The question of abolition of capitulations in the Ottoman Empire

Capitulations mean that a state grants privileges to another state. These privileges usually include particular rights and exemptions in political, economic, judicial and legal domains. "The capitulation regime" was implemented before the foundation of the Ottoman Empire. The Ottoman administration continued to use this system by expanding it in line with its economic and political interests. The empire aimed to attract foreign merchants to the country and facilitate them to conduct business from the 16th century. To this end, foreign states were granted trade licence. This meant that the states acquired the right to apply their own laws in the Ottoman territory. Western states, with the treaties, were exempted from most of the taxes and other financial restrictions on their trade. Western citizens also acquired private and legal privileges such as the right to reside and travel in Ottoman territory, to open schools in their own languages, to be tried in consular courts and to practice their religion and customs freely. The Ottoman Empire aimed to keep the trade routes alive through capitulations to provide easy access to the goods produced and needed by the European states and to fill its treasury, which was always in need of cash flow with customs duty. Capitulations were also granted for political purposes such as breaking up Catholic Christian Europe. The political, military, and financial decline of the Ottoman Empire against the West, which began at the end of the 17th century, reached its peak in the 19th century, when power relations between the Ottoman Empire and Europe changed radically. Western states operating against the Ottoman Empire started to get results in a shorter time and easier way in this period. The Ottoman Empire, on the other hand, made various attempts to limit the capitulations and protect its own economic interests in this period. This study aims to identify and evaluate the weaknesses that capitulations caused in the Ottoman political, financial, judicial and legal structure over a period of approximately four centuries, starting with the first capitulation treaty granted by the Ottoman Empire in the 16th century. This thesis addresses the identification and evaluation of capitulations as well as the responses of bureaucracy and intelligentsia of Ottoman Empire to the capitulations. The study also aims to contribute to the studies on the last period of the Ottoman Empire by addressing the process of abolition of capitulations as a question. Furthermore, this study is intended to be research that can be used by other disciplines as well as historians who are interested in the issue of capitulations. This study aims to examine capitulations from a historical perspective and to understand the network of abuses that they caused in the Ottoman Empire. The study seeks to understand the origin, development and reasons for the widespread use of the capitulation system, to analyse the impact of the regime on the balance of power between states and to examine examples of the consequences of capitulation. In particular, the thesis focuses on the effects of the capitulations in the last periods of the Ottoman Empire.