Autumn, 1910 — Yıldız Palace, Istanbul
The chill of autumn crept into the capital, but inside the palace, the air pulsed with quiet intensity. The empire was no longer building; it was consolidating, sharpening, preparing. For months, the Sultan had buried himself in reports — tables of rail capacities, inventories of coal and oil, wireless coverage maps, lists of officers trained in logistics, and dossiers stamped with the crescent seal of Crescent Eyes. Every figure, every page, was a pulse of the empire's new anatomy.
Four years. That number beat in Abdulhamid's mind like a clock hidden behind his thoughts. Four years until Europe consumed itself in a storm that would drag every empire into the fire. He had lived it once — the mud, the poison, the trenches. This time, he would meet it armored in foresight.
Selim entered, boots clicking softly on marble, carrying a packet bound in red ribbon. His face was composed, but his voice was taut.
"Majesty, our watchers in Paris and London confirm it: discussions are no longer speculative. The Entente is forming, and our name sits on every agenda. They prepare to contain us, perhaps to break us."
Abdulhamid's hands rested on the table. "Then we give them something harder than bone to break."
Crescent Eyes had already begun the work. No Ottoman scientist or diplomat was sent abroad; instead, the shadows of the empire moved outward — not men of prominence, but merchants, clerks, shipfitters, and pilgrims. They traded, prayed, worked, and listened. The Sultan's web stretched across ports and capitals, gathering threads of rumor and coded documents that painted a simple truth: Europe was watching, jealous and fearful. The Ottomans had climbed too far, too fast.
In the war rooms beneath Yıldız, Abdulhamid gathered his generals and ministers for a meeting that would set the rhythm of the next decade. On the great map of the empire, the red lines of the railways glittered beneath lamplight like veins beneath skin. Oil depots dotted the landscape from Mosul to Izmit. Wireless towers ringed the coasts.
"Our empire must live as a single organism," he said. "Every factory, every farm, every school must know its place in war as it does in peace. If one arm fails, another will move. If one heart falters, another will beat. There will be no panic when war comes, only motion."
Logistics drills expanded across the provinces. In Anatolia, supply trains rehearsed night movements with blacked-out lamps. In Mesopotamia, oil convoys were escorted by cavalry detachments trained to guard the refineries. At sea, the navy practiced refueling maneuvers using the empire's own oil, hauled by Ottoman-built tankers. Not a drop of British fuel touched their holds.
Factories in Izmit and Konya shifted into silent reserve production — half their work hidden behind civilian orders. Ammunition boxes were stamped with false trade labels; medical wagons bore the insignia of agricultural transport. Even the state accountants were trained to mask wartime expenditures behind civilian codes. The empire was learning the art of modern war: to fight before the fighting began.
But it was not only the machines that needed tempering. The people themselves had to be hardened into a single will. In the provinces, Abdulhamid's edicts arrived printed in Turkish and carried by clerics and teachers alike. They spoke not of conquest, but of vigilance. Every man was told that his labor — be it in factory or field — was a service to Allah and the empire alike. Every woman who worked a loom or bore a child was a soldier in spirit.
It was a new kind of faith — not one that replaced religion, but one that bound religion to duty. "Work is prayer," read the banners hung above schools and train stations. "Steel is faith. Unity is victory."
Crescent Eyes enforced the discipline behind those slogans with ruthless efficiency. The last remnants of sedition, smoldering among exiled circles in Europe, were quietly extinguished. Newspapers that hinted at "constitutional limits" or "local rights" found themselves edited, their editors replaced with patriots loyal to the cause. The Young Turks, once a threat, were now civil servants and industrial administrators. Ambition had been converted into loyalty.
And beneath it all, the shadows moved — quietly, efficiently. Crescent Eyes had evolved from spies into strategists. They no longer merely reported threats; they created illusions. Forged letters between Entente officers circulated in European capitals, sowing mistrust between allies. Ottoman agents bribed Italian brokers to overstate shipbuilding costs to Britain, delaying naval contracts by months. Small disruptions, insignificant alone, became a fog of inefficiency that would cost the Entente dearly in time.
One evening, Selim brought word of something darker.
"Majesty," he said softly, "our contacts in Rome have uncovered evidence of private correspondence. Certain Italian ministers have promised the British that, should war come, Italy will side with them — in exchange for colonies, and perhaps a share of our own coasts."
Abdulhamid's gaze hardened. For a long moment, he said nothing. He had expected Europe's hostility, but betrayal from supposed neutrals was the venom he had feared most. He opened the letter and read the Italian minister's handwriting, calm and elegant even in treachery.
"They sell promises like bread," he murmured. "And call it diplomacy."
He looked up at Selim. "We will not beg. We will make betrayal unprofitable."
Over the next weeks, Ottoman trade policy shifted subtly. Italian merchants were granted exclusive contracts for ship parts and engine casings — contracts lucrative enough to tie their economic fortunes to Istanbul. Italian shipyards received Ottoman orders for merchant hulls, on the condition that they build to Ottoman specifications and keep their plans in Istanbul's archives. By binding Italy's industrialists to Ottoman trade, Abdulhamid aimed to wrap iron chains of profit around their ambition. Betrayal would cost them gold, not just honor.
Meanwhile, coastal fortifications around Izmir, Gallipoli, and Basra were quietly expanded. Torpedo boats were hidden in coves, their crews drawn from local fishermen paid thrice their worth to maintain silence. The Hejaz Railway, already complete, began carrying military supplies under the guise of civilian freight. Every stretch of track had been surveyed for double use — to move pilgrims in peace, and divisions in war.
Abdulhamid's strategy was total: every system, from mosque to mine, from school to shipyard, became a thread in the web of readiness.
But even in the glow of discipline and purpose, there were nights when he felt the weight of his secret more than ever. He walked the palace gardens alone, listening to the rustle of the Bosphorus wind. No one around him knew what he carried in his mind — the vision of trenches, of airships, of empires burned by arrogance. He had lived the death of nations once; he would not live it again.
In those moments, he prayed not for victory, but for endurance. "Let the empire hold," he whispered. "Let these people never see the chaos I saw. If I must be the bridge between two centuries, let me bear the weight of both."
The following morning, Crescent Eyes brought him a coded message from Paris. It was a small thing — a summary of a dinner between French and British officers — but it carried words that would seal his suspicions. "The Turk cannot be allowed to rise again," one admiral had said. "Better to break him now than face him in ten years."
Abdulhamid's reply was as calm as the sea before a storm. "Then they shall meet the Turk not broken, but reborn."
He gathered his ministers, his generals, and Selim once more. "We will not accelerate war. But we will be ready when they do. The empire will breathe in discipline, and exhale in fire."
The hall fell silent. Outside, the muezzin's call rippled across the city, mingling with the hum of factories and the whistle of distant trains. Istanbul had become something new — half prayer, half engine.
That night, as he looked upon the lights of his capital, Abdulhamid whispered the same words he had once spoken to Selim years before:
"Steel and faith, Selim. That is what Allah asks of us. The rest is destiny."
And in the distance, over the sea of Europe, thunder rolled — the first echo of the storm to come.