Ottoman Empire Acrostic

Ottoman Empire Acrostic – Chap 11.3 for Western Civ Class 4/20/2006.

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Ottomans once ruled from Hungary to Algeria in the Middle East; their empire spanned vast portions of the Balkans, Middle East, and northern Africa.

Then, around the 1600, the Ottomans had difficulties adjusting as fast as their European neighbors; they soon fell behind.

They could not modernize because after Suleiman I, their last great sultan, died in 1566, many poor and weak successors quailed and split into rival factions; trouble was mounting as European nations smelled blood.

Only geopolitics could not save them; oil discoveries had nations fighting to get a part, while Russia desperately needed access to the Black Sea for trade.

Many Ottoman regions, like Greece and Serbia, felt nationalist feelings and wanted to split from the Ottoman Empire.

A Crimean War was fought against Russia, who needed easy access to the Black Sea for trade; the British and the French helped the Ottomans defeat Russia in 1856.

Not did the Ottomans recover; the war showed their military weakness, and they continued to lose land despite the help from the British and the French; by the start of World War I they only had a portion of their former size.