Mahmud II (Napoleonic Age)

Mahmud II (Ottoman Turkish: محمود ثانى Mahmud-u sānī, محمود عدلى Mahmud-u Âdlî) (20 July 1784 – 1 July 1843), also known as Mahmud the Great, was Sultan of the Ottoman Empire and Caliph of Islam from 1808 to 1843, the longest-reigning of the modern Ottoman Sultans. He presided over a tumultuous but incredibly important period of Ottoman history, where he witnessed the end of the Napoleonic Wars and the beginning of the Napoleonic Age, led the country in the disastrous Greek War of Independence (1821 – 1825), dispatched the Janissary Corps in the Auspicious Incident of 1826, and proclaimed the beginning of the Great Reform, or "Tanzimat", in 1831. He has been regarded by historians as a great reformer and administrator, and has been named the "Great Lawgiver" and as the "greatest Ottoman Sultan since Suleiman I" (who also received the epithet of "Lawgiver"). He has also been regarded as the "savior" of the Ottoman Empire and as its first great modern Sultan.