Ottoman Reform Efforts under Selim III and Mahmoud II

Ottoman military reforms began in the late 18th century.

When Selim III came to the throne in 1789, an ambitious effort of military reform was launched, geared towards securing the Ottoman Empire. The sultan and those who surrounded him were conservative and desired to preserve the status quo. No one in power in the Empire had any interest in social transformation.

Western military advisors were imported as advisors but their abilities to enact change were limited. A parade of French officers were brought in, and none of them could do a great deal. One example of an advisor who achieved limited success was the François Baron de Tott, a French officer. He did succeed in having a new foundry built to make artillery. As well he directed the construction of a new naval base. Unfortunately it was almost impossible for him to divert soldiers from the regular army into the new units. The new ships and guns that made it into service were too few to have much of an influence on the Ottoman army and de Tott returned home.

When they had requested French help, a young artillery officer by the name of Napoleon Bonaparte was to be sent to Constantinople in 1795 to help organize Ottoman artillery. He did not go, for just days before he was to embark for the Near East he proved himself useful to the Directory by putting down a Parisian mob in the whiff of grapeshot and was kept in France.

The most important change was the creation of an elite new infantry unit; the nizam-i jedid was set up with western uniforms, weapons, and training. This group would offend the Janissaries. Once elite forces, the Janissaries had become a conservative elite using their military power to advance themselves commercially and politically. In 1806 the Janissaries, with support of the ulema and the provincial governors, revolted against the Sultan and his new force and replaced him with Mustafa IV.

In 1808 Selim III was replaced by Mahmud II with martial law of Alemdar Mustafa Pasha who restarted the reform efforts. His first task was to ally with the Janissaries in order to break the power of the provincial governors. He then turned on the Janissaries, massacring them in their barracks in Istanbul and the provincial capitals in 1826, Auspicious Incident. The Sultan now set himself to replace the Janissaries by other regular troops. The Russo-Turkish War of 1828-1829 did not give him time to organize a new army, and the Sultan was forced to fight with these young and undisciplined recruits against the veterans of the Tsar. The war was brought to a close by the disastrous Treaty of Adrianople. While the reforms in question were mainly implemented to improve the military, the most notable development that arose out of these efforts was a series of schools teaching everything from math to medicine to train new officers.

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Wikipedia