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The Ottoman Empire reached its peak under Suleyman I, or Suleyman the Lawgiver (known in the West as Suleyman the Magnificent). Suleyman was a fantastic military leader, responsible for capturing important cities such as Vienna, Belgrade, and Tripoli. He was also well educated and developed the devshirme system, in which boys were drafted into the army from Christian territories, educated them, and trained them in warfare. He also creaded janissaries, an army loyal only to the Sultan.
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Selim II, better known as Selim the Sloth, took the throne follwing Suleyman's death. He was the first in a long line of unintelligent and incompetent leaders.
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Following Suleyman, all Ottoman Sultans were incompetent and unintelligent. There was a slow decline, interrupted by growth, but over four centuries, the Empire fell significantly.
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In 1830, after the Ottoman Empire had a period of high inflation, theft, and corruprion which lead to financial losses, both Greece and Serbia broke away from the Ottomans. This made it apparent to the European nations that the Ottoman Empire was weak. Europeans began to consider colonizing Ottoman lands.
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The Ottomans send Muhammed Ali to Egypt to govern there. Soon, he breaks away from Ottoman control and begins to reform Egypt. He advances the military and sifts the agricultural economy. Rather than producing food crops, he has them produce cash crops like cotton.
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Multiple generations of czars attacked the Ottomans to try and gain land of the shore of the Black Sea. Britain and France helped the Ottomans fight off Russia in order to stop Russian claiming of those lands. In this was, Florence Nightingale established women as army nurses. The war revealed Ottoman weaknesses.
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Russians helped people in the Balkans fight bak against the Ottomans. This rebellion caused the Ottomans to lose Romania, Montenegro, Cyprus, Bosnia, and Herzgovina.
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Muhammed Ali's grandson, Isma'il opens the Suez Canal. It was built with French and British money and indtended to connect the Red Sea to the Mediterranean Sea. Soon, Egypt found that it was in debt to Britain and could not even pay back the interest on the $450 million debt.
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Egypt is unable to pay back their debt. Britain oversees the financial control of canal and then occupy Egypt to control it.
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Discovery of oil in Persia before World War I brings even more attention to Ottoman Empire lands for geopolitical reasons. Both Russia and Britain wanted this land.
