Fall of the Safavid and Ottoman Empires
...s on devshirme (an elite provincial slave levy) were slackened. After the slackening of the laws, parents of Muslim boys could buy their way into the devshirme and current members of the devshirme were now allowed to marry. This no longer created the total loyalty to the state and created a new corruption in the Empire’s army and bureaucracy. The same leadership mistakes showed up in the Safavid’s empire as well. Under the rule of Shah Abbas II, the Safavid empire became much more liberal. Shah Abbas II gave people more religious freedom and was more lenient with his subjects. No longer was there great loyalty towards the empire and ideas became more radical. A new corruption in the military and government began to show up with this new leniency, just as it had with the Ottomans. These newer and lesser leaders guided their empires’ downhill and were directly responsible for their empires’ downfall. Two-front wars weakened the resources and military needed to run such vast empires. The Ottomans were busy fighting the Hapsburgs in the west and the Safavids in the east. The Ottomans tried a second raid on Vienna to restore their empires to fame but failed horribly. They also experienced a slew of disastrous battle losses to the Hapsburgs and the Russians costing them the Crimea. At this time the Ottoman army was nearly exhausted and now the Europeans in the west and the Russians in the north boxed in their empire. At this point, The Ottomans no longer had the resources to take on their Shi’ite foes of the East. This slowed the empires’ external trade which resulted in a lack of funding needed to run such an expensive empire. Similar two-front wars also contributed to the decline of the Safavid Empire. The Safavids were fighting the Ottomans in the west and the Uzbeks in the north. During the reign of Selim II much territory was lost to the Ottomans and Uzbeks. These wars devastated the Safavid army and these lands were not regained for decades. Without a strong army the Safavids struggled to keep their empire intact. Both empires were drained by two-front wars and were not able to fully recover, contributing to their downfalls. Both Empires experienced a growing population and diversity leading to inner-empire struggle and conflict. Such struggles also brought about major social changes Many Jews fled to the Ottoman Empire after being banned from Spain. The Jews brought many social and religious ideas with them that hurt the empire. Also many new Christians moved into the Empire. With Jews, Christians and Muslims all in on...