<P> Abdul Hamid is also considered one of the last sultans to have full control . His reign struggled with the culmination of 75 years of change throughout the empire and an opposing reaction to that change . He was particularly concerned with the centralization of the empire . His efforts to centralize the Sublime Porte were not unheard of among other sultans . The Ottoman Empire's local provinces had more control over their areas than the central government . Abdul Hamid II's foreign relations came from a "policy of non-commitment ." The sultan understood the fragility of the Ottoman military, and the Empire's weaknesses of its domestic control . Pan-Islamism became Abdülhamid's solution to the empire's loss of identity and power . His efforts to promote Pan-Islamism were for the most part unsuccessful because of the large non-Muslim population, and the European influence onto the empire . His policies essentially isolated the Empire, which further aided in its decline . Several of the elite who sought a new constitution and reform for the empire were forced to flee to Europe . New groups of radicals began to threaten the power of the Ottoman Empire . </P> <P> After gaining some amount of autonomy during the early 1800s, Egypt had entered into a period of political turmoil by the 1880s . In April 1882, British and French warships appeared in Alexandria to support the khedive and prevent the country from falling into the hands of anti-European nationals . </P> <P> In August 1882 British forces invaded and occupied Egypt on the pretext of bringing order . The British supported Khedive Tewfiq and restored stability with was especially beneficial to British and French financial interests . Egypt and Sudan remained as Ottoman provinces de jure until 1914, when the Ottoman Empire joined the Central Powers of World War I. Great Britain officially annexed these two provinces and Cyprus in response . </P> <P> In 1867, the Council of States took charge of drawing population tables, increasing the precision of population records . They introduced new measures of recording population counts in 1874 . This led to the establishment of a General Population Administration, attached to the Ministry of Interior in 1881 - 1882 . </P>

Which was not a reason for the decline of the ottoman empire