Thirty second Ottoman Padishah. (B. February
7th, 1830, Istanbul – D. June 4th, 1876, Istanbul). He
was the son of Sultan Mahmud II and Pertevniyal Valide Sultan and the brother
of Sultan Abdülmecid. Upon the death of Abdülmecid he succeeded to the throne
on June 25th, 1861, when he was 31 years old. He was a physically
strong, healthy and showy person, who was also smart, lenient and sedate. It is
also known that he was skilled in riding horses, using weapons and javelin
throw and that he loved to hunt and wrestle. Abdülaziz had a free life while he
was a prince and he received a careful education from his mother.
It is stated that he knew Arabic and
Persian very well and that he was good at calligraphy, which he used when he
wrote an Arabic tract. He was interested in music and he played nay and lute.
With his musician side he made his mark among the composer sultans. He composed
very beautiful compositions in Hicazkâr and
Şehrân maqams and he even removed the palace orchestras and bands founded by
Abdülmecid and had Turkish music saz (T. N. a stringed instrument) bands
brought instead. He supported orta oyunu
instead of opera as if he wanted to show that he did not have a Western side at
all and he was supporting the national culture.
With a series of reforms Sultan Abdülaziz
continued the Westernization efforts, which accelerated with Tanzimat (T. N.
Reforms), in all areas as a result of the continuing pressure of the western
countries. In order to show this orientation to Europeans, he appointed
reformist Keçecizâde Fuat Pasha, who was not
loved by the right-wingers (1861), as the Grand Vizier. He continued his reformist
politics with Fuat and Âli
Pashas, whom he appointed as Grand Viziers one after another.
In the sources it is
stated that many attributes of Sultan Abdülaziz changed especially after his
Egypt and Europe travels. Sultan Abdülaziz, who was at first characterized as a
very pious person insomuch that the English Ambassador Canning described him as
“narrow-minded and conservative”, turned into a Western-imitating padishah, who
was open to all inculcations of the Western people and who was very lavish as a
result of the influence of the entertaining dinners he joined in the Egyptian
palace and the deluxe high society life he saw during his Europe trip.
At the time when
Abdülaziz succeeded to the throne the Ottoman Empire was faced with a big
depression. At the end of the year 1861, the Ottoman money bills “kaime”s depreciated
greatly and they were not accepted in the market. Therefore the public became
unable to procure even the staple food. Sultan Abdülaziz showed awareness to
this issue and asked the government to prevent the financial depression. He
even reduced the palace expenditure and thus showed his contribution and seriousness
in this aspect. At first, he even wanted a restriction of his own allocation
and he set an example to other government officers by stating that he was not
going to have a harem. Accordingly, he contributed to the savings measures by
reducing the number of government officers. He discharged Grand Vizier Ali
Pasha from his position as Ali Pasha was not attentive to these implementations
and he appointed Keçecizade Fuat Pasha as the Grand Vizier. However, afterwards
neither the padishah nor other statesmen kept to their initial commitment. As
such, although he set about with good intentions, Sultan Abdülaziz lost favor
especially after 1871 because of the wrong behaviors and attitudes of the
statesmen around him.
Another reason for
the inability to sufficiently strengthen the financial structure during the
reign of Abdülaziz was the fact that a big amount of money was spent for the
military improvements (reforms). Abdülaziz evaluated the changes that came in
view during his Europe trip very well and he felt the need to take measures as
he saw that Russia broke free against the Ottoman Empire. Therefore, he gave
orders to have everything necessary be done to have a strong military power
against Russia and he spent virtually a treasure for this cause. Abdülaziz had
modern weaponry bought from Europe for the army and the navy. He strengthened
the straits with heavy artillery against the Russian threat.
The biggest work of Abdülaziz, who was a
reformist Sultan, was the navy that he had built. During his reign, Abdülaziz
had a navy consisting of 180 ships built including 25 armored ships in regard
to the huge naval need of an empire that is surrounded on three sides by the
sea and that rules over three seas.
He reorganized Mekteb-i Harbiye (T.N. Military
College) with the experts he brought from Prussia (1866). He reorganized the
military recruiting and organization laws and lot casting system was put into
practice again. Military junior high schools were opened. Ministry of Defense
was given importance and independent and big barracks were established. Armored
ships that could not be constructed in naval shipyards were bought from
England. In order to school naval
officers English Hubart Pasha was appointed to Mekteb-i Bahriye (Naval Military
College). Navy Department was established.
Public works were concentrated on during
the reign of Abdülaziz and approximately 1000 kilometers of railroad was
constructed. Construction of Paris-Istanbul line was commissioned to Austrian
Baron Hirsch and Sophia-Istanbul line was put into service in 1874. During his
reign there were significant progresses in highways construction as well. One
of the most wonderful achievements of Abdülaziz reign was perhaps the
extensification of the telegraph network. Once again he also launched the
shipping line operation enterprise in Danube and Tigris. Docks were also given
an extraordinary importance in this period.
The Padishah, who also gave importance to
education, had a trade school called Mekteb-i
Mahrec-i Aklâm put into service in 1862 and made it possible for clerks to be
schooled for public offices. This school was turned into a language school in
1864. Also, there was an effort to generalize the educational services
regardless of religion and race differences and starting from 1867, Christian
children were also accepted to junior high schools on the condition that they
passed the Turkish exam. However, this period is also the period in which the
missionary schools spread in the Ottoman lands. Spread of the similar schools
caused a disorder in educational system and apart from that the local education
fell behind of the missionary schools. In order to ensure coordination among
educational institutions Meclis-i Kebir-i Maarif was founded and later in 1870 Statute on General Education was published.
With this statute, on one hand it was attempted to generalize the education by
making the primary education obligatory and on the other hand it was intended
to render the teaching staff qualified. Publication of statute of copyright and
translation and opening of the first ever teacher’s training school took place
in this year as well. Darülfünun (İstanbul University) was founded in 1870.
During the reign of Abdülaziz important
works in fields of administration and law were carried out and new laws were
enacted. Provincial law was enacted and Ottoman administrative structure underwent
a radical change as it was changed from state structure to provincial
structure. Afterwards, provincial councils were established according to the
new provincial law and it was made possible for the public to participate in
administration as most of the council members entered the council through
elections. Army Courts were established in provinces and most importantly, by
separating Meclis-i Vâlâ-yı Ahkâm-ı Adliye
(Administrative Court), Şurâ-yı
Devlet (Council of State) and Divan-ı Ahkâm-ı Adliye (Supreme Court of Appeals)
from each other administrative and judicial works were made independent of each
other and thus an important step was taken regarding judicial independence.
Especially Şura-yı Devlet was an important institution in this sense and was
opened by the sultan in person on May 10th, 1868. Both institutions
were very meaningful within the framework of the Ottoman Tanzimat era. Because
while both Tanzimat and the Edict of Reform were pulling the judicial system of
the state into pieces with the privileges bestowed on foreigners and
non-Muslims, these two institutions ensured the centralization and the unity of
law. Although a commission, which took the Western law as an example, was
established in this period as a preparation for the Civil Code, Mecelle
Cemiyeti, which carried out studies within the framework of Islamic law, became
more effective afterwards instead of this commission.
During the reign of Abdülaziz, certain legal
arrangements were made to enhance the trade and to ensure the capital inflow;
granting the right to own property in the country to foreigners and founding
“country funds” and Government Lending Agency to support the farmers by
establishing farm loan systems were significant steps. With this purpose, Osmanlı
Bank was founded in 1863. Once again, during the reign of Abdülaziz, Ottomans
participated in industrial fairs abroad for the first time. Another way that
the Western capital flowed into Ottoman Empire during the reign of Abdülaziz
was through debts. The state chose to provide the money that it lacked for
military and administrative arrangements by means of debt.
By the way, it should
also be stated that many events that were considered as domestic revolts in
previous periods turned into an international problem. Therefore, many events
such as the Montenegro uprising, Serbian uprising and Crete uprising can be
analyzed within the framework of external affairs. We can say that the most
important ones of these political events of Abdülaziz era were the Montenegro
and Serbian uprisings. The Montenegro uprising, which was amplified by
especially the spark of the nationalism movement that spread in Europe and
Ottoman Balkans after the 1789 French Revolution and by the support of European
countries, started before the reign of Abdülaziz and was concluded with a
protocol (1858), however because Montenegro covertly helped the rebels during
the Herzegovina uprising it blazed up again. Nevertheless, the Montenegro
uprising that took place during the first years of the reign of Abdülaziz was
more easily and effectively repressed as a result of the fact that the Western
countries did not intervene in it.
Another uprising was
the Herzegovina uprising. The uprising, which started as a result of Christian
villagers’ reaction against the big landholders and villagers’ unwillingness to
pay taxes, spread quickly with the provocation of Hungarians who were against
Russia and Austria. Although, at the end of the year 1875, the government
wanted to repress the uprising by publishing an imperial order that promised
certain privileges, there wasn’t any positive response to these attempts. Other
states such as England, France and Russia intervened in the issue and sent a
diplomatic note to Istanbul. Although Istanbul accepted this diplomatic note,
the uprising did not come to an end because of the provocation of Russia and it
even spread to Serbia and Bulgaria (1876). The fact that French and German
consuls were killed in Thessalonica resulted in the uprisings getting out of
the control of Ottoman Empire and thus the great powers intervened in the
issue. When the Berlin Memorandum that was jointly prepared by Germany, Austria
and Russia was about to be communicated to Istanbul, Abdülaziz was dethroned.
One of the other
important uprisings in the era of Abdülaziz was the Serbia uprising which was
also in the same region. Serbians, who supported the uprisings in Montenegro,
actually intended to found the Great Serbian Kingdom in 1860s. The fact that
Russia and France supported the rebels made it impossible to get the uprisings
under control. Hence, in 1861, Serbians made a move to remove the Turkish
people along with the Turkish soldiers from the Serbia and they marched on
Belgrade in 1862. European countries took action upon these events and they
dictated the Istanbul Protocol to Ottoman Empire. According to this protocol,
Ottoman Empire had to remove its soldiers from certain forts in Serbia and
accept the removal of the Turks from the region (except from Belgrade and some
forts).
The wrong Ottoman
policy, which was pursued after the Europe trip of Sultan Abdülaziz and which
was based on granting capitulations to Europeans in order to establish good
affairs with them, caused Crete to be shaken with uprisings as well. In 1867, joining
of Crete to Greece was rejected for the time being and the dust settled as
Crete was given a special statue. Sultan Abdülaziz was toppled from the throne
with coup d’état on May 30th, 1876. On June 4th, 1876, he
was found dead with his wrists cut in Feriye Palaces, where he was kept under
custody.
