The responsibility for this act of cynical defiance must be assigned to one man.  The Sultan had never before manifested a desire for any reform whatsoever; and it was not until December 19, 1876, that he named as Grand Vizier Midhat Pasha, who was known to have long been weaving constitutional schemes.  This Turkish Sieyes was thrust to the front in time to promulgate that fundamental reform.  His tenure of power, like that of the French constitution-monger in 1799, ended when the scheme had served the purpose of the real controller of events.  Midhat obviously did not see whither things were tending.  On January 24, 1877, he wrote to Said Pasha, stating that, according to the Turkish ambassador at London (Musurus Pasha), Lord Derby congratulated the Sublime Porte on the dissolution of the Conference, “which he considers a success for Turkey[113].”

[Footnote 113:  Life of Midhat Pasha, by Midhat Ali (1903), p. 142.  Musurus must have deliberately misrepresented Lord Derby.]

It therefore only remained to set the constitution in motion.  After six days, when no sign of action was forthcoming, Midhat wrote to the Sultan in urgent terms, reminding him that their object in promulgating the constitution “was certainly not merely to find a solution of the so-called Eastern Question, nor to seek thereby to make a demonstration that should conciliate the sympathies of Europe, which had been estranged from us.”  This Note seems to have irritated the Sultan.  Abdul Hamid, with his small, nervous, exacting nature, has always valued Ministers in proportion to their obedience, not to their power of giving timely advice.  In every independent suggestion he sees the germ of opposition, and perhaps of a palace plot.  He did so now.  By way of reply, he bade Midhat come to the Palace.  Midhat, fearing a trap, deferred his visit, until he received the assurance that the order for the reforms had been issued.  Then he obeyed the summons; at once he was apprehended, and was hurried to the Sultan’s yacht, which forthwith steamed away for the Aegean (Feb. 5).  The fact that he remained above its waters, and was allowed to proceed to Italy, may be taken as proof that his zeal for reform had been not without its uses in the game which the Sultan had played against the Powers.  The Turkish Parliament, which assembled on March 1, acted with the subservience that might have been expected after this lesson.  The Sultan dissolved it on the outbreak of war, and thereafter gave up all pretence of constitutional forms.  As for Midhat, he was finally lured back to Turkey and done to death.  Such was the end of the Turkish constitution, of the Turkish Parliament, and of their contriver[114].

[Footnote 114:  Life of Midhat Pasha, chaps. v.-vii.  For the Sultan’s character and habits, see an article in the Contemporary Review for December 1896, by D. Kelekian.]