Mahmud II

Mahmud II
Ottoman Caliph Amir al-Mu'minin Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques Sultan of the two lands, Khan of the two seas[1]
Portrait by Henri-Guillaume Schlesinger, 1836
Sultan of the Ottoman Empire (Padishah)
Reign	28 July 1808 – 1 July 1839
Predecessor	Mustafa IV
Successor	Abdulmejid I
Born	20 July 1785 Topkapı Palace, Constantinople, Ottoman Empire
Died	1 July 1839(1839-07-01) (aged 53) Constantinople, Ottoman Empire
Burial	Tomb of Sultan Mahmud II, Fatih, Istanbul, Turkey
Consorts	Nevfidan Kadın Hoşyar Kadın Aşubcan Kadın Bezmiâlem Kadın Pertevniyal Kadın Others
Issue Among others	Saliha Sultan Mihrimah Sultan Abdulmejid I Atiye Sultan Adile Sultan Abdulaziz
Names Mahmud Han bin Abdülhamid
Dynasty	Ottoman
Father	Abdul Hamid I
Mother	Nakşidil Sultan
Religion	Sunni Islam
Tughra

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Mahmud II (Ottoman Turkish: محمود ثانى, romanized: Maḥmûd-u s̠ânî, Turkish: II. Mahmud; 20 July 1785 – 1 July 1839) was the sultan of the Ottoman Empire from 1808 until his death in 1839. Often described as the "Peter the Great of Turkey",^[2] Mahmud instituted extensive administrative, military, and fiscal reforms. His disbandment of the conservative Janissary corps removed a major obstacle to his and his successors' reforms in the Empire. Mahmud's reign was also marked by further Ottoman military defeat and loss of territory as a result of nationalist uprisings and European intervention.

Mahmud ascended the throne following an 1808 coup which deposed his half-brother Mustafa IV. Early in his reign, the Ottoman Empire ceded Bessarabia to Russia at the end of the 1806–1812 Russo-Turkish War. Greece waged a successful war of independence that started in 1821 with British, French and Russian support, and Mahmud was forced to recognize the independent Greek state in 1832. The Ottomans lost more territory to Russia after the Russo-Turkish War of 1828–1829, and Ottoman Algeria was conquered by France beginning in 1830.

The Empire's continued decline convinced Mahmud to resume the reforms that were halted before he came to power. In 1826, he orchestrated the Auspicious Incident, in which the Kapıkulu were forcibly abolished and many of its members executed, paving the way for the establishment of a modern Ottoman army and further military reforms. Mahmud also made sweeping changes to the bureaucracy in order to reestablish royal authority and increase administrative efficiency, and oversaw a reorganisation of the Ottoman foreign office. In 1839, Mahmud introduced a Council of Ministers. He died of tuberculosis later that year and was succeeded by his son Abdulmejid I, who would continue to implement his modernization efforts.