The Turkish Empire, Its Growth and Decay

by Baron G. Shaw-Lefevre Eversley

It was not long, however, before difficulties began to arise, and reaction reared its head again at the secret instigation of the Sultan. There was an outbreak in Albania against the Committee of Union and Progress. The bodyguard of Albanians was won back to the support of Abdul Hamid by profuse bribery. Disorder broke out in many parts of the Empire. It was at Constantinople, however, that the gravest dangers to the new order of things arose. The first act of the new Government was to dismiss the host of spies, who had been maintained at a cost of £1,200,000 a year. It was said at the time that if three persons were seen talking together in the streets one of them was certain to be a spy in the employment of the Sultan. These people found their occupation gone. The new ministers also cleared the public departments of a vast body of superfluous and useless employés, most of them hangers-on of the palace. These two classes of people made a formidable body of malcontents, who conceived that their fortunes depended on the restoration to the Sultan of his old powers of corruption. They were supported by a small body of fanatical mollahs, who believed, or pretended to believe, that the new Constitution was in opposition to the sacred law. But more important than these agencies of reaction were the personal efforts made by Abdul Hamid to tamper with the fidelity to the new Government of the troops at Constantinople by the profuse distribution of money from his private stores. The new ministers had also made the mistake of releasing from prison, not merely great numbers of persons imprisoned at the will of the Sultan for political reasons, but also all the prisoners convicted of serious crimes. These formed an element of disorder in the city and caused alarm and distrust among the well-disposed citizens.

On April 13, 1909, nine months after promulgation of the new Constitution, a revolt broke out among the troops at Constantinople, and a counter-revolution was proclaimed. It had no ostensible leader of any repute or influence. Abdul Hamid avoided committing himself openly to the movement. But for the moment, backed by elements of discontent, it was successful. The new ministers, the members of the Committee of Union and Progress, and the members of the new Assembly were compelled to seek safety by flight. If Abdul Hamid had boldly come forward as the champion of the reactionaries and fanatics, he might have crushed his enemies and have restored the old régime. But he lacked the courage for a desperate game. He contented himself with the secret supply of money in support of the movement.

Meanwhile the Committee of Young Turks met at Salonika, and determined to put down the counter-revolution by force. They called on Mahmoud Shefket Pasha, in command of the 3rd Army Corps, to support them. He said that he had sworn to maintain the Constitution, and agreed to march his army to Constantinople. At San Stefano he met the members of the Assembly and the ministers who had fled from the city. By the 24th of April the army had overcome the feeble opposition of the rebellious troops and were in occupation of the most important parts of the capital. The counter-revolution was suppressed at a very small cost of lives. The National Assembly met again, and the first question for their decision was what should be done with Abdul Hamid. They put the following question to the Sheik ul Islam:—

“What should be done with a Commander of the Faithful who has suppressed books and important dispositions of the Sharia law; who forbids the reading of, and burns, such books; who wastes public money for improper purposes; who, without legal authority, kills, imprisons, and tortures his subjects and commits tyrannical acts; who, after he has bound himself by oath to amend, violates such oath and persists in sowing discord so as to disturb the public peace, thus occasioning bloodshed?

“From various provinces the news comes that the population has deposed him; and it is known that to maintain him is manifestly dangerous and his deposition is advantageous.

“Under these conditions, is it permissible for the actual governing body to decide as seems best upon his abdication or deposition?”

The answer was the simple word ‘Yes.’

Never was a sovereign condemned by a more emphatic and laconic word. Upon this the National Assembly unanimously decided on the deposition of Abdul Hamid. They sent a deputation to the palace to inform him to this effect. He appears to have taken the sentence of deportation very quietly. “It is Kismet,” he said. “But will my life be spared?” He who had been so merciless to others was chiefly concerned now in claiming mercy for himself. He pleaded that he had not put to death his two brothers, Murad and Réchad. The question was reserved for the National Assembly.

Abdul Hamid found himself deserted and friendless. He was execrated by his subjects and despised and distrusted by all his fellow sovereigns in Europe, unless it were the German Emperor, who, of late years, had given a support to him in all his misdeeds at home and abroad. In his hour of peril the Emperor gave him no support, but the reverse. When he found how the wind was blowing, William II commenced an intrigue with the Committee of Union and Progress through Enver Bey, who had received a military training in Germany and was personally known to him. It is said that the Emperor insisted as a condition of recognition of the new order that the life of Abdul Hamid should be spared. There was another reason for doing so—namely the hope of the Young Turks to squeeze his hidden wealth from the deposed Sultan. However that may be, Abdul Hamid’s life was spared. He was deported with a few of the more favoured members of his harem to Salonika, where he was detained as a virtual prisoner, but not otherwise maltreated. After his departure money and diamonds to the value of over a million pounds sterling were found in his palace, a small part only of his ill-gotten wealth. Two millions sterling were deposited with German banks and very large sums were in the hands of the Emperor William. Thus ended a reign of thirty-three years, more disastrous in its immediate losses of territory and in the certainty of others to follow, and more conspicuous for the deterioration of the condition of his subjects, than that of any other of his twenty-three degenerate predecessors since the death of Solyman the Magnificent.