Selim III is presented as the son of a ruler who had already recognized the need for a professional peacetime army against Russian pressure. His Georgian-born mother is associated with educational and governmental reform, giving modernization a wider court setting. Selim continues that inheritance with new military regulations and maritime and artillery schools. He is educated, ambitious, and open to imported expertise, but he struggles to force policies through resistant institutions. The succession from father to uncle and then son helps explain the family politics surrounding his vulnerable reign.
Chapter · 13:42-17:05
Selim III inherits an Ottoman court already pursuing reform
Selim III appears as an educated but politically vulnerable ruler whose military and educational ambitions grew from reforms already discussed within his family and court.