Ten days after the tragedy at the Palace of Tcheragan the news of which had deeply affected Sultan Murad, another quickly followed, in some respects of a still more startling character, and calculated to prostrate still further a mind already unhinged.
A Circassian captain, formerly aide‐de‐camp of the Sultan Abdul Aziz, one Hassan by name, on whom certain suspicion of violent intentions rested, had been ordered to Bagdad, and on his showing signs of recalcitrancy, he was imprisoned for insubordination by orders of Hussein Avni, the Minister of War. Feigning submission, he was released after two days’ detention. On the 15th June, during a Cabinet Council which was being held at the house of Midhat Pasha, and at which all the Ministers were present, Tcherkess Hassan, armed with no less than six revolvers, forcing the consigne without much difficulty, managed to penetrate into the room where the Council was sitting, and advancing straight up to Hussein Avni, discharged a barrel of a revolver at him, and turning sharply on Reshid Pasha, the Minister of Foreign Affairs, shot him dead on the spot. The Minister of Marine, Kaisserli Ahmed, threw himself on the assassin and tried to disarm him, but he was immediately stabbed with a poniard that Hassan carried in his left hand. Hussein Avni, although severely wounded, managed to make his way to the staircase, but Hassan, following him, struck at him furiously in the neck with his dagger and despatched him. Returning to the Council room he discharged his revolvers promiscuously all around him, smashing the chandelier suspended in the middle of the room, and consequently plunging the room into darkness. It was this that probably saved the lives of the remaining Ministers, for Kaisserli Ahmed, though wounded, and Mehemet Rushdi, and Halid succeeded in escaping into an adjoining boudoir, where they barricaded the door against their furious assailant, who, having despatched the War Minister, seemed chiefly bent on wreaking vengeance on the Minister of Marine. Midhat escaped by a miracle, and by slipping off his coat, the sleeve of which he left in the hand of Hassan who had seized it in the darkness. One of Midhat’s servants, Ahmed Aga, on hearing the firing, had rushed into the room and tried to seize the assassin from behind, but Hassan turned sharply on him and shot him dead. The same fate attended Chukri Bey, the aide‐de‐camp of the Minister of Marine, who also rushed in to the rescue. At last a guard of gendarmerie appeared on the scene, and a regular fusillade ensued between the Circassian at bay and the gendarmes reinforced by a picket of soldiers; it was only then, after a regular pitched battle, that this determined criminal was at length overpowered and seized.
He was very soon afterwards tried, and hanged in due course, stoutly denying to the last that he had any accomplices.
The effect of these compound tragedies on the mind of the Sultan Murad was disastrous. His recovery, sanguine hopes of which had been held out by Dr Lamsdorf, the famous specialist summoned from Vienna to give his opinion on the state of the Sultan’s health, seemed destined to be indefinitely postponed. Two parties, holding distinct views on the situation and the manner it should be dealt with, now showed themselves among the Ministers and the high Court officials. Mehemet Rushdi especially, the old experienced vizier and the majority of Ministers well aware of the favourable disposition of Sultan Murad towards the cause of reform, and very averse to taking a plunge in the dark, leant to the opinion that patience should be exercised and reasonable time given for the recovery of the Sultan’s health.
But another and very active party had in the meantime been formed, of which Damad Mahmoud Djelaleddin Pasha (the Sultan’s brother‐in‐law) was the moving spirit, and which included, together with some high Palace officials, one or two of the influential marshals, such as Redif Pasha, the commander of the Constantinople corps d’armée and under the influence of Damad Mahmoud Djelaleddin. This party—as far as it could be said to have been based on any particular political opinions, and not on the simple ground of ambition and the desire to exercise a preponderating influence in the future régime—consisted of the men who had acquiesced, and even participated, in the dethronement of the late Sultan, but did not share, and some of them were even bitterly opposed to, the constitutional views advocated by Midhat and the reforming party. Borne along by the current of events which they would have been impotent to resist, they would have constituted a helpless minority in the State without power or influence, if they had had to do with a reforming Sultan on the throne, a palace where men like Zia Bey, and Kemal Bey were the guiding spirits, and the party of reform in strong possession of the Porte. The prospect, however, of being able to change the occupant of the throne and place their own candidate upon it afforded them the precious opportunity of upsetting the whole edifice of reform, of themselves seizing the chief power of the State, and turning the revolution that had been accomplished to their own exclusive advantage. It was less a victory of reaction than a triumph of ambition.
Damad Mahmoud Djelaleddin was a very ignorant and uncultivated man, and though careless and without a conviction in respect to political opinions, he enjoyed the reputation of being neither careless nor indifferent with respect to matters of personal or pecuniary concern to himself. On the other hand, he was endowed with great, almost brutal, determination of character, and was utterly reckless as to the means of carrying out his ends. His position of Damad (brother‐in‐law to the Sultan) gave him great influence in the Palace, and at the same time secured him weight in the Councils of the State. He was the very soul of the anti‐reform conspiracy.
Having described Damad Mahmoud Djelaleddin, the character of his lieutenant, Redif Pasha, can be described in a sentence: he was Damad Mahmoud in petto. Whatever qualities distinguished the master were conspicuous in the lieutenant, and only in a less degree, inasmuch as he was physically of a somewhat less robust nature. He had, like Mahmoud, lent himself with all the weight of his military position to the dethronement of Abdul Aziz, but he viewed with an evil eye the advance of reform, and still more the triumph of the reformers.
These two men practically constituted the central power of the conspiracy, for those who co‐operated with them were scarcely admitted into the inner councils or secret plans of the Duumvirate, although themselves the willing participators in the conspiracy.
Among them was Djevdet Pasha, Minister of Justice, who, during all the stirring events of the Vizierate of Mehemet Rushdi, had been lying low in the Cabinet waiting for the opportune moment to show his colours and take part in the overthrow of the ministry.