Exile Days of Sultan Abdülhamid 2 in Salonika (1909-1912)

This book is composed of two chapters on two different topics. In the first part, I have studied the exile days of Sultan Abdülhamid II in Salonika (1909-1912). This chapter is a narrative of the 1278 days he had spent in exile between the night of 27 April 1909 when he was taken to Salonika by train and early morning of 1 November 1912 when he was brought to the Beylerbeyi Palace I have interrupted the chronological narrative of the events, and put subsections on the Villa Alatini where he resided in Salonika; why he was exiled and why Salonika was chosen; his life and thoughts in exile; his guards and doctors in Salonika; and the excursion of Sultan Mehmed 5 Reşad to Rumeli, and the “Salute of the Sultan.”.In the second part, I have studied a phenomenon that occurred at the same time period that I focused in the first part: in several ways, Sultan Abdülhamid 2’s wealth was seized, or confiscated, as he had written in a letter titled “My Petition to the State, Nation, Parliament, and Soldiers.” In this chapter, I have worked on the plunder in the Yıldız Palace; seizure of his real estate left to the use of Ministry of Finance as a guarantee for a loan in his name; the forced donation of his money and shares in national and foreign banks to be used for the Second and Third Ottoman Armies; seizure of his money found in the Yıldız Palace; the auction of the jewelry found in the Yıldız Palace for the benefit of the Donanma-i Osmani İane-i Milliye Cemiyeti; and the story of the money and jewelry found in the Beylerbeyi Palace after his death.