Mesopotamia

• Ancient discovery or mystery,The Shattered Empire and the Road to Diplomacy (1827–1828)

  The bank of Navarino still hung over the Ionian Sea when news of the catastrophe reached Istanbul. Mahmud II, the stern and miscarrying sultan, entered the reports with unbelief. The obliteration of his cortege was n't simply a military disaster it was a demotion, a public stripping of sovereignty. For centuries, the Banquettes had mandated the balance of power in the eastern Mediterranean. Now, in a single autumn of fire and thunder, the combined lines of Britain, France, and Russia had demonstrated that the conglomerate could be chastened, constrained, and indeed destroyed by the very powers it formerly considered inferior. The echoes of cannon fire from Navarino resounded far beyond the Aegean, motioning the morning of a new political order.

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• Ancient discovery or mystery,The Greek War of Independence and the Empire in Flames (1821–1823)

  The dawn of 1821 set up the Ottoman Empire stretched to its limits. Sultan Mahmud II, hardened by times of conspiracy and rebellion, believed he'd eventually gained a measure of stability after suppressing the Serbs and defying the rebellious Ali Pasha of Ioannina. Yet the conglomerate’s internal sins, its decaying service, and the restless intentions of its subject peoples were about to enkindle a disagreement that would burn for nearly a decade.  thoroughfares of Istanbul, and judged the Ottoman state to be on the point of collapse.

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• Ancient discovery or mystery,Mahmud II, The Young Sultan in a Broken Empire (1808–1812)

  The dears of the Sublime Porte had slightly failed when Mahmud II mounted the throne as the sole surviving heir at law of the Ottoman dynasty. He was only twenty- three, yet formerly he carried the scars of a continuance of bloodshed. His kinsman Selim III had been boggled before his eyes. His family Mustafa IV, who tried to kill him, had been executed at his command. His protection, the potent Alemdar Mustafa Pasha, had decomposed in a storm of fire. Istanbul lay in remains, its thoroughfares filled with ashes, and the Janissaries, though crippled, still strutted with arrogance through the capital. This was the conglomerate Mahmud inherited — a realm in extremity, torn between the history and the future. 

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• Ancient discovery or mystery,The Puppet Sultan, Mustafa IV and the Empire in Chains (1807)

  The achievement of May 1807 had torn the Ottoman Empire from the hands of a utopian and placed it in the grip of men who knew only fear and tradition. Sultan Selim III, deposed after nearly two decades of struggle for reform, now sat in confinement within the Topkapı Palace. His lyrical soul still rumored of renewal, but his hands were bound, his vision shattered. In his place, the throne passed to Mustafa IV, a whoreson of Selim, chosen not for his strength but for his weakness.

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• Ancient discovery or mystery,Shadows over Reform, Selim III and the Rising Tide of Rebellion (1803–1805)

  The dawn of the nineteenth century set up Sultan Selim III both hopeful and uneasy. He'd survived storms that would have broken numerous autocrats — the French irruption of Egypt, the Janissaries’ growling, the endless wars on the conglomerate’s borders. His reforms, the Nizam- ı Cedid or New Order, had survived long enough to take root. But like youthful saplings in a harsh wind, they were fragile, their survival uncertain. In Istanbul, whispers swirled through the stores, the coffeehouses, and the barracks whispers of treason, of foreign influence, of a sultan who no longer heeded to his dogfaces. The megacity breathed with pressure, though its thoroughfares brimmed as ever with the commerce of conglomerate.

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