Monarch Profile: Sultan Abdul Hamid II of Turkey

The reign of Sultan Abdul Hamid II can be seen as the ‘last gasp’ of the traditional Ottoman Empire as it had existed for centuries. He was the last Turkish monarch to hold absolute power over his empire and his reign saw the shift in the Turkish position internationally which was to ultimately lead to the Ottoman Empire being on the losing side in the First World War, which finally brought about its downfall. Abdul Hamid II was born on September 21, 1842 at the Topkapi Palace in Constantinople (Istanbul). His father was Sultan Abdulmecid I who had nineteen wives and forty-three children. In keeping with Ottoman tradition, most of these wives were Europeans; Chechen, Georgian, Bosnian, Circassian or Abkhazian. The mother of Abdul Hamid II was a green-eyed, blonde haired Circassian named Tirimujgan Kadinefendi, however, her early death left the future sultan in the care of his father’s wife, Valide Sultan Rahime Perestu, who would be the last ‘empress-mother’ of the Ottoman Empire when Abdul Hamid II came to the throne. Blonde-haired as well, with blue eyes, she was originally a Christian from the Russian city of Sochi, also a Circassian, who had been adopted by Abdulmecid’s childless aunt and converted to Sunni Islam.

In his youth, Abdul Hamid had many talents, being an accomplished carpenter, a skilled translator and greatly inclined toward music. He was likely the greatest fan of opera among the ranks of all the Ottoman sultans. He was also more well traveled than most others, growing up at a time when the Ottoman Empire was trying to gain stronger relations with the “Great Powers” of Europe and he accompanied his uncle, Sultan Abdulaziz, to Paris, London, Vienna and other European cities in 1867. However, that same year was to see his life changed forever. At the time, his brother Sultan Murad V was on the throne but he had proven problematic. A Freemason, a Francophile and an advocate of constitutional government and democracy, his reign lasted less than a hundred days before he was overthrown and on August 31, 1876 Abdul Hamid II became the 34th Sultan and Padishah Emperor of the Ottoman Empire, Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques and 26th Caliph of Islam. Perhaps because of his travels and his love of opera, as well as the experience with his brother, reactionary elements feared he might be inclined to foreign innovations and the sort of reforms they did not want. This would certainly not prove to be the case.

That being said, Sultan Abdul Hamid II was willing to work with the “Young Ottomans” toward some measure of constitutional government. He could see that some sort of changes were needed as the Ottoman Empire was being left far behind by the other powers in industry and technological advancement. It was also a precarious time for the empire since the sympathy of the Christian empires that manifested itself in Britain and France aiding the Turks against Russia in the Crimean War had evaporated after the brutal suppression of a number of Christian uprisings in the Balkans. The pacification of Bulgaria had been particularly heinous with 58 villages burned, 5 monasteries destroyed and 15,000 Bulgarian civilians massacred. Imperial Russia was moving to take retribution for this and, this time around, none of the other European powers would be offering any help. The British were concerned about Russian expansion, but the actions of the Turks had made any assistance to them impossible. Constitutional talk was put on hold as the Russian Czar declared war on the Ottoman Empire on April 24, 1877.

It took only until February of 1878 for the war to come to an end as the Russians inflicting a massive and devastating defeat on the Turks. Romania, Serbia and Montenegro were conceded their independence, Bulgaria was given autonomy, Bosnia a lesser degree of local control and part of Armenia was handed over to Russia. Heavy war reparations were also paid to the Russians and Sultan Abdul Hamid II, in the aftermath of this disaster, suspended the newborn constitution and dissolved parliament after its first meeting, ruling on his own for the next thirty years. To make matters worse, in order to counter Russian expansion, the British began moving in on Turkish-ruled territory themselves, taking control of Cyprus and effectively Egypt-Sudan after chaos caused by the removal of the ruling khedive. Albania, Greece, Montenegro and Bulgaria all had border disputes and in 1897 war broke out with Greece over Crete. The Turks were victorious but, due to international intervention, Crete was lost for the Ottoman Empire and restored to the Greeks. Immediately after this an Arab revolt broke out in Syria which again resulted in humiliating concessions for the Turkish authorities.

During the settling of affairs in the Balkans, an international conference assembled in Berlin demanded that Ottoman authorities grant greater rights to minorities within the empire. Sultan Abdul Hamid II agreed to this as a matter of necessity in the crisis of the time but was reluctant to follow through with the promises made. He saw, not unrealistically, that such changes could result in the unraveling of the Ottoman Empire entirely. This first proved true with the subject population of Armenian Christians. When they demanded the rights that had been promised to them, Sultan Abdul Hamid II tried to thwart them by playing off the two minority groups against each other; the Kurds and the Armenians. The Kurdish forces unleashed havoc on the Armenians and the Armenians responded by forming revolutionary organizations but, seeing through the Kurds, aimed at the Sultan who was supporting them. In the effort to suppress these revolutionary forces, some 300,000 Armenians were massacred and the outraged west dubbed Abdul Hamid II the “Bloody Sultan”. It also resulted in an Armenian assassination attempt on the Sultan, however, a delay caused the car bomb to explode before he arrived and so he survived though 30 bystanders were killed and 54 wounded.

By this time, the Turks had long burned their bridges with their former allies from the Crimean War and Russia was certainly no friendlier given what the Orthodox Christians within the Ottoman Empire had endured. The French and British were outraged by Turkish actions and the Sultan was outraged by the French seizure of Tunisia and the British occupation of Egypt-Sudan. This resulted in Sultan Abdul Hamid II moving closer to Imperial Germany who was also not on the best terms with Britain, France and Russia. The Sultan also responded to increased internal unrest and the increasing dissatisfaction of the various non-Turkish ethnicities as well as the growing demand for reform by many of the educated Turks with repressive measures. A surveillance state, police state and all the usual trappings were established and carried out their duties zealously. Spies were everywhere, confiscations were common and summary arrests were a daily occurrence. Because of this, Abdul Hamid II is often viewed as a paranoid and oppressive tyrant even today.

However, Sultan Abdul Hamid II was a more complicated figure than that. He could see as well as anyone that the Ottoman Empire had been left behind by the other major powers. They were more stable, more prosperous, more militarily powerful and more technologically advanced. He wanted to revive the fortunes of the Ottoman Empire and so he did encourage greater education and more industrialization. Yet, this also went hand in hand with strictly limiting what could be taught to Ottoman students, what they could study and what they could read. To keep the empire together, the Sultan resorted to harsh repressive measures, particularly against Christian populations such as the Bulgarians. Yet, a long period of economic mismanagement also meant that the Sultan had no choice but to basically hand control over Ottoman finances to (Christian) foreign powers. His decisions laid the foundation for the progress Turkey was to make in the years to come, particularly with the German-backed spread of the railroad network. However, his fear of dissent also caused him to stagnate the navy which would have dire consequences in the future war with Italy over the provinces now known as Libya.

Eventually, the paranoia of Abdul Hamid II began creating the very enemies he feared. More and more officials and army officers resented the way they were constantly being spied on, the growing isolation of the country and the continuing loss of territories that had been conquered and under Ottoman rule for centuries. In 1908, in what became known as the “Young Turk Revolution”, Turkish army forces in Greece began marching on Constantinople. With no loyal forces on hand to stop them, the Sultan began furiously back-peddling. He reinstated the Constitution of 1876, recalled parliament, ordered a stop to spying on his subjects, censorship and even released political prisoners. The “Young Turks”, a group of reform-minded, more secular, Turkish nationalists, were given power and formed a cabinet. The era of absolute monarchy was over and constitutional monarchy was to prevail from that time on. However, Sultan Abdul Hamid II had not been genuine in his sudden conversion to the progressive cause and the following year organized loyalist elements to stage a counter-coup in order to restore the absolute monarchy. Unfortunately for him, this failed and Sultan Abdul Hamid II was deposed by the Young Turks and replaced by Sultan Mehmed V, a figurehead who was never able to be much more than a prisoner in his own palace. Originally sent to Salonica in Greece, when the Greeks took back the region he returned to Constantinople but remained under house arrest until his death on February 10, 1918.

It is worth noting that the Ottoman Empire, which had stood for centuries over the crossroads of three continents, swiftly collapsed under the administration of the Young Turks. However, it was largely under Abdul Hamid II that the stage was set for that downfall. The suppression of the Slavic Christians alienated the Great Powers of Europe so that, ultimately, only Germany and Austria-Hungary remained as supporters (Bulgaria was on the same side but obviously was not inclined to be helpful) and internal suppression led to the rise of the Young Turks. The loss of territory naturally prompted a desire to see the Ottoman Empire restored to its former size but this led to an overreaching in World War I that brought about the defeat of the Ottoman Empire and its final dismemberment. Having lost the European provinces, during the war the Arabs finally rose up in revolt as well and the Ottoman Empire was doomed.

Clash of Monarchies: The Crimean War

Given recent events in the world, the Crimean War may be a little more on the minds of people lately but, in general, it is a conflict that is not often remembered. And yet, this clash of monarchies had far-reaching consequences for the monarchies involved and even, by extension, for the cause of monarchy in general. There are also lessons that can be learned from it, both positive and negative. Like the First World War, the spark which set it off can easily seem trivial looking back and yet there were much deeper causes for the conflagration. That a dispute over the rights of Christians in the Holy Land could lead to bloody warfare on the Crimean peninsula was due to a number of factors such as thoughtlessness and an arrogant attitude on the part of Russia as well as British inconsistency and an over-eagerness to engage in anti-Russian propaganda. This meant that the British government ended up being driven to war by a public that had been needlessly aroused. Leaders in London may have been reluctant, but they had stoked the fires and were caught in a trap of their own making. It all started with a sort of territorial rivalry between Catholic and Orthodox Christians in the Holy Land, then, along with much of the Balkans, part of the Turkish Ottoman Empire.

Clockwise from top left: Sultan Abdulmecid, Emp Napoleon III,
Czar Nicholas I, Queen Victoria and King Victor Emmanuel II

The French Emperor Napoleon III, as part of an on-going (though ultimately futile) campaign to win the support of conservative Catholics in France, pressed the Ottoman Sultan Abdulmecid I, who wanted closer ties with Western Europe to ensure security at a time when nationalist and secessionist movements in the empire were growing, to give special privileges to Catholics in certain areas of the Holy Land. It seemed a harmless move but it offended the Greek Orthodox community which viewed it as an infringement on their own status in the region. Czar Nicholas I of Russia, who viewed himself as the defender of Orthodox Christianity in the world (and understandably so) intervened on their behalf and demanded that the Sultan revise the agreement made with France as well as recognizing Russia as the protector of the Orthodox Christians within the Ottoman Empire. The last demand was certainly a step too far for Sultan Abdulmecid as he feared it would invite Russian interference, not in the distant Holy Land, but in the Balkan countries bordering Russia which were under Ottoman rule but populated by Orthodox Slavs. When the Turks refused to give in, Czar Nicholas I dispatched Russian troops into what is now Romania, to hold the area until the Sultan agreed to his demands. It was all done in a rather heavy-handed way which was typical for Nicholas I and which, as with his domestic policies in Russia, played into a negative view of this great monarch. He saw himself as simply standing up for the rights of Orthodox Christians, demanding no more than what had long been given to them but the way in which it was done caused alarm in Western Europe. To them, it looked like the Czar was jumping on a flimsy pretext to expand Russia and destroy the Ottoman Empire. They feared the chaos and bloodshed that would result if the many diverse subjects of the Ottoman Sultan were set loose with their own agendas.

In truth, Czar Nicholas I had no intention of breaking up the Ottoman Empire. Though he certainly would have liked nothing better, he believed that was something that all the Great Powers would have to collaborate on when the time came. However, he assumed that Britain in particular would understand this and knew what sort of man he was. The British government, however, was a coalition and divided as to how to respond with one faction favoring diplomacy and the other wanting a show of force to frighten Russia into backing away from the Ottomans. Neither side wanted an actual war but this division caused British policy to be erratic and the situation was exacerbated by the British ambassador to Constantinople who was very favorably disposed towards the Turks and personally prejudiced against Russia. There were efforts at a settlement by representatives of the Great Powers meeting in Vienna, but they all failed. The Turks refused to compromise and suspicion toward Russia meant that no matter what the representatives of the Czar said, few were inclined to believe them genuine. As a result, all approached the precipice.

Russia destroys the Turkish fleet

French Emperor Napoleon III, who had started all the fuss, had paid little attention to the issue since his initial request had been granted. He had little interest in the Balkans and no strong desire to act as the guardian of Ottoman Turkey. However, as the crisis came to a boil, with the British acting as the primary foil to the Russians, Napoleon did not want to be left out. He also wanted, more than anything, friendship and alliance with Great Britain which would give him a free hand to pursue French colonial expansion and help ensure that the country which had done so much to bring down his famous uncle would not do the same to him. If there was any chance of winning some glory for France, he was always game and he did not want France to be left out of any great happenings on the world stage. Matters came to a head when, in October of 1853, the Turks demanded that the Russians withdraw from their territory in Romania. When the Czar did not respond, the Turks declared war on Russia and sent their fleet into action in the Black Sea to attack the Russian coast. The Russian Imperial Navy responded and inflicted a stinging defeat on the Turks. Yet, the Czar was still willing to settle things peacefully and in light of this victory offered reasonable terms for a settlement. However, public opinion in the west had been so inflamed that Britain scarcely even considered the proposal and declared war on Russia. Napoleon III quickly did likewise and the Crimean War began in earnest.

The fact that Britain and France had allowed things to get out of hand can be seen in how unprepared they were for war and it took about six months until they were actually able to take real military action. In the meantime, they tried to gain more allies to fight the seeming colossus of Russia. They found little support. Hints that Finland might be regained were insufficient to tempt Sweden to join in but the primary figure to be courted was the Austrian Empire. However, though there was much temptation in Vienna, Emperor Francis Joseph I did not believe that either side was totally in the right. His greatest concern was Russian expansion in the Balkans but the Russian troops that had been in Romania were soon withdrawn and the Austrian Emperor saw no moral justification for war. He was also afraid that if he moved Austrian forces to the east, Italians in the west would rebel again and be supported by the Kingdom of Piedmont-Sardinia under the House of Savoy. He would certainly take no action unless the Piedmontese were on side. Later on, when Austria seemed more inclined to join the allies, this played a part in the Russian desire to end the war before another name was added to their list of enemies. The Austrian attitude was particularly infuriating to Czar Nicholas I. He had sent Russian armies to aid the Hapsburg monarch in crushing the rebellion in Hungary in the Revolutions of 1848 and viewed it as an absolute betrayal that the Austrian Kaiser would not only fail to return the favor but even consider joining the ranks of his enemies. Austro-Russian relations would, ultimately, never recover from this.

Italian light infantry in battle on Crimea

The Prussians, likewise, followed the Austrian example and opted for neutrality. The only success the allies had in enlarging their ranks was the little Italian Kingdom of Piedmont-Sardinia. The original request for Piedmontese support was mostly just an effort to get Austria on side but King Victor Emmanuel II was always up for a fight and the Prime Minister, Count Camillo Cavour, wanted French and British goodwill in the struggle to end the foreign domination of the Italian peninsula. Piedmontese involvement could, he reasoned, provide an opportunity for the Great Powers to address the situation in Italy and with Piedmont-Sardinia having recently fought alongside Britain and France, while Austria looked on from the sidelines, surely this would ensure a decision favorable to the cause of Italian nationalism and the House of Savoy. By the time it all happened, the Italians arrived too late to have much of an impact but the 15,000 soldiers dispatched to the front under General Alfonso La Marmora won the respect of their allies by their courage and tenacity at the Battle of Chernaya and the Siege of Sevastopol. Ultimately, the Italians did not get the discussion on Italy that they wanted but they did gain greater French and British sympathy, at the expense of Austria, so that goal was at least achieved.

For the Turks and the Russians, the original combatants, the primary focus was on the Danube front and the Caucasus front. The fighting was brutal and frustrating in both areas. For the allies, the hope was for a ‘knockout blow’ by targeting the primary Russian naval base on the Black Sea; the fortress-city of Sevastopol on the Crimean peninsula. 50,000 allied troops were landed and the most famous battles of the war would be fought there. The Turks had some success on the Danube front, but the Russians did not offer much resistance so as to focus on more vital areas of conflict. In the Caucasus, the Turks were aided by Muslim Chechens who, as students of current affairs will be aware, are still often engaged in hostilities against Russia today. There were also Ukrainian uprisings against the Russians, particularly in Kiev, which will also sound very familiar to people today. Originally a series of peasant revolts, they were soon supported by Ukrainian aristocrats who opposed the war. There were naval and coastal battles as far ranging as from the Baltic Sea to the Pacific Ocean but it was the Crimea that was the decisive area of operations. Conditions were harsh, the suffering was immense and both sides often seemed to be their own worst enemies.

British Coldstream Guards at the Battle of Alma

Upon landing, the allies won what could have been a crucial opening engagement at the Battle of the Alma River on September 20, 1854. The Russians were not just defeated but were routed by the Franco-British forces, driving them back in utter confusion. Had the allies acted decisively, Sevastopol might have been stormed easily and the war brought to an early end. The British commander, Lord Raglan, wanted to pursue the fleeing Russians but the French commander, Saint Arnaud, did not as provision had not been made for his infantry nor did he have any cavalry. The Russians, however, wasted no time in making the most of this allied indecisiveness. They sunk their own fleet across the harbor entrance, robbing the allies of their naval support which could have been decisive and then set to work fortifying and strengthening Sevastopol so that any allied attempt to storm the city would be almost impossible. Russian thoroughness would mean that the allies would have to take on Sevastopol in siege warfare which would last into the summer of the following year. The Russians, however, were not content to wait in their trenches and the Czar ordered a counter-offensive to sweep the allies from Crimea. This would result in what is, for many, the most famous battle of the war, the Battle of Balaclava.

The Thin Red Line of the 93rd Highlanders

The Russian plan was to relieve the siege of Sevastopol by hitting the allied-held port of Balaclava, a vital point of entry for allied logistics. At the forefront would be Russian reinforcements newly arrived from the Danube front under General Pavel Liprandi. The British had reports of troop movements all hinting at an impending attack, but there had been so many false alarms that Lord Raglan dismissed them. It was the perfect opportunity for the Russians to strike. Although taken by surprise, the Turkish and British defenders fought fiercely but the Russians won the first round, driving the Turks from their redoubts and capturing their artillery. However, the Russian force soon crashed into the immovable object that was the British army. One unit that came to great fame was the 93rd Highlanders, “the thin, red line” that stood firm against a crushing Russian cavalry charge. The Russian advance began to fall apart but the British had their misfortunes too. In another sector, probably the most famous aspect of the battle occurred when a misunderstanding sent the British light cavalry brigade of Lord Cardigan on a bold but suicidal charge against well-placed Russian artillery. They were wiped out but won immortality for their courage.

Relief of the Light Brigade

The result was called a victory by both sides. The stunning loss of the light brigade took the fight out of the British, and the Russians had made some gains so they counted it as a success for the troops of the Czar. However, the British had stopped the advance, held Balaclava and the overall status quo remained so that the British also deemed it a success; the Russian advance had been stopped. It did give a morale boost to the Russians but the strategic situation was unchanged so that the Russian commander, the Russo-Finnish Prince Alexander Menshikov, ordered another attack to break through the thin allied lines before Sevastopol could be totally encircled. The result was the Battle of Inkerman which was a disaster for Russia but which meant hard times for both sides. Shrouded in fog, the two sides grappled blindly with each other but, despite Russian superiority in man power, the training and discipline of the French and British proved decisive and the Russian attack was repulsed with heavy losses. Allies and enemies alike gained a mutual respect for each other because of the vicious fighting at Inkerman. Another Russian attack had been stopped and the morale of the Russian army, raised by Balaclava, was dashed by Inkerman and plummeted sharply. Yet, the allies were scarcely better off as the engagement disrupted their timetable for the siege and meant that both sides would endure a long, miserable winter in the trenches.

Russian troops at the siege of Sevastopol

Disease, hunger and cold did most of the damage from that time on as the war came down to the siege of Sevastopol, resembling a First World War battle, with only occasional raids and scouting expeditions to relieve the monotony. Both sides began to take stock and wonder if all the suffering was worth it. For Czar Nicholas I, it was a matter of honor but intensely frustrating. That an empire so vast, with such a huge population, could be brought close to ruin by such a small, multi-national expeditionary force supporting the ramshackle Ottoman Empire was too much to take. However, the primary problem for Russia was infrastructure, something which would plague Russian war efforts for a very long time to come. They had the men to overwhelm the allied army, they had the supplies to support them but it proved impossible to get these things where they were needed, when they were needed because of the poor roads and lack of rail transport. For the allies, the suffering of the troops was causing problems even at home and they realized that just because the Russian hordes had not been brought down on them yet, they were still out there and even if Sevastopol fell, it did not mean that Russia could not go on fighting. The allies then tried to expand their forces by the aforementioned efforts to bring in the Austrians and Italians. The Italians of Piedmont-Sardinia came but only Austria could open up a new front that would be decisive and the Austrians remained aloof. Almost.

Czar Nicholas I

The Austrian government, in the name of Emperor Francis Joseph came up with a proposed ultimatum called the Four Points of Vienna which called for concessions so far-reaching that no Russian government would ever, for even a moment, consider agreeing to them. Austria vowed to join the war if Russia did not submit within two months. Moreover, the allies had played one of their own friends false to obtain this promise of Austrian support. To win over a country that had so-far refused to take their side, the allies effectively sold-out one who had and whose forces were fighting and dying alongside their own. Still worried about maintaining Austrian domination of northern Italy, the Four Points were issued only after the French and British promised that if there was any uprising after Austria joined the war, that they themselves would send troops to suppress the Italian population and maintain Austrian rule. However, it all turned out to be for nothing because Austria would not move unless the German states joined the war as well and they had absolutely no interest in doing so. Outraged at the false hopes that had been raised, the allies came down on Austria hard and threatened to take up the cause of Italian independence if the Austrians did not make good on their promises. So an Austrian ultimatum was sent to St Petersburg which no doubt would have infuriated Czar Nicholas I beyond measure and probably make him resolved to fight to his last drop of blood against such infamy and betrayal (as he viewed the whole Austrian attitude) but the “Iron Czar” of Russia died on March 2, 1855.

Russian troops at Malakhov

The last straw came when, after about a year of increasingly tight siege warfare, the city of Sevastopol fell to the allies on September 9, 1855. British, French, Italian and Turkish forces had all suffered heavy casualties, more than the Russians overall, but already sinking Russian morale and support for the war collapsed entirely due to the fall of the city they had fought so hard and for so long to defend. This, combined with the threat of Austria joining the war at the final hour finally prompted the Russians to make peace on terms dictated by the allies. The result was the Peace of Paris which was very punishing toward the Russians. Romania was removed from Russian influence, Russia had to renounce protecting the Orthodox Christians of the Ottoman Empire, key islands in the Baltic had to be demilitarized, a strategic fortress and territory controlling the mouths of the Danube had to be given to the Turks, all military forces in or around the Black Sea were forbidden and the straits of the Dardanelles and Bosporus were closed to Russian warships, shutting Russia off completely from the south. There are few historians who doubt that if Czar Nicholas I had been alive, such a peace would never have been agreed to (indeed, some put about the story that he had killed himself rather than face such a thing). At least the war was over and it had been a war of stunning heroism and immense suffering.

Allied forces in the Crimea

The results were far-reaching. The Ottoman Empire had been effectively guaranteed by the Great Powers and would remain, helped along by one faction or another, until choosing the losing side in World War I. The Kingdom of Romania eventually emerged as an independent monarchy because of the changes but the Bessarabia territory Russia had to cede to Turkey would continue to be a bone of contention. Piedmont-Sardinia gained sympathy but not as much actual support as they would have liked but they would go on to found the revived Kingdom of Italy under the House of Savoy in the next decade. The French Second Empire gained great fame for the courage of their soldiers but still no lasting alliance with Great Britain which preferred to remain aloof. The British gained a heroine in Florence Nightingale, Russian guns to cast Victoria Crosses from, many famous poems and paintings but mostly a reluctance to get involved in such a thing for some time to come. Confidence in the military and its aristocratic leadership had been badly shaken. The Austrian monarchy fared badly, which is all the more strange as they were never involved. Austrian actions managed to leave both sides with a bad opinion of them, each felt that Austria had betrayed them. The former solidarity between the Hapsburg, Romanov and Hohenzollern dynasties was ruined forever. Meanwhile, the Prussians sat at home, sharpening their swords.

The Russian Empire obviously emerged very badly off. For very small reasons, Russia had gone into a war that proved almost ruinous and which left the empire virtually boxed-in. Under Nicholas I, Russia had reached it maximum of territorial expansion but by the Peace of Paris seemed more isolated than any major power in the world. Yet, Russia proved able to recover and carry on in a very uniquely Russian way. Czar Alexander II, renewed friendly ties with Germany and (albeit temporarily) Austria, sold Alaska to the United States so that the British in Canada wouldn’t get hold of it, expanded Russian power in central Asia and even managed to win a minor victory over the Ottoman Turks in 1877 when Turkish brutality toward the Bulgars caused their former Western European friends to turn their backs on them. However, longer-term the Crimean War caused an antagonism between Russia and Austria that would fester until the Great War that doomed them both. It also led, indirectly, to another conflict when, as Russia was shut off from the oceans in the west, Russia looked east and expanded toward the Pacific which ultimately resulted in the war with Japan that proved very damaging to the image of the monarchy at home and abroad.

Quite a lot of ‘blow-back’ for what started as an inter-Christian spat over sanctuary privileges in Jerusalem.

The Ottoman Empire in World War I

There can be no doubt that Turkish intervention in the First World War was the worst decision ever made by the Ottoman Empire. An empire that had withstood storm and stress from within and without for more than 600 years was ruined beyond repair in less than four. Here was a country which had dominated the cross roads of the world, the most lucrative trade routes, which had ruled all of north Africa and much of southern Europe for centuries, brought down by choosing the losing side in the First World War. The Ottoman Empire did not collapse immediately as the war ended like Austria or Germany, nor did it come down during the war like Russia but although it may not get the attention of the German, Austrian and Russian Empires falling, it was really even more of an historic event. The Ottoman Empire had existed long before the first Hapsburg ever achieved imperial status, long before the Prussians ever had a country of their own and long before the Romanov dynasty came to power in Russia. At their height of power, the Ottoman Empire was the sole superpower of the western/near eastern world and yet all of that glory seemed to be but a faded memory to most of the world in 1914. Most did not give the Turks much time.

The Kaiser visits Constantinople

For years the Ottoman Empire had been in decline and for no small amount of time had been called, dismissively, the “Sick Man of Europe”. Their tenuous hold on Algeria and Tunisia was lost to France, Egypt and the Sudan became autonomous and later dominated by Britain, the provinces that are today Libya were taken by the Italians and Ottoman power was pushed almost completely out of Europe by the Balkan Wars. It seemed that the Ottoman Empire would have collapsed much, much sooner were it not for the intervention of other powers like Britain and France to prop it up and save it from being crushed by the Russians. It is almost amusing now to look back and consider that this was done because, in those days, the Great Powers feared the chaos and wars that might result in the Middle East if the order imposed by Turkish rule was lost. Imagine that. Because of this very long, downward spiral, many viewed the Ottoman Empire as a power unworthy of serious consideration, as a people not to be taken seriously. That was a mistake and one man who understood the potential that rested in the Ottoman Empire was the German Kaiser Wilhelm II. When few others cared to give the “Sublime Porte” the time of day, the Kaiser actively courted the Turks as a friend and ally.

Sultan Mehmed V

The Germans invested heavily in Turkey and were given a warm welcome by the new crop of ambitious officers who had come to power known as the “Young Turks”. These men, it should be mentioned, were not exactly devoted monarchists and the Ottoman Empire went into the war as perhaps the most nominal monarchy of all with the sovereign, Sultan Mehmed V, being little better than a prisoner in his own palace. In fact, for much of his life he had been a prisoner in his own palace but the “Young Turks” who seized power in 1908 put him on the throne a year later as a figurehead. The empire was dominated by three pashas, the most famous being Enver Pasha who was so enamored of Germany that he even took to wearing a Wilhelm-like moustache. For his part, Sultan Mehmed V was dubious about the new friendship with Germany and thought intervening in World War I to be a great mistake, like almost every other monarch at the time. Yet, there did seem to be some hope that the war could be a successful one for the Ottoman Empire, particularly since so many of their enemies had come to underestimate them. In fact, the Ottoman Empire had been rebounding with great advances in industry, trade and improving the infrastructure of the empire, illustrated by the much talked about “Berlin to Baghdad Railway”. When it came to war, the Turks would prove more formidable than almost any of the Allies expected.

Enver Pasha

For quite some time the military sciences had stagnated in Turkey but prior to World War I there was a massive campaign of revitalization. Armies were armed with the latest German weaponry, German officers came to advise in training and tactics and the average Turkish soldier proved to be a tough and tenacious warrior. It was a naval incident that ostensibly brought Turkey into the war but a secret alliance was quickly signed and Turkish ships attacked the Russian coast on the Black Sea. On November 1, 1914 the Russians declared war on the Ottoman Empire, followed by Britain and France a few days later. Other powers would later join in as the Turks had grander aspirations than almost any other of the Central Powers. Given the lofty heights from which their empire had fallen, this is not a great surprise. If the Central Powers had won the First World War, the Turks had quite a long “wish list” to be filled. They hoped to regain practically the whole of North Africa (central and southern Africa being left to the Germans) and toward that aim sent support to rebels in Libya, planned an invasion of Egypt, sent arms to Muslim dissidents and the Emperor of Ethiopia in the hopes of dominating the Horn of Africa, planned for great gains in southern Russia and to expand eastward to reclaim their central Asian homeland. If the war had gone differently, the world would have looked quite different indeed.

Reading out the declaration of jihad

The Turks also called upon religion to help them in their efforts to instigate rebellions in Allied colonies and not long after joining the war Sultan Mehmed V, as the Caliph of Islam, formally declared a jihad, a holy war, on the Allied nations, calling on all Muslims to rise up and fight. The Kaiser had hoped that rebellion would spread around the world and cause Britain to lose India, the crown jewel and capstone of the British Empire, and there certainly seemed to be no downside to such a tactic. Almost half of the Muslims in the world lived under the direct or indirect rule of one of the Allied nations with Britain, France, Italy and Russia all holding colonies or territories with large Muslim populations. Yet, though there were small scale attacks in Libya, Somalia and Egypt-Sudan, and an isolated mutiny of Muslim troops in Singapore (suppressed with help from Japan) the majority of Muslims felt no compulsion to rise up and fight because the Sultan of Turkey, Padishah Emperor, Caliph of Islam etc, etc had commanded them to do so. It was also somewhat disingenuous given that the triumvirate ruling the Ottoman Empire at this time were hardly the devoutly religious sort. Enver Pasha would, after the war, make common cause with the Soviets, Djemal Pasha supposedly proposed making peace with the Allies if he could be left in control of what was left of Turkey and Talaat Pasha had taught at a Jewish school and had an affair with a Jewish girl as a young man. The “Young Turks” had always been known as being more inclined toward secularism than religious fervor. Still, they would take up the flag of Islam when it seemed useful but a pan-Islamic movement was not an easy fit with Turkish nationalism. It probably also didn’t help that this call came with Turkey allied with three Christian powers.

Turkish troops in the Caucasus

Focus on more modern, western ideas had brought advances to the Ottoman Empire. However, despite the rapid progress that had been made, the Ottoman Empire still had many disadvantages going into the war. Their commanders were often not up to the task of fighting a modern war, their system of logistics was quite weak and the farther one traveled from Anatolia, the harder it was to support armies and the less reliable was the loyalty of the locals. It is easy to conclude that the new leadership were a bit overconfident in their ability to succeed in conquering such vast swathes of territory. As it happened, their first major action in the war proved to be a resounding failure. This was an offensive against Russia, long planned and hoped for, to ultimately gain control of the Baku oil fields. On December 22, 1914 this invasion was launched under the leadership of Enver Pasha himself but it quickly turned into a disaster. Despite all their planning, the Turks lack of experience was shown in their failure to prepare for the harsh winter conditions of the Caucasian mountains and the Russian Imperial forces resisted fiercely. In a bitter four day battle at the start of January, 1915, at Sarikamish the Turks were totally defeated and almost entirely wiped out by the Russians. 95,000 Turks had invaded Russian territory but only 18,000 survived the ordeal. Fighting continued but there would never be another major Turkish offensives against Russia.

Baron Kressenstein

Only a short time later, the Turks launched an attack towards Egypt aimed at seizing control of the Suez Canal from the British and instigating a major uprising by the local population against them. Djemal Pasha, another member of the triumvirate, was in overall command of the southern theatre but it was a Bavarian colonel, Friedrich Freiherr Kress von Kressenstein who effectively led the attack. He made careful preparations for crossing the desert and the canal but, though it was a masterful advance, the British learned that it was coming and were fully prepared to meet the Turks when they arrived. With relatively little difficulty, the British were able to force the Turks to retreat back across the desert after two days of fighting. All in all, the war was off to a disastrous start for the Ottoman Empire but things were about to turn around. In fact, these early Turkish defeats may have caused the British in particular to further underestimate them. This is unfortunate given that initial operations in wartime are rarely resounding successes and are seldom an indication of what the enemy is truly made of. Yet, the British, particularly Winston Churchill, became convinced that Turkey was the weak link in the Central Powers chain and the key to an easy victory in the war.

Gen. Limon von Sanders

The British planned an attack on the Dardanelles, ultimately to capture the capitol of Constantinople. This would knock Turkey out of the war and open up a naval route to keep Russia well supplied and in the war. After naval power alone proved insufficient, the Allies launched an invasion at the Gallipoli peninsula in April of 1915. However, being so close to the nerve-center of the whole Ottoman Empire meant that not only did the Turks fight with greater tenacity than on any other front but also that they were closer to their sources of supply. It also happened that the troops defending the peninsula, the Turkish Fifth Army, were the best in the empire and under the command of the talented German general Otto Limon von Sanders. The result was a disaster for the Allies that was much worse than the statistics alone suggest. In the end, losses were about the same for both sides but the Allies had been hoping for a quick and easy victory and what they got was a bloody stalemate, ending in a retreat with absolutely nothing gained. The Turks fought with incredible tenacity and earned the grudging respect of their enemies. The success was a huge morale boost for the Ottoman Empire and proved that they could win battles against the Allies. The British and ANZAC troops lost over 200,000 men, the French nearly 50,000 before finally retreating from Turkish soil. It was also this battle which saw the rise to prominence of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk who would later become the first President of Turkey.

Baron von der Goltz

Elsewhere in 1915, British overconfidence also ended in disaster at the hands of Turkish forces. A small excursion from the Persian Gulf to secure the local oilfields was expanded into a major operation because Turkish resistance was initially so weak. A British army (consisting largely of Indian troops) advanced up the Tigris River under Major General Charles Townshend with the ultimate goal of seizing Baghdad. However, his advance was stopped by a Turkish army under the veteran German Field Marshal Colmar Freiherr von der Goltz. The British fell back to Kut-al-Amara where they were besieged. More Turkish reinforcements were rushed in and British attempts to relieve the starving garrison all failed. Finally, on April 29, 1916 Townshend surrendered, marking another major victory for the Ottoman Empire. It was the largest mass surrender of British forces up to that time, surpassing the defeat at Yorktown in the American War for Independence and would remain the largest British surrender until the fall of Singapore to Japan in World War II.

A Turkish line in the sand

However, in the summer of 1916 another Turkish advance on the Suez Canal by Baron Kressenstein again ended in failure. The Turks were better prepared but so were the British and such a major campaign across so much desert proved an insurmountable obstacle for Turkish logistics. It was the last such offensive and the initiative switched to the Allies (primarily the British though token forces of French and Italian troops also participated) as General Sir Archibald Murray advanced to the border of Palestine. However, Baron von Kressenstein and his Turkish forces redeemed themselves by stopping Murray cold at the First Battle of Gaza in March of 1917. The next month the British tried again but were again defeated by the Turks in their strong defensive positions, backed up by effective artillery. Allied losses were heavy compared to their enemies and Murray was sacked and replaced by General Sir Edmund Allenby who came with considerable reinforcements. 1917 was to be a gloomy year for the Ottoman Empire. Previously, the British made an alliance with the Arabs who rose in revolt against their Turkish rulers and this played a major part in the Allied victory. Turkish logistics were always a weakness and the Arab revolt exploited this by constant raids that left Turkish forces ill-supplied and which forced the dispersal of troops to defend railways and supply lines. Even with assistance from Germany and Austria-Hungary, it was simply too much for the Turks to face the Allies at their front and the Arab harassment on their flank and rear.

Staff of the 6th Army in Iraq

Gaza was taken, Jerusalem was taken and soon the British were advancing in Iraq again where Baghdad was taken. With the Battle of Megiddo the Turkish army began to come apart. Limon von Sanders had been in command there but the victor of Gallipoli could perform no miracle against the Allied forces that so outnumbered his own. This was also partly due to Russian action in the Caucasus where it was feared that an offensive was in the making which forced the Turks to weaken their southern front to defend the north. In 1918 the Ottoman forces did win some victories against Armenian separatists and actually succeeded in capturing Baku from the British who had rushed in to secure the area but it was too late to do any good. Resistance in the south had disintegrated and on October 1, 1918 the Arabs occupied Damascus and Aleppo fell later in the month while in Iraq the Turkish Tigris Army was forced to surrender. On October 30, 1918 the Ottoman Empire signed an armistice with the Allies, one month after Bulgaria had done the same. Allied troops arrived later to occupy Constantinople and most of the Ottoman Empire was partitioned between the French and British. The Turks had fought to the bitter end and while their opening offensives had ended in defeat, they proved capable of determined resistance, throwing back every Allied attack on their territory. Ultimately, however, the superior Allied numbers and the number of fronts that had to be defended proved impossible to overcome. The Arab Revolt was the final straw and there was simply no way for the Turkish forces to prevail.

Ottoman regimental flag on Gallipoli

Nonetheless, the Turkish forces had played a pivotal part in the Central Powers war effort. They had forced the Allies to extend themselves greatly, diverted forces that could have been used elsewhere and had proven themselves more than a match for their enemies with victories at Gallipoli, Kut and Gaza. None of the troops involved in these operations, who encountered the fierce Turkish resistance, would have ever thought of the Ottoman Empire as the “Sick Man of Europe”. For a “Sick Man” he had put up one hell of a fight and inflicted on the British what will probably always remain the second-largest defeat in British military history. They had succumbed to overwhelming numerical and material superiority and by being forced to fight irregular rebels as well as the enemy at the front but they had proven themselves a match for their enemies and that they could accomplish great feats of arms. This gave the Turks a pride that carried on and saw them succeed in subsequent conflicts almost as soon as the First World War was over.

Favorite Royal Images: Turkish-Indian Princess

Princess Niloufer Farhat Begum Sahiba

a relative (on her mother's side) of the Ottoman Imperial Family, she was the first wife of 

Prince Moazzam Jah, younger son of the last Nizam of Hyderabad in India

The Hapsburg and Ottoman Empires: Friends at the End

Throughout the history of Europe and the Middle East, two names which stand out are the Ottoman Empire and the “Hapsburg Empire” (Holy Roman Empire, Austrian Empire, Austria-Hungary in their turn). In many ways, the titanic struggle between these two forces determined the fate of Europe even as we know it today. There was a time when the Ottoman Empire was the superpower that sprawled across three continents, stretching from the borders of Persia, across the Middle East, North Africa and up into southern Europe. The Christian powers trembled at the advance of the Ottoman Turkish armies as they absorbed Greece, Bulgaria, Serbia, Romania, much of Hungary and into Austria itself. It often seemed that the only thing stopping the Turkish conquest of Europe was the armies of the Hapsburg emperors. In 1529, when the Ottoman Turks were at their peak of expansion in Europe, it was the armies of the Hapsburg Emperor Charles V that stopped them at Vienna. When they tried a naval attack on Italy it was another Hapsburg, Don John of Austria, who led the Christian fleet to victory at Lepanto and when the Ottoman Turks were about to crush the Knights of Malta it was the Spanish forces of the Hapsburg King Philip II who arrived to save the day. Yet, in the conflict that was to determine their ultimate fate, the Hapsburg and Ottoman Empires fought side by side.

Politics can make for strange bedfellows but it was certainly a monumental twist on history to see troops of the Hapsburg Emperor fighting to defend the Ottoman Empire in Turkey itself and across the Middle East. The ancestors of the Dual Monarchy of Austria-Hungary had gained much of their military tradition fighting to defend themselves and Europe from the Ottoman Turks, yet, although it is little known today, in World War I they were fighting to defend the Ottoman Empire from the British and French (for the most part). Of course, this was not the only such reverse. After all, previously, France and Britain had fought to defend Ottoman Turkey from the Russian Empire only to have France, Britain and Russia allied against the Ottomans in World War I. And, in the past, France and Britain had both had much friendlier relations with the Ottoman Empire in the days when the Hapsburg Emperor was fighting Turkish armies in the Balkans. However, after the loss of their last, major territories in Europe, the Ottoman Empire had been eclipsed as a rival to Austria-Hungary by other powers such as Russia and Serbia while the Ottoman and German Empires had grown increasingly friendly. When World War I came, the Ottoman Empire soon joined the side of the Central Powers in the hope of reclaiming lost territories in Africa, the Caucasus and perhaps even expanding eastward toward the Turkish ancestral homeland in central Asia.

While fighting was almost always raging on the periphery of the Ottoman Empire, with the British in Egypt and Iraq and the Russians to the north, it was the Allied assault on Gallipoli that most threatened the heart of the Turkish realm. As Allied troops stormed ashore and began digging in, Turkish war leader Enver Pasha called on Germany and Austria-Hungary for help. The only problem was that with the Kingdom of Serbia still offering determined resistance in the Balkans, the route to Turkey was cut off. That all changed, however, in the autumn of 1915 when German and Austro-Hungarian troops under German Field Marshal August von Mackensen defeated the Serbian army and cleared a path for direct assistance to the Turks. Most of the help that arrived came from Germany but Austria-Hungary sent aid as well in both combat and support units. In December of 1915 two artillery units were sent down the Danube River to arrive at the front in Gallipoli. These were the howitzer battery No.36 posted at Sogan lidere across from Sedd-ul bar and mortar battery No.9 which was posted around Anafarta, lobbing shells at the hard-pressed Australian and New Zealand troops dug in there. The howitzer battery 36 was later sent to the coast at Smyrna where it sank the British monitor M30. Half of the mortar battery was reassigned to coastal defense as well but at Mt Carmel near Haifa in Palestine with the remaining guns switched out and renamed the field artillery battery No.20. This unit went on to serve at the second and third battles of Gaza and the two battles in the Jordan valley.

In 1916 Austria-Hungary sent a mountain howitzer division to aid in the Turkish campaign to rest control of the Suez Canal from Great Britain (for the second time). The effort was not a success but the Austro-Hungarian troops offered fierce resistance and proved their worth at the battle of Romani. When the Turkish line collapsed, they held firm, inadvertently serving as a rearguard and putting up such a fight that they were able to hold off the enemy long enough to escape without the loss of a single gun. During their time in the Middle East, this unit went through a number of name changes as their weapons were upgraded. In 1917 they were renamed the Imperial and Royal Mountain Howitzer Division in Turkey and later the Imperial and Royal Field Howitzer Battalion in Turkey. They fought with great skill and determination in the three battles of Gaza (in which they destroyed several British tanks), the two battles of the Jordan valley and covered the Turkish withdrawal toward Aleppo. Austria-Hungary also supplied the Turks with a great deal of support personnel such as military instructors (mostly in artillery), ski instructors for the troops fighting the Russians in the Caucasus, motor transport units and medical units such as a field hospital in Jerusalem and two mobile field hospitals (think of them as the grandfathers of the MASH units many are familiar with). These units saw action as well such as when one field hospital was wiped out in an Australian air raid. These forces from Austria-Hungary served up until the very end of the war for the Ottoman Empire, withdrawing as Turkish forces retreated until they were posted near Constantinople by the time Turkey asked for an armistice.

Austro-Hungarian troops assembled in Palestine, 1916

Emperor Charles I of Austria-Hungary with Turkish officers

Austro-Hungarian and Ottoman officers in Turkey

Austro-Hungarian troops marching into Jerusalem, 1916

The Caliph of Islam in Turkey

It was on March 3, 1924 that the last Muslim caliphate was officially abolished and Abdul Mejid II, the last Caliph of Islam (and heir to the last Ottoman Sultan, his cousin) was removed from his position and expelled from Turkey by the first republican and then secular government of modern Turkey. Looking back, perhaps because of all that has happened in the world of the Middle East since, it seems slightly strange that the two positions did not disappear at the same time or that it was the position of Padishah Sultan that was abolished first. To be denied the title of Sultan while still retaining the title of Caliph seems rather like telling someone, ‘we do not trust you to be the ruler of our country but we still believe you are the representative of God on earth”. Does not quite make sense to me. For Turks who hold fast to their faith and the system of traditional authority embodied by the Sultan and Caliph this can only be a sad anniversary. Yet, outsiders should consider the occasion as well. The fall of the caliphate has not yielded much benefit for anyone; Turkish or not, Muslim or not.

Whether things would be a great deal better if there was still a Caliph in Turkey no one can say, but it could only be an improvement. Look beyond the Turkish borders for a moment and consider the worldwide problem today with terrorism. There are people of the worst sort, who are both murderers and cowards, carrying out terrible and despicable deeds all in the name of Islam. They butcher helpless innocents and call themselves “holy warriors”. And no one should make any mistake about what is in the hearts of these criminals, after all, the terrorists who carried out the 9-11 attacks in America spent their last night on earth at a strip club. The faithful these are certainly not. Yet, they have fooled many people into thinking that they are and by making such a claim they have blackened the name of Islam, perhaps worse than at any other point in history. I say that because, even in the days of the Crusades, a Christian like King Richard I could look at a Muslim like Sultan Saladin and consider him a brave and worthy adversary. Even in those days of open religious warfare Christians could respect the gallantry of their Muslim foes who would send their doctors to care for the Christian King.

There were terrible things that happened of course, but things were more organized and certainly it would be helpful if there were a Caliph of Islam who could speak with authority in denouncing the atrocities of the terrorists who kill the defenseless and claim to be religious men. However, as beneficial as that could be, there is also the very real possibility that such a Caliph would be ignored. Would Arab and other Muslims react positively to a Turkish Caliph of Islam? The question must be asked, I think, because the Ottoman Empire, led by the Sultan and Caliph, was brought down in part by Arab and other Muslims rising in rebellion against the Turkish Sultan and joining with the Allies (primarily the French and British) in bringing down and eventually breaking up the Ottoman Empire; the last caliphate. When, in the midst of World War I, the Sultan formally pronounced a jihad against the Allied powers, he was, for the most part, ignored by the rest of the Muslim world.

There is also the question as to whether or not our increasingly anti-traditional world would even tolerate such a figure. Turkey, for some reason which completely escapes my comprehension, seems desperate to join the European Union and the E.U. has certainly not shown itself to be favorably inclined toward organized religion. Would they allow Turkey into the E.U. if the Caliph was restored? Personally, I think that would be all the more reason to do it but I’m not Turkish and most seem to want to join the European Union. However, although the amount of wider good a restored Caliph might do is debatable, one certain thing is that the people of Turkey would have a better form of moral guidance and by going that extra step to restoring the monarchy there would be greater consistency and a form of government more in keeping with Turkish traditions and hearkening back to the days when Turkey was a great nation, a major world power and not reduced to the status of appealing for favors from the EU government in Brussels. As far as the rest of the world is concerned, having the Sultan and Caliph back would do none harm and possibly be of great benefit in countries far distant as a voice of legitimate authority.

Consort Profile: Nurbanu Sultan, Valide Sultan of Turkey

The girl who would become one of the most prominent women in the Ottoman Empire was born Cecelia Venier-Baffo, probably sometime in 1525, on the island of Paros, today a part of Greece but at the time a client state of the Republic of Venice. Some sources refer to her as Olivia, others as Rachel but it seems she was the natural daughter of a local noble named Nicolo Venier and a woman named Violante Baffo. As such she was the niece of His Serenity Sebastiano Venier, Doge of Venice. It was he who, prior to his election, commanded the Venetian fleet at the historic battle of Lepanto. Little is known about the earliest years of Cecelia Venier-Baffo but when she was only twelve years old events took place which changed her life forever. In 1537 the island of Paros was conquered by the Ottoman Turks and Cecelia, along with many others, was captured along with other Christians for the slave markets. But she was a pretty little girl and must have caught the eye of someone important as she ended up being taken to the palace and placed in the harem of Prince Selim II in Constantinople. She was converted to Islam and given the name “Afife Nur-Banu”. Other stories exist about her origins but this is probably the most common.

Prince Selim II was greatly taken with the young girl and soon decided that she would be the one to bear his children, a fact which would give her greater status than all the other concubines. In time she bore him four children; three daughters and one son and heir; Prince Murad. Nurbanu became the “first lady” of the princely harem and was promoted to leadership of the imperial harem when the Prince ascended the throne as Selim II, “Grand Sultan, Commander of the Faithful and Successor of the Prophet of the Lord of the Universe” in 1566. This made his son, Prince Murad III, heir to the throne and as such added to the prestige of Nurbanu Sultan as mother of a future sultan. Of course, Selim II took numerous other concubines but Nurbanu Sultan always remained his favorite for both her beauty and her brains. Although it was far from normal at the time, Selim II would often ask Nurbanu for her advice on various subjects because of his respect for her good judgment. She was a devoted wife and a very loyal mother as later events would prove. The Ottoman Empire was far from being very stable at the top and clashes over the imperial throne were common. It was also not uncommon for the loser to have his entire family massacred along with him to prevent any future challenge. Nurbanu Sultan was determined, however, that when the time came for her son to succeed his father, nothing would interfere with that.

Prince Murad had been sent to serve as Governor of Manisa on the Aegean coast and was there when Sultan Selim II passed away in 1574. This would have been the prefect opportunity for someone to seize power with the Sultan dead and his son away from the capital. Nurbanu realized this as much, if not more, than anyone and took quick action. Security and privacy in the harem were the most strict anywhere and no one knew when Selim II had actually died. Nurbanu told no one and hid the dead body of her husband in an icebox and sent to Manisa for her son to come to Constantinople immediately. All the while no one was the wiser that Sultan Selim II had actually departed this life. It was not made known publicly until twelve days later when Murad arrived and Nurbanu delivered up the body of her late husband. Her son became Sultan Murad III and Nurbanu became Valide Sultan (effectively “Queen Mother”), the highest position a woman could hold in the Ottoman Empire. She became a formidable figure with far-reaching influence during this time, so much so that it is regarded by some historians as the beginning of the so-called “Sultanate of Women”. According to some sources (Italian mostly, from Venetian accounts) Nurbanu Sultan effectively ran the government alongside the Grand Vizier Sokollu Mehmet Pasha. Because women of the imperial household, no matter how lofty, were quite restricted in their movements, she depended on her long-time friend Esther Handali, a jeweler, to bring messages back and forth for her. The two became so close rumors began to surface about the nature of their relationship.

Venetian accounts are the most prolific in describing Nurbanu Sultan as a woman who never forgot her Venetian origins. For the nine years she served as regent of the Ottoman Empire, her foreign policies were reputedly so partial toward the Republic of Venice that their primary competitor, the Republic of Genoa, came to view Nurbanu Sultan as an enemy of their state. She corresponded with Catherine de’ Medici, Queen of France, and was always on the lookout for potential allies against the Hapsburg empire centered on Austria and Hungary that was the primary threat to the Ottoman Turks and the primary block to further European expansion. Nurbanu Sultan was also known for her charitable giving and her patronage of building projects, especially the construction of a magnificent building complex that included a mosque, madrassah and bath among other things. She was a beloved and respected figure when she died in her palace in Constantinople on December 7, 1583, presumably of natural causes though some (probably Venetian accounts) speculate that she was poisoned by a Genoese assassin.

Unfortunately, the Ottoman Empire did not fare so well after her loss as the reign of Sultan Murad III was generally one of decline, though certainly not resoundingly disastrous. Considering his mother’s correspondence with the Queen of France, one of the things Sultan Murad III is remembered for was his own correspondence with Queen Elizabeth I of England, arguing that the Protestants and Muslims had much in common and should unite against the Catholic powers, something the Queen very seriously considered during the war with Hapsburg Spain. In any event, both sides benefited from the sale of English tin and lead to the Ottoman Turks to update and expand their military arsenal.