Ottomans+Globule+Relations

=Ottomans Global Relations By D.K.=

The Ottoman Empire was very large; one of the biggest empires during the height of its power, as seen in the map below.

The Ottomans settled close to the Mediterranean and Black Seas. They also colonized in Egypt, Greece, and as far north as Hungary. The Mediterranean Sea allowed them to trade with other countries, such as England. They had a wide variety of landscape, such as deserts, plains, mountains, lakes, and rivers.

By the 17th century, Europeans controlled new sea trade routes, bypassing the Middle East which affected trade through Ottoman lands. Asian spices were shipped directly to Europe, and wars with Iran interrupted the silk trade. European goods flowed in, which hurt the sale of local hand-made products. The Ottoman Empire’s negative trade balance resulted in an outflow of gold.

The Ottoman empire led by the Turks was a disaster. In 1908, a revolution began. In October 1908 Austria-Hungary annexed Bosnia and Herzognovenia, and Bulgaria declared independence. Italy took Tripoli and the Dodecanese. The two Balkan Wars (1912–13) almost completely the destroyed the Ottoman Empire. In the first (October 1912–May 1913) the Ottomans lost almost all their European possessions, including Crete, to Bulgaria, Serbia, Greece, Montenegro and Albania. The second (June–July 1913), was fought between Bulgaria and the remaining Balkan states over Macedonia. The Ottomans stepped in against Bulgaria and got back part of eastern Thrace. The Ottomans had lost more than four-fifths of the territory and more than two-thirds of the population of their European provinces.