Abdul Hamid ascended the throne in 1876 under very difficult circumstances. The country was on the verge of a disastrous Russian war, while the government was in the hands of statesmen who were endeavouring to transform Turkey into a modern state and who had introduced all sorts of Western political innovations, including a parliament. Abdul Hamid, however, soon changed all this. Taking advantage of the confusion which marked the close of the Russian war, he abolished parliament and made himself as absolute a despot as any of his ancestors had ever been. Secure in his autocratic power, Abdul Hamid now began to evolve his own peculiar policy, which, from the first, had a distinctly Pan-Islamic trend[45]. Unlike his immediate predecessors, Abdul Hamid determined to use his position as caliph for far-reaching political ends. Emphasizing his spiritual headship of the Mohammedan world rather than his political headship of the Turkish state, he endeavoured to win the active support of all Moslems and, by that support, to intimidate European Powers who might be formulating aggressive measures against the Ottoman Empire. Before long Abdul Hamid had built up an elaborate Pan-Islamic propaganda organization, working mainly by secretive, tortuous methods. Constantinople became the Mecca of all the fanatics and anti-Western agitators like Djemal-ed-Din. And from Constantinople there went forth swarms of picked emissaries, bearing to the most distant parts of Islam the Caliph's message of hope and impending deliverance from the menace of infidel rule. Abdul Hamid's Pan-Islamic propaganda went on uninterruptedly for nearly thirty years. Precisely what this propaganda accomplished is very difficult to estimate. In the first place, it was cut short, and to some extent reversed, by the Young-Turk resolution of 1908 which drove Abdul Hamid from the throne. It certainly was never put to the test of a war between Turkey and a first-class European Power. This is what renders any theoretical appraisal so inconclusive. Abdul Hamid did succeed in gaining the respectful acknowledgment of his spiritual authority by most Moslem princes and notables, and he certainly won the pious veneration of the Moslem masses. In the most distant regions men came to regard the mighty Caliph in Stambul as, in very truth, the Defender of the Faith, and to consider his empire as the bulwark of Islam. On the other hand, it is a far cry from pious enthusiasm to practical performance. Furthermore, Abdul Hamid did not succeed in winning over powerful Pan-Islamic leaders like El Sennussi, who suspected his motives and questioned his judgment; while Moslem liberals everywhere disliked him for his despotic, reactionary, inefficient rule. It is thus a very debatable question whether, if Abdul Hamid had ever called upon the Moslem world for armed assistance in a "holy war," he would have been generally supported.