Abdul Hamid II - Deposition and Aftermath

Deposition and Aftermath

The ex-sultan was conveyed into dignified captivity at Salonica. In 1912, when Salonica fell to Greece, he was returned to captivity in Istanbul. He spent his last days studying, carpentering and writing his memoirs in custody at Beylerbeyi Palace in the Bosphorus, where he died on 10 February 1918, just a few months before his brother, the Sultan. He was buried in Istanbul. Abdülhamid was the last relatively authoritative Sultan of the Ottoman Empire. He presided over thirty three years of decline. The Ottoman Empire had long been acknowledged as the Sick Man of Europe by its enemies, the British, French and most European countries excluding Germany, Bulgaria and Austria-Hungary.