This period consists mostly of an attempt at modernization and reform. The government underwent a series of reforms in response to the declining army and borders. There were banking reforms, the establishment of a conscripted army, and the replacement of religious laws with secular laws to an extent that even homosexuality was decriminalized in 1858. Yet, the attempts to modernize led to greater involvement from the Europeans who would infiltrate the Ottoman Public Debt Administration, the Ottoman's attempt to fix their declining economic and debt conditions. Eventually, European capital and influence continued to fragment the Ottoman economy under the guise of modernization. Meanwhile, the empire attempt to suppress the rising tide of nationalism at its frontiers but it couldn't do so while also fighting off wars and attempting to modernize. After the Balkan Wars (1912-1913) it lost almost all territories in the Balkans and began to focus on consolidating the empire internally. The next era of the empire was characterized by the Young Turks movement which focused on transforming it into a multi-party parliament system of constitutional monarchy that would be inclusive for all the various people in the empire. In 1914, the Ottomans struck Russia in a surprise attack, starting its involvement in WWI. The reasons for this was mostly a response to the Ottoman's belief that the loss of its territories were a result of the increasing antagonism of the European powers and their increasing influence in their empire. Their unmodernized military fared poorly in the war and their last territories in the Arab mainland were lost to the increasing nationalism and revolts in that area. Hence, by the end of the war, the empire had all but disintegrated.

Sorry, this seems more like political history than life underneath the empire but I tried to give a mood into what it was like kind of.