In 1861, on the death of Abd-ul-Mejid, Abd-ul-Aziz succeeded to the throne of Othman. He was assisted by a group of patriotic and able statesmen, among whom were Fuad Pasha, Rushdi Pasha, Aali Pasha, and Midhat Pasha; and for the first ten years of his reign he ruled his country well. He made the Turkish navy one of the most formidable in Europe; he organised the army that fought so stubbornly at Plevna; justice was administered, and the press was free to criticise the Government. But this promising monarch, unfortunately for his country, broke away from the tutelage of wise men and fell under the influence of evil advisers. On the death of Aali Pasha in 1872, Mahmud Nedim Pasha, a man who was fanatically anti-European and uneducated, became the chief adviser of the Sultan, and was soon created Grand Vizier. The character of the Sultan seemed now to undergo a complete change; his policy became retrograde and reactionary; he drove from his side the good and wise and surrounded himself with corrupt parasites, who were in many cases the ready tools of Ignatieff; for the Russian diplomacy had gained the ascendency in Constantinople, and, as usual, was employed in intriguing against the party of reform and organising the disruption of the Ottoman Empire. And now commenced that final struggle between the Palace and the Sublime Porte which has resulted in the overthrow of the Despotism. The Sultan, though the absolute head of the Church and State, had hitherto left the administration of the Empire to his Cabinet of Ministers chosen by himself, whose office is known as the Sublime Porte. Abd-ul-Aziz attempted to break down this system, and to centre in himself the entire rule of the country; soon the ministers became mere puppets, and the Palace was made paramount. The Sultan assumed the complete control of the Treasury, and refused to give any account of the public revenues which he wasted. He contracted loans in Europe under onerous conditions that endangered the very independence of the Empire.