ABSTRACT
This chapter shows that there were two separate dynamics in the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire, the first a function of the patrimonial nature of the state; and the second of national separatism, due to the Empire's confrontation with European capitalism. It discusses the final years before the World War, trying to show that some plausibility could be attached to the "optimist reading" in the counterfactual. Ottoman recentralization during the first half of the nineteenth century coincided with the beginnings of administrative modernization. The composition of the First Ottoman Parliament of 1876 had been impressive in its diversity, perhaps unique in the history of multiethnic empires: out of 125 deputies 77 were Muslim, 44 Christian, and four Jewish. There was a political and intellectual platform to which Ottoman Greeks could rally in defiance of the Greek state and its irredentist policies.
