fox. He had a brain that was absolutely impervious to large ideas: the
notion of consolidating and strengthening his Empire by ameliorating its
internal conditions, by bringing it within speaking distance of the
influence of civilisation and progress, by taking advantage of and
developing its immense natural resources, by employing the brains and
the industry of his subject races, seems never to have entered his head.
He could easily have done all this: there was not a Power in Europe that
would not have lent him a helping hand in development and reform, in the
establishment of a solvent state, in aiding the condition of the peoples
over whom he ruled. In whatever he did, provided that it furthered the
welfare of his subjects, whether Turk, Armenian, or Arab, the whole
Concert of Europe would have provided him with cash, with missionaries,
with engineers, and all the resources of the arts and sciences of peace
and of progress. But being a felon, with crime and cunning to take the
place of wisdom, he preferred to develop his Empire on his own original
lines. In Europe he was but suffered to exist. There remained Asia.

The policy of previous Osmanli rulers has already been roughly defined.
They strengthened themselves and the military Turkish despotism round
them by absorbing the manhood of the tribes over which they had obtained
dominion. Abdul Hamid reversed that policy; he strengthened the Turkish
supremacy, not by drawing into it the manhood of his subject peoples,
but by destroying that manhood. In proportion, so his foxlike brain
reasoned, as his alien subjects were weak, so were the Turks strong. A
consistent weakening of alien nations would strengthen the hold of those
who governed the Ottoman Empire. It was as if a man suffered from gout
in his foot: he could get rid of the gout by wholesome living, the
result of which would be that his foot ceased to trouble him. But the
plan which he adopted was to cause his foot to mortify by process of
inhuman savagery. When it was dead it would trouble him no longer.