Life of Abdul Hamid

A word of apology on my part may, perhaps, be expected for having included this sorry creature, Abdul Hamid, among the Makers of the Nineteenth Century. It will be seen by those who read this volume, written by one who has spent most of the working years of his life among the Turks, who saw and made others see what was good in them, and who has always lifted up his voice against the cowardly oppression of their rulers, that, far from gaining as a personality from intimate knowledge, Abdul Hamid loses even the little credit he had with those who judged him from afar as, at any rate, an astute and able ruler. All this is true enough, and yet as an influence on the political thought and action of Europe in the last quarter of the nineteenth century, as one who has handed down that evil influence to the Europe of this century, Abdul Hamid may justly lay claim to be included among those who have helped in large measure to make or mar the world into which we were born. During his reign Abdul Hamid was an evil nightmare brooding over Europe, the kind of nightmare which a sleeper could shake off at any moment, did he but choose to move, but he cannot choose and still remains fixed and motionless: and so the nightmare abides. Abdul Hamid traded on his own weakness and on the weakness of his country; for he knew that though all abhorred him, no country would take the lead against him in retribution for his most outrageous crimes, lest instead of abasing him it should be set upon by the others and itself abased...