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During the Tanzimat period (from Arabic Tanz?mat, meaning "reorganization") (1839–1876), the government's series of constitutional reforms led to a fairly modern conscripted army, [link widoczny dla zalogowanych] banking system reforms, and the replacement of guilds with modern factories. In 1856, the Hatt-? Hümayun promised equality for all Ottoman citizens regardless of their ethnicity and religious confession. He thus widened the scope of the 1839 Hatt-? ?erif of Gülhane. The Christian millets gained privileges, such as in the Armenian National Constitution(Ottoman Turkish: Nizamname-i Millet-i Ermeniyan) of 1863. This Divan-approved form of the Code of Regulations consisted of 150 articles drafted by the Armenian intelligentsia. Another institution was the newly formed Armenian National Assembly.[61] During theTanzimat period, the Christian population of the empire owning to their higher educational levels started to pull ahead of the Muslim majority, leading to much resentment on the part of the latter.[60] In 1861,[link widoczny dla zalogowanych], there were 571 primary and 94 secondary schools for Ottoman Christians with 140, 000 students in total, a figure which vastly exceeded the number of Muslim children in school at the same time,[link widoczny dla zalogowanych] who were further hindered by the amount of time spent learning Arabic and Islamic theology.[60] In turn, the higher educational levels of the Christians allowed them to play a huge role in the economy.[60] In 1911, of the 654 wholesale companies in Constantinople, 528 were owned by ethnic Greeks.
In return for British Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli's advocacy for restoring the Ottoman territories on the Balkan peninsula during the Congress of Berlin, Britain obtained the rental of Cyprus in 1878[62] and later sent troops to Egypt in 1882 with the pretext of helping the Ottoman government to put down the Urabi Revolt; effectively gaining control in both territories (Britain formally annexed the still nominally Ottoman territories of Cyprus and Egypt on 5 November 1914, in response to the Ottoman Empire's decision to enter the First World War on the side of the Central Powers.) France, on its part, occupied Tunisia in 1881.
The results were first hailed as a great achievement in peacemaking and stabilization. However, most of the participants were not fully satisfied, and grievances regarding the results festered until they exploded in world war in 1914. Serbia, Bulgaria, and Greece made gains, but far less than they thought they deserved. The Ottoman Empire, called at the time the "sick man of Europe," was humiliated and significantly weakened, rendering it more liable to domestic unrest and more vulnerable to attack. Although Russia had been victorious in the war that occasion the conference, it was humiliated at Berlin,[link widoczny dla zalogowanych] and resented its treatment. Austria gained a great deal of territory, which angered the South Slavs, and led to decades of tensions in Bosnia and Herzogovina. Bismarck became the target of hatred of Russian nationalists and Pan-Slavists, and found that he had tied Germany too closely to Austria in the Balkans.