Since the outbreak of the Near East War, the Ottoman Empire had moved its capital to Ankara. Compared with Constantinople, Ankara truly counted as a remote little town.
Located deep in the inland mountains, it had poor transportation links and a population of only several tens of thousands—not even half the size of the Ottoman Government's administrative staff. Its sole advantage was that it was easy to defend and hard to attack.
With safety first in mind, the Sultan Government had resolutely chosen this place. Poor transport links could be fixed by building railways, and Britain and France were both more than willing to help.
Despite undergoing modernization reforms, the Ottoman Empire had still failed to change its barbaric nature. After its defeat in the Near East War, the nobles whose interests had been harmed by Abdulmejid I's reforms launched a counterattack.
They denounced Abdulmejid I's reforms and advocated restoring the traditional feudal religious system, claiming that the reforms had left the Ottoman Empire vulnerable to a single blow.
Those were merely excuses on the surface. The deeper reason was that Ottoman nobles and bureaucrats in the Balkan Peninsula had lost everything and now wanted a share of the spoils in the Asia Minor Peninsula.
In a struggle for interests, neither side could afford to yield, so naturally there was no chance of reaching an agreement. The Vienna System had only just been reestablished; once their own security was assured, the two factions began fighting.
Thus far, the Reform Party led by Abdulmejid I still held the upper hand, though that advantage was also the result of outside forces.
As the saying went, the debtor was the master. The Sultan Government owed Britain and France a mountain of debt; if they were allowed to collapse, whether those debts could still