Abdulaziz

A portrait of Sultan Abdülaziz

His parents were Mahmud II and Pertevniyal Sultan[6] (1812–1883), originally named Besime, a Circassian.[7] In 1868 Pertevniyal was residing at Dolmabahçe Palace. That year Abdülaziz took the visiting Eugénie de Montijo, Empress of France, to see his mother. Pertevniyal considered the presence of a foreign woman within her private quarters of the seraglio to be an insult. She reportedly slapped Eugénie across the face, which almost caused an international incident.[8] According to another account, Pertevniyal was outraged by the forwardness of Eugénie in taking the arm of one of her sons while he gave a tour of the palace garden, and she gave the Empress a slap on the stomach as a possibly more subtly intended reminder that they were not in France.[9]

The Pertevniyal Valide Sultan Mosque was built under the patronage of his mother. The construction work began in November 1869 and the mosque was finished in 1871.[10]

His paternal grandparents were Sultan Abdul Hamid I and Sultana Nakşidil Sultan. Several accounts identify his paternal grandmother with Aimée du Buc de Rivéry, a cousin of Empress Joséphine.[11] Pertevniyal was a sister of Khushiyar Qadin, third wife of Ibrahim Pasha of Egypt. Khushiyar and Ibrahim were the parents of Isma'il Pasha.[12][13]

The Ottoman Empire in 1862

Between 1861 and 1871, the Tanzimat reforms which began during the reign of his brother Abdulmejid I were continued under the leadership of his chief ministers, Mehmed Fuad Pasha and Mehmed Emin Âli Pasha. New administrative districts (vilayets) were set up in 1864 and a Council of State was established in 1868.[1] Public education was organized on the French model and Istanbul University was reorganised as a modern institution in 1861.[1] He was also integral in establishing the first Ottoman civil code.[1]

Culverin with the arms of Philippe Villiers de L'Isle-Adam, Siege of Rhodes (1522). Caliber: 140mm, length: 339cm, weight: 2533kg, ammunition: 10kg iron ball. Remitted by Abdülaziz to Napoleon III in 1862.

Abdülaziz cultivated good relations with the Second French Empire and the British Empire. In 1867 he was the first Ottoman sultan to visit Western Europe;[1] his trip included a visit to the Exposition Universelle (1867) in Paris and a trip to the United Kingdom, where he was made a Knight of the Garter by Queen Victoria[14] and shown a Royal Navy Fleet Review with Ismail Pasha. He travelled by a private rail car, which today can be found in the Rahmi M. Koç Museum in Istanbul. His fellow Knights of the Garter created in 1867 were Charles Gordon-Lennox, 6th Duke of Richmond, Charles Manners, 6th Duke of Rutland, Henry Somerset, 8th Duke of Beaufort, Prince Arthur, Duke of Connaught and Strathearn (a son of Queen Victoria), Franz Joseph I of Austria and Alexander II of Russia.

Also in 1867, Abdülaziz became the first Ottoman Sultan to formally recognize the title of Khedive (Viceroy) to be used by the Vali (Governor) of the Ottoman Eyalet of Egypt and Sudan (1517–1867), which thus became the autonomous Ottoman Khedivate of Egypt and Sudan (1867–1914). Muhammad Ali Pasha and his descendants had been the governors (Vali) of Ottoman Egypt and Sudan since 1805, but were willing to use the higher title of Khedive, which was unrecognized by the Ottoman government until 1867. In return, the first Khedive, Ismail Pasha, had agreed a year earlier (in 1866) to increase the annual tax revenues which Egypt and Sudan would provide for the Ottoman treasury.[15] Between 1854 and 1894,[15][16] the revenues from Egypt and Sudan were often declared as a surety by the Ottoman government for borrowing loans from British and French banks.[15][16] After the Ottoman government declared a sovereign default on its foreign debt repayments on 30 October 1875,[15] which triggered the Great Eastern Crisis in the empire's Balkan provinces that led to the devastating Russo-Turkish War (1877–78) and the establishment of the Ottoman Public Debt Administration in 1881,[15] the importance for Britain of the sureties regarding the Ottoman revenues from Egypt and Sudan increased.[16] Combined with the much more important Suez Canal which was opened in 1869, these sureties were influential in the British government's decision to occupy Egypt and Sudan in 1882, with the pretext of helping the Ottoman-Egyptian government to put down the ʻUrabi Revolt (1879–1882). Egypt and Sudan (together with Cyprus) nominally remained Ottoman territories until 5 November 1914,[17] when the British Empire declared war against the Ottoman Empire during World War I.[17]

In 1869, Abdülaziz received visits from Eugénie de Montijo, Empress consort of Napoleon III of France and other foreign monarchs on their way to the opening of the Suez Canal. The Prince of Wales, the future Edward VII, twice visited Istanbul.[14]

By 1871 both Mehmed Fuad Pasha and Mehmed Emin Âli Pasha were dead.[1] The Second French Empire, his Western European model, had been defeated in the Franco-Prussian War by the North German Confederation under the leadership of the Kingdom of Prussia. Abdülaziz turned to the Russian Empire for friendship, as unrest in the Balkan provinces continued. In 1875, the Herzegovinian rebellion was the beginning of further unrest in the Balkan provinces. In 1876, the April Uprising saw insurrection spreading among the Bulgarians. Ill feeling mounted against Russia for its encouragement of the rebellions.[1]

While no one event led to his being deposed, the crop failure of 1873 and his lavish expenditures on the Ottoman Navy and on new palaces which he had built, along with mounting public debt, helped to create an atmosphere conducive to his being overthrown. Abdülaziz was deposed by his ministers on 30 May 1876.[1]

The türbe (mausoleum) of Sultan Mahmud II (his father) on Divan Yolu street, where Abdülaziz was also buried.

Abdülaziz's death in 1876 by Victor Masson

Abdülaziz's death at Çırağan Palace in Istanbul a few days later was documented as a suicide at the time,[1][18] but suspicions of murder promptly erupted.

A claim states that on the morning of June 5, Abdülaziz asked for a pair of scissors with which to trim his beard. Shortly after this he was found dead in a pool of blood flowing from two wounds in his arms. His body wanted to be examined by 17 physicians, but they were only allowed to examine his wrists:[19] "Dr. Marco, Nouri, A. Sotto, Physician attached to the Imperial and Royal Embassy of Austria‐Hungary; Dr. Spagnolo, Marc Markel, Jatropoulo, Abdinour, Servet, J. de Castro, A. Marroin, Julius Millingen, C. Caratheodori; E. D. Dickson, Physician of the British Embassy; Dr. O. Vitalis, Physician of the Sanitary Board; Dr. E. Spadare, J. Nouridjian, Miltiadi Bey, Mustafa, Mehmed" who certified that the death had been “caused by the loss of blood produced by the wounds of the blood‐vessels at the joints of the arms” and that “the direction and nature of the wounds, together with the instrument which is said to have produced them, lead us to conclude that suicide had been committed.”[20] One of those physicians also stated that “His skin was very pale, and entirely free from bruises, marks or spots of any kind whatever. There was no lividity of the lips indicating suffocation nor any sign of pressure having been applied to the throat.” [21] These claims turned out to be false, as a photograph surfaced in the book Hatıra-i Uhuvvet: Portre Fotoğraflarının Cazibesi 1846-1950 by Bahattin Öztuncay’, which revealed the sultan's last taken picture after being deposed: The royal sultan is sitting on a chair in regular street clothes with two palace servants casually leaning on his shoulders - one with the Masonic hidden hand gesture - while the sultan is staring solemnly.[22][23][24][25]

Following Sultan Abdülaziz's dethronement, he was forced into a room at Topkapi Palace. This room happened to be the same room that Sultan Selim III was murdered in. Six men entered the room and had a hard time overpowering Sultan Abdülaziz as he was a wrestler too. He was left with bruises on his body. Then they cut both of his wrists, wrapped him and left him to bleed to death.[26][27]

In Sultan Abdulhamid II's recently surfaced memoirs, the event is described as an assassination by the order of Hüseyin Avni Pasha and Midhat Pasha. Hüseyin Avni Pasha was used by the French and Midhat Pasha was used by the English to topple Sultan Abdulaziz.[28] According to the memoirs, Sultan Murad V began to show signs of paranoia, madness, and continuous fainting and vomiting even on the day of his coronation, and threw himself into a pool yelling at his guards to protect his life. They were afraid the public would become outraged and revolt to bring the former Sultan back on the throne. Within a few days, on 4 June 1876, they arranged for Sultan Abdülaziz to kill himself with beard scissors, and cut his wrists.[29]

Queen Victoria and Abdülaziz aboard HMY Victoria and Albert during the Sultan's official visit to the United Kingdom in 1867.

Admission ticket to Lord Mayor Thomas Gabriel's reception of H.I.M. The Sultan Abd-ul-Aziz Khan at The Guildhall on 18 July 1867, issued to The Chairman of the P. & O. Steam Navigation Company.

Admiral Hasan Rami Pasha supported the sultan's modernizing efforts.

• Abdülaziz gave special emphasis on modernizing the Ottoman Navy. In 1875, the Ottoman Navy had 21 battleships and 173 warships of other types, ranking as the third largest navy in the world after the British and French navies. His passion for the Navy, ships and sea can be observed in the wall paintings and pictures of the Beylerbeyi Palace on the Bosphorus strait in Istanbul, which was constructed during his reign. However, the large budget for modernizing and expanding the Navy (combined with a severe drought in 1873 and incidents of flooding in 1874 which damaged Ottoman agriculture and reduced the government's tax revenues) contributed to the financial difficulties which caused the Porte to declare a sovereign default with the "Ramazan Kanunnamesi" on 30 October 1875. The subsequent decision to increase agricultural taxes for paying the Ottoman public debt to foreign creditors (mainly British and French banks) triggered the Great Eastern Crisis in the empire's Balkan provinces, which culminated in the Russo-Turkish War (1877–78) that devastated the already struggling Ottoman economy, and the establishment of the Ottoman Public Debt Administration in 1881, during the early years of Sultan Abdülhamid II's reign.
• The first Ottoman railroads were opened between İzmir–Aydın and Alexandria–Cairo in 1856, during the reign of Sultan Abdulmejid I. The first large railway terminal within present-day Turkey, the Alsancak Terminal in Izmir, was opened in 1858. However, these were individual, unconnected railroads, without a railway network. Sultan Abdülaziz established the first Ottoman railway networks. On 17 April 1869, the concession for the Rumelia Railway (i.e. Balkan Railways, Rumeli (Rumelia) meaning the Balkan peninsula in Ottoman Turkish) which connected Istanbul to Vienna was awarded to Baron Maurice de Hirsch (Moritz Freiherr Hirsch auf Gereuth), a Bavaria-born banker from Belgium. The project foresaw a railway route from Istanbul via Edirne, Plovdiv and Sarajevo to the shore of the Sava River. In 1873, the first Sirkeci Terminal in Istanbul was opened. The temporary Sirkeci terminal building was later replaced with the current one which was built between 1888 and 1890 (during the reign of Abdülhamid II) and became the final destination terminus of the Orient Express. In 1871, Sultan Abdülaziz established the Anatolia Railway. Construction works of the 1,435 mm (4 ft 8 ¹⁄₂ in) standard gauge on the Asian side of Istanbul, from Haydarpaşa to Pendik, began in 1871. The line was opened on 22 September 1872.[30] The railway was extended to Gebze, which opened on 1 January 1873. In August 1873 the railway reached Izmit. Another railway extension was built in 1871 to serve a populated area along Bursa and the Sea of Marmara. The Anatolia Railway was then extended to Ankara and eventually to Mesopotamia, Syria and Arabia during the reign of Sultan Abdülhamid II, with the completion of the Baghdad Railway and Hejaz Railway.
• Under his reign, Turkey's first postage stamps were issued in 1863, and the Ottoman Empire joined the Universal Postal Union in 1875 as a founding member.
• He also was responsible for the first civil code for the Ottoman Empire.[1]
• He was the first Ottoman sultan who travelled to Western Europe. His voyage in visiting order (from 21 June 1867 to 7 August 1867): Istanbul – Messina – Naples – Toulon – Marseille – Paris – Boulogne – Dover – London – Dover – Calais – Brussels – Koblenz – Vienna – Budapest – Orșova – Vidin – Ruse – Varna – Istanbul.[31]
• Impressed by the museums in Paris (30 June – 10 July 1867),[31] London (12–23 July 1867)[31] and Vienna (28–30 July 1867)[31] which he visited in the summer of 1867, he ordered the establishment of an Imperial Museum in Istanbul: the Istanbul Archaeology Museum.
• He was made the 756th Knight of the Order of the Garter in 1867[32] and the 127th Grand Cross of the Order of the Tower and Sword.

Bedroom of Sultan Abdülaziz at Dolmabahçe Palace in Istanbul.

Sarcophagus of Sultan Abdülaziz in the mausoleum of his father, Sultan Mahmud II. Some of the sultans' descendants are also buried nearby.

First marriage

• Dürrünev Kadın (Batumi, c. 1835 – Feriye Palace, Istanbul, 7 December 1895, buried in Mahmud II Mausoleum), married at Istanbul, Dolmabahçe Palace in 1856, and had issue:
  • Şehzade Yusuf Izzeddin (11 October 1857 – 1 February 1916);
    • Şehzade Mehmed Bahaeddin (February 1883 – 8 November 1883);
    • Hatice Şükriye Sultan (24 February 1906 – 1 April 1972);
    • Şehzade Mehmed Nizameddin (10 January 1909 – 19 March 1933);
    • Mihriban Mihrişah Sultan (1 June 1916 – 25 January 1987);
  • Fatma Saliha Sultan (Istanbul, Dolmabahçe Palace, 11 July 1862 – 1941, Cairo, Egypt, and buried in Khedive Tewfik Mausoleum);

Second marriage

• Hayranidil Kadın (Kars, 21 November 1846 – Feriye Palace, Istanbul, 26 November 1895, buried in Mahmud II Mausoleum), married at Istanbul, Dolmabahçe Palace in 1861, and had issue:
  • Caliph Abdulmejid II (29 May 1868 – 23 August 1944);
    • Şehzade Ömer Faruk (27 February 1898 – 28 March 1969);
    • Ayşe Hatice Hayriye Dürrüşehvar Sultan (26 January 1914 – 7 February 2006);
  • Nazime Sultan (Istanbul, Dolmabahçe Palace, 25 February 1866 – 1947, Beirut, Lebanon, and buried in Sultan Selim Mosque, Damascus, Syria);

Third marriage

• Edadil Kadın (c. 1845 – Dolmabahçe Palace, Istanbul, 12 December 1875, buried in Mahmud II Mausoleum), married at Istanbul, Dolmabahçe Palace in 1861, and had issue:
  • Şehzade Mahmud Celaleddin (14 November 1862 – 1 September 1888);
  • Şehzade Mehmed Selim (28 October 1865 – 21 October 1867);
  • Emine Sultan (Istanbul, Dolmabahçe Palace, 30 November 1866 – 23 January 1867, Istanbul, Dolmabahçe Palace, buried in Sultan Mahmud II Mausoleum, Divanyolu, Istanbul);

Fourth marriage

• Nesrin Kadın (Sochi, c. 1848 – Feriye Palace, 11 June 1876, Istanbul, buried in New ladies Mausoleum), married at Istanbul, Dolmabahçe Palace in 1868, and had issue:
  • Şehzade Mehmed Şevket (5 June 1872 – 22 October 1899);
    • Şehzade Mehmed Cemaleddin (28 October 1890 – 18 November 1946);
  • Emine Sultan (Istanbul, Dolmabahçe Palace, 24 August 1874 – 29 January 1920, buried in New Mosque, Istanbul);

Fifth marriage

• Gevheri Kadın (Gudauta, 8 July 1856  – Feriye Palace, Istanbul, 6 September 1884, buried in New ladies Mausoleum), married at Istanbul, Dolmabahçe Palace in 1872, and had issue:
  • Şehzade Mehmed Seyfeddin (21 September 1874 – 19 October 1927);
    • Şehzade Mehmed Abdülaziz (26 September 1901 – 19 January 1977);
    • Şehzade Mahmud Şevket (30 July 1903 – 1 February 1973);
    • Şehzade Ahmed Tevhid (30 November 1904 – 24 April 1966);
    • Fatma Gevheri Sultan (30 November 1904 – 10 December 1980);
  • Esma Sultan (Istanbul, Dolmabahçe Palace, 21 March 1873 – 7 May 1899, buried in Sultan Mahmud II Mausoleum, Divanyolu, Istanbul);

• Finkel, Caroline, Osman's Dream, (Basic Books, 2005), 57; "Istanbul was only adopted as the city's official name in 1930..".

Media related to Abdül Aziz I at Wikimedia Commons

Works written by or about Abdülaziz at Wikisource

•  "Abd-ul-Aziz" . Collier's New Encyclopedia. 1921.