Dissolution of the Ottoman Empire food shortages and hundreds of thousands of refugees haunted the empire. After the war there was a violent expel of the Muslim peasants of eastern Thrace. The Anglo-Ottoman Convention of 1913 was a short-lived agreement signed in July 1913 between the Ottoman sultan Mehmed V and the British over several issues. However the status of Kuwait that came to be the only lasting result, as its outcome was formal independence for Kuwait. Albania had been under Ottoman rule in about 1478. When Serbia, Montenegro, and Greece laid claim to Albanian-populated lands during Balkan Wars, the Albanians declared independence. The European
Transformation of the Ottoman Empire in particular suffered from heavy competition, and its commercial presence declined significantly, particularly after 1645, when the Ottomans and Venetians went to war over Crete. The English were by far the most successful European merchants in the empire during the seventeenth century, and they benefited from friendly relations between the two states. The Ottomans exported raw silk and imported cheap woolen cloth, as well as tin necessary for the production of military armaments. While in 1550 the Ottoman Empire was a patrimonial state in which all power was held exclusively by the sultan, by 1700 it had experienced a political