Abdul Hamid II

“ The English even declared, with an expression of unutterable disgust, that Abdul Hamid occasionally caused “undesirable” persons to be done away with. In reality, this intensely virtuous indignation was due chiefly to the knowledge that Abdul Hamid was an extremely clever politician and diplomatist, and to the fact that he would not consent to renounce his claims to Egypt. Abdul Hamid had the most disagreeable habit of raising the Egyptian question from time to time, and precisely at the very moment when it was least convenient for the British Government. ”

“ England had always intensely hated Abdul Hamid, especially since he had become a friend of the German Emperor. The London Cabinet was of opinion that the cordial relations between Germany and Turkey were due exclusively to Abdul Hamid, and that the personal friendship between the two Sovereigns had alone rendered possible the railroad and other concessions to Germany. The aim of British policy was, consequently, to get rid of Abdul Hamid as soon as possible. ”

“ He fixed upon Crete as his place of residence. During his exile in Europe he had seen the Sultan Abdul Hamid enter into the paths of despotism—giving power to those men who had done nothing in the past, and banishing from the capital all those who were his partisans and who had striven to establish a rule of justice and of progress. He had seen his country menaced by every danger, and had observed the manœuvres of those ambitious statesmen who only sought for their own personal interests in the Sultan’s despotism and in their country’s decadence. ”

“ Abdul Hamid is slight of stature and weighs only 135 pounds. He looks like the late Jay Gould and the late Matias Romero, for many years Mexican ambassador to the United States. He wore a shabby military overcoat and a red fez. His face is very melancholy. His eyes are large and have a wandering look. He is said to be the saddest man on earth, and he looks it. An escort of young officers on foot followed the carriage, the Sultan’s aides-de-camp and secretaries, and as the pageant proceeded everybody saluted and bowed. ”

“ He might indeed, with his sagacity, have been an excellent monarch of the despotic Oriental type, working for the good of his people, had it not been for one failing which grew into an obsession and brought much woe to Turkey, and this failing was fear. Abdul Hamid was haunted by a perpetual fear of assassination; he had no trusted friends, and suspected all men; and therefore cowardice, as is always the case, called in cruelty and oppression to protect itself. ”

“ Abdul Hamid seems to be a very vain man, and likes to create an immense impression on his visitors. Any one who is to be admitted to the presence of the Sultan is therefore conducted through beautiful gardens and pavilions, past lines of fierce-looking soldiers, and on into a palace blazing with gold and splendor. ”

“ No action was taken by the Cabinets of Europe to leash the tiger sitting on the Ottoman throne. The lust of blood and the lust of plunder of “le Sultan Rouge,” combined with the greed of his satellites, were allowed to be gratified to the full on a helpless and hapless people, whilst Europe looked on.
The character of Abdul Hamid has been well summed up in the testimony of a writer having opportunities of intimate acquaintance with him. ”

“ In saying this I make all allowance for our common human weakness in crediting those of exalted station who are kind to us with every virtue, whilst viewing askance others who neglect us. But the fact remains that Abdul Hamid, without any physical advantage to speak of—rather the reverse, for the features and figure might without much imagination have been supposed to belong to a Galata money-changer—possessed an exceptional charm of manner, a simple dignity and grace of bearing, which were calculated to, and indeed did, gain the sympathies of those who were brought into contact with him. ”

“ These successive reverses of the Young Turks, who so easily overthrew the despotic reign of Abdul Hamid, must have filled their enemies at home with indignation against and contempt for them. Well may they have said: “Less than half a dozen years, but thousands of square miles of land and millions of peoples have been lost to the empire both in Europe and Africa; and if these fools will rule a little longer the whole empire will be lost.” ”

“ While sympathizing with the ideas and aims of the “Young Turkey” party, he was anxious to restrain its impatience, but the sultan’s obduracy led to a coalition between the grand vizier, the war minister and Midhat Pasha, which deposed him in May 1876, and he was murdered in the following month. His nephew Murad V. was in turn deposed in the following August and replaced by his brother, Abdul Hamid II. Midhat Pasha now became grand vizier, reforms were freely promised, and the Ottoman parliament was inaugurated with a great flourish. ”

“ A few days later in Damascus, a chief Moslem city, he spoke to the Mohammedan officers then ruling the Holy Land, and in the course of his speech said, "His Majesty, the Sultan Abdul Hamid, and the three hundred million Mohammedans who reverence him as Kalif may be sure that at all times the German Kaiser will be their friend."
Abdul Hamid was a Turk, a Mohammedan, and a Sultan. As a Turk, he believed all other people were no better than animals; and that it was no more of a sin to kill a man, woman, or child of another race than it was to kill a dog or a rat. ”

“ By an irony of fate Macedonia not only supplied the spectacle which exasperated the army to revolt, but by its very disorder made the preparation of that revolt possible; for it was due to local limitations of Ottoman sovereignty that the chief promoters of revolution were able to conspire in safety. By another irony, two of the few progressive measures ever encouraged by Abdul Hamid contributed to his undoing. If he had not sent young officers to be trained abroad, the army, the one Ottoman institution never allowed wholly to decay, would have remained outside the conspiracy. ”

“ These, as we have seen, had been assiduously fanned by Abdul Hamid II. ever since the year 1882, when a Pan-Islam movement began. The results of this revival were far-reaching, being felt even among the hill tribes on the Afghan-Punjab border (see Chapter XIV.) . Throughout the Ottoman Empire the Mohammedans began to assert their superiority [pg 250] over Christians; and, as Professor Ramsay has observed, "the means whereby Turkish power is restored is always the same--massacre [183] ." ”

“ The great body of the Turkish nation lived quite contentedly under Abdul Hamid. He was Sultan, Caliph, God’s Shadow upon Earth, and ordered mundane matters from heights almost as remote as the high heavens. He was the head of a theocratic power, based on militarism, and his Turkish subjects were content that he should remain so. To them a ruler who declined to differentiate between dynamo and dynamite was well suited. Every village provided for its own security by appointing watchmen, and education was the concern of the churches. ”

“ When William II is insolent, he does not do things by halves; now, he repeats to all concerned: "One does not argue with Greece, one gives her orders," and on every occasion that has offered, he has displayed sentiments hostile to Greece and favourable to the Sultan. For these reasons, Abdul Hamid is devoted to William II. He is tied to him, and bound by all his sentiments, by all his admiration and his fear, to the Germans. Messrs. Cambon and de Nelidoff believed that they had detached the Sultan from Germany, but illusions on that score are no longer possible. ”

“ The Sultan's million of armed men, organised under a German General Staff, in a country where Germany is making every effort to possess herself of every kind of influence and every source of wealth, is not this the chief danger which Russia has to fear, and whose imminence she should clearly foresee, in dealing with a Sultan like Abdul Hamid, a man of nervous fears and bloodthirsty instincts, bound to furtherance of the sudden or premeditated schemes of William II? ”

“ The only effect of the sultan’s efforts to preserve the morals of his subjects was to strengthen their determination to have their own way. I have heard that it is folly to oppose a woman when her mind is made up, and perhaps Abdul Hamid realizes that he defeated his own purpose by his interference with the fashions of the day. No evidence is needed to demonstrate that fact. He is a prisoner for life in a gloomy villa near Salonika, while the women of Turkey are shopping without their veils. ”

“ The Sultan, Abdul-Hamid, who aimed, and still is aiming, to be a very great Padishah, devoted [429] himself to the task of readjusting the balance in favor of the Turks. His Khalific intelligence had nothing to do with causes. He never troubled himself with the complicated question why the Turks were not increasing, why a rich Moslem with three wives had no children, while a simple Christian artisan with one wife had three or four or half a dozen. To Hamid’s mind the problem was very simple. Are the Armenians getting rich? he will plunder them. ”

“ The Committee had further made certain of the support of the Albanian soldiers who formed the bodyguard of the Sultan, and who had been looked upon by him as his most reliable supporters. Abdul Hamid, when he found that the army was against him and that he had no friends on whom he could rely, even among his bodyguard, announced his willingness to concede the demands of the revolutionary party. Never was a revolution effected with so little bloodshed and with more complete success. The Sultan dismissed his corrupt and hated ministers and appointed others, dictated to him by the Committee. ”

“ Encountering no opposition from other Powers, the French flouted the claims of Abdul Hamid, and in order to signify their new position, announced that the French representative would thenceforth take charge of all foreign questions. In spite, however, of the flexibility of the European conscience with regard to the general principle of the Sultan's suzerainty, it was recognized that under certain circumstances that principle must be conscientiously upheld ”

“ Whatever some Turks may think of the form of government under which they live, and more particularly of the centralization of power in the hands of a Sultan, their appreciation of Abdul Hamid as a man could be gauged by anybody who had the opportunity of mixing freely with them. ”

“ In the most distant regions men came to regard the mighty Caliph in Stambul as, in very truth, the Defender of the Faith, and to consider his empire as the bulwark of Islam. On the other hand, it is a far cry from pious enthusiasm to practical performance. Furthermore, Abdul Hamid did not succeed in winning over powerful Pan-Islamic leaders like El Sennussi, who suspected his motives and questioned his judgment; while Moslem liberals everywhere disliked him for his despotic, reactionary, inefficient rule. ”

“ The Young Turks believed in Western political ideas learned from the American schools founded in Turkey, and in military methods learned from their advisers, the Germans; but French culture and government gave them their clearest model to imitate. They objected to Abdul Hamid’s idea of a religious empire ruled by a Sultan who was both head of the State and spiritual ruler. They favoured the Western idea of a military state—Turkey—ruling its subject races merely by the sword, with religion a matter of less importance. As part of this policy they sent Hussein and his family back to Mecca. ”

“ The Young Turks had destroyed Abdul Hamid’s régime only to adopt that Sultan’s favourite methods of quieting opposition. Instead of having one Abdul Hamid, Turkey now discovered that she had several. Men were arrested and deported by the score, and hangings of political offenders—opponents, that is, of the ruling gang—were common occurrences. ”

“ Many Jews also, who sympathise with the Zionist idea, shrink from associating themselves with a movement which for the attainment of its object must necessarily solicit the favour of Abdul Hamid. They feel that the Sultan, owing to his drastic methods in the treatment of domestic complaints, is not popular abroad, and they, not unreasonably, apprehend that any practical advantages which the movement might derive from its relations with the Sultan would be more than counterbalanced by the loss of the moral support of the Christian nations. ”

“ A war in the East, in which Germany might get Russia deeply involved, at the same time that she kept her busy in Asia, is too great an advantage to risk losing, without doing everything possible to protect it. . . .
April 28, 1897. [6]
William II, the God of war and of force, is in every way responsible for events in the East. Only his friendship, and the many consequences of that friendship, have given to Abdul Hamid the courage of his massacres, of his resistance to all efforts at reconciliation, and of his military proceedings in Greece. ”

“ National cause on account of his not having received a place in Mahmud Sami's Ministry, has now been reconciled and has received from Arabi the post of Minister of Public Works."
(Sabunji then describes the crisis preceding Mahmud Sami's resignation, Arabi's appeal to the Sultan, Dervish's mission and Osman Bey's mission, and how they flattered Abdul Hamid with professions of zeal for the Caliphate.) "As to their real convictions, however, they care for Abdul Hamid as much as they would care for a man in the moon. ”

“ He raised the farmers’ tax from one-tenth to one-eighth of the crops on pretense of supporting the public schools. Of course he got most of it from the Armenians, but there is not an Armenian teacher or child in them.
Abdul Hamid is a stupendous hypocrite and charlatan; he makes a great pretense of wisdom, religion, and morality, and he has not a spark of either one. His wisdom is only the animal cunning of a jealous, cruel, suspicious brute, his morals simply do not exist, and his religion is pure sham. It is often reported that he is very religious. ”