13 



ABDU-L-MEJID. 



ABDU-L-MEJID. 



11 



upon which he had surrendered. His request was not acceded to, 

 but he was removed to a healthier prison, first at Pau and then at 

 Amboise, and his confinement was rendered much less irksome. 

 When Louis Napoleon was elected president, Abd-el-Kader renewed 

 his claim, and though he was not immediately successful, he received 

 the most marked attention, and became a prisoner in little more than 

 name. Finally, in October 1852, Napoleon granted him his freedom, 

 on condition that he gave a solemn promise not to return to Algiers 

 or to conspire against the French power in Africa ; and Brussa in 

 Asia Minor was named as his future residence. For that place he 

 embarked in the beginning of 1853, and there he continued to reside 

 until June 1855, when, in consequence of the destruction of that city 

 by au earthquake, he received permission from the French govern- 

 ment to remove to Constantinople. In the autumn of 1855 he paid 

 a short visit to Paris to view the Exposition, and received from the 

 Emperor a distinguished reception. He is said to have resigned him- 

 self to his fate with true eastern calmness, but his health has been 

 permanently broken by his reverses and his imprisonment. 



Abd-el-Kader is beyond question a man of remarkable ability and 

 force of character. He has displayed many of the evidences of great 

 military genius, self-reliance, activity, indomitable energy, marvellous 

 resources in defeat as well as in victory, power of wielding the wills 

 of others and of controlling his own ; and he seemed to possess much 

 of that administrative ability which men of superior military power 

 often exhibit But he had a rude and uncivilised people to govern 

 and to employ, and he had the first and most highly trained military 

 power in Europe to contend with ; and all her greatest commanders 

 were in succession sent against him, and all her resources called into 

 exercise, and he failed where success was hardly conceivable. But 

 for fifteen years he maintained this unequal struggle ; he has borne 

 his reverses manfully, and his old opponents are foremost in render- 

 ing homage to his great ability, and in testifying to his honourable 

 fulfilment of his share of the final engagement. 



ABDL r -L-MEJID, reigning Sultan of Turkey, was born April 23, 

 1323, and was the eldest son of Mahmud II., whom he succeeded on 

 the 1st of July, 1839. As is customary with the sons of the sultan, 

 the early years of Abdu-1-Mejid were spent in the harem. Hia father 

 is said to have desired that he should receive a European education, 

 but the repugnance of the Mohammedan priests to such an innovation 

 compelled him to give way. The education of Abdu-1-Mejid has 

 therefore been necessarily very imperfect; but he has done what he 

 could to make up for his deficiencies by surrouuding himself with 

 men of attainments, and seeking to acquire the information which he 

 believes himself to need. 



Abdu 1-Mejid ascended the throne at a time when the affairs of 

 Turkey were in a very threatening condition. The reforms of his 

 father had hardly become sufficiently consolidated to withstand the 

 strong tide of fanaticism which was setting in against them. The 

 battle of Nezib, June 24, 1839, which had resulted in the total defeat 

 of the Turkish army, by that of the Pasha of Egypt, had been 

 followed within a week by the death of the Sultan, whose determined 

 character and unflinching will had served hitherto to keep in awe the 

 opponents of the new order of things ; and these were now, it was 

 believed, prepared to make common causa with Mehemet Ali, whom 

 they, in common with the great bulk of the Mohammedan race, 

 remarried as the true representative and champion of the ancient faith. 

 The rood to Constantinople was open to the Egyptian army; the 

 inhabitants were in a disturbed state ; and the new Sultan, a lad of 

 sixteen, wan scarcely seated on his throne when the Turkish fleet, by 

 an unparalleled act of treachery on the part of its commander, was 

 placed in the hands of the enemy. Fortunately the Pasha refrained 

 from striking the blow which the weakness of the Sultan seemed to 

 invite ; and the leading European powers stepped in to offer their 

 mediation, which Abdu-1-Mejid at onco accepted. Mehemet Ali 

 refused the terms proffered, and a treaty was signed in London, July 

 15, 1840, in accordance with which an Anglo- Austrian fleet bom- 

 barded several of the fortified towns on the coast of Syria, and com- 

 pelled Mehemet Ali to submit. The ancient dynasty was saved, and 

 the arrangement then made between the Sultan and the Pasha has 

 not again been disturbed. 



The dangers which threatened the young Sultan from domestic 

 treason, though fomented, as was thought, by Russian agents, were 

 as effectually averted. On his death-bed Mahmud had sent for his son, 

 and earnestly entreated him to pursue the course of reform which he 

 had commenced. The adherents of the old system, on the other 

 hand, reckoned confidently on being able, under Mahmud's feeble 

 successor, to uproot all which the late Sultan had so long laboured 

 to effect An end was soon put to nil suspense. A hatti-aheriff, 

 solemnly published at Gulhand on the 3rd of November 1839, gave 

 to the civil reforms of Mahmud a definite and formal shape, and added 

 somewhat to them. This measure guaranteed to all the subjects of 

 the Sultan, without regard to rank or religion, security for person and 

 property ; and promised to introduce a regular and impartial system 

 of taxation, public administration of justice, the right of free trans- 

 .11 of property, and the removal of many of the hardships of 

 tlie conncnption, as well as other improvements. Convinced that 

 there w.ia to be no recession from the path of reform, bat rather a 

 great advance, the more determined zealots organised a powerful con- 



spiracy with the view to effect an entire revolution; and by the aid 

 of the priests set about exciting the populace by assurances that the 

 concessions to the unbelievers were an assault upon the true faith. 

 But the conspiracy was detected, several of the leaders were put to 

 death, and tranquillity was gradually restored. In two or three years 

 Abdu-1-Mejid had outlived the suspicion with which he had at first 

 been regarded, and become, as he has since remained, exceedingly 

 popular with all classes of his subjects. Partial revolts occurred in 

 1840 and subsequent years in ISyria, Bosnia, and Albania ; but they 

 were suppressed without much difficulty, and in their suppression it 

 was that Omar Pasha first displayed his remarkable military skill. 

 The tanzimat, as the system of reform is called, has been carried out 

 in little more than name beyond the immediate circle of the capital ; 

 but Abdu-1-Mejid has always evinced a strong desire to improve the 

 condition of hia subjects, though the general spread of rapacity and 

 corruption among the ruling classes, and the progress of decay 

 throughout the kingdom, have almost rendered it a hopeless task. 

 Among the objects on which the attention of the Sultan is said to 

 have been most fixed, is that of the extension of education in Turkey. 

 In 1846 he established a council of education, and he at that time, 

 or subsequently, founded a university, extended the system of primary 

 schools, and established military, medical, and agricultural colleges. 

 The privileges conceded to Christians by the tanzimat, the Sultan has 

 always firmly defended ; and when opportunity served he has shown 

 his readiness to extend them. The Earl of Shaftesbury, speaking in 

 the House of Lords, March 10, 1854, as the representative of several 

 of the leading Protestant religious societies, bore warm testimony to 

 the liberality with which Protestants have been, during the present 

 Sultan's reign, on all occasions treated by the Sublime Porte ; and in 

 the almost continual disputes between the Latin and Greek churches, 

 the Sultan appears to have endeavoured to act strictly as a mediator, 

 or arbitrator, aiming to satisfy the wishes of each party as far as was 

 compatible with the demands of the other. Since the commencement 

 of the war with Russia the Porte has directed that the evidence of 

 Christians shall be received in courts of justice, and issued other 

 orders, which altogether have gone as far as the prejudices of his 

 Moslem subjects would at present allow in the path of tolerance, and 

 much farther than many Christian states have advanced. The army 

 reforms and other changes, some of which, unquestionably, in the 

 present state of the country, have been of very doubtful advantage, 

 have ulso been steadily persevered in. 



We have not dwelt on the great historic events which have occurred 

 during the reign of Abdu-1-Mejid, they having been already fully 

 noticed under TCBKEY, in the GEOGRAPHICAL Division of the 

 ENGLISH CYCLOPEDIA, voL iv., cols. 927-8. Here it may be enough 

 to mention, that after having continually advanced step by step 

 towards reducing Turkey to the position of a dependent state, the 

 Emperor Nicholas of Russia availed himself, in the early part of 1853, 

 of a difference respecting the guardianship of the 'Holy Places' to 

 claim the protectorate over the Greek Christians in Turkey; and 

 when this was refused by the Porte, though with every effort at con- 

 ciliation compatible with the retention of sovereignty, the Russian 

 troops were at once sent to occupy the principalities of Moldavia and 

 Wallachia as a ' material guarantee.' War was declared by the Porte 

 on the 5th of October, 1853, with the full accord of the governments 

 of England and France, whose assistance had been formally invoked. 

 In November following the Turkish fleet in the Black Sea waa attacked 

 off Sinope by au overwhelmingly superior Russian fleet and totally 

 destroyed. Before Silistria, however, at Giurgevo, and elsewhere, the 

 Russian army was on several occasions defeated by the Turks. In 

 March 1854, England and France, in order to "support the sovereign 

 rights of the Sultan," declared war against Russia, and soon after 

 despatched armies to the assistance of the Porte. On the 14th of 

 September, 1854, an Anglo-French army landed in the Crimea, and, 

 after winning the battle of the Alma on the 20th, proceeded to invest 

 Sebastopol on the 26th. The army, strengthened by very large rein- 

 forcemeLta from France and England, by a Turkish army, and by a 

 Sardinian contingent (that power having joined the alliance in the 

 early part of 1855), has continued the siege up to the end of 1855 ; 

 and during this time has defeated the Russians in every engagement 

 in the open field, and, in September 1855, succeeded in compelling 

 them to evacuate the southern side of Sebastopol, thereby inflicting 

 on them an enormous loss of men and property. The successes of the 

 Anglo-French fleets in the Black Sea, the Sea of Azof, and the Baltic 

 call only for a reference. In Asia, the Turkish army met, during the 

 early part of the campaign, with several serious reverses, and endured 

 much suffering, chiefly, as is believed, through the incompetency and 

 peculation of the Turkish officers. Subsequently, chiefly by the skill 

 and energy of an English officer, General Williams, the Turkish garri- 

 son of Kara, about 12,000 strong, notwithstanding the most terrible 

 privations, succeeded during several months in sustaining a close siege 

 by a Russian army of 35,000 men ; and repulsed, in the most brilliant 

 manner, a grand assault made by it, causing a loss to the Russians of 

 more than 6000 killed. Somewhat later, Omar Pasha defeated a strong 

 Russian force which opposed his progress towards the interior. But 

 the garrison of Kars were compelled by famine to surrender in Novem- 

 ber, 1855. 



However great may be the effect of this war on the future destiny 



