ABSTRACT
The Ottoman family was the millions of Turks and other Muslims in and outside of the Ottoman Empire who depended on the Ottomans for survival, sure that if the Ottomans failed, they would die. The Ottoman Empire took out its first European loan in 1854, to pay the costs of the Crimean War. The Greek revolution of 1821, perhaps more based on religious than nationalistic distinctions, was by itself a failure. After initial successes against the old Janissary-led Ottoman army, it had foundered when sultan Mahmud II asked Muhammad Ali, the governor of Egypt, for help. The French seized Tunisia in 1881, the British Egypt in 1882, and the Italians in 1912, creating separate states. Turkish nationalism always involved a fundamental conflict in political philosophy. Turkish intellectuals had read European political works. They had lived as revolutionaries in Europe and had been imbued with European ideas, including nationalism.
