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Within three hundred years of the greatness of Sulyman the Magnificent the Ottoman Empire lay bankrupt, decrepit and rotting. Convinced that it must break up, the Christian Powers pressed in eager to grab and annex where they dared. Russia seized the Crimea and the Caucasus, and laid claims to Constantinople and the road through the Dardanelles into the Mediterranean. France laid hands on Syria and Tunis. England occupied Egypt and Cyprus. The new and expanding Germany championed the Sultan, Abdul Hamid, against the rest of Europe, planning to annex as soon as the other rivals had been beaten off. All the nations claimed special rights and economic privileges. As greedy for their meal as vultures, the Christian Powers sat waiting for the end. Afraid of each other, preparing for the stupendous catastrophe of the World War, they watched each other jealously. No one Power dared rush in. And so the dying Ottoman Empire lived on, while the Red Sultan, Abdul Hamid, from his palace on the Bosphorus, cunningly played the nations one against the other. In 1877 Russia decided to make an end of all this, declared war and advanced to within ten miles of Constantinople. Led by Disraeli at the Congress of Berlin, the rest of Europe warned her back: the integrity of the Ottoman Empire must be maintained. Four years later there was born in the town of Salonika at the head of the Aegean Sea, of a Turk called Ali Riza and of Zubeida his wife, a boy whom they named Mustafa...
