Abdülaziz

Abdulaziz (Ottoman Turkish: عبد العزيز, romanized: ʿAbdü'l-ʿAzîz; Turkish: Abdülaziz; 8 February 1830 – 4 June 1876) was the sultan of the Ottoman Empire from 25 June 1861 to 30 May 1876, when he was overthrown in a government coup. He was a son of Sultan Mahmud II and succeeded his brother Abdulmejid I in 1861.

Abdulaziz's reign began during the Ottoman Empire's resurgence following the Crimean War and two decades of the Tanzimat reforms, though it was now reliant on European capital. He was the first Ottoman sultan who traveled to Western Europe in a diplomatic capacity, visiting a number of important European capitals including Paris, London, and Vienna in the summer of 1867. The decade after his ascension was dominated by the duo of Fuad Pasha and Aali Pasha, who accelerated reorganization of the Empire. The Vilayet Law was promulgated, Western codes were applied to more aspects of Ottoman law, and the millets were restructured. The issue of Tanzimat dualism continued to plague the empire, however.

The first semblance of an opposition party coalesced around detractors of Fuad and Aali, the Young Ottomans. Once they were dead by 1871, Abdul Aziz promulgated reactionary ministries and attempted personal rule, revealing his eccentricities. His autocracy became the target of the Young Ottomans, leading to demands for a constitution. In his last years as sultan, famine, economic crisis and default, diplomatic isolation, government dysfunction, and uprisings by Christian minorities culminated into a general international crisis known as the Great Eastern Crisis. Abdulaziz was deposed on 30 May 1876 by his ministers on the grounds of having mismanaged the economy, and was found dead from suicide six days later.

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