The watchman and southron. [volume] (Sumter, S.C.) 1881-1930, 1909-04-24
SULTAN HOLDS RECORD.
He HAS REIGNED FOR PIJENO.
MENAL TIME. COMPARED TO
PREDECESSORS.
His Rule a Troubled One, But He
Has Checkmated Europe and
Seemed Supreme Over His Own
People.

tan has been predicted many times
and has, indeed. seemed imminent
But up to the present time the willy
Turk has STAYED off the impending
ruin; his diplomacy, aided, by the
jealousy of the European powers,
has defeated external attacks on his
empire, and, until the Young Turks
wrested the Constitution from him.
his power over his own people has
seemed supreme.
Born September %. 1912, Abdul
Hamid II succeeded to the throne
as the thirty-fourth Sultan of the
Moslem Empire August 81, 1875.
The amazing thing is that Abdul
Mamid should still be on the throne.
Thirty-three years is a pnenomenally
long reign for Turkish Sultan
Ottoman rule Is in every sense of the
word "despotism tempered by as
sassination," and from the time of
the taking Of Constantinople, more
than 500 years ago, each of Abdul
Hamid's predecessors as Padishah
save four. has succumbed to a violent
and premature death.
When Abdul Hamid succeeded to
the throne the prestige and authority
OF the dynasty of Osman were at
their lowest ebb. The Sultan Abdul
Assizs deposition and tragic death
had been followed a few months later
by the deposition Of his successor.
Sultan Murad, Hamid's brother,
whose reforming zeal and enthusias-
tic acceptance Of the most extreme
forms Of Western civilization, even
to the extent Of woman's rights, had
so alarmed the religious leaders at
Stamboul that they came to the con-
clusion that he was crazy, and there
fore untitled for the half-ecclesias-
tical, half-temperal dignity Of Caliph,
and placed his younger brother, Abb
dull Hamid, upon the throne.
Abdul was obliged to propitiate
not only the native fanatic element,
but likewise those foreign influences
which had been cruelty disappointed
by the removal of the broad-minded
and progressive Murad, and before
long he found himself engaged in a
war, first Of all with Servia and
Roumania, and then with Russia. a
conflict which was only brought to a
close by the threat Of England to
move up her immense Mediterranean
fleet to the Bosphorus, and to train
her guns upon the Russian army, un-
less the latter halted at San Stefano
on its victorious march to CONSTANT
nople.
The armistice of San Stefano-a
place which is within a couple Of
hours distance Of Constantinople, in
full view Of the latter-culminated in
the Berlin treaty of 1878, which rob-
bed the Ottoman Empire of it's Bull
garian and Eastern Roumelian prov
inces. endowing them with indepen-
dence; intrusted to Austria the oc-
cupation Of two other Turkish prov
inces, namely, Bosnia and Herzego-
vina, gave Cyprus to Great Britain,
and a slice Of Turkish territory to
Greece, besides depriving the Sub
lime Porte Of the suzerainty which it
had exercised over Roumania .and
Servia for more than 500 years.
In 1882 the English seized Egypt,
another important dependency of the
Sultan, and then the French got hold
OF Tunis, which until then had been
subject to Turkish suzerainty. Fin
ally the Island Of Crete was removed
from the control of the Porte and
placed under the rule of a prince
of the reigning house of Greece.
When the Turks, after defeating the
Greeks in a war commenced by the
latter. were within a days march of
Athens, their further progress was
stayed by Russia and the other great
powers of Europe, and the Sultan
was deprived of every particle of the
fruits Of his victory
Yet this loss of so many provinces
and dependencies. and the humiliation
to which he has been subjected so
repeatedly by the various powers.
left the Sultan more powerful than
ever, and the prestige of his SOW
ereignty incomparably greater than
that Of any Of his predecessors for
hundreds Of years past The PROV
inces which he lost were mostly
Christian and European-therefore a
source OF weakness to Moslem
power-and just in the same way
t1A