an event and becomes a pattern. That being said, most of what you name "bad luck" is simply the progressing geopolitics of the region and the Ottomans falling to understand it over and over again. Also it's quite naïve (or dishonest) to think that one nation can have a century of "bad luck" without a few thousand opportunites to change things up.

You say that they are "unable to take advantage" of the "good things" because of the "bad things"... What does that even mean!? This statement can to apply to every possible event in alternate history. In an ATL England definatly wasn't able to become a great power because the Spanish invaded and vassalized them after the invasion of the Great Armada.

Your statements contradict each other. If they did suffer of "chronic bad luck" they were inherently due to fall after all.

PS: Personally, I do think that the Ottomans could eventually become a functional rump state.

 

[123456789blaaa]

I don't have time to answer thoroughly regarding your historical arguments now, but nice necro. i'll point out to the apparent incoherence (IMHO) in your argument here. You talk a lot about bad luck, but it isn't like successful nations are always lucky. I mean, there are particular events that are crucial to history, but, when you point to innumerous events, it simply stops being an event and becomes a pattern. That being said, most of what you name "bad luck" is simply the progressing geopolitics of the region and the Ottomans falling to understand it over and over again. Also it's quite naïve (or dishonest) to think that one nation can have a century of "bad luck" without a few thousand opportunites to change things up.

Your two statements contradict each other. If they did suffer of "chronic bad luck" they were inherently due to fall after all.

PS: Personally, I do think that the Ottomans could eventually become a functional rump state.

It's not a necro. The limit for thread necromancy on this forum is several months. I posted in under 3 months.

I didn't say successful nations are always lucky? The idea that some countries can fall due to bad luck doesn't automatically imply that.

There aren't "innumerous" events. Throughout this entire thread, I've actually just pointed out two: the Napoleonic Wars and the 1877-78 war. Either would have either broken or weakened the vicious cycle that occurred in the Late Ottoman Empire depending on the PoD. If you disagree with the idea that the vicious cycle of the Late OE could be broken, than perhaps you could argue these specific examples instead of vague generalities?

Please explain how my specific examples of bad luck is the Ottomans failing to understand geopolitics. I fail to see how the Treaty of Tilsit is the result of the Ottomans not understanding geopolitics for example.

They did change things up. What do you think tanzimat was? The Ottomans continually changed throughout the entire century. They had a parliament before Russia did for example. TBH I'm not sure you understand the constraints the government was operating under. What do you think they should have done?

Do you understand what a "vicious cycle" is?