 It's a great privilege for me to address such an august audience and I shall try to do my best within the 25 minutes maybe even less I Was told to talk about the evolution of turkeys path towards the European Union from the Ottoman Empire to modern Turkey and This of course goes back many centuries But perhaps we can begin The quest at 1453 an appropriate date to begin On that date Mehmet the conqueror as you know captured Constantinople From an ailing Byzantine Empire It's important for me to point out to you that he saw his achievement Not simply as the conquest of a great city But as the first step in the unification of the two robes He described himself from the very beginning as the Roman Emperor This it's worth noting we think of the Ottoman Empire as a purely Islamic Empire But it had larger ambitions and the ambition to unite the two realms was one of them But of course he and his successors failed to capture Rome and the Ottoman threat Became very real in 1450 in 1530 charge the fifth In a sense responding to this threat Revive the idea of the Holy Roman Empire as a universal monarchy and was crowned by the Pope Until the Ottoman conquest of Syria and Egypt and the two holy cities in 1560 and 17 the Ottoman rulers Were essentially secular in our Many of them were born to Christian Jewish mothers and These mothers I imagine brought their own retinues with So that the sultans But brought up as children in such courts Where I imagined they had a Cosmopolitan environment a cosmopolitan upbringing For example, the conquest mother was Mara Despina a Greek princess. I think this is important to understand and Acknowledge The conquest of the Arab provinces in 1516 17 Made have made the Empire more Islamic in its identity Now you had Arab Not clergy, but men of learning who are now at the court but The sultans after this use the title caliph or successor to the Prophet Muhammad as one of the titles Wasn't the principal title at that stage They continued to play a significant significant role in the politics of Europe Notably the Anglo-Ottoman alliance That is said to have aided in the defeat of the Spanish armada in 1588 How did it do so? Not that the Ottomans sent their own fleet, but they diverted the Spanish fleet to the Mediterranean We can the Spanish armada and saving England from Catholic conquest But by this stage one can say that the Ottoman Empire also became the Muslim other against which Europe you the Europeans It's still early to call them Europeans because this was really the age of Christendom it's more important More accurate to call Europe Christian Europe. It was becoming more and more your European How were they to explain the irresistible advance of the Ottomans? across the Balkans and The inability of Christendom to hold the line They also felt compelled to incorporate this Significant new threat into their new vision of the world order to rationalize it to unravel its origins These discussions spawned a common market of ideas in the 15th to 16th centuries as Europeans depaded and represented the Ottoman threat The Ottoman threat to Europe ended with the failure to capture Vienna on two occasions in 1529 and 1683 Few years later the Treaty of Kaliwitz marked a turning point in the relations between the Ottoman Turks and the Habsburgs The Ottomans were now forced on the defensive and began to take the European threat seriously The treaty marked the end of the Ottoman offensive and the beginning of the European counter offensive The relationship of the Ottomans with Europe had been irrevocably altered The crushing defeat of the hands of Russia ended with the Treaty of Kuchukai, Nagya in 1774 Giving Catherine the great the right to protect the Orthodox flock of the Ottoman Empire This marked the beginning of the Eastern question The Sultan in turn now used his title of Caliph to be recognized as the protector of Muslims under the Russians now for the first time before this Muslims had not really lived under Christian rule if we move along and we find that by 1800 Britain has begun to go through an industrial revolution 1800 British trade with the Ottomans accounted for a quarter of Britain's overseas trades and so the Ottoman Empire became vital to the British in 1838 the British signed a trade convention with the Ottomans thereby bringing The Ottoman Empire into the world market This was the predecessor of the global economy of today after this date Istanbul very was very much in the realm of The European economy the British economy in particular, but the privileges of that the British acquired from Istanbul passed on to all other European powers even the smallest European power enjoyed these privileges a Few years later in 1856 the Ottoman Empire became a member of the concert of Europe Alongside other great powers of the day Britain France Russia and Austria although the Ottomans were now a lesser great power The emergence of the German Empire in 1871 complicated matters of the Eastern question The Empire continued its decline during the rest of the century the young Turks Who had acquired this name from young Italy at least that's how the Europeans called them the young Turks Like the young Germans wanted to revive the fortunes of the Empire They carried out a constitutional revolution in 1908 One can see their European aspirations quite clearly when they offered to ally themselves with Britain claiming that they were the Japan of the Middle East if you like the bridge between Europe and the Middle East just as Britain had allied itself with Japan in 1902 so now it should ally itself with the Ottomans but this offer was rejected and Germany finally accepted them as an ally after the outbreak of the world war in August 1914 Winston Churchill would write in his History that the Ottomans Contribute the Ottoman contribution to the German war effort prolonged the war by two years The war as we all know mark the end of the Ottoman Empire The Turks were forced To wait their national struggle between 1919 and 1922 Virtually the same years as the Irish national struggle Establishing their establishing their Republic in 1923 Mustafa Kemal better knows it known as Ataturk made the aspirations of the new Turkey very clear to attain contemporary civilization That meant joining Europe The reforms of these years all pointed in that direction Secular constitution the emancipation of women etc Turkey then joined the League of Nations in 1932 and pursued a policy opposed to the appeasement of the dictators throughout the 30s in fact It's quite surprising to note that a weak Turkey compared to a strong Germany rising Italy etc Refused to appease especially the Italians and Supported collective Struggle in 1944 Turkey joined the United Nations sent to Korea sent troops to Korea and joined NATO in 1952 we all know that in 1964 Turkey made her intentions clear that she wanted to be a member of the European community That had been her ambition. That has been her ambition unfilled so far ever since In recent years there has been Much talk of turning of Turkey turning away from Europe But this has been denied by the government. They may be public sentiment That Europe isn't taking Turkey seriously. So we don't have to go along. But as far as the government is concerned Turkey is the government has always denied that Turkey is turning away from Europe and has continued to see it as a bridge between Europe and the Islamic world I'm afraid I've finished faster than the time you gave me but I hope I have Wetted your interest and perhaps We'll have more time to answer Questions would you take questions not absolutely