APPLETONS' 



ANNUAL CYCLOPAEDIA. 



A 



ABDUL-AZIZ, Sultan of Turkey, born Feb- 

 ruary 9, 1830; died June 4, 1876. He was 

 the thirty-second Sultan of the Turkish Empire, 

 and the second son of Mahmoud II., the first 

 sovereign of Turkey who weakened the fanati- 

 cal spirit with which the Mussultnen opposed 

 changes in her laws and her military organiza- 

 tion. Abdul-Aziz succeeded his brother, the 

 Sultan Abdul-Medjid, on June 25, 1861. On 

 ascending the throne he imitated the conduct 

 of his predecessor at his accession in 1839, in- 

 troducing some reforms, and announcing that 

 he would make many more which would put 

 Turkey on an equality with the Christian na- 

 tions of Europe. Like Abdul-Medjid, he in- 

 herited from his father, Mahmoud, the belief 

 that it would be well to modernize Turkey. 

 His accession to the throne awakened great 

 hopes, as it was thought that he was brave, 

 patriotic, and determined. To the great regret 

 of the Old Turkish party, he confirmed the 

 hatti-sherif of Gylhane, and the hatti-hu- 

 mayun of 1856, and thus bound himself to 

 the execution of the great reforms depending 

 upon those documents. He, furthermore, prom- 

 ised to restore order in the interior, and econ- 

 omy in the finances, and in this latter measure 

 led the way by reducing his own civil list 

 $3,000,000, and by dismissing his brother's 

 seraglio. Changes were also made among the 

 high officers of state, none of which, however, 

 betrayed a peculiar policy or a firm determi- 

 nation on the part of the Sultan. He showed 

 a great fondness for the army, increased the 

 number of soldiers, introduced new uniforms 

 and armaments, thus swelling the budget very 

 largely, while the actual condition of the troops 

 remained unchanged. In the midst of these 

 great financial difficulties, a reform of the min- 

 istry of finance was begun, and a commission 

 appointed to take charge of the public debt. 

 These and other measures led to the contrac- 

 tion of a number of loans, by means of which 



VOL. XVI. 1 A 



the national credit was to be restored, bnt 

 which, in reality, were wasted for the most 

 trivial purposes. In 1863 he paid a visit to 

 the viceroy of Egypt, which at the time was 

 looked on with suspicious eyes by the other 

 nations of Europe. This journey, as well as 

 the reception ceremonies instituted by his 

 mother, again consumed large amounts of 

 money. In 1862 his armies conquered the 

 Montenegrins, but the impending ruin of his 

 empire became all the more apparent. In the 

 Danubian principalities he had to acknowl- 

 edge Prince Charles of Hohenzollern, who thus 

 converted another Turkish dependency from 

 an elective into an hereditary monarchy. In 

 spite of the dissatisfaction prevailing through- 

 out the entire empire, he undertook in 1867 

 a journey through Europe, in the course of 

 which he visited the Paris Exhibition, and 

 passed through England, Germany, and Aus- 

 tria. This journey, which had consumed a 

 large amount of money, was looked upon by a 

 number of enthusiasts as an event of great im- 

 portance in the history of civilization. The 

 civilization of Europe had indeed made a deep 

 impression upon the Sultan, and he declared, 

 upon his reception by the Grand-Vizier, that 

 he would make it his chief aim to develop the 

 means of communication, the public credit, and 

 the education of his nation. But in spite ot 

 his good intentions, and of many reforms in- 

 troduced by him, the political and social con- 

 dition of the empire remained virtually un- 

 changed. In March, 1868, a change took place 

 in the formation of the Council of State, which 

 henceforth was to be the central government 

 for the whole empire. In opening this consti- 

 tutional council, which was composed of thirty- 

 four Mohammedans and sixteen Christians, he 

 delivered a speech in person, in which he prom- 

 ised reformatory legislation, reports on the 

 condition of the empire, and an approach to 

 European civilization. In the mean time the 



