British-Ottoman Cooperation During the Tanzimat Period: Foundations of a Modern Partnership

When Abdülmecid I became Sultan in July 1839 it was at the end of a period of great stress for the Ottoman Empire. The shock of the French arrival in Ottoman Egypt in 1798 had been rivalled only by the means of their departure in 1801, at the hands of the British Navy. By 1815, Ottoman assistance had contributed to stemming the rise of Napoleon, but victory brought new challenges. The nationalist contagion Napoleon unleashed on the Continent outlived his rule and spread to the Ottoman Balkans. In Serbia then Greece, the Russian Empire, empowered by Napoleon’s demise, capitalised on the disorder to attack the Ottoman holdings, taking territory around the Danube and the Black Sea. In the same period, there were a series of mutinies from the Janissaries, the Sultan’s Praetorians. While quelled, with the Corps disbanded after five-hundred years of service, gaps were left in state capacity contributing to disturbances in the provinces. Meanwhile, the suppression of the extremist Wahhabi uprising in Arabia turned out to have centrifugal effects: the mission was outsourced to the governor of Egypt, who subsequently used his autonomy to expand his province into Syria. It was to tackle these problems that Abdülmecid issued the Tanzimât Fermânı (Imperial Edict of Reorganisation) in November 1839. Abdülmecid had recognised that the Ottomans’ geopolitical precarity, including the ability of outside powers to meddle within the Empire, was a consequence, not a cause, of internal weaknesses. The Sultan devised a program to modernise state institutions, infrastructure, and the legal and social system. Aware that the Ottoman Empire did not have the resources to do this alone, Abdülmecid took the monumental decision to look to the West, for examples of best-practice and direct assistance, and Britain was already positioned as a key ally. A year before the Tanzimat proclamation, the Anglo-Ottoman Treaty had been signed. In some ways, it was just one more example of Ottoman troubles, a trade treaty essentially imposed by an outside power. However, by creating one of the most liberal free trade arrangements ever seen to that point between two states, it created a structural foundation that aligned British interests and Ottoman reformist aspirations. British merchants, experts, and goods were already flowing into the Ottoman Empire, elements of immediate practical utility to the Tanzimat program and the increasing Ottoman exposure to British subjects, at elite and popular levels, added a dimension beyond the economic. British strategic concerns were never absent: a strong Ottoman Empire was a bulwark against the intimidating and expansionist Russia. This was during the Great Game, and the Ottomans falling to Russia would have complicated British access to India, the jewel in the imperial crown. However, Britain came to see supporting the Ottoman reforms as not only a strategic matter, but an ethical and altruistic cause, and in the era of Victorian moralism there could be no higher commitment. British liberals, most importantly Lord Stratford de Redcliffe, influential ambassador to the Ottoman Court, saw the Tanzimat intention to centralise governance and rationalise administration as conforming with their own ideals. This was reinforced by steps taken after the Crimean War, to equalising the legal status of Ottoman minorities, notably the abolition of the jizya in 1856, and the declared measures to restrict the slave trade. As the Tanzimat unfolded, cooperation expanded from the political and diplomatic realm to areas of technological and infrastructural cooperation. One of the most vivid examples of this was the construction of railways. The Ottoman state, recognising the need for efficient transportation to bind its far-flung provinces, turned to British engineers and capital. Sir George Stephenson, “the Father of Railways”, became a notable figure in this transnational exchange. His designs, engineering principles, and associates were integral to the early Ottoman railway projects, and his influence extended continued after his death in 1848 via his son, Robert Stephenson, who was an adviser to the Ottoman officials responsible for railway construction. The first major Ottoman railway lines, such as those completed in the 1860s between İzmir and Aydın, were constructed with British engineering input and investment. It symbolised the modernist ethos of the Tanzimat, and the vision, increasingly shared by both sides, of harmonising Western science and technology with Islamic governance to produce a revitalised Ottoman Empire. Anglo-Ottoman cooperation went deeper than reforming the Empire’s formal legal codes to forms of social and cultural collaboration. Abdülmecid identified modernising education as key to the Ottomans revival. It would take time for the Ottomans to form their own institutions. In the meantime, British missionaries began operating schools in cities such as Istanbul, Izmir, and Beirut, gaining wide recognition for the quality of their teaching. Ottoman students began going to abroad to study medicine, engineering, and law in British and French universities. Here, Ottoman students were exposed to Enlightenment ideas, with a broader diffusion of British concepts and values into the Ottoman ruling class. The restarting of the translation movement, nearly a millennium after it had ceased, brought Western philosophical texts, among them John Stuart Mill, to a wider audience of Ottoman intellectuals, entrenching the Tanzimat ethos among the Ottoman elite. The Anglo-Ottoman cultural nexus was an important factor in the Ottoman Empire experimenting with parliamentary governance and secular administration later in the nineteenth century. Britain’s role as a strategic ally and a source of ideological, technical, and financial support to the Tanzimat-era Ottoman Empire is an important counterpoint to the divisive modern narratives that present the history of East-West relations as a struggle for domination and exploitation. This was a partnership of many decades that improved the lives of millions of people, and its spirit has endured. Modern Anglo-Turkish relations continue to reflect the Tanzimat-era foundation. Britain continues to be a key diplomatic interlocutor and security partner for Turkey, particularly in post-Brexit Europe. Anglo-Turkish trade is flourishing, with echoes of the nineteenth-century railway ventures in British investment in Turkish infrastructure, real estate, and technology. Educational exchange is still vibrant, with Turkish students enrolling in British universities in large numbers. The Tanzimat-era template of Turkey synthesising Western models into a distinct Muslim political culture remains with us.