Turks had deliberately abstained from violent action. They had, in fact, learned from events in Russia and Poland that sporadic outbreaks on a small scale would inevitably discredit their cause, and that a successful revolution would require the support of the army. To gain this, an extensive propaganda was carried on by secret agents, many of whom were officers. At the beginning of 1908 a favourable opportunity for action arrived. The Ottoman troops in Arabia were mutinous and unpaid; the Albanians, long the mainstay of Turkish military power in the west, had been irritated by unpopular taxes and by the repressive edicts which deprived them of schools and a printing-press; foreign interference in Crete and Macedonia was resented by patriotic Moslems throughout the empire. In these circumstances the headquarters of the Young Turks were transferred from Paris to Salonica, where a central body, known as the committee of union and progress, was established (1908) to organize the revolution. Most of its members were military officers, prominent among them being Majors Enver Bey and Niazi Bey, who directed the propaganda in Albania and Macedonia. By midsummer the Albanian leaders and the greater part of the Turkish army in Europe had sworn fidelity to the constitution.
On the 25th of May an insurrection broke out in Samos, owing to a dispute between the Samian Assembly and Kopassis Effendi, “prince,” or governor of the island. After the port of Vathy had been bombarded by Ottoman war-ships the revolt was easily crushed.
This affair however was of little more than local importance, and the Young Turks were not directly concerned in it. They The Revolution of 1908. struck their first blow on the 22nd of July 1908, when Niazi Bey and his troops raised the standard of revolt at Resna, a town on the road from Monastir to Ochrida. On the 23rd the committee of union and progress, under the presidency of Enver Bey, proclaimed the constitution in Salonica, while the second and third army corps threatened to march on Constantinople if the sultan refused to obey the proclamation. On the 24th the sultan yielded, and issued an iradē, restoring the constitution of 1876, and ordering the election of a chamber of deputies. Various other reforms, notably the abolition of the spy system and the censorship, were announced soon afterwards. Some of the more unpopular officials associated with the old régime were assassinated, among them Fehim Pasha, the former head of the espionage department, who had been exiled to Brusa in 1907 at the request of the British and German ambassadors. Otherwise the revolution was effected almost without bloodshed; for a time the insurgent bands disappeared in Macedonia, and the rival “nationalities”—Greek, Albanian, Turk, Armenian, Servian, Bulgarian and Jew—worked harmoniously together for the furtherance of common constitutional aims. On the 6th of August Kiamil Pasha, an advanced Liberal, became grand vizier, and a new cabinet was formed, including a Greek, Prince Mavrocordato, an Armenian, Noradounghian, and the Sheikh-ul-Islam.
The success of the Young Turks created a serious situation for the statesmen of Austria-Hungary and Bulgaria. A regenerated Bosnia and Bulgaria. Ottoman Empire might in time be strong enough to demand the evacuation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, and to maintain or extend the nominal suzerainty over Bulgaria which the sultan had exercised since 1878. Accordingly, at the beginning of October 1908, the emperor Francis Joseph informed the powers signatory to the treaty of Berlin that the annexation of Bosnia and Herzegovina to the Dual Monarchy had become necessary, and this decision was formally announced in an imperial rescript dated the 7th of October. The independence of Bulgaria was proclaimed on the 5th. The Ottoman government protested to the powers, but it wisely limited its demands to a claim for compensation. Austria-Hungary had from the first undertaken to withdraw its garrisons from the sanjak of Novibazar—an important concession; after prolonged negotiations and a boycott of all Austrian goods exported to Turkey, it also agreed to pay £2,200,000 as compensation for the Turkish crown lands seized in Bosnia and Herzegovina. This arrangement was sanctioned by the Ottoman parliament, which assented to the annexation on the 6th of April 1909 and recognized the independence of Bulgaria on the 19th of April, the Russian government having enabled Bulgaria to pay the indemnity claimed by Turkey on account of the Eastern Rumelian tribute and railways (see Bulgaria: History). On the 3rd of February 1910 the Porte accepted a Bulgarian proposal for a mixed commission to delimit disputed sections of the Turco-Bulgarian frontier, and in March King Ferdinand visited Constantinople.
Meanwhile the Young Turks were confronted with many difficulties within the empire. After the first fervour of enthusiasm The Reaction in the Provinces. had subsided the Christian nationalities in Macedonia resumed their old attitude of mutual jealousy, the insurgent bands began to reappear, and the government was in 1909–1910 forced to undertake the disarmament of the whole civil population of the three vilayets. In Albania serious discontent, resulting in an insurrection (May-September 1909), was caused by the political rivalry between Greeks and Albanians and the unwillingness of the Moslem tribesmen to pay taxes or to keep the peace with their neighbours, the Macedonian Serbs. In Asia Minor the Kurdish troops under Ibrahim Pasha revolted, and, although they were defeated with the loss of their commander, the Kurds continued to attack indiscriminately the Turks, Nestorians and Armenians; disturbances also broke out among the other reactionary Moslems of this region, culminating in a massacre of the Armenians at Adana. In Arabia Ratib Pasha, the Turkish commander-in-chief, joined the enemies of the new régime; he was defeated and captured in the autumn of 1908, but in the following year frequent raids upon the Hejaz railway were made by Bedouin tribesmen, while a Mahdist rebellion broke out and was crushed in Yemen.
More serious than any of these local disturbances was the counter-revolution in Constantinople itself, which began with The Constantinople Counter-revolution. the revolt of Kiamil Pasha, the grand vizier, against the authority of the committee of union and progress. Kiamil Pasha was forced to resign (Feb. 14, 1909) and was succeeded by Hilmi Pasha, ex-high commissioner of Macedonia. Strife then arose between the committee and the Liberal Union, a body which mainly represented the Christian electorate, and on the 5th of April Hassan Fehmi Effendi, who edited the Serbesti, the official organ of the union, was assassinated. He was an Albanian, and his fellow countrymen in the Constantinople garrison at once made common cause with the opponents of the committee. Mutinous troops seized the parliament house and the telegraph offices; the grand vizier resigned and was succeeded by Tewfik Pasha (April 14); and delegates were sent by the Liberal Union, the association of Ulema and other bodies to discuss terms with the committee. But Abd-ul-Hamid had issued a free pardon to the mutineers, and the committee had now decided that the new régime would never be secure while the sovereign favoured reaction. They refused to treat with the delegates, and despatched 25,000 men under Mahmud Shevket to Constantinople.
The senate and chamber met at San Stefano, and, sitting jointly as a National Assembly, issued a proclamation in favour The New Régime. of the committee and its army (April 22, 1909), by which Constantinople was now invested. Part of the garrison remained loyal to the sultan, but after five hours of severe fighting Shevket Pasha was able to occupy the capital (April 25). The National Assembly met in secret session two days later, voted unanimously for the deposition of Abd-ul-Hamid II., and chose his younger brother Mahommed Reshad Effendi (b. Nov. 3, 1844) as his successor, with the style of Mahommed V. Abd-ul-Hamid II. was removed to Salonica on the 28th, and on the 10th of May the new sultan was formally invested with the sword of Osman. Hilmi Pasha again became grand vizier, but resigned on the 28th of December 1909, when he was succeeded by Hakki Bey. On the 5th of August 1909 the new constitution described above was
