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| 1774–89 |
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| SULTAN ABDULHAMID I. Beginning his rule in the shadow of the humiliation by Russia, Mustafa III's brother was driven by a desire to rebuild the military. He was the first sultan to import large numbers of foreign military advisers to help modernize the army and navy. His period saw a marked erosion of central authority in the provinces and a growing assertiveness of local rulers all over the empire. With rare exceptions, the sultan tried manipulation and patronage rather than force to maintain his authority in the provinces. | 1 |
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| 1774 |
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| Baron François de Tott (1730–93), a Hungarian soldier who had entered the service of France, established a new rapid-fire artillery corps for the sultan. | 2 |
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| 1774 |
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| Rebuilding and modernization of the Ottoman navy begun by the grand admiral Gazi Hasan Pasha. French naval engineers and artisans directed the construction of new ships to replace the fleet destroyed at Cheshme (1770). | 3 |
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| 1775 |
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| End of the rule of Zahir al-Umar. He was removed from power in Acre by an Egyptian force acting on behalf of the Ottoman government. Soon after he was killed, and his territories reverted to the provinces of Damascus and Sidon. Ahmad Pasha al-Jazzar (“the Butcher”), a ruthless power figure of Bosnian origin, was appointed governor of Sidon to restore Ottoman authority there. He made Acre the base of a powerful dominion extending over Palestine and southern Syria. | 4 |
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| 1775 |
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| A revolt in Aleppo led by the Janissaries, who expelled the governor Ali Pasha from the city. This was the first in a string of such revolts during the next 30 years (1784, 1787, 1791, and 1804). Aleppo remained the only Arab province in which the governors were outsiders rotated annually by Istanbul, but after 1775 central authority in the city declined as the Janissaries and the ashraf (lineal descendants of the prophet Muhammad) steadily took control. By the early 1790s the two political factions dominated the city, manipulated food supplies, and taxed the population. The competition between them, sometimes violent, became the central feature of local politics. | 5 |
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| 1776, April |
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| Occupation of Basra by Iran after a long siege. The city was evacuated in 1779 owing to internal instability in Iran. | 6 |
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| 1780–1802 |
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| Governorship of Sulayman Pasha (“the Great”), a member of the Mamluk caste of Baghdad. His lengthy tenure in office marked the zenith of the Mamluk regime of Baghdad. | 7 |
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| 1780 |
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| Death of Zubeyde Fitnat Hanim, the best-known Ottoman poetess of the 18th century. Born into an upper-class religious family, she took part in literary competitions with other women poets and composed verses in a natural and vivid style. | 8 |
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| 1783 |
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| Russia annexed the Crimea. The Ottomans were dismayed by this first loss of territory inhabited by Muslims but accepted the reality in an agreement with Russia (Jan. 1784). | 9 |
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| 1784 |
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| Reopening of the Turkish printing press that was closed down in the 1740s. | 10 |
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| 1786 |
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| Reassertion of Ottoman control over Egypt. A large naval expedition commanded by Gazi Hasan Pasha was sent to reestablish direct control over Egypt, where the leading Mamluk power figures, Ibrahim Bey and Murad Bey, had become practically independent. Between 1779 and 1785 their arrears in payments to Istanbul had risen to 103 million paras. The defiant Mamluks fled to Upper Egypt. Hasan Pasha placed loyal beys in control and departed in October 1787, but by July 1791 the duumvirate of Ibrahim and Murad was back in power and, two years later, again ceased the transfer of tribute to Istanbul. | 11 |
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| 1787–92 |
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| War with Russia and Austria. The Ottomans declared war on Russia (Aug. 1787) in the hope of recovering the Crimea and containing Russian expansion. The Austrians entered the war (Feb. 1788), but after taking land in Bosnia, Serbia, and Moldavia they agreed to a separate peace (signed at Sistova on Aug. 4, 1791) by which they surrendered their conquests in return for the right to protect the sultan's Christian subjects. The Russians routed the Ottoman army and took Moldavia and Wallachia. By the Treaty of Jassy (Jan. 9, 1792), the Ottomans acknowledged the Russian annexation of the Crimea and Georgia and accepted the Dniester as the new boundary between the two empires, while the Russians agreed to evacuate the principalities. | 12 |
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