The Sultan

[Flo]

Istanbul, The Ottoman Empire
April 20, 1780

Sultan Selim III, the grand emperor of the Ottoman people and leader of Islam, was a busy man. He had ascended to the throne only four years ago, and already he had the empire on its collective toes with his talk of reforms which angered the clerics and various janisaries entities across the large nation.

Such a large nation required a degree of laissez-faire in terms of the mundane governing of the little people. This was something previous Ottoman emperors knew and the empire flourished. This approach was starting to slow the empire down in recent decades however. The defeat of the Ottomans by the Austrians, Venetians, and Russians in the early to mid eighteenth century were indicative of the Ottoman failures, not just in military doctrine and organization, but in society, technology, and economy. Simply put, the Ottomans, once considered the most influential state in the continent, were now being left behind. 

The Sultan's response? To change the empire from a fundamental level. The rest of Europe held the key to an Ottoman resurgence. Their armies were better equipped, better organized, and better led than that of the Ottomans. Their economies were flourishing on the backs of foreign adventures. With the advent of European colonies in asia, the Ottoman control of the flow of spice and the silk road was beginning to wane. In technology, the Ottomans were at least 25 years behind their rivals, and it showed in conflicts.

Change would not be easy however. A state as old as the Ottomans carried powerful factions. The religious elite resented any change to the status quo, and adopting infidel technologies and economic principles carried heavy consequences. The janissaries would hardly take well to reorganization of the Ottoman military, and at nearly 150,000 strong, they were not a force to be crossed lightly. Furthermore, all of this change was expensive, and while the Ottomans were not poor by any means, the wealth required to carry out what the Sultan desired was immense and would put pressures on the coffers of the empire. Even then, hungry rivals were seemingly on all sides. While the Austrians, the Ottomans age old enemy, were dispatched, it seems as though infidels have sprouted like weeds to take their place. The Russian Tsarina was not satisfied with just Crimea, and could move further south to assert authority over the Balkans. Closer to home, the Greeks, having secured a tenuous independence with Venetian assistance, are eyeing their former empire. It is not certain how the Byzantine pretenders survived all these years, but their seemingly zombified return was not something to ignore.

Still, the Sultan was prepared to drag the empire kicking and screaming into the modern era, even if it required great sacrifice.