The guaranteeing to equality to the minorities was meant to preserve their loyalty to the empire. But in fact, the opposite was achieved. Equality for the minorities was intended to offer the Christians of the empire who were gradually breaking away as we have seen with the uprising of the Greeks in the 1820s. It was to offer the Christians equal participation within the empire as Ottoman subjects, but the Christians drew a totally different conclusion. If equality, then equality as states of their own outside the empire. And it only accelerated the Christian desire to break away, which most of them indeed did. For the Muslims, this idea of equality of all before the law was a cause for considerable opposition and frustration. This was an incorporation of the practices of the infidels, an undermining of the sharia of the religious law. And not all Muslim subjects of the empire could accept that without complaint. The major outburst came in Damascus in 1860, where there was massacre of 1000 of Christians. In a protest against the Tanzimat. Yeah, against the new reforms. Interesting in this Eventi Damascus was that the Jews of Damascus were not affected by the outbreak of violence, it was not against the Jews who the Muslims had a complaint. Their complaint was against increasing Christian influence. The increase of the influence of Christian powers. The increase of the influence of Christians and their schools. The Jews of the empire did not represent foreign powers. There were no external Jewish powers that threatened the empire. And as a result, the Jews were not seen as partner's to external influence and power. On the contrary, the Jews were seen for what they really were loyal Ottoman subjects. The Christians in the empire had the desire to break away wherever this was territorially feasible and as we will see it wasn't territorially feasible everywhere. But in places where it was like in the Balkans, this was the preferred direction that Christian minorities took. And what was difficult for the empire in this circumstance was that it was no longer possible to suppress the Christians who sought to break away, because of European pressure. And as the British historian, points out, it was a contradiction here. The state was becoming more powerful and more centralized as a result of the reforms, but it's ability to use these new advantages was limited by increasing external influence. One can see this increasing external influence by the timing of the edicts of reform as they were issued. And they were issued at various times when the need to leave an impression of liberalism on Europe was important for the empire. One should not make the mistake, however, by concluding that the reforms were just window dressing for the, for the Europeans. They were not. These were genuine desires for reform from within the Ottoman Empire, out of recognition that the empire had to be reformed and strengthened. But there was at the same time, a need for European assistance. In 1839 the reforms were introduced at a time when the Ottoman Empire desperately needed help against Muhammad Ali, who was threatening Istanbul. In 1856 the reforms were issued at the end of the Crimean War where again, the Ottomans were in need of European support against Russian designs against them. In 1876, the constitution was passed in an effort to avoid European intervention as the empire was going bankrupt. It was at that time also in the mid-1870s that the financial problems of the empire were compounded by the possible intervention of Europeans in their struggles with the Christians in the Balkans. But the constitution was passed in 1876, also for real domestic reasons. There was a movement at that time known as the Young Ottomans. The most well-known spokesperson of which was Namik Kemal. And Namik Kemal had made an argument, noting that the Tanzimat reforms had removed the elements, which had traditionally restrained the strength of the Sultan of the government. The religious establishment, the Ulama and the Janissaries. And the Namil Kemal was right. Those forces that had previously restrained the Sultan were no longer there. So in order to exercise to some form of influence over the Sultan and in order to keep the momentum of reform going when the Sultans in power were elected to do so. There was a need for greater influence on the Sultan through the vehicle of Shura, the Islamic injunction for consultation. This was a justification for the creation of a parliament and for the passing of a constitution. These ideas of constitutionalism and parliament were part of a broader movement to which we will refer to later in greater detail of Islamic reform. That movement which spoke of the need for a synthesis between the West and Western ideas and Islamic values in order to avoid the loss of Islamic identity in the process of westernizing reforms. Reform in the empire was obviously essential, but so was the preservation of the empire's Islamic character. If the empire was reformed, but wouldn't be Islamic. Who needed it? So there had to be this synthesis between the reform and the maintenance of the Islamic character of the empire and this was emphasized further by the troubles of the 1870s. The empire was bankrupted by the expense of the reforms and the loss of Christian territories in the Balkans. And as a result, the migration of Muslims from there into the empire. The empire was becoming more Muslim and less Christian. After the 1876-78 war with the Serbs and the Bulgarians that led to further Christian gains and to another war with Russia and Ottoman defeat, there were more vocal critics of reform and resentment for the concessions that would be made. So, it seemed to Christians and to Christian powers. The new sultan, Abdulhamid II, dissolved the newly formed parliament in 1878. The Constitution remained in place, but wasn't acted upon. And Pan-Islamism became a feature that the Sultan emphasized as a common front of Muslim peoples against the European-Christian empires. Muslim solidarity at this phase was still much easier to mobilize amongst the masses than more secular notions of nationalism. If the Tanzimat was considered a process of liberalization than this suspension of the Constitution in 1878, marks the failure of that movement. But it wasn't really a process of liberalization, it was a bureaucratic and not a liberal movement. The reforms were not just lip service to Europe. They were genuine reforms of government and the military, which serve the purposes of the empire and its long term survival. And with all its shortcomings and all its limitations, the Tanzimat, nevertheless, laid the foundations of modern Turkey. As Bernard Lewis puts it, the biggest achievement of the Tanzimat was in the field of education. A new group of educated elite emerged out of the new schools, but at the same time, there was also widespread hostility towards the reforms as some kind of foreign intrusion or foreign invention. But in reality, there was only one option and that was to move forwards towards more reform and more change. And for Turkey, there was no turning back.
