To Kill a Sultan: A Transnational History of the Attempt on Abdülhamid II (1905)

This book explores an event described by the Times as 'one of the greatest and most sensational political conspiracies of modern times'. On 21 July 1905, just after the Friday Prayer at the Yıldız Hamidiye Mosque in Istanbul, a car bomb exploded and left 26 dead with another 58 wounded. Sultan Abdülhamid II, the target of the attack, remained unscathed. The Ottoman police soon discovered that Armenian revolutionaries were behind the plot and several people were arrested and convicted, among them the Belgian anarchist Edward Joris. His incarceration sparked international reaction and created a diplomatic conflict. The assassination attempt failed, the events faded from memory, and the plot became a footnote in early twentieth-century history. This book rediscovers the conspiracy as a transnational moment in late Ottoman history, opening a window on key themes in modern history, such as international law, terrorism, Orientalism, diplomacy, anarchism, imperialism, nationalism, mass media and humanitarianism. It provides an original look on the many trans- and international links between the Ottoman Empire, Europe and the rest of the world at the start of the twentieth century. cdscds

Table of Contents:
1 INTRODUCTION: Anatomy of the Yıldız Bombing: Tracing the Global in the Particular; Houssine Alloul, Edhem Eldem, and Henk de Smaele.- 2 The Armenian Revolutionary Federation and Operation ‘Nejuik’; Gaïdz Minassian.- 3 Edward Joris: Caught between Continents and Ideologies?; Maarten Van Ginderachter.- 4 The Ottoman War on ‘Anarchism’ and Revolutionary Violence; Toygun Altıntaş.- 5 Belgium and the Hamidian Regime; Or, the Antinomies of Small State Diplomacy; Houssine Alloul.- 6 Extraterritorial Prosecution, the Late Capitulations, and the New International Lawyers; Will Hanley.- 7 Covering the Ottoman Empire: Orientalism and the Mass Media; Henk de Smaele.- 8 The ‘Jorisards’: Public Mobilization between Local Emotions and Universal Rights; Marnix Beyen.- 9 CONCLUSIONS: Ottoman Armenian Revolutionaries and the Dilemma of Deliverance through Violence;        İpek K. Yosmaoğul.- 10 EPILOGUE; Edhem Eldem.

About the Author :
Houssine Alloul holds a PhD in history and is currently a Research Associate at the University of Antwerp, Belgium, where he is also a member of Power in History: Centre for Political History (PoHis). His doctoral dissertation investigated the relations between Belgium and the Ottoman Empire, with a special focus on the intertwining of small power diplomacy, the global expansion of Belgian capital, and interculturality. His research interests include consular history, Orientalism(s), travel literature, modern finance capitalism, and Leopoldian colonialism. Edhem Eldem teaches history at Boğaziçi University, Istanbul, Turkey. He concentrates on nineteenth-century Ottoman social and cultural history, with particular emphasis on westernization and relations with Europe. Following publications on funerary epigraphy, trade, banking, urban development, and Orientalism, his current research focuses on archaeology, photography, visual culture, and first-person narratives. Henk de Smaele teaches modern cultural history at the University of Antwerp, Belgium, where he is connected to the research unit Power in History: Centre for Political History (PoHis). His current research includes the modern history of gender and sexuality, as well as the history of relations between Europe and the Middle East.

Review :
"Their study offers interesting insights in several different respects. ... the book invites reading from cover to cover. Historians of modern Belgium, of national movements, of international relations and of the Europeans left will all find useful material in this book. The volume serves as a model of how the writing of transnational history can be approached as a collaborative venture." (Daniel Laqua, Journal of Belgian History, Issue 4, 2021)