Abdul Hamud II

(1842-1918) The last Ottoman sultan. He succeeded his brother Murad V in 1876 and ruled autocratically until overthrown by Enver Pasha, leader of the revolutionary Young Turks, in 1908. He abdicated in 1909, reviled as Abdul the Damned. His policies led to war with Russia (1877-78) and to massacres of Turkey's Armenian minority (1894-96). He modernized the Turkish army, assisted by a German military mission.