The sudden debt crisis caught the Sultan Government completely off guard. Now that this debt claim had been transferred into Austrian hands, defaulting was no longer so simple.
To repay the money, they first had to have money. Clearly, after losing the Balkan Peninsula, the Sultan Government's finances had gone completely to ruin.
More than twenty-eight million Divine Shields amounted to over fourteen million pounds sterling, equivalent to 102.48 tons of gold. Add in all sorts of overdue fees, and that figure would rise further.
There was no doubt about it: even if they sold the pots and melted down the iron, the Sultan Government could not produce such an enormous sum.
Unless the Vienna Government was willing to accept paper currency, not even France and the United Kingdom could lend them that much gold to plug the hole.
Abdulmejid I said with a dark expression, "The Austrians are extorting us. We absolutely cannot let their scheme succeed!"
Everyone lowered their heads, doing their utmost to make themselves less noticeable so they would not be caught in the crossfire. There was precedent for this. In the previous administration, half the ministers had lost their heads.
Do not be misled by later generations' favorable assessment of Abdulmejid I's reforms. At heart, he was still a feudal monarch. The blame for the defeat in the Near East War and the loss of Constantinople had fallen upon those unlucky men from the previous administration, who were then stripped of their property and exterminated.
This was also one of the triggers for the outbreak of civil war. Before a ruler like this, one could not afford to be anything but cautious. It was a fine tradition of the Ottoman Empire, barbarism handed down from their ancestors.
Abdulmejid I rebuked them unhappily, "Why has everyone