ABSTRACT
Long before they lost their empire in the First World War, the Ottomans had learnt to tailor their actions to suit the ambitions of Russia and the West European nations. Yielding to Western pressures, Sultan Midhat Pasha promulgated in 1876 a constitution which, modelled along French lines, included a bill of rights, and stipulated an elected chamber. But two years later, following a disastrous war with the Czar of Russia, Sultan Abdul Hamid II suspended the constitution and prorogued the chamber. By then Constantinople, heavily indebted to Paris and London, had already mortgaged its economic independence to West Europe in a series of commercial treaties, known as Capitulations, which exempted European imports from any tariffs. The French had secured economic concessions in Greater Syria and taken to building ports, railways, and roads to help foreign trade.
