Summary of my lecture: The Ottoman Empire and Modern Europe

On September 16^th , I gave this talk for St Albans & Hertfordshire Architectural & Archaeological Society. This is a summary:

A while ago, I discussed how Turkey’s President, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, appears to be reviving the memory of the Ottoman Empire, seeking to reinstate a concept of Turkish hegemony in the region (https://timboatswain.wixsite.com/website/post/erdogan-latest-attack-on-democracy). This reflection brought to mind a poignant lunch I once shared with the late Özdemir Özgür, a distinguished Turkish Cypriot diplomat who bravely worked for reconciliation on a divided island.

His story has never felt more relevant. Özdemir told me of a dinner with Greek Cypriot friends who, while proudly listing the legacies of ancient Greece—democracy, philosophy, drama—turned to him and asked: “The Ottoman Empire lasted for five hundred years; what are its great legacies?” He confessed he was stumped, eventually mumbling something about military organisation.

This challenge, though seemingly unfair, points to a common perception of the Ottomans: a backward, despotic regime whose collapse after World War I was met with few regrets. Even Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, founder of modern Turkey, saw the Empire as a “deadweight and best forgotten.”

Yet, I argue that the Ottoman Empire’s legacy is profound, albeit indirect. Paradoxically, it was the unconscious catalyst for the rise of modern Europe and the Enlightenment that followed. The key to this transformative role was not its cultural contributions, but its disruptive power.

The trigger was economic. For centuries, the wealth of Europe flowed along the ancient east-west trade routes, later dubbed the Silk Roads. These overland and maritime paths brought coveted luxuries, especially spices, from Asia, enriching the Byzantine Empire and the Italian maritime republics of Venice and Genoa. Then, the Ottomans rose. With the conquest of Constantinople in 1453, they consolidated control over these critical arteries, effectively closing the direct trade link between Europe and the East.

This loss was a seismic shock. Cut off from the source of its wealth and luxury, Christian Europe was forced to rethink its entire economic and political strategy. The desperate search for alternative routes to the spice islands of the East became the primary driver of the 15th and 16th centuries’ most daring enterprises.

This was the direct impetus for the voyages that reshaped the globe:

• Christopher Columbus, sailing west in 1492 in search of a new path to the Indies, stumbled upon the Americas.

• Vasco da Gama, sailing east around the Cape of Good Hope in 1497, successfully reached India, breaking the Ottoman monopoly.

• Ferdinand Magellan’s fleet (1519-22) subsequently completed the first circumnavigation of the Earth, proving the global scale of these new possibilities.

France and England soon joined Spain and Portugal in this new race. This was not merely a contest of maritime routes; it was the birth of a new world order. European powers began to establish colonies to control the sources of trade directly, leading to an unprecedented transfer of wealth, resources, and knowledge to Europe. This influx of capital and global perspective fuelled the scientific and intellectual revolutions that characterised the end of the Medieval era and the dawn of the Modern age.

So, when asked for the Ottoman legacy, one might ironically point to the very rise of the West. By forcing Europe to look outwards and westwards, the Ottomans inadvertently triggered the Age of Exploration and the colonial system that defined global politics for half a millennium.

This historical irony is worth pondering today. As President Erdogan evokes the grandeur of the Ottoman past, one wonders if he has considered its full legacy. The Empire’s greatest impact was not through its enduring institutions, but through the vacuum and disruption it created—a disruption that ultimately shifted the centre of global power away from the Mediterranean and towards the Atlantic. In seeking to resurrect a symbol of past dominance, is he, perhaps, unleashing forces of change whose ultimate consequences are just as unpredictable? The story of the Ottomans teaches us that empires shape the world not only by what they build, but often, more profoundly, by what they break.