Abdülhamit II (1876-1909) was a paradoxical, unappealing man, ruling over an unhappy country. Increasingly fanatical concerning religion and politics as his people began to rebel, he was inconsistent in his attitude toward modernization. While he suppressed the Ottoman Parliament, he also expanded the military and the educational systems. The restive Armenian minority sought European intervention and engaged in one assault after another, including the raid on the Ottoman bank in Istanbul.
Thousands, even tens of thousands are said to have perished and the Armenian revolutionaries share with the Sultan the culpability for their deaths. There may have been cases when, by their avarice and treachery, the Armenians deserved the hatred of their Turkish neighbors, but once the fanatical passions of the mob had unleashed, there was no discontinuity between the innocent and the guilty. ** From The Sultan: The Life of Abdul Hamid II by Joan Haslip (1958).