On this day in 1878 the Ottoman Empire lead by Abdulhamit II gave away Cyprus to the British Empire as an exchange for their “support” in the Russian- Turkish war or 1877-1878. By support I mean that they stopped the Russians from taking over Istanbul and the Straits- Russians were 30km away from the city. In the end of this war Ottomans lost Bulgaria, Bosnia and the Caucasus plus Cyprus too of course.
Cyprus was important to Britain because it is close to Suez so they secure the region for their navy. But still to the public this whole handing over of the island was presented as a temporary lease for which Britain was paying the Sultan 93000 british pounds a year... Money that were paid by the local Cypriots who were also paying for the whole British forces and administration on the island too. On top of it all those 93000 pounds didn’t even go to Istanbul but directly went as a small repayment to the Bank of England to which the Ottoman Empire was in huge debt.
@MKALE1
In 1881 the Empire couldn’t even pay back its debts to the Western Powers so they formed the
Ottoman Public Debt Administration. It was completely independent from Ottoman “authorities” and ran by Westerners and it’s only purpose was to collect taxes and debts and help Western companies to make “investments”. It had more employees than the Ottoman financial ministry and had the power to tax and seize properties etc. You can imagine something like that to happen in an occupied country or a colony and not in a state ran by Abdülhamit but it happened for years... Also the same year France occupied Tunisia while in 1882 Britain took over Egypt and Sudan too.
Abdülhamit was a great Khalif too of course on top of his military and economic achievements. In 1899 he helped Germans and American in their campaigns in China and the Philippines too. They asked him as a Khalifa to tell the rebelling Muslim soldiers in China who fought against Westerners to lay down their weapons and he did of course. Also in the Philippines he sent a letter to the local Moro Sultanate not to fight against the American occupation. With his letter he saved a lot of headaches to the Colonialists. What a great fighter for Islam he was indeed.
So many “great” achievements and I don’t even mention the stuff that happened after 1899 until he died in 1918.