Ottoman Empire Acrostic

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

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.

ACrimean 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.