_HOW THE REVOLUTION BEGAN_
It had been calculated by the Young Turks that the time would not be
ripe for their great _coup_ until the autumn of 1909, but the menace
of further foreign intervention in Macedonia and an active campaign
against the Committee, which was opened by the Palace at the beginning
of 1908, precipitated the revolt. The propaganda had been spreading
rapidly, the movement had been prospering, when suddenly the prospect
darkened, and there were happenings that threatened even to break up
the Society and shatter the hopes of the reformers.
It became known to the Committee that the British Government had
decided to withdraw from that “Concert of Europe,” which had failed so
signally in dealing with the question of reforms in Macedonia, and that
England and Russia were now going to work together to introduce a most
drastic scheme of reform, which would include the suppression of all
the bands in Macedonia, of whatever race or creed, by means of flying
columns of troops. This intended co-operation of England and Russia
greatly alarmed the Committee, such intervention, in the opinion of
its leaders, necessarily leading to the disintegration of the Ottoman
Empire, and to an immediate foreign domination of Macedonia that would
make it impossible for the Committee to carry on its patriotic work in
this, the stronghold of the movement and the contemplated base for the
revolutionary campaign in the following year.
The Committee of Union and Progress therefore held secret meetings
in Salonica in May, 1908, and it was decided, in view of what was
happening, that it had now become necessary for the Committee to
reveal to the European Powers the fact of its real existence and great
influence, and also to explain to those Powers, especially to England,
whose aim was honest but which, in the opinion of many Turks, was
being duped by Russia, that the Committee alone could bring peace to
Macedonia, and that for various good reasons it would be better that
Europe should abandon all these futile schemes of reform and leave
Macedonia to work out her own salvation.
A manifesto of the Committee was therefore drawn up and a copy of
it was despatched to each of the European cabinets. These documents
were posted in the foreign post-offices in Salonica by members of the
Committee. A friend of mine told me of what a narrow escape he had
while taking one of these letters to a certain foreign post-office. On
entering the office he handed the letter to a Levantine clerk, who,
after reading the superscription, put to him the unusual question,
“From whom do you bring this letter?” “From Mr. Snider,” replied my
friend, with ready invention, and hastened to leave the place. The
clerk, evidently a Palace spy, followed him outside and looked up and
down the street, no doubt to find some agent whom he could send to
follow up the suspect. My friend fortunately got clear away before the
pursuit could be started, and for the future he gave that post-office a
wide berth.
The manifesto itself is a long one. My quotations from it are literal
translations from the original Turkish version. It speaks in the name
of the Committee of Union and Progress, and, of course, as coming from
a secret society, bears no signatures. It opens thus:
“We, the children of the fatherland called Turkey, of which Macedonia
is a part—actuated by the love which we bear to the land of our birth,
our desire to work in harmony to bring about its tranquillity and
welfare, and our wish to disabuse your minds of the false impression
which we know you entertain to the effect that we (the Committee of
Union and Progress) are few in number and mischievous in our aims—now
write to you the following, to explain to you from what evils Macedonia
is really suffering, to show you what is the true remedy and the right
path, and to save Europe from a number of vain efforts and avoidable
difficulties.”
The manifesto then proceeds to demonstrate that the efforts of the
European Powers to introduce reforms into Macedonia had not only been
attended with no success, but had made the condition of the country
worse than it had been before their interference, and that all the
so-called remedies that had so far been applied had been introduced
by foreigners only, “who assumed an attitude of generosity,” and not
by “Ottomans, who must know more about their own country than the
foreigner does.
“We are told that the object of European reforms is to insure the
happiness of Macedonia, in answer to which we assert that Europe,
in spite of all her efforts, has been unable to attain this object
and never will attain it.... The intervention has been useless for
Europeans, injurious to the Ottomans. The Great Powers themselves admit
the failure of the measures adopted by them; and yet now, Europe,
instead of honourably withdrawing from this business, is, so it
appears, about to make Macedonia the arena of yet further experiments.”
Then the manifesto, after discussing the new schemes proposed by the
British and Russian Governments, and showing how these, if carried
out, would destroy the independence of an integral part of the Ottoman
Government, declares that “We Mussulmans and Christians, united under
the name of the Ottoman Committee of Union and Progress, not influenced
by national or religious fanaticism, are working together to deliver
our country from foreign intervention, and to obtain our personal and
political liberty from the existing Government. We positively assert
that these plans of England and Russia would sever Macedonia from the
Ottoman Empire. We therefore cannot accept these proposed measures,
which would lead to the general ruin of the Empire, and are opposed
to justice and civilization. We are determined to employ all means to
obtain our natural rights.” The manifesto points out that the purely
selfish action of Bulgaria, Greece, and Servia, which for purposes of
annexation sent their bands to murder and ravage in Macedonia, was
the chief cause of the existing state of anarchy in the country; and
it has a slap at our humanitarians, whose sole sympathy was with the
Christians. As the first public declaration of the Committee, this is
an exceedingly interesting document.
I need scarcely say that the Committee of Union and Progress did
not receive a reply to its memorandum from any of the Great Powers.
Cabinets cannot well recognise and hold communication with a
revolutionary organisation whose aim it is to overthrow the Government
of a friendly Power. Probably some of those to whom the manifesto was
addressed read it with a contemptuous smile, little dreaming that
within two months this band of unknown men would make itself the master
of an Empire. One or two newspapers published brief summaries of the
manifesto without comment, for the world did not take the Young Turkey
party seriously until the revolution was an accomplished fact.
On June 10—that is, a week or so after the Committee had issued this
manifesto—King Edward VII met the Tsar at Reval and shortly afterwards
the details of the Anglo-Russian scheme for the pacification and better
rule of Macedonia were communicated to the Powers. This forced the
hands of the Committee; it was realised that the blow for Ottoman
liberty must be struck soon, or it would be too late; but that which
precipitated the movement, driving the Macedonian officers into an
immediate revolt in self-defence, was the energetic action taken by the
Palace spies at about this time.
In the beginning of 1908 the Palace became alarmed by the reports that
came from the Macedonian garrisons. It is true that up to that time the
discontent of the troops had assumed no revolutionary character, and
at the meetings which they held in all the military centres the men,
while demanding their rights under the military code, their arrears of
pay, their proper rations, and so forth, uttered no threats against the
Government; but the discipline and organisation of the army had been
destroyed, and a number of the reservists in Macedonia went so far as
to refuse to obey the call for service in the Hedjaz. The Palace now
learnt that a number of young officers were taking advantage of this
disaffection of the rank and file to spread treasonable propaganda. The
rapid progress of the Young Turkey movement, and the wide dissemination
of its doctrines through the towns and villages by trusted emissaries,
made it impossible to preserve a complete secrecy, and the creatures
of the Palace, though they could not place their hands upon those who
directed this movement, felt that they were in the presence of a great
danger, all the more terrible on account of the mystery that enveloped
it. So they laid their apprehensions before their ever-fearful master,
with the result that it was decided to take steps to effectually stamp
out the conspiracy.
_Espionage_ has ever been the favourite weapon of Abdul Hamid; so spies
were now poured into Macedonia to worm out the secrets of the movement
and discover the leaders, and of these spies many never returned to
tell their tale. The Sultan also gave orders to the senior officers
in Macedonia to find out all they could about the movement, to arrest
suspected officers, and send them to Constantinople, and to address the
men solemnly concerning their duties, and especially impress it upon
them that to withdraw their fidelity and obedience from the Caliph,
“the Shadow of God,” “the Commander of the Faithful,” was regarded by
the Moslem religion as the most heinous of sins. In March a special
Commission, under Mahir Pasha, was sent from Constantinople to Salonica
to institute an inquisition, but despite numerous denunciations,
perquisitions, arrests, and tortures, it collected little evidence,
and entirely failed to get at the heart of the plot, for there were no
traitors within that circle of devoted men. But the Commission was able
to report to the Palace that there undoubtedly existed in Macedonia
a powerful secret society dangerous to the _régime_, and that the
Macedonian troops could not be relied upon to support the Government.
The work of the Commission alarmed the Committee of Union and Progress,
several of whose most useful members had been seized; and the young
officers in the army who had been affiliated realised their danger,
and came to the conclusion that it would be expedient to start the
insurrection as soon as possible, before further arrests had seriously
weakened their cause. Thus it happened that, quite a year before
the time originally contemplated by the Committee, Major Niazi Bey,
at Resna, on July 3, took the momentous step. He openly disavowed
his allegiance to his sovereign, fled to the mountains with a band
of Moslem civilians and some of the soldiers under his command, and
issued his rebel manifesto, in which he called upon all patriots to
join in destroying the Government. I will tell later the story of the
doings of Niazi Bey, Enver Bey, and the other insurgent leaders in the
mountains; how officers and men rallied round them; how they persuaded
the Bulgarian bands to join forces with them; how at last the entire
Macedonian army had become the army of the Committee; and how, within
three weeks of that historic event—the raising of the banner of revolt
at Resna—the revolution had triumphed and the Despotism was a thing
of the past. At this stage I will describe the series of events that
precipitated the final struggle between the Palace and the Committee.
In view of the increasing activity of its enemies, the Committee, at
its secret meetings, condemned to death and ordered the execution
of such instruments of the Palace as were the most dangerous to the
cause, including several of the senior officers in the Macedonian army
and all those who were found to be spies or informers. Towards the
end it must have become difficult for the Palace to find men willing
to embark on so dangerous a profession as that of spy, even for the
highest pay. Had it not been for these assassinations the conspiracy
must have failed; at the cost of these few lives Turkey was saved; and
a terrible persecution of her best sons by the vengeful Palace was
warded off. These killings of the condemned as often as not were done
in broad daylight, in a busy street, by officers in uniform, and no man
interfered with the executioners.
Thus, on July 7, General Shemshi Pasha, an able soldier, who, as
possessing considerable experience in suppressing Macedonian and
Albanian risings, had been sent to crush the mutiny, was shot dead in
the streets of Monastir in broad daylight by a young officer. Next, the
officer commanding at Seres and certain other officers who upheld the
cause of the Palace were killed. On July 10 the _imam_, or chaplain,
of the artillery regiment in Monastir, who had been acting as a spy in
barracks, was shot in the streets of Salonica while he was on his way
to the railway station to carry his information to the capital. On the
same day, and also in Salonica, an attempt was made on the life of Haki
Bey, a Palace informant, who had been a member of the Commission of
inquiry. On July 12, General Sadik Pasha was shot while on a Messagerie
steamer bound from Salonica to Constantinople. The Committee was now
fighting, so to speak, with the halter round its neck, and took no
risks; it removed those whose action might bring ruin upon the cause of
the Young Turks, for the chances of success or failure were still very
uncertain.
The Palace realised its danger, and knew—what the outer world did not
know—that this was no ordinary mutiny of discontented troops. The
Sultan’s most trusted officers, when sent to crush the rising, could
not get their men to fire upon their insurgent fellow-Moslems, and
were sometimes themselves assassinated by them. For the first time
in history the name of the Padishah had failed to inspire the pious
Ottoman soldiery with reverence and obedience. The Palace was now
thoroughly alarmed, and no measure was omitted that could help to
bring about the destruction of the Young Turkey conspiracy. It was
decided, among other things, that another effort should be made to
get at the very heart of the movement, to strangle the secret Central
Committee, which, as the spies suspected, worked in Salonica; for if
the ringleaders and the central organisation could be exterminated, the
movement would become a lifeless thing and fall to pieces.
So Colonel Nazim Bey, an A.D.C. of the Sultan, one of the most detested
and feared of the instruments of the Despotism, was sent to Salonica
with a body of spies to unearth the secret Committee. Nazim was a
typical creature of the Palace. Extravagant and vicious, ever in debt,
like Catiline, prodigal of his own while greedy for the possessions
of others, clever, and quite unscrupulous, he was ready to sell his
soul for the moneys of which he was ever in need. He was appointed
Commandant de Palace in Salonica. Denunciations were well paid for,
so he denounced many officers, professional men, and students on the
flimsiest evidence, for real evidence was not easily procurable. On one
day he despatched thirty-eight young officers to Constantinople, who
were imprisoned on their arrival. But in many cases those whose arrest
he ordered were immediately set free or escaped with the assistance
of officials in the police and other departments, many of whom, as I
have explained, were secret adherents of the Committee. Nazim, who knew
well what found favour in his master’s eyes, also sent reports to the
Palace regarding the conduct of his superiors in Salonica, accusing
distinguished general officers of the head-quarters staff and others
of carelessness, partiality, and covert sympathy with the Young Turks,
with the result that he was given still further emoluments, and was
so strongly supported by the Palace that he was enabled to arrogate
successfully the chief authority in the city. The Committee of Union
and Progress condemned Nazim to death, one of his own subordinates
signing the decree. A young lieutenant of infantry offered himself as
the executioner. Nazim, however, had taken fright, and on July 11 he
fled from Salonica. As he was driving to the station in his carriage
he was shot at, but was only slightly wounded; so he was able to reach
Constantinople and report to the Sultan the information which he had
collected concerning the revolutionary movement.
[Illustration: VIEW OF CONSTANTINOPLE]
As the result of Nazim Bey’s alarming report, another Commission of
inquiry was sent from Constantinople to Salonica. It was under the
presidency of Ismail Mahir Pasha, General of Division and A.D.C. to the
Sultan—who, it having been discovered by the Committee that he was the
leader of a reactionary plot, was shot dead in the streets of Stamboul
by an officer in December last—and it contained, among other notable
men, Youssouf Pasha, Rejet Pasha, and Sadik Pasha. The ostensible
object of the Commission was to inspect arsenals and military stores;
but this the Commissioners never attempted to do. They took up their
abode in the principal hotel in Salonica. A friend of mine, now editor
of one of Turkey’s principal papers, who was told off by the Committee
to live in the hotel and keep the Commissioners under observation,
found that they rarely ventured out of doors, but sent for and
proceeded to examine closely all manner of men.
The _contre espionage_ conducted against them by the Committee to a
large extent baffled their designs; even the people employed by the
Commission to gather incriminating information were as often as not
initiates of the secret Society. But though the Commission could not
get at the heart of the conspiracy it displayed great activity, and
the denunciations to the Palace were numerous; for, as with the other
spy commissions, proofs of complicity in the plot were not necessary
to condemnation, and to be known as an honest and patriotic Ottoman
subject was sufficient ground for accusation. The Commission also had
its branches in the interior of Macedonia. In Monastir, Persepe, and
other garrison towns certain officers became its agents; but most of
these were discovered by the Committee and had to flee, and some,
including Sami Bey, Commissioner of Police in Monastir, were destroyed
by the executioners of the Committee.
So thoroughly had all the machinery of official authority been
destroyed in Macedonia that it was difficult for the Commissioners
to secure the arrests of those who had been denounced, therefore
treacherous methods were now employed to get the ring-leaders within
the clutches of the Palace. The Sultan believed that every man had
his price, and on previous occasions he had found bribery succeed
where terrorism failed. The most flattering letters were sent to
Enver Bey and other young staff-officers who had been forwarding
the revolutionary cause in the interior of Macedonia with such
marked success; they were invited to the Palace and were promised
not only forgiveness but large pecuniary rewards and promotion to
general rank. Many a good man from the time of Midhat Pasha had been
tempted by the Palace to come out from some secure sanctuary to his
destruction by such wiles as these. So Enver Bey and his comrades
ignored this invitation, but at the same time, realising the danger
of non-compliance, they fled to the mountains, organised bands,
and as open insurgents precipitated the doom of the Despotism. At
the same time other methods of conciliation were attempted by the
Palace. A large sum of hastily borrowed money was sent to Salonica to
discharge the arrears of pay due to the troops, and the authorities
in Constantinople refrained from doing any injury to the thirty-eight
young officers of the Macedonian army who had been imprisoned at the
Ministry of War. To anticipate a little, these officers were pardoned
and released on July 21 as the result of the Committee’s threat to kill
all the general officers in Macedonia unless this was done.
Ismail Pasha and his fellow-Commissioners returned to Constantinople,
their efforts having had the effect of spreading the growth which they
had been sent to root up. The Palace, which throughout this crisis
exemplified the truth that whom the gods wish to destroy they first
make demented, for it took every precaution too late and displayed a
vacillation that ruined what chances it had, now decided to do what,
if it had been done some months earlier, might have crushed the Young
Turk movement and left Abdul Hamid the undisputed master of the Ottoman
Empire. It was decided to despatch a large army from Asia to overpower
the mutinous troops in Europe, and orders were given that no less than
forty-eight battalions of Anatolian troops should be landed forthwith
at Salonica. But before describing the failure of this last move on the
part of the Despotism it will be necessary to go back a little to give
an account of what had been happening in the interior of Macedonia
since Niazi Bey had raised the standard of revolt at Resna on July
3, and of how everything was there being made ready for the general
insurrection.