III
Budapest University, December 30, 1912.
Dear Mr. Whitman,—I have read your ably written chapter on Sultan Abdul Hamid with much interest, and I may tell you that I can neither add to nor take away anything from its contents. Of course there is a good deal I could say about the man whose favourite I was supposed to be during more than ten years, but it is impossible to lift the veil more than I did in the two essays I published in the June and July numbers of 1909 of the Nineteenth Century and After, in which you can find more than one episode worth reproduction.
Abdul Hamid was decidedly an extraordinary man. Want of able and trustworthy Ministers caused his downfall; but it is generally admitted that if he had remained on the throne the present catastrophe would not have taken place. As I hear from Constantinople, he has got much chance to return to power. The bulk of the nation is siding with him. The Young Turks confess themselves the mistake they made (vide a paper by Husein Djahid, the editor of the Tanin, in the January (1913) number of the Deutsche Revue). The adherents of the old school were always in the Opposition, but the blow was too heavy a one, and I very much doubt whether he, or anybody else, will be able to heal the wounds.
Be so kind as to let me have a copy of the book you will publish, as I am much interested in the late Sultan. Properly speaking, I was not his favourite, for he wanted to use my pen in the interest of Russia, whereas I endeavoured to turn him into British waters, in which I should have probably succeeded if your politicians and your public opinion had not been under the sway of false humanitarian views, and if your nation had not lost the persistency of bygone ages.
In a personal meeting with you I could furnish you with more than one detail. With best greetings from my son,
Yours sincerely,
A. VAMBÉRY.