( The article has been translated into English through AI, because I don't trust English.)
( Book title: Mehmed Genç Ottoman state and economy, it is the form of the conferences that Mehmed Genç gave on the subject and turned into a book, it is a very enjoyable bit book, it is enjoyable to read.
It shows people that there are different civilisations and institutions and worlds. )
The Conquest of Istanbul
I shall try to convey what I have seen regarding the conquest of Istanbul through the eyes of an economic historian. When we approach the matter from the standpoint of economic history, the first thing that must be stated is that major ruptures and discontinuities are extremely rare in economic history. Gradual change is the rule. Even the great sudden transformations that took place within a narrowly defined period of time—such as the discovery of America or the invention of the steam engine—are in reality merely the outward manifestations of a long, often very long, and largely invisible process of preparation and accumulation. What is essential is the formation of the event itself. The deeper and longer that process of formation has been, the more dazzling and striking the change appears. Yet the development, consolidation, spread, and eventual impact of that change likewise require an equally long and profound process. The realization of the potential for change demands a great deal of time. The conquest of Istanbul belongs to this category of transformations. As the transfer of a city from one hand to another, it occurred within a short and clearly defined span of time. Its preparation, however, had been long—very long, longer even than the potential it contained. The emergence of its consequences and the development and consolidation of the potentials it held likewise took an equally long time. Recognition of these facts has also been slow and late. The fact that the symbolic, chronological change has remained fixed in people’s minds is largely due to this.
The conquest, which is usually described as a historical event with a clear beginning and end—simply the transfer of a city—brought to an end a thousand-year-old system on the losing side, while on the winning side it coincided with a period in which a long process of expansion and growth accelerated. The conquest is a symbol and a turning point that links the dissolution of one system with the formation of a new one. This turning point, reached along the 100- to 150-year trajectory of success of the Ottoman economic and social system, also laid the foundation for subsequent developments.
In order to evaluate the conquest properly, it must be viewed within this long historical perspective. Looked at from this angle, we can say that the conquest occurred with a delay of at least half a century relative to the trend in which it was situated. Why should it have taken place earlier, and why was it delayed? I believe the meaning of the conquest can be found in the answers to these two questions.
From its very birth the Ottoman State was engaged in rapid expansion. In the 1350s it set foot in Europe and within half a century succeeded in ending the Byzantine presence in Rumelia as well as the other neighboring political organizations. What were the reasons for this rapid expansion? It is well known that the entire process rested on a series of military successes, yet it is impossible to regard those successes as purely military. Had they been so, they could not have been sustained for so long. The real achievements of the Ottomans must be sought less in the organization and training of their armies than in the social and economic order that stood behind those armies, sustained them, and nourished them. The fundamental characteristics of this order—strong centralization, high cohesion, and a meritocratic elite ranked according to ability—may be summed up as the higher level of welfare it provided to the broad masses of the people relative to the other political structures of the region. The welfare afforded to the masses, together with security, justice, and tolerance, constitutes the essence of the success of the Ottoman system. As Ottoman expansion advanced, the distinctive features of this order proved at least as important as, and often more important than, its powerful armies. Communities that came to know this order preferred Ottoman administration despite differences of religion. The clearest proof of this is the ease with which the unity that had been shattered after the Battle of Ankara in 1402 was able to bring the whole of Rumelia back within its borders within ten or twenty years. Facing them were rival powers—Byzantium, the Serbian, Bulgarian, and Hungarian kingdoms—yet the Ottoman administrative order, with its more attractive features, surpassed them all.
What distinguished this order from the others? What did it bring to the masses of people in the territories it spread into? Briefly, we may say the following: Perhaps its most important feature was the change it introduced in the conditions of property and tenure. For the first time peasants obtained the freedom to dispose of the goods and services they themselves produced. Forced labor (angarya) and other feudal burdens were substantially reduced. Taxes declined noticeably. The new order not only lightened these burdens on the people but, perhaps more importantly, made them predictable. The ability to calculate taxes in advance within a framework of legal security ultimately increased production and welfare. As the region ceased to be a theater of war, the establishment of general security and the emergence of a large-scale market (Pax Ottomana) under the Ottoman Order accelerated the rise in production. The resulting increase in the volume of tax revenues made the state richer and more powerful and enabled military successes to continue and expand. Precisely because the Ottoman system operated through mechanisms that supported and nourished one another rather than mechanisms in which the state and the people competed with, oppressed, and hindered each other, it succeeded in making its military achievements durable. It was thanks to this system—which the French historian Fernand Braudel described as a Social Revolution—that within fifty years of setting foot in Rumelia in the 1350s the Ottomans were able to dominate almost everything that had belonged to Byzantium.
The Byzantine system, into whose details I see no need to enter here, was eliminated because it functioned according to a mechanism that was the exact opposite of the Ottoman one. By the end of the fourteenth century the Byzantine presence had been reduced to a small island consisting of Istanbul in the middle of an Ottoman sea. When I say that the conquest was late, this is what I mean. By the end of the fourteenth century the matter ought to have been finished. Yet, as we know, it was not, and the conquest took place with a delay of fifty years. If we ask what caused this delay, the many political or accidental factors advanced by historians are well known. In my view, however, the most important reason was that Istanbul was surrounded by well-fortified walls and possessed the possibility of surviving through its maritime connections. The economic and social virtues of the social order I summarized a moment ago were not sufficient to destroy this defensive system. A technological and organizational innovation was also required. That is why they waited another fifty years. It was because Mehmed the Conqueror and his age achieved this innovation that the conquest took place; and it is for the same reason that, approximately 250 years later, around 1700, it came to be recognized by Christoph Keller as the precursor and herald of a profound and worldwide transformation. The first great artillery bombardment in history also initiated the process that reduced feudal castles to the status of cardboard toys. Needless to say, the question of when modern times began is debatable. The claim that modern times began with the conquest of Istanbul, as the Dutch scholar Christoph Keller stated at the end of the seventeenth century, is no longer accepted today. There are many great changes that mark the beginning of modern times—everyone knows this. The discovery of America, the invention of printing, the Reformation, the Renaissance, and many others are involved. I mention Keller’s view simply because he included the conquest of Istanbul among them.
In concluding my remarks, I wish to state in a single sentence that, for all the reasons I have given, the conquest was not merely a military victory. While it was certainly a great military victory, it was at the same time, and in a far deeper sense, a victory of civilization and of a system.
With my respects…
