The chronic fighting throughout the eighteenth century has weakened Bosnia.

War had necessitated increased taxation, causing tax revolts.

Forced conscription and frequent plague epidemics have led to a relative reduction in the Muslim population, which has contributed its manpower to Ottoman campaigns throughout the empire and may have suffered disproportionately from the effects of plague in the cities.

During the eighteenth century, there has been strong growth in the Christian population; by the end of the century, the Muslims are probably no longer in the majority.

The social consequences of war also include a change in the system of land tenure: increasingly, the old feudal timar estates are being converted into a type of private estate known as a ciftlik, in response to the imperial treasury's need for cash instead of old-style feudal service.

The conditions of work demanded of the peasants on these estates are usually much more severe, and these peasants tend increasingly to be Christians, since Muslim peasants are able to acquire smallholdings in their own right.

Nevertheless, Ottoman Bosnia is not permanently sunk in misery.

Descriptions of Sarajevo by visiting travelers portray it as one of the wonders of the Balkans, with fountains, bridges, schools, libraries, and mosques.

Numerous works of poetry, philosophy, and theology are written.

The cities of Sarajevo and ...

The nineteenth century in Bosnia and Hercegovina brings alternating Christian peasant revolts against the Slavic Muslim landholders and Slavic Muslim rebellions against the sultan.

In 1850 the Turkish government strips the conservative Slavic Muslim nobles of power, shifts the capital of Bosnia to Sarajevo, and institute centralized, highly corrupt rule.

Austrian capital begins to enter the regions, financing primitive industries and fostering a new Christian middle class, but the mostly Christian serfs continue to suffer the corruption and high rates of the Turkish tax system.

The nineteenth century in Bosnia and Herzegovina brings alternating Christian peasant revolts against the Slavic Muslim landholders, and Slavic Muslim rebellions against the sultan.

In 1850, the Turkish government strips the conservative Slavic Muslim nobles of power, shifts the capital of Bosnia to Sarajevo, and institutes centralized, highly corrupt rule.

Austrian capital begins to enter the regions, financing primitive industries, and fostering a new Christian middle class, but the mostly Christian serfs continue to suffer the corruption and high rates of the Turkish tax system.

Unrest soon spreads to other areas of Bosnia, and repressive force is applied both by the new Bosnian governor and by local landowners using their own irregular troops.

A peasant uprising in Herzegovina had sparked an all-out rebellion in the Balkan provinces in 1875, provoking a European war.

The Treaty of Berlin, which follows the Turkish defeat of 1878, gives Austria-Hungary the right to occupy Bosnia and Herzegovina to restore local order.

The Treaty of Berlin brings a period of manipulation by the Austro-Hungarian Empire.

The empire suppresses Muslim and Orthodox opposition to the occupation and introduces an orderly administration, but it retains the feudal system because Bosnia and Herzegovina technically remain Turkish states.

Seeking to increase the Catholic population of Bosnia, Vienna sends Austrian, Hungarian, Croatian, and Polish administrators and colonizes northern Bosnia with Catholic Slavs and Germans.

The administrator of the regions, Baron Benjamin Kallay (1882-1903), fosters economic growth, reduces lawlessness, improves sanitation, builds roads and railroads, and establishes schools.

However, Kallay, a Hungarian, exploits strong nationalist differences among the Muslim Slavs, Catholic Croats, and Orthodox Serbs.

The congress also decides that Bosnia and Herzegovina, while remaining notionally under Turkish sovereignty, will be occupied and governed by Austria-Hungary.

Austro-Hungarian troops take control of Bosnia in 1878, overcoming vigorous resistance from local Bosnian forces; they also occupy the neighboring sanjak of Novi Pazar, which had been one of the seven Bosnian sanjaks in the late Ottoman period.

The political position of the Serb population in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, and the Vojvodina, has therefore been increasingly foregrounded in such a way as to highlight the potential or actual clash of interests between Serbs and other local groups or between the new Serbian state and the Dual Monarchy.

Austria-Hungary industrializes Sarajevo, using the city as a testing area for new inventions, such as electric trams, established in 1885, before installing them in Vienna.

Sarajevo’s citywide system is the first on the continent of Europe.

Architects and engineers wanting to help rebuild Sarajevo as a modern European capital rush to the city.

A fire that burns down a large part of the central city area (čaršija) leaves more room for redevelopment.

The city has a unique blend of the remaining Ottoman city market and contemporary western architecture.

Sarajevo has some examples of Secession- and Pseudo-Moorish styles that date from this period.