Original subtitles

(HAUNTING ORIENTAL MUSIC)

This is the untold story

of the making of the modern world.

(MUSIC BRIGHTENS)

A fresh perspective,

charting the spread of civilization

across the globe,

from the dawn of mankind and the first cities and Empires

to the belief in One God.

(Calls to prayer)

We follow the flow of civilisation

from the Middle East,

an extraordinary place that has been a vital link

between the continents of Asia,

Africa and Europe for millennia...

an economic, scientific

and cultural centre of the world.

This is an epic journey of discovery,

from the East to the West.

(DRAMATIC MUSIC SOARS)

Istanbul -

the only city in the world that sits astride two continents,

Europe and Asia.

This was once the capital

of one of the greatest imperial powers in history -

the vast Ottoman Empire.

(MELANCHOLY ORIENTAL MUSIC)

As the dream of a great dynasty became a reality,

the Ottoman Sultanate developed into a Renaissance Superpower.

The dynamism and sophistication of their court at Topkapi Palace

inspired both fear and fascination in the Empire and beyond.

In its golden age, the Ottoman Empire

would become invincible both on land and sea.

Revered as THE model - for state, trade and culture.

But, a tide of change

threatened to bring the Age of Empire crashing to a close.

There is a real quantum shift in the 19th century.

You get the sense that they realise

they cannot survive unless they start to face outwards.

It was a time when relations with the West would shape the East.

This is the story of the Ottoman Empire and the West.

(TRAIN HOOTS)

(DARK MUSIC)

In the 16th century,

the Ottoman Empire expanded across three continents.

The Ottomans controlled much of Western Asia,

North Africa and South-eastern Europe.

At the head of the ruling Ottoman dynasty

was Sultan Suleiman ll -

known in the West as Suleiman the Magnificent.

(RHYTHMIC MUSIC)

1529.

The 300,000-strong Ottoman war machine

has pushed its way to the gates of Vienna.

Suleiman has shaken Christian Europe to its core.

It is a watershed moment in history.

But after months of siege, Vienna's defenders prevail.

The prolonged siege and upcoming winter

force the Sultan to change his mind.

But, although their advance may have been checked at Vienna,

the Ottomans were still a permanent fixture in Europe.

And within the Empire, their wealth and potency seemed unaffected.

One priceless object in Topkapi Palace

epitomises the extent of Suleiman's power.

Made almost 500 years ago,

this sword could have been carried in a court ceremony

by Suleiman himself, as a display of royal splendour.

This sword shows that Suleiman could obtain the finest resources

and attract the most talented craftsmen

from both inside and outside the Empire.

This parchment map was made around 1560 for Sultan Suleiman

by cartographer Al-Hajj Abul Hassan.

The Ottoman flags flying over places like Belgrade, Buda and Rhodes

show that despite the setback at Vienna,

much of Europe was now under Ottoman control.

And it was not only on land

that the Ottomans had been interfering in European concerns.

Now, Suleiman's navy became the scourge of the Christian West.

(MYSTERIOUS MUSIC)

Behind the scenes at lstanbul's Naval Museum

is a restoration warehouse.

Inside, it houses a unique bounty...

Ottoman vessels, kept under wraps.

These are imperial kayaks and galleys

that once sailed the Black Sea and Mediterranean...

The task oi restoring them to their original glory has begun.

They are relics of a time when the Ottomans were known

by friend and foe alike

as the “lords of the sea”.

(SEA THEME)

This was the age of discovery -

a time when European states had begun to colonise the New World

and trade spices as far afield as the Indian Ocean.

Now, Ottoman fleets attempted to monopolise

the lucrative trade from the east.

They captured strategic island and coastal outposts,

turning the Mediterranean into an Ottoman lake.

To grasp control of the shipping lanes

the Ottomans employed an ingenious tactic.

The countless pirates, privateers and corsairs that roamed the seas

were usually lawless raiders and traders.

But, by making shrewd and tactical alliances,

Sultan Suleiman turned the most sea-worthy corsairs

into Ottoman Admirals.

This 16th century miniature shows the Sultan

receiving the most successful privateer in Ottoman history.

His name was Hayreddin Barbarossa.

Under Barbarossa's command,

the Ottomans interrupted vital European sea-borne trade.

Cities all over Europe saw their livelihoods hang by a thread.

(SAD SINGING)

16th century Europe may have been divided by internal rivalries,

but they had a common enemy.

The Ottomans were such a threat,

that Western Europe formed a “Holy League” to defend themselves.

Two of the largest navies ever assembled,

clashed off the coast of Greece

at Lepanto.

(DRAMATIC MUSIC)

In the course of the battle,

the Ottomans lost four times as many ships as the Europeans,

and double the troops.

(DRAMATIC MUSIC, SCREAMS, GUNFIRE)

Lepanto was celebrated by the Holy League

as a major victory.

Now, they hoped to reclaim control of the Mediterranean.

But, most importantly,

the idea that the Ottomans could be decisively beaten was born.

In the West, this naval battle has traditionally been seen

as a major turning point in the struggle against the Ottomans.

But in the East, this was just a setback.

(OTTOMAN THEME)

Within a year, the Ottomans had rebuilt their fleet.

Lepanto was far from the end of Ottoman power.

In their relations with the Ottomans,

Europe's mercantile powers walked a tightrope -

between alliance and defence.

Ambassadors from Francis I's France and Elizabeth I's England

were sent on diplomatic missions to the Ottoman court

as treaties of “friendship and commerce”

became essential to their survival.

In this Ottoman miniature, King John Sigismund of Hungary

is depicted paying homage to Suleiman.

It reveals the continuing influence of the Ottomans

upon the Western world.

At Topkapi Palace western visitors discovered an imperial playground

that could equal any European Renaissance court -

in riches, taste and in the language of kingship.

Their reports of the splendour of Suleiman's court

earned him the title, Suleiman the Magnificent.

But perhaps Suleiman's greatest legacy

was his creation of a system of government

that the world still uses today.

Topkapi didn't just become a centre of modern government,

it became a model of artistic design.

Here, the Ottomans drew together

the different artistic styles of East and West,

and founded their own Ottoman means of expression.

Even after Suleiman's time,

later sultans built upon this tradition,

and endowed the Palace grounds with ever more elaborate Ottoman designs.

Today, a restoration team are replicating the work

of Ottoman master craftsmen of the classical age.

(GENTLE REVERBERATING MUSIC)

The Revan Pavilion was built in 1635,

to celebrate the conquest of Yerevan,

today the capital of Armenia.

It represents a pinnacle of the Ottoman artistic legacy -

fuelled by continuing conquests.

In the maturity of his reign,

at the age of 54,

Suleiman had reached the zenith of his powers.

Now, he wanted to leave a lasting and majestic impression upon Istanbul,

a symbol of his reign for all the world to see.

And he relied on a well-established genius.

His name was Sinan.

The chief architect of the Empire for 5O years,

Sinan had designed and supervised hundreds of Ottoman landmarks

from Damascus to the capital.

Now Suleiman commissioned Sinan

to build the tallest, most extensive complex

in the history of the capital.

The Suleimaniye Mosque.

(THEME MUSIC)

It is the ultimate expression of the power of the Ottoman state.

Even today, its command of the city is breathtaking.

As well as a mosque, Sinan designed four colleges here,

a soup kitchen, a hamam,

a kervansaray and a hospital

as well as the tomb that would be Sultan Suleiman's

final resting place.

The Suleimaniye complex quickly became the focal point of the city.

RHYTHMIC CHANTING)

The conformity of intricate geometric shapes

was the culmination of Sinan's lifelong effort

to achieve a unified space,

capturing in stone the ordered Ottoman view of the world.

Traditionally, the late 17th and 18th centuries

are considered the beginning of the end for the Ottoman Empire.

But, in reality, the Empire was thriving.

(LIVELY ORIENTAL MUSIC)

The Empire stretched across Africa, Asia and Europe -

from Algiers to Mosul

and from Medina to the gates of Vienna.

The Ottomans controlled the crossroads of trade routes

coming from every continent and sub-continent

between East and West.

Ottoman merchants were prospering in the capital

and the coastal provinces.

The small town of Birgi in western Anatolia

retains its Ottoman character today,

and amidst the traditional houses, is an echo of this time of plenty.

(BRIGHT MUSIC)

Built in 1761,

largely preserved in its original state,

Cakir Aga Mansion seems, at first sight,

to be a typical wooden mansion of western Anatolia.

This magnificent three-storey building

belonged to Serif Aliaga, the owner of the local tannery.

Yet the small details in the mansion's decor

reveal that Serif Aliaga's world

extended far beyond Anatolia.

Western motifs reflect the ideas carried into Ottoman harbours

by the French, English, Dutch and Venetian traders

that flowed in and out of Birgi.

And there's a story hidden in the friezes of Cakir Aga mansion.

Serif Aliaga's two wives, one from the vibrant capital Istanbul

and the other from the Aegean trading port of Izmir,

were pining for their hometowns.

A solution was found...

as a comfort to them, Serif Aliaga had their cities

painted on their bedroom walls.

Izmir in this room

Istanbul in this,

capturing in miniature,

what was the economic powerhouse of the Empire

over 500 km to the north.

(ORIENTAL STRUMMING)

But the arrival of the modern age

would present the Ottomans with new challenges,

with pressure and influence from Europe

penetrating all the way to Istanbul.

The Ottoman elite began to change their outlook...

It you travel along the Bosphorus in Istanbul today,

you can still find clues as to how the Ottoman world

was in transition.

The Bosphorus is a good example of how things are changing.

By the 18th century you have an explosion of the old centre.

The Palace is no longer contained within the limits of the city.

The Sultanas, the Palace, the Sultan himself

will start to use the Bosphorus

as a place where you can flaunt and display your splendour

by implanting these new kinds of mansions, seaside mansions.

The Ottomans began to build elaborate western-style architecture

along the shore of the Bosphorus

If you look at some of these mansions,

they're generally built so as to enjoy

the scenery of the Bosphorus.

The rest, that is the backside,

is used as a, as a huge garden where you'd have your Harem and whatever,

but the stately mansion would be right on the sea.

And that's a way of enjoying the city that did not exist previously.

This new pleasure culture was not only promoted by the Ottoman elite.

More and more European diplomats

retired to grand new waterfront embassies.

The Bosphorus has become a grand canal

ii you take Venice as an example - this is a huge canal

where people are basically expressing their power

by their residences and by their sheer presence

on this stretch of water.

This grand waterway is the age-old dividing line

between the continents of Europe and Asia.

It has been an important trade route since ancient times.

Now, as European trade with the Americas

began to eclipse the old Mediterranean markets,

a new world order was emerging.

If you look at the 18th century

you already have a sense of society that is changing.

The Mediterranean is being marginalised.

That is true of the Ottomans, it's true of Venice,

it's also true of the Spaniards.

What is rising is the Atlantic economies,

it's the Dutch, the English, to a certain extent the French -

so the world is changing the balance of the world is changing

and in that new world the Ottomans feel

they no longer have a hold on modernity,

on what is happening.

(CROWD HOWLS, APPREHENSIVE MUSIC)

Ever since the French revolution in 1789,

the spark of nationalism within the Empire had been fanned to flame...

(GUNFIRE)

In a newly industrialised world,

a great wave of radical social and political unrest

was building momentum.

With the backing of European powers, the Empire's non-Muslim minorities

demanded independence from the Ottoman state.

And in 1827, disaster struck -

in support of the Greek Battle for Independence,

Britain, France and Russia

completely annihilated the Ottoman fleet

in the Battle of Navarino.

Nationalism had begun to rip the Ottoman world apart.

In 1830 they were forced to grant Greece their independence

and their control of Egypt was in little more than name alone.

In 1875 Serbia, Montenegro, Wallachia and Moldavia

also declared their independence.

And in 1878 the Ottomans lost control of Bulgaria,

Bosnia Herzegovina and Romania.

Ravaged by war - the map of the Empire was being redrawn.

(DARK MUSIC)

There was a pressing need

to prevent the total disintegration of the Empire.

This Royal Edict of Reform is part of a movement

that would change the Ottoman state forever -

and it was called the Tanzimat, meaning “reorganisation”.

The Ottoman elite began to reorder its administration -

but this time along Western European lines.

Nowhere was this need for reorganisation felt more strongly

than in the military.

Uniforms and artillery were bought from Britain and France.

Gradually a modern Ottoman army emerged.

The Ottoman Sultanate needed to deter attack from outside forces

in the East and the West -

and develop highly visible symbols of central control -

even in the furthest reaches of the Empire.

Over 1200 km from Istanbul,

on the eastern flanks of Anatolia,

standing on the Silk Road,

near the Iranian border and facing Mount Ararat -

the effect of the emerging new world order is evident.

Ishak Pasa Palace.

(REVERBERATING MUSIC)

This extraordinary fortified palace

was vital to Ottoman control of these tough borderlands.

It was a strategic hub in the two-year long territorial dispute

between the Ottoman and Persian Empires in the early 19th century.

This palace sits at a crossroads of civilization.

Its flamboyant architectural fabric

reflects a fusion of Persian, Georgian, Armenian,

Seljuk, Ottoman and Western styles.

Inside, it bears many of the hallmarks

of a miniature Topkapi Palace.

Complete with law courts, harem,

and a magnificent private mosque of imperial dimensions.

Here, carved inscriptions of Qur'anic verses line the walls.

Built at central government's command,

lshak Pasa Palace was closely controlled from Istanbul

for almost two centuries.

It is the ultimate symbol of Ottoman power in Eastern Anatolia.

Proof of Ottoman efforts to maintain

even the most remote reaches of its Empire.

(MUTED PRAYER)

In a similar way, Ottoman central government

developed close control of the sacred Hajj route - in Syria.

(CALL FOR PRAYER)

Damascus, a jewel in the Ottoman crown

reflecting the wealth of the Empire.

Benefiting from far eastern trade along the Hajj route,

and European trade through the Eastern Mediterranean ports

Damascus became a home for a local version of Ottoman modernism.

Tucked away in the maze-like alleyways of the old city

is a hidden 19th century treasure.

Built in 1830,

Beit Nizam once housed affluent merchant families.

At face value it's a traditional Damascus house.

Damascene houses are famous for this design.

Er, it all revolves around the courtyard.

The courtyard is the heart.

It's always big with trees and fountains,

and on the southern side you always have this eyvan

which is where you'd receive your guests.

But look closely and there are clues to the close connection

between Istanbul and Damascus in the 19th century.

Within this Ottoman-Arabic setting

the effects of the new and old are there on the walls.

If you look at the ornamentation over here,

this is very typical - it goes back to maybe the 13th century.

But then around the 1830s we start to see something new.

This is what we call Ottoman Baroque,

and you see a much more sort of voluptuous design, if you want,

a much more high relief,

a three-dimensional carving, very, very busy.

Ottoman Baroque is a very special part of interior design history

because it's directly linked

with the Ottoman Empire's attempts to modernise.

Nizam House reveals that Sultan Mahmud ll's reforms

had successfully improved the relationship

between the palace and the provinces.

This is called Ka'at el-Enab meaning the Hall of Grapes

because of this extensive carving, and gilded stucco,

it's just very crazily, ridiculously, heavily ornamented -

inspired straight out of Versailles if you like,

but actually, it's coming from Istanbul.

Walls that would have been blank in a typical Damascene house

were for the first time adorned with Italian-style frescoes.

Istanbul had become a symbol of modernity

for the whole Ottoman world.

Here we have carvings of Istanbul landscapes,

a dome, a minaret.

So, fusing an Islamic Ottoman identity

with the wealth and power of the baroque style

which was prominent in Europe.

And the Ottoman identity... if you look up at the ceiling

you immediately see the symbols of the Ottoman Sultan.

It's really expressing this Ottoman desire to modernise

and to step up to what's happening in European culture

and to be on equal footing,

while also retaining its integrity and its identity

at a time of a lot of crisis and pressure happening.

(NERVOUS MUSIC)

But, in spite of these efforts to maintain control of the Empire,

the economic and political axis of the world tilted west.

Now, as newly industrialised European factories

churned out manufactured goods -

household wares,

even cotton fabrics woven in Europe

started to take over the stalls in Ottoman bazaars.

Gold poured out from the coffers of the Empire.

And countries like Britain and France

began to use their economic advantage

to demand more favourable trade treaties with the Ottomans.

As these two worlds interacted,

Ottoman culture would leave a lasting impression on the European West.

The fascination with the Ottoman world,

was part of a rising Western academic movement -

Orientalism.

For the first time, translations of great Middle Eastern works

such as the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam and the Arabian Nights

were reaching markets in the West -

and their translators were European travellers...

In Mortlake Cemetery in London

there is the tomb of one of the most famous Orientalist adventurers:

Richard Burton - translator of the 1001 Arabian Nights.

The impact of the Arabian Nights

on 18th, 19th and 20th literature is massive.

I think there's no book in the world except the Bible

that had a bigger influence on British literature.

Inside the tomb are objects gathered on Burton's travels

in the Ottoman-controlled Middle East.

The things we see hanging here

were accumulated while he and Isabelle were in Damascus,

when Burton was serving as Consul there.

He collected all sorts of stuff.

These camel bells you see here, were important for Burton -

they had kind of symbolic significance.

Burton made clandestine journeys to Mecca and Medina -

one of the first Europeans to explore

the distant and relatively unknown lands of the Hajj.

The Royal Geographical Society somewhat hesitantly sponsored

Burton's extremely dangerous pilgrimage to Mecca and Medina.

It was dangerous because he was doing it in disguise;

if that disguise was uncovered and he was revealed to be an infidel

he'd almost certainly have been killed on the spot.

I think Burton's love of the Orient

is a product of his revulsion against British society -

it's stuffiness, it's conformity, it's Victorianism,

it's lack of adventure, he much preferred Islam to Christianity.

Burton's tales are celebrated

as masterpieces of 19th century literature.

But they also established an image of the Middle East

as a place of intrigue and uncertainty.

Artists, inspired by the likes of Burton,

travelled and painted romanticised versions of the Orient.

Frequently there was a sensual, dangerous side

to Orientalist paintings.

I think what's fascinating about this time,

is that the East is either portrayed

as being very, very good or very, very bad.

So you have these two versions,

you have the bloodthirsty Moor, the bloodthirsty Turk.

And then this very romantic idea of this sensuous, mystical place

where everything is wonderful, where the air smells sweet.

This is a time of colonialism.

So it's almost as if the West is saying

“We are now in charge of portions of the East.

“We're almost unveiling it."

Also, it is a very difficult place to get hold of -

it does have its own mystery -

and I think that's what's being realised in the painting

that even though the West is physically in many Eastern lands -

it still can't quite grab the essence of what the East is.

In the real world of the Ottoman Empire,

successive Sultans were battling

to keep their increasingly disparate peoples together.

The Tanzimat reforms made a break with tradition,

leaving behind the old Millet system,

granting the Empire's minority communities or “nations"

equal status with its Muslim citizens.

In this Imperial Reform Edict Sultan Abdulmecid I pledged

that any distinction that made any of his subjects inferior to another -

on account of their religion, language, or race -

would be forever effaced from the Administrative Protocol.

As their efforts to keep up with the West increased,

the Ottoman Sultanate moved to a new seat of power.

(CHANT)

Today the Turkish Palace Guards still protect Dolmabahce Palace.

The ultimate Rococo monument,

it wouldn't look out of place amongst the chateaux of France.

This lavish palace represents the pinnacle of the Tanzimat era.

(EERIE MUSIC)

But, despite having all the trappings of a great European nation,

Ottoman westernisation had only touched the surface.

Beneath the palace's rich facade,

the limits of the Tanzimat reforms were beginning to show.

The Ottoman administration's efforts had not been enough

to convince each different “nation"

that their future lay within the Empire.

The Tanzimat was obviously something that started very well

in the 1840s, '50s -

but it's true that the Tanzimat was doomed in a sense

because it was very difficult for an Empire

to really er, transform itself to the point of suiting

all the necessities and the desires, the expectations

of nations, of nation states.

So it was doomed from the start in the sense that it was too complex,

it was too modern in a sense for the structure of the Ottoman Empire.

Dolmabahce Palace is adorned with exquisitely crafted

furnishing and ornaments - mostly from Europe.

The centrepiece of the ceremonial hall

is the world's largest Bohemian crystal chandelier-

a gift from Queen Victoria of Great Britain.

It dominates the room -

a symbol of the influence of European powers

at the very heart of the Ottoman administration.

Westernization had been a very expensive process.

Until 1850, the Ottoman Empire was the only Empire of the age,

never to have contracted foreign debt.

But now, the Ottoman state began to rely on European capital.

Dolmabahce Palace is a palace that speaks of power, of flaunting power.

It's really the embodiment of a modern Empire

or an Empire that's trying to modernise.

And there's a cost to that, there's a price to pay

and that price is the debt, the Ottoman debt

which starts in the 1850's more or less with the Palace.

And the Palace is just one drop in that enormous debt

that will eventually um, force the er, the Empire

into um, a formal er, bankruptcy in 1875.

Political reform was desperately needed

if the Empire was to have any hope of a future.

In this room in 1876,

the first Ottoman Parliament was announced with great fanfare.

But, even this was not enough to keep the Empire together.

Although the Ottomans continued to modernise,

once the economic and political axis of the world tilted west,

it heralded the beginning of the end of Ottoman supremacy.

But there was one final attempt

to bring together the Islamic majority of the Empire.

(TRAIN HOOTS)

A forgotten rail yard just south of Damascus -

once this was one of the major stopping points

on the pilgrimage route to Mecca.

These decommissioned old locomotives

bear silent witness to an important piece of Middle Eastern history.

Once cutting edge technology,

these are the original carriages and engines

that transported the first Hajj pilgrims by rail in 1908.

They travelled on the Hejaz Railway -

a railway developed and constructed

under the last Ottoman Sultan, Adbulhamid ll.

Sultans and Caliphs throughout the history of Muslim civilisation,

had to protect the pilgrimage um, yearly trip.

It was the legitimising feature of their rule.

It they protected the pilgrims, they protected the holy cities,

then they were good Muslim rulers.

And so what Sultan Abdul Hamid did

was link this sacred right with modern industry.

The railway followed the ancient trail of camel caravans.

And it slashed the arduous journey time

from 4O days to four days.

The route passed via Damascus, and eventually terminated in Medina.

It brought much-needed innovation to the region

and strengthened the Ottoman connection

with key Islamic territories at a time of unrest.

The railway was the embodiment of the Sultan's plan for “Islamic union" -

bringing together Muslims not just within the Empire but beyond.

1600 km of track was laid across pitiless desert

deep into the heart of Arabia and across the mountains of Hejaz.

It brought together conscripts from Turkey,

steel from Belgium, engineers and technology from Germany.

Sultan Abdul Hamid brought in European industrial expertise.

German industry was extremely active in the construction of this railway.

Over here we have here indicator -

the German plaque and an Arabic plaque.

So a collaboration of Ottoman and German enterprises.

But the Ottoman Empire was in debt -

and the Hejaz project seemed an impossible dream.

Yet remarkably, nearly a third of the cost of this vast public project

was met by charitable donations.

Muslims from all over the world

participated in this great pan-Islamic enterprise

aimed at helping fellow pilgrims reach Mecca.

When the railway line had opened for business,

it transported thousands of pilgrims.

But the railway also became a target.

During World War One, the Hejaz route

was irrevocably damaged by Allied attacks.

This great Ottoman connection to the Holy Land was over-

it would never go as far as Medina again.

The Hejaz project had been an important achievement

for the Islamic world -

but it couldn't stem the tide of change.

(SAD MUSIC)

Crippled by civil strife and saddled with debt,

the reign of the Ottoman dynasty was nearly over.

In the aftermath of World War One,

the story of one of largest and longest-lasting Empires in world

came to an end.

At its peak, the Ottoman Empire had stretched from Algiers to Mosul,

from Medina to the gates of Vienna.

They had commanded and preserved the most dynamic region in the world.

This land that from ancient times has shaped the modern world

giving it agriculture,

cities.

And the belief in One Universal God.

The land that had nurtured the brilliant minds

that laid the basis of the European Renaissance.

This crossroads of East and West has inspired the story of civilisation

for 12,000 years.

It is a story that has no end.

Subtitles © SBS Australia 2013