1921, October 28th, Friday
The heavy doors clicked shut, leaving Murad alone in the expansive chamber. The lingering scent of Damat Ferid Pasha's rosewater attar, a cloyingly sweet aroma, seemed to mock the stark pronouncements he had just made. He walked slowly to the window, the vastness of the room suddenly feeling oppressive, a gilded cage. Outside, the sun climbed higher, casting sharper shadows, but inside him, a different kind of light was beginning to dawn – the cold, clear light of understanding the true, unvarnished state of his inheritance.
His demands had been audacious for an eighteen-year-old who, by all rights, should still be finding his way to the privy without a guide. He could almost feel the ripples of consternation spreading through the palace and, soon enough, through the corridors of the Sublime Porte. An eighteen-year-old Sultan who wanted all the reports, today, unfiltered. Who had dared to countermand the Grand Vizier on his very first morning. They would call it youthful impetuousness, perhaps arrogance. Let them. He knew it was necessity, born from a future they could not imagine and a past life he could not afford to forget.
He had perhaps an hour, maybe two, before the machinery he had set in motion began to deliver. He would not waste it. He needed to center himself, to fully inhabit this role, this mind, this mission. He closed his eyes, not in prayer, but in a deep, focused meditation, a technique he had honed in that other life to bring clarity amidst chaos. The image of the Ottoman Empire, not as the "Sick Man of Europe" from his old world's history books, but as a living, breathing entity – albeit one riddled with disease and grievous wounds – formed in his mind. He was its physician now, its surgeon, and perhaps, its executioner if old, gangrenous limbs needed to be sacrificed for the survival of the whole.
The thought was grim, but the alternative – the slow, humiliating dissolution he knew had historically occurred – was intolerable.
A discreet knock. "Your Imperial Majesty?" It was Hafız Lütfi Bey, the Lord Chamberlain, his voice as measured as ever. "Enter, Hafız Bey."
The old man entered, followed by two junior aides laden with heavy, leather-bound ledgers and stacks of document portfolios tied with ribbon. They deposited their burdens respectfully on a large mahogany table near Murad's writing desk, their movements betraying a mixture of awe and trepidation. "The first of the requested materials, Your Majesty," Hafız Bey announced, his gaze lingering on Murad for a moment longer than strictly necessary, perhaps searching for any sign of wavering in the young Sultan. "The Grand Vizier's office has assured me that further consignments will arrive throughout the day. They are… mobilizing the archives."
"Excellent," Murad said, his voice betraying none of the maelstrom of thoughts within. "See that I am not disturbed, Hafız Bey, unless it is a matter of absolute, life-threatening urgency for the Empire itself. Arrange for some light sustenance – fruit, bread, cheese, water – to be brought in an hour. I will take it here." "As Your Majesty commands." The Chamberlain bowed, ushering the aides out and closing the door, leaving Murad with the first tangible pieces of his broken kingdom.
He approached the table, the scent of old paper, ink, and leather filling his nostrils. He ran a hand over a thick ledger simply titled "Imperial Treasury – Accounts Current." His lips thinned. He knew, broadly, what he would find. Or rather, what he would not find.
With a sigh that seemed to come from a soul far older than eighteen years, he pulled up a sturdy chair, untied the ribbon on the topmost portfolio – "Office of the Grand Vizier: Allied High Commission Directives & Communications, Jan-Oct 1921" – and began to read.
The hours that followed were a descent into a labyrinth of meticulously documented despair. The language of the Allied directives was a study in polite, almost banal, arrogance. Requests, phrased as such, were clearly non-negotiable demands. British, French, and Italian officials dictated everything from customs duties at the port of Constantinople to the allowable tonnage of coal the Ottoman railways could burn, to the number of gendarmes permitted in provincial towns. Each communiqué chipped away another sliver of sovereignty, each reply from Damat Ferid's government a litany of capitulations, dressed up in the language of "pragmatic cooperation" and "preserving the peace."
Murad's jaw tightened as he read. His past life's knowledge of history had prepared him for the broad strokes of this subjugation, but the day-to-day, grinding humiliation of it, laid bare in these official papers, ignited a cold fury within him. He saw how easily the Allies divided and ruled, playing off different factions within the Constantinople government, exploiting every weakness.
He moved to the Treasury ledgers. The columns of figures swam before his eyes, a sea of red ink and dwindling reserves. Vast sums were earmarked for "Reparations and Allied Occupation Costs." Key imperial revenues – the tobacco monopoly, the customs receipts, even the salt tax – were already pledged or directly administered by the Ottoman Public Debt Administration, a body effectively controlled by foreign bondholders since the previous century, but now more rapacious than ever. The government in Constantinople was, quite literally, bankrupt, surviving on Allied sufferance and the dwindling hope of new loans that would only tighten the noose.
"So," he muttered to himself, pushing a ledger away in disgust, "we are not merely a dying empire, we are a pauper corpse being stripped of its burial shroud before it's even in the ground."
Hafız Bey entered silently at some point, placing a silver tray with a carafe of water, a bowl of olives, some figs, a round of fresh bread, and a piece of white cheese on a side table. Murad merely nodded his acknowledgment, his eyes still devouring a particularly galling report on the state of the Imperial Gendarmerie, which was under orders to assist Allied patrols in "maintaining public order" – essentially, suppressing any sign of Turkish dissent.
He ate mechanically, his mind racing. This was worse, far worse in its granular detail, than even his bleakest historical recollections had painted. The sheer incompetence, the layered betrayals, the pervasive sense of hopelessness that seemed to seep from every page…
Afternoon sunlight slanted through the tall windows when he finally turned to the military assessments. The reports from the Ministry of War were an exercise in euphemism and carefully constructed omissions. "Nominal divisions" with actual combat strength of a few under-equipped, underfed, and demoralized battalions. Ammunition stocks listed as "adequate for defensive purposes" which, when cross-referenced with other internal memoranda he'd unluckily stumbled upon in his historical studies, meant barely enough for a week of light skirmishing. The once-proud Ottoman Navy was a collection of rusting hulks in the Golden Horn, their breechblocks removed by Allied order, their crews largely disbanded.
The only sections that showed any 'vigor' were the intelligence reports detailing the movements and growing strength of Mustafa Kemal's nationalist forces in Anatolia. Here, the language shifted from resigned defeatism to alarmed condemnation. Damat Ferid's government clearly saw Ankara as a greater, more immediate threat than the Allies who were bleeding them dry. The reports were filled with calls for "decisive action" against the "rebels," yet offered no concrete plans for how such action could be taken with the shadow army they possessed.
Murad found himself grimly amused by the irony. The Constantinople government, a puppet on Allied strings, was desperate to crush the only indigenous Turkish force that had any real chance of resisting foreign domination.
"Hafız Bey," he called, his voice hoarse from hours of disuse. The Chamberlain materialized as if from the woodwork. "Your Majesty?" "The intelligence from Anatolia," Murad said, tapping a particularly dense file. "Who collates these reports? From what sources?" "Primarily, Your Majesty, from the intelligence section of the Ministry of the Interior, and some… private informants loyal to the Grand Vizier. There are also summaries provided by the Allied liaison officers, concerning 'bandit activity' in the regions beyond their direct control."
Private informants loyal to the Grand Vizier. Murad filed that away. And Allied summaries of 'bandit activity.' He could imagine the reliability of those. "I see. Are there any direct communications, however illicit or informal, with individuals within Ankara? Any channels not entirely filtered through Damat Ferid's ministry or Allied oversight?"
Hafız Bey hesitated, a rare sign of uncertainty. "Your Majesty, any such contact would be… highly irregular. Treasonous, some would argue." "And yet," Murad pressed gently, "in times of great crisis, the irregular often becomes necessary for survival. I am not asking if such channels should exist, Hafız Bey, but if they do, however deeply hidden." The old Chamberlain looked down at his hands for a long moment. The silence stretched. "There are always… whispers, Your Majesty. Constantinople is a city of whispers. Men who have family on both sides. Merchants who travel. Dervishes who wander. But to say there is a formal, hidden channel… that I cannot confirm."
"Understood," Murad said. "Send word to Sheikh Saffet Efendi of the Jerrahi Order. Inform him that the new Sultan requests his prayers and his counsel, at his earliest convenience. Tomorrow, perhaps, if he is able." Hafız Bey's eyebrows rose a fraction. The Jerrahi were a respected Sufi order, known for their piety and their quiet influence amongst the common people, and historically, some had connections across various societal divides. It was an unorthodox summons for a Sultan's first full day. "It will be done, Your Majesty."
As evening approached, the piles of documents seemed to have barely diminished, yet Murad felt a grim sense of clarity emerging from the morass. The situation was catastrophic, but it was not entirely without fissures, without potential leverage points if one was bold enough, ruthless enough, to exploit them. The Allies were not a monolith; British, French, and Italian interests often diverged. The nationalist movement in Ankara, for all its current antagonism towards Constantinople, was still Turkish, still Muslim. Could common ground be found against a common occupier? The thought was heretical to the current palace doctrine, but Murad was not bound by their fears.
The final set of documents arrived with the evening call to prayer echoing faintly from the city's minarets: the list of the current Imperial Council members, their known affiliations, and a summary of their recent activities, compiled with surprising speed by Hafız Bey's staff. Murad scanned the names. Damat Ferid Pasha, Grand Vizier. Predictable. Minister of War, Ziya Pasha – an aging, unimaginative general, entirely in Ferid's pocket. Minister of Marine, hopeless. Minister of Finance, a nonentity. The Sheikh-ul-Islam, Abdullah Efendi, a pious man but one who seemed to believe that prayer alone would solve the Empire's woes, and who consistently deferred to the Grand Vizier on temporal matters.
There were a few others, lesser ministers, palace officials. Most seemed to be creatures of Damat Ferid, or too timid to offer any dissent. But a few names caught his attention. Tevfik Pasha, an elder statesman, a former Grand Vizier himself, known for his caution but also for his integrity and a more nationalist leaning than Ferid; he was listed as 'without portfolio, but occasionally consulted.' Why was he sidelined? And a younger military commander, Fevzi Pasha, currently in a minor Constantinople garrison role but with a solid reputation from the Balkan Wars and Gallipoli, known to be privately critical of the Armistice terms. He was listed as 'under observation' due to 'suspected nationalist sympathies.'
Murad made a mental note of these two. Potential counterweights? Or merely more reeds that would bend in the prevailing wind?
He leaned back in his chair, the young body aching with a fatigue it wasn't accustomed to, but his mind, the old, experienced mind, was whirring with a fierce energy. The truths he had waded through all day, inked in official reports and figuratively written in the blood of his dying empire, were horrifying. But they were known now. And with knowledge came the first, faint glimmer of power.
Damat Ferid Pasha expected a bewildered boy he could easily manipulate. The Allies expected a pliant puppet. The nationalists in Ankara likely expected continued enmity from the Caliph in Constantinople. They were all about to be surprised.
He had seen the anatomy of his dying empire laid bare. Now, it was time to plan the surgery. The first incision, he thought, would have to be aimed at the current chief physician, Damat Ferid himself. Not a direct amputation, not yet. But a clear signal that a new, more discerning, and far more resolute hand was now guiding the instruments.
"Hafız Bey," he called out, his voice firm despite the weariness. The Chamberlain entered, his expression unreadable in the lamplight that now filled the room. "Inform the Grand Vizier that I will receive him again tomorrow morning, after the morning prayer. I will have… questions arising from these enlightening reports." Murad allowed a thin, almost predatory smile to touch his lips. "Many questions." Hafız Bey bowed. "At once, Your Imperial Majesty."
As the Chamberlain departed, Murad looked at the piles of paper, the documented evidence of an empire's collapse. It was a daunting, almost impossible task. But for the first time since awakening in this strange new world, he felt not despair, but a flicker of something else: the fierce, exhilarating thrill of a battle truly joined. The first day was done. The war for the Ottoman soul had just begun.