The reforms introduced by Sultan Mahmud and by the Tanzimāt necessitated the remodelling of nearly all the departments Remodelling of the Administration. of state. Towards the end of Mahmud II.'s reign ministries had been instituted, and a council of ministers had been established, presided over by the grand vizier. In 1837 the “council of the Sublime Porte” and the “supreme council of legal affairs” were established: the latter was the tribunal to which were referred all complaints against officials or claims pending between the state and private individuals; the council of the Sublime Porte was in 1839 transferred to the ministry of commerce; the supreme council of legal affairs after undergoing various modifications was in 1868 absorbed in the council of state. In 1837 a “council of public works” was instituted, converted ten years later into a separate ministry. In 1835 the “ministry of administration” was formed; two years later its title was changed to ministry of the interior. Regulations prescribing the duties of the local governors and officials of all ranks were drawn up only in 1865 and 1870, but since Mahmud's time their functions were exclusively civil and administrative. A regular hierarchical order was elaborated for the official classes, both civil and military, whereby the rank of each person was clearly defined.
The military reorganization dates from the destruction of the Janissaries (June 15, 1826). On that day Aga Hussein Pasha was appointed “Seraskier (commandant) of the victorious Mahommedan troops”; at first only two divisions were established, quartered respectively at Constantinople and Scutari. In 1833 the reserves were instituted, and three years later reserve commandants were appointed in six principal provinces. In 1843 the corps d'armée of Constantinople, Rumelia, Anatolia and Arabia were formed, and a military council was appointed. In 1847 a recruiting law was promulgated, reducing the period of service (until then unlimited in point of time), to five years. Military schools were founded. For the reorganization carried out from 1908 to 1910 see section Army, above.
After the Greek revolution the system of manning the navy from the Christian natives of the archipelago and the Mediterranean littoral was abandoned, and recruits for the navy are now selected under the ordinary law. A naval school and a modern factory and arsenal were established. The direction of the police, formerly left to the Janissaries, was formed into a ministry, and a body of gendarmerie was instituted. For the financial reforms see the section Finance, above.
The ministry of public instruction was established in 1857; until the reign of Selim III. (when a few military schools were established) Education. the only schools had been the colleges of the Ulema and such preparatory schools as had been founded by private munificence. In 1838 the council of education had been created and several secondary state schools were founded. In 1860 the regulations for public education were promulgated; schools were everywhere opened, and in 1882 a portion of the receipts from certain vakufs were appropriated to their maintenance. As all the preparatory schools founded by the state were for Mussulman children only (the various Christian communities maintaining their own schools), idadi or secondary schools were established in 1884 for the instruction of children of all confessions. In 1868 the Imperial Lycée of Galata Serai was founded; most of the later generation of officials received their education there. Special state schools of medicine, arts, science, crafts, &c., have been created successively, and in 1901 a university was founded. Educational affairs in the provinces are now superintended by special officials.
After the promulgation of the reforms, the judicial duties of the Imperial Divan, which with other functions also exercised those Justice. of a kind of supreme court of appeal, were transferred to the Sheikh-ul-Islam. The codification of the civil law, which soon became necessary, was effected by the promulgation in 1859 of the Mejellé, or civil code. Commercial and criminal codes, as well as codes of procedure, were drawn up, largely on the basis of the Code Napoléon. The rules regulating the Ulema were amended, a school for judges was formed, and the Sheikh-ul-Islam was charged with the duty of revising all judgments. In 1865 the court of cassation was founded.
In 1835 the Reis-ul-Kuttab, to whom the superintendence of foreign affairs was entrusted, received the designation of minister Foreign Relations. for foreign affairs. Turkey had originally maintained no representatives abroad, and appointed such only for special occasions as e.g. the signature of a treaty or the announcement of a new sultan's accession. Selim III. was the first sultan who entered into regular relations with foreign powers, and employed permanent ambassadors; the practice was discontinued at the time of the Greek revolution and the consequent rupture with the powers. Later, during the Egyptian negotiations, ambassadors were accredited to London, Paris and Vienna. Sultan Abd-ul-Aziz's journey to Europe and the return visits paid by foreign princes strengthened Turkey's relations with foreign states.
The ministry of the Evkaf or pious foundations was established n 1827 and extended ten years later. Such foundations had been created from the earliest times, and the execution of the testator's wishes was generally left to his descendants, under the supervision of some high official designated in the act of endowment. In case of failure in the line of succession an administrator was appointed by the state. But many such foundations fell into disorder, and the ministry was created to exercise the requisite supervision.
Though the provisions of the Tanzimāt were not fully observed, they afforded convincing proof that reform was entirely Results of Reforms. practicable in Turkey. Reforms were effected in every direction; the finances and the army were reorganized, military instructors being procured from Europe; the administration was gradually centralized, and good relations were cultivated with the powers, the only serious international controversy arising in 1848–1849 over the refusal by Turkey, with the support of England, to surrender the Hungarian and Polish insurgents who had taken refuge within her borders. It cannot indeed be said that complete tranquillity prevailed throughout the country meanwhile; disturbances in the principalities and in the Lebanon gave serious trouble, while in 1842 the unsettled state of the Turco-Persian frontier nearly led to war. By the mediation of England and Russia the Treaty of Erzerum was signed (1847) and a frontier commission was appointed. But as the frontier was not definitely demarcated the door was left open for controversies which have occurred frequently up to the present day.
Turkey's progress in the path of reform was viewed with some uneasiness in Russia, the cardinal principle of whose Russian Policy since l829. policy since 1829 had been to maintain her own influence at Constantinople by keeping the Ottoman government weak. In favour of this view the traditional policy of Peter the Great and Catherine II. had been deliberately given up, and by the secret convention signed at Münchengrätz on the 18th of September 1833 the emperor Nicholas had agreed with his brother sovereigns of the revived “Holy Alliance” to maintain the integrity of Turkey, where Russian influence seemed to have been rendered supreme and permanent by the Treaty of Unkiar Skelessi. The crisis which ended in 1841, however, materially altered the situation from the Russian point of view. By his concert with the other powers in the affair of Mehemet Ali, the tsar had abdicated his claim to a unique influence at Constantinople, and he began to revive the idea of ending the Ottoman rule in Europe, an idea which he had only unwillingly abandoned in 1829 in response to the unanimous opinion of his advisers. In 1844 he took advantage of his visit to England to propose to British ministers a plan of partition, under which Great Britain was to receive Egypt and Crete, Constantinople was to be erected into a free city, and the Balkan states were to become autonomous under Russian protection. This proposal, as might have been expected, only served to rouse suspicions as to Russia's plans; it was politely rejected, and the whole Eastern Question slumbered, until, early in 1850, it was awakened by an incident trivial enough in itself, but pregnant with future trouble: a quarrel of Catholic and Orthodox monks about the holy places in Palestine.
By the Capitulations signed on the 28th of May 1740 on behalf of Sultan Mahmud I. and Louis XV. “emperor of France,” The Holy Places. not only French pilgrims to Jerusalem, but all members of “Christian and hostile nations” visiting the Ottoman Empire, had been placed under the protection of the French flag, and by a special article the Frank, i.e. Roman Catholic, ecclesiastics had been guaranteed certain rights in the holy places. These stipulations of the treaty, which were in effect a confirmation of the firman granted in 1620 by Murad IV. to Louis XIII., had fallen into oblivion
