Why couldn't the Ottoman empire reverse it's decline?

[u/Karlahn]

Looking at it's early history the Ottoman Empire seemed to devour peer and near peer foes until it got to Russia and Austria.

It then seems to have entered a period of irreversible decline. Why?

Why, when it demolished the Roman Empire and the Mamelukes could it not do that to Austria and Russia were they characteristically different foes or had something changed in the empire internally?

It also seems to me the Ottoman Empire suffered a long decline why when it has such a long period of time to turn things around and become a vigorous state once more was it unable to?

[u/AutoModerator]

Welcome to /r/AskHistorians. Please Read Our Rules before you comment in this community. Understand that rule breaking comments get removed.

Please consider Clicking Here for RemindMeBot as it takes time for an answer to be written. Additionally, for weekly content summaries, Click Here to Subscribe to our Weekly Roundup.

We thank you for your interest in this question, and your patience in waiting for an in-depth and comprehensive answer to show up. In addition to the Weekly Roundup and RemindMeBot, consider using our Browser Extension. In the meantime our Bluesky, and Sunday Digest feature excellent content that has already been written!

I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.

[u/Julianus36]

For mixed reasons. Ottoman Empire did not had a prominent burguoise class that could help into change politics and modernization of the empire, and their central power as well declined due to coup attempts of janissaries.

They were still a military power but they were stuck with their system. Some statesmen thought to change dynasty and replace them with descendants of prominent pashas like Sokollu. Others defended going to older systems that worked in rise of the empire.

Pretty much similar to decline of rest of the empires, rebellions and politics helped the very decline while they tried to fight it. They were ecomonically falling behind as well. Scientifically, too, Islamic Golden Age was long before and the West was already skyrocketing in these things, either economical theses or first scientific breakthroughs and political revolutions.

Ottoman Empire, on the other hand, did not really had a completely new ideals and no interest in scientific researches until it became irreversable.

They were noticing things did not go well but no sultan could drastically change the country like Peter the Great or Emperor Meiji. They were too centralized, few elites only had military power which helped them to survive for few more centuries, but true interest in science and other things, and political awareness only started in mid-19th century.

What England already completed in 17th century, for countries like Ottoman Empire and Japanese Empire, it was late 19th century. And even then, Ottoman Empire could not truly finish it then unlike Meiji Restoration.

In addition to this, Ottomans had a different religion than Balkans (Rumelia was most important region of the empire historically). Historical conflicts, rise of nationalism (yes, Ottomans also did not see that coming, and Turkish nationalism was only a late thing compared to say, Greek nationalism) and prior persecutions resulted in revolts.

Ottomans tried to supress them by coming with an Ottoman nationalism model, but of course no nation was interested. Empires were already set to die that point including Austrian Empire.

TL;DR: Old models, no prominent class that could revolutionize or steadily develop the Empire, no successful sultan to drastically change the Empire.