Mahmud II was born on the 20th of July 1785, but his life was nearly extinguished before he could even claim the throne. As the youngest son of Sultan Abdul Hamid I, he was confined to the Kafes, a prison-like section of the palace where princes were kept to prevent succession disputes. When his half-brother Mustafa IV ordered his execution in 1808, Mahmud faced a death sentence that would have erased him from history. A Georgian slave girl named Cevri Kalfa, who was gathering ashes in the palace, heard the commotion surrounding the murder of Selim III. She threw ashes into the faces of the assassins approaching his chamber, temporarily blinding them and buying Mahmud enough time to escape through a window and climb onto the roof of the harem. He ran to the roof of the Third Court, where other pages helped him descend using pieces of cloth tied together as a ladder. This narrow escape allowed him to be proclaimed the new sultan by Alemdar Mustafa Pasha, the leader of the rebellion that had deposed Mustafa IV. Cevri Kalfa was rewarded for her bravery, becoming the chief treasurer of the Imperial Harem, and a plain stone staircase at the Altınyol is still known today as the Staircase of Cevri Kalfa.
The Empire Bleeds
In June 1826, Mahmud II orchestrated the destruction of the Janissary corps, an event known as the Auspicious Incident. The Janissaries, once the elite military force of the empire, had become a conservative obstacle to reform and a threat to the sultan's authority. When they mounted a demonstration against Mahmud's proposed military reforms, he ordered their barracks to be fired upon, effectively crushing the formerly elite troops. He burned the Belgrad Forest outside Istanbul to incinerate any remnants of the Janissaries. This violent purge allowed for the establishment of a European-style conscript army, the Asakir-i Mansure-i Muhammediye, recruited mainly from Turkish speakers from both Rumelia and Anatolia. The suppression of the Janissaries was not the only military reform; Mahmud also subjugated the Iraqi Mamluks by Ali Ridha Pasha in 1831 and executed the renowned Albanian Ali Pasha of Yanina. He further dissolved the Bosnia Eyalet after suppressing a Bosnian uprising, executing the Bosniak military commander Husein Gradaščević. These actions paved the way for a modern Ottoman army and removed a major obstacle to future reforms.
Mahmud II's reforms extended far beyond theThe Auspicious Incident
battlefield, reshaping the very fabric of Ottoman society. He began by officially adopting the fez for the military after the Janissary eradication in 1826, a move that signified a break from old styles of dress. He ordered civilian officials to adopt a similar, plain fez to distinguish them from the military, planning for the population to adopt this as well to create a homogeneous look for Ottoman society. This 1829 regulatory law faced significant resistance from religious groups, laborers, and military members. He also reorganized the bureaucracy to reestablish royal authority and increase administrative efficiency, abolishing old offices and introducing new lines of responsibility. In 1831, he established an official gazette, Takvim-i Vekayi, the first newspaper published in the Ottoman Turkish language, which was required reading for all civil servants. By 1836, he created the title of Foreign Minister and Undersecretary, placing enormous importance on the position and equating its salary and rank with the highest military and civilian positions. He expanded the Language Office and Translation Office, and by 1833, these offices began to