THE TURKISH REVOLUTION.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXVII, Issue 2488, 29 April 1909, Page 5

THE TURKISH REVOLUTION.

CABLE NEWS.

ABDUL HAMID DETHRONED. RESHAD HIS SUCCESSOR, United Press Association—CorYßiGriT. LONDON, April 22. Reuter reports that the Sultan’s dethronement has been decided upon. -His brother, Reshad Effcndi, succeeds him. Other reports State that the movement to dethrone the Sultan has been hastened by the discovery of many prisoners in possession of £5 to £2O. The Sultan is accused of distributing £300,000 among the garrison. When the Sultan’s entourage realised that the situation -was serious and the palace guards had dispersed, the court fled, leaving him alone in the apartments of the harem. Many servants escaped to Asia Minor. The servants remaining pillaged the palace. THE SULTAN’S DETHRONEMENT. HIS FORTUNE TO BE USED BY THE COUNTRY. The Sultan’s fortune of £50,000,000 is invested abroad. It is expected that this will be utilised in placing Turkish finances on a sound basis. The Sultan stated that the authors of the revolt were Liberals, who were adherents of decentralisation, helped by the Mahoiiimedan League. It is suspected that the chief promoters of the plot were the Sultan’s favorite soil, Burhaneddin, and the chief eunuch, Nadir Aga. CONSTANTINOPLE,- April 27. Kia mil Pasha’s reactionary son, Said, is a fugitive. The Sultan’s personal guard, whose surrender was cabled yesterday, were conducted, roped together, to the head quarters of the Committee of Inquiry. Soldiers at Erzeroum arrested fifty of their officers. A report dated Constantinople, 2.30 p.m., states: “The firing of artillery announces a change of Sultan.” THE DECREE OF DETHRONEMENT A DRAMATIC SCENE. United Press Association —Copyright (Received April 28, 9.37 p.m.) CONSTANTINOPLE, Apr.! 2S At a. secret sitting-of the Assembly, a feetwa, countersigned by the Snc-ik nl Id am, was read, replying to the question whether a person guilty of tampering with sacred writings, responsible for the shedding of innocent im < 6, and squandering the wealth ot the country, could retain the caliph.ito. The feetwa answered “No. He must be dethroned or abdicate.” . The Assembly immediately shouted “Dethrone him.” ABDUL HAMID’S/ WISH. tSHEVKET’S DISINTERESTEDNESS. Two Senators and two Deputies proceed to Yildiz to inform Abdul Hamid, who answered, “I expected this. My only wish is that the lives of myself and family be safeguarded, and that 1 may reside in the Tchiraglian -Palace, as I wish to die where I was born. ’ Shevket- announces that the greatbar,racks at Per-a will be razed to t'ie ground. He ivas offered the Grand Viziership, but refused in order to prevent the belief tliat’ ho is seeking his own "advancement.

THE NEW SULTAN. REiSHAD - TAKES TITLE OF MOHAMMED THE FIFTH. CONSTANTINOPLE, April 28. (Received April 28, 11.7 p.m.) A second deputation visited Resliad Effendi at Dolmabagehe Palace, whereupon, accompanied by Ghazi Mukhtar, the veteran leader in the Russian war, and a guard of picturesquely ragged Albanians, Resliad '.proceeded to the •War Office, where Slievket, Ahmed Riza, and the Shielc ul Islam reecived him. He took an oath to remain faithful to the Constitution, taking the title of Mohammed .the Fifth. The deputies and senators'kissed his hands, arid the new Sultan drove to Dolmabagehe Palace. The populace and soldiery heartily welcomed Mohammed the Filth, who will be invested with the sword of Osman forty days hence at the Mosque of Ejub. ABDUL HAMID’S TREATMENT. WILL NOT BE ALLOWED TO LEAVE CONSTANTINOPLE. The deputies later decided that Abdul.Hamid should not he allowed to travel outside Constantinople. He has been taken to the Tchiraghan Palace, on the shores of the Bosphorus.. It is presumed that the accusation of tampering with holy writings refers to an incident of ten years ago, when Abdul destroyed documents containing quotations from the Koran, ref erring to the .possi bio deposition of the Sultan. THE “TIMES” ON THE NEW SULTAN. “A QUIET, .SCHOLARLY MAN.” LONDON, April 28. The • ‘Times” • says that despite his, virtual imprisonment for thirty-three .years, Mohammed the Fifth is a quiet, scholarly man, of no great strength of character and mtekeet, but that thq,. • minors of his being a debauched,, semi- I ... . ....

idiotic voluptuary vare universally discredited. Ho is reputed to cherish warm sympathy with Britain.

THE FALLEN SULTAN. DESERTED BY HIS FOLLOWERS. (Received April 23, 11.25 p.m.) CONSTANTINOPLE, April 23. The Tchiraghan Palace is of mairble and' richly .appointed. -It- w-as the scene of Abdul Aziz’s -assassination and Murad tlio Fifth’s imprisonment. A bridge connects the gardens of the palace with Yildiz Kiosk. Abdul Hamid was deserted, save by a few women, before his dethronement. A fresh outbreak of looting and incendiarism occurred at Adana on Monday night. The situation is critical. THE MEW SULTAN. PEN-PICTURE OF MEHEMMEDRESHAD. According to most accounts, Mchcm-med-Reshad, the new Sultan, brother of Abdul-Hamid, was kept by the latter a prisoner in his own house for over a quarter of a century; the release of Reshad came after the Young Turk revolution in July of last year. He is described as a delightful old gentleman of sixty-four, tall, blue-eyed, with red hair and -a red beard, which he will have to dye as black as ink should hj ever ascend the Turkish throne. “No Sulton must show! a gray hair in Turkey,” notes the Paris “Debate.” “If he live to* lie a hundred his hair must remain without a sign of age.” LACKS ABDUL’S ASTUTENESS. “Reshad Effcndi (writes “Current Literature” last September) possesses that charm of manner and all the angelic affability which render personal intercourse with princes of tlio Ottoman dynasty so delightful. Ho ds destitute of' the profound astuteness of his brother, the Sultan, nor is he so handsome or magnetic, but be lacks, too, the extreme nervousness of the present commander of tbe faithful. Reshad Effendi has the piety of his family and is said to know long passages of the Koran by heart, besides conforming, even in trivial details, to the rules. of life prescribed in the sacred tome. Of European culture and learning Reshad Effendi . has always lived in the densest- ignorance. Being only the third son of the Sultan Abd-ul-Medjid, his education was neglected, and lie received little in the shape of homage even in the glorious days of his uncle, the late Sultan- Abd-ul-Aziz. Haying spent the past thirty years in practical imprisonment within the walls of one palace after another, Reshad Effendi retains .of the outside world only such ideas as may be afforded by intercourse with his gaolers, his slaves, and his wives. A NARROW EXISTENCE. “He -is forbidden to receive visits from anyone at all excepting only the physician, the tailor, and the tradesmen selected for him by his reigning brother. On the comparatively few opportunities afforded the heir to the Turkish throne of escaping the city’s heats by a sojourn in the country, he is thrust into a closed carriage and escorted by mounted troops armed to the.tooth. " It is dangerous even to loiter outside the residence of this prince. Some students at a military academy in Constantinople were gaoled for saluting Reshad when they met his carriage in the streets. The three sisters of this close prisoner have seen him but once in fifteen years. No one in Constantinople seems to know what to make of rumors th at the old man is'“Suffering from diabetes. His character is described as mild and his disposition is reported to be quite unsoured by the restraints of his peculiar existence. Such is the sum of all the information available regarding the personality of the man who has been called upon to fill the Ottoman throne.”

ABDUL-HAMTD. THIRTY-TWO YEARS OF INTRIGUE Abdul-Haiiiid 11., the dethroned Sultan of Turkey, now CO years of age., is the second son of Sultan Abdul-Med-jid, who reigned from 1839 to 18(51. He was born on September 22, _IS4B, and succeeded on August 31, 1876, ou the deposition of his brother Murad, on the ground of insanity. His position at the time was very difficult, and he feigned sympathy at first with the policy of reform, advocated by the progressive officials, such as Midhat Pasha. The revolt of the Christian subjects of the Porte in European Turkey, and the barbarous methods adopted to quench Bulgarian disaffection, equally played into the hands of Russia; and though, during the Russo-Turkish war (1877-78), the military virtues of the Turkish soldier and the gallant defence of Plevna, restored a large amount of sympathy to Turkey, the treaties of San Stefauo and of Berlin marked a further stage in the dismemberment of the Ottoman Empire. As soon as the war was over, AbdulHaniicl began to apply himself, with equal dexterity and persistency, to two great objects,' viz., the substitution of his own personal authority for that of the groat bureaucracy which had ruled Turkey under his immediate predecessors from the Sublime Porte, -and the extension of his influence as spiritual sovereign or Kaliff in compensation for the less of temporal power inflicted upon the Sultanate. The Hejaz railway is a tangible result of the Sultan’s religious policy. To establish his autocracy lie did not shrink from sacrificing all the ablest men in iris empire. His external policy was scarcely less scrupulous. His dexterous diplomacy played off one great Power against another, and enabled him to'escape tho storm which threatened at ouo moment to overwhelm him when public opinion in Europe, and especially in England, realised the horror of the Armenian massacres m 1896. Russia, secretly, and Germany, openly' discountenanced Lord Salisbury’s efforts to secure the united action of Europe, and the Cretan insurrection soon diverted the attention of diplomacy to another quarter. The successful war with Greece in 1:897 di.d much to revive Turkish military prestige; and the practical loss ol Crete, although evincing the. decay into which the Turkish navy had been allowed to fall rather increased than diminished the strength ol the empiio Perhaps the most important lea-tori in Abdul Hamid’s late impolicy was the disposition he showed to rely upon Germany. and to grant that Power specie privileges' in Asia Minor. But in July 1908, came the bloodless Young Turl revolution, which forced the autocratic Sultan back into the-position of a constitutional ruler, resulting—aeeordiin .to Professor Vambery—m the comp et< destruction of German inJlueuco at Con ' . ■ V . “ V". - ■ . ~

stantinople. After spending years m exile, chiefly in Franco and Britain, writing and scheming, returning to their native land only by stealth, yet all the time, the Young Turks so perfected the organisation of their movement that they could rely on the whole of the Third Army Corps and a largo portion of the Second. Consequently, tile Sultan surrendered without a blow, and revived the lapsed constitution of his discarded-and murdered Minister of thirty years before, Midhat Pasha. But those who knew the crafty disposition and subterranean methods of Abdul Hamid predicted that lie would •ide his time and strike again; and if we can trust the cabled statements of the last week—that the armed coup in Constantinople was the work of the Sultan himself—those predictions are home out. But the Third and Second Army Corps have again come to. the rescue, Salonika lias proved itself master of the capita], and the Young Turks from their Western have effected a convincing counter-stroke.