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Difficulty: Very hardBureaucratic Elites and Military Recruitment (Devshirme and Samurai)

Read the passage below and answer the following question.

"In the past, the devshirme was collected according to the ancient laws from the Christian subjects of the provinces. These boys were educated in the palace, trained in the martial arts, and knew no family or master other than the Sultan. Their advancement depended entirely on merit, ensuring that the administration remained loyal and the Janissaries remained invincible. Through them, the Sultan held absolute sway over the provinces, free from the local ambitions of landed notables.

Now, however, the old order has decayed. Wealthy townsmen and merchants bribe their way into the Janissary registers to avoid taxes, while high posts in the bureaucracy are sold to the highest bidder rather than awarded to those trained in the palace school. The military is flooded with undisciplined men, and the Sultan’s treasury suffers as provincial officials pocket tax revenues."
—Koçi Bey, Ottoman intellectual, memorandum presented to Sultan Murad IV, 1630

The transition in recruitment and administrative practices described in the second paragraph is best understood as a reflection of which of the following challenges faced by land-based empires in the seventeenth century?

  1. A
    The rising power of military commanders defecting to the Safavid Empire to secure lucrative administrative appointments.
  2. B
    The establishment of a decentralized system of hereditary vassals modeled on European feudalism.
  3. C
    The development of a commercialized chattel slavery network to supply agricultural labor for plantation economies.
  4. The fiscal strain of maintaining large standing militaries, which forced the state to monetize offices and compromise centralized bureaucratic standards.Answer

Answer

The fiscal strain of maintaining large standing militaries, which forced the state to monetize offices and compromise centralized bureaucratic standards.
The correct answer is correct because during the late sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, the Ottoman Empire faced severe financial strains due to the soaring costs of maintaining a professional, gun-carrying infantry (the Janissaries) and global price inflation. To generate quick revenue, the state increasingly resorted to selling administrative and military offices. This allowed wealthy civilians, merchants, and local elites to buy their way into the Janissary corps and civil service, which diluted the rigorous meritocracy of the devshirme system and weakened the Sultan's direct centralized control.

Step-by-Step Solution

1
Analyze the stimulus document by identifying the author (Koçi Bey), the date (1630), and the core topic (the transition from a highly centralized, merit-based devshirme recruitment system to a system marked by bribery, tax avoidance, and the sale of bureaucratic and military offices).
The document contrasts the traditional centralized state service of the devshirme with the seventeenth-century corruption and commercialization of state positions.
Understanding the source's historical context and arguments is necessary to evaluate the options.
2
Evaluate the historical developments of the seventeenth-century land-based empires (specifically the Ottomans) that caused the breakdown of centralized bureaucratic and military systems.
Identify that the rising costs of gunpowder warfare, inflation from the influx of American silver, and the need to pay salaried standing armies (like Janissaries) created severe fiscal crises.
This links the administrative changes mentioned in the document (selling offices, tax evasion) to broader global historical trends.
3
Compare the historical trends against the provided multiple-choice options to identify the correct response and eliminate distractors.
Determine that the option highlighting the fiscal strain of maintaining large standing militaries is correct, while the others rely on common student misconceptions such as confusing devshirme with chattel slavery, over-generalizing European feudalism, or misinterpreting Sunni-Shi'a dynamics.
This ensures the selected answer directly aligns with the AP World History curriculum framework and the cognitive demands of the question.

Key Concept

Bureaucratic Elites and Military Recruitment (Devshirme and Samurai)

Hints

1
Focus on the second paragraph, where the author describes how individuals could bribe their way into the Janissary registers or purchase high bureaucratic offices.

Practice More

Review how the Tokugawa Shogunate similarly altered the status of the samurai from active combatants to bureaucratic administrators to maintain centralized peace, contrasting with the Ottoman struggle to maintain bureaucratic control.
Estimated Time:2m 0s
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Topics

Bureaucratic Elites and Military Recruitment (Devshirme and Samurai)

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