Crisis and Rebellion in the Ottoman Empire

In 1807 the reformist Sultan Selim III was overthrown in a palace coup enacted by the elite special forces of the day-the Janissaries. The Ottomans were bankrupt and had been forced to make peace with Napoleon after Austerlitz, but it was Selim III''s efforts to reform an empire that had suffered successive military defeats, and to reform along the lines of modern principles-with an end to the pri...