Sultan Abdülaziz: His Reign, His Fleet and How It Ended
Abdülaziz ruled the Ottoman Empire from 1861 to 1876: railways, 20 ironclads, a journey to Europe, and why his death is still debated.
Table of Contents
Abdülaziz (1830–1876) was the Ottoman sultan from 25 June 1861 to 30 May 1876. In his reign the navy grew to 20 ironclads, the railways nearly tripled and the sultan himself travelled to Paris and London. He was deposed in 1876 and found dead at Feriye Palace on 4 June. How he died is still debated.
The short version
A sultan of ironclads and railways, and a death that is still debated.
- Reign: 25 June 1861 to 30 May 1876, from the death of his brother Abdülmecid to his deposition.
- Born: in the night of 7 to 8 February 1830, a son of Mahmud II.
- Fleet: 20 ironclads (warships plated with iron) at the end of his reign.
- Railways: from 452 to 1,344 km in his time.
- Europe, 1867: the first Ottoman sultan to travel to Western Europe other than on a campaign, away from 21 June to 7 August.
- His end: deposed on 30 May 1876, found dead on 4 June. The cause is still debated.
The Bosphorus palaces
Tap a palace on the shore
Five palaces on the two shores of the Bosphorus mark his reign and his last days. Tap one to see it with its dates, or follow the days from 29 May to 4 June 1876.
European shore
towards the Black Sea →
Asian shore
Topkapı Palace from the water. Photo: Gryffindor, August 2007, cropped; public domain, file page. Topkapı Palace
After his deposition he was taken from Dolmabahçe Palace to Topkapı. The rooms set aside for him were those of Selim III.
Source: the Turkish Religious Foundation’s encyclopedia, entry “Abdülaziz”.
Dolmabahçe Palace from the water. Photo: Mike Peel, 4 May 2025, cropped; CC BY-SA 4.0, file page. Dolmabahçe Palace
Abdülaziz was the second of the six sultans who lived in Dolmabahçe Palace.
The palace was surrounded by land and sea, and no one could go in or out.
Source: the Turkish Religious Foundation’s encyclopedia, entry “Murad V”.
Çırağan Palace from the Bosphorus. Photo: Wolfgang Moroder, 19 April 2014; CC BY-SA 3.0, file page. Çırağan Palace
He had it built on the shore between Beşiktaş and Ortaköy. It cost 4 to 5 million gold. He moved in, left a few months later because he found it damp, and went back to Dolmabahçe.
Source: the Turkish Religious Foundation’s encyclopedia, entries “Çırağan Sahilsarayı” and “Abdülaziz”.
The Ortaköy shore, with the buildings of Galatasaray University, seen from the sea. Photo: Helge Høifødt, 18 October 2012, cropped; CC BY-SA 3.0, file page. Feriye palaces (Ortaköy side)
At his own request he moved here from Topkapı. The Feriye palaces are buildings of the Çırağan complex.
Source: the Turkish Religious Foundation’s encyclopedia, entries “Abdülaziz” and “Çırağan Sahilsarayı”.
He was found dead in his rooms.
Source: the Turkish Religious Foundation’s encyclopedia, entry “Murad V”.
Beylerbeyi Palace on the Asian shore. Photo: Eusebius, 26 April 2011, cropped; CC BY 3.0, file page. Beylerbeyi Palace
After the wooden palace on the site burned, he had this one built. It cost about 500,000 Ottoman lira. He drew sea and ship designs for the painters of its ceilings.
Source: Türkiye Culture Portal, Beylerbeyi; Directorate of National Palaces, Beylerbeyi.
A prince who wrestled and composed 1830 to 1861
Abdülaziz was born in the night of 7 to 8 February 1830. His father was Sultan Mahmud II, his mother Pertevniyal Valide Sultan (valide sultan is the title of a sultan’s mother), and his brother Abdülmecid was sultan before him. He studied Arabic and the religious sciences, and took music lessons from Yusuf Pasha, a ney player and composer.
- Sport
- At his kiosk at Kurbağalıdere he hunted, wrestled, swam and threw the javelin. He is said to have wrestled the leading wrestlers and put them on their backs.
- Music
- He played the ney (a reed flute) and the lute, and he composed. A dance piece (a sirto) and two songs survive.
- Art
- He painted in his free time. His inscriptions, one of them in the Aksaray Valide Mosque, show a good hand in the large script called celî sülüs.
- Ships
- He drew the plans of the ships ordered for the navy himself.
- Habits
- He read the Quran every morning. In the palace he dressed plainly and wore slippers and a robe.
He became sultan at 31. His brother died, and Abdülaziz took the throne on 25 June 1861.
Sources: the Turkish Religious Foundation’s encyclopedia, entry “Abdülaziz”; Turkish Historical Society, “Osmanlı Padişahları”.
What he inherited in 1861
The treasury was in crisis, and the revolt in Montenegro was turning into a war. A few days after he came to the throne, a decree said the Tanzimat (the reform programme of the time) would go on and left the old government in office. At first he even agreed to cut his own allowance and the cost of the palace.
Âli and Fuad Pashas
Until Âli Pasha died in 1871, the government stayed in the hands of Âli and Fuad Pashas.
Mahmud Nedim and Midhat
In the second half of the reign Mahmud Nedim and Midhat Pashas had the most say.
An army against Russia
He saw the empire’s future in a strong army against Russia, and spent millions from his own allowance and from borrowing.
Sources: the Turkish Religious Foundation’s encyclopedia, entry “Abdülaziz”.
Laws, schools and a council 1863 to 1873
Between 1863 and 1873 the state gained a bank, a provincial law, a council and a row of new schools.
Money
The Ottoman Bank is allowed. Until 1930 it did the work of a central bank in Türkiye.
Law
The first provincial (vilayet) law is issued.
School
The first civil medical school opens.
Press
A decree counted as the first censorship regulation is published. Some critics of the government, later known as the Young Ottomans, then leave for Europe.
Law
The Council of State opens at the Sublime Porte, with a ceremony at which the grand vizier reads the sultan’s speech.
School
Galatasaray opens as the Mekteb-i Sultani, teaching entirely on the French system.
School
A new education regulation makes primary teaching compulsory.
School
The Darülfünun, Istanbul’s house of higher learning, opens. Abdülaziz closes it near the end of 1871; it reopens in 1874.
School
The first girls’ teacher-training school, the Dârülmuallimât, opens.
School
Dârüşşafaka, a school for orphans built with 35,000 gold given first of all by Abdülaziz, starts teaching at high-school level.
A building of his reign
He also had the War Ministry building put up. Today it is used by Istanbul University.
Sources: the Turkish Religious Foundation’s encyclopedia, entry “Abdülaziz”.
Rails, wires and ferries 1864 to 1874
Railways, telegraph lines, a tunnel and a ferry company changed how people and news moved.
452 to 1,344 km
The rail network grew from 452 to 1,344 km in his time. A line of 99 km from Haydarpaşa to İzmit opened in 1873.
As far as Sofia
A concession for a 2,000 km line to connect Istanbul with Paris went to the Austrian Baron Hirsch. The part as far as Sofia opened in 1874.
76 centres in 1864
By the end of the reign the whole empire was tied together by the telegraph network.
Tunnel, ferries, fire brigade
The Galata Tunnel opened in 1874, the year a Hungarian expert was given the job of setting up the city’s fire brigade. The Şirket-i Hayriye company received the concession for Bosphorus ferries.
“Let the railway pass, even if it passes over my back.”
Abdülaziz, when a line through the palace garden drew objections. Sources: the Turkish Religious Foundation’s encyclopedia, entry “Abdülaziz”.
The fleet ironclads bought abroad
He wanted a navy to match Britain’s and France’s, and spent beyond the budget on it. Ironclads that the home dockyards could not build were bought abroad. The British officer Hobart Pasha was put at the naval school, and a Navy Ministry was founded.
- Ironclads
- 20
- Sailing ships of the line (kalyon)
- 4
- Frigates
- 5
- Corvettes
- 7
- Transports
- 43
Rankings put the fleet third in the world; one historian calls it second. It had many ships, but too few trained officers and technicians.
Sources: the Turkish Religious Foundation’s encyclopedia, entry “Abdülaziz”; Beşirli, journal article on the Ottoman navy (2004).
Two journeys Egypt in 1863, Europe in 1867
In April 1863 he visited Egypt, then an Ottoman province. In 1867 he travelled much further.
- 21 June 1867He leaves Istanbul for Europe.
- ParisNapoleon III invited him to the opening of the international exhibition.
- LondonQueen Victoria invited him. The Lord Mayor’s reception for him at the Guildhall was on 18 July.
- 7 August 1867After Belgium, Prussia and Austria, he is back in Istanbul.
“The only Ottoman sultan to go abroad as a traveller, and the first caliph to go to the Christian world as a friend.”
The encyclopedia’s words on the 1867 journey. Source: the Turkish Religious Foundation’s encyclopedia, entry “Abdülaziz”.
Palaces and the bill Beylerbeyi, Çırağan and a debt
He lived at Dolmabahçe and had two palaces put up on the Bosphorus: Beylerbeyi on the Asian shore and Çırağan on the European one, which cost about 4 to 5 million gold.
The state’s debt
Debt of 200 million gold, 14 million a year to pay.
The 1875 budget ended 5 million gold short, and nothing more could be borrowed. A decree of 6 October 1875 halved the yearly payment for five years and offered 5 % bonds instead. In Europe, holders of Ottoman bonds demonstrated outside the Ottoman embassies.
Where he lived
Dolmabahçe Palace was the home of six sultans from 1856 to 1922; Abdülaziz was the second.
Sources: the Turkish Religious Foundation’s encyclopedia, entry “Abdülaziz”; Directorate of National Palaces, Dolmabahçe.
1876 students, a new cabinet and a night in May
Within three weeks in May 1876, a student boycott became a change of government and then a deposition.
- 10 MayStudents of the Fatih, Bayezid and Süleymaniye madrasas (religious schools) boycott their lessons and begin demonstrations.
- 12 MayHe names a new grand vizier, Mütercim Rüşdü Pasha, a new şeyhülislam (the head of the religious scholars) and a new minister of war. The demonstrations end.
- 26 MayCommanders meet at Hüseyin Avni Pasha’s waterside house at Paşalimanı and go over the plan to depose him. They choose 31 May, then move it to 30 May.
- 29–30 MayDolmabahçe Palace is surrounded by land and sea. Hüseyin Avni Pasha brings the heir, Abdülaziz’s nephew Murad, to the Serasker Gate at Beyazıt, where he is sworn in as Murad V.
The short reign of Murad V has its own page.
Sources: the Turkish Religious Foundation’s encyclopedia, entries “Abdülaziz” and “Murad V”.
His last days and two records of his death
He spent the days between the deposition and 4 June in two palaces.
Topkapı
He is taken to Topkapı Palace, where the rooms of Selim III have been set aside for him. “They want to finish me here too, like my uncle Sultan Selim,” he says.
Feriye
At his own request he is moved to the Feriye palaces.
Feriye
He is found in his room with the veins of his wrists cut.
Press
A newspaper announces his death as a suicide. Other newspapers write the same.
A board of 19 doctors
A board of 19 doctors, among them physicians of the foreign embassies, was named to examine the body. Marko Pasha and some others did not take part, and the minister of war Hüseyin Avni Pasha did not allow a thorough examination. The report was vague: it said the scissors shown to the doctors could have caused the wounds.
A tent at Yıldız
Three men, among them a palace chamberlain and a judge, gave Abdülhamid II a petition saying Abdülaziz had been killed. An inquiry reached the same view, and a special court sat in a tent in the grounds of Yıldız Palace from 27 June 1881: six sittings in three days. It sentenced Midhat Pasha and others to death as accomplices; Abdülhamid II turned the sentences into life terms, served at Taif. The entry on Midhat Pasha says the judges had been chosen from his opponents.
Historians still disagree on whether it was suicide or murder.
Where he lies
His body was taken to Topkapı, washed and buried in the tomb of Mahmud II.
Sources: the Turkish Religious Foundation’s encyclopedia, entries “Abdülaziz”, “Midhat Paşa”, “Murad V” and “Hüseyin Avni Paşa”.
After him what stayed
His nephew Murad V reigned for 93 days; on 31 August 1876 Murad’s brother Abdülhamid II took the throne.
- His son
- Yusuf İzzeddin was heir to the throne when Mehmed V Reşad became sultan in 1909.
- Beylerbeyi
- The palace served as a summer palace and a guesthouse for state visitors. Empress Eugénie of France was its first important guest, in return for his visit to France; Emperor Franz Joseph came in 1869 and Prince Nikola of Montenegro in 1874.
- Çırağan
- After his deposition Murad V was allowed to live at Çırağan. He spent twenty-eight years there under guard and died on 29 August 1904.
Sources: the Turkish Religious Foundation’s encyclopedia, entry “Murad V”; Turkish Historical Society, “Osmanlı Padişahları”; Türkiye Culture Portal, Beylerbeyi; Directorate of National Palaces, Beylerbeyi.
Common questions
Who was Sultan Abdülaziz?
The Ottoman sultan from 25 June 1861 to 30 May 1876. He was born in 1830, a son of Mahmud II and a brother of Abdülmecid, and was deposed in 1876. His nephew Murad V followed him.
How long did he reign?
From 25 June 1861 to 30 May 1876: just under fifteen years.
Why was he deposed?
The state was deep in debt, and students demonstrated in May 1876. Commanders around the minister of war, Hüseyin Avni Pasha, planned his removal and carried it out in the night of 29 to 30 May 1876.
How did he die?
He was found dead in his room at Feriye on 4 June 1876, five days after the deposition. A newspaper called it a suicide on 6 June; a court of 1881 treated it as murder. Historians still disagree on whether it was suicide or murder.
Where is he buried?
In the tomb of Mahmud II in Istanbul.
Was he the first sultan to visit Europe?
He was the first Ottoman sultan to travel to Western Europe other than on a campaign. His journey lasted from 21 June to 7 August 1867 and took him to France, Britain, Belgium, Prussia and Austria.
How big was his navy?
At the end of his reign it had 20 ironclads, 4 sailing ships of the line, 5 frigates, 7 corvettes and 43 transports. Rankings put it third in the world.
Which palaces did he build?
Beylerbeyi (1863 to 1865) and Çırağan (1863 to 1871). He also had the War Ministry building put up, today used by Istanbul University.
Was Murad V his nephew?
Yes. Murad V was a son of Abdülaziz’s brother Abdülmecid. He took the throne on 30 May 1876; his page tells his story.
What did his reign change?
Railways grew from 452 to 1,344 km, the telegraph tied the whole empire together, the Council of State opened in 1868 and primary teaching became compulsory in 1869.
Was he a musician?
Yes. He played the ney and the lute and composed. A dance piece and two songs survive.
How large was the state’s debt?
In his time the debt reached 200 million gold, with 14 million paid each year. In 1875 a decree halved the payments for five years.
Sources
All sources were checked on 22 and 23 October 2026.
See the sources
- ABDÜLAZİZ, by Cevdet Küçük (volume 1, pages 179–185) — Encyclopedia of the Turkish Religious Foundation (İslâm Ansiklopedisi), checked on 22 October 2026
- ÇIRAĞAN SAHİLSARAYI, by Selda Kalfazade (volume 8, pages 304–306) — Encyclopedia of the Turkish Religious Foundation (İslâm Ansiklopedisi), checked on 22 October 2026
- MİDHAT PAŞA, by Gökhan Çetinsaya and Ş. Tufan Buzpınar (volume 30, pages 7–11) — Encyclopedia of the Turkish Religious Foundation (İslâm Ansiklopedisi), checked on 22 October 2026
- HÜSEYİN AVNİ PAŞA, by Ali İhsan Gencer (volume 18, pages 526–527) — Encyclopedia of the Turkish Religious Foundation (İslâm Ansiklopedisi), checked on 22 October 2026
- MURAD V, by Cevdet Küçük (volume 31, pages 183–185) — Encyclopedia of the Turkish Religious Foundation (İslâm Ansiklopedisi), checked on 22 October 2026
- Osmanlı Padişahları (the Ottoman sultans) — Turkish Historical Society (Türk Tarih Kurumu), checked on 22 October 2026
- Dolmabahçe Sarayı — Directorate of National Palaces (Milli Saraylar), checked on 22 October 2026
- Beylerbeyi Sarayı — Directorate of National Palaces (Milli Saraylar), checked on 23 October 2026
- Beylerbeyi Sarayı — Türkiye Culture Portal (Kültür Portalı), Ministry of Culture and Tourism, checked on 23 October 2026
- Mehmet Beşirli, “Sultan Abdülaziz’den Birinci Dünya Savaşı’na Osmanlı Donanması”, Ankara University Türkiyat Araştırmaları Enstitüsü Dergisi 25 (2004) — DergiPark, the national portal of academic journals, checked on 23 October 2026
Pictures: photographs of Wikimedia Commons, credited under each picture with author, licence and file page.
