The View from Yildiz: ‘Who Has Conceived Such Wicked Lies?'

The difficulties of governing the Ottoman state were undeniably immense. Few European monarchs were faced with such a lethal combination of internal and external difficulties, and decades of being at the centre of incessant intrigue undoubtedly affected – warped according to his detractors – Abdülhamit’s personality. Whatever his personal shortcomings the great political, social and economic pressures he faced were bound to leave their mark on him. The Layards had spoken of him hopefully and almost affectionately but he did not long remain the shy but optimistic ‘dear little man’ ¹ who welcomed them to Istanbul in 1877. In the years ahead it was more common for European observers to describe him as cunning, treacherous, mendacious and sly. Even Vambéry, for so long sympathetic and even flattering, could write in 1897 (when he was urging the British government to encourage the Young Turk movement) that ‘he opened his heart to me, I looked deeply into it and found a dreary, horrible place’. ² Layard, on the other hand, refused to moralise even during the furore of events in the 1890s and even though the sultan had long since broken with him: ‘To condemn him for his cunning, as it has been the habit in England, is like making it a sin in an animal to escape from its mortal enemies by deceiving them. He was convinced that he had nothing to expect from other Powers, but that on the contrary they were leagued against him and his empire’. ³ If so, the powers clearly underestimated Abdülhamit’s tenacity and his ability to resist and outflank their manoeuvres.