_THE RISE OF THE YOUNG TURKS_
It is about forty years since one first heard of a Young Turk party.
Abd-ul-Aziz, having broken the early promises of his reign, had made
himself the absolute despot, and had crushed the liberalism that from
the time of Mahmud II had been gaining ground in Turkey. A number
of educated men then fled from the country to Paris and London,
and, calling themselves the “Young Turks,” started a movement whose
object it was to agitate for the introduction of reforms into the
government of their native land. Among them were men of great ability,
including the illustrious Kemal Bey; and all the Turkish literature
of that period that had any value was produced by this group of
“intellectuals.” They published a paper called the _Hurriet_, which is
the Turkish word for liberty, in which they exposed in an unsparing
fashion the corruption, incapacity, and lack of patriotism of the high
officials and advisers of the Sultan. The outspoken _Hurriet_ alarmed
the Palace, and was of course placed on the black list; but it was
smuggled into the country, exercised a great influence, and effected
its purpose of spreading antagonism to the existing state of things.
[Illustration: IMPERIAL PALACE OF THE SWEET WATERS OF ASIA]
Liberalism, as we have seen, waxed strong enough to have its way for
a short period in Turkey. Abd-ul-Aziz was deposed, and Midhat Pasha
and the patriotic statesmen who were his associates began to introduce
their reforms. Many of the Young Turks returned from Europe to support
the new Constitutional Government, some sitting in the short-lived
Parliament which the present Sultan opened on his accession to the
throne.
Those who loved Turkey thought that the day of her regeneration had
dawned at last; but the disillusionment soon came, for Abdul Hamid,
in the spring of 1878, dissolved the Parliament, suspended the
Constitution, and commenced his ruthless persecution of liberalism.
So the Young Turks were once again scattered over the face of the
earth; some were imprisoned; some were exiled to distant provinces
of the Empire; some escaped to Europe; and such as were allowed to
remain in Turkey as free men, had to conduct themselves warily and shun
politics, living as they did under the sleepless eyes of the ubiquitous
_espionage_.
For about fifteen years after this date one heard nothing of the Young
Turkey movement. If it existed it had little if any organisation, and
had no power. To all appearances it had been stamped out effectually by
the suppressive measures that had been taken by the Palace. One came
across members of the scattered band in European cities, earning their
living as teachers of languages and in other capacities, but these
rarely spoke to foreigners of what was in their hearts, for they found
few sympathisers with the sorrows of Turkey.
But though “Young Turkey” showed no signs of life it was not dead. In
Constantinople and other big Turkish cities the visitor from Europe
would never hear the movement spoken of; the word _hurriet_ was, so to
speak, expunged from the Turkish dictionary, and to have been heard
uttering it would have brought denunciation as a traitor. But in far
parts of the Empire tongues wagged more freely, and the memory of
the reformers was kept green. In the autumn and winter of 1879 I was
wandering over that wildest region of all Europe, Northern Albania,
and there I found that men were speaking very plainly indeed; for the
_espionage_ system was not then fully organised, and at any rate it had
not reached that lawless province, where the Government was helpless,
and inspired neither respect or fear.
At the period of my visit, Albania, a country which, as I shall show
later, took a prominent part in the recent revolution, was in a
state of positive anarchy—the _gendarmerie_ on strike, the mutinous
soldiers refusing to salute their officers, neither having received
pay for months, while the natives held seditious meetings publicly and
unmolested in the mosques of the garrison towns, in which rebellion
against the Porte was fearlessly advocated. The army officers with
whom I conversed despaired of their country, and those who had been
in Constantinople said that the one hope for Turkey—an administration
under the direction of men of Midhat Pasha’s stamp—had been destroyed.
The army doctors in Scutari—for the most part Armenians—were still
more outspoken, and advocated the deposition and even killing of the
Sultan. One of these doctors described the condition of the country
to me in the following words: “You have no idea of what a corrupt,
vile thing this Turkish Government is. The Court eats all the country.
We who work, the _employés_ of the State, the doctors, the soldiers,
never receive any pay now. As long as they think they can obtain our
labour for nothing, not a _para_ will they let slip through their
fingers. Look at my case. I have been a doctor in the Turkish army for
forty years. I have been through the Crimean war, over all Asia, in
the service of Turkey. I am entitled to a good pension. I have been
day after day to the offices at Constantinople, and put my case before
the authorities. They put me off with all sorts of fair promises, but
I knew what these meant, so went to them day after day, and worried
them so much that they decided to get rid of me in some way. ‘There
is a permanent hospital in Scutari in Albania,’ they told me. ‘In
consideration of your long service we appoint you as head doctor of it.
Start at once to your post.’ Now that I have travelled all this way,
at my own expense, mind you, what do I find? The permanent hospital no
longer exists—it is a myth, and they knew it in Constantinople all the
time, and no doubt chuckled merrily, when I had turned my back, at the
clever way they had rid themselves of the importunate old nuisance.”
Then he went on to speak of the sufferings of the troops, and assured
me that, faithful and obedient as they were by nature and tradition,
they would not put up with the vile treatment much longer, and that a
military mutiny was brewing which would destroy the Despotism within
a few months. In this opinion he was wrong, for thirty years had to
roll by before the event which he predicted actually came to pass.
He also spoke to me of men of the Young Turk party whom he met in
Constantinople during the brief period of free institutions. He much
admired their tolerance, and asked me whether I thought that the Young
Turk refugees in England, by explaining Turkey’s trouble, would be able
to persuade the British Government to champion the cause of Turkish
liberty.
I discovered, too, that the fame of Midhat Pasha as an honest, just,
and patriotic statesman had spread throughout that wild country, and it
is not to be wondered at that the Sultan, fearing him, brought about
his destruction, and so made him the first martyr of the Young Turkey
cause. The Mussulman Albanians themselves greatly revered Midhat, and
regarded him as their possible saviour. They had at that time formed
themselves into the organisation known as the Albanian League, whose
object it was in the first place to resist by force of arms the handing
over to Montenegro of the Albanian town and district of Gussinje,
which, by the terms of the treaty of Berlin, Turkey had ceded to the
mountain principality; and in the second place to throw off the yoke
of the Sultan. The leaguesmen were then the masters of Albania. They
decided on, and carried out, the murder in Jakova of Mehemet Ali,
the general who had been sent by the Porte on the dangerous mission
of negotiating this transfer of Turkish territories to her enemies,
and about eight thousand of them, Albanians, Mussulman refugees from
Bosnia, and deserters from the Turkish army, were holding Gussinje
under the leadership of Ali Bey. Gussinje, by the way, still belongs to
Turkey; for the Great Powers who had given it to Montenegro were unable
to enforce with the cannon of their warships the surrender of a place
lying amid the mountains of the interior; so Montenegro ultimately had
to content itself with another arrangement.
I crossed the mountains that lie between Scutari and Gussinje, and
narrowly escaped having my head cut off as a Russian spy on one
occasion; but I succeeded in seeing a good deal of the Albanian
leaguesmen. In the course of conversation with one of their chiefs he
spoke to me as follows: “The men who rule in Constantinople, what do
they do for us? Tax us, rob us—that is all. And what do they give us in
return for what they steal? Can they defend us, protect us? No! They
have sold our lands to the Montenegrins and the Austrians. I tell you
that we of the League have sworn that we will have the Turk no more.
Albania shall have her independence and the Powers shall recognise
us. If they do not, we care not. Leave us alone; that is enough for
us.” Then turning suddenly to me, he asked, “What do you English think
of Midhat Pasha?” I told him of the esteem in which Midhat was held
by my countrymen; he seemed pleased on hearing this, and said, “The
Turks will not have him, but we will. What we wish is to create an
independent Albanian principality, with this good man Midhat Pasha as
our prince.” I have described these experiences of mine in Albania to
show how things were shaping in the outer provinces of Turkey thirty
years ago, and how, though one heard nothing of the Young Turks in
Europe, the seed they had sown had not fallen on barren ground; so that
at last, when the time was ripe, the people of Turkey, remembering what
their fathers had told them of the good Midhat, were ready to range
themselves by the side of his disciples.
But from the year 1878, when the Constitution was suspended, until
1891 there appears to have been no Young Turk organisation, though the
number of Turks who longed for deliverance from a detested _régime_
was increasing by leaps and bounds. For centuries Geneva has been the
safe asylum for men from other lands who have revolted against the
tyranny of Church or Government, and there, in these days, is to be
found an interesting little society of Russian anarchists, and all
manner of malcontents and visionaries, who hatch their various plots,
and when the demand arises manufacture the favourite weapon of anarchy,
the bomb. It was in this fair city, in the year 1891, that a group of
Turkish refugees and exiles formed themselves into the association
that afterwards developed into the “Ottoman Committee of Union and
Progress.”
The time had indeed arrived for patriotic Turks to bestir themselves
and come to the rescue of their country; for it was about this
date that the most critical period of her history opened, and that
various happenings in her European and Asiatic provinces threatened
the disruption of the Empire. In 1890 the persecuted Armenians
commenced the agitation which later on the Sultan put down with
wholesale massacres. In the early nineties, too, the Bulgarians in
Macedonia initiated the conspiracy which, after various small risings,
culminated in the rebellion of 1903; and here, as in Armenia, the
Turkish irregulars suppressed insurrection with slaughter and rapine.
Indignation was aroused in Europe, especially in England, and in 1903
the British Government urged the other Powers to join her in compelling
the Porte to accept a scheme of reform under European supervision that
should secure fair government and the security of Turkey’s Christian
subjects. But the jealousy of the Powers stood in the way of any
genuine co-operation, while the policy of Turkey’s two most powerful
neighbours was to destroy the Ottoman Empire and not to reform it; so
the British scheme was rejected; the measures that were taken by the
Powers proved wholly inadequate; the anarchy in Macedonia ever grew
worse; and it became evident that sooner or later foreign intervention
of an effective and forcible character would be necessitated.
Now the one essential part of the Young Turk programme is the
preservation of the integrity of the Ottoman Empire. Opportunists in
the rest of their policy, the Young Turks are determined that no more
Ottoman territory shall be placed under foreign domination. They feel
that foreign interference in Turkey’s internal affairs means loss of
national independence and the ultimate expulsion of the Turks from the
European side of the Bosphorus. They entertain the strongest objection
to the attempted settlement of the racial disputes in Macedonia by
foreign Powers, and the chief article of their faith is that, for
Turkey to hold her own in the world, her reforms must come from
_within_ and not from _without_. Therefore at this juncture, knowing
that they had the educated classes in Turkey in sympathy with them,
and that oppression had made the masses discontented, these Turkish
patriots in Geneva decided to create an organisation whose object it
would be to bring pressure to bear upon the Turkish Government, and
move the Sultan to sanction the much needed reforms. At this early
stage they did not feel sufficiently strong to plan the deposition of
the monarch should he prove obdurate, but they resolved so to arrange
matters in Constantinople as to make it impossible, in the case of the
death of that clever and masterly monarch, for his successor to rule on
the same despotic lines.
The head-quarters of the organisation was moved from Geneva to Paris,
and it had its branches in London and other capitals. Little heed was
paid to the Young Turks by the peoples in whose midst they lived, and
many regarded them as harmless dreamers. But the Sultan himself knew
better; his Embassy in Paris was instructed to watch the organisation
closely, and spies were sent from Constantinople whose business it was
to report directly to the Palace all they could discover concerning the
members. In Turkey itself active methods of suppression were taken, and
the system of _espionage_ became ever more unbearable, with the result
that the enemies of the _régime_ increased in number, and Turkey’s best
men fled the country to swell the band of conspirators in Paris.
Now that men can talk quite freely in Turkey, returning exiles tell
strange and romantic tales of their adventures in those dark days.
For a Turkish subject to leave Turkey without the permission of the
inquisitorial Government was then a treasonable offence involving
outlawry and the confiscation of property. As every outgoing steamer
was closely watched by the police, it was no easy matter to escape from
Constantinople by sea, and to do so by land was still more difficult.
On several occasions distinguished Turks were assisted in their flight
by their English friends. For example, with the connivance of one of
our Consuls, a fugitive Pasha was concealed in the Consulate, was
disguised in a suit of slops such as sailormen wear, and when the
opportunity arrived quietly walked away from the carefully watched
Consulate in the company of an English merchant captain, satisfied
the questioning police spies on the quay, and boarded the British
vessel that was to carry him to safety; for he had been entered on the
ship’s books as cook, and was provided with the necessary consular
document that testified to his having signed articles in that capacity.
Oftentimes, too, some British steamer passing down the Bosphorus
would stop her engines and, under cover of the darkness, send off the
friendly boat that, by pre-arrangement, would take a party of fugitive
Turks from a lonely beach, and so save them from the _oubliette_ or the
strangler’s cord.
The Palace employed terrorism in Turkey and corruption in Paris in its
attempt to destroy the Young Turk association. By offers of rewards
and high positions, some of the members were persuaded to desert the
cause and to return to Turkey. Some were found base enough to serve
as spies. Thus, one, whose name it is perhaps better not to mention,
contrived to work himself into a prominent position on the Paris
Committee, learnt its secrets, and returned to Constantinople to betray
them to the Sultan. But the organisation ever grew stronger under
persecution, and patriotic Turks supplied the funds which enabled it
to carry on its propaganda. The Paris Committee published a paper and
numerous tracts, which exposed the iniquities of the Hamidian _régime_
and called for the deposition of the Sultan, and these were smuggled
into Turkey and were widely distributed and read, despite the vigilance
of the ever-increasing army of spies. The agents of the Committee in
Constantinople used to placard the city under cover of the night with
revolutionary appeals, and seditious placards threatening the life of
the Sultan were sometimes placed upon the walls of the Palace itself.
Abdul Hamid, living in perpetual fear, redoubled his precautions.
In 1901 the Sultan, having been informed by his ambassador in
Paris that the Paris Committee was preparing a great Young Turkey
demonstration in Constantinople itself, was so anxious to intercept
the correspondence that was passing between Paris and the members
of the Young Turkey party in his capital that he violated his
international agreements by seizing and breaking open the European
mail-bags that were addressed to the various foreign post-offices in
Constantinople, and thereby provoked the Powers to threaten a joint
naval demonstration, which was only warded off by a humble apology and
further solemn promises on Abdul Hamid’s part.
In Paris the “Ottoman Committee of Union and Progress,” to give the
association the now world-famous name which it assumed a few years
ago, was ably directed by Ahmed Riza Bey, who, having worked with
devotion for the cause through eighteen years of exile, returned to
Turkey after the proclamation of the Constitution last year, and is
now the President, or Speaker, of the Turkish Chamber of Deputies.
The Committee was also strengthened during the last few years of the
Hamidian _régime_ by the admission to it of several distinguished
Turks of high rank, who fled from Constantinople to Paris so as to be
able to assist the national movement from that safe vantage-ground.
Among these fugitives was the Sultan’s relative, Prince Sabah-ed-din,
who threw himself heart and soul into the revolutionary movement, and
advocated a policy more advanced and radical than that favoured by the
large majority of the Young Turks, whose Liberalism is full-blooded
Toryism when compared to what passes for Liberalism in England in these
latter days. Prince Sabah-ed-din is an advanced home ruler, and he
is the virtual leader of the “Liberal Union” party, which is working
for a degree of centralisation that is regarded as dangerous by most
Mussulmans, but is naturally pleasing to the Greeks.
But though these Turkish gentlemen, with their clever conversation and
their charming manners, were welcomed in Paris _salons_ and London
drawing-rooms, few people in Europe realised that the Young Turkey
movement had the remotest chance of attaining its ends; for it was
a silent movement, and while the Greeks, Bulgarians, and Armenians
voiced their grievances with a persistence that gained for them a wide
hearing and much sympathy, the patriotic Turks, unwilling to invoke
the help of foreigners, took no steps to make their aspirations known
in Europe. Ahmed Riza did, indeed, come over to London in 1904, and,
for the first time in his life, addressed a meeting of Englishmen,
but it was not to crave sympathy for the Mussulman Turks whom he
represented, but to express the sentiments of his party regarding
foreign intervention in Turkey, whether it were that of a Government
or of the English humanitarian committees. In the course of his speech
Ahmed Bey, while admitting the justice of a revolt against despotism,
condemned the European friends of Armenia and Macedonia for wrongfully
and artificially inciting a rising, and so playing the part of the
Pan-Slavist agents, and he practically put it that by fomenting
insurrection among the Christian populations in Turkey they were more
or less responsible for the massacres which followed. The meeting,
to quote from the official report, “became extremely agitated, and
many interruptions were addressed to the speaker.” The speakers who
followed had some unkind things to say concerning Ahmed Riza and the
Young Turks. Here is a quotation from the speech of an influential
humanitarian who was present: “I am not sorry that the gentleman has
spoken, because it shows us how impossible it is to expect any reforms
in Turkey from the Young Turkish party. They are only thinking of
themselves. The liberties of the Christians would be just as unsafe
under a Sultan with the sentiments of the gentleman who has just sat
down, as under the present Sultan.”
And yet, even at that time, Ahmed Riza and his Mussulman associates
were planning a scheme which was intended to bring liberty, justice,
and security to the oppressed Christian subjects of the Porte, and
was, moreover, destined to prove successful where all the diplomacy of
the Powers and the too often misdirected efforts of the humanitarians
in Europe had signally failed. For the Young Turks, like their great
forerunner, Midhat Pasha, realised that Turkey could only be saved from
disintegration by placing all her races and creeds on an equality, by
giving the same rights to all. They therefore set themselves to bring
about a co-operation of the various elements of the Turkish population,
and to make common cause with the Armenian, Bulgarian, and other
revolutionary non-Mussulman committees in Paris.
It appeared, to those who heard of it, as being the most chimerical
of schemes; for the Young Turks and their proposed allies had but one
aspiration in common—the overthrow of the Despotism. Their ideals
seemed indeed to be irreconcilable. The Young Turks above all things
desired the maintenance of the integrity of the Ottoman Empire and a
union of her peoples that would make the Empire strong. On the other
hand, the non-Mussulman revolutionaries cared nothing for the integrity
of the Empire. For the most part they desired not to reform Turkey,
but to break her up. Neither did they seek union among themselves;
for the different Christian races hated each other, and cherished
mutually incompatible ambitions. Thus, Bulgarians, Greeks, and Serbs
in Macedonia dreamt of the formation of autonomous States, or of
annexations to Bulgaria, Greece, and Servia, respectively. There
was to be found, too, in some of the non-Mussulman committees, a
considerable leavening of anarchical and socialistic ideas with which
the conservative Turkish reformers could have no sympathy. Out of
elements so incongruous, and in many respects antagonistic, it would
seem impossible to effect any sort of co-operation.
But the Young Turks were terribly in earnest, and were patient and
persuasive; they compelled the leaders of the non-Mussulman committees
to listen to their arguments, and they sent delegates to their
meetings; but it was, of course, not for a long time that they could
come to an understanding with men who found it difficult to believe
that any form of Turkish rule could deal fairly with Christians and
Jews. At last, wonderful to say, the Young Turks in Paris, being honest
patriots, succeeded in convincing the other groups of their sincerity
when they put forward the full equality in the eyes of the law of all
races and creeds in Turkey as an essential portion of their programme.
The Armenian committees were the first to fall in line with the Young
Turkey movement, and the union between them that was arranged in Paris,
in 1903, has been faithfully observed by both parties. It will be
remembered how the two races fraternised after the declaration of the
Constitution, how the world was amazed by the spectacle of Armenian and
Moslem clergymen walking arm in arm in processions, and how loyally the
Turks and Armenians worked together during the Parliamentary elections.
It was, indeed, a natural alliance; there has never been real enmity
between the two races until the present Sultan’s reign. The Armenian
massacres were not the work of Turks but of savage Kurds, instigated
by the Palace Camarilla. “Few incidents in history are more touching,”
writes a Turkish subject in the _Nineteenth Century_, “than the visit
paid by a large assembly of Turks (in August last) to the Armenian
cemetery in Constantinople, in order to deposit floral tributes on the
graves of the victims of the massacre of 1894, and to have prayers
recited, by a priest of their own persuasion, over the butchered dead.”
Moreover, there were few political difficulties in the way of an
understanding between the Young Turks and the Armenian revolutionaries.
The problem was not like that of the Greeks and Slavs in Macedonia,
who had on the frontier independent nations of people of their own
kin on whom to lean and to whom to look for protection and perchance
annexation. For Armenia is now but a geographical expression, and
ancient Armenia has been partitioned between Turkey, Russia, and
Persia. The Armenians in Turkish Armenia are vastly outnumbered by
the Moslem population; and the creation of an independent Armenian
principality, desired by a section of the revolutionists, was obviously
an impracticable scheme. The more sensible Armenians realised that
the only alternative for the rule of Turkey was that of Russia, and
the experience of their brethren across the border had proved to them
that, of the two, the rule of Turkey was to be preferred; for under it
they enjoyed a measure of racial autonomy and various privileges—much
restricted, it is true, under Abdul Hamid’s despotism—which
the Russian Government, ever bent on the Russianisation of the
nationalities subject to it, would certainly have denied to them.
It was, therefore, the aim of the moderates among the Armenian
malcontents, while remaining under Ottoman rule, to secure the civil
liberties and institutions calculated to guarantee their personal
safety, the security of their property, and the honour of their wives
and daughters. Now the Young Turk programme promised them these things
and more; so, realising that this great Mussulman movement was likely
to meet with success, they decided to throw in their lot with Ahmed
Riza and his brother revolutionaries.
But this union could not be accomplished until the Armenians had
consented to abandon the methods of their propaganda. They had for
years been appealing to the European Powers, through their Committees,
to compel the Sultan to grant good government to his Christian subjects
in Armenia in accordance with the solemn pledges which he had given to
the signatories of the Treaty of Berlin. But the Young Turks insisted
that there must be no appealing to foreign Powers for assistance, that
the Armenians henceforth would have to rely upon the support of their
Mussulman fellow-subjects alone, that they must now cease from such
agitation as might invite further massacres, and await the outbreak of
the revolution that was to deliver all the races that were oppressed by
the Despotism.
It may have been noticed that from the date of this understanding, in
1903, one heard very little about trouble in Armenia; the violence of
the Armenian propaganda was restrained by the leaders so that the Young
Turk movement might not be embarrassed, and the attention of Europe
was now turned to the state of anarchy in Macedonia. The Young Turks
always worked in secret, but when policy demanded it they sometimes
came out into the open. Thus it was that Ahmed Riza went to London
in 1904, shortly after the union between his party and the Armenian
Committees, and, in the speech from which I have quoted, protested at
a public meeting against the interference of English humanitarians in
the affairs of Armenia. He also seems to have influenced those who
governed the policy of the Anglo-Armenian Association and to have won
their confidence in his judgment, for it was at about this time that
the active propaganda of this organisation suddenly came to a stop.
But Ahmed Riza and his associates, though they were working diligently
to prepare the ground for the coming revolution by sending emissaries
to inoculate the young army officers in Turkey with their views, and
the Moslem clergy with interpretations of the Koran that breathed
the spirit of reform and tolerance, kept their doings secret even
from their friends. The revolution, so carefully planned, came as a
complete surprise even to those Englishmen who had come in touch with
the Turkish reformers in Paris and sympathised with the aspirations of
those intensely patriotic men who shunned politics, declined interviews
with the press, and lived most frugal lives, while they devoted
themselves with single-minded zeal to the cause. I may mention that
since 1904 the officials of the Eastern Questions Association (which,
I believe, has always held the view that a strong and independent
Turkey is an essential factor in the polity of nations) have been on
friendly terms with Ahmed Riza Bey, visited him in Paris, become strong
supporters of the Young Turk party, and have vigorously denounced the
crooked policy of Russia and Austria in Macedonia.
The Young Turks thus came to an understanding with the Armenians, and
later on it was arranged between them that when the time was ripe,
and the Committee gave the word for the Mussulman revolt in Turkey,
the Armenians should also rise; for it was realised that the Sultan
would yield to nothing but force, and that only by means of an armed
rebellion, and that possibly a very bloody one, could the liberators of
Turkey effect their end.
And now the Young Turks set themselves to win over to their cause the
other non-Mussulman revolutionary Committees. With the Jews, as with
the Armenians, they had relatively little difficulty, for the Jews
were a people without a land, and therefore could entertain no schemes
of national independence; their hope and interests lay in the good
government of the Ottoman Empire. But with the Bulgarians, Greeks, and
Serbs of Macedonia, whose very last idea it was to become patriotic
Ottomans, the Young Turks found the work of persuasion attended with
almost insuperable difficulties.
To these revolutionaries other forms of argument had to be applied.
It was pointed out to them that, unassisted from outside, they could
not hope to conquer their independence with the sword from the armies
of the Sultan; that the mutually jealous Great Powers, if they did
intervene in Macedonia, were not in the least likely to favour the
political aspirations of the Christian populations; that to appeal
to foreign intervention was a very dangerous thing; and that the
annexation of the greater part of Macedonia to Austria-Hungary—in
detestation of which Power all these Balkan races are united—might
be the result of the state of anarchy in that region for which the
revolutionary bands were responsible; in short, that it would be to
the advantage of the Macedonian Christians to abandon their ideas of
separation from the Ottoman Empire and to join cause with the Young
Turks, whose aim it was to hold the Empire together and to give equal
rights to all its peoples.
Wonderful to say, the Macedonian Committees in Paris at last allowed
themselves to be persuaded, and threw in their lot with the Young
Turks, half-heartedly, perhaps, at first, and with mental reservations.
They realised that they could hope for little help from Europe, and
were willing to work with the Young Turks in upsetting the Hamidian
_régime_. After a successful revolution something might turn up that
would enable them to gain the national independence that they still
had at heart; and even if that hope was destroyed, they would be able,
having supported the Young Turks, to claim the equal rights which
these had promised to them. But the conflict of interests that severed
the various groups, and the anarchical principles that some of the
revolutionary leaders professed, made the reconciliation of all these
discordant elements a matter of great difficulty. The Congress held in
Paris, in 1902, had for its chief result the accentuation of schism;
it was not till 1907 that the various Committees were able at last to
arrange a programme that was acceptable to all; and by that time the
Young Turks had established their secret society in Macedonia and had
gained the allegiance of a considerable portion of that formidable
Turkish army without whose cooperation, as the Christians in Macedonia
knew well, no revolution had a chance of success.
So in December, 1907, a Congress of the Turkish revolutionaries met
in Paris, at which were represented the Ottoman Committee of Union
and Progress, the Armenian, Bulgarian, Jewish, Arab, Albanian, and
other Committees; and the delegates all agreed to accept the following
principles: The deposition of the Sultan Abdul Hamid. The maintenance
of the integrity of the Ottoman Empire. Absolute equality in the eyes
of the law of the various races and religions. The establishment of
Parliamentary institutions on the lines of Midhat Pasha’s Constitution.
The “Ottoman Committee of Union and Progress,” as representing the
dominant race and the fighting forces of the revolution, naturally now
took the lead, and its members, of whom but a few were non-Mussulmans,
became the organisers of the revolt and mandatories of the other
Committees. It may be pointed out here that the resolutions of the
Congress had no effect in pacifying Macedonia, where, indeed, the
condition of affairs was ever becoming worse; for Greece and Bulgaria,
still looking forward to the disruption of Turkey, were pouring into
Macedonia their armed bands to “peg out claims” in the Greek and
Bulgarian interest; and throughout all that region violence, murder,
and rapine prevailed. Of no more effect were the efforts of the Great
Powers, which, in 1907, issued a categorical declaration that no
Macedonian race would be permitted to draw any territorial advantage
from the action of its bands.