At a glance
Era 8- Dates
- 1785-1839 CE; ruled 1808-1839 CE
- Who
- Ottoman sultan who abolished the Janissaries and began the reform of the state
- Era
- The Ottomans
ProfileMahmud II
Mahmud was born in 1785 in Topkapi Palace, a son of Sultan Abdulhamid I. He came to the throne in 1808 amid violence. His cousin Selim III, who had tried to build a new army on European lines, had been overthrown by the Janissaries. When reformers marched on the palace to restore him, Selim was killed. Mahmud escaped, hidden by palace servants, and was raised to the throne, and soon he was the only man of the house of Osman left alive.
He learned from Selim's fate and waited. For eighteen years he gathered loyal officers and gunners. In June 1826, when the Janissaries rose against his new drilled units, he turned his artillery on their barracks. The corps that had once been the terror of Europe, and had blocked reform for generations, was destroyed in a day. In its place he raised a new army, called the Victorious Soldiers of Muhammad.
His reign brought heavy losses. Greece won its independence with European help, and his own governor in Egypt, Muhammad Ali, beat his armies in two wars, the first time deep in Anatolia. Yet Mahmud kept reforming. He replaced the old offices with ministries, opened permanent embassies in Europe, founded a medical school and an official newspaper, and ordered a census. Officials were put into the fez and the frock coat in place of the turban and robe, and he dressed the same way himself.
He died of tuberculosis in 1839, before news of another defeat by Egypt reached Istanbul. His son Abdulmejid carried his work forward in the reforms known as the Tanzimat.
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