on of all the previous
policy, as he had received it from his predecessors, of strengthening
Turkey by tributes of man-power from his subject tribes, but it would,
he thought, have the same result of keeping the Turk supreme among the
alien elements of the Empire. Times had changed; it behoved him to
change the methods which hitherto had held together his hapless
inheritance.

Now Abdul Hamid was not in any sense a wise man, and the ability which
has been attributed to him, in view of the manner in which he
successfully defied the civilisations of Europe, is based on premisses
altogether false. He never really defied Europe at all; he always
yielded, secure in his belief that Europe in the shape of the Balance of
Power, was unanimous in keeping him where he was. He never even risked
being turned out of Constantinople, for he knew--none better--that all
Europe insisted on retaining him there. As regards wisdom, there was
never a greater fool, but as regards cunning there was never a greater
fox. He had a brain that was absolutely impervious to large ideas: the
notion of consolidating and strengthening his Empire by ameliorating its
internal conditions, by bringing it within speaking distance of the
influence of civilisation and progress, by taking advantage of and
developing its immense natural resources, by employing the brains and
the industry of his subject races, seems never to have entered his head.
He could easily have done all this: there was not a Power in Europe that
would not have lent him a helping hand in development and reform, in the
establishment of a solvent state, in aiding the condition of the peoples
over whom he ruled. In whatever he did, provided that it furthered the
welfare of his subjects, whether Turk, Armenian, or Arab, the whole
Concert of Europe would have provided him with cash, with missionaries,
with engineers, and all the resources of the arts and sciences of peace
and of progress. But being a felon, with crime and cunning to take the
place of wisdom, he preferred to develop his Empire on his own original
lines. In Europe he was but suffered to exist. There remained Asia.

The policy of previous Osmanli rulers has already been roughly defined.
They strengthened themselves and the military Turkish despotism round
them by absorbing the manhood of the tribes over which they had obtained
dominion. Abdul Hamid reversed that policy; he strengthened the Turkish
supremacy, not by drawing into it