Armenia and Her People; or, The Story of Armenia by an ArmenianFilian, George H.
History
Armenia and Her People; or, The Story of Armenia by an Armenian
Filian, George H.
Armenia; Armenian question
thousands of witnesses, set forth in the consular reports, show that
they are.
As soon as Abdul Hamid had seized the throne, he girded on the sword of
Osman, which I will explain later is equivalent to coronation. The keys
of the palace where Murad was imprisoned he keeps in his pocket. The
nominal ground of his imprisonment is insanity, but he was not insane;
it was his liberality of mind, his greatness of heart, and his mild
and kind spirit. He was an exceptional Turk. Then Hamid called Midhad
Pasha to him, gave him $25,000, and told him to leave the country and
never come back. The country was thus left without a single man of any
force of character and a large position combined. After the death of
Aziz the two greatest Turks were Sultan Murad and Midhad Pasha, and
had Murad not been imprisoned, and Midhad banished, the Turkish Empire
would be an entirely different country, and have a different future.
Midhad was finally recalled, but only to be murdered. As the Sultan
felt his position secure, he began to get rid of all men of superior
character and education. Some he banished, some he imprisoned, some he
killed. But Midhad, as the greatest, was the most obnoxious. He was
of course not dispatched at once. He was invited back, made governor
of Smyrna, given the highest emoluments, paid the greatest honors;
then one night he was suddenly summoned to Constantinople by the
Sultan. He knew it was the death-call, and fled to the French consulate
for shelter, but the consul was afraid to protect him. Finally he was
taken by force to Constantinople, tried before a tribunal of course
packed by the Sultan, and condemned to death. But the kind-hearted
Sultan commuted the death sentence to banishment and hard labor for
life, and quietly ordered the officers who were going to take him to
banishment to kill him instead, which they did.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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