Backstage Discussions on the Eastern Policy of the Habsburg State in the Second Half of the 19th Century

For centuries, the Habsburg and Ottoman Empires have been in political, diplomatical and cultural relations. The Greek Revolt (1821-29) and the Rebellion of Mehmet Ali Pasha (1831-41), which broke out in the Ottoman Empire, suddenly had been an agenda topic of Europe. And after Napoleon, the European order that Metternich (1773-1859) tried to reestablish with great efforts, turned upside down. Due to the consensus in the 1815 Congress System, to preserve the existing European order, the Ottoman Empire, which was a monarchy, had to be supported by the European monarchies. In this period Metternich's state policy in favor of Ottoman Empire was an important variable in Oriental politics and this issue has attracted the attention of historians as one of the important topics of political history. But the questions, how Metternich's views on the Ottoman Empire formed and from which sources originated, remained in the background. In Metternich’s decisions, his adviser, Friedrich von Gentz (1764-1832) had a great influence. But who does inform Gentz, who has no personal interaction with the Ottoman Empire and no education on this subject? On the other hand, is the Oriental politics of the Habsburg Empire adopted or criticized by the orientalists of the time? For all these questions, it is necessary to look at the perspectives of the orientalists of the period, their disagreements and even their debates. In this study we will try to understand the backroom discussions about the Oriental politics of the Habsburg State in the first half of the nineteenth century, especially with the help of Gentz’s, Anton Prokesch von Osten’s (1795-1876), Franz von Ottenfels-Gschwind’s (1778-1851) and Joseph von Hammer-Purgstall’s (1774-1856) works, memoirs and letters, and their papers in the periodicals and newspapers