TURKEY: Return of the Exile

• Share

Carloads of funeral wreaths preceded the flag-draped coffin through Istanbul's streets to the Monument of Eternal Liberty. Turks by the thousands marched in the long cortege that followed, and lined the streets with heads bowed in reverence. All of Turkey paused for a moment last week as the long-dead bones of Midhat Pasha were brought home from exile for proper burial in his native land. Said a spectator: "This is a day not for sorrowing, but for rejoicing."

A Reformer's Progress. Turkey today is largely the creation of the "Young Turk" movement, whose Kemal Atatürk made a modern nation out of the ancient "sick man of Europe." Midhat was a "Young Turk"—in spirit at least—before Atatürk was ever heard of. He was born in 1822, the son of a Constantinople judge. At 29, he was made General Secretary of the State Council of well-meaning but pusillanimous Sultan Abdul Mejid. A sternly upright and able young man with compassionate and liberal convictions, Midhat was soon serving as a trouble-shooter in one tense corner after another of the sprawling Ottoman empire. His determined efforts to abolish slave labor, wipe out anti-Christian discrimination and establish schools and colleges went far to pacify Turkey's perennially rebellious Balkan provinces and to infuriate the Russians, who dreamed of a Balkan empire all their own.

But, like many a reformer, Midhat made enemies in high places during his years of service. Some time after Abdul Mejid died, the Russian ambassador at Constantinople used his friendship with the Queen Mother to get Midhat recalled from the Balkans. Midhat squared himself with the new Sultan, Abdul Aziz, and was soon appointed Grand Vizier of the Empire. From this lofty eminence he discov. ered that the Sultan was growing rich, at his country's expense, on bribes from a wealthy Austrian railroad man. Midhat appealed to the Sultan's conscience. The Sultan returned the bribes and sulkily fired Midhat. Soon afterwards, in 1876, Abdul Aziz was deposed by his nephew Murad V. Abdul Aziz promptly killed himself with a pair of scissors. Murad lasted three months; then he was deposed by his brother Abdul Hamid II.

Plot & Prison. Abdul Hamid was a devious, scheming tyrant who hated Reformer Midhat, chiefly because the latter had written a constitution for Turkey. The new Sultan reappointed Midhat as Grand Vizier and set an army of spies to watch him. Soon he had cooked up enough phony charges to banish Midhat and all his followers. Responding to diplomatic pressure, Abdul Hamid restored Midhat to imperial grace. In 1879, however, he had Midhat arrested for the "scissor-murder" of Abdul Aziz.