Dolmabahçe Palace
Dolmabahçe Palace located in the Beşiktaş district of Istanbul, Turkey, on the European coast of the Bosphorus, served as the main administrative center of the Ottoman Empire from 1856 to 1887 and 1909 to 1922. Dolmabahçe Palace was ordered by the Empire's 31st Sultan, Abdülmecid I, built between the years 1843 and 1856; the Sultan and his family had lived at the Topkapı Palace, but as the medieval Topkapı was lacking in contemporary style and comfort, as compared to the palaces of the European monarchs, Abdülmecid decided to build a new modern palace near the site of the former Beşiktaş Sahil Palace, demolished. Hacı Said Ağa was responsible for the construction works, while the project was realized by architects Garabet Balyan, his son Nigoğayos Balyan and Evanis Kalfa; the construction cost five million Ottoman gold lira, or 35 tonnes of gold, the equivalent of ca. $1.5 billion in today's values. This sum corresponded to a quarter of the yearly tax revenue; the construction was financed through debasement, by massive issue of paper money, as well as by foreign loans.
The huge expenses placed an enormous burden on the state purse and contributed to the deteriorating financial situation of the Ottoman Empire, which defaulted on its public debt in October 1875, with the subsequent establishment in 1881 of financial control over the "sick man of Europe" by the European powers. The palace was home to six Sultans from 1856, when it was first inhabited, up until the abolition of the Caliphate in 1924: The last royal to live here was Caliph Abdülmecid Efendi. A law that went into effect on March 3, 1924 transferred the ownership of the palace to the national heritage of the new Turkish Republic. Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, the founder and first President of the Republic of Turkey, used the palace as a presidential residence during the summers and enacted some of his most important works here. Atatürk spent the last days of his medical treatment in this palace, where he died on November 10, 1938. Today, the palace is managed by Milli Saraylar Daire Başkanlığı responsible to the Grand National Assembly of Turkey.
The site of Dolmabahçe was a bay on the Bosphorus, used for the anchorage of the Ottoman fleet. The area was reclaimed during the 18th century to become an imperial garden, much appreciated by the Ottoman sultans. Various small summer palaces and wooden pavilions were built here during the 18th and 19th centuries forming a palace complex named Beşiktaş Waterfront Palace; the area of 110,000 m² is confined by Bosphorus on the east side, while a steep precipice bounds it on the west side, such that after the building of the new 45,000 m² monoblock Dolmabahçe Palace a limited space has remained for a garden complex which would surround such a palace. Dolmabahçe is the largest palace in Turkey, it has an area of 45,000 m2, contains 285 rooms, 46 halls, 6 baths and 68 toilets. The design contains eclectic elements from the Baroque and Neoclassical styles, blended with traditional Ottoman architecture to create a new synthesis; the palace layout and décor reflect the increasing influence of European styles and standards on Ottoman culture and art during the Tanzimat period.
The exterior, in particular the view from the Bosporus, shows a classical European two-wing arrangement, divided by a big avant-corps with two side avant-corps. Functionally, on the other hand, the palace retains elements of traditional Ottoman palace life, features of traditional Turkish homes, it is separated structurally in a southern wing which contains the public representation rooms, a northern wing serving as the private residential area for the Sultan and his family. The two functional areas are separated by the big Ceremonial Hall with a floor area of 2,000 m2 and a 36 m high dome. Since the harem had to be isolated from the outside world, the main entrance for the visitors is located on the narrow southern side. There, the representation rooms are arranged of foreign diplomats; the harem area includes eight interconnected apartments for the wives of the sultan, for his favourites and concubines, for his mother, each with its own bathroom. Whereas the Topkapı has exquisite examples of Iznik tiles and Ottoman carving, the Dolmabahçe palace is extensively decorated with gold and crystal.
Fourteen tonnes of gold were used to gild the ceilings. The world's largest Bohemian crystal chandelier is in the Ceremonial Hall; the chandelier was assumed to be a gift from Queen Victoria, however in 2006 the receipt was found showing it was paid for in full. It weighs 4.5 tonnes. Dolmabahçe has the largest collection of Baccarat crystal chandeliers in the world; the famous Crystal Staircase has the shape of a double horseshoe and is built of Baccarat crystal and mahogany. Expensive stones such as Marmara marble, Egyptian alabaster, Porphyry from Pergamon were used for the decoration; the palace includes a large number of Hereke palace carpets made by the Hereke Imperial Factory. Featured are 150-year-old bearskin rugs presented to the Sultan as a gift by Tsar Nicholas I. A collection of 202 oil paintings is on disp
Turkey
Turkey the Republic of Turkey, is a transcontinental country located in Western Asia, with a smaller portion on the Balkan Peninsula in Southeast Europe. East Thrace, located in Europe, is separated from Anatolia by the Sea of Marmara, the Bosphorous strait and the Dardanelles. Turkey is bordered by Bulgaria to its northwest. Istanbul is the largest city. 70 to 80 per cent of the country's citizens identify as Turkish. Kurds are the largest minority. At various points in its history, the region has been inhabited by diverse civilizations including the Assyrians, Thracians, Phrygians and Armenians. Hellenization continued into the Byzantine era; the Seljuk Turks began migrating into the area in the 11th century, their victory over the Byzantines at the Battle of Manzikert in 1071 symbolizes the start and foundation of Turkey. The Seljuk Sultanate of Rûm ruled Anatolia until the Mongol invasion in 1243, when it disintegrated into small Turkish principalities. Beginning in the late 13th-century, the Ottomans started uniting these Turkish principalities.
After Mehmed II conquered Constantinople in 1453, Ottoman expansion continued under Selim I. During the reign of Suleiman the Magnificent the Ottoman Empire encompassed much of Southeast Europe, West Asia and North Africa and became a world power. In the following centuries the state entered a period of decline with a gradual loss of territories and wars. In an effort to consolidate the weakening social and political foundations of the empire, Mahmut II started a period of modernisation in the early 19th century, bringing reforms in all areas of the state including the military and bureaucracy along with the emancipation of all citizens. In 1913, a coup d'état put the country under the control of the Three Pashas. During World War I, the Ottoman government committed genocides against its Armenian and Pontic Greek subjects. Following the war, the conglomeration of territories and peoples that comprised the Ottoman Empire was partitioned into several new states; the Turkish War of Independence, initiated by Mustafa Kemal Atatürk and his colleagues against occupying Allied Powers, resulted in the abolition of monarchy in 1922 and the establishment of the Republic of Turkey in 1923, with Atatürk as its first president.
Atatürk enacted numerous reforms, many of which incorporated various aspects of Western thought and customs into the new form of Turkish government. The Kurdish–Turkish conflict, an armed conflict between the Republic of Turkey and Kurdish insurgents, has been active since 1984 in the southeast of the country. Various Kurdish groups demand separation from Turkey to create an independent Kurdistan or to have autonomy and greater political and cultural rights for Kurds in Turkey. Turkey is a charter member of the UN, an early member of NATO, the IMF and the World Bank, a founding member of the OECD, OSCE, BSEC, OIC and G-20. After becoming one of the first members of the Council of Europe in 1949, Turkey became an associate member of the EEC in 1963, joined the EU Customs Union in 1995 and started accession negotiations with the European Union in 2005 which have been stopped by the EU in 2017 due to "Turkey's path toward autocratic rule". Turkey's economy and diplomatic initiatives led to its recognition as a regional power while its location has given it geopolitical and strategic importance throughout history.
Turkey is a secular, unitary parliamentary republic which adopted a presidential system with a referendum in 2017. Turkey's current administration headed by president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan of the AKP has enacted measures to increase the influence of Islam, undermine Kemalist policies and freedom of the press; the English name of Turkey means "land of the Turks". Middle English usage of Turkye is evidenced in an early work by Chaucer called The Book of the Duchess; the phrase land of Torke is used in the 15th-century Digby Mysteries. Usages can be found in the Dunbar poems, the 16th century Manipulus Vocabulorum and Francis Bacon's Sylva Sylvarum; the modern spelling "Turkey" dates back to at least 1719. The Turkish name Türkiye was adopted in 1923 under the influence of European usage; the Anatolian peninsula, comprising most of modern Turkey, is one of the oldest permanently settled regions in the world. Various ancient Anatolian populations have lived in Anatolia, from at least the Neolithic period until the Hellenistic period.
Many of these peoples spoke the Anatolian languages, a branch of the larger Indo-European language family. In fact, given the antiquity of the Indo-European Hittite and Luwian languages, some scholars have proposed Anatolia as the hypothetical centre from which the Indo-European languages radiated; the European part of Turkey, called Eastern Thrace, has been inhabited since at least forty thousand years ago, is known to have been in the Neolithic era by about 6000 BC. Göbekli Tepe is the site of the oldest known man-made religious structure, a temple dating to circa 10,000 BC, while Çatalhöyük is a large Neolithic and Chalcolithic settlement in southern Anatolia, which existed from approximately
Abolition of the Ottoman sultanate
The abolition of the Ottoman Sultanate by the Grand National Assembly of Turkey on 1 November 1922 ended the Ottoman Empire, which had lasted since 1299. On 11 November 1922, at the Conference of Lausanne, the sovereignty of the GNAT exercised by the Government in Ankara over Turkey was recognized; the last sultan, Mehmed VI, departed the Ottoman capital, Constantinople, on 17 November 1922. The legal position was solidified with the signing of the Treaty of Lausanne on 24 July 1923; the Ottoman entry into World War I along the Central Powers occurred on 11 November 1914. The Middle Eastern theatre of World War I ended with the signing of the Armistice of Mudros on 30 October 1918; the Occupation of Constantinople by British and Italian forces occurred on 13 November 1918. The partitioning of the Ottoman Empire began with the Treaty of London and continued with multiple agreements unilateral among the Allies. British troops began to occupy the key buildings of the Empire and arrest nationalists after the establishment of military rule on the night of 15 March 1920.
On 18 March 1920 the Ottoman parliament met and sent a protest to the Allies that it was unacceptable to arrest five of its members. That marked the end of the Ottoman political system. Sultan Mehmed VI dissolved the General Assembly of the Ottoman Empire on 11 April 1920; the Constantinople government, with the bureaucracy, but without the parliament, was left active with the Sultan as the decision maker. The Treaty of Sèvres on 10 August 1920 finalized the partitioning of the Empire. At the time, in waves 150 politicians were exiled to Malta; the Turkish national movement, led by Mustafa Kemal, established the Grand National Assembly of Turkey in Ankara on 23 April 1920. The Grand National Assembly of Turkey waged the Turkish War of Independence; the war was against the monarchist Constantinople government. Sultan Mehmed VI was the Caliph; the Constantinople government, without a parliament, formed the Kuva-yi Inzibatiye, known as the "Army of the Caliphate", to defeat the Grand National Assembly's Kuva-yi Milliye.
Conflicts occurred at Bolu, Düzce, Adapazarı, along the other revolts during the Turkish War of Independence. The Caliphate army was sympathetic to Islamism, hence the name, armed by the British; the strategic goal of the Caliphate army and of the British was to prevent the National Forces advancing towards the Bosporus straits. The Army of the Caliphate was defeated by the Kuva-yi Milliye. Although the Kuva-yi Milliye was regarded as the first step of resistance in the liberation of Turkey, irregular warfare was abandoned later. Before the Greek war began, Kuva-yi Milliye became the seed of an organized Turkish army, which became the Turkish Armed Forces with the declaration of a Republic; the Ottoman Empire's sovereignty was embodied in the dynasty of Osman I, its founder and namesake. His family had ruled since 1299 in an unbroken lineage throughout the empire's history; the Ottoman dynasty maintained supreme authority over the Ottoman Empire's polity. The sultan was head of state and head of government.
The Grand Viziers and polity established by the Ottoman Constitution functioned at the pleasure of the Sultan. An Allied invitation was given to both the Constantinople and Ankara governments to appear at the Conference of Lausanne. Mustafa Kemal was determined. On 1 November 1922, the Grand National Assembly declared that the Sultanate's Constantinople government was no longer the legal representative; the Grand National Assembly resolved that Constantinople had not been the capital of the nation since its occupation by the Allies. Furthermore, they declared; the abolition of the Sultanate ended the Ottoman Empire. After hearing of the resolution, Mehmed VI sought refuge aboard the British warship Malaya on 17 November; the remaining ministers in his government accepted the new political reality. There is no official document that declared the state capitulated by the Ottoman Government or Sultan; the Conference of Lausanne, on 11 November 1922, recognized the sovereignty of the Grand National Assembly of Turkey replacing the Ottoman Empire.
The last Sultan, Mehmed VI, departed Constantinople on 17 November 1922. A list of 600 names to the Conference of Lausanne was presented, were to be declared personae non gratae; the list, a who's who of the Ottoman Empire, had the purpose of eliminating the ruling elite of the Ottomans. Negotiations at Lausanne limited the number to 150, the treaty was signed on 24 July 1923; the Ottoman Dynasty embodied the Ottoman Caliphate since the fourteenth century, starting with the reign of Murad I. The Ottoman Dynasty kept the title Caliph, power over all Muslims, as Mehmed's cousin Abdülmecid II took the title; the Ottoman Dynasty left as a political and religious successor to Muhammad and a leader of the entire Muslim community without borders in a post Ottoman Empire. Abdülmecid II's title was challenged in 1916 by the leader of the Arab Revolt King Hussein bin Ali of Hejaz, who denounced Mehmet V, but his kingdom was defeated and annexed by Ibn Saud in 1925. Greek and Serb subjects left the empire during the decline and modernization of the Ottoman Empire, while the Albanian and Armenian subjects left or were killed during Defeat and dissolution of the Ottoman Empire.
By 1922 most of the remaining inhabitants of Turkey were Muslims of either Turkish or Kurdish ethnicity. The Grand National Assembly of Turkey declared itself the Republic of Turkey on 29 October 1923. T
Ottoman Imperial Harem
The Imperial Harem of the Ottoman Empire was the Ottoman sultan's harem composed of the wives, female relatives, the sultan's concubines, occupying a secluded portion of the Ottoman imperial household. This institution played an important social function within the Ottoman court, demonstrated considerable political authority in Ottoman affairs during the long period known as the Sultanate of Women; the utmost authority in the Imperial Harem was the Valide Sultan, who ruled over the other women in the household and was of slave origin herself. The Kizlar Agha was the head of the eunuchs responsible for guarding the Imperial Harem; the word harem is derived from the Arabic harim or haram which give connotations of the sacred and forbidden. The female quarters of Turkish households were referred to as haremlik due to their prevailing exclusivity; the harem was the ultimate symbol of the Sultan's power. His ownership of women slaves, was a sign of wealth and sexual prowess; the institution was introduced in the Turkish society with adoption of Islam, under the influence of the Arab Caliphate, which the Ottomans emulated.
To ensure the obedience of the women, many of them were kept into slavery. However, not all members of the Harem were slaves; the main wives those taken into marriage to consolidate personal and dynastic alliances were free women. This was the exception, not the rule; the relationship between slavery and polygamy/harems in the Turkish Harem continued until 1908, at the least. The imperial harem served as a parallel institution to the sultan's household of male servants; the women were provided with an education on par with that provided to male pages, at the end of their respective educations they would be married off to one another, as the latter graduated from the palace to occupy administrative posts in the empire's provinces. Only a small fraction of the women in the harem engaged in sexual relations with the sultan, as most were destined to marry members of the Ottoman political elite, or else to continue service to the Valide Sultan; the Imperial Harem occupied one of the large sections of the private apartments of the sultan at the Topkapi Palace which encompassed more than 400 rooms.
After 1853, an lavish harem quarter was occupied at the new imperial palace at Dolmabahçe. The mother of a new sultan came to the harem with pomp and assumed the title of valide sultan or sultana mother upon her son's ascension, she ran the Harem and ruled over the members of the dynasty. The Valide Sultan who influenced the political life of the Ottoman Empire during various periods of history had the authority to regulate the relations between the sultan and his wives and children. At times the valide sultan acted as regent for her son in the seventeenth century, when a series of accidents necessitated regencies that endowed the position of Queen Mother with great political power. In 1868, Empress Eugénie of France visited the Imperial harem, to have a lasting effect, she was taken by the sultan Abdülaziz to his mother, Valide Sultan Pertevniyal Sultan, but Pertevniyal became outraged by the presence of a foreign woman in her harem, greeted the Empress with a slap in the face provoking an international incident.
The visit of the Empress, did cause a dress reform in the harem by making Western fashion popular among the harem women, who dressed according to Western fashion after. For the perpetuation and service of the Ottoman Dynasty and intelligent slave girls were either captured in war, recruited within the empire, or procured from neighbouring countries to become imperial court ladies. Odalisque, a word derived from the Turkish oda, meaning chamber: thus connoting odalisque to mean chamber girl or attendant, was not a term synonymous with concubine; the court ladies who were introduced into the harem in their tender age were brought up in the discipline of the palace. They became kalfas and ustas; the court ladies with whom the sultan shared his bed became a member of the dynasty and rose in rank to attain the status of Gözde, Ikbal or Kadın. The highest position was the Valide Sultan, the legal mother of the sultan, who herself used to be a wife or a concubine of the sultan's father and rose to the supreme rank in the harem.
No court lady could leave or enter the premises of the harem without the explicit permission of the valide sultan. The power of the valide sultan over concubines extended to questions of life and death, with eunuchs directly reporting to her; the court ladies either lived in the halls beneath the apartments of the consorts, the valide sultan and the sultan, or in separate chambers. The kadıns, who numbered up to four, formed the group. Right below the kadıns in rank were the ikbals, whose number was unspecified. Last in the hierarchy were the gözdes. During 16th and 17th century, chief consort of the sultan received title haseki sultan or sultana consort; this title surpassed other titles and ranks by which the prominent consorts of the sultans had been known. When the position of valide sultan was vacant, a haseki could take valide's role, have access to considerable economic resources, become chief of imperial harem, sultan's a
Jerusalem
Jerusalem is a city in the Middle East, located on a plateau in the Judaean Mountains between the Mediterranean and the Dead Sea. It is one of the oldest cities in the world, is considered holy to the three major Abrahamic religions—Judaism and Islam. Both Israel and the Palestinian Authority claim Jerusalem as their capital, as Israel maintains its primary governmental institutions there and the State of Palestine foresees it as its seat of power. During its long history, Jerusalem has been destroyed at least twice, besieged 23 times and recaptured 44 times, attacked 52 times; the part of Jerusalem called the City of David shows first signs of settlement in the 4th millennium BCE, in the shape of encampments of nomadic shepherds. Jerusalem was named as "Urusalim" on ancient Egyptian tablets meaning "City of Shalem" after a Canaanite deity, during the Canaanite period. During the Israelite period, significant construction activity in Jerusalem began in the 9th century BCE, in the 8th century the city developed into the religious and administrative center of the Kingdom of Judah.
In 1538, the city walls were rebuilt for a last time around Jerusalem under Suleiman the Magnificent. Today those walls define the Old City, traditionally divided into four quarters—known since the early 19th century as the Armenian, Christian and Muslim Quarters; the Old City became a World Heritage Site in 1981, is on the List of World Heritage in Danger. Since 1860 Jerusalem has grown far beyond the Old City's boundaries. In 2015, Jerusalem had a population of some 850,000 residents, comprising 200,000 secular Jewish Israelis, 350,000 Haredi Jews and 300,000 Palestinians. In 2011, the population numbered 801,000, of which Jews comprised 497,000, Muslims 281,000, Christians 14,000 and 9,000 were not classified by religion. According to the Bible, King David conquered the city from the Jebusites and established it as the capital of the united kingdom of Israel, his son, King Solomon, commissioned the building of the First Temple. Modern scholars argue that Jews branched out of the Canaanite peoples and culture through the development of a distinct monolatrous — and monotheistic — religion centered on El/Yahweh, one of the Ancient Canaanite deities.
These foundational events, straddling the dawn of the 1st millennium BCE, assumed central symbolic importance for the Jewish people. The sobriquet of holy city was attached to Jerusalem in post-exilic times; the holiness of Jerusalem in Christianity, conserved in the Septuagint which Christians adopted as their own authority, was reinforced by the New Testament account of Jesus's crucifixion there. In Sunni Islam, Jerusalem is the third-holiest city, after Medina. In Islamic tradition, in 610 CE it became the first qibla, the focal point for Muslim prayer, Muhammad made his Night Journey there ten years ascending to heaven where he speaks to God, according to the Quran; as a result, despite having an area of only 0.9 square kilometres, the Old City is home to many sites of seminal religious importance, among them the Temple Mount with its Western Wall, Dome of the Rock and al-Aqsa Mosque, the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. Outside the Old City stands the Garden Tomb. Today, the status of Jerusalem remains one of the core issues in the Israeli–Palestinian conflict.
During the 1948 Arab–Israeli War, West Jerusalem was among the areas captured and annexed by Israel while East Jerusalem, including the Old City, was captured and annexed by Jordan. Israel captured East Jerusalem from Jordan during the 1967 Six-Day War and subsequently annexed it into Jerusalem, together with additional surrounding territory. One of Israel's Basic Laws, the 1980 Jerusalem Law, refers to Jerusalem as the country's undivided capital. All branches of the Israeli government are located in Jerusalem, including the Knesset, the residences of the Prime Minister and President, the Supreme Court. While the international community rejected the annexation as illegal and treats East Jerusalem as Palestinian territory occupied by Israel, Israel has a stronger claim to sovereignty over West Jerusalem. A city called Rušalim in the execration texts of the Middle Kingdom of Egypt is but not universally, identified as Jerusalem. Jerusalem is called Urušalim in the Amarna letters of Abdi-Heba.
The name "Jerusalem" is variously etymologized to mean "foundation of the god Shalem". Shalim or Shalem was the name of the god of dusk in the Canaanite religion, whose name is based on the same root S-L-M from which the Hebrew word for "peace" is derived; the name thus offered itself to etymologizations such as "The City of Peace", "Abode of Peace", "dwelling of peace", alternately "Vision of Peace" in some Christian authors. The ending -ayim indicates the dual, thus leading to the suggestion that the name Yerushalayim refers to the fact that the city sat on two hills; the form Yerushalem or Yerushalayim first appears in the Book of Joshua. According to a Midrash, the name is a combination of "Yireh" and "Shalem" the two names were un
Baghdad
Baghdad is the capital of Iraq. The population of Baghdad, as of 2016, is 8,765,000, making it the largest city in Iraq, the second largest city in the Arab world, the second largest city in Western Asia. Located along the Tigris River, the city was founded in the 8th century and became the capital of the Abbasid Caliphate. Within a short time of its inception, Baghdad evolved into a significant cultural and intellectual center for the Islamic world. This, in addition to housing several key academic institutions, as well as hosting multiethnic and multireligious environment, garnered the city a worldwide reputation as the "Centre of Learning". Baghdad was the largest city of the Middle Ages for much of the Abbasid era, peaking at a population of more than a million; the city was destroyed at the hands of the Mongol Empire in 1258, resulting in a decline that would linger through many centuries due to frequent plagues and multiple successive empires. With the recognition of Iraq as an independent state in 1938, Baghdad regained some of its former prominence as a significant center of Arab culture.
In contemporary times, the city has faced severe infrastructural damage, most due to the 2003 invasion of Iraq, the subsequent Iraq War that lasted until December 2011. In recent years, the city has been subjected to insurgency attacks; the war had resulted in a substantial loss of historical artifacts as well. As of 2018, Baghdad was listed as one of the least hospitable places in the world to live, ranked by Mercer as the worst of 231 major cities as measured by quality-of-life; the name Baghdad is pre-Islamic, its origin is disputed. The site where the city of Baghdad developed has been populated for millennia. By the 8th century AD, several villages had developed there, including a Persian hamlet called Baghdad, the name which would come to be used for the Abbasid metropolis. Arab authors, realizing the pre-Islamic origins of Baghdad's name looked for its roots in Persian, they suggested various meanings, the most common of, "bestowed by God". Modern scholars tend to favor this etymology, which views the word as a compound of bagh "god" and dād "given", In Old Persian the first element can be traced to boghu and is related to Slavic bog "god", while the second can be traced to dadāti.
A similar term in Middle Persian is the name Mithradāt, known in English by its Hellenistic form Mithridates, meaning "gift of Mithra". There are a number of other locations in the wider region whose names are compounds of the word bagh, including Baghlan and Bagram in Afghanistan or a village called Bagh-šan in Iran; the name of the town Baghdati in Georgia shares the same etymological origins. A few authors have suggested older origins for the name, in particular the name Bagdadu or Hudadu that existed in Old Babylonian, the Babylonian Talmudic name of a place called "Baghdatha"; some scholars suggested Aramaic derivations. When the Abbasid caliph, al-Mansur, founded a new city for his capital, he chose the name Madinat al-Salaam or City of Peace; this was the official name on coins and other official usage, although the common people continued to use the old name. By the 11th century, "Baghdad" became the exclusive name for the world-renowned metropolis. After the fall of the Umayyads, the first Muslim dynasty, the victorious Abbasid rulers wanted their own capital from which they could rule.
They chose a site north of the Sassanid capital of Ctesiphon, on 30 July 762 the caliph Al-Mansur commissioned the construction of the city. It was built under the supervision of the Barmakids. Mansur believed that Baghdad was the perfect city to be the capital of the Islamic empire under the Abbasids. Mansur loved the site so much he is quoted saying: "This is indeed the city that I am to found, where I am to live, where my descendants will reign afterward"; the city's growth was helped by its excellent location, based on at least two factors: it had control over strategic and trading routes along the Tigris, it had an abundance of water in a dry climate. Water exists on both the north and south ends of the city, allowing all households to have a plentiful supply, uncommon during this time. Baghdad eclipsed Ctesiphon, the capital of the Sassanians, located some 30 km to the southeast. Today, all that remains of Ctesiphon is the shrine town of Salman Pak, just to the south of Greater Baghdad.
Ctesiphon itself had replaced and absorbed Seleucia, the first capital of the Seleucid Empire, which had earlier replaced the city of Babylon. According to the traveler Ibn Battuta, Baghdad was one of the largest cities, not including the damage it has received; the residents are Hanbal. Bagdad is home to the grave of Abu Hanifa where there is a cell and a mosque above it; the Sultan of Bagdad, Abu Said Bahadur Khan, was a Tartar king. In its early years, the city was known as a deliberate reminder of an expression in the Qur'an, when it refers to Paradise, it took four years to build. Mansur assembled engineers and art constructionists from around the world to come together and draw up plans for the city. Over 100,000 construction workers came to survey the plans. July was chosen as the starting time because two astrologers, Naubakht Ahva
History of the Ottoman Empire during World War I
The Ottoman Empire participated in World War I as one of the Central Powers. The Ottoman Empire entered the war by carrying out a surprise attack on Russia's Black Sea coast on 29 October 1914, with Russia responding by declaring war on 5 November 1914. Ottoman forces fought the Entente in the Balkans and the Middle Eastern theatre of World War I; the Ottoman Empire's defeat in the war in 1918 was crucial in the eventual dissolution of the empire in 1921. The Ottoman entry into World War I began on 29 October 1914 when it launched the Black Sea Raid against Russian ports. Following the attack and its allies declared war on the Ottomans in November 1914; the Ottoman Empire started military action came after three months of formal neutrality, but it had signed a secret alliance with the Central Powers in August 1914. The political reasons for the Ottoman Sultan's entry into the war are disputed, and the Ottoman Empire was an agricultural state in an age of industrialized warfare, the economic resources of the empire were depleted by the cost of the Balkan Wars of 1912 and 1913.
The great landmass of Anatolia was between the Ottoman army's headquarters in Istanbul and many of the theatres of war. During Abdulhamit II's reign civilian communications had improved, but the road and rail network was not ready for war, it took more than a month to reach nearly two months to reach Mesopotamia. To reach the border with Russia, the railway ran only 60 km east of Ankara, from there, it was 35 days to Erzurum; the Army used Trabzon port as logistical shortcut to east. It took less time to arrive at any of those fronts from London than from the Ottoman War Department because of the poor condition of Ottoman supply ships; the empire fell into disorder with the declaration of war along with Germany. On 11 November a conspiracy was discovered in Constantinople against Germans and the Committee of Union and Progress in which some of the CUP leaders were shot; that followed the 12 November revolt in Adrianople against the German military mission. On 13 November, a bomb exploded in Enver Pasha's palace, which killed five German officers but missed the Enver Pasha.
On 18 November were more anti-German plots. Committees formed around the country to rid the country of those. Army and navy officers protested against the assumption of authority by Germans. On 4 December, widespread riots took place throughout the country. On 13 December was an anti-war demonstration by women in Erzurum. Throughout December, the CUP dealt with mutiny among naval crews; the head of the German Military Mission, Field Marshal von der Goltz, survived a conspiracy against his life. The military power remained in the hands of War Minister Enver Pasha, domestic issues on Interior Minister Talat Pasha, and, an interesting point, Cemal Pasha had sole control over Ottoman Syria. Rest of the governance, provincial governors, ran their regions with differing degrees of autonomy. An interesting case is Izmir. Ottoman's entrance into the war increased the Triple Entente's military burdens. Russia had to fight alone on the Caucasus Campaign but fought with the United Kingdom on the Persian Campaign.
İsmail Enver Pasha set off for the Battle of Sarikamish with the intention of recapturing Batum and Kars, overrunning Georgia and occupying north-western Persia and the oil fields. Fighting the Russians in the Caucasus, the Ottomans lost ground, over 100,000 soldiers, in a series of battles. 60,000 Ottoman soldiers died in the winter of 1916—17 on the Mus—Bitlis section of the front. Ottomans preferred to keep the Caucasus militarily silent as they had to regroup reserves to retake Baghdad and Palestine from the British. 1917 and the first half of 1918 was the time for negotiations. On 5 December 1917, the armistice of Erzincan signed between the Russians and Ottomans in Erzincan that ended the armed conflicts between Russia and Ottoman Empire. On 3 March, the Grand vizier Talat Pasha signed the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk with the Russian SFSR, it stipulated that Bolshevik Russia cede Batum and Ardahan. In addition to these provisions, a secret clause was inserted which obligated the Russians to demobilize Armenian national forces.
Between 14 March – April 1918 the Trabzon peace conference held among the Ottoman Empire and the delegation of the Transcaucasian Diet. Enver Pasha offered to surrender all ambitions in the Caucasus in return for recognition of the Ottoman reacquisition of the east Anatolian provinces at Brest-Litovsk at the end of the negotiations. On 5 April, the head of the Transcaucasian delegation Akaki Chkhenkeli accepted the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk as a basis for more negotiations and wired the governing bodies urging them to accept this position; the mood prevailing in Tiflis was different. Tiflis acknowledge the existence of a state of war between the Ottoman Empire. In April 1918, the Ottoman 3rd Army went on the offensive in Armenia. Opposition from Armenian forces led to the Battle of Sardarapat, the Battle of Kara Killisse, the Battle of Bash Abaran. On 28 May 1918, the Armenian National Council based in Tiflis declared the Democratic Republic of Armenia; the new Republic of Armenia was forced to sign the Treaty of Batum.
In July 1918, Ottomans faced the Centrocaspian Dictatorship at the Battle of Baku, with the goal of taking Armenian/Russian/British occupied Baku on the Caspian Sea. The British captured Basra in November 1914, marched north into Iraq. Ahmed Djemal Pasha was ordered to gather an army in Palestine to threaten the Suez Canal. In response, the Allies—including the newly forme
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