Istanbul, February 1908
The city glowed with a thousand lamps, their light no longer a novelty but a fact of life. The Bosphorus bristled with ships that hissed and steamed, their engines powered not by foreign coal but by oil from Mesopotamia and beyond. The railways pulsed like arteries, carrying men, goods, and messages across the empire faster than any age before had imagined. Yet Abdulhamid, standing on the balcony of Yıldız Palace with the cold wind on his face, thought not of steel nor oil. He thought of authority.
For ten years he had rebuilt the empire with smoke and wires. Now he sought to bind it in a web no blade could cut: central power. The old provincial lords, the ayans and beys, had ruled their domains like petty kings. Governors had once acted as intermediaries, collecting taxes as they pleased and sending only what scraps remained to Istanbul. No more. By 1908, the empire's veins carried not just trains but control. The Ministry of Finance collected taxes directly through its agents. Schools answered not to local clergy but to the Ministry of Education. Judges delivered verdicts in Turkish, not in Arabic, Greek, or Armenian. Slowly, inexorably, the provinces became limbs of a single body, and the head was Istanbul.
The Sultan did not attempt this transformation alone. In the council chamber, the men once called the Young Turks now filled the benches as ministers, engineers, officers. Talented, restless, and often rebellious in another history, they had been drawn into Abdulhamid's embrace early on, offered position and purpose. Now they worked as the Sultan's loyal administrators, shaping bureaucracy with fervor. They argued, they debated, they sometimes protested—but always within the framework Abdulhamid had built. They were no longer conspirators in exile but builders of the new state.
Selim entered the chamber that morning with a thick bundle of reports. His face was grave, but his eyes gleamed with satisfaction. He laid them before the Sultan and spoke.
"Majesty, the consolidation proceeds. The new census is complete. Every household in Anatolia, Mesopotamia, and Arabia is now registered. Births and deaths are recorded. Taxes flow directly to the capital. Even in the eastern provinces, we have men filing reports in Turkish script."
Abdulhamid leafed through the pages. Neat columns of names, numbers, statistics. Not the chaos of old records, but the order of a modern state. "Good," he murmured. "A state that does not know its people is no state at all. Now we know every family, every child, every field. And what we know, we can shape."
Selim's voice lowered. "There is resistance. Some elders in Arabia refuse the census. They see it as chains."
"Then break them," the Sultan said flatly. "We will not be governed by tribes. Arabia must learn it is not a wilderness of clans, but a province of empire."
As he spoke, cannon fire echoed faintly from the harbor. The navy had begun exercises, their new dreadnoughts fitted with wireless receivers. Abdulhamid listened to the thunder and smiled. He remembered a different future, when Arabs had risen in revolt, fueled by foreign whispers, and the empire had splintered. Not this time. This time, he would strangle rebellion before it was born.
In the spring, he rode by train through Anatolia, surrounded by guards, Crescent Eyes, and ministers. At each station, he was greeted not by provincial rulers but by schoolchildren singing in Turkish, by factory workers waving flags, by teachers presenting students fluent in both scripture and science. The Sultan walked among them with measured steps, his eyes scanning every detail. Here was his victory—not on battlefields, but in classrooms and workshops.
At Konya, he visited a new military academy where cadets drilled in unison, their rifles gleaming, their orders shouted in Turkish. An officer saluted him and reported proudly, "Majesty, our men are trained with modern tactics, not just bravery. They march to railroads and fight with engines at their backs."
The Sultan nodded. "Bravery without science is a candle in the wind. Bravery with science is fire unquenchable. Remember that."
The journey continued into Mesopotamia. Baghdad rose before him, not the half-forgotten city of ruin he remembered from his first life, but a hub of oil and rails. Pipelines glistened in the sun. Refineries belched smoke. Schools stood tall beside mosques. In the marketplaces, merchants spoke Turkish to officials without hesitation. Crescent Eyes whispered that British gold still trickled into the tribes, that agitators preached rebellion in the desert, but their whispers faded against the sight of oil-fed locomotives and radio towers blinking on the horizon.
At Basra, he inspected the navy's new wireless station. Engineers demonstrated how a signal from Istanbul could be received within seconds, carrying not only Morse code but words. Abdulhamid listened as a voice from the capital reached his ears, faint but clear: "Long live the Sultan." He turned to the assembled officers and said, "This is the empire's voice. So long as we can speak across desert and sea, no enemy can divide us."
In June, he returned to Istanbul to convene the Imperial Council. The ministers presented their reports in sequence: industry up, rail mileage doubled, literacy climbing, birthrates swelling. Assimilation had advanced so far that in the Balkans, children scolded their parents for speaking Greek or Albanian at home. In Mesopotamia, tribes that once resisted now sent their sons to military schools in Baghdad. Even in Arabia, cracks were forming in old resistance as stipends and schools seduced the young.
Yet amid triumph, there were shadows. Selim rose at the council's end, his voice low. "Majesty, our enemies are not silent. Britain continues to stir the tribes near the Gulf. France presses Catholic schools in Syria. Russia whispers in the Caucasus and watches Central Asia with blood in its eyes. They know we grow stronger. They fear us."
The Sultan's eyes narrowed. "Good. Let them fear. Fear is the respect of the weak for the strong. But we must not grow complacent. The day will come when they no longer whisper, but roar. When they no longer bribe, but invade. And when that day comes, we must already be iron."
He dismissed the council and walked alone through the halls of Yıldız, his footsteps echoing on the marble. In his heart, the memory of his first life smoldered. He saw trenches, barbed wire, firestorms that devoured cities. He remembered how the empire had stumbled into war unready, unarmed, divided. Not this time. This time, when the war came—and he knew it would come—the empire would meet it not as prey, but as predator.
That night, from his balcony, he gazed at Istanbul. Chimneys smoked, radio towers blinked, ships glowed on the water. The empire was no longer the Sick Man. It was a colossus awakening, its muscles taut, its breath hot with steam and oil. And yet, Abdulhamid knew: the stronger the empire became, the harder Europe would strike. The storm was coming. He could feel it in his bones, as surely as he remembered it from the life before.