Shaping the Empire
Shaping the Empire
This chapter looks at how the first attempts to modernize the Ottoman army in line with the armies of the West were undertaken during the reign of Mahmud I (r. 1730–54). Predominantly inspired by France, the reform program involved the recruitment of French officials for military advice, the introduction of instruction in applied sciences, the opening of engineering schools, the transformation of the School of Mathematics into the Bahriye (School of Naval Engineering) in 1776, and the translation of various European scientific works into Ottoman Turkish. A new phase of extensive Western-inspired reforms continued under Sultan Selim III and his successor Mahmud II, but despite this turn to the West, there remained little Ottoman interest in Western political thought or regime types until the nineteenth century.
Keywords: Ottoman army, Mahmud I, French officials, engineering schools, Western-inspired reforms, Western political thought
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