This is a little known page of history, often denigrated by local national historiographies. But, as Mark Mazower, from Columbia University recalls, it had been in reality a rich, even if complicated, history of coexistence between Christian, Muslim and Jewish peoples. The Ottoman social order was guaranteed by the Millet system, which formally organized confessional communities and led to a coexistence based on living "side by side by side by side ", rather than "together ". As the XIXth century saw the rise of nationalism, the confessional millet would turn into national communities. Religious identities shifted to exclusive national identities – Serbian, Greek, Bulgarian… - which still clash and conflict. Three forces were at work during the XIXth century: rising nationalism; European imperialism, which saw the Great Powers of the time, France, England, Russia, Germany, covet the territories and resources of the weakened Ottoman Empire; and finally the Ottomans' failure to adapt their Empire to modernity and to reform. All together, these forces would eradicate Ottoman presence in Europe. The powerful Sultan Abdülhamid, who had reigned from 1876 to 1909, would not change the fate of the Empire. Himself would eventually be deposed by a national revolution – the Young Turks Revolution.