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1876-1909

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1876-1909

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‘Abdü’l-Ḥamīd II (Ottoman Turkish: عبد الحميد ثانی `Abdü’l-Ḥamīd-i sânî, Turkish: İkinci Abdülhamid) (September 21, 1842 – February 10, 1918), was a Sultan of the Ottoman Empire. He ruled from August 31, 1876 until he was deposed on April 27, 1909.

Early years

He was the son of Sultan ‘Abdu’l-Mijid I, and succeeded to the throne on the deposition of his brother Murad V on August 31 1876. He himself was deposed in favor of his brother, Mehmed V in 1909.

Unlike many other Ottoman rulers, Abdülhamid II actually traveled. Nine years before he took the throne he accompanied his uncle Sultan ‘Abdu’l-‘Aziz on his visit to England and France in 1867. At his accession some commentators were impressed by the fact that he rode practically unattended to the Eyup Sultan Mosque where he was given the sword of Osman. He was supposed to have liberal ideas, and some conservatives were inclined to regard him with suspicion as a dangerous reformer. In the event, like many other would-be reformers of the Ottoman Empire, change proved to be nearly impossible. Default in the public funds, an empty treasury, the 1875 insurrection in Bosnia and Herzegovina, the war with Serbia and Montenegro and the feeling aroused throughout Europe by the cruelty used in stamping out the Bulgarian rebellion all proved good reasons not to undertake any significant changes.

The international conference which met at Istanbul towards the end of 1876 was surprised by the promulgation of a constitution, but the demands of European powers at the conference were rejected. Midhat Pasha, the author of the constitution, was exiled and soon afterwards the constitution was suspended. Early in 1877 the Ottoman Empire went to war with the Russian Empire.

The war was a disaster for the Ottomans and the government in Istanbul had to sign a hard treaty (see the Treaty of San Stefano). However, the terms of the treaty were changed - in favor of the Ottoman government - at Berlin, mainly due to British diplomacy.

Poetry

Abdülhamid was a poet just like many other Ottoman Sultans.

One of the sultan's poems translates thus:

My lord I know you are the Dear One (Al-Aziz)
... And no one but you are the Dear One
You are the One, and nothing else
My God take my hand in these hard times
My God be my helper in this critical hour

Thirty years of failed reform

The Ottoman government of Sultan Hamid now viewed the united Germany as a possible friend of the empire. German officers (like Baron von der Goltz) were employed to oversee the reorganization of the Ottoman army. German government officials were brought in to reorganize the Ottoman government's finances. Abdülhamid tried to take more of the reins of power into his own hands, for he distrusted his ministers.

There were many set-backs.

• Financial embarrassments forced him to consent to a foreign control over the national debt. In a decree issued in December 1881, many of the revenues of the empire were handed over to the Public Debt Administration for the benefit of (mostly foreign) bondholders.
• There was also trouble in Egypt, where a discredited khedive had to be deposed. Sultan Hamid mis-handled relations with Urabi Pasha - the end result of this was Great Britain gained near total control over Egypt.
• There were problems on the Greek frontier and in Montenegro, where the European powers were determined that the decisions of the Berlin Congress should be carried into effect.
• The union in 1885 of Bulgaria with Eastern Rumelia was another blow. The creation of an independent and powerful Bulgaria was viewed as a serious threat to the Ottoman Empire. For many years Abdülhamid had to deal with Bulgaria in a way that did not antagonize either Russian or German wishes.

Germany's friendship was not disinterested, and had to be fostered with railway and loan concessions. In 1899 a significant German desire, the Baghdad Railway, was given to them.

Over the years Abdülhamid succeeded in reducing his ministers to the position of secretaries, and he concentrated much of the administration of the Empire into his own hands at Yildiz. But internal dissension was not reduced. Crete was constantly in turmoil. The Greeks living within the Ottoman Empire's borders were dissatisfied, as were the Armenians.

Starting around 1890 the Armenians began clamoring to obtain the reforms promised them at Berlin. Unrest occurred in 1892 and 1893 at Merzifon and Tokat. Armenian groups staged protests and were met by violence. Sultan Hamid responded by inciting the local Muslims against the Armenians. Between 1894 and 1897, massacres of the Armenian populace began, resulting in the deaths of between 100 000 and 300 000 Armenians including men, women and children. This kind of death toll would not to be seen again until the Armenian Genocide in 1915. Some of the worst bloodshed was seen the province of Sasun.

Crete was granted extended privileges, but these did not satisfy the population, which sought unification with Greece. In early in 1897 a Greek expedition sailed to Crete to overthrown Ottoman rule of the island. War followed, in which the Ottoman Empire was successful (see the Greco-Turkish War (1897)). But then a few months later Crete was taken over en depot by England, France, and Russia. Prince George of Greece was appointed the ruler and so Crete was lost to the Ottoman Empire.

Abdülhamid always resisted the pressure of the European powers to the last moment, in order to seem to yield only to overwhelming force, while posing as the champion of Islam against aggressive Christendom. Panislamic propaganda was encouraged; the privileges of foreigners in the Ottoman Empire — often an obstacle to government — were curtailed. A new railway to the holy city of Medina was completed - making the Hajj somewhat easier - though there was still a 160 mile camel ride to get to Mecca. Emissaries were sent to distant countries preaching Islam and the caliph's supremacy. During his rule, Abdülhamid refused Theodor Herzl's offers to pay down a substantial portion of the Ottoman debt in exchange for a charter allowing the Zionists to colonize Palestine.

Abdülhamid's appeals to Muslim sentiment were powerless against widespread disaffection within his Empire due to perennial misgovernment. In Mesopotamia and Yemen disturbance was endemic; nearer home, a semblance of loyalty was maintained in the army and among the Muslim population only by a system of delation and espionage, and by wholesale arrests. After his rule began the sultan became obsessed by a terror of assassination; he withdrew himself into fortified seclusion in the palace of Yildiz and never left.

Last year in power

The national humiliation of the situation in Macedonia, together with the resentment in the army against the palace spies and informers, at last brought matters to a crisis. In the summer of 1908 the Young Turk revolution broke out and Abdul Hamid, on learning of the threat of the Salonica troops to march on Istanbul (July 23), at once capitulated. On the 24th an irade announced the restoration of the suspended constitution of 1876; the next day, further irades abolished espionage and censorship, and ordered the release of political prisoners. On December 17, Abdülhamid opened the Turkish parliament with a speech from the throne in which he said that the first parliament had been "temporarily dissolved until the education of the people had been brought to a sufficiently high level by the extension of instruction throughout the empire." No significant educational reforms had taken place over the previous 30 years.

The new attitude of the sultan did not save him from the suspicion of intriguing with the powerful reactionary elements in the state, a suspicion confirmed by his attitude towards the counter-revolution of April 13, 1909 known as 31 Mart Vakası, when an insurrection of the soldiers backed by a conservative public upheaval in the capital overthrew the cabinet. The government, restored by soldiers from Salonica, decided on Abdülhamid's deposition, and on April 27 his brother Reshid Efendi was proclaimed as Sultan Mehmed V. The ex-sultan was conveyed into dignified captivity at Salonica. Back again in İstanbul by 1912, he spent his last days studying, carpentering and writing his memoirs in custody at the palace of Beylerbeyi, where he died on February 10 1918, just a few months before his brother.

Legacy

Abdülhamid was the last relatively autonomous sultan of the Ottoman Empire. He presided over thirty three years of decline. The Ottoman Empire had long been acknowledged as the sick man of Europe. While its European neighbors were making railroads, automobiles, electric lights and even airplanes, the Ottoman empire was unable to develop much advanced industry. The Ottoman subjects rarely saw benefit from the attempted reforms carried out under the Sultan's reign.

Abdülhamid commissioned thousands of photographs of his empire. Fearful of assassination he did not travel often (though still more so than previous rulers) and so photographs provided visual evidence of what was taking place in his realm. The Sultan presented large gift albums of photographs to various governments and heads of state, including the United States (William Allen, "The Abdul Hamid II Collection," History of Photography eight (1984): 119-45.) and Great Britain (M. I. Waley and British Library, "Sultan Abdulhamid II Early Turkish Photographs in 51 Albums from the British Library on Microfiche" (Zug, Switzerland: IDC, 1987). The American collection is housed in the Library of Congress and has been digitized.

References

•  This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. {{cite encyclopedia}}: Missing or empty |title= (help)

External links

• Ottoman Empire photographs at the Library of Congress

Template:Sultans of Ottoman Empire

1. Constitutional Rights Foundation
2. United Human Rights Council

• Sultans of the Ottoman Empire
• 1842 births
• 1918 deaths