2-982-140 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

The Assassinations at Constantinople: Midhat Pasha, Minister without Portfolio, 1876. Engraving from a photograph by Abdullah Freres. 'Another shocking crime has taken place in the seat of Government at Constantinople...while the Ministers of State forming the new Sultan's Government were sitting together in the Council-Chamber, a person named Hassan, who had been an officer in the army, forced his entrance into the room and killed Hussein Avni Pasha, the Minister of War, with a shot from a revolver. The others attempting to seize him, he shot dead the Minister for Foreign Affairs, Mohammed Raschid Pasha...Midhat Pasha, Minister without portfolio, was the principal originator or instigator of the project for the dethronement of the late Sultan. He is considered to be the ablest Turkish Minister at the present day. He has been Governor of Bulgaria, and...of the province of Bagdad...'. From "Illustrated London News", 1876.