CHAPTER VI

_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.

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.