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Title: Turkey; the Awakening of Turkey; the Turkish Revolution of 1908


Author: E. F. (Edward Frederick) Knight



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[Illustration: THE ENTRANCE TO THE BLACK SEA]


[Illustration: Oriental Series]


TURKEY

THE AWAKENING OF TURKEY

THE TURKISH REVOLUTION OF 1908

by

E. F. KNIGHT

Volume XXI







[Illustration: Crescent]

J. B. MILLET COMPANY
Boston and Tokyo

Copyright, 1910
By J. B. Millet Co.

The · Plimpton · Press
[W · D · O]
Norwood · Mass · U · S · A




CONTENTS


  CHAPTER                                 PAGE

        EDITORIAL NOTE                      ix

      I THE TURKISH PEOPLE                   1

     II ATROCITIES                          15

    III EARLY REFORMERS                     25

     IV THE SPREAD OF CORRUPTION            35

      V THE SPREAD OF EDUCATION             54

     VI THE RISE OF THE YOUNG TURKS         64

    VII DISCONTENT IN THE ARMY              87

   VIII THE CENTRAL COMMITTEE              101

     IX HOW THE REVOLUTION BEGAN           118

      X THE STANDARD OF REVOLT             133

     XI THE INSURRECTION IN BULGARIA       152

    XII THE PALACE AND THE GREEKS          169

   XIII A BLOODLESS VICTORY                185

    XIV THE COMMITTEE’S ULTIMATUM          198

     XV AFTER THE REVOLUTION               207

    XVI EUROPEAN ASSISTANCE                222

   XVII MUTINOUS PALACE GUARDS             238

  XVIII PREPARING FOR SELF-RULE            249

    XIX A STRONG ARMY NEEDED               261

     XX THE OPENING OF PARLIAMENT          281

    XXI THE NEW SULTAN                     297

        INDEX      321




ILLUSTRATIONS


                                                 Page

  The Entrance to the Black Sea        _Frontispiece_

  Imperial Palace of the Sweet Waters of Asia      64

  Persian Market-woman in Street Dress            112

  View of Constantinople                          128

  Chateau of Asia                                 224

  View of Scutari                                 272




EDITORIAL NOTE


From the land of the Turks—Turkestan in Central Asia—there descended
beginning in A.D. 800 a series of hordes and armies which overran and
gradually took possession of that portion of South-Eastern Europe and
Western Asia once known as Turkey. After five hundred years Mohammed
II seized upon Constantinople, and that city became the capital of the
Turkish Empire;—for the next two hundred years the dominion spread
until it became an immense and important world-power. Then began a
period of decline; and vice and prodigality in harem and seraglio
brought about disruption and war. Russia saw her opportunity to extend
her borders towards the sea—and went on gaining Turkish territory
from early in the 18th until the middle of the 19th century when the
Crimean war crippled her power in that corner of Europe. But Turkey
could not hold the heterogeneous populations of her European provinces.
Insurrection after insurrection broke out and one by one she lost
many of the more important of them. She became bankrupt and a concert
of the European Powers proposed and partially carried out a scheme
for her reform. But she proved stubborn and went to war with Russia
in 1877-1878; this ended disastrously for her and more territory was
lost. In 1897, came the war with Greece in which she was successful. In
recent years after many vicissitudes the spread of the great awakening
of the people of Oriental lands has reached Turkey, and the story of
the newer political and social life in that country is related in this
volume in full and complete detail, from its inception until the famous
Revolution of 1908.

No one is better qualified to tell this story than Edward F. Knight,
who as a noted correspondent for one of the leading papers of London
has seen service in all the wars since 1895, his work having taken
him to South America, Africa, and Asia. In 1908, he was specially
commissioned to visit Turkey to study the conditions of the recent
revolution, and this book is the result of his exhaustive study.

The important position which Turkey occupies on the highway to the
Farther East from Europe has made it the subject of continuous
political intrigue by the nations of that continent. Its interesting
and romantic people and their despotic government; its natural
products, some of them unique; its picturesque and poetical language
and literature, are full of peculiar and absorbing interest, and no one
who wishes to keep abreast of the great world movements of our time can
afford to neglect this stirring work.


  CHARLES WELSH.




TURKEY




CHAPTER I

_THE TURKISH PEOPLE_


Turkey, once so vast and powerful, has been undergoing a gradual
dismemberment for the last two centuries. Possession after possession
has been wrested from her in Europe, Asia, and Africa. On the mainland
of Europe, having lost Greece, Bulgaria, Roumania, Servia, Bosnia,
Croatia, and Herzegovina, as well as those regions on the northern
shores of the Black Sea (once a Turkish lake) which now form part of
Southern Russia, Turkey is left with but a narrow strip of territory
stretching across the centre of the Balkan Peninsula from the Black Sea
to the Adriatic.

The despotic system of government in Turkey worked well enough so long
as she was a conquering and expanding nation; but so soon as she ceased
to be this, and was hemmed in by Christian Powers strong enough to
check her advance, the system, being incompatible with progress, failed
to hold the Empire together and disintegration set in. The internal
disorders caused by the evils of her administration and the cupidity
and treachery of her powerful European neighbours threatened Turkey
with extinction. Russia and Austria waged successful wars against her
and possessed themselves of her frontier provinces, and at the same
time the disaffected Christian populations of European Turkey were
encouraged to rise and gain their independence. So it came about that
Greece, Bulgaria, and other kingdoms and principalities were carved out
of Turkey, and up to within a few months ago Christian peoples within
and without her frontiers were quarrelling over a further projected act
of spoliation that would indeed have been for Turkey the beginning of
the end—the partition of Macedonia.

For the oppression, corruption, and incompetence that characterised
their government the Turkish people themselves were held responsible
by a large section of public opinion in Western Europe. There is
a saying to the effect that a nation has the government which it
deserves, and this may be true if a nation is free to work out its
own salvation. But in the case of Turkey the people were allowed no
chance of obtaining the government which they deserved; for it was to
the interest of Turkey’s powerful enemies to conserve the evils of the
despotic rule, and whenever the Turks made an effort to put their house
in order some Christian Power, fearing lest a reformed Turkey might
prove a strong Turkey, fell upon her with armed force or stood in the
way of the projected changes. Moreover, the Powers that were bent upon
self-aggrandisement at Turkey’s expense saw to it that there should
be no peace within her borders and stirred up trouble, exciting the
Christian peasants to rise, and fomenting disturbances that might serve
as pretexts for a policy of intervention and annexation. No methods
were too unscrupulous for the Powers in question. For example, among
many other _agents provocateurs_ was a certain Dervish who, some years
ago, as the paid secret agent of Russia, acting under instructions,
preached a holy war against _giaours_ in Asia Minor and excited the
Mussulman population to attack the Christian inhabitants. One could
quote many other stories to illustrate the treachery of Turkey’s
enemies and the unfair treatment which has been accorded to her.

And so Turkey, by her own bad government and by the machinations of
those who lusted after the rich possessions that were still left to
her, was being steadily dragged down to her ruin. Even her best friends
despaired of her regeneration; for reform from _without_ administered
by the Powers would mean the loss of her independence, while reform
from _within_ seemed impossible of attainment. Turkey appeared to be
destined to early effacement from the map of Europe, when, lo! of a
sudden, the Turks themselves—all that was best and most patriotic of
the manhood of the Empire—came boldly forward to make a desperate last
stand in the defence of the integrity of their beloved fatherland. The
“Young Turks” threw off the despotism that had all but destroyed their
country and seized the reins of government, displaying a firmness,
justice, wisdom, and moderation in their almost bloodless revolution
that have won for them the admiration of all honest men throughout
the civilised world. It looks very much as if these men are about to
prove to the world that reform can come from _within_ even in Turkey,
provided that the Turks are now given the chance which they have
never had before, and greedy foes are not permitted to frustrate the
aspirations of a people freed at last.

Those who know and therefore like and respect the Turkish people
rejoice that the ancient friendship between England and Turkey has
been restored, and that at last the English people are beginning to
realise the injustice that a large section of public opinion has
done to a noble race, for over thirty years. There was a time when
they understood the Turks better. During the Crimean war the British
officers had the opportunity of acquiring an intimate knowledge of
their allies; many firm friendships were then made which were kept up
through life, and so large and influential were the relations thus
brought about between the gentlemen of the two countries that they
directed English diplomacy in Turkish affairs for many years. It may
seem, and it ought to be, unnecessary to preface this little work
with an explanation of what manner of men these Turks are; but so
grossly have they been misrepresented, and so widespread has been the
misconception concerning them, that a few words on this subject may not
be out of place.

Five and a half centuries have passed since the Mussulman Turks—a
Central-Asian people akin to the Mongols—having seized the Asiatic
possessions of the decaying Byzantine Empire, crossed the Bosphorus
and, extending their conquests, established themselves firmly in
Europe. It is possible that in Asia Minor peasants of pure Turkish
blood may still be found, but in European Turkey—that “lumber room
of many races”—the strong and noble Turkish stock has been so
largely intermingled with a number of other races that the racial
characteristics of the Osmanli have practically disappeared. It is more
rare to find features of the Mongolian stamp among the modern Turks
than among the Christian peoples over whom they rule. The Bulgarians,
for example, though speaking a Slav tongue and generally considered as
a Slav people, often have the flat faces, the projecting cheek-bones,
the small oblique eyes, that betray their descent from the nomads of
the Asiatic steppes.

There are no handsomer people in Europe than the Turks, for here the
crossing of many virile breeds has resulted in the development of a
very fine race of men. The modern Turk is a Caucasian of the highest
type, and combines in himself some of the best qualities of the East
and West. It is true that some of his Eastern qualities stand in the
way of what the energetic Western world calls progress. The Turk
is improvident and often a spendthrift; he is a fatalist, enduring
patiently whatever ill fortune or suffering fate may bring him, but
displaying an indolent indisposition to struggle against destiny. _Dieu
aide qui s’aide_ expresses a motive for action which is opposed to his
Moslem fatalism. But difficult though he may be to rouse to effort,
once roused he displays great energy and stubbornness of purpose, as
has been recently proved to the world by the careful preparation and
determined carrying through of the Turkish revolution. At any rate,
the faults of the Turks are for the most part amiable ones, and most
people who have travelled in the Near East will agree with an authority
on the politics of that region, who replied as follows to a question
put to him by an interviewer: “The men that I liked best among all
that I met in the East were Turks. In some respects the Turk struck me
as more like an Englishman and more like a gentleman than any of the
other races except the Magyars. He is a quiet, manly fellow, with great
repose and charm of manner, and does not wear his heart on his sleeve.
Europeans who live in the country look on the Turk as an honest man and
a man of his word.”

It must be remembered that the corrupt officialdom created by the
Palace, which had a degrading influence on everything in touch with it,
is not representative of the Turkish people. The typical Turk possesses
the virtues and the failings of a conquering and dominant race. He
is courageous, truthful, and honest amid races not conspicuous for
truthfulness or honesty, some of which are likewise lacking in courage.
The Turk, moreover, is shrewd and gifted with common sense, and he is
not a visionary, as are the Arabs and some other peoples holding the
Moslem faith. He has not the quick wits of some European peoples, and
may perhaps be described as being somewhat stupid, in the same sense
that the Englishman is stupid in the eyes of a neighbouring, brighter
race; but this same stupidity, or whatever else we may call it, happily
has preserved the Turk from the seeing of visions, and consequently no
impossible ideals, no wild dreams for the reconstruction of society,
have led his practical and common-sense revolution into those dreadful
roads of bloodshed and anarchy which more imaginative nations,
shrieking liberty, have blindly followed to tyrannies more oppressive
than the worst of despotisms.

Those who know him best also claim that the Turk is hospitable,
temperate, devoid of meanness, sincere in his friendships—once he is
your friend he is always your friend—and, though his enemies have
represented him as very much the reverse, gentle and humane. Of the
steadfastness of his friendship I have had experience. When a Turk is
your friend you can implicitly trust him, even though he be, what the
conditions of his country have sometimes made him, a murderous outlaw.
I have had friends among Turkish brigands myself, and Sir William
Whittall, who knows the Turks as well as any Englishman can, writes in
the following sympathetic way of his robber friend Redjeb: “Peace be
to his ashes! He is dead now. Brigand or no brigand, I had a sincere
admiration for the man as a man. His faithfulness was like unto that of
a dog, and he saved my life at the risk of his own. I have had many
incidents with brigands in Asia Minor during my fifty years of sport,
and I must say that as long as they were Turks, and I had assisted some
friends or villages of theirs, which I always made it a point to do
when I frequented the wild regions, I never feared any accidents; and
though I might often have been taken, I never was. I would not like to
trust Christian brigands in the same fashion.”

Gentleness and humanity are among the most marked characteristics of
the Turk. With his ferocity in war when his passions are roused I
shall deal later, but of his kindliness and charity in his dealings
with his fellow-men there can be no doubt. In no European country
are animals treated so kindly as they are in Turkey. A Turk never
ill-uses his horse or his ox or his domestic pets, and the wonderful
tameness of these creatures in Turkey testifies to this good trait.
In Constantinople the pariah dogs lie about the streets in their tens
of thousands; they live partly on garbage and partly on the scraps of
food which even very poor Turks put out for them. These dogs, though
fighting among themselves, display nothing but friendship for, and
confidence in, man. They never move for one as they sprawl across the
narrow pavements, for they know that no Turk would have the heart to
kick them out of the way. A few years ago an American offered a very
large sum for the right to clear Constantinople of its pariah dogs,
his object being to sell their skins to the glove makers. The populace
raised a howl of indignation when they heard of this, and had not
the scheme been abandoned serious riots would have occurred. There is
no need for a society for the prevention of cruelty to animals in a
Turkish town.

It has often been maintained by the enemies of the Turk that his
Mohammedan fanaticism makes his continued occupation of any portion of
Christian Europe undesirable. But in justice to the votaries of the
Moslem creed one ought to bear in mind, in the first place, that early
Mohammedanism never persecuted the Christian religion in the ferocious
fashion that Christianity persecuted Mohammedanism, as for example in
Spain. The Moslems were taught that it was their duty to convert or
exterminate the idolatrous heathen, but to respect “the people of the
book.” Did not Mohammed himself spread his cloak upon the ground for
the Christian envoys who came to him, treating them with honour; and
do not the Mussulmans believe that on the day of judgment the Judge
will be Jesus Christ, while the Prophet Mohammed will stand at His
side as the Intercessor? When the Turks conquered the territories of
the Christians they did not massacre the Christians, neither as a rule
did they enslave them, and they did not interfere with their religion;
under the more equitable Moslem rule the conquered Greeks found
themselves less heavily taxed and generally better off than they had
been under the rule of the emperors of the decaying Byzantine Empire.
To Jews also, as being worshippers of the one God, they extended a like
tolerance; and it was to Turkey—where they are numerous and prosperous
and still speak an old Spanish dialect—that the Jews fled when they
were driven out of Spain by the persecutions of Ferdinand and Isabella.

That later on the Mohammedans developed a fierce anti-Christian
fanaticism is largely due to centuries of political conflict with
Christian peoples, and to the many wars that have been fought to
defend Islam against the never-ceasing aggressions of Europe. Within
the Turkish Empire itself, for example in Arabia and in Northern
Albania, dangerously fanatical Moslem populations are to be found, but
these are not people of Turkish blood. The majority of the Turks of
any education, though religious, are not fanatics, and on this very
account are regarded as indifferent Mussulmans and often frankly called
_kafirs_ by the bigoted Arabs. Of all the various peoples who inhabit
Turkey the Mussulman Turks are undoubtedly the least intolerant. The
Christians of different sects there hate each other as no Turk hates a
Christian and no Christian hates a Turk. The orthodox Greeks and the
Bulgarian schismatics in Macedonia employ all methods of barbarism
in their persecutions of each other. When Bulgaria formed part of
Turkey the Bulgarians had often to petition the Turks to protect them
against the fanatical Greeks. The Catholic Latins, too, in Turkey,
being in a minority, would doubtless have been exterminated by their
fellow-Christians had it not been for the protection extended to them
by the Turks, with the result that they are grateful and loyal to the
Ottoman rule. The recent revolution appears to have brushed away almost
completely what religious fanaticism there was still left among the
Mohammedan Turks, and the Young Turks themselves, the deliverers of the
nation and its real rulers, are entirely free from it. I have conversed
with hundreds of these Young Turks and have many friends among them,
and in no country have I come across more broad-minded and tolerant
men. There is no doubt that Islamism has of late years undergone a
modernising process, thereby gaining strength. The Sheikh-ul-Islam
himself, as head of the _Ulema_—the Doctors of Law whose duty it is to
interpret the judicial precepts of the Koran, and who have hitherto
composed the most fanatical and conservative element in Turkey—has been
at great pains to impress it upon the Mussulman people, upon whom from
his position he exercises such great influence that the Constitution
which has been granted to them, though introducing the principle of
complete equality between Mussulmans, Christians, and Jews, is quite in
accordance with the teachings of the Koran.

As I find myself embarked on this somewhat long defence of the Turkish
people I may as well deal with another popular misconception concerning
them. It is often urged that the Mohammedan institution of polygamy,
with its consequent degradation of women, is incompatible with the
progress or with the moral and mental well-being of a race, and that
this by itself makes the Turk unfit to rule in Europe. Now it must be
remembered that many distinct races profess the Mohammedan religion,
and that some of these are barbarian and others decadent, even as
are some of the races that profess Christianity; but it is not fair,
because the Turks happen to be Mussulmans, that they should be credited
with the faults and vices of some other Mussulman peoples. I have no
intention of discussing the effects of polygamy, but I may point out
that the Turk, unlike the Arab, appears to be not really polygamous by
nature, and that whatever may happen in some other Moslem lands there
is no degradation of the women in Turkey. The Turkish peasant women
are as far from being degraded as any other women of their class in
Europe. It may astonish some Englishmen to learn that the simple-living
Turk of the upper and middle classes, though his religion permits him
to marry four wives, rarely marries more than one. Of the Young Turks
whom I have met, not one, I believe, has more than one wife, and I
have heard several of them speak with disapproval of the custom of
polygamy. English ladies who have friends among the Turkish ladies have
told us how refined, charming, and—in these latter days—well educated
they are. As most Turkish gentlemen retain the old customs in their
family life, the Englishman visiting the house of a Turkish friend
has no opportunity of seeing his wife, but his little daughters up
to the age of about twelve years are usually brought in by the proud
father to see the visitor, just as they might be in England, when
the pretty manners, the intelligence, and the careful education which
they have evidently received (they nearly always speak French or some
other European language) tell their own tale. The constant and deep
veneration which a Turk entertains for his mother through life belies
the nonsense that is sometimes talked concerning the condition of the
women in Turkey. The Turkish woman, too, respected and trusted, is
much freer than most people in this country imagine, and, as I shall
explain later on, the revolution largely owed its success to her brave
co-operation.

One ought to be able to form some idea of the character of a people
from its literature. Turkish literature, the classical form of which
was borrowed from that of Persia, has, like many other things in
Turkey, been undergoing a process of modernisation; it has for some
years been under the influence of Western, more especially of French,
literature; and simplicity and lucidity in the expression of thought
has taken the place of the intentional obscurity and artificiality that
characterise Oriental writing. Mr. Stanley Lane Poole, in the Turkey
volume of the excellent “The Story of the Nations” series, concludes
his chapter on Turkish men of letters as follows: “The tone of the
imaginative literature of modern Turkey is very tender and very sad.
The Ottoman poets of to-day love chiefly to dwell upon such themes as
a fading flower, or a girl dying of decline; and though admiration of
a recent French school may have something to do with this, the fancy
forces itself upon us, when we read those sweet and plaintive verses,
that a brave but gentle-hearted people, looking forward to its future
without fear, but without hope, may be seeking, perhaps unconsciously,
to derive what sad comfort it may from the thought that all beautiful
life must end in dismal death.” I have met some of these modern Turkish
poets, very manly fellows, though their work has the melancholy tinge
described above, for which, in my opinion, a long political exile in a
foreign land and sorrows for the evil fortunes of their beloved country
are largely responsible. But now the days of Turkey’s mourning are
over, and the more recent poems of these men, who are sturdy patriots
and not decadents, are beginning to reflect the triumph, enthusiasm,
and hope which have characterised the Young Turks since their
successful revolt against the despotism.




CHAPTER II

_ATROCITIES_


Such are the people who but recently were spoken of as the “unspeakable
Turks.” For thirty years they have suffered from the crudest of
tyrannies and have met with but scant sympathy in Western Europe; for
it was “their double misfortune,” to quote the words of a writer in
the _Times_, “to be oppressed and to be compelled to bear the odium
of the cruelty of the oppressor. Their fine qualities were obscured
to the world. Their name was a byword for cruelty, violence, and
fanaticism.” In England, if one attempted to defend the Turk, one
was regarded as a cold-blooded villain by a great many good people.
A considerable section of the English lost their sense of fair play
so soon as the Turkish question became at the same time a pawn in our
party politics and an excitant of religious bigotry; for one political
party became avowedly anti-Turkish, while numbers of well-meaning
but unjust Christian people approached the subject from the point of
view which made a Mussulman appear everything that is vile, and so
espoused the cause of Turkey’s Christian enemies as being of necessity
the right one. It was the same sort of sectarian narrow-mindedness
that impelled well-known preachers—not members of the English State
Church to pray from their pulpits for the success of the Americans
in their war with Spain, because Spain was Catholic and the “land of
the Inquisition.” Thus it came about when Turkey’s Christian subjects
rebelled in the seventies and the Russians came to their assistance,
the Turks were held up to opprobrium as fiends in human shape, the
murderers, violators, and mutilators of the gentle Christians. Any
piece of evidence, second-hand or third-hand, however extravagant,
was implicitly believed by these people provided it was against the
Turks, whereas whenever charges of committing atrocities were brought
against Russians and Bulgarians by the most trustworthy eye-witnesses a
very different standard of evidence was set up, and it was held to be
incredible that Christians could do these things.

Yet what were the facts? In the first place, there can be no doubt
that Russia, bent on the destruction of Turkey and aggrandisement at
her expense, had stirred the Bulgarians into rebellion by means of
_agents provocateurs_. Travellers who visited Bulgaria in the years
preceding the Russo-Turkish war state that the Bulgarian peasantry
were more prosperous than any in Turkey. It is unlikely that they
would have risen of their own accord, seeing that they had good reason
to be grateful to the Turks, who had come to their rescue when their
persecuting Greek fellow-Christians had set themselves to exterminate
the Bulgarian Church, language, and nationality. In the next place,
it is now realised that the Christians and not the Turks initiated
the atrocities. The Bulgarians, when they rose, plundered and burnt
the villages of the Turks, committed the most shocking cruelties,
and massacred unarmed Moslem men, women, and children. There is
good evidence to show that the Turkish regular troops behaved with
consideration to the Christian population until their passions were
roused by the barbarities committed by the Bulgarians and Russian
Cossacks; then indeed the Turks, exasperated by the sufferings of
their co-religionists, engaged in terrible reprisals which aroused the
indignation of the civilised world. Ferocious when provoked by the
cruelty of others, the Turks are the last people to engage in wanton
cruelty, and those who like myself have seen their armies in time of
war can vouch for their humane treatment of prisoners and of the civil
population in an enemy’s country. It must be remembered, too, that the
worst atrocities proved against the Turks in Bulgaria were committed
not by Turkish regulars but by fanatical Circassians and by the
Bashi-Bazouks, ill-disciplined irregulars recruited from the criminals
and ne’er-do-wells of any races, detested by the Turks themselves for
their excesses.

The evil name thus acquired by the Turk during the war with Russia
stuck to him through the years that followed, and ignorant, prejudice
has been wont to put down to him all the cruel deeds committed by the
Palace Camarilla, including the terrible Armenian massacres, which
were perpetrated, not by the Turks—who regarded these crimes with
loathing—but by the savage Kurds and Lazes, at the instigation of
those who misruled the unfortunate country. In many ways the Turks
have suffered more from the oppressive despotism than their Christian
fellow-subjects, but all the sympathy of our humanitarians has been
for the latter, and they had little pity or sympathy to spare for the
Mussulman. Of late years the political intriguers in Athens, Sofia,
and Belgrade have been supporting bands of Christian brigands in
Macedonia, with the object of forwarding the rival interests of the
Greeks, Bulgarians, and Servians, in anticipation of the scramble over
the partition of that rich country on the breaking up of the Ottoman
Empire. These bands have been burning villages and murdering women and
children, their excesses being committed against both Christians and
Turks. In April, 1908, a Bulgarian band burnt a Greek priest at the
stake. The incident aroused no comment. What a howl would have been
raised had the Mussulmans done this thing!

So the Christian had plenty of friends and the Turk few. No voices were
raised to defend him and to explain the injustice that was done him.
Neither was he the man to put his own case before his European critics;
for the Turk is better with the sword than with the pen; he is not so
cunning as Greek or Bulgarian in carrying on a newspaper campaign,
or in the weaving of effective misrepresentations; as a rule he is
too proud to defend himself against calumny, and treats with silent
contempt those who snarl at him. Moreover the Turk, being essentially
a patriot, would not appeal for help to foreign Governments as did
the Christians. To quote from an article recently written by Halil
Halid: “The Mussulmans suffered as much as, indeed in many places more
than, the Christians, from a despotic _régime_. They had submitted,
not to the will of their rulers, but to their hard fate, because
Turkish patriotism, which has not until recently received fitting
attention, was too great to allow them to invite outside interference
or help in the national struggle against native tyranny. Never
despairing of gaining their end, the people of Turkey have waited for
an opportune moment to strike a blow at the foundations of despotism,
and this promptly and with the least possible risk of international
complications. They have thus submitted to the indignities and
hardships caused by the tyranny of their own rulers, rather than expose
themselves to the patronising interference of any foreign Power.”

There are thus excuses for the misunderstanding that poisoned the
minds of so many Englishmen against their former friends, the Turks.
Greeks, Bulgarians, and others who sought the dismemberment of Turkey
and the appropriation of Macedonia voiced their cause loudly, not only
with just denunciations of the Turkish oppression of the Christians,
but with many plausible inventions. That the Turkish side of the
question was so rarely heard was also largely due to the fact that,
during the few years preceding the revolution, it became ever more
difficult for Englishmen in Turkey to have friendly intercourse with
the Turks themselves. The intervention of the English Government
to introduce reforms into Turkey, and the action of the Balkan and
Armenian Committees, which were wrongly believed by the Sultan and
his advisers—and appear still to be believed by all Germans and
Austrians—to be the agents in advance of the perfidious English
Government, so intensified the hatred of the Turkish despotism against
England that it was practically made a crime for a Turk, especially
if he was suspected of Liberal tendencies, to receive an Englishman
into his house. If a Turk was even seen to speak to an Englishman in
Constantinople the spies reported the fact to the Palace; and, as I
shall explain later, to manifest sympathy for the British cost many
a Turk his life and liberty. Thus the intelligent tourist, or the
globe-trotting M.P., who visited Constantinople in those days was
not in a position to pick up accurate information. His doings and
goings would probably be watched by spies, especially if he was a
member of the Balkan Committee. Though he knew it not, he would find
no opportunity of conversing with Turks save such as were the secret
agents of the Palace. His dragomans would be Greeks or Armenians, who
might speak to him of the grievances of the Christian subjects of the
Sultan, but certainly not of the grievances of the Turks. So, too, was
it with most of the journalists. If they were anti-Turks they sought
information from the members of the Greek and Bulgarian bands, and if
they were pro-Turks they were on friendly terms with officialdom—they
had audiences with ministers, possibly with the Sultan himself; and as
all Turks are very polite, they often left the audience-chamber charmed
with despotism, and explained, in the papers they represented, that
the Young Turk party was either a myth or a small and impotent group
of malcontents, who, during a sojourn in Paris, had absorbed the wild
theories of the internationalists and anarchists.

To drive the Turks “bag and baggage” out of Europe was the proclaimed
policy of many ignorant humanitarians. The expulsion of the Turkish
rule would indeed have been followed by a bag-and-baggage exodus, for
but a small minority of Mussulmans would have remained in the land to
be governed by a Christian race. In former years Russia and Austria
were regarded as the probable inheritors of the “Sick Man’s” European
territories, and it is certain that the rule of either of these would
be intolerable to the Turks. One remembers how the Circassian and
Bosnian Mussulmans emigrated in large numbers into Turkey when their
countries were occupied respectively by the Russians and Austrians.
These emigrations were accompanied by great suffering and loss of
life, due largely to the incapacity and callousness of the Turkish
Government, which, while undertaking to found colonies of the refugees
in Asia Minor, Mesopotamia, and other parts of the Empire, practically
left them to starve. The humanitarians would have realised the cruelty
of their proposal had they seen, as I did, the pitiful sights in
Northern Albania thirty years ago. The Bosnian Mussulman peasants,
escaping from the rule of Austria, were pouring into that portion
of Turkish territory. Men, women, and children were slowly crawling
across the snow-covered country in the bitter winter weather, weak
and listless with hunger and cold, often frost-bitten, hundreds of
them failing by the way, so that it was a common thing to see frozen
corpses lying by the roadside. The Albanians themselves were in a
half-starving condition after the ravages of the war, and could render
little assistance to the wretched refugees. Under the bag-and-baggage
scheme there would be an exodus of millions and unimaginable suffering.
Had Europe committed this crime the retribution might have been heavy.
The Sultan would still have been the Caliph of the Moslem world, and
the Turks, driven into Asia, might have reformed their Government and
set their house in order, even as they are doing now; but the Turkish
awakening, instead of taking its present form, would have taken that
of Pan-Islamism—the combination against the Christians of all the
Mussulman peoples.

The humane bag-and-baggage proposal would have meant the expulsion of
nearly half the population of Turkey and the replacement of the Turkish
by some other rule. But the Russianisation or Germanisation of the
Balkan Peninsula would have been more disagreeable to the Christian
population than even the domination of the Turk, while it would
have been impossible to divide the country among the neighbouring
states in such a way as to satisfy the inhabitants. In the peninsula
are jumbled up remnants of every race and creed, not collected into
separate districts, but intermingling with each other, hating each
other, jealous of each other—Servians dreaming of the larger Servia,
Bulgarians of the larger Bulgaria, Greeks of the larger Greece—their
territorial claims, based upon race distinctions, all overlapping
each other; an entanglement of rival rights and interests impossible
of unravelment. Neither of these Christian races would submit to be
ruled by the other. For example, there can be no doubt that a Bulgarian
would rather be governed by the Moslem Turk than by the Greek. And amid
all these races, more numerous than any of them taken singly, are the
ruling Turks, who own the fee simple of the land by the best of titles,
conquest. They are the strong race whose bearing is in strong contrast
to the servility of some of the races in their midst. They are the
masterly people fit to rule the others; for whatever peace fanatics may
say, only people ready to fight bravely in defence of their possessions
are fit to own possessions. We have not arrived at the state of
civilisation when it can be otherwise. Even our humanitarians, who
unknown to themselves have some of the old Adam in them, respect those
who can use the sword; for whereas they sympathise with the aspirations
of the plucky Bulgarians they pay little heed to the Greeks, who,
though the noisiest of the claimants to Turkey’s heritage and having
vast pretensions which extend to every piece of territory in Europe and
Asia that ever belonged to any of the states of ancient Greece, are
among the feeblest people in the world in the practice of war.

It needs a strong rule to keep the rival Christian sects of the Balkan
Peninsula in order and to prevent them from cutting each other’s
throats, lopping off each other’s ears, and burning each other’s
priests. The Turks can provide that strong rule; and if we add to the
Turks the Mussulmans of other race in the country—Albanians, Moslem
Bulgarians, Circassians, and others—we have nearly half the total
population united by a common religion, as the Christians certainly are
not. The Young Turks may now prove that Lord Palmerston, after all, was
right when he said that the rule of the Mussulman Turk was the only
one that could combine the different races and sects of Turkey in one
kingdom. The Turks have no ambition to recover the territory which they
have lost, but they are determined to hold on to what still remains to
them. With a strong Turkey, in close alliance with a federation of the
Slav states to the north of her, we may yet see a quiet and contented
Balkan Peninsula.




CHAPTER III

_EARLY REFORMERS_


It is about a century ago that Western ideas began to influence the
better Turkish statesmen and efforts were made to reform the system of
government and bring it into harmony with modern civilisation. Mahmud
II, who came to the throne in 1808, and his successor, Abd-ul-Mejid,
who died in 1861, were wise and reforming monarchs, who were advised
by enlightened statesmen such as Reshid Pasha, at whose instance, in
1839, the edict known as the Hatti-Sherif of Gulhane was promulgated.
This edict, which has been called the Magna Charta of Turkey, promised
many useful administrative and judicial reforms, and secured to
the Christian as well as Mussulman subjects of the Sultan security
for their lives, honour, and property. Again, in 1856, after the
Crimean war, the Hatti Houmaioum Firman announced among other things
the complete equality in the eyes of the law of the Christians and
Mussulmans in Turkey. I need scarcely say that these solemn engagements
have been wholly ignored by Turkey’s recent rulers.

In 1861, on the death of Abd-ul-Mejid, Abd-ul-Aziz succeeded to the
throne of Othman. He was assisted by a group of patriotic and able
statesmen, among whom were Fuad Pasha, Rushdi Pasha, Aali Pasha, and
Midhat Pasha; and for the first ten years of his reign he ruled his
country well. He made the Turkish navy one of the most formidable in
Europe; he organised the army that fought so stubbornly at Plevna;
justice was administered, and the press was free to criticise the
Government. But this promising monarch, unfortunately for his country,
broke away from the tutelage of wise men and fell under the influence
of evil advisers. On the death of Aali Pasha in 1872, Mahmud Nedim
Pasha, a man who was fanatically anti-European and uneducated, became
the chief adviser of the Sultan, and was soon created Grand Vizier. The
character of the Sultan seemed now to undergo a complete change; his
policy became retrograde and reactionary; he drove from his side the
good and wise and surrounded himself with corrupt parasites, who were
in many cases the ready tools of Ignatieff; for the Russian diplomacy
had gained the ascendency in Constantinople, and, as usual, was
employed in intriguing against the party of reform and organising the
disruption of the Ottoman Empire.

And now commenced that final struggle between the Palace and the
Sublime Porte which has resulted in the overthrow of the Despotism.
The Sultan, though the absolute head of the Church and State, had
hitherto left the administration of the Empire to his Cabinet of
Ministers chosen by himself, whose office is known as the Sublime
Porte. Abd-ul-Aziz attempted to break down this system, and to centre
in himself the entire rule of the country; soon the ministers became
mere puppets, and the Palace was made paramount. The Sultan assumed
the complete control of the Treasury, and refused to give any account
of the public revenues which he wasted. He contracted loans in Europe
under onerous conditions that endangered the very independence of the
Empire.

The patriots among the Turkish statesmen, who had been cast out from
all direction of public affairs, almost despaired of their country, and
the risings in Herzegovina and Bosnia, presaging European intervention,
seemed to many to be the beginning of the end. The great Midhat Pasha,
whom the Young Turks speak of as the first martyr of their cause, had
the temerity to seek a two-hours’ private audience of the Sultan, and
pointed out to him with such forcible eloquence the corruption of his
administration, the incapacity of his Grand Vizier, and the certain
destruction to which he was dragging his country, that Abd-ul-Aziz was
terrified, his eyes were for a moment opened, and he saw the dreadful
truth; so deposing Mahmud Nedim he appointed Midhat and Rushdi as his
principal ministers and advisers. For three months only these reforming
statesmen were left in power, for Midhat Pasha was suddenly disgraced
because he had expressed indignation when a favourite odalisque of
the monarch had sent a negro to him to ask him to appoint one of her
servants to a provincial vice-governorship. The system of Mahmud Nedim
was reintroduced; things went from bad to worse; justice became openly
venal; ranks in the services were sold by Palace favourites; the entire
administration became grossly corrupt and disorganised; and at last, in
1875, the Turkish Government had to declare itself insolvent.

Turks who had the welfare of their country at heart felt that it
was necessary to put a forcible end to this state of things. On May
22, 6000 Softas, the theological students attached to the mosques,
invaded the Sublime Porte and clamoured for the deposition of the
Grand Vizier, while some thousands of others demonstrated in front of
the Palace. The Sultan, terrified, yielded to these demands, deposed
Mahmud Nedim, recalled Rushdi Pasha; and a Cabinet of reforming
statesmen, including Midhat Pasha, was formed. Then came the famous
_coup d’état_. The ministers, having reason to doubt the good faith of
the monarch, decided to depose him. In the night of May 30, 1876, the
Palace was surrounded by troops, the Chief Eunuch was called up and was
ordered to awake his master and hand him the _fetva_, or decree of the
Sheikh-ul-Islam, Hairoullah Effendi, in his capacity of chief expounder
of the sacred law, a decree to which even a Sultan must submit. The
_fetva_ was set forth in the form of a question and answer as follows:
“If the Head of the Believers has so lost his reason as to ruin the
State, which God has confided to his care, by foolish expenditure, by
wild caprices, and if the continuation of this misrule is likely to
bring on a situation which will destroy the sacred interests of the
country, is it permissible to leave that man at the head of affairs,
or ought one to deprive him of his power? The answer is, that he ought
to be deprived of his power.” Thus the Sheikh-ul-Islam, in the name of
the Mohammedan religion, approved of the revolution of 1876, even as
did another Sheikh-ul-Islam declare himself in favour of the recent
Young Turk revolution and the granting of the Constitution. It is
important to remember that despotism is not (as many suppose that it
is) in accord with the teachings of the Koran, and that constitutional
government ought not to be acceptable to good Mussulmans. Islam, as
the Young Turks point out, condemns tyranny and encourages peoples to
rule themselves. The following, for example, are passages from the
Koran which have been much quoted in Turkey of late: “God loveth not
tyrants”; “When a people direct their affairs by consulting among
themselves they shall get their reward.”

So Abd-ul-Aziz was deposed and Murad V became Sultan in his place. The
new monarch issued a proclamation by which he promised to carry out the
reforms advocated by his minister, Midhat Pasha; and the well-wishers
of Turkey rejoiced. But unhappy Turkey was not to be freed yet, and
an event happened that turned hope into despair. Four days after his
deposition Abd-ul-Aziz either committed suicide or was assassinated in
the palace to which he had been removed. If he was murdered, he who
committed the crime must have been the greatest enemy of Turkey, and
none of the ministers could have had anything to do with a deed that
upset all their plans for the regeneration of their country. So soon
as Abd-ul-Aziz was found dead his Circassian _aide-de-camp_, Hassan,
rushed to Midhat Pasha’s house, where the ministers were assembled, and
assassinated two of these whom Turkey could ill spare, Avni Pasha and
Rechid Pasha. This succession of tragic events so shook the weak mind
of the new Sultan that he became hopelessly insane. After a reign of
only three months it became necessary to depose him, and the legitimate
heir, his brother, Abdul Hamid, the present Sultan of Turkey, ascended
the throne in the autumn of 1876.

Abdul Hamid, however, was not permitted to grasp the sceptre until he
had signed a document by which he undertook to grant a Constitution to
his people and to rule with justice. Indeed, he was ready to make any
promises, and accepted without reserve the liberal principles of Midhat
Pasha and the reformers. No one in Turkey believes that he was sincere,
and Sefer Bey recounts in _La Revue_ how, on the very day of his
succession, Abdul Hamid, on his return to the Palace, after having gone
through the traditional ceremony of buckling on the sword of Othman,
spoke in the following words to a well-known Turkish general of his
_entourage_: “It is Reshid Pasha who is responsible for everything that
has happened; it is that great criminal who made my father sign that
accursed firman under the pressure of Europe, and by giving stupid
illusions to the Turkish people has led them into wrong ways. The
government which our nation needs is an absolute despotism, and not the
pernicious _régime_ of liberty which Europe practises. I shall know how
to put order in the ideas of the people, but before all, I must make my
position secure and get rid of the wretches who deposed my uncle.”

At the opening of the new reign, however, the reformers looked to
the future with hope. Midhat Pasha was appointed Prime Minister, and
began to work out his scheme for the regeneration of Turkey. He framed
his Constitution, which established the equality of all races and
creeds, and took steps to crush the rebellion in European Turkey that
was threatening to bring about a European war. Midhat was beloved by
educated and patriotic Turks, and was strongly supported by the people;
his position seemed unassailable. But before he had been four months
on the throne Abdul Hamid struck his first blow at liberty, and showed
what manner of man he was. Midhat was suddenly summoned to the Palace,
and on arriving there was informed that his exile had been determined
upon and that he must forthwith board a vessel that was awaiting him in
the Bosphorus with steam up, and betake himself beyond the confines of
the Ottoman Empire. Then the Sultan set himself to put out of the way
the other men who had taken a part in the deposition of Abd-ul-Aziz.
Rushdi Pasha and the Sheikh-ul-Islam were exiled to remote parts of
the Empire, while many less distinguished Liberals disappeared, being
either killed or imprisoned.

Midhat Pasha, the greatest of the Turkish reformers, as an exile,
lived in several European capitals, studied on the spot the principles
of decent government, and formed plans for the amelioration of the
condition of his unfortunate country when the opportunity should
arrive. The Sultan appears to have come to the conclusion that his
ex-Grand Vizier might be as dangerous to the Despotism while in
Europe as he had been in Turkey. A plot, the details of which are
well known, was laid to bring about Midhat’s destruction. He was led
to believe that the Sultan had repented of his injustice, had come
to see the errors of his illiberal policy, and desired that the able
statesman should return to Turkey to give his valuable assistance in
the reorganisation of the Empire. So, after a long exile, Midhat,
accepting a treacherous invitation, came back to his native land,
and was made Governor of Syria. Shortly after his appointment he was
denounced to the Palace by false accusers, who were prepared to prove
that Abd-ul-Aziz had been assassinated by Midhat’s orders. After
an iniquitous trial, by judges who pretended to credit the obvious
inventions of suborned witnesses, he was found guilty, and as it might
have been dangerous to execute a man so much beloved and respected, he
was condemned to imprisonment in a fortress in Arabia. There he was
treated with great inhumanity and deprived of all the comforts and some
of the necessaries of life. As his strong constitution resisted these
privations for three years, he was strangled in May, 1884, by order of
his persecutors, and his head was sent to the Palace, so that there
should be no doubt about his death.

The Sultan had rid himself of all the chief friends of liberty
immediately after his accession to the throne, but, cautious and
fearful by nature, he took no further immediate steps to impose
absolute despotism upon his people. Mainly with the object of
hoodwinking England and winning her good-will at the critical period
preceding the outbreak of the war with Russia, he proclaimed the
Constitution of Midhat Pasha, and a Turkish Parliament was allowed to
meet. The Sultan imposed his will upon the Parliament and reduced it
to impotence; but there were many patriotic deputies who spoke their
minds freely and defied the monarch’s wrath. At last, in February,
1878, shortly before the conclusion of the treaty of peace with Russia
at St. Stephano, the Sultan dissolved both Houses, and, with pretended
reluctance, suspended the Constitution. He next proceeded to deprive
the Sublime Porte of all power and to make the Palace supreme. The
ministers became mere puppets, whose submission was bought by the
license that was allowed to them to embezzle the public funds. The
control of the army and navy, of foreign affairs, of the finances of
the Empire, every branch of the administration, the appointment of
every official were in the hands of the Sovereign and his corrupt
Camarilla. Having a pampered Prætorian Guard to enforce his will, he
held Constantinople under martial law. It was a reign of terror; he
spared none who were not for him. From the dissolution of Turkey’s
first Parliament in 1878 until the proclamation of the Constitution
in 1908 Turkey was oppressed by one of the most demoralising and
destructive tyrannies that the world has known. For the Ottoman Empire
those thirty years were the most unhappy and disastrous of its long
history.




CHAPTER IV

_THE SPREAD OF CORRUPTION_


The sultan’s policy was directed by a narrow fanaticism. It is possible
that he sincerely believed that a cruel despotism was the best rule for
Turkey. He hated the Christians, and it was his ambition to realise the
dream of the Pan-Islamites, to gather together round himself as the
Caliph all the followers of the faith of whatever race, so as to form
a strong political-religious confederation of Moslems that should keep
in check the aggressions of Europe and liberate Mussulman peoples now
subject to the Christians. It was his aim, too, to withdraw all such
rights as his predecessors had granted to the Christian subjects of
Turkey and to revoke the irritating privileges which the Capitulations
had given to foreigners within Turkish territory—not in themselves
ignoble designs, but which were prosecuted by such ignoble methods as
nearly to destroy instead of to strengthen the Moslem supremacy in
Turkey.

It is not necessary here to follow the history of Turkey under the
Hamidian _régime_. How, defeated in war, she was bereft of vast and
rich territories; how the splendid navy, created by Abd-ul-Aziz, was
allowed to fall into decay, so that when Turkey was at war with Greece
in 1897, she found herself with not a single ship that could be made
fit to put to sea; how her fine army was starved and neglected, so
that it became demoralised and helpless to defend her against her
foes; how corruption and the wholesale appropriation of public moneys
by the creatures of the Palace brought her finances into so hopeless
a condition that she was tied hand and foot by her foreign creditors,
and had therefore to submit to the control of several departments of
her internal administration by commissions appointed by the Christian
Powers; how justice was bought and sold, and promotion in all the
services was awarded to the parasite or the highest bidder; how, in
consequence of the massacres of Christians and the impotence of her
Government to maintain order, Turkish patriots were humiliated by
seeing a foreign _gendarmerie_ forced upon her by the Powers; how, in
short, Turkey became so weak and effete that even to her friends her
disintegration appeared to be the inevitable end delayed only by the
jealousy of the rival Powers, who, fearing for what is called “the
balance of power” in Europe, bolstered up the “Sick Man” and professed
a desire to preserve the integrity of the Ottoman Empire. All these
things were regarded with dismay by the Turks, and precipitated the
revolution against the Government responsible for the rapid decay of
the nation; but in this chapter I will confine myself to an account of
the particular forms which the despotic oppression of the Mussulman
Turks assumed, until at last that oppression became so insupportable
as to goad into rebellion not only the upper classes, but even the
ignorant Turkish peasants, who, serving so patiently and bravely in the
army, had hitherto been ever faithful with the faithfulness of a dog to
the Sultan’s person.

The Sultan has proved himself to be in many respects a man of great
strength of character and of exceptional ability; a subtle diplomatist,
he was able to play the European Powers against each other; and he
succeeded in the main object of his life, centralising all authority
in himself at the cost of indefatigable personal labour, and making
himself the supreme master of his country. He might indeed, with his
sagacity, have been an excellent monarch of the despotic Oriental
type, working for the good of his people, had it not been for one
failing which grew into an obsession and brought much woe to Turkey,
and this failing was fear. Abdul Hamid was haunted by a perpetual
fear of assassination; he had no trusted friends, and suspected
all men; and therefore cowardice, as is always the case, called in
cruelty and oppression to protect itself. He subordinated the welfare
of his country to his elaborate schemes for self-preservation. He
deliberately weakened the Ottoman Empire, dividing it against itself,
and demoralised his subjects so that there should be no element in the
State or group of individuals strong enough to attempt his overthrow.
Thus he stirred up strife between the different Christian sects and
inflamed Mussulman fanaticism, so that populations which before his
time had lived side by side in peace, tolerating if not loving each
other, fell upon each other with sword and fire; and when his oppressed
subjects rebelled he quenched their spirit with dreadful massacres.

So, too, was it in his dealings with individuals, in the selection of
his creatures and in his treatment of them. A tyrant who is enslaving
his country naturally looks upon honest patriots with suspicion as
potential rebels. He cannot well employ the services of such men as his
advisers and ministers. He also mistrusts ability, as giving a power
to be dangerous. Thus Turkish gentlemen of the official class, who
possessed distinction, brains, and probity, had very little share in
the administration. The Camarilla of the Sultan was mainly composed of
base and illiterate though cunning people; avaricious and unscrupulous
parasites, of whom the most influential were not Turks, but Syrians,
Arabs, and Circassians; men who, being devoid of true patriotism and
having the attainment of wealth as their one aim, would have no reason
for joining in a conspiracy against the Despotism. But the Sultan
mistrusted even these ready instruments of his will. Having a profound
knowledge of the evil side of human nature, he played off one creature
against the other, made them jealous of each other, paid them to spy
upon each other, prevented any sort of friendship between them, and
governed them by terror. The Camarilla, selling public appointments,
spread the poison of corruption that threatened to demoralise a whole
people. To quote the words of a Young Turk writer: “There was left
in Turkey but one ideal, but one opening for those who aspired, and
that was to amass riches and spend them in gross sensual amusement.
But, for the attainment of this, one had to declare oneself the spy
of the Palace, and to give proofs of one’s servility by sacrificing
father, mother, brother, friends, principles, conscience, all patriotic
sentiments, and all humanity.”

It is wonderful that there were any honest men holding high positions
during this period, but such there undoubtedly were, though these were
for the most part narrow-minded fanatics who favoured Abdul Hamid’s
Pan-Islamic schemes, and were pleased to co-operate with him in
depriving the Christians of what liberties they possessed, and seizing
pretexts to massacre them. But to the highest offices of the State,
such as the Grand Vizierate, the Sultan found himself compelled at
times, in self-defence, to appoint men of capacity and high character;
especially so when, after happenings more iniquitous than usual, the
relations between Turkey and the European Powers became dangerously
strained. Thus Kiamil Pasha, concerning whose good work for his country
I shall have to speak later, was several times Grand Vizier, to be
deposed as soon as he could be dispensed with; for he was not the man
to be obsequious to the despot, and he was not afraid of uttering
disagreeable truths. On the whole, however, conspicuous ability became
a disqualification for office in Turkey; and for a public man to be
popular was a crime.

In order to insure their blind obedience to him as the Padisha, it
was Abdul Hamid’s aim to keep his Mussulman subjects in a state of
ignorance. He knew that the liberal ideas of modern Europe had been
planted in Turkey, and he determined to uproot them, or at any rate
prevent their spread. He endeavoured, not without some success, to
cut Turkey off from the influence of Western progress. His subjects,
with certain exceptions, were not permitted to travel in foreign
countries, and even their goings to and fro within the Empire were
regarded with suspicion. It has been suggested that he allowed his
navy to rot because he feared lest his sailors should be inoculated
with ideas about liberty while visiting Western ports; at any rate, he
appears to have connived at the embezzlement by his Minister of Marine
of ten millions sterling, which were to have been devoted to naval
expenditure. Realising, however, that the preservation of the Empire
depended upon the reorganisation of his army, the Sultan was compelled
to provide for the education of his officers, some of whom were sent
to Germany and other foreign countries, while thousands were passed
through the Turkish military schools in Turkey itself, where they were
instructed by European teachers. Officers thus trained, however, were
looked upon as somewhat dangerous, and were attached to the Army Corps
in various parts of the Empire, but not to that portion of the Turkish
army which guards Constantinople, the centre of the Despotism, and the
Sultan’s person; for there the pampered fanatical troops, faithful to
their master, were officered by men who had risen from the ranks, some
of whom could not even read, but who could be relied upon to carry out
the orders given to them by the Palace.

All progress was paralysed by the fear that ruled at the Palace. The
introduction of typewriters and telephones as being of possible use to
conspirators was prohibited. The Press had no liberty; the strictest
censorship was exercised over all printed matter that came into Turkey.
To be found in possession of a work of Herbert Spencer’s, for example,
would mean imprisonment. The censor would not consent to the production
of “Hamlet” in the theatre, because in that play the killing of a
monarch is represented on the stage.

Under the Hamidian _régime_ there was of course no recognition of
the inviolability of the domicile. The houses of educated Turks were
frequently broken into by the police in search of forbidden literature.
To such an extent was the right of public meeting denied, that it
was not safe for three or four friends to sit and chat together in a
_café_. A Turk could not give a dinner-party in his own house without
the permission of the authorities, and even if he obtained that
permission, some police agent would likely as not be sent to sit at his
table, as an uninvited and most unwelcome guest, taking mental notes of
the conversation and smelling out conspiracies.

It was altogether a hideous system that naturally bred all manner of
tyrants, great and petty, who being the creatures of the Palace were
enabled to oppress the people with impunity. There was, for example,
the infamous Fehim Pasha, chief of the secret police, who abused his
official authority to gratify his every whim and passion, plundering
and blackmailing those whose possessions aroused his avarice, killing
those who stood in his way, and, whenever his fancy was attracted,
forcibly carrying off to his harem the wives and daughters of peaceable
citizens—a wretch so hated that so soon as the Constitution was
announced, the mob at Broussa, fearing him no longer, fell upon him and
tore him to pieces.

Then there was the great army of paid informers who preyed upon the
people. The system of _espionage_, which Abdul Hamid in his fear
devised to protect himself against conspiracy and assassination, was so
oppressive and cruel in its working as to render almost insupportable
the lives of such of his subjects as were regarded as suspects on
account of their good birth, enlightenment, patriotism, or honourable
character. The expenditure on this _espionage_ sometimes amounted to
as much as $10,000,000 a year. The spies were everywhere, and were of
every rank and condition. Ministers were paid to spy on each other.
A man’s house-servants, the Greek hotel-waiter who brought him his
cup of coffee, the Armenian dragoman who guided the simple foreign
tourist, were paid to watch and listen and send their reports to the
Palace. Spies would gain a man’s friendship, worm themselves into his
confidence, and then denounce him. People were sometimes betrayed by
their own relations. All the social relationships of the family, the
military college, the regiment, and the navy were undermined; for
if the Palace suspected a man it would spare no effort to buy the
treason of those nearest to him. There was an atmosphere of terror and
universal distrust. When the spy system was introduced into the army it
destroyed all _esprit de corps_. It became known that there were spies
among the officers of every unit, whose business it was to watch their
brother officers; with the result that there was no comradeship even
among officers of the same regiment, each suspecting the other of being
the secret agent of the Palace; they never messed together, and in many
cases had never spoken to each other.

And even the spies themselves had other spies set to spy upon them by
the all-suspicious ruler. The Sultan’s spies were in every foreign
capital—sometimes working with its secret police—to keep an eye upon
the exiles and seek evidence to entrap friends of theirs in Turkey who
might be in communication with them. And from this great army of spies
a flood of denunciations poured into the Palace. The denunciations were
well paid for, so the supply never failed, even when the terrorised
people avoided any conduct that could be construed into a political
offence. _Agents provocateurs_ incited men to acts that would afford
ground for accusation. The spies did not hesitate to bear false
testimony against the innocent, and, as in the case of Midhat Pasha,
the creatures of the Palace, when desirous of ruining some individual,
employed wretches to trump up the tale that would condemn him. A friend
of mine suffered long imprisonment because the secret police searched
his house and there pretended to find compromising papers which they
themselves had forged. It is scarcely necessary to add that vile people
availed themselves of the system to levy blackmail by threatening
denunciation.

The denounced were often condemned without any pretence of a legal
trial. Many of the best men in the country disappeared from their
families never to return, their fate the _oubliette_, or death by
the cord, or the traditional dropping into the Bosphorus of a sack
containing the victim. Exile or imprisonment for a term of years were
the punishments awarded for minor indiscretions—chance words expressing
disapproval of the methods of the Palace, or the possession of a
foreign paper of liberal views. People were tortured in the Palace to
betray their friends and relations. Thousands of families in Turkey
have had to mourn members torn away after denunciations by the spies.
After the proclamation of the Constitution about seventy thousand
exiles returned to Turkey from remote parts of the Empire (the Siberias
of Turkey) and from foreign countries, and how many thousands have been
put to death or have died in captivity no man can tell.

I may mention here that during the latter years of the Hamidian
_régime_ many Turks were denounced and suffered because they
manifested friendship for the English. The Turks are not a fickle
people, and despite the thirty years’ aloofness of the English through
misconceptions regarding the Turkish people, the Turks themselves
have ever remained faithful to their old friends, and the present
enthusiasm for England is no passing wave. But the Palace hated the
British Government which had attempted to force reforms upon Turkey,
and it suspected all Englishmen of sharing the views of the Balkan
Committee. On the other hand, German influence became ascendant at the
Palace about twelve years ago, and remained so until the overthrow of
the Despotism; for German diplomacy is not sentimental; it did not
worry the Palace with humanitarian pressure for the sake of securing
the better government of the unfortunate subjects of the Sultan; and
it even assisted the Porte to thwart the efforts of the other Powers.
Its main object was to further German commercial interests. The German
Embassy in Constantinople squeezed concessions out of the Turkish
Government by curious methods, and knew well how to make use of Palace
intrigues and corrupt officialism. Helped by their Government, German
syndicates, with cynical disregard of the fact that they were hurrying
the country to its ruin, worked in league with those in the Palace,
who were ready to betray their fatherland for a bribe, and secured the
Baghdad railway concession with its iniquitous kilometric guarantee,
and other privileges, on terms far more onerous for Turkey than could
have been obtained from other quarters, thus burdening the country
with unfair obligations, which now cripple her efforts for reform and
reorganisation.

But I must not digress into the tortuous ways of Turkish finance,
which is outside the scope of this book. Suffice it to say that German
influence at the Palace undoubtedly intensified the Sultan’s hatred of
England, and the obsequious spies received their cue. The English in
Turkey were in no wise molested, but they were declared taboo by the
authorities. For a Turk even to be seen talking to an Englishman was
dangerous. Turks feared to look towards the English Embassy as they
passed it. They were forbidden to visit certain English establishments,
such as the English book-shop in Pera, and the quaint old inn in
Galata, built long ago by the Genoese, where, with a retired British
sea-captain as host, naval officers, British and Turkish, had been
wont to foregather in good fellowship. The spies were busily employed
in denouncing such Turks as were supposed to be Anglophil. A friend
of mine, who at that time held a good appointment and enjoyed a large
income, was reported by the spies as having intrigued to bring the
British fleet to Constantinople. He was imprisoned for five years. He
was released with all other political prisoners after the successful
revolution, and came back to the world to find himself penniless; to
learn that his wife, having first become blind from unceasing weeping,
had died practically in a starving condition, and that his children
were living on charity.

It ought not to be forgotten by Englishmen that when they were engaged
in their last war with the Boers, and all Europe was reviling them,
the Turks alone—and notably those of the educated classes who now rule
the country as the Young Turk party—were in sympathy with them, and
some of them suffered in consequence. A number of young officers of the
army and navy, and others, put their names to a document in which they
expressed their hope that the British arms would prove successful in
South Africa, and this they carried to the British Embassy to present
to the English Ambassador. The Palace heard of this; the spies were
set to work to ascertain what names appeared upon the incriminating
document, and one by one every one of these men disappeared, being
snatched up to be put into prison, or to be sent into exile. One of
these young officers, Sirret Bey, escaped from those who arrested
him, hid himself for some time in the guise of a cook in the British
Consulate, and is now one of the leading members of the Committee of
Union and Progress in Salonika.

This dreadful system of _espionage_ and the suppression of all
intellectual liberty fell harder on the educated Mussulmans than on
the Christian subjects of the Sultan, for despotism had no such fear
of the Greek or Armenian as it had of the patriotic Turk, and the
Christians therefore were not so closely watched and had more chance of
public appointment. The Christians also had one important advantage
over the Mussulman Turks in so much as their privileges allowed them
to establish schools uncontrolled by the State, which provided a more
liberal education than was possible in the Moslem schools. It can be
readily understood, therefore, how patriotic Turks of the upper and
middle classes, ground down under this tyranny that gave them no voice
in the administration and placed over them mean men who were hurrying
the country to its destruction, were prepared to join in any movement
that promised a fair chance of overthrowing the Hamidian _régime_.

It is also easy to understand that the Christians, who during this
reign were deprived of some of their ancient rights, who were
treated with a more galling contumely than ever before, as a subject
and despised people, and lived in perpetual dread of massacre and
outrage, welcomed the revolution that placed them on an equality with
the Mussulmans; but how it came to pass that the Despotism became
so intolerable to the masses of the Turkish people as to excite to
rebellion even the patient, religious Moslem peasants, who had hitherto
revered the Sultan as their spiritual ruler as well as their monarch,
and had been blindly and fanatically obedient to his will, requires
some explanation. The thrifty, hard-working Turkish peasants suffered
as much as the Christians from the evils of the administration; they
paid the same heavy taxes, and, like their Christian neighbours, they
were cheated by the tax-collectors, being often illegally mulcted and
most harshly treated by petty tyrants. The provincial officials did
not receive their pay regularly, and so recouped themselves by corrupt
practices. Thus the rich, by paying bribes, succeeded in many cases in
avoiding taxation altogether, and many unfair exemptions were allowed;
with the result that in some places nearly all the burden of taxation
fell upon the poor. The peasants were shrewd enough to perceive that
the money thus wrung from them did not produce any good for themselves
or their country, but went to enrich the ruling clique, and that
Constantinople swallowed up the huge sums that were collected in every
part of the Empire. They knew that there were Ministries established in
costly palaces and maintaining a large number of well-paid officials,
while the result of this extravagant expenditure was not anywhere to
be seen. Thus there was a Ministry of Public Works, but there were no
roads or irrigation works; a Ministry of Police, but no protection of
life and property; a Ministry of Justice, and no justice; a Ministry of
War, and a starved army.

But the stoical Mussulman peasants, whose faithfulness is as that of
a dog, were loth to think ill of their Sultan, and they put the blame
upon his Ministers as doing wrong without his knowledge. Oppression
and unjust taxation by themselves would not have driven these people
into revolt, and the Young Turk movement would have had small chance of
success, had not Abdul Hamid neglected to secure—what would have been
so easy to secure—the continued fidelity and affection of his army, of
which the splendid peasantry of the country form the backbone. I have
explained that the Sultan was careful to pamper the Albanian and other
regiments that were stationed in Constantinople to protect his person,
overawe the city, and preserve the Despotism; and he saw to it that
these men duly received their pay, were well fed and properly clothed.
But with this exception the military administration of the Empire was
left wholly in the hands of the Palace favourites, who, with their
characteristic greed and total lack of patriotic sentiment, enriched
themselves at the expense of the national defence and, with a callous
indifference to the sufferings of the men, practically starved the army.

In Turkey, the burden of obligatory service is placed exclusively
on the Mussulman population, the Christians up till now having
enjoyed complete exemption, in return for which they have paid a
small poll-tax. The Turkish soldier is among the toughest as well
as the bravest in the world, and he will undergo great hardships
uncomplainingly; but there are limits even to his endurance. It would
be difficult to exaggerate the pitiable condition of these fine troops,
as I have often seen them in provincial garrisons and posts in the days
of the old _régime_. They never received their full rations; sometimes
they were in a starving condition; they were ill-clothed even when
guarding the frontier through the hard Balkan winters; often in rags
and tatters, with what remained of their uniforms supplemented with
such native garments as they could pick up; their small pay was always
in arrears; they were untrained and undisciplined—a pitiful waste of
the finest military material in Europe; and the officers themselves
irregularly paid, slovenly, because they had no means to procure the
decencies of life, and estranged one from the other by the hateful spy
system, were in no condition to inspire their men with the high spirit
and _esprit de corps_ that used to distinguish the Turkish army. But
despite all this, when fighting had to be done these men remembered
that they were Turkish soldiers, and fought well.

The Turkish soldier might even have put up with all this during his
four years of service with the colours, for it takes much to rouse him
to mutiny; but his oppression took one form that was intolerable to
him and to his family; the iniquitous custom grew up of keeping him
with the army for several years after his term of service had legally
expired; and the reservists also, when called out for their periodical
training, were not infrequently carried off to remote parts of the
Empire and compelled to resume their military service for an indefinite
time. The worst lot of all was that of regiments ordered to the Hedjaz
or the Yemen. In those wild regions the wretched troops, ill-equipped,
with wholly inadequate transport, and therefore always short of food,
and generally provided with insufficient ammunition, had to carry
on long campaigns against the rebel Arabs. They thus suffered great
privations, and were not seldom defeated and massacred in consequence
of the criminal negligence of Turkey’s rulers. Educated surgeons were
rarely attached to these expeditions, and I have been assured by old
soldiers, who had served in Arabia, that if a man was sick or wounded,
so that he was unable to march, there was little chance for him, as
there were no means for carrying him; and that in these circumstances
the ignorant and ill-paid men who played the part of army doctors,
after pretending to examine a man, would declare that he was in a
dying condition, and had him buried in the sand while yet alive. It
often happened, too, that soldiers in Arabia, when they did get their
discharge—probably because they were unfit for further service—were
refused transport back to Turkey on the Government ships, and, being
penniless, had to remain in that alien land until charitable people, of
whom there are happily plenty among the Turks, came to their rescue.
A friend of mine, who was recently British consul in a Turkish port,
after careful investigation in his particular district, found that
not more than twenty per cent. of the soldiers who were sent to the
Yemen returned to their homes. Whenever conscripts were carried away
for service in that dreaded land there were piteous scenes, and crowds
of wailing women would come to the ship’s side to bid a last farewell
to the relatives whom they never expected to see again, and already
mourned as dead.

Under this shocking system of military maladministration there was
a great waste of Turkey’s young manhood. The rate of mortality in
the army was excessive, and this was one of the principal causes
of the standstill in the numbers of this, the finest peasantry in
Europe, as compared with the rapid increase of the exempted Christian
population. These conscripts, when they were torn from their homes,
often left behind them wives and families dependent on them, so the
whole Mussulman people suffered greatly through the vile treatment of
the army, that was the best part of itself and in which every one had
relatives; and at last it came about that even the faithful peasantry
lost its loyalty, and, like the Moslems of the higher classes, was
ready to rise and sweep away the intolerable Despotism.




CHAPTER V

_THE SPREAD OF EDUCATION_


For the last few years—that is, ever since the victorious war waged
by Japan against Russia demonstrated to the peoples of the East that
an Oriental country could break away from the conservative traditions
that oppose progress, and make itself respected as one of the great
civilised powers of the world—a remarkable growth of nationalism
throughout Asia has attracted the close attention of observers in
Europe. The East that gave the West its early civilisation is now
taking its political ideals from the West. In India, China, Persia,
and Egypt national parties have risen whose aim it is to free their
countries either from native despotism or from European tutelage, and
to introduce forms of self-government modelled on those of modern
Europe. But though much has been written and said concerning the
awakening of the populations of the above-mentioned countries, it is
curious that there was no talk of any political movement in Turkey,
the nearest to Europe of the Eastern nations, until July, 1907, when
the world was suddenly amazed to learn that what appeared to be an
unpremeditated military mutiny in Macedonia had compelled the Sultan
to grant a Constitution to his country.

This Moslem revolution, that had been so long preparing and was so well
organised, came as a complete surprise even to such European residents
as knew the country best, including the Ambassadors of the Powers
in Constantinople and their Consular representatives throughout the
Empire. None of these gave any warning to their respective Governments
of what was coming. None of the newspaper correspondents in Turkey,
none of the globe-trotting M.P.s and members of the Balkan Committee
who were seeking an understanding of Turkish affairs on the spot,
had any inkling of the wide-spread conspiracy that was to upset the
Despotism with its first blow. It had been long known, of course, that
there existed a group of exiled politicians who called themselves the
“Young Turkish Party.” But this party was not taken seriously, for
its critics little knew that it represented all that was intelligent
and enlightened in Turkey. It was regarded as a little band of mad
anarchists, or at best of foolish visionaries. An ambassador described
the movement as “innocuous,” while some regarded it as “bogus,” and
denied even the virtue of sincerity to these patriots. It was written
of them in an authoritative work that “a large proportion of them
had gone into an exile with the express object of being persuaded
to return,” that is, of being reclaimed by the Sultan’s bribes.
An Englishman who has lived all his life in Turkey thus summed up
his opinion: “The Young Turkey association—lacking, as it does,
pecuniary resources, cohesion, definite purpose, and capable leaders,
has not shown itself a formidable organisation.” Our humanitarian
agitators had a complete misapprehension of the aim of the movement,
and were apparently convinced that no good thing would come from the
modern Turks. But the Young Turks all the while knew what they were
about, what they wanted, and how to set to work to get it; and the
organisation that for years was preparing the revolution worked so
secretly as to conceal the importance of the movement from the Palace
spies themselves.

No great political movement can be of sudden growth if it is going
to meet with permanent success, and though the ultimate explosion
may take by surprise those outside the movement, the revolution of a
serious people is the result of long brooding and gradual development
of opinion. From the time of the Sultan Mahmud II, who ascended the
throne one hundred years ago, the better and more patriotic statesmen
of Turkey have made efforts to bring the system of government into
accord with the methods of advancing Europe. The influence of Western
ideas made themselves felt throughout European Turkey, and began to
modify the intellectual outlook, the ideals, and the social customs of
the educated classes. The change, as I have pointed out in a previous
chapter, was reflected in Turkish literature, which about forty years
ago became Western in sentiment and style, and the literary language
itself was modernised by a group of writers of whom Kemal Bey,
historian, poet, philosopher, dramatist, and novelist, was pre-eminent,
a genius whose works, published in Europe, were not allowed to enter
Turkey during the Hamidian _régime_, but whose splendid war hymn, the
“Silistria,” the penalty for singing which was formerly death, now has
the same stirring effect upon the revolutionary Moslem crowds as had
the “Marseillaise” upon the French. As the facilities for education,
the schools and colleges, multiplied in Turkey, the thirst for
scientific knowledge and the culture of Western Europe spread through
the country, and with enlightenment and education naturally came the
liberalism of the West and intellectual revolt against the paralysing
influence of some time-honoured institutions and doctrines.

It is scarcely accurate in these days to speak of the Turks—as one
often hears them spoken of—as the finest of _Oriental_ races. The
Turks have been five hundred years in Europe, during which they have
intermarried largely with Europeans, and they are now to all intents
and purposes Europeans, more so, indeed, than some of their neighbours
on the continent of Europe itself, a fact which would be more generally
recognised were it not for the barrier raised between them by the
difference of religion. Thus it has come about that the modernist
movement in Turkey is much more in touch with Western ideas than is
that of the other awakening peoples of the East, who differ so much
from Europeans in race and character, and whose awakening has to a
large extent taken the form of antagonism to European influence and
a desire to free themselves from the European hegemony. On the other
hand, the Turkish reformers wish to attach the Turkish race to Europe
and not to Asia; their sympathies and culture are now Western and not
Eastern; they wish Turkey to be recognised as one of the civilised
countries of Europe.

It is partly on this account, too, that the Young Turks have repudiated
Pan-Islamism, the form which the modern awakening of the Moslem
nationalities has taken in some parts of the Eastern world—that
combination of Mohammedans of all races to resist the Christian
nations, of which, as I have explained, Abdul Hamid himself was an
advocate. It was a movement, which, if successful, might have restored
to Islam its glory and its conquering might, but it would have brought
with it the recrudescence of religious fanaticism and the impossibility
of progress on modern lines.

The views of the Young Turkey party on this subject were thus expressed
by one of their organs: “We Ottomans belong to a race sufficiently
intelligent and practical to understand that the pursuit of the
Pan-Islamic designs of the visionaries would be contrary to our dearest
interests.” The Young Turk is a patriot whose first thought is for his
own fatherland; he is working for its liberation and its progress,
and hopes to make it again strong and respected of the nations. But
Pan-Islamism he leaves alone, and it will be remembered that the
Turkish Constitutional party gave no encouragement to the Egyptian
Nationalists, whose aspirations have a Pan-Islamic character.

On the other hand, the Young Turks have made it clear that theirs is
not an irreligious movement, and that Moslem fanatics cannot with
justice accuse them of holding the rationalistic views of the French
revolutionaries, and of being bad Mussulmans. Writers have described
this as a party of agnostics. This is an incorrect statement, and were
it believed by the Turkish people the Constitution would have but a
short life. There are, of course, some Young Turks who, during their
exile in Paris and other European cities, have acquired rationalistic
views; but the great bulk of them are faithful Moslems. There have
been at times agnostics in the English Parliament, but it would not be
fair on that account to dub England a nation of unbelievers. The Young
Turkish movement, indeed, far from being irreligious, is tempered with
the faith of Islam; but, as a French writer recently put it, with these
reformers Islamism is a motive and not an end.

But the Mohammedanism of the enlightened Turks who compose the Young
Turk party is a very different thing to the fanatical and narrow creed
of the Arab; for it is wholly and sincerely tolerant. There has been an
awakening of the religion of Islam itself, and it is now being proved
to an astonished world that the ancient dogmas of Mohammedanism are no
more immutable than those of other creeds. Even as the Christianity
of the Middle Ages, which burnt heretics and regarded science as the
invention of the devil, has adapted itself to modern ideas, so at last
has it come to pass with the supposed unchangeable doctrines of the
Moslem Church. Enlightened Mussulmans are doing their best to bring
their religion into conformity with modern ideas and the progress of
an enfranchised people. In India, Persia, and Turkey learned doctors
of the sacred law are showing that many accepted doctrines are not
enjoined by the Koran itself, but have been grafted on the religion by
various commentators; and therefore, even as the Reformation in Europe
rejected much that had been superimposed on primitive Christianity
and went straight back to the Bible, so does the present Moslem
reformation reject many of the commentaries and go straight back to
the Koran, bringing new interpretations to bear upon the Book itself,
with the result that the doctors have been able to prove that the
strictest Mussulman can reconcile it with his conscience to accept the
Constitution, that Islam is essentially liberal and democratic, that to
remove oppression and corruption is to obey the teachings of the Koran,
and that the granting of equal rights to Christians and Mussulmans—a
reform which was the stumbling-block to many Mohammedans—is in no wise
opposed to the injunctions of the Prophet.

The Young Turk movement is therefore Nationalist and not Pan-Islamic,
and the policy of these reformers is opportunist. Liberal-minded
themselves, they have had to bear in mind that Turkey-in-Asia holds
some of the most conservative and fanatical Moslems in the world;
so they had to go delicately to work when they began necessarily to
interfere with some cherished traditions. The exile of these young
men afforded them the opportunity of getting into contact with
educated Indian and other Mussulmans, learned in Moslem law, from
whom they received considerable assistance. It will be remembered
that the Sheikh-ul-Islam, as representative of the _mollahs_ and the
interpreters of the Koran in Turkey, gave the Young Turk movement
the sanction of the faith, rebuked the fanatics who had preached
against reform as being irreligious, and compelled them to stay their
mischievous vapourings. Had it not been for this support the revolution
would have been impossible. But it may not be generally known that the
theological arguments which convinced the Sheikh-ul-Islam that this was
the right attitude to take were drawn up for him by a faithful subject
of King Edward VII, Ameer Ali, ex-judge of the High Court in India, and
a learned exponent of Moslem thought and tradition. It was Ameer Ali
who recently introduced the deputations of Indians that waited on Lord
Morley to plead the cause of the Moslems in India who, by the scheme
proposed by the Government, were not to be given due representation on
the Councils.

The awakening of Turkey, the growth of liberalism, and the thirst
for knowledge among the educated Turks, including even the _Ulemas_,
whom the world regarded as the most narrow-minded of Mussulman
conservatives, were largely encouraged by the very measures which Abdul
Hamid had taken to suppress these ideas and movements so dangerous
to his despotism. Men of ability, being suspected by the Palace, and
living in perpetual dread of the _espionage_ which enveloped them
like some hideous nightmare, were unable to associate with each other
freely, and had to live isolated lives, the tedium of which they
relieved by reading, with a greater avidity than is displayed in other
countries, where men have wider scope for their intellectual energies,
works on history, philosophy, and law, and other literature which were
smuggled into Turkey across her land and sea frontiers. In latter days
the Turkish exiles in Europe succeeded in pouring prohibited literature
wholesale into Turkey, but at first the supply was small; one book,
passed secretly from one man to another, would be read by hundreds, and
young men greedy for instruction even went to the pains of copying out
with their own hands bulky volumes which they had borrowed. Many a man
who considers himself to be well read would feel ashamed on discovering
how much wider than his own is the knowledge of English literature
possessed by some of his friends among the Young Turks. The Sultan,
too, unintentionally, spread far and wide the very influences which it
was his desire to destroy, for by driving thousands of educated men
out of Constantinople into exile in various provinces of his Empire,
he made of these, missionaries of enlightenment, liberalism, and
political discontent. Those also who were exiled to foreign countries
and lived in Paris and other Western capitals came under the immediate
influence of modern ideas, and, communicating with their friends in
Turkey, inoculated them with their own views. Thus it came about that
the whole Empire was gradually leavened with dissatisfaction with the
Sultan’s rule, and the ground was prepared for the revolution.




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.

[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.




CHAPTER VII

_DISCONTENT IN THE ARMY_


In 1906 the Ottoman Committee of Union and Progress, considering that
the time had come to transfer their organisation to the soil of Turkey
itself, and there make the final preparations for their attack on the
Despotism, selected Macedonia as the scene of their initial operations.

There were good reasons for choosing this portion of Turkey as their
strategic base. In the first place, it was here that the forces were
chiefly at work which were threatening the speedy dissolution of the
Ottoman Empire, and the Young Turks realised that unless they quickly
came to the rescue it would be too late, and Macedonia would be lost.
The terrible condition of the country, overrun as it was by murderous
bands of political brigands supported by Turkey’s enemies, had already
drawn an interference in the internal affairs of Macedonia on the part
of the Great Powers that was deeply humiliating to every patriotic
Turk. The Powers had compelled the Sultan, by threat of force, to
consent to the supervision of the civil administration of Macedonia
by an international financial commission, and to the formation of
an international _gendarmerie_ trained and commanded by foreign
officers—of whom, by the way, the English officers have undoubtedly
been the most successful, as they are more in sympathy than the others
with the nature of the Turkish soldier. But the patriotic Turks, though
they often entertained personal affection for the European officers
who were thus thrust upon them, loathed this foreign interference, and
nourished a bitter resentment against the Hamidian _régime_, whose
inept rule had brought this indignity upon Turkey and made the world
regard the Ottomans as a fallen people no longer capable of managing
their own affairs.

There was one feature of this foreign intervention which was especially
disagreeable and alarming to the Young Turks. The reforms proposed by
England, a disinterested country, had been rejected by the Powers, and
a mandate had been given to Russia and Austria—regarded by the Turks
as their most treacherous enemies—to introduce their own programme of
reform (the Murzteg programme) into Macedonia. The Turks maintained,
as, too, did independent observers, that these two Powers of a
purpose made this programme a wholly ineffective one, and that their
representatives were so working as to foment disorder and strife among
the Christian populations in order to forward the schemes for the
dismemberment of European Turkey.

The signs of this foreign intervention everywhere around them served
as object lessons to the people in Macedonia, whether educated men
or peasants, civilians or soldiers, and they realised that, unless
the methods of Turkish government improved, the foreign hold on the
country would be ever tightened until its independence was destroyed.
Thus there spread throughout Macedonia a profound discontent with
the existing order of things, that prepared the ground for the great
conspiracy.

To win over the Army to their side was of course the first object of
the Young Turks, and therefore Macedonia was well chosen as the field
of the early operations, inasmuch as the troops there were in a more
disaffected condition than those in any other part of the Empire, and
were ripe for revolt. For years these troops—ill clad, ill fed, and
rarely paid—had been engaged in a desultory guerilla war against the
bands of the Christian insurgents—a form of police work that brought
no glory and was uncongenial to soldiers, while, by scattering them
over the country in small sections, it did away with the cohesion and
_esprit de corps_ essential to an army. Their discontent was also
aroused by seeing by the side of them their brothers of the smart
international _gendarmerie_, men with military pride and bearing, well
disciplined and (for the Powers saw to this) well clothed and fed,
and regularly paid. It hurt the self-respect of both officers and men
in the regular army to contrast the condition of these men with that
of their ragged selves, for which, as they well knew, the corrupt
administration of the Palace gang was to blame.

Of the intolerable military spy system and the other causes of
disaffection among the officers of the Ottoman forces I have already
spoken. The young officers of the Macedonia army, men of education
and open-minded, who had passed through the military academies and
had received instruction from foreign teachers, had exceptional
opportunities in Macedonia for observing how an infamous rule was
hurrying their country to its ruin, and therefore their sympathies
naturally inclined towards the Young Turkey movement. Moreover,
special grievances of their own aggravated their detestation of the
Hamidian _régime_; the spy system was more searching and oppressive
then elsewhere in this suspected portion of the Ottoman army, and it
had become the habit of the Palace—galling to those who suffered under
it—to send from the capital sleek Court favourites, with nothing of the
soldier in them, to assume commands over the heads of fine officers who
had taken a distinguished part in Turkey’s wars, and had been fighting
the insurgent bands for years in the Macedonian mountains, but had
never obtained the promotion that was their due.

Moreover, it favoured the plan of the revolutionaries that this vantage
ground of Macedonia was at a safe distance from the capital—from
the Palace with its myriad eyes and its regiments of well-fed,
well-equipped, well-paid troops who could be counted upon to remain
loyal to the despotism.

So far as the Mussulman population and the army were concerned,
Macedonia was therefore ripe for rebellion, and the Christian
peasantry, weary of the slaughter and devastation which the bands
for years had been inflicting on the wretched country, were ready
to welcome any new order of things that promised to bring peace and
security.

To understand the operations of the secret society that organised
the insurrection in Macedonia, it is necessary to bear in mind the
condition of the country at that time. The Christian peasantry in
Macedonia had suffered terribly from the pitiless methods employed
by the Turks in suppressing any signs of insurrection, but during
the latter years of the Hamidian _régime_ they had to suffer even
worse things, in consequence of the cruel internecine war which they
waged among themselves. The various races that make up the population
of Macedonia had for long been carrying on their several national
propaganda. The three independent States on Macedonia’s borders,
Greece, Bulgaria, and Servia, were working with the Greeks, Bulgarians,
and Serbs under Turkish rule, with a view to territorial expansion
in this region, so soon as the dissolution of the Turkish Empire, to
which they looked forward with confidence, should come to pass. But in
Macedonia there are no extensive districts exclusively inhabited by
Greeks, Bulgarians, or Serbs. The different races are intermingled,
and it is not unusual to find Mussulman Turks and Christians of each
of three races living side by side in the same village. Consequently,
as each of the three States above mentioned aspired to the reversion
of all territory occupied by people of its own race, there was nearly
everywhere an overlapping of claims; and it became the policy of each
State to gain influence in a coveted district and there secure the
numerical superiority of people of its own race, so as to be able to
establish a strong title to possession when the Powers should undertake
the dismemberment of Turkey.

This racial rivalry was embittered by religious fanaticism. Formerly
the Greek Orthodox Church exercised an exclusive influence over the
Bulgarian as well as Greek population of Macedonia, and all recognised
the Patriarch as their spiritual head. The Bulgarians resented the
tyrannical ecclesiastical ascendency of the Greeks, and a schism arose
which was deliberately widened by the Sultan Abd-ul-Aziz, who conceded
to the Bulgarians the right to separate from the Greek Church and
appoint an Exarch of their own. The Patriarch excommunicated the first
Exarch and all who gave their allegiance to him, and since then there
has been bitter hatred between the Orthodox and the schismatics. Of the
Bulgarians in Macedonia, some have remained faithful to the Orthodox
Church, while the majority acknowledge the spiritual headship of the
Exarch. Now in Turkey populations are reckoned according to creed
and not race, and in the census returns a Bulgarian who was a member
of the Orthodox Greek Church would appear as a Greek. Therefore, for
political, as well as religious, reasons the Greeks and Bulgarians
strove hard to snatch from each other the control of the schools and
churches in any district where there was a Bulgarian population, and
employed violence and every form of persecution to secure converts.

In Greece, Bulgaria, and Servia, armed bands were equipped and sent
into Macedonia to forward the rival interests of these land-lustful
States. Bulgarian bands burnt Greek villages and Greek bands
those of the Bulgarians. The seizure of each other’s churches and
ecclesiastical property, and the murder of priests, became features
of the propaganda. In the zeal to bring about the preponderance of
this or that race the armed ruffians murdered women and children,
and all the barbarities which aroused the indignation of Europe when
Turkish irregulars were the guilty, were now committed against each
other by the Christian _protégés_ of our humanitarians. With fire and
sword the several propaganda were spread through the country. The
Greeks boycotted the Bulgarians in the towns, and by various methods
of persecution endeavoured to drive Bulgarians from coveted districts
on the sea-coast. The Greek bishops and clergy worked with fanatical
activity; not only did they forbid their co-religionists to give
employment to Bulgarians, but they were largely responsible for the
atrocities committed by the Greek bands, and went so far as to draw up
proscription lists of Bulgarian schismatics who had to be assassinated;
but the Bulgarians often had their revenge, as when, about a year ago,
they dragged a Greek clergyman out of his church and burnt him alive.

Out of the many stories which one could tell, here is one which will
serve as an example of the methods of the bands. On November 26, 1907,
a Greek band of over sixty men surrounded the village of Zelenitchi,
while a party broke into the house of the Bulgarian, Stoyan Gateff,
where a marriage was being celebrated, killed thirteen men, women, and
children, and wounded others.

To add to all this orgie of bloodshed, robbery, and violence, came the
formation of bands of Mussulman Turks, endowed with the bravery of
their race, who, while protecting the Turkish peasantry against the
Christians, pillaged and burnt the villages of the latter, and did
their share of the killing; while the bodies of half-famished, unpaid
Turkish troops who were sent to search for concealed arms over the
countryside naturally lived on the wretched Christian peasants, and
helped themselves to all they needed.

Between the Greeks and Bulgarians there was never a truce save in
winter, when the snow lay deep upon the Balkans, but sometimes the
Serb would join the Greek bands in their attacks on the Bulgarians.
Thus organised brigandage terrorised the countryside, and the bands,
when they ran short of money or supplies, did not hesitate to rob even
the people of their own kin, whose cause they were espousing, levying
blackmail upon them, and burning their villages if demands were not
satisfied. It is not to be wondered at that a large proportion of the
Christian population found the succour of their ferocious brethren
somewhat irksome, and were ready to welcome the pacific programme of
the Young Turks. It will be remembered that when Bulgaria declared
her independence last year the Bulgarian peasants in Macedonia held
meetings at which they denounced the Principality and sent a memorial
to Prince Ferdinand to warn him that they would hold him responsible
for whatever evil might now befall them, as the result of his action.

Of all these Christian propagandists the Bulgarians aroused most
sympathy in Europe; for they are a brave and straightforward people.
They had good reason to hate the Greeks, who had always persecuted
them. When, in 1903, the Bulgarian exarchists in Macedonia, with their
hundreds of small armed bands, carried on a gallant but hopeless
guerilla war against the Turkish regular troops, the Greek Macedonians
remained neutral, but worked against their fellow-Christians after
a fashion characteristically Hellenic; they assisted the Turks
by betraying and denouncing to them the Bulgarian rebels; for in
their zeal to forward their ultimate political designs they were
not ill pleased to witness the extermination by the Turks of their
fellow-Christians who repudiated the Patriarch and refused to become
Hellenised. It was not until 1904 that Greek bands, led by officers
of the Greek regular army, crossed the frontier into Macedonia to
wage war not only against the propaganda of the Bulgarian exarchists,
but also that of the Wallach inhabitants, who desired to throw off
the tyrannical supremacy of the Greek Patriarch and have an Exarch of
their own, as the Bulgarians had, with their own schools and churches
in which their national language could be used. The Sultan, who was
ever playing one Christian sect off against another, and made no real
effort to stop the fratricidal strife that served his designs, now gave
his encouragement to the Wallach propaganda, for this did not threaten
the integrity of his Empire as did the propaganda of the Greeks and
Serbs, there being no question of annexation of any Wallach districts
of Macedonia to the distant kingdom of the Wallachs’ kin, Roumania.

The Bulgarians proved themselves the braver men in this racial
struggle; but the Greek bands were the strongest in numbers and were
also the best equipped, for they were always kept well supplied with
ammunition and food by the rich merchants in Athens. The Greek bands
chiefly distinguished themselves by attacking unprotected villages and
slaughtering unarmed peasants; half-a-dozen brave Turkish _gendarmes_
have on occasion sufficed to rout the largest of these bands. I
need not say that the unfortunate Turkish peasants, being regarded
as enemies by all parties, suffered severely at the hands of the
propagandists.

The condition of the country ever got worse. In 1907 there were one
hundred and thirty-three conflicts between Turkish troops and Greek
and Bulgarian bands, and a large but unrecorded number of fights
between rival bands: Greek and Wallach; Greek and Bulgarian; Bulgarian
and Serb; and Albanian and Serb. The bands used to come down to the
plains and carry off the crops outside Salonica itself. The Greek
Committee sent a manifesto to the villages round Salonica ordering the
villagers, under pain of death, to become converts to Orthodoxy and
to accept the Patriarch, and have themselves inscribed as Greeks upon
the census papers. Shortly before the Sultan’s proclamation of the
Constitution the artillery of the Salonica garrison had to shell the
reed-covered swamps in the vicinity of the city to drive out the bands
that had found shelter there.

It was in the city of Salonica that the Ottoman Committee of Union and
Progress decided to establish the headquarters of the secret society
that was to prepare the outbreak of rebellion in Macedonia, a city
which, as being the cradle of their liberties, has already come to
be regarded as a sort of holy place by patriotic Turks. It is a city
worthy to be the scene of the initiation of one of the world’s great
movements. The splendid seaport, on the acquisition of which Austria
had set her heart, impresses every visitor with a sense of a peculiar
nobility with which it is invested by its aspect, situation, and
history. Stately and beautiful is the approach to it from the sea as
one sails up the fifty-mile broad Gulf of Salonica; on the right the
undulating land of Cassandra, with grassy, tree-studded shores, and
windmills on the skyline testifying to the productiveness of the fields
beyond; on the left the mountain ranges of Thessaly; with peaks whose
names are known to every school-boy—Pelion to the south, then Ossa,
and, near the head of the Gulf, a noble mountain mass towering over the
lesser heights, with snowy summits ten thousand feet above the sea,
Mount Olympus itself, the abode of the old gods.

From the busy quay of Salonica one looks across the blue water at the
snows of Olympus and a wonderful far panorama of hills and dales of
classic Greece; and Salonica itself is a fair city to look upon from
the sea, with its gleaming white houses and minarets, and dark groves
of cypress sloping up to the ancient castle and fortifications. I need
not recall here the great part which Thessalonica played in the old
days when Persians, Athenians, Macedonians, Romans, Normans of Sicily,
and Saracens in succession conquered and held the famous port, the
principal city between Rome and the East; its vicissitudes and many
bloody sieges. Old Thessalonica, with its Greek, Roman, and Byzantine
ruins, relics of “sad, half-forgotten things and battles long ago,”
the thronged city where St. Paul preached and worked with his hands
among the Macedonian artisans, as the modern Salonica has once again
come to the forefront in the shaping of the world’s history, and its
citizens walk proudly because here dawned the liberty of the Ottomans,
with its inspiring hopes. There is something about the atmosphere of
Salonica which makes it seem a fitting place to be the birthplace of
a great movement. One feels freer on its broad quay and in its clean,
well-paved streets than in the narrow, ever muddy lanes which imprison
one in Constantinople. The climate for the greater part of the year
is most exhilarating, and the inhabitants of this white city, “ever
delicately walking through most pellucid air,” seem more vivacious
and brisk, and are said to be more enlightened, more industrious, and
shrewder than those of the capital.

Even under the tyranny and corruption of the old _régime_ things were
fairly well ordered in Salonica, and the municipal authorities did
some good work, as the appearance of the streets shows, though they
did appropriate, in the shape of irregular salaries, one-half of the
rates. Salonica, too, enjoyed a measure of liberty, even in those dark
days, and men could do here many things which would have ensured their
prompt punishment in Constantinople. For example, though meetings of
any description were banned by the Palace, and a man could not invite
two or three friends to dine with him in his house without permission,
and though to be found guilty of being a Freemason was to incur the
death penalty, Freemasonry (French, Grand Orient, Spanish, and Italian)
flourished in Salonica; there were five Masonic Lodges in the town
throughout the long years of despotism, though of course the Lodges had
no fixed habitations, and the Masons used to meet in whatever house or
perhaps lonely spot in the open country was at any time deemed to be
the safest place.

In Salonica, with its teeming population of Turks, Greeks, Jews,
Albanians, Bulgarians, and Levantines of many mixed races, speaking
divers tongues, it is easy for men to assume disguises and difficult
for spies to trace conspiracies. In no city does one come across a
greater variety of race and picturesque costume than in these busy
bazaars and streets—the Jews (who here number fifty thousand) who look
as if they had stepped straight out of the Venice of Shakespeare’s
time, the men in gabardines, the women in robes such as were worn by
the ancestors of these people when they were driven out of Spain by
Ferdinand and Isabella, still speaking among themselves a strange
Spanish dialect—swaggering Albanians in their picturesque becoming
national costume of which Byron sang—burly Bulgarian peasants—priests
of all denominations, including Russian monks of neighbouring Mount
Athos, emissaries from that holy promontory on which for one thousand
years no woman or even animal of the female sex has been allowed to set
foot, where monks in their thousands dwell in ascetic retirement in
monasteries perched like the lamaseries of Tibet among the mountains,
while in the wildest and most inaccessible spots anchorites have their
hermitages and live in complete solitude after the manner of their
predecessor, St. Anthony.

The fact that it was possible in this crowded city to escape
observation and to organise secret societies made Salonica the natural
centre of the Young Turk movement in Macedonia. Secret political
organisation already existed there, and the Internal Organisations of
the Bulgarian revolutionary party had had its head-quarters there since
about 1895.




CHAPTER VIII

_THE CENTRAL COMMITTEE_


Thus, in the summer of 1906, the Young Turk movement crystallised into
a secret society in Salonica, so well organised that it effected its
purpose despite the universal _espionage_, its work, of course, being
facilitated by the fact that in every part of the Empire the system of
administration had become so hateful to the people that, outside the
horde of spies, and those who prospered under the methods of the old
_régime_, few men could be found so base as to betray the leaders to
the authorities. It will make a wonderful story, when it is fully told,
that of these men working in secret and danger, many losing their lives
and still more their fortunes, but spreading their propaganda, becoming
ever stronger, until at last, having secured the support of a great
army and a powerful Church, they won liberty for Turkey by the almost
bloodless revolution that has taken all Europe by surprise.

This secret society was to a large extent modelled on Freemasonry,
and a considerable proportion of the early associates (Mussulmans for
the most part, with some Jews) were members of the Masonic Lodges in
Salonica. The machinery of Freemasonry, however, was not directly
employed to further the propaganda, and the Lodges took no official
cognizance of this political movement. It would obviously have been
too dangerous to discuss such a conspiracy as this one at Masonic
gatherings, where the treason of one man could destroy so many. The
methods of the Italian secret societies, where a member is introduced
to two or three of the affiliated only and so cannot betray more than
this number, were therefore adopted by those who framed the regulations
of the new organisation. But still Freemasonry was a great help to the
cause; for a member of the secret society who happened to be also a
Mason, while he was seeking, as was his duty, to gain fresh initiates,
could more readily approach a brother Mason than any other man with
this purpose, knowing that the very fact of being a Mason indicated a
natural inclination to be in sympathy with the aims of the Young Turks,
and feeling also that he could rely upon the secrecy and fidelity of
one of the fraternity.

The secret society was first known as the “Committee of Liberty,”
but shortly after its creation it was amalgamated with the “Ottoman
Committee of Union and Progress” in Paris, and became the working
centre of that organisation. From that time the “Ottoman Committee of
Union and Progress” had its secret headquarters in Salonica, while
Ahmed Riza and his associates remained in Paris to form an important
branch committee that was able to further the cause in many ways from
the secure sanctuary of a foreign capital. Thus it was in Paris, in
1907, more than a year after the establishment of the Committee’s
head-quarters in Salonica, that, at the instance of the Paris branch,
there was held that Congress of Turkish revolutionaries of which I have
already spoken, at which Committees representing the various races of
the Empire agreed to co-operate with the Young Turks.

The secret central committee, therefore, held its meetings in Salonica,
and kept up a constant communication with branch committees in Scutari
of Albania, Monastir, Janina, and other towns, and later it had its
small local committee in nearly every village of Macedonia and Albania.
Before the outbreak of the revolution it had established its branch
committees in all the important towns of Asiatic Turkey. Of those who
composed the Salonica Committee I have met many. They were all men from
what we should term the upper and middle classes—young officers in
the army who had passed through the military schools and had profited
by the splendid system of instruction introduced by the genius of
Baron von der Goltz—the one good thing for which Turkey has reason to
be grateful to Germany; young civil servants of the different State
departments; land-owning Macedonian beys; professors; lawyers; doctors
and some of the _ulemas_. Of officers of high rank and of the heads of
the Civil Service there were none; for most of these were creatures
of the Palace, and such as may have had sympathy with the Young Turk
cause were, in consequence of their position, too closely watched by
the Yildiz spies to take an active part in the movement. All the
men—for the most part men under middle age—who became members of the
secret committee were distinguished for their intense and unselfish
patriotism, men who commanded the respect and admiration of every
foreigner who has come in contact with them. This revolution did not
come from below, from debased city mobs or ignorant peasantry, but from
above, from all that is best in Turkey. The self-seeking demagogue
had no part in this revolution. These men, who devoted their lives
to overthrowing the Despotism, represented the honest and patriotic
Ottoman gentry, men who placed country above self-interest, the natural
leaders of the people, belonging to a dominant race which knows how to
command men—a more useful quality than much administrative knowledge.

Some of the principal members of the Committee of Union and Progress
in Salonica spoke to me when I was in that city, in November last,
without reserve—as they will do to an Englishman who has gained their
confidence—concerning their early secret organisation; for now that the
danger is almost over they are quite willing that the methods which
they were compelled to adopt before the granting of the Constitution
should be made known. To understand with sympathy what I am about to
describe, and recognise how fully justified were such assassinations
as were ordered by the Committee, one must bear in mind the terrible
nature of the late _régime_; how thousands of spies were scattered
over the country whose business it was to denounce suspects to the
Palace; how many of the best men in the country suddenly disappeared
from their wives and families, never to return; how torture and death
were the penalties for those who sought to set bounds to the Sultan’s
absolutism.

The machinery of this wonderful secret Society, which, throughout
the three years preceding the granting of the Constitution, did its
dangerous work so well, so unpityingly when the occasion demanded, but
always so justly, has been described to me as follows by some of its
best known founders:

The propagandist work of a member of the Society was two-fold. First,
he had to gain adherents to the cause among all classes of the Turkish
population by using arguments, explanations, and exhortations.
Secondly, he had to persuade certain carefully selected persons from
among his relations and more intimate friends to become affiliated to
the Society, and this he had to do with the greatest caution. Thus, a
member of the Society, whom we will call A, would approach his friend
and, perhaps, brother Mason, B, whom he knew to be a righteous and
patriotic man, to whom the methods of the Despotism must necessarily
be detestable, and carefully sound him. Having satisfied himself that
his friend was inspired by a true zeal, and was prepared to make great
sacrifices for his country’s salvation, A would say to B, “I have a
secret, a great mystery, which I should like to confide to you. Will
you swear never to divulge what I am about to say to any one?” On B’s
taking the required oath, A would explain to him that there existed a
powerful secret society of which he himself was a member, whose aim was
the destruction of the existing system of government, and would then
ask whether as a patriot he would like to join the brotherhood, warning
him at the same time of the serious step he was about to take and of
the great dangers which he would have to face.

On B’s replying in the affirmative, A would leave him, and a few days
later two messengers would come to B and call upon him in the name of
his friend A to follow them. The messengers would lead B to a lonely
place, there blindfold him, and then take him to some retired house
or recess in the forest which had been selected as the place of his
initiation. Here he would be ordered to stand, the bandage still across
his eyes, while he was addressed by two or more eloquent speakers,
who would draw a vivid picture of the evils of the tyranny, of the
certain destruction of the Ottoman Empire to which ill government
was leading, of the great suffering which the Palace _espionage_ had
inflicted on so many of their friends and relations, and would show
in burning words that it was the duty of every good Ottoman to do his
utmost by all possible methods to assist in the liberation of Turkey.
Turks often possess great oratorical powers, and I am assured that in
nearly every instance the candidate would be moved to tears by these
impressive exhortations. The candidate would be sworn to secrecy and
fidelity and unquestioning obedience to the orders of the Committee,
on the Koran and on the sword, and he would then be solemnly declared
to be affiliated to the secret Society. In the rare cases in which the
candidate was not a Mussulman the oath would of course be administered
in some other way.

The bandage would then be removed from his eyes and lie would find
himself in the presence of five masked men wearing long cloaks. One
of these would again address the initiate. First, he would explain to
him that precautions to secure secrecy and to make treason difficult
were indispensable to the very existence of the Society, for the spies
of the Palace were ever around it, while it was possible that some
were even within its circle; that therefore it was expedient that the
initiates should be as little known to each other as possible; and that
it was on this account that those who now addressed him were masked,
and, moreover, persons whom he had never previously met, so that it
might be impossible for him to identify them by their voices. The
speaker would then proceed to explain to the initiate his duties and
obligations. He would remind him that the Committee condemned to death
not only traitors but those who disobeyed its orders, and impress upon
him that by the oath he had taken in the name of God and Mohammed his
life would have to be devoted to the cause until Turkey was freed,
that he belonged body and soul to the Society, and would have to go to
whatever part of the world he was sent, and do whatever the Society
bade him, even were it to kill his own brother. At the conclusion of
this ritual B would again be blindfolded and be led away by the two
messengers.

For some weeks or months after this initiation B would undergo a
term of probation; orders would come to him by secret channels and
he would obey them, but he would see no member of the Society. His
introducer, A, was responsible for his fidelity, and should B so act
as to be condemned to death by the Society, it would be the hand of
his friend A which would have to slay him. At last, B having proved
himself worthy, the messengers would again summon him to a meeting of
the secret Committee, and after a ceremony somewhat similar to the
first, he would be affiliated to one of the companies into which the
Society was divided, each company containing about one hundred and
fifty members. But B would be made known to four men of his company and
no more, for it was in circles of five only that the initiates used to
meet. So it was impossible for any false member to betray more than
five comrades—the four of his own circle and his introducer. In each
circle of five one member served as a link with the other circles of
the company; while each company had certain members who were the links
between it and the other companies and with the Central Committee.

Of this secret Central Committee I can say little; for though now, the
Despotism having been destroyed, the members of the Committee of Union
and Progress have come out in the open, and every one knows who they
are, they still appoint a secret central organisation, the names of
whose members no man will tell you and few men know. But one is assured
that this Committee has no president and no leaders, that all are
equal in it, and that a new chairman is elected at each meeting; for
individual ambition is deprecated, and it was the original aim to make
of this a band of brothers working with unselfish devotion, unknown,
without desire for any recognition, for their country. The formation of
any dominant group or camarilla within the Central Committee is made
impossible by the regulations which govern its procedure.

Just before the proclamation of the Constitution the initiates of the
Committee of Union and Progress, in Macedonia alone, numbered fifteen
thousand. It was the duty of each member to spread the propaganda by
conversing with men of all classes, a delicate and very dangerous
task, as one may well imagine. Many were arrested at the instance
of the spies, to be imprisoned or to lose their lives. Many of the
captured were taken to the Palace and offered large bribes in return
for information, and, this failing, tortures were applied, but with
no effect. There was not one single instance of the betrayal of his
brethren by a member of the Society.

The organisation of this wonderful secret Society was very complete.
To meet the expenses each member was compelled to contribute a fixed
percentage of his income to the Committee chest, while rich members,
in addition to this tax, made generous donations when funds were
required. Arms and ammunition were secretly purchased. A considerable
sum was set apart annually to provide for the families of members
who lost life or liberty while working for the cause. Their several
duties were apportioned to the members. There were the messengers who,
disguised in various ways, went to and fro over the Empire carrying
verbal reports and instructions, for naturally communications between
branches of the association and orders to individual members could
not be confided to the postal and telegraph services. There were the
men who had to assassinate those whom the Committee had condemned to
death—Government officials who were working against the movement with a
dangerous zeal, and Palace spies who were getting on the scent. Other
members were sent out to act as spies in the interest of the cause, and
the _contre espionage_ became at last so thorough that it baffled the
_espionage_ of the Palace. Men whom the Palace paid as its spies were
often the loyal agents of the secret Society. The Committee had its
agents in every department of the Government, in the Civil Service, in
the War Office, in the Custom House, in the post and telegraph offices,
even in the foreign post-offices in Constantinople and other big
cities; so that official communications were intercepted and read and
the most secret designs of the Palace were revealed to the Committee
and could therefore be circumvented. The Committee had its spies in
the Turkish Embassies in foreign countries, among the retainers of
influential Pashas, and in the Yildiz Palace itself. For example, a
correspondent, writing to the _Times_ from Salonica, tells the story
of Dr. Baha-ud-Din, formerly physician to one of the Imperial princes,
who had been exiled to the Russian frontier. He returned secretly to
the capital, and for the three months preceding the revolution remained
in the Palace undetected, supplying the Committee with a good deal
of useful information. Suspicion fell upon him a few days before the
revolution broke out, so he had to flee for his life, and became an
active member of the Committee in Salonica.

Then there was the host of propagandists who were scattered all over
the Empire doing their dangerous work, urging the civil population to
embarrass the Government by a refusal to pay taxes and to prepare for
a general rising, and persuading the soldiery of the righteousness of
the movement, and obtaining their promise not to fight against their
own countrymen when ordered to do so. So as to obtain easy access to
houses and barracks, Turkish officers disguised themselves as hawkers
of cheap jewellery and ribbons, or as the peripatetic sutlers who sell
sherbet and little comforts to the Turkish soldier; and in their packs
were always concealed the revolutionary tracts that were to spread
the propaganda. One well-known officer for long kept a barber’s shop
in Baghdad, and inoculated his customers with the doctrines of the
conspiracy. Dr. Nazim Bey, who had been exiled, wandered over Asia
Minor for eighteen months, sometimes disguised as a peddler, sometimes
as a _hodja_, in order to win over the Anatolian regiments. He made
initiates among the officers, and conversed with the men to such good
effect that when the Sultan, in the last day of the old _régime_,
despatched several battalions of the Anatolian army, to crush the
military insurrection in Macedonia, these troops not only refused to
fire on their comrades, but joined forces with them.

One remarkable feature of the propaganda was the great part taken in
it by the Turkish women. They were largely employed, for example, in
the delivery of messages and the carrying of documents; for it was easy
for the wife of a member of the Committee to visit the wives of other
members without attracting observation. The respect that is paid to
women in Turkey gives them immunity from being searched; the women’s
apartments in a Turkish house are held to be inviolable, and a police
officer would not venture to infringe these cherished customs without
very weighty cause. The following incident exemplifies this: Shortly
after the revolution had made the Committee the virtual ruler of
Turkey, some young officers were sent to pay a domiciliary visit to the
house of a Pasha suspected of being a party to a reactionary plot. They
arrested the Pasha, but made a vain search for incriminatory documents.
At last they came across a chest that had obviously been concealed, and
felt confident that they had at last discovered what they were seeking.
At this juncture the Pasha’s wife came forward and stated that the
chest contained her jewels and other property; whereupon the officers
refrained from opening it, and, saluting the lady, left the house.

[Illustration: TURKISH MARKET-WOMAN IN STREET DRESS]

The first and most important task before the Committee was, of course,
that of bringing round to the cause the Macedonian garrison—the Third
Army Corps. The disaffection of these troops, the reasons for which I
have explained, had in places manifested itself in open mutiny, and the
incompetence and corruption of some of the officers of superior rank,
who were indebted to Palace favouritism for their position, filled
both the junior officers and the rank and file with an ever-increasing
disgust. By degrees a number of the young officers were affiliated to
the Committee, and received instructions to win over the rank and file.
The fact that the troops were moving about in small bodies, hunting
down the Bulgarian bands, rendered this proceeding the more easy; for
while engaging in this work, regimental officers, unrestrained by the
supervision of their superiors, could give political instruction to the
men, and were able to hold meetings among themselves without attracting
the attention of spies; the company commanders used also to deliver
lectures to their men in out-of-the-way places, where any stranger
would be conspicuous and Palace spies would be immediately recognised.
Whenever a spy was discovered he promptly disappeared, soldiers who
had taken the oath of fealty to the Committee being given the word to
kill him. At last the whole Macedonian army was won over to the cause
of the Young Turks, and as a consequence of the work performed by the
disguised officers in other parts of the Empire, the Second Army Corps,
which garrisons the Vilayet of Adrianople, also contained a large
proportion of officers and men in sympathy with the movement—troops
hostile to the Despotism thus enclosing the capital on all sides—while
on the farther shore of the Bosphorus, Anatolia, whose sturdy peasantry
supplies the Ottoman Empire with its finest troops, had been similarly
prepared by Dr. Nazim Bey and numerous officers.

To those Englishmen who knew something of the Turkish army it appeared
an amazing thing that these soldiers, who worshipped the Sultan with
a blind faith not only as their sovereign, but as the head of the one
true religion, “the Commander of the Faithful,” “the Shadow of God upon
earth,”—however discontented they might be, however ready to mutiny, as
they sometimes did mutiny, against their officers—could be persuaded to
join in a movement of which the avowed object was the deposition of the
Sultan Abdul Hamid. The soldier could only be won over by convincing
him that religion itself commanded the overthrow of the tyrant. It
will be remembered how, in 1876, the Sheikh-ul-Islam, as chief of the
interpreters of the Sacred Law, decreed that the Sultan Abd-ul-Aziz
should be deposed because, in ruining the State which God had confided
to him, he had broken his sacred trust, and could no longer be head
of the believers. The young officers put the case in the same way,
and in simple words, to the honest and devout soldiery; they quoted
the passages in the Koran which denounce tyranny, and showed that the
Sultan was not true to his country, and therefore had forfeited the
privileges God had lent to him. The fact that Austria and Germany
had been granted concessions to construct railways through Turkish
territory (the proposed railway through the Sanjak of Novi-Bazaar,
which would afford Austria railway connection with Salonica, and the
German-owned Baghdad railway) was a proof to the soldier that the
Palace was selling the country bit by bit to the foreigner.

During the early days of the propaganda, _hodjas_ who had joined
the Committee, and officers disguised as _hodjas_, being freely
admitted into barracks in their capacity of preachers, advocated
these doctrines, and satisfied the religious scruples of the men;
and when, later, the Sheikh-ul-Islam declared himself in favour of
the Constitution, there remained no doubt in their minds that they
were acting as their creed commanded in following the lead of their
young officers. As a matter of fact, it was not difficult to show
that Abdul Hamid, to quote from Mr. Hamil Halid’s book, “The Diary of
a Young Turk,” was “the worst enemy of Islam, as no Moslem ruler has
ever brought by his misdeeds so much shame upon the faith as he has.
Any one who has observed his career closely knows that his actions
are diametrically opposed to the principles of the Mussulman law and
creed.” Moreover, the Turkish soldier, like the soldiers in other
armies and the majority of healthy young men, can be appealed to
through his stomach, and he naturally acquired an affection for and
confidence in these majors, captains, and lieutenants of the new school
who sympathised with him, pitied his wretched condition, and with their
own money, or the Committee funds, supplemented his miserable rations
and supplied him with comforts.

Of the methods of the propaganda in Macedonia we learn a good deal from
the published letters of Major Niazi Bey, the officer who first raised
the standard of revolt. He explains how, gradually, the young officers,
hitherto estranged from one another by the mutual suspicions engendered
by the system of _espionage_, were emboldened by the patriotic
hopes held up before them, and through the possession of a common
secret became as a band of brothers, mutual confidence and affection
increasing daily; and how even those who had not been made members
of the secret Society, and knew not its mysteries, were convinced by
their affiliated comrades that the Committee was powerful and just,
and was working in the sacred name of liberty for the integrity of the
fatherland; and so sympathised heart and soul with the movement, and
were in readiness to co-operate with the revolutionaries.

In the meanwhile the Committee was steadily undermining the entire
civil as well as military administration of the Empire. It acted, as a
member of the association put it to me, like a well-ordered but secret
Government. It kept books in which were inscribed the names of all the
higher Government officials, with particulars as to their careers
and habits—their _dossiers_, in short. Some of the enlightened and
right-minded of these officials had been gained over to the cause; the
others were closely watched, and whether they were _Valis_, Inspectors
General, or Governors of districts, or what not, their moral influence
was destroyed, and their authority was made impotent by the fact that
their subordinates, on whom they had to rely for the execution of their
wishes, had almost without exception become adherents of the Committee.




CHAPTER IX

_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.




CHAPTER X

_THE STANDARD OF REVOLT_


The situation in Macedonia in July, 1908, when Niazi Bey took to the
mountains, may be summed up thus: The Bulgarian, Greek, Servian,
Wallach, and Albanian bands were murdering, robbing, outraging each
other’s kin all over the country; the Committee of Union and Progress,
having established its branches in Monastir, Ochrida, Resna, Persepe,
and other places, was engaged in steadily spreading its propaganda
through all the countryside, a large proportion of the young officers
of the Macedonian army being initiates or sympathisers with the cause;
and, lastly, the Palace had taken its precautions, and there was not a
town or regiment without its secret Government agents ferreting out the
secrets of the conspiracy and denouncing the suspects.

Niazi Bey, the young officer who was the first to raise the standard of
revolt, was a good example of the men who were forthcoming in numbers
at this period of Turkey’s great danger, men who proved to the world
the stubborn virtues of the old Ottoman stock, intensely patriotic,
brooding over the sorrows of their country, seeking a plan for her
deliverance, and, that plan once found, devoting themselves, with the
passionate zeal of men obsessed by a fixed idea, to the carrying out of
their high aim. They were not self-seeking; if they cherished ambition,
it was for the martyr’s death; they were prepared to sacrifice their
careers, their wives and families, and their property for the cause,
and, as we shall see, when Niazi set out with his little band of
followers on that wonderful forlorn hope of his, each took an oath not
to return to his wife and family until Turkey was freed; before going
they bade last farewells to those they loved; for them it was to be
victory or death. With a Mussulman Turk, love of country is a part
of his religion, and his single-minded devotion has the strength of
fanaticism. When in an oppressed country there is a sufficiency of men
of this stamp, the days of the tyranny are numbered.

This spirit breathes through the published letters and diary of
Niazi Bey, wherein, telling us a good deal in very frank fashion
about his thoughts, aspirations, and emotions, he provides us with
a most interesting human document. That he thus writes so freely
and often with poetical diction concerning his sentiments will
surprise Englishmen, who have always heard that reserve is one of the
characteristics of the Turk. The Turk is reserved in his relations
with the Western European, who so little understands him. But the
Turk, as all his literature proves, is sentimental and emotional with
the sentiment and emotion that are the sources of strength and not
of weakness. The Turk reveals his heart to his friend with a truthful
simplicity that would seem lack of proper reticence to Englishmen,
many of whom appear to be ashamed to let it be supposed that they
have any affection for their wives or parents; but we ourselves, as
the memoirs of the time show, did not take so much care to hide our
emotions when Nelson was gaining victories on the seas. So Niazi,
having no false shame, makes no secret of his brave deeds, his musings,
and his affections, and one likes him the better for it. But Niazi,
though devoted to high ideals, was no dreamer or unpractical and rash
revolutionary. Like most of his countrymen he was endowed with plenty
of cool common sense, and displayed the shrewdness and cunning of the
Homeric Odysseus in the carrying through of his audacious adventure.

Niazi Bey is himself an Albanian, his family belonging to the Mussulman
land-owning class. He was born in Resna, a little town between Monastir
and Ochrida, in a region where fertile valleys studded with orchards
and cornfields, grassy downs, forest-clad mountains, craggy Balkan
peaks and gorges, and broad lakes combine to make as beautiful a
scenery as can be found in Europe. Niazi had known this countryside
from his childhood, and he had friends in all the villages, so when
it was decided to make this the scene of the first outbreak of the
insurrection it was recognised that he was the right man to come
forward as leader. Niazi entered the army as a very young man and
greatly distinguished himself in the Greek war. Then he was sent
to his own country, and for the five years preceding the revolution
he was employed with his battalion of _chasseurs_ in pursuing the
various brigand bands in the mountains. Again he gained distinction,
temporarily crushed the power of the Bulgarian insurrectionary
Committee in the Resna district, and became very popular with the
Moslem section of the population, whose property and lives he zealously
set himself to protect. The Committee of Union and Progress, exercising
its powerful underground influence, obtained for him promotion to the
rank of Major and his appointment to head-quarters at Resna, the place
in which he could serve the cause best. For Niazi had been initiated
into the secret Society by his brother officer, the now famous Enver
Bey, and throughout his operations against the bands was acting as the
instrument of the Committee rather than that of the despotic Government.

The story of Niazi’s work at this time throws an interesting light on
the condition of Macedonia. When he was moved to Resna, Bulgarian and
Albanian bands, acting in conjunction, were terrorising that district.
It was his duty to seize the leaders of the non-Moslem bands and to
scatter the bands themselves. He was successful in doing this, though
his methods were not cruel or vindictive; for, as he tells us, he
was sorry to be hunting down these men who, after all, were fighting
against a despotism which was as detestable to himself as it was to
them. So he used to call together the Christian notables, who had
known him from his childhood and trusted him, and point out to them
that their separatist dreams could never be realised, that it was
better for them to repudiate those bringers of bloodshed, the agitators
in Athens, Sophia, and Belgrade, and join in union and brotherhood with
their Moslem fellow-countrymen, whose grievances against the Government
were as heavy as their own. His words, recognised as sincere, produced
a good effect.

At Niazi’s advice some Moslem inhabitants of the district formed
themselves into a band which was under the direction of the Committee
of Union and Progress. This band used to go about the country,
protecting the villagers without any distinction of race or creed. Thus
at one time it would be defending a village of Bulgarians against the
attack of a Serb band, and at another time a Serb village against a
Bulgarian band. This band was well disciplined, committed no excesses
of any kind, and did not even requisition the necessaries of life in
the villages; conduct so extraordinarily Quixotic for a Macedonian band
that it gained for the Committee the good opinion of the Albanians, who
began to come in numbers to Ochrida and Monastir to take the oath of
allegiance to the revolutionary leaders.

But so fast as the labours of Niazi and the Committee helped on the
pacification of the country, so fast did the evil policy of the
Government, alternating between encouragement of lawlessness and cruel
repression, undo all the good that had been effected. The corrupt
tribunals could be bought. Thus, after the troops under Niazi had
brought in some hundreds of people who had been found in the possession
of bombs and arms, their trial resulted in the condemnation of twenty
poor peasants and the acquittal of all the really dangerous rebels who
happened to be rich townsmen, a miscarriage of justice which held Niazi
and his brother officers up to ridicule and of course encouraged the
Christian bands to redouble their mischievous activity. On the other
hand, the Government sent to Persepe, to put down the insurgents, an
officer of passionate temper who did not know the customs or languages
of the people, and was unable to gain their confidence. He tortured and
beat the peasantry and behaved with such inhumanity that the foreign
Powers made representations to the Porte on the subject. Thus dictated
to, the Government arrested and sent away this officer, again with the
result that the Bulgarian bands were encouraged in their brigandage,
as was always the case when foreign intervention humiliated Turkey.
At this time, too, the Committee found an enemy in the Russian Consul
for this district. He exerted his influence to procure the withdrawal
of Niazi Bey from the scene of his successful labours. So Niazi was
summoned to Salonica and was rebuked by the General in command, but
he was not impeached and, fortunately for his country, he was allowed
to return to his post at Resna. The Government of Russia was then
arranging with that of England its joint intervention in Macedonia,
and any improvement in the state of affairs of that region that might
render such intervention unnecessary would no doubt have been regarded
as a calamity by Russian statesmen.

At about this time Kermanle Metre, once a leader of a rebel band, who
had been pardoned and had since done signal service as a Government
officer, was tried and condemned to death unjustly, as the result of
Russian intrigue. This cowardly betrayal of a valued servant by the
Government aroused profound indignation throughout the Macedonian
army, and was one of the most important of the factors that combined
to effect the moral union between, not only the army, but also the
Moslem civil population, with the Committee of Union and Progress;
for the incident was a proof to the Mussulmans that the Government
was an immoral one, “acting in defiance of the Sacred Law, the Moslem
Religion, and Ottoman ideals.” Niazi Bey himself received orders
to take Kermanle Metre to Monastir and he determined to save his
prisoner’s life at the risk of his own. So, after arresting him, he
connived at his flight, and the agents of the Committee restored the
man to his home. This escape of their compatriot from the gallows
with the assistance of the Committee of Union and Progress produced a
great effect upon the Bulgarian peasants in the district, who said to
themselves that a power that administered justice had at last risen
in the land; and from this time the Bulgarian revolutionaries used to
listen with an increasing respect and sympathy to Niazi when he argued
that Mussulmans and Christians, being all brothers of one fatherland,
should work in union to obtain a Government that would assure justice
and equality for all.

While Bulgarians, Greeks, and Serbs in Macedonia by noise and violence
had been urging their racial claims in anticipation of the break-up
of the Turkish Empire, the Moslem Turks under the direction of the
Committee of Union and Progress had been steadily and patiently working
for the liberation of their country, employing methods so secret that
the outer world knew nothing of the movement and was deceived into
thinking that the Mussulman backbone of the population was regarding
the progress of events with indifference. The European Powers had
ignored the memorandum in which the Committee had protested against
the intervention of England and Russia in Macedonia, and patriots
recognised that the time had arrived to come out in the open and strike
the blow for freedom before that intervention and the increasing
activity of the Palace spies had made it too late to act with any
chance of success. Towards the end of June it was realised that it
needed but a spark to start a general rising, and it was decided that
certain young officers, who were members of the Committee, should
abandon the Government service, form bands in various places, take to
the mountains and organise the insurrection of the united Mussulman and
Christian populations.

Niazi Bey apparently was the first to conceive this idea. He had become
the zealot whose mind is occupied by but one thought; he tells us that
he did not sleep for three nights after learning the result of the
Reval meeting. He formed his plan. The population of the Resna district
was largely Moslem, and in both town and country the organisation of
the Committee of Union and Progress was practically complete. In that
mountainous and wooded region a Moslem band, helped by a sympathetic
peasantry, could, if necessary, hold the Government troops for months
and years. So he broached the matter to his friend Jemal Bey, president
of the municipality of Resna; Tahir Effendi, the Police Commissioner;
and other of the brethren; and it was arranged to hold a secret meeting
of the adherents of the Committee in the house of one Haji Agha, on the
evening of June 28.

About fifty men were present at this meeting. The following is a
summary of the report of the proceedings as published by the Committee.
Niazi Bey, after the usual salutations, thus addressed the brethren:
“Fellow-countrymen and comrades. You have sworn by the Unity of God
to obey the commands of the Committee, and to save the country, which
is being destroyed by traitors, by working together in concord and
giving your lives and property freely. Is it not so?” All cried,
“_Evet! evet!_” (Yes! yes!). “The time has come,” continued Niazi,
“to redeem that sacred vow. The country now needs our devotion. Our
vile Government is regarding with indifference the compact which has
been agreed upon at Reval between the Tsar of Russia and the King of
England, which aims at the division of our fatherland and the delivery
of it into the hands of our enemies. The cruel scheming of Europe can
only be frustrated by the blood of the nation. It is the decision
of the Committee that we should rise as a nation against the vile
Turkish Government which is bowing its head before this humiliating
compact. It was at Resna that the Bulgarians first revolted, and
brought this calamity upon us. So, therefore, at Resna shall our first
standard of revolt be raised—a general revolt, without distinction
of creed or race, against the despotic Government. I have prepared
everything. I can provide all that is needed to equip a band of two
hundred men—money, arms, ammunition, cartridge-belts, sandals. I only
need enthusiastic and devoted men; but I want in them a devotion
that will sacrifice family, the comforts and sweets of life, all
worldly relations, and the love of the world, for the salvation of
the country. If the salvation of the fatherland cannot be gained,
then those who follow me must look upon death with affection as the
greatest boon. I ask your forgiveness for reminding you of what
high-minded self-sacrifice is demanded of those who will advance in
the van of the forces of liberty; for, knowing you as I do, I do not
imagine that there is one among you who will shirk his duty. I will
explain to you our purpose. You know that the intervention of Europe
in our internal affairs was brought about by the complaints of the
Christians, who suffered less than did we Moslems under the Despotism,
and that the Government has opened a road for this intervention by
its despicableness and cowardice, making Turkey a by-word among the
nations for all that is bad. Now, in this revolution we have to
make manifest to the world in a practical fashion that we love the
Christians, as being our brethren under the same fatherland, that we
hold them equal to ourselves, that we recognise the security of their
honour as our honour, of their lives as our lives, of their property as
our property. This revolt is not against individuals, but against the
system of government, which has not only stirred up strife between the
different creeds and races, but has also made us Moslems the enemies
of each other. This is a revolt in the name of liberty, equality,
and brotherhood. To bring justice to the people we will traverse the
mountains until we have sacrificed our lives. I am sending to Monastir
my wife (Niazi had been married but nine months and was very attached
to his wife), and my sister with her fatherless children, for they have
none but me to take care of them; and there my relatives wall protect
them. I will bid an everlasting farewell to these dear ones, and I will
shut up my house. Are there any among you who will follow me heart and
soul?”

Then all those present with one voice replied: “We look to dying with
you in honour and felicity. We are all ready.” The following Friday
was fixed upon as the date of the rising of the people of Resna, and
it was agreed that on that day, at the hour of morning prayer, the
band of two hundred patriots should assemble near the barracks. Jemal
Effendi was sent to Monastir to apprise the central Committee in that
town of Niazi’s plan and to obtain permission to carry it out. Then the
brethren, having embraced one another, with tears of joy and pride in
their eyes, broke up the meeting, departing in twos and threes so as
not to attract the notice of the spies.

Within two days Jemal returned from Monastir with the required
permission from the central Committee, and Niazi made all preparations
for the fateful Friday. As he was thus engaged, an incident occurred
which, in his opinion, to no small extent favoured the fortunes of his
adventure. There came to appeal to him, with lamentations and tears,
the sister of the famous Bulgarian revolutionary leader, Christe. A
Servian band, which had recently killed a member of her family, had
now carried off into the mountains the child of this poor woman, and
demanded impossible ransom. Niazi swore to the woman that he would
rescue the child for her, and he decided to take into the mountains
with him the Servian schoolmaster of Resna as a hostage. Niazi’s
success in recovering the child shortly afterwards went a long way
towards gaining the confidence of the Bulgarians and convincing them
of the good intentions of those who served the Committee of Union and
Progress.

The night that preceded the going forth of the band was spent by
Niazi in writing various manifestos and letters, which it was his
purpose to send out when he was clear of the town and out of the power
of the agents of the Government. In a manifesto which he addressed
to the Chief Secretary of the Imperial Palace; to Hilmi Pasha, the
Inspector-General at Salonica (the present Grand Vizier); and to the
Vali of Monastir, he explained that the Committee of Union and Progress
represented the whole nation and was very powerful; that its aim was
to obtain a just form of government, like that in civilised countries,
and to preserve the integrity of the Empire. He stated that, in view of
the number of spies who had been sent by the Government to Salonica to
destroy those who were silently working for their country’s good, the
Committee had taken measures to protect the patriots; that on that day
two hundred _fedais_ (devoted ones), armed with Mauser rifles, under
three officers, were marching from Resna; that elsewhere other bands
were being formed, representing all the elements of the population, and
that these bands would inflict punishment on the traitorous spies who
disgraced the army to which they belonged. The Committee demanded that
the spying Pashas and their assistants should be at once sent back to
Constantinople by special train. It also demanded that the Fundamental
Law (the Constitution) should be restored immediately and that the
Chamber of Deputies should assemble as soon as it was possible. If
the Government refused to grant these requests, then the nation would
obtain by force what it required, and the responsibility for the
bloodshed would rest with the high dignitaries of the State.

Then he wrote letters to the commander of the regiment of _gendarmes_
at Monastir, to the lieutenant of _gendarmerie_ at Resna, and to
certain other officers who had sold themselves to the Palace, and
solemnly warned them, in the name of the two hundred _fedais_ of the
Committee of Union and Progress, that if they continued to disgrace
their military uniform by acting as spies over their comrades, and by
showing themselves the sycophants of the Government and the foreign
officers, thereby betraying their fatherland which was agonising “like
a sorely wounded lion;” and that if they did not at once reform their
conduct and cease to be the active enemies of the National Union, death
would be the punishment awarded to them by the Committee. Men had
already discovered that the Committee never uttered idle threats, and
the recipient of one of these letters was so terrified that he became
insane.

The momentous day (July 3, 1908) dawned, and Niazi Bey was up betimes
to complete his preparations. For his band to march out of Resna while
the officers, who were not adherents of the cause, and the considerable
garrison remained in it was, of course, out of the question, so he
employed a ruse to empty the town of those who might oppose him. By
pre-arrangement some members of the Committee came into Resna and
reported that a Bulgarian band was moving up the road near Ismilova,
that is, in a direction contrary to the one in which he intended to
lead his own followers; and some rifles were fired in the hills to
support the story. Thanks to this scheme, all the available troops
were hurried off to attack this imaginary band, leaving but a few
officers and men to guard the barracks, which are situated on a height
overlooking the town and about a mile and a half distant from it.

Niazi then walked to the barracks in his uniform, while the members of
his band in twos and threes collected in the neighbourhood. He passed
through the gates of the barracks just after the Moslem officials and
inhabitants of Resna had entered the mosques for the Friday midday
prayer; he made the appointed signal with his sword, and his _fedais_,
to the number of one hundred and fifty, poured into the barracks,
arousing no suspicion among the soldiers on guard, who were led to
understand that Major Niazi Bey was arming a party of Moslem civilians
with the object of proceeding to the scene of action to co-operate with
the troops.

Following Niazi Bey’s instructions, the _fedais_ broke open the rifle
and ammunition cases and armed themselves, many of the men taking
two rifles each, so that those who joined the band later on might be
provided with weapons. Niazi also opened the military chest and took
all the money that was in it, amounting to about £500, making out a
receipt for it in which he explained for what purpose he was about to
use it. Then the band, in perfect order and full of enthusiasm, marched
out of the barracks, and with it went nine private soldiers who, being
still under the impression that Niazi was leading a detachment against
the Bulgarians, had volunteered their services. After marching for two
hours they came to cross-roads on the summit of a grassy down, where
Niazi’s band was joined, as had been arranged, by Lieutenant Osman
Effendi and his detachment of _fedais_ from Persepe, consisting of a
lieutenant, four soldiers, and thirty civilians.

Here a halt was called for rest and food, and before the march was
resumed Niazi called the men around him and addressed them, explaining
his aims and the strict rules of discipline which the Committee had
enjoined him to enforce. He reminded them that they had sworn upon
the Unity of God to devote their lives to the salvation of their
fatherland. “The nation expects you,” he said, “to set a brilliant
example of self-sacrifice and Ottoman chivalry worthy to be imitated.
Are you prepared never to see your homes again until the salvation
of the country has been secured, and willingly to die for her?” His
followers cried out, “Yes, yes; it shall be death or salvation.” Then
Niazi proceeded, “There may be some among you who have not the physical
strength to live the hard life before us, to support the long marches
on foot, thirst, hunger, nakedness, heat, and cold. If there be such I
give them full permission to retire; let them go back to their villages
and pray for us.” As there was no reply to this, he went on to speak
of the very lofty sense of duty and the strict rules of conduct that
should govern the _fedais_, who, having bid farewell to life, were now
ready to sacrifice themselves for the fatherland. Their enemies were
many, and would certainly slander them; but it behooved them so to act
that none could look askance at them with good reason. It was for them
to exemplify by the righteousness of their lives what was meant by “the
exaltation of the glory of Islam and the Ottomans, through obedience to
the Sacred Law of Mohammed which was the basis of the Constitution.”
The Constitution was to bring equality and justice to all Ottomans
without distinction of race and religion. They, as the apostles of the
Constitution, must exemplify this equality and justice. It behooved
them, while the band wandered over the country, to regard the honour
of the inhabitants as their own honour, to be kindly in their dealings
with them, to be guilty of no act of oppression, to thieve nothing,
though urged by the pangs of hunger, and above all things to respect
all the women of the country and to observe chastity. He explained that
he would punish, without exception, any of his followers who in the
above respects was a wrong-doer even in the slightest degree, and that
the one penalty that he would inflict would be that of death; for the
safety of the fatherland necessitated this severity. He told them that
he had taken measures to provide for their immediate needs. He would
give each man three Turkish pounds for the support of his family and
two silver _medjidiehs_ for his tobacco, and he undertook to procure
food and clothes for them. “These are the stringent conditions of
service,” he concluded. “Do you approve of them? If so, swear by the
Unity of God that you accept them from your heart and soul.”

In reply the _fedais_ raised an enthusiastic cry of “_Wallahi,
billahi_” (in the name of God, yes!).

Of the nine private soldiers who had marched from Resna under the
belief that they were being led against the Bulgarians, four now asked
permission to return. Niazi took their arms and sent them back to
the officer commanding the battalion of _chasseurs_ at Resna, with a
letter in which he explained that the men were in no wise to blame, as
they had been deceived by himself. Of the civilians who had joined the
band only one displayed timidity at this last moment, so Niazi allowed
him to return to his home and entrusted the man with the letters and
manifestos which he, Niazi, had written during the previous night,
instructing him to deliver them to the _mudir_ of the district; and
to the _mudir_ he sent a separate letter, ordering him, with threats,
to forward these documents to the various people to whom they were
addressed.

Then the bugle sounded and the little band of zealots marched on again
through the beautiful Balkan countryside, in the glorious summer
weather, to their unknown destiny—a band of sworn ascetics who harmed
no men save the agents of the Despotism who stood in their way, and
these they slew without pity; to all others they were as brothers,
protecting the weak and oppressed of whatsoever race or creed,
preaching the gospel of justice and equality.

The bands of the racial propaganda that had hitherto passed through
the Balkans had terrorised the population with murder, robbery, and
the violation of women, whereas this band gained the confidence of
all and was welcomed in the villages. This was indeed as a company of
knights-errant, but these were no visionaries tilting at wind-mills;
the aim of the _fedais_ was the overthrow of the reign of tyranny and
corruption; Niazi’s bands and the other bands of the Committee of Union
and Progress which followed its example actually succeeded, as we shall
see, not only in winning over the entire Moslem population of this
region to the cause, but in uniting the various races that had been
cutting each other’s throats for years, so that the whole strength of
the Macedonian peoples was brought together to oppose the Despotism.




CHAPTER XI

_THE INSURRECTION IN BULGARIA_


Within a few hours of the departure of Niazi Bey and his band from
Resna, the officials of the Yildiz had been informed by telegraph of
the outbreak of the insurrection. After a consultation of the Sultan’s
advisers a telegram was sent to General Shemshi Pasha, then in command
at Mitrovitza in the northern Vilayet—who was, as I have explained
in a former chapter, a trusted officer, than whom none had greater
experience in crushing revolt in Macedonia and Albania—recounting to
him what had occurred, and ordering him with the least possible delay
to move the necessary troops from Mitrovitza to Monastir, and to raise
volunteers from among the people, “so as to surround and seize the
ungrateful traitor, Niazi, together with the officers, officials,
private soldiers, and civilians who are his companions.” The General
was further informed that his Majesty expected him to prove his
fidelity and loyalty by making these wicked men a telling example to
other seditious persons, and relied upon him to cleanse that portion of
the Empire of this mischief and to prevent its spread by measures of
the severest nature.

The ill-fated Shemshi displayed his loyalty and zeal by working night
and day to compass the destruction of Niazi and his band of _fedais_.
On July 6 he arrived with two battalions at Monastir by special train;
another battalion was closely following, and seven other battalions
were marching into the disturbed districts. The usual trickery of
which the creatures of the Palace were so fond was also employed to
support the operations of the troops. Thus, in order to excite Moslem
fanaticism and persuade men to serve as volunteers, it was assiduously
rumoured that the Christians were rising to massacre the Mussulmans,
a falsehood that produced but little effect; while delegates were
sent through the villages to tell the people that the Constitution
desired by the Committee of Union and Progress, and advocated by the
bands under Niazi and others, was opposed to the religion of Islam,
“its doctrines being as vile as that which permits women to go about
unveiled.” The Palace also arranged with the local officials that
attempts should be made to corrupt the members of Niazi’s band, rank
and money being offered to any of these who would kill him.

In the telegrams in which he reported progress to the Palace, Shemshi
stated that he was unable to obtain any reliable information concerning
the rebels from either the military authorities or the Vali, and that
no one could tell him where the Committee of Union and Progress was,
or the names of its members. All that his spies had been able to
discover was that the heads of the people in those parts were full of
seditious ideas and that many men of importance were on the Committee;
the movement was evidently spreading, and Staff-Major Enver Bey had
abandoned his uniform and gone off to join the seditious Committee.
Nevertheless he, Shemshi Pasha, assured his Majesty the Caliph that
he would exert himself until he breathed his last breath (words
the literal truth of which were soon to be proved) to root up this
seditious growth. He, moreover, reported that he had sent messages
to the Albanian notables, and that thousands of brave Albanians were
prepared, in answer to his call, to pour into the disaffected districts
and punish these people who were unfaithful to their religion and
traitors to their sovereign. He also announced that two battalions
would at once march in the direction of Resna, and that he was
confident of his speedy success in stifling the conspiracy.

His confidence was misplaced, for of the Albanian chiefs upon whose
help he relied the greater number had become adherents of the Committee
of Union and Progress, while all the officers and non-commissioned
officers of one of the two battalions which he was sending to surround
Niazi had sworn the oath of fidelity to the Committee. But Shemshi
had his doubts; for he confessed to the notables of Monastir that the
Rumelian troops which he had brought with him were not of much account,
and that he was anxiously awaiting the arrival of an entire division
of Anatolian troops which the Government was sending to him from Asia
Minor. Shemshi’s own brother-in-law, an officer of _gendarmerie_ in
Monastir, and a member of the Committee, while unable, of course, to
take him into his confidence, attempted to prevent a useless shedding
of Moslem blood and to save the General’s own life, by warning him
that the troops of Resna and its neighbourhood would refuse to obey
his orders if they were called upon to fire on Niazi’s band. In the
meanwhile the Committee of Union and Progress had full knowledge
of all the plans of the Government; for telegraph clerks and other
officials who were secret adherents of the cause were able to betray
the communications that passed between the Yildiz and the military
authorities in Monastir.

The Committee was actively employed in frustrating the plans of the
Government. In order to counteract the influence of the false reports
that had been circulated by the agents of the Despotism it placarded
the walls of Monastir with manifestos on the night before Shemshi’s
arrival. These manifestos explained that the aim of the Committee was
to free Turkey from her traitorous Government which had been corrupting
the nation for thirty years and was now betraying her to foreigners.
It called for the immediate removal of the spies who had been sent
recently from Constantinople, and protested against the illegal
carrying off of the people denounced by the spies, to the Inquisitions
of the Yildiz and the Central Police in the capital.

The Committee also organised numerous bands in various parts of the
country so as to confuse the Government, divide its forces, and prevent
a concentrated attack on Niazi. It kept up constant communication with
Niazi, keeping him well informed of the movements of his enemies. The
Committee enjoined him to avoid coming into contact with the troops
that had been sent against him, but if this became impossible, to force
on a decisive action that would do the Government great damage. As
the object of the Committee was to unite all the different elements
of the Ottoman population, a civil war, at this juncture, especially
if it took the form of a conflict between the Moslem soldiery and the
Moslem peasantry, would obviously be a deplorable calamity. But there
was to be no sparing of the Government spies; and the Committee gave
orders that the Palace agents, who were wandering through the villages
gaining information and poisoning the minds of the people against the
Constitution, should be put to death.

And now to return to Niazi Bey and his wanderings. After his halt on
the afternoon of his departure at the cross-roads, where his band,
reinforced by Osman Effendi’s contingent of _fedais_ from Persepe, had
attained the strength which he considered to be the most suitable for
his purpose, the march was continued to the Moslem village of Labcha,
to most of whose inhabitants he and his followers were well known.
The _fedais_ entered the village shouting _Allahu Akber_, “God is
very great,” and _La ilaha illallah_, “there is no God but God!” Then
Niazi, through the Elective Council of the village, called in all the
peasants who were working in the fields and addressed them. Here the
ground had been well prepared. There were none among the inhabitants
who did not desire the restoration of the Constitution. They fell upon
the necks of Niazi and his men and embraced them, rejoicing to see that
these saviours of the country were now openly working for the cause.

Here one of the elders of the village, an ex-sergeant of the army,
begged to be allowed to join the band. “Do not deprive me of this
happiness,” he said; “for even if we fail, true martyrdom can be gained
on this expedition.” But Niazi replied, “My heart wants you with me,
but you must stay here, for this village needs your presence. I intend
to make Labcha my principal base and our place of refuge, so here you
can help the cause more than by following me.” The sergeant therefore
remained in Labcha, where his zeal, fidelity, and mother wit were of
great service. An incident which occurred in this village some time
later throws a curious light on the system of self-government which was
introduced by the Committee of Union and Progress into the villages
that had accepted the Committee as their virtual ruler. The sister of
the above-mentioned sergeant had told her husband, a man of Resna, what
she knew concerning the oath which the representatives of the Committee
had administered to certain leading inhabitants of Labcha; and this
foolish fellow had gone about boasting that he was in possession of
the secret, mentioning the names of initiates. The sergeant, on hearing
this, summoned the villagers to a meeting at which it was decided that,
as a punishment for both these babblers, the man should immediately
divorce his wife. The husband and wife came before this irregular
tribunal, whose orders had to be obeyed more implicitly than those of
the law courts of the State, and on begging for forgiveness obtained
the revocation of the sentence that would have separated them. This
event led to the creation of a female police or vigilance committee in
this and some other villages, whose chief duty it apparently was to
check indiscreet gossip concerning the Committee.

As in Labcha and the surrounding villages all the men were strong
partisans of the Committee, there was no more work to be done here for
Niazi’s band, and therefore, after purchasing provisions and refreshing
themselves, the _fedais_ set out again to march through the night.

In the following afternoon they came to the neighbourhood of the
Albanian town of Ochrida, where there were many Palace spies and a
considerable garrison, so that it was not possible for the band to
enter it; but there was also here an important branch of the Committee
of Union and Progress, and a large proportion of the inhabitants were
at heart adherents of the cause. So Niazi, leaving his band encamped
in a cherry orchard in the hills, walked into the town under cover of
the night. Major Eyoub Effendi and other members of the Committee,
who were old friends of his, had a meeting with him at the house of
one of the faithful, and welcomed him heartily. They told him that two
detachments of troops had left Resna to surround his band. They sent up
to his camp leather water bottles and other necessaries of which his
men were in want, and gave him great encouragement. Here he took the
opportunity of sending a manifesto to the Albanian Committee, as it
turned out later, with excellent result, for Niazi, whose birthplace
was near the Albanian border, and who was himself of Albanian stock,
had many friends among the Albanians, and was much respected by them.
He also wrote a letter to his old foe Cherchis, the famous leader of
Bulgarian bands. In this letter he explained his aim to Cherchis, and
told him that he, Niazi, who had formerly pursued Cherchis’ band with
such vigour, now extended to him the hand of friendship, and asked
for an interview under any conditions that Cherchis might propose, in
order that they might devise a scheme for concerted action against the
Government, and he reminded him of the proverb which says, “the sheep
who leaves the flock is torn by the wolf.” Niazi’s friends took him
back to his camp by back lanes and paths, and the band, leaving this
dangerous neighbourhood, made another long night march to the north,
its objective being Dibra on the Black Drin, the centre of a district
in which Niazi knew that he would find many adherents, and where
the forests and rugged mountains afforded safe retreats and easily
defensible positions.

And now Niazi’s work of preparing a general insurrection commenced
in earnest. The story of his wanderings cannot be fully told here,
but I will give some explanation of the methods he employed. It was
his intention, in the first place, to carry on his operations in the
Moslem villages and afterwards to bring in the other elements of the
population. He worked with the greatest energy, often visiting and
organising several villages in the same day. It was his custom to send
a small advanced party of his followers under an officer to reassure
the people, and, this done, he would enter the village with the rest
of the band. In all save a very few Moslem villages thus visited the
_fedais_ were received with extraordinary enthusiasm, and Niazi’s
task of making the inhabitants sworn adherents of the Committee was
not difficult. He would call a meeting of the villagers, or, having
attended prayers in the mosque with his band, he would there, after
the prayers were over, address those present with stirring words,
explaining to them the lofty aims of the movement whose soldier he now
was. The leading men would be called up one by one to take the oath
prescribed by the Committee of Union and Progress, and afterwards the
other inhabitants would come up eagerly to be sworn in. Among those who
thus became adherents of the Committee were many deserters from the
army who had been hiding among their families.

Niazi used to impress it upon these newly made members that, as they
were now united as brethren to serve the same high purpose, they must
put away all differences among themselves, and forgive each other for
wrongs inflicted. The cause demanded that their blood feuds should
cease. Throughout this region, and especially in some of the Albanian
districts, relentless blood feuds between families and individuals are
very frequent, and to be murdered in a vendetta is regarded as the
natural ending to a man’s life. But now was beheld the astonishing
spectacle of a general reconciliation. Men whose families had been
slaughtering each other for generations, embraced publicly, united by
devotion to a common cause; and old men who had not dared to go outside
their houses for years, because some ancient crime was yet unavenged,
once more went forth freely and without fear.

The villagers, in the sincerity of their welcome to Niazi’s _fedais_,
whom they regarded as the saviours of Turkey, often refused to accept
payment for the food and other necessaries which they freely and gladly
supplied to the band; but Niazi, when he did not pay in cash for these
supplies, insisted on giving receipts for their value, and instructed
the villagers to show their receipts to the authorities and deduct
the amounts from the taxes which they paid to the Government. At the
same time he used to send manifestos to the local _mudirs_ and other
officials warning them that death would be the penalty for the tax
collector who refused to accept these receipts as part payment of taxes.

A village, after its inhabitants had been sworn in, was “organised”
according to certain rules laid down by the Committee, and became a
well-ordered centre of revolt. In the first place the authority of the
Government and its officials was disclaimed, and tyrannical oppression
was prevented by the united opposition of a population that had become
as a band of brothers. A local form of government on constitutional
lines was set up. The sources of the Government revenue were
appropriated whenever it was possible to do this, and in some districts
the villages refused to pay any taxes to the Government, offering a
passive resistance that would have taken an active shape had the tax
collectors ventured to push the matter.

For the purpose of mutual protection, relations were established
between the various villages of a district; and a certain number of the
inhabitants were secretly organised as a sort of militia. Niazi found
that from one hundred to two hundred and fifty rifles were concealed
in each village of the Dibra and other neighbouring districts, so arms
were not wanting. These villages had suffered greatly from the raids
of the Bulgarian bands, but from this time the organisation introduced
by Niazi enabled them not only to hold their own against the largest
bands, but to defy the attempts of the Government to coerce them. This
general preparation for defence brought a peace to this region such as
it had not known for years, and the Moslems themselves, obeying the
orders of the Committee, refrained from any aggressive actions; all
the Moslem bands that were in the hills were dissolved, the men who
composed them returning to their villages. Niazi made it clear to all
adherents of the Committee that it was above all things necessary for
the success of the cause that the Moslems should carefully avoid any
conflict, whether with Christian bands or Government troops, and that
they should act strictly on the defensive until the Committee gave the
word for the general insurrection.

Niazi thus succeeded, whithersoever he wandered over the Balkans, in
winning over the Mussulman land-owners and peasantry, and many of
the Government officials, to the revolutionary cause; and, in the
meanwhile, by manifestos and letters he sought to gain the confidence
and support of the Bulgarian element in the population. Notwithstanding
the never-ceasing warfare between them in Macedonia, the Turks and the
brave and manly Bulgarians were more in touch with each other than
with any of the other races in the Balkan Peninsula. The Turks had
often protected and were soon again to protect the Bulgarian exarchists
against the fanatical persecutions of the Greeks. It was, therefore,
natural that Niazi should seek the cooperation of the Bulgarians before
approaching the other Christian peoples of European Turkey.

There are many Bulgarian villages scattered over the region in which
Niazi was at work, and their inhabitants at first regarded with some
anxiety the change that had come over the Moslem population, which for
several years had appeared listless and devoid of hope, not having the
separatist aspirations which buoyed up the spirits of the Christians,
but now had suddenly become cheerful and alert, as if looking forward
to some great and happy change. Suspicious at first, the Bulgarians
at last came to realise that whatever sentiment was stirring the
Moslems, it had nothing to do with anti-Christian feeling, and was not
antagonistic to themselves.

On July 6 Niazi issued his important manifesto to the Bulgarians. He
proclaimed to them that the time had come to strike a blow at the
evils that had been destroying the fatherland for years, for the
Despotism was ever becoming more intolerable. He put all the blame
on the Government; but pointed out that the Christian Ottomans had
taken a wrong road, while seeking a better state of things. They had
heeded the false advice of the surrounding small states, Bulgaria,
Servia, and Greece, which had promised to free Macedonia, but were
really working for their own ends, their one aim being to seize the
country and enslave its people. “These little Powers have sown hatred
and dissension among us, and have deluged the fatherland with blood.”
He assured them that “if these little Powers should work on thus
for another thirty years they would not attain their purpose. The
fatherland is, and ever shall be, ours.” He then went on to explain
that the Ottoman Committee of Union and Progress, consisting of army
officers, civil officials, townsmen, and peasants, all honourable men,
had been formed with the object of establishing a system of government
that would give liberty and justice, without distinction of creed or
race, to all Ottomans, so that they might live in peace and happiness
in their common fatherland. Then he spoke of his band of armed
_fedais_, whose mission it was to propagate these principles in the
towns and villages, and to bring about the co-operation of all elements
of the population in putting a stop to the internal dissensions and
civil warfare that were hastening the Empire to its ruin. He called
upon the leaders to dissolve these mischievous bands, to join his own
band, and work for Ottoman liberty and justice, instead of for Bulgaria
and the other little Powers. Severe punishment would be dealt out to
such bands as did not come in, and if any village gave encouragement
to the bands after this warning, its head man would be executed. They
were all Ottomans, and they must all co-operate to establish the
Constitution which gave equality and liberty, and protected each creed
and race and language.

This manifesto produced a wonderful effect. The Bulgarian inhabitants
knew that Niazi Bey was not speaking idle words, and threatening to do
things that he could not carry out. They realised that if it came to
civil war the Committee of Union and Progress would have practically
the entire Moslem population of Macedonia and Albania on its side.
Moreover, they knew enough of Niazi to feel that he was quite sincere
in his declarations and promises, and many of them had observed with
amazed admiration the just and honourable conduct of his band of
_fedais_. Here was the Turkish officer who, for five years, had been
vigorously hunting down the Bulgarian bands, now speaking to them as
fellow-countrymen and brethren! Hitherto, they argued, they had paid
heavy taxes to a Government that had given no account of how the money
was spent, and treated them as dogs; but now a new rule was asserting
itself, under which they began to see justice and the prospect of being
treated as human beings.

So within a few days of the issue of his manifesto, Niazi received
intelligence to the effect that the Bulgarians of Resna, Ochrida,
Persepe, and other districts had held meetings at which it had been
decided that “it would be an honour to serve with their lives and
property this band which had such high aims.” Cherchis himself, too,
with his comrades, desired to effect a union with the Committee of
Union and Progress.

On July 9 Niazi, thinking that the time was ripe, for the first time
brought his band into a purely Bulgarian village. This was the large
village of Velijon, containing three hundred and fifty houses. It
is situated on a hillside, with a great forest behind it sloping up
steeply to the wild and lofty ridges of the Balkan Range, and for its
strategic advantages it had been selected as one of the most important
supply bases for the Bulgarian bands. As Niazi’s vanguard entered
the village the inhabitants took alarm, closed their shops, and shut
themselves up within their houses; but after Niazi, coming in with the
rest of his band, had summoned the Elective Council, and explained
matters, the fears of the villagers disappeared; and friendly
relations were soon established by the kindly and courteous officers
and Moslem notables who composed the bulk of this remarkable band. The
end of it was that the priest, the Elective Council, and all the other
inhabitants of the village placed their hands upon the Holy Gospels and
took the oath of fidelity to the Committee, undertaking to carry out
all its orders and render armed assistance to the cause when called
upon to do so. When the band marched out of the village in the cool of
the evening the friendly Christians accompanied the _fedais_ for some
distance to put them on their way and then bade them God speed. Shortly
after this Niazi was enabled to amnesty and arrange for the coming in
of the bands that were in the hills round Dibra, which place was made
an important centre of the insurrectionary movement.

It was about this time that Niazi received a letter from the Monastir
Centre of the Committee which gave him great encouragement. It thanked
him and “the heroic self-sacrificing men of Resna” for the splendid
work they were doing, and informed Niazi that his friend, Major Enver
Bey, the clever staff officer who had performed distinguished service
in Macedonia, had thrown up his commission, and at the head of a
band of _fedais_ was actively preparing the population in the Tikosh
district, while other officers had also organised bands, and taken to
the mountains. The fortunes of the cause appeared very bright.

He also learnt from this letter that General Shemshi Pasha had been
publicly assassinated in Monastir on July 7. The General, after
reporting progress to the Palace, had left the telegraph office and
was driving in his carriage to join the two battalions with which it
was his intention to surround Niazi’s band, when he was shot dead by
an officer in uniform. Fifteen hundred people were surrounding the
carriage at the time, but not one attempted to, or had any wish to
arrest this executioner of the Committee’s will, who strolled quietly
off. The ill-fated Shemshi was an energetic commander, and had he
lived there would undoubtedly have been some severe fighting between
such troops as would have remained loyal to him and the Committee’s
bands. Shemshi would probably have led his troops to disaster, for
his boldness and confidence in himself amounted to rashness, and he
despised his enemy. Ambushes had been prepared for him on the roads by
which he would have had to march; and Niazi, operating in a difficult
mountain country, with an armed population skilled in guerilla war to
stand by him, was now in a position to hold his own for an indefinite
time against any forces that the Government could send against him.
There can be little doubt that the death of Shemshi prevented a civil
war that would have done much injury to the cause of the Committee,
for it would have divided public opinion, the unanimity of which it
was of such importance to secure. From the date of Shemshi’s death the
impotence of the Government and the disorganisation of the army made
it difficult for the Palace to plunge the country into the horrors of
internecine conflict.




CHAPTER XII

_THE PALACE AND THE GREEKS_


The preparations for the general rising now advanced very rapidly.
Enver Bey, declining further treacherous offers, which included
the promise of his promotion to General rank if he would return to
Constantinople, led his band of _fedais_ through the mountains, and
won village after village to the revolutionary cause. The story of
this young officer’s escape in disguise from Salonica, his adventures
in the wilds, and the brave work he did for Turkey, is told throughout
his country. He has become the popular hero, and is held in the highest
estimation by his comrades; for the complete absence of any jealousy
among the young officers who devoted themselves to the liberation of
their fatherland is a pleasing feature of this patriotic movement.
Niazi writes of Enver as follows: “He who in the time of sorrow and
hopelessness encouraged and fortified us with his ardent words and
serious ways, Enver Bey, whose like is seldom to be met.” Salah-ed-Din
Bey, Hassan Bey, and other officers were also wandering over Macedonia
and Albania with their bands, gaining thousands of adherents among
the land-owners and the peasantry; and at the same time others were
educating the rank and file of the army, with the result that a large
proportion of the troops garrisoning this region were ready to fight,
even against their own comrades, if called upon to do so.

Niazi Bey had practically won over the bulk of the Moslem inhabitants
of Western Albania, a wonderful achievement indeed. For one who knows
these fanatical Albanian tribesmen finds it difficult to understand
how they could listen with sympathy and patience to the gospel of
universal brotherhood, and the extension of equal rights to Christian
and Mussulman. But Niazi, with his rough, strong eloquence, his obvious
sincerity and single-mindedness, his magnetic personality, and his
commanding presence—for, like many Albanians, he is a man of great
stature and sturdy build—is evidently a born leader of men; and he was
successful not only in gaining over the Albanians, but in holding back
these eager warriors until their armed assistance should be called
for, and in making them patch up their sanguinary tribal and family
blood feuds, some of which had endured for centuries. Moreover, a
large proportion of the young officers of the Third Army Corps were
of Albanian stock, and of these several were able to influence their
countrymen in the Committee’s favour.

Niazi and his band, during their memorable twenty days’ wandering in
the hill-country, avoiding the main roads and threading in single
file the difficult mountain tracks, ran many dangers and suffered
considerable hardships. At times the pursuing Government troops were
close at their heels; sometimes, but not often, the _fedais_ came
to a village whose inhabitants were hostile. Thus, on one occasion,
when hungry, thirsty, and weary they approached a village in order
to obtain the bread and cheese and water which seem to have composed
their usual diet, the villagers, whose minds had been poisoned against
the Committee by an emissary of the Palace, came out armed to the
teeth, and dangerously excited, and threatened to fire upon the band.
The position was an awkward one, for Niazi not only had the hostile
village in front of him, but had in his rear, and not far off, a large
detachment of troops under a Bosnian officer, which had been sent to
cut him off. So the band, foodless and worn out with fatigue, had
to take to the upper slopes of the mountain for safety. Niazi is an
obstinate man. He was determined either to convert that village to
the cause or to give it a severe lesson. A few days later he talked
the villagers over to repentance of their error; they took the oath
of allegiance to the Committee, and supplied the band with two days’
rations of bread and cheese, for which they refused to accept payment.
Moreover, the Bosnian officer, on receiving the news of Shemshi Pasha’s
execution at Monastir, abandoned his pursuit of Niazi and marched with
his band to Ochrida to submit to the Committee.

On July 12 Niazi, having been summoned to Ochrida to confer with the
Committee, marched boldly into that town with his band, none daring
to interfere with him, so much had the authority of the Government
been weakened by this time. Here the members of the Committee gave him
information concerning the other bands, and instructed him to keep
in touch with them, as the time was near when an important combined
movement might be made. They told him that the Government had sent
General Osman Pasha to Monastir as Commander Extraordinary of the
Vilayet, in the place of the assassinated Shemshi Pasha, and that
the Bulgarian Executive Committee had issued instructions to all the
Bulgarian villages to the effect that the Moslem revolutionary bands
should be treated hospitably and with consideration, but that, until
further orders, armed assistance must not be given. Niazi was also
informed of the shooting, by order of the Committee, of the _imam_,
Mustapha Effendi, and other dangerous agents of the Palace.

The business completed, Niazi’s band marched out of the town, and
followed the sandy shores of the great lake of Ochrida, where they
were warmly welcomed in the villages of the Bulgarian fishing-folk.
The objective of the band was Istarova, but on the way they
carried out their mission in the villages, swearing in the people,
overthrowing the authority of the Government, establishing elective
administrative bodies, and expelling any tax-gatherers or other
servants of the Government who had oppressed the people, or were known
to be subservient to Palace influence. Threatened at one point by a
pursuing detachment of four hundred men, Niazi divided his band into
small parties and took up commanding positions on the rocky hills that
bordered the main road. But it turned out that the detachment was under
the command of Captain Ziya Bey, a young officer whose sympathies were
with the revolutionaries. Ziya Bey and some other officers came up
to Niazi’s camp, offered to join the band so soon as their services
should be needed, and undertook to withdraw the detachment from the
neighbourhood. There was another detachment, too, in pursuit of the
band at that time, but it had purposely been sent off in a wrong
direction.

It was Niazi’s intention to make Istarova, the centre of an important
district, his head-quarters for a short while. His band made a
triumphal progress through the district. The villagers were all eager
to be sworn as adherents of the Committee. In one village Niazi ordered
the execution of a particularly iniquitous tax-gatherer (who succeeded
in effecting his escape) and the man’s rams were divided among the
members of the band, who were thus enabled to enjoy a luxurious
meal for a change. Before entering Istarova, Niazi sent a letter to
the principal Government official in the place, the _kaimakan_ (or
administrator, of the _Caza_, or district of Istarova), an honourable
young man who had exercised his authority with justice, and of whom
the peasants in the district had spoken well to Niazi. It was a
characteristic letter, in which Niazi, after explaining that all the
inhabitants of the district, Moslem and Christian, had sworn to stand
by the Committee, told him that though he entertained a great esteem
for him as a just ruler of the people, at the same time he, Niazi,
regretted that the _kaimakan_ had shown negligence in one important
particular; for in that large district there was not a single school.
“The calamities of this nation,” he went on, “are mainly due to the
ignorance of the people,” and he urged him to do his best to promote
education.

On July 16 the band entered Istarova, where the men enjoyed a welcome
and much-needed rest—the villagers supplying cigars and coffee to
cheer them—and were able to sleep in unwonted security, surrounded
by their friends; for in that district of a hundred villages, with a
population of 30,000, all men were with the Committee of Union and
Progress, while any troops that might have proved troublesome had been
removed to a distance by arrangement with friendly officers. As for
Niazi, he saw to the swearing in of the people of Istarova, and the
election of the administrative body, and then he preached the gospel
of the Constitution in the Mosque, and recommended the newly appointed
administrative body to build schools, to educate the people, and to
repair their mosques, and for this purpose, on behalf of his band,
he subscribed the sum of two pounds. The _kaimakan_ himself sought
out Niazi in the night, and praised him to his face as a brave man
and a bringer of justice to the people, declared his belief in the
righteousness of the Committee’s aim, and placed himself under Niazi’s
orders. Thus did Niazi influence all the men with whom he came into
contact.

Throughout the following day Niazi remained in Istarova, which
presented a very animated appearance, for there poured into the village
thousands of peasants from all the surrounding countryside, eager to
be sworn, together with a number of soldiers who had deserted to join
Niazi, and had come in, bringing their rifles with them, from the
neighbouring garrisons and posts. There was good reason for Niazi’s
exultation in the success of the movement. Resna, Ochrida, Persepe,
Dibra, Malisa, and now Istarova had all been brought within the
revolutionary union by the efforts of the bands. He now knew that with
a word, when the time came, he would be able to summon a large armed
force to execute the Committee’s will.

And now to leave the mountains and the bands of brave _fedais_ for
a while, to return to the less wholesome atmosphere of the Yildiz
Palace, and follow the last vain efforts of the Despotism to crush the
life out of the revolutionary movement. The advisers of the Sultan
were fully aware of the significance of the reports that came to them
from Macedonia, though the newspapers, officially inspired, still
spoke lightly of “unimportant manifestations of disaffection in a
few garrisons.” There were high Government officials in the European
Vilayets who ventured to inform the Palace of the exact state of
affairs. Notable among these was the Vali of Monastir, who in the
following despatch to the Grand Vizier (dated, I think, July 17)
pointed out, as plainly as he dared, that the revolutionary movement
was too strong for the Despotism, that further repressive measures must
fail, and could only result in useless bloodshed, and that it would be
well to submit to the will of the people and grant a Constitution. The
last suggestion was, of course, put in an ambiguous way, for at that
time no one had the courage to mention the word Constitution to the
Sultan. The following is a translation—some repetitions and unimportant
details being omitted—of the despatch in question.


“It has been ordered by an Imperial _Iradé_ that Niazi Bey and his
companions should be arrested. The existence of the powerful Committee
of Union and Progress has been proved by the severity of the measures
which it adopts. It stands not alone; for, as has already been
intimated in official despatches, the officers of the army are united
in a determination to support the demands of the Committee; and the
population, likewise, is in league with the Committee. To leave aside
the question of the pursuit of Niazi, I beg to state that none will now
venture to undertake the duty of making investigations. The members
of the commission which was formed under the presidency of Shukri
Pasha to institute inquiries (the spy commission) have been obliged to
abandon their work in consequence of the secret threats which were
conveyed to them. The _ulema_ who were sent by the Government to travel
through the country and give advice to the villagers have been warned
by the Committee of Union and Progress that they would be killed if
they continued to do this, so they have returned. The lives of all
officials, my own included, are in peril. It has been shown that the
Committee has the power of executing its threats. Here, in Monastir,
when General Osman Hidayet Pasha had gathered his officers around him
to read to them the telegram which communicated the high _Iradé_ of his
Imperial Majesty the Caliph, he was shot by one of the officers, who
fired three times at him in the presence of all these people, and yet
this officer was not arrested, and it has been found impossible even to
ascertain his name. The police and judiciary officials are meditating
resignation from their posts in order to save their lives if pressure
is brought upon them to make them carry out their duties. As for me,
your servant, my ancestry having been faithful for four hundred years,
and myself having served the Government in various capacities for the
last forty-four years, I consider that for me to resign my post in
this hour of trouble would be an act of ingratitude; and therefore,
despite the perils to which I and my family are exposed, I am prepared
to discharge my duty, that is, to devise means preventing the active
co-operation of the people with the officers of the army, whose views
and aims they undoubtedly share.

“At the same time I consider it a duty and a proof of my loyalty that I
should submit to you in detail the true facts of the situation. I must
inform you that the sentiments of which I am speaking are now acquiring
a strong hold upon the private soldiers. The six battalions which were
sent to Resna now remain there inactive, and their commanders confess
their powerlessness. Should any attempt be made to pursue Niazi, the
soldiers will refuse to fire upon him and his band. I may mention in
proof of this that when General Shemshi Pasha was assassinated here,
the men of his Albanian body-guard, the _gendarmes_, and the other
soldiers present, when pursuing the criminal in accordance with the
orders given to them, discharged their rifles in the air and allowed
the assassin to escape. According to private information which I have
received it is believed that the troops who are to be despatched
from Anatolia will, on their arrival here, refuse to use their arms
against their comrades. What I have stated concerning the condition of
this region is applicable also, so I am informed, to the Vilayets of
Salonica and Kosovo.

“The urgency of this matter and the fact that this movement is daily
gaining strength and spreading with extraordinary rapidity being taken
into consideration by the Government, I submit, prompted by my loyalty,
that the time for either measures of persuasion or those of force and
severity have passed, and that, in order to obviate a still worse state
of things, other more effective measures, more consonant with the
times, should be adopted. I am awaiting your commands.”


The plan of the Palace was to crush the revolt with a great force of
troops from Anatolia; but as straightforward methods by themselves
never sufficed the Sultan’s advisers, underground devices were also
employed. The Greek element in Macedonia on previous occasions had
been found willing to join hands with the Turkish Government in the
suppression of Bulgarian rebellions, so Munir Pasha, who had for some
years been the Turkish Ambassador in Paris, was now sent to Athens to
arrange for the organisation of Greek bands to attack the Moslem and
Christian supporters of the Committee of Union and Progress. The Palace
also attempted, by offers of full pardons, gifts, and promotions, to
withdraw army officers from the revolutionary movement, and so leave
the disorganised followers of the Committee of Union and Progress an
easy prey for the forces that were to be brought against them. The
thirty-eight young officers who had been arrested in Salonica and
were imprisoned in the capital were released and pardoned. Thousands
of officers in the army and navy were astonished to find themselves
suddenly promoted, and decorations were distributed wholesale. The
Palace entertained the foolish belief that every man has his price; but
all this hypocritical benevolence was of no avail and only served to
lay bare to the world the incompetence and panic of the Camarilla in
the hour of danger.

It was decided to despatch no less than forty-eight battalions from
Anatolia to overpower the disaffected Macedonian army, and had these
Asiatic troops proved staunch there would have been a terrible shedding
of blood. Twenty-seven of these battalions were transported by sea from
Smyrna to Salonica, where they disembarked on July 16. The efforts of
Dr. Nazim Bey and other agents of the Young Turk party had already,
to a large extent, inoculated these troops with the revolutionary
doctrines before they left Asia Minor, and from the moment of their
embarkation at Smyrna the emissaries of the Committee were at
work among them, testing the officers to find out who were of the
revolutionary party and using persuasive arguments with the rank and
file. Some of the regiments on reaching Salonica refused to proceed to
Monastir and were isolated from the rest. The remaining regiments were
marched to Monastir, and with them went officers who were initiates of
the secret society, disguised as sherbet sellers, _mollahs_, and so
forth, ever winning over adherents to the cause. It soon became clear
that the bulk of the officers and men of this force were in sympathy
with the troops whom they had been sent to slaughter, and that they
would never fire upon their comrades of the Third Army Corps. These
battalions that entered Monastir were soon persuaded to take the oath
of allegiance to the Committee of Union and Progress.

The state of affairs in the third week in July may therefore be summed
up as follows: The Government still nominally ruled and administered
the three Vilayets of Monastir, Salonica, and Kosovo, but its authority
had been reduced to impotence. In the chief military centre, Monastir,
General Osman Pasha was in command, but, knowing the temper of his men,
hesitated to attempt decisive action to crush the insurrection. The
men of the Second and Third Army Corps, and of the regiments that had
been brought from Anatolia, were either adherents of the Committee or
wavering in their allegiance to the Government. It was unlikely that
more than a small proportion of the troops would be found willing to
fight the battles of the Palace. The Moslem and Bulgarian peasants,
among whom arms had been distributed by the Committee of Union and
Progress, were awaiting the word to take part in the general rising.
Ten thousand Albanian warriors were in arms, eager to fall upon the
supporters of the Despotism.

The one doubtful element of the population was the Greek. It appears
that the Palace had not only sent Munir Pasha to Athens to seek the
assistance of those intriguing subjects of King George who used to
equip the brigand bands that had been the curse of Macedonia; but
it also issued instructions to General Osman Pasha in Monastir to
persuade the Greek bands within his district, by means of what bribes
or promises I cannot say, to hunt down and capture Niazi and the other
leaders of the insurrection. It is undoubtedly the fact that the Greek
bands, assisted by hired Mussulman desperadoes, were displaying great
activity at this period, and that the Greek clergy were directing a
vigorous persecution of the Bulgarian exarchists. The Committee of
Union and Progress dealt firmly with this one disturbing element in
an otherwise peaceful and united country. For example, the Committee
carried away the Greek Bishop of Vodena as a hostage and let it be
known that he would be put to death in three days unless by that time
all the bands in that neighbourhood had been broken up.

On July 22, by which time, as I shall show, the young Turk leaders had
come boldly into the open to demand from the Sultan his abdication or a
Constitution, the Committee of Union and Progress in Monastir issued a
manifesto, of which copies were sent to the Greek Committee in Athens,
the spiritual head of the Greek community in Monastir, and to the
chiefs of the various Greek bands in the neighbourhood.

This manifesto, after stating that “the Yildiz, in opposition to the
will of the people, had attempted to bring about a diversion against
the Young Turk movement by effecting a union between the Hellenes and
the Patriarchate, and with that object had sent Munir Pasha to stir
up feeling in Greece against the Committee, and that this scheme had
been attended with some success,” proceeded as follows: “You know
that our Committee of Union and Progress, having worked in secret for
the welfare of all races and creeds in Turkey, has now come forth to
openly proclaim its aim—the winning of liberty for the nation. The
tyrannical Government has sown the seeds of sedition and has brought
about conflicts and bloodshed between the various races and creeds in
the land. We being all brothers, working together for the salvation
and happiness of the country, ask of you, our Greek fellow-countrymen,
that you no longer use differences of race and creed as an excuse for
the shedding of blood. If your real object is to obtain equality,
well-being, and liberty, be with us and seek no outside advice; be even
as our Bulgarian brothers, who by their sincerity and by their deeds
have proved their sympathy for our high aims. If you will not unite
with us, we ask of you at least to remain neutral, and we call upon you
in the name of humanity to cease this shedding of blood. We warn you
against the dangers of Hellenism. If you Greeks in the Monastir Vilayet
do not put a stop to your Hellenic agitation, your brother Greeks in
Anatolia, who are much more numerous than yourselves, will suffer as
well as yourselves. Secret negotiations between the Yildiz and the
Patriarchate will lead, not to your happiness, but to your injury and
destruction. We advise our Greek brothers not to be deceived by these
shameless artifices which the Yildiz has oftentimes practised. We ask
that the Greek bands should no longer go hither and thither shedding
blood in their mistaken racial and religious zeal. Let the Hellenes
among them return to their homes in Greece. Let them scatter. It is
also intolerable to us that these bands have low Moslems in their pay
who commit atrocities. We will find out and kill these Moslems if
they do not at once abandon the Greek bands. We call upon you to have
these Moslems sent away, else with you will be the responsibility
for the blood that will be shed, and you will be condemned by the
civilised world. With much affection we invite our Greek compatriots to
unite with us in striving for our main objects—the restoration of our
Constitution and the gaining of equality for all. We cannot doubt that
God, who has created us all, will grant success to those only who work
for humanity and civilisation.”




CHAPTER XIII

_A BLOODLESS VICTORY_


And now the hour was drawing near when Niazi was to be called upon to
do the deed that would bring the insurrection to a head and send the
Despotism tumbling down like a house of cards. Leaving Istarova on July
17, Niazi and his band of _fedais_ set out for Resna. After a fatiguing
march across the mountains (in the course of which the provisional
administration was introduced into several friendly Moslem and
Christian villages, and some _détours_ had to be made in order to avoid
collision with a battalion of _chasseurs_, whose officers and men,
being strangers to the country and not members of the Committee, were
likely to be dangerous) the band entered Labcha, the first village, it
will be remembered, that Niazi had visited and organised on the day of
his setting out from Resna. Here, as in Istarova, the _fedais_ were
among staunch friends and were enabled to sleep in security; there was
no necessity for sending out patrols or for posting sentries, for these
duties were performed by the villagers themselves, who were proud to
guard the saviours of the nation as they rested. The village was also
protected by a detachment of troops which, like many another little
garrison in the three Vilayets, had mutinied, its officers and men
becoming the sworn associates of the Committee.

On the following day, July 19, there was a great gathering of people
in Labcha, wild hillmen, shepherds, deserters from the army, and
others, who had come in to see Niazi and his band and to declare their
readiness to take up arms for the Committee. Niazi addressed the
people, told them how successful had been the mission of his own and
of the other bands, and assured them that the sand had all but run out
of the glass, and the day was very near when the Despotism would fall
and liberty prevail. That glad day was indeed nearer than Niazi himself
imagined; for that very evening there came a messenger into the village
with a letter for Niazi from the Ochrida Centre of the Committee of
Union and Progress. In this letter the Committee informed him that very
important and grave intelligence had been received from Monastir, and
ordered him to set out at once for Ochrida. He was to leave his band
outside that town and come in alone to confer with the Committee and
receive his instructions.

So soon as Niazi had read this letter he collected his men and made
a forced march throughout the night, for all were eager to learn the
nature of the duty which they were to be called upon to perform. Before
dawn—July 20—the outskirts of Ochrida were reached, and Niazi, leaving
his band, entered the town and went to the house of his brother, where
the members of the Committee came to meet him. It was then explained
to him that he and Eyoub Bey were to collect two thousand men from
Ochrida and Resna, form them into two bands, and march on Monastir
without delay. The detailed instructions as to what he was to do would
be delivered to him before he reached that town.

As Niazi learnt later, the Committee of Union and Progress had decided
that the time had arrived for it to make its great _coup_. The plan
was simultaneously to proclaim the Constitution at Monastir and
send an ultimatum to the Sultan, who would have to choose between
constitutional government, abdication, and a bloody civil war. In the
first place it was necessary for the Committee to secure the possession
of Monastir, the head-quarters of the Government’s military strength
in Macedonia, where General Osman Pasha, an able man who exercised
a greater moral influence over his troops than did his predecessor,
Shemshi Pasha, was still in command. The bulk of the troops in Monastir
were adherents of the Committee, but there were also many ready to
obey the orders of the General. It was realised that if Osman Pasha
could be got out of the way the supporters of the Government would be
demoralised, and the Committee might then be able to establish its
authority without bloodshed. The killing of each other by Turkey’s
Moslem soldiers was a calamity to be avoided. It was therefore decided
to entrust to Niazi and Eyoub Beys the special duty of removing Osman
Pasha from Monastir as suddenly and quietly as possible, so as to allow
no time for the organisation of opposition.

To collect the necessary two thousand men was no difficult matter.
In the first place it was decided to employ the very troops who had
been the first to pursue Niazi and his band after the raising of the
standard of revolt at Resna. This was a battalion of _redifs_ of the
Ochrida district which had been disbanded after its fruitless chase of
the revolutionary leader, because the authorities rightly suspected
that most of the men were adherents of the Committee of Union and
Progress. So messengers were sent to the neighbouring villages to
summon these disbanded soldiers—who had not yet given up their arms to
the Government—to assemble at an appointed place outside Ochrida. Niazi
with his band marched into his own country to collect the men of Resna,
Persepe, and Labcha. Throughout the night of the 20th and throughout
the following day he traversed the mountainous countryside, his band
being ever increased by the accession of fresh volunteers who came
to him generally in threes and fours, but occasionally in bodies of
from forty to fifty men. Whenever the band passed through a village it
was received with extraordinary enthusiasm, and the villagers brought
presents of bread and cheese until each man was provided with two days’
rations, the supply which Niazi deemed to be necessary.

In the morning of July 21 Eyoub Effendi, with his Ochrida band of
disbanded _redifs_ and others, a thousand men in all, joined Niazi’s
band at Labcha, and now the column formed by the two united bands set
off in the direction of Monastir. After dark, as they were approaching
their appointed night’s halting place, an incident occurred which
is interesting as illustrating the manners and customs of the wild
Albanian hillmen. The stillness of the night was suddenly broken by
the sound of rifle-fire on the mountainside above the road; so Niazi
sent out scouts to ascertain what was happening. It turned out that the
Faragas and the Quapris, between which two tribes there had existed for
ages a deadly blood feud, had each sent a band of about one hundred men
to join Eyoub Bey’s battalion; these two bands met in the mountain,
and what happened may be best described in Niazi’s own words: “It was
indeed a sight worth witnessing—this meeting of the men of these two
tribes, between whom there had been so intense an enmity, but who were
now united, as with one heart, ready to die together for the sake of
the same ideal. These tribesmen, who for two centuries had hated to
see each other’s faces or to hear each other’s voices, and who had
ever pursued each other with rifle-shots, had now, on meeting on the
hillside, saluted each other with rifle-shots, and were eager, standing
together as comrades, to use rifle-shots against the traitors and
enemies of the fatherland.”

The column passed the night in the village of Gauchar, where many
volunteers from the surrounding country joined the battalions of Niazi
and Eyoub, bringing the force up to the strength of over two thousand
men. The people gathered from the countryside to crowd the village
streets throughout the night to honour and entertain the _fedais_ with
simple refreshments. All these people were prepared to risk everything
in the civil war, the immediate outbreak of which they considered as
inevitable.

On the following morning, July 22, the column marched under a blazing
sun by the steep zigzag tracks that cross the precipitous ranges of
Mount Pelista. At ten o’clock a halt was made, and the “National
Battalion of Ochrida” under Eyoub Bey, and the “National Battalion
of Resna” under Niazi Bey, were arranged in their roll-call order.
There were twenty companies or bands in all, under twenty commanders,
who included among them one lieutenant-colonel, several majors and
captains, one doctor of medicine, and leading Beys of the Macedonian
and Albanian land-owning class. Up to that moment these National
troops had not been informed of their destination or of the object of
the expedition. So now, while Eyoub enlightened his battalion, Niazi
addressed the men of his own command. He explained how, in order to
serve the beneficent Committee which was working for the salvation of
the country, the men of his band had cheerfully given up comfort, and
their wives and families, and had been ready to sacrifice their lives.
“But now,” he said, “these hardships and troubles will soon be a thing
of the past, and they have achieved their purpose well. Relying upon
the success which God gives and the inspiration of the Prophet, we are
now on our way to the head-quarters of the Vilayet of Monastir to carry
into execution a most important command of the Committee. Within a
few hours, if we are successful, we shall have delivered our country
from its afflictions. Without hurting a hair of his head we shall
take the Mushir (Field Marshal), Osman Pasha, from his residence so
as to prevent him from carrying into effect the injuries which it is
in his mind to inflict upon the Committee and the fatherland. May God
enable us to perform this duty with complete success. It is therefore
necessary, my comrades, that you should carry out the orders which
you will receive, literally and implicitly. The strictest order and
discipline must be maintained.”

The men rejoiced to hear what they were called upon to do, and, despite
their fatigue, when the order to resume the march was given, they
proceeded along the rough roads at the double, eager to reach Monastir
as soon as possible. While the column was on its way, there came to
it a most acceptable mascot in the shape of a young roebuck. It was
accompanying a half-dozen or so of _bashi-bazouks_, who had with them
a letter from the Committee at Monastir ordering that they should be
admitted into Niazi’s band. They had found the roebuck in the hills,
and as all Turks, even if they be savage _bashi-bazouks_, are fond of
animals and are invariably kind to them, they caressed the creature and
gained its confidence so well that it had followed them along the road.
So this roebuck now became the pet of the column and marched at the
head of it, fulfilling, says Niazi, the function of a guide, “for by
some instinct it always ran on in the direction we had to go.” Niazi’s
description of this incident well illustrates the kindly and religious
sentiment of the Turks. “The soldiers,” he tells us, “caressed and
blessed it, and thanked God who had sent us this beautiful animal,
which fascinated all with its charming ways. We regarded its presence
as a propitious sign, a divine message of approval of our enterprise.”

In the evening, the column, after an extraordinary forced march,
reached a village which was within a few miles of Monastir. A halt was
called so that the men could have a meal and rest; and here, as had
been arranged, there arrived from Monastir Lieutenant Osman Effendi
with fifty men, bringing a sealed letter for Niazi which contained
the Committee’s detailed instructions for the execution of the plan.
Once more Niazi impressed the necessity of silence, steadiness, and
obedience on the men; the order was given to march, and the eager
_fedais_ hurried along the road, sandal-shod, and therefore almost
noiselessly, at the double, and covered the few miles that lay between
them and their destination in a very short time. It was about eleven
o’clock at night, and there were but few citizens in the streets,
when the column came to the outskirts of Monastir. Here the main body
remained while eight hundred men, divided into several detachments,
and guided by members of the Monastir Committee, passed into the town
by various routes and quickly and silently approached and surrounded
the group of buildings which contained the Government House, the
Headquarters of the Commander-in-Chief, and the official residence
of General Osman Pasha. At the same time agents of the Committee cut
the telegraph wires and so prevented the General from holding any
communication with the Yildiz or with his own staff. The sentries
guarding the General’s residence were quickly disarmed; only one man
offered resistance, but he was pinioned before he could fire his rifle
and give the alarm. Then two officers and some of the men of Niazi’s
band broke into the room where the General was in bed sleeping, and
he was awakened, not unnaturally furiously angry, to find himself the
prisoner of the revolutionaries. In the meanwhile other bodies of men
discovered and placed under arrest the Chief of the Staff, the Officer
in Command of the Zone, and some other officers who were known to be no
friends of the Committee of Union and Progress.

His captors assured Osman Pasha that his life was in no danger, but,
while addressing him with all the respect due to his high rank, they
courteously explained to him that their instructions were to escort
him with all marks of honour to Resna, where he was to remain for a
short time as the guest of the Committee of Union and Progress. Then
they handed him a letter which had been drawn up by the Committee.
It opened with the correct ceremonial salutations: “In the name of
the most merciful and compassionate God. To His Excellency, Mushir,
Osman Pasha. Peace be on you and the mercy of God. May God guide us
and you.” Then the letter proceeded—in terms so polite and flattering
that one wonders whether the Committee was indulging in sarcasm—to
point out that the courage and ability with which God had endowed His
Excellency ought to be used to direct armies to crush the enemies
of the fatherland, and not to attack the nation itself; but that,
unfortunately, His Excellency’s official appointment and the extensive
powers and instructions that had been given to him by the Yildiz were
calculated to induce him—no doubt against the dictates of his own
conscience—to commit acts that might be injurious to the fatherland and
cause the repetition of such regrettable events as occurred in Erzeroum
(the Armenian massacres). His Excellency’s life, the letter explained,
was precious to the country; when the Despotism had been changed for
constitutional government his services might be required for the reform
and reorganisation of the army. Consequently the Committee proposed to
rescue His Excellency from his present awkward situation, and ventured
to beg him to consent to become the Committee’s honoured guest; it
trusted that he would not regard this as in any way bringing disgrace
upon himself, and assured him that everything had been arranged that
could safeguard his dignity and contribute to his comfort. It reminded
him that opposition to the Committee’s will could not avail, for his
house was surrounded, all officers on whose obedience he could rely
were under arrest, while the troops in the town and all the inhabitants
were adherents of the Committee.

Osman Pasha read this document without making any comment upon its
contents, and asked whether he might go into the adjoining room to put
on his clothes; but the two officers, fearing lest he might attempt
suicide, were present while he dressed. Then the General left the house
and, mounting a horse, was escorted by Niazi and his National Battalion
of one thousand men to Resna, which was reached the following night,
and here Osman was confined as an honoured prisoner in the house of one
of the notables of the place.

On that day, July 23, Macedonia and Albania threw off the Despotism,
and even as Niazi’s men were marching to Resna with their prisoner
they heard behind them, far off, the sound of the cannon in Monastir
that were saluting the Constitution. Niazi and his _fedais_ had sworn
not to return to their homes until their country had won its freedom,
and now, having faithfully observed their oaths, he and many of his
followers rejoined their rejoicing wives and families in Resna.
Throughout the following day, July 24, Resna, like every other town and
village in Turkey, presented an extraordinary spectacle. The people
seemed to be mad with enthusiasm and delight. Turks, Bulgarians,
Greeks, Servians, Wallachs were all as brothers. Several Bulgarian
and Greek bands, one of the former led by the redoubtable Cherchis
himself, tramped into Resna that day to take part in the universal
jollification and fraternisation. Banners bearing the device, “Liberty,
Equality, Fraternity, Justice,” and national flags innumerable waved
in the breeze, and all day long the people were shouting themselves
hoarse with cries of “Long live the Nation!” “Long live the Army!”
“Long live the Committee!” After a twenty-four hours’ halt in Resna,
during which he was occupied in receiving the Christian band leaders
and administering the oath to them, and making arrangements in case of
a _levée en masse_ of the people (for it was uncertain yet whether the
Sultan would submit or plunge the country into civil war), Niazi, by
order of the Committee, marched back to Monastir with the two hundred
original _fedais_ of his band, accompanied by Cherchis and other
leaders of the Christian bands.

And here Niazi passes out of this story. I have given a somewhat
full account of his wanderings, as the narrative will make clear
the nature of the work that was done all over the country by those
whose mission it was to gain the adherence of the civil population
to the revolutionary cause; and I think that it also shows that
those virtues without which no people can be great or worthy of any
respect—patriotism, and the readiness to sacrifice self for a high
ideal—are possessed in a high degree by the Moslem Turks. Niazi was
the first young officer to take to the mountains, and it was to his
lot that the most important work fell; but it needed many others like
him to make the insurrection so universal as it was. Enver Bey and
dozens of other young officers were doing the same work as Niazi and
with like success in other parts of the country. The local Committees,
too, appear to have been wonderfully organised and to have been
directed by single-minded patriots of great ability who kept ever in
the background, their names unknown, and took no part in the public
rejoicings when the victory was won. Thus the Committees in Uskeb
and Janina, by their diligent propaganda, respectively won over the
allegiance of the Northern Albanians and the Southern Albanians at
the same time that Niazi was gaining that of the Western Albanians.
Niazi is essentially the soldier, simple and straightforward and not
a politician, and, now that his mission at the time of his country’s
peril has been successfully accomplished, he is back in his own
province quietly fulfilling his military duties in the midst of troops
who would follow him to hell, as our own private soldiers would put it.




CHAPTER XIV

_THE COMMITTEE’S ULTIMATUM_


On the night of July 22, so soon as Osman Pasha had been made a
prisoner, the members of the Monastir Centre of the Committee of Union
and Progress proceeded to take over the government of the city and
to secure the position that had been gained by Niazi’s _coup_. In
the first place, the Committee sent a telegram to the Sultan himself
(to the Presence of His Sacred Majesty, the Caliph), beseeching him
to command the practical application of the Fundamental Law (the
Constitution of 1876) in order that the loyalty and devotion of his
subjects might remain unimpaired; and informing him that, unless an
_Iradé_ ordering the opening of the Chamber of Deputies was issued
by the following Sunday—July 26—events would “occur contrary to your
Royal will and pleasure.” The telegram concluded with the words: “The
civil authorities, the officers of the army, the soldiers, the _ulema_,
and _sheikhs_, the people great and small, of various creeds, within
the Vilayet of Monastir, all united to work for one cause by an oath
made upon the Unity of God, await your commands.” Another telegram was
despatched to inform the head-quarters of the Committee in Salonica
that the _coup_ had been made with success, and during that night young
officers posted manifestos on the walls in that city calling upon the
people to co-operate with the Committee and overthrow the Despotism.

On the morning of July 23 the citizens of Monastir woke up to find
that all signs of the Government’s authority had vanished, and that
the Committee had become the undisputed master of the Vilayet. It was
a day of frenzied rejoicings. The fifty thousand inhabitants of this
city and thousands of people from the surrounding country packed the
streets to cheer and sing the songs of liberty. Sometimes a narrow
way would be opened through the dense crowd to allow the passing of
companies of Anatolian troops joyfully marching to some appointed spot
where they were to be sworn in on the Unity of God as adherents of the
Committee; or of a body of citizens carrying aloft on their shoulders
the _fedais_, the members of the Moslem bands that had saved Turkey,
the heroes of the hour.

And ever and again there rose a roar of “Long live the Committee!”
and the people went about seeking the members of the Committee, eager
to do them honour and give them an ovation as they had done with the
_fedais_. But the mysterious and invisible Committee was nowhere to
be found. An absorbing curiosity got hold of the people. Who were the
men, they asked themselves, who had acted on the executive of the
Committee, the secret leaders who had issued the manifestos and orders,
who had organised the movement with such skill and daring? But it was
impossible to obtain any answer to this question. It was not until some
days after the Sultan had granted the Constitution that Niazi himself
was given the names of those who composed the Monastir Executive, and
then he found that among them were some of his most intimate friends.

But on this wonderful day, July 23, the executive body of the Committee
was too busily engaged on most important work to come forward and
receive the congratulations that were its due; for much had yet to be
done. The Committee decided not to await the Sultan’s reply to its
demand, but to proclaim the Constitution that very day in Monastir, and
it was held that the most fitting person to make this announcement to
the people would be the Governor of the Monastir Vilayet himself, the
Vali, Hifzi Pasha. The Vali, as we have seen, had been bold enough, a
few days earlier, to tell the Palace the exact truth concerning the
state of affairs in Macedonia. In reply to this the Grand Vizier had
telegraphed to rebuke him for lack of zeal and to give him certain
instructions. On this the Vali had sent in his resignation to the Grand
Vizier on the ground that he would not be responsible for the bloodshed
and outrages which must follow the execution of such orders. It was
well known to the Committee that the Vali was a just and upright man
whose sympathies were rather with the friends of liberty than with the
Despotism which he served.

On the morning of the twenty-third the Vali openly joined the
revolutionary party. He sent telegrams to the Sultan and the Grand
Vizier informing them of the capture of Osman Pasha, and stating that
the entire military force in Monastir and 3500 armed men from among
the inhabitants were now the sworn adherents of the Committee. In
the afternoon the Vali read out the Committee’s proclamation of the
Constitution in the presence of tens of thousands of enthusiastic
Moslems and Christians, and the garrison of Monastir; and then the
cannon thundered out a salute that told the surrounding country that
Turkey was to be made free at last.

On this same day the Central Committee in Salonica and the branch
Committees in other towns came forward to give clear proof to the
people that the domination of the Palace was over. The Constitution was
proclaimed in Resna, Dibra, and other towns in Macedonia and Albania
at the same hour that it was proclaimed in Monastir. In Salonica the
Central Committee, which here, too, had the garrison on its side and
the Government at its mercy, decided that it would be to the interest
of the revolutionary cause to make as short as possible the period
of uncertainty as to whether it was to be civil war or peace; the
enemies of liberty must be allowed no time for preparation or intrigue.
Accordingly, at an early hour on June 23, the Committee telegraphed its
ultimatum to the Sultan, informing His Majesty that unless he granted
the Constitution within twenty-four hours the Second and Third Army
Corps would march upon Constantinople.

The Committee’s next step was to approach the Inspector-General, Hilmi
Pasha (who was made Grand Vizier in February last), and to call upon
him, as the highest Government official in Macedonia, to proclaim
the Constitution to the people. Hilmi had been a good servant of the
Sultan, but at heart he hated the corrupt Palace and its ways, and
recognised the justice of the Young Turkey cause which he had been
instructed to persecute, but had persecuted so half-heartedly that he
had drawn upon himself the rebukes of the Grand Vizier, Ferid Pasha.
Hilmi’s attitude was now correct and courageous. He told the Committee
that though his sympathies were with the Young Turkey party, he was
still the servant of the Sultan, and consequently could not proclaim
the Constitution unless ordered to do so by his sovereign. Upon this
the Committee informed him that unless he proclaimed the Constitution
within twenty-four hours he would have to suffer the penalty—that is,
to be put to death—that the telegraph lines were at his disposal and
it behooved him, within the given time, to persuade the Sultan that
resistance to the will of the people would be of no avail, and that His
Majesty could only retain his position on the throne by the immediate
restoration of the Constitution.

So Hilmi Pasha now sent telegram after telegram to the Palace
to explain the exact state of affairs. He exposed the absolute
hopelessness of the cause of the old _régime_—the two Pashas on whom
the Sultan had relied to destroy the Committee of Union and Progress,
Hilmi and Osman, were the prisoners of the Committee; the Anatolian
troops that were to have stamped out the rebellion had become the sworn
adherents of the Committee; the Second and Third Army Corps now formed
the army of the Committee; of the First Army Corps in Constantinople
itself the Palace Guards alone were above suspicion; there was no
time to arouse the fanaticism of the Arabs and other Asiatics against
the Young Turks; the action of the Anatolian regiments that had been
brought to Salonica had proved that the Army Corps in Asia Minor had
also been brought round to the side of the reformers; and lastly, from
all over the Empire the news was coming in that Valis of provinces
and other high officials had deserted the Palace Camarilla for the
constitutional party.

That day the people of Turkey were rejoicing in their newly found
liberty; but it was a twenty-four hours of suspense and anxiety for
the men who knew that it rested on the decision of one old man as to
whether it was to be peace or civil war. The ultimatum of the Committee
and the telegrams of Hilmi Pasha were submitted to the Sultan by his
terrified courtiers; but in the council chambers of the Yildiz, almost
up to the last moment, there was hesitation and a conflict of opinions
as to the course that should be adopted by the Government. There
were, of course, members of the Camarilla, Izzet Pasha among them,
who advocated resistance at any cost to the demands of the Committee,
for these men, conscious of the evil they had wrought, knew that the
Constitution would mean for them ruin and exile, and perhaps death.

But, in the meanwhile, the Sultan had dismissed his Grand Vizier, Ferid
Pasha, and had summoned to his Palace Said Pasha and Kiamil Pasha, the
two oldest, most experienced, and upright statesmen of his reign, both
of whom, though no admirers of Palace methods, had been Grand Viziers,
and both of whom had been in disgrace and danger of their lives through
the monarch’s caprice and the jealousy of corrupt courtiers. The Sultan
now appointed Said Pasha Grand Vizier in the place of Ferid Pasha.
Throughout the day there had been fear and wrath and hesitation in
the Yildiz, but on the evening of the twenty-third all the ministers
were summoned to the Palace, and there was held the famous last
State Council under the old _régime_. There was a long and anxious
discussion, and to and fro between the Council and the Sultan went the
Chief Chamberlain and other messengers, keeping His Majesty informed of
the progress of the debate—a mere matter of form as laid down by the
etiquette of the Palace, for, as every one there knew, the Sultan was
in the adjoining chamber sitting on the other side of the curtain which
alone divided him from his consulting ministers, and could hear every
word that was spoken.

The night passed by, the morning was near, and the ministers were
still debating. Said and Kiamil urged the necessity of yielding, and
there were others who agreed with them; but Abdul Hamid inspired as
much fear as ever in his advisers, and each of these, knowing of what
things that listening man was capable when in a fit of anger, was
afraid to be the first to utter the long-forbidden name “Constitution”;
and the question was discussed in that ambiguous and circuitous fashion
that Orientals understand so well how to employ. At last there was
brought in to the Council Chamber on a litter the bedridden old Arab
Court Astrologer, Abdul Houda, a favourite of the Sultan, who has
recently died. He boldly put into plain words what was in the minds of
all. Then Said Pasha asked the ministers whether it was their decision
that the Sultan should be advised to grant the Constitution. To this
they made no reply, and averted their eyes when he looked from one
to another. Then, after a pause, Said quoted a Turkish proverb which
is the equivalent of our own “Silence gives consent.” The Sultan was
forthwith informed of the decision of his ministers, and to the relief
of all he agreed without any demur to restore the Constitution; for the
shrewd monarch had by now fully realised the position and had made up
his mind.

So on the morning of July 24 the great news was telegraphed to every
corner of the Ottoman Empire, and everywhere there were the same
extraordinary demonstrations of popular joy. In Constantinople huge
crowds, composed of Moslems, Christians, and Jews, flocked to the
Yildiz to cheer the Sultan. On the broad quay of Salonica, Hilmi Pasha,
to whom the Sultan’s decision had meant the withdrawal of his death
warrant, read out the proclamation of the Constitution to tens of
thousands of exulting citizens.

The Sultan had promised the Constitution, and all that remained to be
done now was for him to issue the _Iradé_ that should confirm that
promise and to take the oath of allegiance to the Constitution. Some
days passed, and his Majesty had taken no steps to perform these
necessary formalities. The ever-vigilant Committee of Union and
Progress therefore saw to it that there should be no further delay, and
issued its orders. Some Macedonian troops were hurriedly brought up
to the capital and were placed outside the Yildiz, while a man-of-war
was stationed in the Bosphorus immediately below the Palace, with
its guns directed on it. Then some young officers belonging to the
Committee demanded an audience of the Sultan and explained to him that
he must sign the _Iradé_ there and then, else the Macedonian troops
would overpower the Palace Guard and seize his Majesty’s person. The
Sultan yielded, the _Iradé_ was signed, and shortly afterwards the
Sheikh-ul-Islam administered to Abdul Hamid the oath by which he bound
himself to restore, and to observe faithfully, the Constitution which
he had violated thirty years before.




CHAPTER XV

_AFTER THE REVOLUTION_


The victory had been won; the Young Turkey party was triumphant; the
Ottoman people had gained their liberty. There was complete individual
liberty and liberty of the press; there were no more spies, no more
domiciliary visits, no more oppression. In short, the Turks, who for a
generation had been groaning under the crudest of Oriental despotisms,
in one day became as free as the people of England, indeed in some
respects considerably freer than them. Peace came of a sudden to this
troubled land which had for so long been an inferno of implacable
racial hatreds, all men went about in security, and the peasants were
able to sow their fields knowing that they themselves would be the
reapers. This was not as other revolutions; for though for a time there
was no law in the land and no administration, there was no anarchy,
there were no cruel reprisals, there were no excesses; the conduct of
the entire population was admirable.

These revolutionaries, unlike those in some other lands, did not
hasten, so soon as they had freed themselves of one despotism, to
cast upon the country the still more galling chains of democratic
tyranny. The people who made this revolution were the educated
men in Turkey, all that was best in the country; and thus from the
beginning this had been the most conservative of revolutions. There
was nothing approaching to socialism or anarchism in this movement.
The Young Turks, as I have already explained, have no theories about
the reconstruction of society; they have no schemes for the benefiting
of one class by the spoliation of another; they do not believe that
one man is as good as another, or that manhood suffrage will bring the
millennium. Like the English revolution of 1688, this one came from
above and not from below. That the ignorant masses did not usurp the
direction of the movement, and by discrediting it prepare the way for
the restoration of the despotic power, was largely due to the fact
that Turkey, fortunately for herself, has had her revolution before
she has arrived at that stage of economic and industrial development
when what we term the working-classes think out political and social
theories or, rather, accept the views of the mischievous demagogues who
mislead them. There is no class hatred in Turkey; there are no large
manufacturing industries to produce hordes of discontented people in
the big cities, and, so far, there are no agrarian questions to trouble
the minds of the simple and pious Turkish peasantry.

Of the seventy thousand exiles who returned to Turkey from Europe
and America after the proclamation of the Constitution there
were of course some who had mixed with Russian anarchists, with
internationalists and other political extremists, and had absorbed
their theories; but these are in a small minority and exercise no
appreciable influence. The same may be said of a certain set of
well-to-do exiles who for years were idle Paris _flaneurs_, lost some
of their Ottoman virtues, became poor patriots, and have now returned
as _dilettante_ politicians, some of them to join the party which
advocates a thorough-going home rule all round for the various races
of Turkey—a programme detestable to the more earnest Young Turks, who
realise that such a policy would lead to the certain disintegration of
the Empire.

But it is of the attitude of the people themselves and not of the
politicians that I wish to speak in this chapter. When the Ottomans
of all races and creeds suddenly found themselves free they became
filled with an exceeding joy, a new sentiment of brotherhood, and a
profound gratitude to the saviours of the country, the Committee of
Union and Progress, that took the practical form of implicit obedience
to the Committee’s mandates, so that it had little difficulty in
preserving order. All over the country there were great demonstrations
and rejoicings of enthusiastic and good-natured crowds, that touched
foreign spectators of these scenes and compelled the sympathy even of
the cynically inclined. In the streets and _cafés_ and tramcars of the
capital, wherein men had been wont to meet in silence, each suspecting
the other, strangers, united by a common joy, now spoke to each other
freely and in kindly fashion. It was a reign of universal amity, and
it seemed as if all that is best in human nature had come to the top.
European witnesses have described the wonderful fraternisations of men
of all races and creeds: how Turks, Armenians, Bulgarians, and Jews
harangued sympathetic crowds in the streets of the capital, preaching
peace and good will among men; how even in Beyrout, notorious for the
massacres of Christians under the late _régime_, Christian priests
and turbanned _mollahs_ embraced publicly before fraternising mobs
of Moslems and Armenians; how in the same city the Turkish commander
with his officers and troops attended a service in the Armenian church
to lament over the massacres of their Christian fellow-countrymen;
and how, with the same object, crowds of Moslems in Stamboul went to
the Armenian cemetery to pray and place flowers upon the graves of
those who had been slaughtered by the orders of the Palace. It was the
same in Jerusalem, where the various Christian sects—hitherto kept
from flying at each other’s throats by the bayonets of the Moslem
soldiery—now made friends and joined in processions with Mussulmans and
Jews.

In Salonica, the head-quarters of the revolution, there were scenes
of intense national rejoicing that astonished European observers. The
Bulgarian, Greek, and other leaders of bands, the Albanian brigand
chiefs, and all their followings of ferocious outlaws of the hills,
on whose heads there had been a price for years, men of different
races who since boyhood had been burning each other’s villages and
killing each other’s women, flocked into the town to submit to the
Committee, to be reconciled to one another, and to become the friends
of the Moslem Turks. Sandansky himself, the king of the mountains, the
most formidable of the Bulgarian leaders of bands, came in, harangued
the crowds on liberty, fraternity, and justice, and was received
with the greatest enthusiasm. All these fighting men, who had spread
terror through Macedonia and Albania, clad in the picturesque dress of
Europe’s wildest and least known regions, forgot civil war and blood
feuds, fraternised with each other and with the Turkish soldiery,
marched down the streets roaring the songs of liberty, hobnobbed
together over cups of coffee, and sometimes _mastic_ and _raki_, in the
_cafés_, embraced each other, and swore to be brothers.

I was in Salonica four months after Turkey had won her freedom, and
the national jubilation had not yet subsided; it was everywhere
exultation and good-fellowship. Here, in this city of many races, I
found myself surrounded by a refreshing atmosphere of joyous delight in
the new-found liberty. From the window of my hotel I looked out upon
the busy quay and the blue sea that stretched to the snows of Olympus.
Along this quay passes most of the life of the town, and at frequent
intervals something happened in front of me to remind me of the
revolution and of the keenness of the people. Now it was a procession
of Christians and Mussulmans fraternising and singing patriotic songs
on their way to the railway station to cheer a newly elected Deputy
who was starting for Constantinople; now it was a body of troops of
the Macedonian army marching through crowds which hailed them as their
liberators; now a battalion paraded on the quay to be exhorted by some
general before embarking for Constantinople, for at that time the Young
Turks were despatching more of their faithful troops to the capital,
determined to be in readiness should the forces of reaction reassert
themselves; now it was the return from over the water of some exile
of despotism to the friends and relatives who had not seen him for
years. Thus one morning I saw a flag-decorated tender come off from a
newly arrived steamer and land on the stage in front of me the Albanian
General, Mehmed Pasha, just freed from a long exile in Baghdad; he
was welcomed with shouts and clapping of hands by the large crowd of
Albanians and others who had come to escort him to his house.

There were most affecting sights, too, to be seen in those early days
of liberty. When it was decreed that political prisoners should be
liberated, the gates of the prisons were thrown open, and out poured,
in their thousands, the captives of the Despotism, to be received by
crowds of deeply moved sympathisers. Many of these unfortunate men had
been confined for years in cells but twelve feet square, and came out
into fresh air and sunshine dazed and weak in mind, like the prisoner
of the Bastille in Dickens’ famous story, to be led home by relatives
and friends. Here one would see outside the prison door a husband and
wife greet each other with tears of joy after years of separation, and
here some poor wretch, with spirit long since tortured out of him,
weeping miserably as he wandered to and fro because no dear ones had
come to meet him, and he realised that they had died while he was in
captivity.

It was pleasant to observe the confidence and pride of the population
in the Young Turk leaders, who had sacrificed so much for liberty
and justice. The patriotism of the people of Salonica was then being
displayed in various ways. Large sums were being collected to supply
comforts to the troops who throughout the winter were to guard the
northern frontier against any attack on the part of Turkey’s enemies,
and a movement had also been started in the town, which, if it spreads
far enough, may relieve the Government of some of its embarrassments.
Officers of the garrison and civil servants of all grades, reading of
the depleted treasury and the heavy burden of the floating debt, were
abandoning their claims to their arrears of pay, because, as they said,
their country needed the money. Deputies, also, were refusing to accept
their travelling allowances.

For one who knew Turkey under the old _régime_ it was very interesting,
in Constantinople, to observe the outward signs of the great change
which had come to the country, and to note the attitude of a population
which found itself suddenly in the enjoyment of the widest liberty.
In most countries, after such a revolution, the people would have
been intoxicated with their new freedom; the forces of disorder would
have been let loose; there would have been, for a while, a condition
approaching anarchy. But Constantinople is not like other European
capitals, and it took its revolution in a sensible fashion. All the
old restrictions had been swept away; but liberty had not broken into
license. Though there was no longer a censorship of printed matter,
the Turkish press observed a dignified moderation in its tone. For the
first time the comic papers were free to publish political caricatures
in which the highest personages were represented; but if one might
judge from such as were exhibited in the windows of the newspaper
shops, there was nothing offensive in these somewhat crude pictures.
Large crowds attended political meetings in the capital; but there was
no disturbance of the peace and there was no need for the presence of
the police or the troops, save when the Greeks, who are never happy
unless they have some real or imaginary grievance to make a noise
about, made demonstrations during the elections. People now enjoyed
the right to form themselves into associations, but one heard of no
anarchical societies; and apparently the first result of this new
privilege was that the Turkish temperance reformers availed themselves
of it to establish a total abstinence league in Cæsarea.

But, as might be expected, the interregnum between the withdrawal of
the authority of the old _régime_ with its severe code and its armies
of spies, and the reorganisation of the police and other departments
by the Young Turks was taken advantage of to some extent by the
ignorant and lawless. At the beginning of the revolution all prisoners,
including the criminals, were released from the gaols—probably because
it was impossible in many cases to ascertain whether the offence for
which a man had been confined was a political one or otherwise. The
restrictions on the sale and carrying of fire-arms were also removed,
with the result that revolvers in tens of thousands poured into the
city and were at once bought up. A large proportion of the population
carried revolvers and also let them off; men practised with them in the
streets; accidents were frequent; and in some quarters of the city,
especially in the poorer Greek quarters, it was not unusual to hear a
regular fusillade going on at night, generally in honour of something
or other, or to spread the news that a house was on fire. Robbery with
violence in the streets certainly increased after the revolution.
But, notwithstanding all this, it could not be fairly said that
Constantinople was a dangerous place to walk about in at any hour; and
indeed, when it is remembered what a lot of cosmopolitan blackguardism
there is in that city of over a million inhabitants, it is astonishing
that there was so large a measure of security for life and property.

It was natural, too, that Turks of the poorer and more ignorant class
should be under the impression that this new constitutional liberty
meant that each man was free to do what he liked—a common error
which before long was eradicated from the minds of this naturally
law-abiding people by the Young Turk administration. Thus many thought
that the Constitution wiped out the liability to pay any private debts
incurred before the revolution. In the country, peasants came to the
conclusion that they would no longer be called upon to pay taxes; in
the towns the contrabandists sold their smuggled tobacco openly; and
in Constantinople itself the popular conception of liberty produced
some amusing results. The firewood sellers were to be seen calmly
chopping up their logs in the middle of a busy thoroughfare; pavements
were often blocked with the wares of the hawkers; and others in like
manner carried on their avocations in public; so that the narrow,
crowded streets and the Galata Bridge, difficult enough to traverse
in the days of the old régime, became almost impassable. This sums up
the inconveniences of the interregnum; they were wonderfully few and
trifling when one bears in mind what a revolution this had been.

It was, of course, difficult for the Young Turks to reorganise the
police and carry out administrative reforms until Parliament met;
for the provisionary Ministry was naturally disinclined to accept
much responsibility. But in the meanwhile, though there was a little
license in small matters, the people were made to understand clearly
that the Committee would stand no nonsense. This was proved at the
time of the coaling strike in Galata not long after the proclamation
of the Constitution. The men, having struck once and obtained the
concession of their demands, came to the conclusion that under the new
Constitution they were free to extort what they pleased and terrorise
the population; so they struck again for a prohibitive rate of wage
which would have closed the port to commerce. It was a critical
time: the Young Turks were on their trial; their movement had been
represented by their enemies as anarchical; their cause would be lost
were they to fail to preserve order among the populace. It must be
remembered that this was not only the question of a strike, but of
probable rioting of so serious a nature that it might have caused
European intervention; for these labourers who coal the ships at Galata
belong to that rabble of Kurds and other Mussulmans of the lowest
class which is only too ready, on a hint from the Palace, to set about
massacring Armenians and other Christians.

It therefore behooved the Young Turks to prove that they could rule
men, and they did so. Two young officers rode boldly, unescorted,
into the middle of a dangerous crowd of the strikers, and by their
firm attitude compelled the men to listen to them. First they tried
persuasion, and pointed out to the strikers that by their action
they were prejudicing the cause of freedom which they had so loudly
acclaimed but a few days before. But the men would not be persuaded and
refused to go back to their work. Then the two officers changed their
attitude. One, drawing his revolver, reminded the men that under the
old _régime_ the soldiers would have been sent to throw them into the
water or cast them into prison! “And as you are conducting yourselves
as friends of the old _régime_, so shall you be treated,” he exclaimed.
“I will come down here to-morrow and ask you to return at once to your
work. I will with my own hand shoot down the first man who refuses to
do so, and the rest of you will be swept into the sea or into prison.”
The next morning the two officers rode to the quay followed by a body
of cavalry. The strikers knew that what had been said was meant, and
quietly went off to work, and there has been no trouble since with this
dangerous element of the population.

Indeed, the Committee, by its firmness and justice, made itself loved
of the people, who at last came to obey its orders without question.
Thus, when the Committee enjoined the strict boycott of Austrian
trade, while at the same time forbidding the populace to molest or
insult Austrian subjects, a wonderful thing happened. The Austrians
were able to go about the streets in perfect safety; and the Austrian
shops remained open, but no one would buy of them, however cheaply they
offered their goods. The rough and ignorant Kurds who do the coaling
and also earn their living as lightermen and as porters in Galata, and
the poor Jews who do the same work in Salonica, to a man enforced the
boycott, though it meant for them a great falling off in their small
wages, and short commons for their families. Thus no Constantinople
boatman would take a passenger off to an Austrian steamer, or carry
him on shore from it when he reached his destination. These steamers
had to use their own launches for the embarkation and disembarkation
of passengers; and the person who had sailed under this tabooed flag
sometimes found himself in a sorry plight even after he had been landed
on a Turkish quay, no porter being willing to carry his baggage. But
in February last, so soon as the Governments of Turkey and Austria had
arranged their differences, the Committee of Union and Progress gave
the word that the boycott should cease; and cease it did within an hour
of this order: the boatmen, porters, lightermen, and dock labourers
in every port in Turkey coming out as one man to work again for the
Austrians.

In the cities and in the countryside all seemed to be going well
with the cause of the Young Turks; but foreigners who observed
this harmonious opening of the new _régime_ and this extraordinary
fraternisation of men of different races and creeds hitherto
irreconcilable asked themselves how long this reign of universal
friendship could last, and whether this falling into each other’s arms
of Turks, Armenians, Bulgarians, and others was due to any sentiment
more deep and permanent than the joyous intoxication caused by this
unaccustomed wine of liberty. Like other Englishmen in Turkey at that
time, I came to the conclusion that the Young Turks were quite sincere;
that they were honestly desirous to have done with internal strife,
to give equality to all the elements of the population, and to live
in peace and friendship with their non-Moslem fellow-countrymen. The
Armenians and Jews have proved their sincerity by cooperating loyally
with the Young Turks throughout the parliamentary elections and since.
Of the Macedonian Christians the bulk had become weary of bloodshed
and the internecine conflict that had brought nothing but suffering
and ruin to the population; and there was no insincerity about the
friendly relationship that sprang up between the sturdy Bulgarian
leaders of fighting bands and their former foes, the Turkish officers,
for they respected each other. The civil warfare in Macedonia had been
deliberately fomented by the machinations of the Palace gang, to whom
the doctrine of _divide et impera_ was ideal statesmanship, and to the
intrigues of Bulgaria, Servia, and Greece. There is no reason why, if
left alone, these peoples might not dwell together in peace. A short
time since a _mollah_, addressing the people, said, “Before the reign
of Abdul Hamid the Moslem and Christian mothers used to nurse each
other’s children.” But will these Macedonian peoples be left alone by
Palace agents of reaction, by those Great Powers whose interests are
opposed to the creation of a strong and independent Turkey, and by the
greedy little neighbouring states?

It is, of course, too much to hope that constitutional government has
put a sudden end to the religious and racial strife in Macedonia.
The Greeks in the country have already demonstrated the illusiveness
of such an expectation. The Greeks, like the others, welcomed the
Constitution and fraternised with their Ottoman fellow-countrymen.
Carried away by the enthusiasm of the moment they may have been
sincere in their protestations of brotherhood, but one suspects that
the mental reservations were at the back of their brains all the
while. If one misjudges them in this, then their own actions and
the utterances of their press belie them. In the hour of national
jubilation they supplied the one discordant note. One of the first uses
that they made of the freedom which the Young Turks had won for them
was to boycott and insult the Bulgarians in Salonica, and the news came
that the Greek clergymen in the interior were once more persecuting
the Bulgarian exarchists, and had drawn up prescription lists of the
leading Bulgarians with a view to getting them assassinated. The Greek
element of the population, as might be expected, was the first to
express dissatisfaction with the policy and administration of the Young
Turks. The intolerant and often mischievously active Greek Patriarchate
in Constantinople, which denied the Bulgarians the use of their own
language, supported the Greeks in clamouring for much more than was
their due. Their idea of Ottoman citizenship, so far as themselves were
concerned, was to avoid all the obligations of that citizenship, while
enjoying all the rights conferred by it and retaining all their special
privileges intact. They seemed to think that the government of Turkey
should be in their hands. During the elections it was they alone who
provoked rioting and at Smyrna they created a dangerous disturbance
with their armed mobs.




CHAPTER XVI

_EUROPEAN ASSISTANCE_


During the four months’ interregnum between the granting of the
Constitution and the opening of Parliament, the Committee of Union
and Progress was the undisputed ruler of Turkey. It dictated to the
monarch what his decrees should be, it moved armies, it removed and
appointed ministers, governors of provinces, and other high officials.
These untried young men who formed the Committee, while introducing a
new order of things and protecting their country against the numerous
dangers that threatened to destroy the newly gained liberty, displayed
a wisdom, tact, moderation, shrewdness, and foresight that were
astonishing to foreign observers. They maintained order with firmness,
greatly assisted in this by the dignified self-control and patriotism
of the people themselves. Though they and thousands of others had
suffered much from the cruelty and rapacity of the Despotism and its
parasites, they displayed no vindictiveness; they punished only the
most guilty of these; removed only those who showed by their actions
that they were a source of danger to the Constitution; and they frankly
forgave the others. The relations of Turkey with foreign Powers were
directed by them with a tactful and resourceful statesmanship. Their
mistakes were remarkably few.

From the beginning they showed their fitness to rule. The avowed
object of the Young Turks had been to depose the Sultan, and when
they offered him the alternative of acceptance of the Constitution or
abdication, they had little expectation that he would submit to their
conditions. But when the astute Sultan did submit in a very graceful
manner, protesting that he was a believer in a constitutional form of
government, and posing as if he and not the revolutionary party had
brought the boon of liberty to his subjects, the Young Turks showed
their statesmanship by as graciously accepting the situation, and
became once more the loyal subjects of a constitutional monarch, whose
cleverness and diplomatic experience, if he would now use them rightly,
might be of great service to his country and his people. The Sultan is
the Commander of the Faithful to millions of Mussulmans, and had the
Committee attempted to depose him at that critical time a long civil
war might have resulted. So Abdul Hamid was left on the throne of
Othman, nominally ruling, to outward seeming popular with the people,
who cheered him enthusiastically whenever he appeared in public. But
the Young Turks had not forgotten how Abdul Hamid, in 1878, destroyed
the Constitution which he had sworn to uphold, so that power behind the
throne, the Committee of Union and Progress, remained ever watchful,
as the strong guardian of the people’s liberties.

I will now briefly sum up the results of the Committee’s energetic
action during the few weeks immediately following the proclamation
of the Constitution. In the first place it had to make itself as
strong as possible so as to combat the reactionary intrigues that
were working for the restoration of the Despotism. It therefore set
itself to establish its hold on the army, to obtain the sanction of
the Moslem religion, and to complete the pacification of Macedonia.
It took the precaution of removing from the Second and Third Army
Corps all officers suspected of reactionary views, and concentrated
the bulk of the troops loyal to the Constitution at Adrianople, within
striking distance of the capital, where, at any rate, a considerable
portion of the First Army Corps and the Sultan’s Prætorian Guard
only needed the word from the Palace to become the instrument of the
reactionaries. Later on the Committee was able to obtain the removal of
most of the battalions of the Imperial Guard from Constantinople and to
replace them with troops from Salonica, thus securing the Committee’s
domination in the capital.

[Illustration: CHATEAU OF ASIA]

As regards the religious question, the work of the Young Turks was
made easy by the Sheikh-ul-Islam, who—so soon as he had administered
to the Sultan the oath by which the latter swore to respect the
Constitution—proclaimed to the faithful that constitutional government
was not contrary to, but was in accordance with, the teaching of the
Koran; he rebuked the fanatics who were preaching against the
reforms as being anti-religious, and saw to it that the mosques were
not used as centres of reactionary agitation and intrigue. For the
reactionaries were not idle, and, in European as well as in Asiatic
Turkey, their agents—often ex-Palace spies disguised as doctors of the
sacred law and _hodjas_—were appealing to Moslem bigotry and denouncing
the Constitution as the invention of the Evil One himself. To
counteract this mischievous propaganda the Committee sent out its own
missionaries all over the country, and doctors learned in the sacred
law and others enlightened the people, supporting their arguments with
quotations from the Koran, and in many cases preaching sermons that
had been written for this purpose by the Sheikh-ul-Islam himself. It
was also a great help to the cause that nearly all the Turkish press
supported the Committee. Indeed, during the first few months of the new
_régime_, a paper holding the unpopular opposite opinions would have
had but few readers.

The Committee, having army, religion, and press on its side, was strong
enough to dominate the Palace. It demanded of the Sultan the signing
of _Iradé_ after _Iradé_, and if the required Imperial decree was
not immediately forthcoming, a threat that the Adrianople army would
march upon Constantinople within twenty-four hours always produced the
desired effect. Thus, within a few days after the proclamation of the
Constitution, Abdul Hamid had to sign _Iradés_ by virtue of which he
granted a general amnesty, the release of all political prisoners,
the abolition of the spy system, the inviolability of domicile, a free
press, the abolition of the censorship, the liberty of the individual
to travel in foreign countries, in short, all the privileges enjoyed by
the citizens of free countries.

Then the Sultan was compelled to dismiss his favourites and principal
advisers, including his hated secretary, Izzet Pasha, his old Arab
astrologer, Abdul Houda, Tashin Pasha, and Ismail Pasha, the founder
of the detestable military spy system. The Camarilla, that had
all but destroyed Turkey, was broken up and scattered. Izzet and
several other notorious people effected their escape to England and
elsewhere—fortunately for some of them, who, had they remained, would
probably have been torn to pieces by infuriated mobs, like the infamous
Fehmi Pasha. But the Young Turks, as I have explained, despite the
intense hatred which some of them must have nourished against the
cruel oppressors and traitors to their country who had acted as the
instruments of the Despotism, refrained from vengeance, and there
were no reprisals. Penalties were only inflicted where the country’s
good demanded these. Some of the worst ministers of the tyranny were
imprisoned in the War Office, or confined in their own houses on
Prinkipo Island in the Sea of Marmora, where many rich Turks have their
summer residences. Some have undergone their trial, and have been
compelled to disgorge the public moneys which they had embezzled. For
the rest it was complete amnesty, and when the Constantinople mobs
began to occupy themselves in hunting down men recognised to have been
spies of the Palace, in order to carry them off to the prison of the
War Office, the Committee, whose word had to be obeyed, peremptorily
forbade this practice. On the other hand, if any man took advantage of
this leniency to indulge in reactionary intrigue, sterner justice was
administered. Ismail Pasha, for example, the inventor of the military
spy system, for very good reasons was shot in Constantinople in
December last by a young officer.

The Committee recognised that one of their first duties was to complete
the pacification of Macedonia. They successfully accomplished this
within a very short time, and without bloodshed. The Greeks alone were
causing any difficulty; but the Greek bishops, clergy, and leaders of
bands came to understand that the Young Turks would put up with no
nonsense from them, and that the sympathy of Europe would not be with
them if they resisted the new _régime_. So it was not long after the
granting of the Constitution that the last Greek band came in, and for
the first time for many years there was peace in Macedonia. The British
Government, recognising that there was no longer any need for European
intervention in that region, withdrew from the arrangement with Russia
that had resulted from the Reval meeting, displaying a confidence in
the Young Turks that won their deep gratitude. The Young Turks had a
very keen appreciation of the sympathy that was displayed for them by
the English. To Englishmen travelling in the country, at that time, the
sincere and hearty friendship extended to them by the Turkish people
was most gratifying and affecting.

It is one thing to make a revolution, but it is quite another thing
to undertake to govern and administer a country after the successful
revolution has swept away the old order. The Young Turks showed that
they were wise enough to know their own limitations. There were few
among them who had any knowledge of administration, public finance,
and diplomacy; so they decided to make use of the existing machinery
of government. They got rid of the notoriously corrupt among the high
officials, but retained the services of the more capable and upright
of the ministers, provincial governors, and others, even if they
happened to be Pashas of the old-school, fanatical Mussulmans who hated
European ways, looked askance at liberty, and regarded with horror the
scheme for giving equal rights to Christians and Moslems. But these
old servants of the State were kept under observation, and they were
promptly ousted if they failed to exercise their authority on the
lines laid down by the Constitution, and faithfully to hold aloof from
reactionary intrigue. As many of these officials were honest patriots
at heart, though narrow-minded in their views, the compromise worked
well pending the training of a new school of administrators belonging
to the Young Turk party.

Thus to the highest office of all, the Grand Vizierate, men of long
administrative experience have been appointed. So soon as the Sultan
had submitted to the will of the people, the then Grand Vizier, Ferid
Pasha, and his ministers had to go, for they were too closely connected
with the Hamidian system to be trusted; but the three Grand Viziers
who have so far succeeded Ferid—Said Pasha, Kiamil Pasha, and Hilmi
Pasha—have all taken a prominent part as servants of the State under
the old _régime_, Said and Hilmi having already been Grand Viziers
on several occasions. Said Pasha, the first Grand Vizier under the
new _régime_, has been the Sultan’s friend and adviser—disgraced at
intervals like the rest—from the commencement of the reign. First,
as the Sultan’s secretary, he helped his master to overthrow Midhat
Pasha’s Constitution and to destroy the power of the Sublime Porte.
A few years later, as Grand Vizier, he encouraged the Sultan in his
Pan-Islamic dreams, and in his effort to deprive the Christians in
Turkey of their ancient privileges. He had proved himself an upright
and strong man, and in his old age he had modified his views and
recognised the evils of the despotic system which he had helped to
build up, but he was scarcely the right sort of man to be Prime
Minister under a constitutional government, and it is not astonishing
that his term of office lasted for but a few days. His first mistake
was in the execution of the Imperial _Iradé_ that liberated all
political prisoners. He took it upon himself to free all the criminals
as well, letting loose upon the capital, at that critical time, a
crowd of murderers and robbers. The ever-watchful Committee, mindful
of Said’s career, suspected that he had acted thus in order to cause
disorder in the city, and so injure the cause of the Young Turkey party
in the interest of the reactionaries. A week later a discovery was made
that precipitated the crisis. Said, while drawing up a statement of the
principal points of the Constitution, to which the Sultan’s signature
was to be appended in token of adhesion, had altered a clause so as to
leave the appointment of the Ministers of War and Marine to the Sultan,
instead of to the Grand Vizier, as had been laid down by Midhat’s
Constitution. To leave the control of the army in the hands of the
Sultan was to place more trust in his word than the Young Turks were
willing to do. So the Committee, as guardian of the nation’s hard-won
liberty, gave the word that has to be obeyed. Said had to resign, and
his Ministers of War and Marine were at once placed under arrest, as a
precautionary measure.

On August 6, 1908, Kiamil Pasha was appointed Grand Vizier, and was
allowed to choose his own ministers; of the members of Said’s Ministry
he retained but two, the Sheikh-ul-Islam and the Minister of Foreign
Affairs. The appointment of Kiamil was universally acclaimed. Able,
firm, and patriotic, with an honourable career behind him, he was a
_persona grata_ with men of all races and creeds, and was the most
popular statesman in Turkey. He had always been the steadfast friend
of the English, and has many friends in England. The gracious telegram
of congratulation which King Edward VII sent on Kiamil’s appointment
produced a wonderful effect and did much to tighten the cordial
relations between the two countries.

Kiamil is now about eighty-seven years of age. Throughout his long
career this wise old man has shown himself incorrupt and a hater of
corruption, a lover of justice, an advocate of reform, but moderate,
unwilling to force radical changes on a people yet unripe, a man
of wide knowledge, free from fanaticism and friendly to Europeans,
while ready to protect his country against the undue influence in
her internal affairs which has been exercised with such callous
selfishness, to their own advantage and to Turkey’s partial ruin, by
certain Powers.

Six months before the outbreak of the revolution, Kiamil was holding
the important office of Vali of the province of Aidin, of which Smyrna,
the commercial centre of the Levant, is the capital. Here for thirteen
years he had won the confidence and affection of people of every class
by the justice and usefulness of his administration. But the Camarilla
ever hated a just and honest man, and Palace intrigue arranged for
his destruction. He was falsely accused of being in league with the
brigands of Asia Minor; secret instructions were given for his arrest,
and a steamer was sent to Smyrna to convey him as an exile to the
island of Rhodes. Under the Despotism exiles died quickly, and Captain
von Herbert, from whose description of the incident in the _Fortnightly
Review_ I have taken some of my facts, himself saw the canvas sack in
which it was intended to drop Kiamil overboard during the voyage—the
official account would doubtless have informed the world that the Pasha
had died of sea-sickness. But fortunately Kiamil obtained knowledge of
the order for his arrest, and on January 12 he hurried to the British
Consulate at Smyrna, and there took refuge under the British flag. The
Consul gladly received him, and got into telegraphic communication
with London. Sir Edward Grey commanded that British protection should
be extended to the Pasha, who as a native of Cyprus was technically
entitled to claim it. The Consulate was surrounded by police and spies,
the steamers in the port were closely watched; but, despite all the
precautions that were taken, Kiamil was able to escape in the steam
launch belonging to the well-known banking firm of the Whittals, and
got safely on board a German liner bound for Stamboul. The steamer duly
arrived at her destination; the British Ambassador guaranteed that
Kiamil should have interviews with the Sultan at which none of the
Camarilla would be present; and the Pasha landed in the capital, thus
placing himself in the power of the Despot; which was a brave thing to
do when one bears in mind the fate of Midhat and others. Kiamil had his
private interviews with Abdul Hamid, and spoke to him boldly concerning
the evils of his rule, the ruin that was threatening the Ottoman
Empire, and the corruption and villainy of the Sovereign’s _entourage_.
But the Camarilla still remained to exercise its mischievous power
until the very end, though apparently it dared not interfere with
one still nominally under the protection of England; for Kiamil did
not disappear mysteriously. He kept outside public affairs and dwelt
quietly in his house in Constantinople—no doubt under the close
surveillance of spies—until the successful revolution brought him once
again to the head of affairs.

During the first six months of the new _régime_, that very critical
period when the Constitution was menaced by foes within and without,
and even the integrity of the Empire was at stake—Kiamil, as Grand
Vizier, steered the ship of State safely through many dangers, and his
shrewd and cautious diplomacy greatly strengthened the position of
Turkey. His ministers, among whom were one Armenian and one Greek, were
men whose characters were above reproach, and they did much to reform
the machinery of their respective departments. Kiamil stood his country
in good stead, and Turkey has good reason to be grateful to him; but
he, too, after six months of office, had to resign, though with no loss
of honour to himself, at the bidding of the Committee; and, as in the
case of his predecessor, Said Pasha, the question of the appointment of
the Ministers of War and Marine was the immediate cause of the Cabinet
crisis—a matter concerning which I shall say more in another chapter.

Kiamil’s successor to the Grand Vizierate, Hilmi Pasha, is another man
of the old _régime_. I have already spoken of the part which he took
in Salonica during the last days of the Despotism, when the Committee
threatened him with death. Long before any one thought that there
was a chance of Hilmi’s becoming Grand Vizier, he was described to
me as being an honest and able man of strong character, with a good
record behind him, somewhat fanatical, and with little sympathy with
the Christian elements of the population. As Inspector-General in
Salonica before the revolution, he obeyed the instructions given to
him by the Palace, and obstructed as much as possible the reforms in
Macedonia—dictated by the Great Powers—which it was his ostensible duty
to superintend. But to stand in the way of European intervention was no
grave fault in the eyes of the Young Turks. Though the officer of the
Despotism, Hilmi’s sympathies were with the cause of the reformers, and
he is now trusted by them.

From the beginning, therefore, the Young Turks have placed at the
head of the Government, not advanced reformers, not ambitious men out
of their own ranks, but experienced men of the old _régime_, who,
so far, have done well, and have been able on occasions to check
hasty and ill-considered changes. In other respects, too, the Young
Turks have manifested their moderation and wise opportunism. Foreign
intervention is the thing that they detest and fear most, for it has
worked nothing but ill for the Empire; but these men are free from
any anti-European feeling, and while anxious, as soon as possible, to
get rid of the Capitulations and other fetters which the Powers have
placed upon Ottoman independence, they welcome European assistance to
place their house in order. Thus it was at the request of the Turkish
Government that France lent Turkey the aid of the great financial
authority, M. Laurent, to assist in the reorganisation of the finances
of the country and the establishment of less wasteful methods of tax
collection, and that England lent the services of Mr. Crawford to
conduct the reorganisation of the Customs. Turkey has also asked for,
and has obtained, the services of an English admiral and several naval
officers to help her recreate the navy which was destroyed during the
Hamidian _régime_, and Baron von der Goltz, who has already done so
much good for the Turkish army, is to be entrusted with powers that
will enable him to bring it up to a high state of efficiency. The Young
Turks, anxious to develop the great natural resources of their country,
have also borrowed from France excellent engineers to superintend the
construction of irrigation works and the execution of other useful
projects.

While what is best of the old _régime_ still supplies the higher
officialdom, nearly all the men belonging to the lower grades of the
Civil Service, as I have already pointed out, had become adherents
of the Committee of Union and Progress some time before the outbreak
of the revolution. Most of these men, under the corrupt system that
then prevailed, had to supplement their miserable pay, generally in
arrears, by taking _bakshish_ and by robbing the State in other ways.
This general impurity of the officialdom was loathsome to many of those
who were compelled to follow the almost universal practice in order to
keep themselves and their families alive. Minor officials knew that
what was wrung from the people in the form of taxation was not spent
for the country’s good, but was for the most part appropriated by
the Palace gang, and it was but natural that they helped themselves
to a share. But the Turks, in their dealings between man and man,
are among the most honest of people, and public sentiment regarding
official corruption has been undergoing a remarkable change since the
revolution. The newspapers preached public purity, and the servants of
the State began to realise that for the future the misappropriation
of public moneys would not be at the cost of the Palace gang as
heretofore, but at the cost of their beloved country itself, which was
in sore need of money to further its regeneration and to strengthen its
defences against the formidable enemies that threatened its integrity.
I have told the story of the patriotic civil servants in Salonica, who
abandoned their claims to arrears of pay in view of their country’s
necessities; I am assured that the same sense of civic virtue has led
to a remarkable diminution of the corrupt practices in the various
public departments. I have heard it maintained that the Turks cannot
change their nature, and that Turkish administration always has
been, and always will be, corrupt, whether the form of government be
despotic or constitutional. One might as fairly have argued thus about
England’s administration in India, or in the British Isles themselves,
but a few generations ago. A people who, like the Turks, are honest
as individuals, and intensely patriotic, are likely to arrive at the
right moral sense in a matter like this. The Japanese, who, while being
as patriotic as the Turks, are not remarkable for commercial probity,
regard it as far more criminal to embezzle the country’s funds than to
cheat the individual; but Japan is the only country which has attained
this high ethical standard.




CHAPTER XVII

_MUTINOUS PALACE GUARDS_


It is not within the scope of this work to deal with the foreign
complications which followed the Turkish revolution. Suffice it to
say that the annexation of Bosnia and Herzegovina in the beginning of
October had the effect of striking what might well have proved to be
a deadly blow at the party of reform in Turkey. It was the old story
of an ambitious Christian Power, fearing lest a reformed Turkey might
become a strong Turkey, treacherously obstructing her path of progress.
Austria’s action gave the reactionaries their last chance of bringing
back the old order of things, and they fully availed themselves of it.
“These Young Turks,” they were able to say to the people, “used the
preservation of the integrity of the Empire as their watchword when
they rebelled against the Padisha; and lo! the first thing that happens
after they get the power is the complete separation from Turkey of
Bosnia and Herzegovina, a declaration of independence on the part of
the Bulgarians and a separatist movement in Crete!” These arguments
produced a considerable effect upon the ignorant, who blamed the
reformers for what had happened and clamoured for rulers strong enough
to protect Turkey against her foreign foes.

The reactionaries were wholly unscrupulous in their methods and were
prepared to plunge their country into a disastrous war if by so doing
they could restore the Despotism. Ex-spies and other reactionaries made
demonstrations in favour of war with Austria in some of the mosques of
the capital; they posted placards on the walls of the city by night,
calling upon Mussulmans to massacre the Christians; and everywhere they
attempted to foment disorder so as to discredit the Young Turk rule
as leading to a state of anarchy. But the Young Turks knew that the
preservation of peace abroad and order at home was of vital importance,
and they displayed a firmness that soon made their position stronger
than it had ever been.

In the first place, so as to overawe the reactionary party and the
untrustworthy Yildiz soldiery, they garrisoned the capital with a large
force of Macedonian troops loyal to the Constitution, who could be
relied upon to suppress a rising in the firmest manner. Loyal troops
were also employed to police the city; all reactionary assemblies were
stopped and the agitators were cast into prison.

The machinations of the reactionaries, however, produced some effect.
For a considerable time Constantinople was in an overwrought and
nervous condition, and various incidents inspired the Christian
inhabitants with a great dread of impending peril. These Greeks,
Armenians, Levantines, and others, timid of nature after their ages
of oppression, suffered from an epidemic of panic, acute fits of which
were daily brought about by very small causes. Thus, one day at about
this time, as I was walking through the Grand Bazaar in Stamboul I
witnessed the following incident which showed the jumpy condition of
the population. A man, revolver in hand, chased by soldiers and others,
suddenly appeared, running at full speed through the crowded lanes
of the Bazaar. This was quite enough to start a panic. Like wildfire
spread the report that the Moslem mob, stirred up by the Softas, had
at last commenced the massacre of the Christians. The scene was indeed
an extraordinary one. Men and women turned pallid, wrung their hands,
wept and howled, and there was a general stampede for the shelter
of the houses. People ran into their own or other shops, doors were
bolted, bars were drawn, shutters were closed, and in a trice what had
been a busy mart had become empty and silent as a city of the dead,
and remained so until Sami Pasha, the Minister of Police, came down to
reassure the frightened Greek and Armenian traders. It turned out that
the origin of this widespread panic was merely the endeavouring of a
vender of contraband tobacco to escape from the soldiers who had been
sent to arrest him.

On another morning the terrifying rumour spread from end to end of the
city that the Second Division of the Imperial Guard, stationed at the
Tashkishla Barracks, outside the Yildiz Palace, had mutinied under
the leadership of the reactionaries, and were engaged in a sanguinary
struggle with the Constitutional troops from Salonica. The facts had
been grossly exaggerated but the incident was significant enough.
This Second Division of the Imperial Guard, about seven thousand
strong, including the Sultan’s faithful Albanian Body-guard, had
for its post the neighbourhood of the Yildiz Palace. These troops,
officered by men risen from their own ranks, who protected the person
of the Sultan, had been ever pampered and spoilt; their discipline
was very slack, and their loyalty to the Constitution was doubtful.
Consequently the Minister of War, who by virtue of a recent _Iradé_
was empowered for the first time to despatch the regiments of this
favoured Division to any part of the Empire, decided to remove by
degrees from Constantinople some of the battalions of the Division and
to replace them with loyal, well-disciplined troops from Salonica. So
in the first place two battalions of the Yildiz Guards, to the great
disgust of the men, were ordered to those disagreeable stations, the
Hedjaz and Yemen, in distant Arabia, where they could work no mischief.
Eighty-eight of the men, who had but three months more to serve with
the colours, claimed their immediate discharge and clamoured to be sent
to their homes. As this request was not granted they mutinied and,
coming out of their barracks, fired upon the Salonica troops who had
come to replace them. The fire was returned, three sergeants among the
mutineers were shot dead, others were wounded, and the remainder were
captured. The Commandant of the Guards Corps then called out several
regiments of the Guards, formed them in a hollow square, and addressed
them briefly, explaining to them that the Government, while determined
to improve the lot of all Turkish soldiers, would punish severely any
act of indiscipline. The prisoners, many of whom begged for mercy,
crying out that they had been led astray by others, were brought within
the square, and the Commandant told them that they would be tried by
court-martial. The ringleaders were afterwards shot. The troops of the
Imperial Guard on numerous previous occasions had displayed a similar
mutinous spirit, but the timid authorities had always overlooked the
most flagrant breaches of discipline and yielded to the clamour of the
men. The prompt and firm action taken by the Minister of War on this
occasion cut short what might have developed into a serious revolt, and
reassured the timid civilian population. It was recognised that this
was no time for those in power to display weakness.

The Palace troops had thus been taught a useful lesson, and the
Committee of Union and Progress still further secured its position
by seeing to it that the bulk of the Imperial Guards battalions were
scattered in sections over different parts of the Empire. Moreover,
the General commanding the Second Division, a friend of the Sultan’s,
was forced to retire from the army, and the command was given to
an officer known to be loyal to the Constitution. Steps were also
taken to introduce a better class of officers into the remaining
Yildiz regiments. The Committee showed that it was determined to be
the master. The General commanding the Cavalry Division of Guards
and several other officers were imprisoned for agitating against the
proposed supersession of officers who had been promoted from the ranks
by those who had passed through the military academies; and other
officers of the Yildiz garrison were severely punished for attempting
to cause disaffection among the rank and file in the interests of the
reactionary party. The Committee won the admiration and confidence of
all right-thinking men by the way in which it exercised its great power
for the country’s good.

It was very interesting to be in Constantinople during that critical
time and to watch the replacement of the old order of things by
the new, to see constitutional government developing itself before
one’s eyes within the space of days instead of centuries. Everywhere
one could contemplate the old and new facing each other in strong
contrast, and to attend, as I did on the Friday following the military
mutiny, the Selamlik in the morning and visit the head-quarters of
the Committee of Union and Progress in the afternoon, was to rush, as
it were, on Mr. Wells’ “time machine,” from the Middle Ages to the
twentieth century.

Every tourist who visits Constantinople has witnessed the Selamlik,
the Sultan’s procession from the Yildiz Palace on each Friday to
worship at the Hamidieh Mosque, and the ceremony has been described
many times. This particular Friday’s ceremony had a special interest,
and the spectacle was one to make one think. I joined the throng of
foreigners at the gates of the Yildiz, and awaited the passing of the
procession. Here, from the steep hill, there is a beautiful view which
forms a wonderful setting to the solemn function. In the immediate
foreground, but a couple of hundred yards or so distant, is the white
mosque itself; to the right stretch the heights on which Pera stands;
below is the gleaming Bosphorus; and beyond it are the misty mountains
of Asia, forming a noble background to the scene. There was much of
interest to look upon as one awaited the coming out of the Sultan—among
other things the gathering of the picturesque Moslem crowd; the
arrival of successive detachments of troops with bands playing and
colours flying in the breeze; and the massing of the troops along the
short line of route and on the open space beyond. A greater number of
troops than usual, about eight thousand men, were brought out on this
occasion, and after the ceremony they were paraded and marched to the
Palace, at a window of which the Sultan stood and acknowledged their
salute. I watched the troops of all arms march up to the Palace, the
tough-looking, red-fezzed, blue-coated Infantry of the Line, Artillery,
Cavalry, Marines, and Engineers. There were troops, too, from every
part of the Ottoman Empire, including the fierce and faithful Albanians
of the Prætorian Guard, in white uniforms fashioned after their
national dress, with wicked-looking yataghans slung across their
waists; and Arabian troops in queer uniforms and green turbans; and
they looked like what they indeed are, as formidable as any soldiery
in the world when properly trained and led. It was a sign of the times
that the first regimental band to arrive on the scene began to play,
not the National Anthem, but the “March of Liberty,” which had been
composed specially for the troops of the new _régime_, and the sound
of it must have been scarcely pleasing to some ears within the Palace
walls.

At last the _muezzin_ from the minaret of the mosque chanted the call
of the faithful to prayer, and the procession, passing through the
Palace gates, slowly proceeded down the steep road, between the troops,
to the entrance of the mosque, the Sultan’s approach being announced by
the blowing of a trumpet and the shouting by the soldiers “_Padishahim
chok yasha!_” (“long live the Emperor!”). I need not describe the
well-known scene; there were, as usual, the officers in gorgeous
uniforms; high officials of the Palace and the Government, among whom
one recognised some few of the old _régime_, but none of the notorious
instruments of oppression and cruelty, or the corrupt advisers who
had ruined their country (for, happily, all these had gone, some
having fled from the people’s wrath to England, others living under
close watch on the island of Prinkipo, and others prisoners in the
Seraskeriat); the led saddle horses; the white-veiled Mohammedan ladies
of the Palace in close carriages; the ungainly black eunuchs walking
with folded arms, not so insolent as of old, and no doubt fearful as
to what might happen to them under the new _régime_ which had done
away with their mischievous influence; and lastly, escorted by mounted
troops, in an open carriage, with the Grand Vizier facing him, came he
who is the head of the Moslem world, the nominal ruler of the Ottoman
Empire, the Sultan Abdul Hamid himself, his face imperturbable as he
acknowledged the salute and trained acclamation of his legionaries. But
it was a procession in which one seemed to be looking at the shadow of
that from which Turkey has now delivered herself; one felt that all
this pomp was but the empty shell of that which is now a dead thing.

Then, in the afternoon, I visited the head-quarters of the Young
Turk party in Stamboul. Having crossed the Golden Horn by the Galata
Bridge, and traversed the intricate lanes of the Grand Bazaar, I came
to a quiet street of somewhat mean appearance, and in an unpretentious
house, almost bare of furniture, I found the temporary meeting-place
of the Committee of Union and Progress, the virtual Government of
the Ottoman Empire. Here there was no pomp or ceremony; one might
have been in the offices of some struggling architect in a third-rate
London suburb. There was a room in which members of the organisation
met in an informal manner to discuss their plans, and to put forth
those suggestions which had to be obeyed by the ministers. There were
other rooms in which men awaited their turn to have interviews with
members of the Committee, and chambers in which one might carry on long
conversations, as I did on several occasions, with courteous Young
Turks ready to impart all such information regarding this wonderful
movement as it was not deemed inexpedient to divulge.

I found these young Mussulmans who had freed Turkey quite unlike the
conventional conspirators and revolutionaries. These were well-educated
and thoughtful men, keen and energetic, with the light of resolve and
great hope in their eyes betraying the enthusiasm which lay under their
Turkish reserve and phlegm. The more I saw of the Young Turks the
more I was impressed by their patriotism, their manliness, and their
sincerity. There are naturally some over-confident Chauvinists in the
party, but the bulk are men of shrewd common sense, as has been made
manifest to the world by their moderation after victory, and their
tactful methods of conducting the government of a disorganised country,
and maintaining order throughout the Empire in the face of tremendous
difficulties of every description.

All the members of the Committee of Union and Progress with whom I came
into contact, whether in the capital or in Salonica, whether soldiers
or civilians, were enlightened men, most of whom had travelled and
studied in Western Europe, and had assimilated what is best of Western
culture. Thus among the civilian members of the Committee are men
who would gain distinction in any country, such as Ahmed Riza, for
many years the chief organiser of the Young Turk movement in Paris,
the President of the Chamber; Djavid Bey, the professor; Aassim Bey,
the strenuous editor of the _Shura-i-Ummet_, the official organ of
the Committee, who took a leading part in preparing the revolution
in Salonica; Rahmi Bey, a wealthy Salonican who was long in exile, a
descendant of the Saracen warrior who conquered Thessalonica from the
Latins five hundred years ago. The military members of the Committee,
officers of the _état-major_, have passed through the military schools,
or have been educated in France or Germany, and most of them, like the
civilian members, speak foreign languages. Among them are distinguished
men like Colonel Faik Bey, and Enver Bey, now the popular hero of the
Turks. Another member of the Committee is Turkey’s ablest artillery
officer, General Hassan Riza Pasha, an old friend of mine in a way,
for I discovered, on talking to him, that he was with the Epirus army
during the Greek war, and that it was under the uncomfortable fire of
his guns that I remained with the eccentric, but harmless, Greek army
on the heights of Arta, and on one occasion narrowly escaped being
killed by one of his shells.




CHAPTER XVIII

_PREPARING FOR SELF-RULE_


During the interregnum the most important task that had to be
undertaken by the Committee of Union and Progress, and one that caused
it a good deal of anxiety for a while, was the preparation of the
country for the coming general election of the members of Turkey’s new
Parliament. It could not but be a dangerous experiment thus suddenly to
give self-governing institutions to the ignorant Ottoman masses, who
had endured thirty years of the worst of despotisms. It would naturally
take long to make the peasantry understand that under the new order of
things taxation would not be as it was under the old, that the money
supplied by the people would be spent in reorganising and developing
the country to their own great benefit. All that they knew of taxation
was that it had been wrung from them to enrich the ruling clique, that
Constantinople swallowed up the huge sums which were collected in every
part of the Empire, and that little had been done for the people. It
was difficult to convince them that taxation could possibly be for
their own good. To quote from an article which appeared at the time
in a Constantinople paper: “Persuasion in this case will be of no
avail. Acts must precede arguments. Let works of public utility, roads,
railways, harbours, irrigation canals, be undertaken at once. Let the
police be organised. Let the troops in the provinces receive their pay
and be given their proper clothing and equipment as in the capital.” If
they beheld these changes, so advantageous to themselves, the people
would no doubt gradually lose their profound distrust of everything
connected with the administration of the State and realise that the
sacrifices entailed by taxation might mean the return to the taxpayers,
in the form of various benefits, of ten-fold what they had contributed.
When the elections did take place it was found that great numbers of
the poorer and more ignorant peasants, though as taxpayers entitled to
vote, refrained from exercising their right, for they suspected the
needful registration of being in some way connected with the exaction
of further taxation.

In the meanwhile, people, prejudiced against all outward form of
government and wholly ignorant of the elements of economics, suddenly
found themselves the free electors of a representative assembly. Many
people looked forward to the opening of the Parliament with grave
misgivings. It is rankest heresy in these days to give utterance to
such a sentiment, but one could not help thinking last autumn, when
the result of the elections was still in doubt, that it might have
been better to have continued the rule of the country for some time
longer through a Ministry selected by the Young Turk oligarchy,
and not to have conferred self-governing institutions on the people
until these had been to some extent educated by the object-lessons of
good government presented to them—the suppression of corruption, the
efficiency of public departments, the bringing of prosperity to the
wasted land, the wise expenditure on public works.

But it had been decreed that the Parliament should meet as soon as
possible, so the Committee of Union and Progress set itself to teach
the electorate the duties of citizenship, to explain to them what
constitutional government meant, and to employ its wide-reaching
organisation to secure so strong a representation of its nominees in
the Lower House as to give the Committee the control of affairs. The
Young Turks were too wise to be over-confident. They realised the
difficulties and dangers before them. They knew that the reactionaries
were intriguing everywhere and would seize their chance when they
got it. The Young Turks remained on their guard, determined that the
liberty so hardly won should not be wrested from Turkey as it was in
1878, and that if the Turkish Parliament failed as the Russian Duma
failed, it should not be to make way for the return of the Despotism.

It was recognised that, far from losing its _raison d’être_ with the
opening of Parliament, the Young Turk organisation would be needed more
than ever for the protection of the country, and would have to continue
its existence, with the army behind it as heretofore, for a long while
to come. The Committee of Union and Progress therefore held a Congress
in Salonica in October, at which measures were taken to strengthen
and effect the closer knitting together of the Young Turk party. It
was arranged that all the Deputies in the Turkish Parliament who were
nominees of the Committee should pledge themselves to support in its
entirety the programme laid down by the Committee. Arrangements were
made for the establishment of close relations between the Committee and
the Army. The secret Central Committee, the names of whose members are
unknown to the outer world, was re-elected at the Congress, but it was
decided that it should no longer have its head-quarters in Salonica and
that it should not hold its meetings in Constantinople. It was to have
no known or fixed habitation. The Young Turks, therefore, apparently
deemed it more necessary than ever that strict secrecy should be
observed as to who their real leaders were. By this time the Committee
had largely extended its membership, its sworn associates numbering
about seventy thousand—all that was best of the Ottoman manhood.

As the result of the electoral campaign conducted by the Committee
of Union and Progress their nominees are in an overwhelming majority
in the Turkish House of Commons, voting as one man on all important
questions. The Constitution arranged for the creation of a Senate,
or Second Chamber, composed of notables selected by the Sultan.
The Committee saw to it that the Senate should not become the
head-quarters of reaction. It presented a list of names to the Sultan,
who was pleased to appoint as Senators the persons thus suggested to
him. A parliament, the bulk of whose members are sworn to obey the
bidding of a secret society, may not be an ideal form of government;
but there can be little doubt that it was the best possible one for
Turkey during the early days of the new _régime_, when it was necessary
for the very existence of the Empire that one strong and patriotic
party should dominate the House and present a united front to foreign
foe and home reactionary. It was no time for parliamentary dissensions,
for the raising of delicate questions concerning the future position
of the various races, with their conflicting aspirations, or for the
discussion of the schemes of thorough-going decentralisation advocated
by the too broad-minded theorists who would grant home rule all round
to Turkey’s various peoples.

The Turks were novices at political combination, whereas the Greeks
were skilled in electioneering trickery of every sort and were
determined to obtain as large an electioneering representation as
possible in Parliament. The Greeks undoubtedly entertained the opinion
that, representing the brains and commercial wealth of Turkey, they
should take a leading place, above all the other elements of the
population, in the administration of the country. The Committee of
Union and Progress was not of this opinion, and under its guidance the
votes of the Mussulmans, largely supported by the Armenian and Jewish
vote, secured the ascendency of the ruling race in Parliament.

It is a fortunate thing for Turkey that the people who conquered
this land will still maintain their political supremacy under the
Constitution. The situation would be a dangerous one, indeed, were
the Greek vote ever to swamp that of the Mussulmans at the elections.
Another revolution, not of so bloodless a character as the last,
would be the probable result. It is obvious that for the Caliph, the
head of the Mussulman faith, to be under the direction of a Christian
Government would be intolerable to the millions of fanatical Moslem
subjects of the Porte in Asia, who already regard the Constitution
with great suspicion. It is absurd to suppose, too, that the Young
Turk party and the Mussulman Turkish army have overthrown despotism
only to hand over the rule of the country to what, for centuries, have
been the subject races. The Turks hold the inconsistent, but perfectly
justifiable, point of view that all Ottomans, of whatever race and
creed, shall have equal rights, but that the predominance of the
Mussulman Turks must be safeguarded. This may not be logic, but it is
common sense.

The opinions and misgivings of the Young Turks, while the elections
were in progress, were expressed as follows, in an article which
appeared in one of their organs in the capital: “The Mussulman element
is the one which, above all others, works to maintain the Empire’s
safety and integrity. The other elements have, more or less, other
ends in view. If we now deliver the government of the country into
the hands of the non-Mussulmans, who can suppose that these would
have Ottoman interests as their one aim? It is evident, therefore,
that under present conditions, if we wish to safeguard our national
existence, we must keep the government in our own hands, and be on
the watch lest the other elements snatch it from us. But it must not
be gathered from the opinions which we have thus expressed that we
intend to refuse to place the other elements on the same footing of
equality as the Mussulman element—that we wish to deprive them of their
political rights. To make sure of a majority in the Parliament is a
question of life and death for the Turks. It will not do for us to
take it for granted that the Turks are certain to obtain a majority in
Parliament because they compose a majority of the population. We state
it with regret, that the bulk of the Mussulmans, not realising the
importance of the elections, have not even taken the trouble to vote,
and that those who have voted have not come to an understanding with
each other, and have, therefore, failed to send an adequate number of
Deputies to the Chamber. It would be interesting to know what line of
action we ought to adopt if we found ourselves in a Chamber containing
a majority of non-Mussulman Deputies. The laws made by such a Chamber
would not favour the dominant element. Let us suppose, for example,
that the Greeks were in a strong majority in the Ottoman Parliament,
and that the question of the annexation of Crete to Greece was
under discussion. How many Greek Deputies would disapprove of that
annexation? And again, if the Bulgarians had the majority, what would
happen to Macedonia? The Turks, who conquered the country at the cost
of a great sacrifice, have proved that, with regard to the position
of the other elements, they are guided by the sentiments of equality,
justice, and liberty, but they will not tolerate the formation of a
State within a State. Our non-Mussulman compatriots, who desire to live
as brothers with the Mussulmans, must calmly examine their hearts and
consciences. Let them have the courage to tear from their hearts all
ideas—if they entertain such—which are prejudicial to the interests of
the Turkish rule, and let them, without fear, throw themselves into
our arms. They have nothing to fear from us; all that is asked of them
is that they make us believe in their sincerity. But, whatever may be
said in this country, it is the Turks who compose, and who will always
compose, the dominant element.”

The Committee, therefore, set itself diligently to work to secure the
ascendency of its adherents in Parliament. It selected as its nominees
the best men it could find, who commanded the respect of the people,
for the most part professional men in towns, and landed proprietors
in the country; and it undertook the education of the voters in the
exercise of their new privileges. It sent missionaries throughout the
country to preach the cause of the Constitution, and to confute the
arguments of the reactionary agents. It founded schools of political
instruction in the villages. Its lecturers addressed attentive crowds
in city streets. Even the theatres were used for the dissemination of
political doctrines, and both in Constantinople and Salonica I attended
plays written with the object of showing the horrors of the Despotism
and the blessings of liberty under constitutional government.

One night I visited a Turkish theatre in Pera, where a company of
amateurs—Young Turks, several of whom were officers in the army,
whilst the others had either recently been released from prison or
had returned from exile—presented a patriotic play entitled “The
Awakening of Turkey.” In this remarkable play, though fictitious names
appeared on the programme, nearly all the characters impersonated were
well-known men, creatures of the Palace, reformers, and others, and
whenever an actor appeared on the scene so good was his make-up that
the audience at once knew who was intended, and received him with warm
applause or cries and groans of execration, as the case might be. The
play opened with a sort of prologue—“the Pasha’s dream.” The curtain
rose and disclosed a room in which a white-bearded old man was sleeping
in an arm-chair. He was recognised by the audience as a well-known
victim of the Despotism. The Pasha, as he slept, dreamt a vivid dream,
which now unfolded itself before us. The back of the room faded away,
and we looked into the interior of a luxuriously furnished chamber
in the Yildiz Palace. And here, in dumb show, were enacted before us
some of the evil doings of the Camarilla that is no more. There we saw,
made up to the life, the Sultan’s hated secretary, Izzet Pasha, and to
judge from his reception by the audience he is safer in his English
house than he would be in Constantinople. There, too, were the Sultan’s
aged astrologer, Abdul Houda, and other Court favourites. Spies came
in with lists of denounced reformers, and orders for execution or
for the _oubliette_ were signed. The tyrants bethought themselves
to seek recreation in the intervals of their cruel business, so the
hideous and fawning black eunuchs were ordered to bring in a troupe of
beautiful Armenian dancing girls. A young Turk in chains was led in,
tortures were applied to him in vain to wring from him the betrayal
of his associates; so he was put to death there and then by the
Court executioner, in the presence of his wife, who was on her knees
imploring for mercy, and frantic with grief, while the callous Court
favourites, with scarce a side glance at the bloody deed, continued
to gaze with gloating eyes at the dance of the slave girls. Then a
messenger came in with news that was evidently of importance. He opened
the box which he had brought with him, and to the joy of the courtiers
drew out the bleeding head of the murdered Midhat Pasha.

Then the vision faded away, and the Pasha awoke from his nightmare.
It had deeply affected him, and in a long speech he announced his
intention of fleeing from Turkey to Paris in order that he might
help to organise the revolution by which Turkey must be saved. His
son entered, was delighted to hear the Pasha’s resolve, and agreed
to accompany him. The scenes of the play itself were laid in Paris.
We heard plots being arranged by spies in the Turkish Embassy in the
French capital, and saw them circumvented by an _attaché_ of the
Embassy, who happened to be a secret adherent of the Young Turk party.
We witnessed the deathbed of the Pasha, who had abandoned wife and
property for the sake of his country, and who, in a long speech, urged
his son to persevere in the good work. We were taken to a Mussulman
burial ground, where an eloquent funeral oration was delivered over
the remains of the dead patriot, and we witnessed his apotheosis when
angels bore him upwards to Paradise. The final scene represented a
somewhat extraordinary entertainment at the Turkish Embassy, where a
good deal of champagne was being drunk; suddenly, in rushed a newsboy
carrying a poster announcing the proclamation of the Constitution; and
the curtain dropped on the group of revelling spies, now overwhelmed
with fear and consternation.

It was a gloomy play, mainly made up of long and earnest monologues,
lit up occasionally with flashes of grim humour, but its effect upon
the audience was extraordinary. The actors who represented the friends
of liberty delivered, with great oratorical power, eloquent speeches,
in which they preached the righteousness of the cause, and the beauty
of sacrifice of self for the fatherland. They swayed the audience as
they willed; for these were not merely clever actors who felt their
parts, but men who had done, and were still doing, in real life, the
things that they represented upon the stage. The audience hung upon
their words, warmly applauded the patriotic sentiments, and showed
their detestation of the tyrants and their pity for the sufferers.
There were tears in the eyes of many men present, to whom, no doubt,
the play recalled bitter memories. The audience was mostly exclusively
composed of Mussulman Turks—soldiers, theological students, turbanned
_hodjas_, and others. In the higher-priced seats were many officers of
the army and navy, and two near relatives of the Sultan were in the
boxes.




CHAPTER XIX

_A STRONG ARMY NEEDED_


For some time before the elections for the Turkish Parliament took
place, the Committee of Union and Progress was at great pains to
explain its programme as fully and clearly as was possible to the
people. From the articles which appeared in the newspapers of the
party and the conversations which could be had without difficulty
with members of the Committee one was able to form a fairly complete
conception of the principal aims of the reformers. The title of the
Committee, “Union and Progress,” well sums up these aims. Turkey is to
be made strong and free, respected by the nations, first by _union_—by
the union of all natives of Turkey of whatsoever creed or race. They
are to enjoy equal rights. No advantage is to be given to any religion.
The Young Turks announced that this tolerance was not to be merely
a passive one, that where Christian populations had no churches or
schools these would be provided for them at the expense of the State,
and that in these schools the teaching of such national languages as
Albanian or Servian would be permitted. In the second place, Turkey is
to be made strong by _progress_—the regeneration of a people whose
energies have been sterilised by a long oppression, the restoration of
prosperity to an impoverished land. The people are to be educated, and
the vast resources of the country are to be developed.

Instead of dreaming of impossible social reforms, the Young Turks have
very practical ends in view. In the first place, they recognise that
it is essential to the existence of Turkey that she should possess
a strong army, as otherwise her very progress may prove her ruin,
arousing the cupidity of those of her neighbours who have already
divided among them so much of her rich land. So Turkey, having no
desire to sow that others may reap, is determined to create an army
equal in strength to that of any of the great military Powers. To
possess such an army the Turks are prepared to make great sacrifices.
The exemption from conscription enjoyed by certain cities and districts
will be withdrawn gradually. The Moslems will no longer bear the whole
burden of the conscription; for the future the Christians also will
have to serve in the army, and the view of the Turkish Generals with
whom I have spoken is that there should be no formation of exclusively
Moslem or exclusively Christian regiments, but that men of different
creeds should be mingled in each unit. The Greeks, who want all the
rights of Ottoman citizenship without its obligations, entertain a
strong objection to service in the Turkish army.

But Turkey cannot maintain a great army without money, and money
she can only obtain by developing her vast mineral and agricultural
resources with foreign capital. Under the old _régime_, Court intrigue
made all industrial enterprise precarious, and foreign capitalists
were chary of ventures in a country where rights of property were so
insecure. But by means of the good government which the Young Turks are
introducing they hope to gain the confidence of foreign investors. They
realise that, to quote from a Constantinople paper, “Turkey cannot have
reform without money or money without reform; foreign capital she must
have in order to carry out the reforms, and foreign capital will not
come in until there is a satisfactory assurance that the reforms will
be carried out, that the money provided will be spent properly and not
be stolen and wasted as it was under the old _régime_.”

The programme of the more necessary reforms was set forth with
some detail by the press of the Young Turk party during its
electioneering campaign, and the abolition of the old corrupt system of
administration, whereby bribery and _bakshish_ had to supplement the
inadequate pay—often years in arrears—of the servants of the State, was
of course insisted upon. The following are among the more important of
the projects recommended by the Young Turk party: (1) The construction
of many thousands of miles of roads to open out the country; at the
present time some of the railway lines are of very little service,
as roads to bring to them the produce of the neighbouring country
at moderate cost are wanting. (2) The construction of four thousand
kilometres of railway; certain railways are urgently needed if
the enormous mineral wealth of the country is to be developed by
foreign capital; the difficulties of transport now prohibit mining
enterprise in most richly mineralised districts. (3) The bringing under
cultivation again of the formerly productive arable districts in the
Vilayets of Salonica, Smyrna, etc. (4) The construction of commercial
ports at Dedeaghatch, Samsoun, Mersina, etc. (5) The construction of
irrigation works in Mesopotamia and elsewhere; there are thousands of
square miles of uncultivated land in Turkey only awaiting irrigation to
make them exceedingly productive. (6) The engaging of French engineers
to make navigable waterways of the Vardar, Maritza, Boyana, and
Kizil-Irmak. (7) The foundation of an engineering college, coupled with
a scheme for sending students who have gained diplomas to Europe to
gain practical knowledge. (8) The formation of navigation, commercial,
and industrial companies, with the object of forwarding the prosperity
of the country.

It is outside the scope of this book to deal with the complicated
question of Turkey’s financial position, which, according to the
experts, is not so unsatisfactory as was at first supposed; but there
are, of course, immense difficulties to be overcome before Turkey can
see herself fairly started on the road of progress. The late _régime_
burdened her with obligations which stand in the way of all attempts
at reform; but these obstacles might be removed by the co-operation
of the Powers interested. Whenever some measure for Turkey’s good is
proposed there seems to jump up some capitulation or some privileged
interest of one Power or another to block it hopelessly. The Baghdad
Railway concession, for example, with its kilometric guarantee, is like
a mill-stone round the neck of Turkey.

The Young Turks recognized that if their country was to be regenerated
and to take its place among the nations the revenues would have to be
greatly increased with the least possible delay. As to ways and means,
the following may be taken as summing up some of the views which I
heard expressed by Turks and others whose opinion carries weight. In
the first place (in view of the attitude taken by the more ignorant
Parliamentary electors, who maintained that under the Constitution
no taxes could be demanded of them) it may be impolitic to make any
increase in the direct taxation of the country. The people, however,
should be compelled to pay such direct taxes as are now in force until
some better system has been devised, and the persons—and they are
numerous—who by exercise of undue influence or otherwise have succeeded
in avoiding the payment of their taxes should be forced to contribute
like the others.

It is held, however, that whereas the direct taxes should be left as
they are, reforms being made in the method of collection, several new
sources of revenue could be tapped in the way of indirect taxation. In
the first place, all the existing methods of raising indirect taxation
should be maintained in their integrity, while the revenue derived
from them should be largely increased by administrative reforms. For
example, it has been calculated that the reorganisation of the Turkish
Customs under the advice of the English expert, Mr. Crawford, will
increase the revenue derived from the Customs by twenty-five per cent.
Thinking men in Turkey recommend, not only the maintenance of the
existing Customs tariff and other methods of indirect taxation, but
also the imposition of still heavier taxation of this description until
Turkey has been extricated from her present financial difficulties;
and they also favour the creation of several new monopolies, to be
preceded, naturally, by an amelioration in the conditions of the
existing tobacco, salt, and other monopolies.

The very mention of monopolies is shocking to most economists,
but political economy is not an exact science, and there are many
exceptions even to the most widely accepted of its rules. Turkey must
have money. The foreign capital necessary to develop her resources
hesitates to come in, waiting to see its security. A monopoly affords
that security and tempts capital as nothing else will. The English
business men to whom I spoke in Turkey regarded the granting of
monopolies for comparatively short terms as expedient under the present
conditions in Turkey; for not only does this fostering of large
industries provide employment for many people, but—what is of the
utmost importance to Turkey at the present moment—it will also bring
to the Turkish Government, without any expenditure on its part, an
immediate and considerable revenue.

As the time for the Parliamentary elections drew near the Committee of
Union and Progress published its political programme, and to this all
candidates who were nominees of the Committee were bound to adhere. The
following were among the more important of the Committee’s demands:
that the Cabinet should be responsible to the Chamber of Deputies; that
Turkish should remain the official language of the Empire; that the
different races should have equal rights; that non-Moslems should be
liable to military service; that the term of military service should be
reduced; that peasants who had no land should be assisted to procure
land, but not at the expense of the present land-owners; that education
should be free and compulsory.

It was deeply interesting to be in Turkey during the elections, to
watch the Young Turks zealously conducting their campaign to serve
what they considered to be their country’s interests, and the people
themselves puzzling out the meaning of this new Western innovation,
the Constitution, and balancing the arguments of rival canvassers. The
representatives of the Committee of Union and Progress were prepared
to discuss patiently the intentions of the party with any group of
electors that came to consult them, and while promising concessions
to just demands, they did not attempt to catch votes by making wild
promises which could never be fulfilled. Thus, when the Armenians—who
have proved their loyalty to the Constitution and have not harassed the
Government with unjustifiable grievances—asked that the lands which
had been taken from the Armenians by the Kurds should be returned
to the rightful owners, the Committee, realising that in practical
politics there must be a law of prescription even for the raider,
and not wishing to have a Kurd question added to the numerous other
difficulties which were confronting Turkey, suggested that it would be
wiser to leave the turbulent Kurds in possession of what they seized
some time ago and to compensate the Armenians by giving them at least
equally good lands in the once productive tracts which have long been
lying fallow and deserted. On the other hand, the Committee could not
assent to the proposal of the Arabians that the use of the Arab tongue
should be permitted in the debates of the Chamber of Deputies. To
Christians of all sects it promised that there would be no interference
with their churches, language, education, and laws of marriage
and inheritance; but refused to consider the question of complete
administrative decentralisation, or of autonomy, for any portion of the
Empire.

On the other hand, the agents of the reactionary party—the party of
those who had fattened under the old _régime_ of plunder and were loth
to see the profitable abuses swept away—worked hard to influence the
electors, but apparently with little effect in European Turkey and
Asia Minor. Certain foolish agitators who were infected with some of
the socialistic doctrines of Western Europe unwittingly helped the
cause of the reactionaries by raising the election cry of “No more
taxes for the people” and “Down with all monopolies.” I have explained
that the more ignorant people thought that with the suppression of the
late _régime_ there would be an end of all authority. When they were
enlightened on this matter by the Young Turks, and discovered that they
would be compelled to pay their taxes as heretofore they felt some
disappointment, and this afforded an opportunity to the reactionaries
to point out to them that they would be no better off under the
Constitution than they had been before, and that, at any rate, Turkey,
under the old _régime_, had been a Mussulman State, whereas under
the new order of things the government would be in the hands of bad
Mohammedans, Christians, and Jews.

In Arabia and in other parts of Asia the efforts of the friends of the
old _régime_, as might be expected, were attended with some success.
The fanatical Arabs, who have never been reconciled to the Turkish
rule, were impressed by the preachings of those who in the mosques
denounced the Constitution, and declared that the Turks, who had ever
been indifferent Mussulmans, had now abandoned the essential doctrines
of Islam and were worse than the Christians and Jews with whom they
associated.

But with the other races of the Empire it was still—in those early
days of liberty—harmony, fraternisation, and enthusiasm; the racial and
religious differences appeared to be forgotten for a while; one read
of elections in which Christians were voting for Mussulman candidates
or Mussulmans for Christian candidates. The optimistic Minister of the
Interior, Haki Bey, made the following statement: “In our Parliament
there will be no Turkish, Armenian, Greek, or Jew Deputies; they will
all be Ottoman Deputies.” If one judged from the appearance of the
surface one would have concluded that the proclaimed ideal of the Young
Turk party—the union of people of all races and creeds within the
Empire—was in a fair way to being realised.

The Turkish election law—which is now being revised—defines so vaguely
the qualifications for a voter that a good deal of misunderstanding
arose. Thus the Greek farmers in Epirus clamoured for the franchise,
which had been denied to them on the ground that they were not
taxpayers, the tithes being paid, not by them, but by the owners of
the land. The Greeks maintained that, as this tax is calculated on
the produce of the soil and not on the rent paid, the farmers were
virtually the taxpayers and therefore entitled to vote. To decide
what constituted a taxpayer in the eyes of the election law must have
puzzled the brains of many a Turkish official at this time, especially
when he had before him some cunning and plausibly argumentative Greek,
determined to have his vote by hook or by crook. In an amusing case
which was brought before my notice an importunate person was allowed
to vote in his capacity as a taxpayer, though the only proof that
he was such lay in the fact that he had on his back a coat made of
a foreign cloth, which, if not smuggled, must have contributed to
taxation in the form of Customs duties as it entered the country. The
Turkish equivalents to English revising barristers had plenty of work
to do in all the constituencies between Macedonia and Baghdad. It
reminded one pleasingly of England to read of these things; but there
were differences to be noticed here and there between the British
and Turkish frame of mind during a General Election. For example,
the Turkish electorate appears to be somewhat more exacting than the
English, and it was announced that at Gumuldjina the _imams_, carrying
the sacred banners from the mosques, assembled with ten thousand
Mohammedans in front of the Municipality, to protest against the
nomination as parliamentary candidates of “_obscure and undistinguished
individuals_.”

The following are the more important features of the electoral
regulations under the existing law. The elections are quadrennial.
Roughly speaking fifty thousand voters are represented by one member
of Parliament. There are two classes of electors; each group of about
five hundred electors of the first class selects an elector of the
second class, and the electors of the second class nominate and elect
the Deputies. The following are among the qualifications for the
franchise: An elector must be a male Ottoman subject, over twenty-five
years of age; he must be a payer of direct taxes; he must have lived
a year in the district in which he exercises his right of voting, and
must produce a certificate from the _moukhtar_ of his former place of
domicile showing that he is entitled to vote; _employés_ of the State
and officers in the army, from the rank of lieutenant upwards, have
the right to vote in whatever electoral districts they may happen to
be during the elections; soldiers on furlough can vote in their own
districts. A man is disqualified from voting if he has been condemned
for a crime, if he is an undischarged bankrupt, if his character is
notoriously bad, if he is acting as servant to another individual, if
he has represented himself as being of other than Ottoman nationality.
A Deputy must be over thirty years of age, must know the Turkish
language, and must possess the qualifications of an elector. A good
many of these regulations were not insisted on rigidly at the recent
elections; for example, there are several Deputies who cannot speak
Turkish.

[Illustration: VIEW OF SCUTARI]

The electoral laws provide heavy punishments for those who employ
violence, intimidation, or corruption at elections. By Article 72
of the Constitution the penalty for influencing elections by false
statements and calumnies is a fine of forty pounds and a period of
imprisonment of from one year up to five years, according to the
gravity of the offence; so it would be a dangerous thing in Turkey for
partisans to post the walls with cartoons such as those which have
exerted no small influence at General Elections in England. Another
curious regulation, the object of which is to prevent rioting, compels
the elector to return to his home as soon as he has registered his
vote. It is also laid down that electors, before they drop their voting
papers into the urn, must attend the prayers of the _imam_ (or priest
in the case of a Christian voter) for the prolongation of the Sultan’s
life and the increase of his glory.

In the late autumn, throughout the Turkish Empire, the elections
took place. Turks, Albanians, Greeks, Bulgarians, Serbs, Wallachs,
Armenians, Jews, Latins, Arabs, Syrians, Kurds, Druses, elected their
Deputies to a Chamber which represents so many races, interests,
creeds, and languages that Turkey’s new Parliament in all probability
would have been a Babel of vain talk and no doing had it not been that
the cause of the Committee of Union and Progress triumphed in European
Turkey and in Anatolia, and secured many adherents in other parts of
the Empire, with the result that the nominees of the Committee formed a
large majority in the Chamber.

I was in Constantinople during the election operations, and very
interesting and picturesque they were. On the night preceding the
polling the big drums were beating loudly in the Turkish quarters of
the capital to remind the electors that it was their duty as good
citizens of a free country to go on the morrow to the appointed places
and drop their voting papers in the ballot boxes. On the following
morning the great city presented a very animated appearance. Large
processions were formed to carry with due ceremony the urns, or ballot
boxes, to the various mosques, Greek and Armenian churches, synagogues,
police stations, and other public buildings, in which the voting was to
take place. A typical Mussulman procession which passed me was composed
as follows: First came a military band and a small escort of infantry;
next a carriage draped with Turkish flags, containing the voting urn
and a few officials; lastly, a motley Mussulman crowd of voters and
others, including _imams_, accompanied by theological students, pupils
of the artillery and naval academies and numbers of happy school
children, conspicuous among which was a band of tiny Moslem girls,
wearing veils and waving miniature Turkish flags as they toddled along
by the side of some tall _gendarmes_ who brought up the rear of the
procession. This and the other processions which I met moved through
the crowded streets to the accompaniment of martial music, the singing
of patriotic songs, occasional cheers for liberty and justice, and the
waving of many flags. These were, indeed, the most good-humoured and
happiest election demonstrations one remembers to have seen in any
country; there were no party cries or manifestations of party feelings
of any sort; all seemed to be thinking of the good of their country
alone, and to be rejoicing in its liberation. The Greeks and Armenians
had similar processions, also headed by military bands (for these had
been lent to all sections of the electorate by the authorities),
and here, too, the priestly element was largely represented. At one
manifestation which I saw in Stamboul the Turk and Armenian electors
joined forces, and there were to be seen in the combined procession
Mussulman _hodjas_ and Armenian priests in their full Mohammedan and
Christian canonicals, walking hand in hand in amity. For a while
good-fellowship reigned everywhere in this city of rival creeds and
races. To judge from appearances it might have been concluded that
“Fraternity,” which has been the watchword of all revolutions, has
for the first time in history been brought about in Turkey, of all
countries in the world.

But when the voting commenced it was made manifest that the brotherhood
of creeds and races in Turkey had not yet been realised. The Turks,
Armenians, Latins, Syrians, and Jews recorded their votes without
any difficulties arising, and in many instances voted for the same
candidates. But the Greeks, who, according to the [OE]cumenical
Patriarch, number one hundred and fifty thousand in Constantinople,
created a good deal of disturbance, after the manner of their brethren
in Athens on similar occasions. In many parts of Turkey the Greeks
complained bitterly of the electoral irregularities which, so they
alleged, had been committed at their expense, and rioting occurred
in Smyrna and elsewhere. So the Greeks in the capital, protesting
that they had been very badly treated, organised noisy demonstrations
which caused the elections to occupy several more days than had been
intended.

The polling opened on a Friday, and it was made evident that the
Greeks had come into the streets on the lookout for trouble. It was
noticeable that when a man of another race was not permitted to
register his vote on account of some irregularity in his papers or
other disqualification, he went away quietly, whereas the Greeks in
like circumstances stayed to protest and bluster until they formed
crowds of disappointed voters who blocked the way to the urns, and
by so doing considerably delayed the course of the election. On the
following morning the Greek leaders hurried about Pera collecting the
people, and ordered all the Greek shop-keepers to close their shops,
which they promptly did. Others got into the belfries of the Greek
churches and rang the bells violently to summon the crowds, and soon
the main streets were packed with excited and clamouring men. Seeing
that they practically all carried revolvers and knives it is wonderful
that but few accidents occurred throughout the demonstration. The
authorities took due precautions. Certain points were occupied by
troops, and bodies of cavalry and infantry patrolled the streets, in
no way interfering with the demonstration, but awing the demonstrators
by their very presence, for the inhabitants of Constantinople knew
of what stuff are made these soldiers who trooped slowly by, silent,
stolid, apparently indifferent to all that was going on around them, in
striking contrast to the noisy rabble which gave way before them. On
the Sunday the church bells again rang out their appeal, and thirty
thousand Greeks having assembled in Pera marched through Galata,
crossed the Golden Horn by the bridge of boats and came to the Sublime
Porte, where they insisted that the Grand Vizier himself, Kiamil Pasha,
should come out to speak to them. When that aged statesman did appear
to explain that full justice would be done to them by Parliament should
they be able to show that the alleged irregularities had occurred,
these people, who but a few months before were afraid to open their
mouths if any representative of the dreaded Government was near,
insulted Kiamil Pasha by shouting out to him that his verbal assurances
would not suffice for them, and that they must have his undertaking
in writing. This attitude, of course, brought the conference to an
end, and the Grand Vizier retired. It became necessary later to
employ the cavalry to clear the streets, but, wonderful to say, only
two casualties, and these slight ones, were reported for this day.
The troops displayed a great forbearance and behaved admirably under
conditions calculated to try their temper.

Observing the indignation and distress of the Greeks, one would have
supposed that they had been very badly treated. As a matter of fact
their clamour was chiefly caused by disappointment at the failure of
their scheme to obtain a much larger representation in Parliament than
their numbers warranted. Their point of view was that the Greek element
of the Turkish population, being the most civilised and cultured, was
the best fitted to undertake the Government of the country, and, being
Greeks, they considered that any means were fair which could forward
their aim. The Greeks are the only people in Turkey who understand
election trickery, and they were assisted in their recent campaign
by clever and, of course, absolutely unscrupulous electioneering
experts from Athens. Taking advantage of the ignorance of the lower
class Moslems they obtained votes by various fraudulent devices and
misrepresentation. The Greeks flocked to the polls whether they were
entitled to a vote or not. Impersonation both of the living and the
dead was largely practised. In Turkey, each voter, on coming up to the
voting place, has to show his _hamidieh_—the official paper testifying
to Ottoman nationality and date of birth. It was discovered that Greeks
not entitled to the vote had been provided with the _hamidiehs_ of dead
men and of people who had left the country. In some cases, too, the
stamps which are impressed upon the _hamidiehs_ to show that the vote
has been registered had been erased, thus enabling an _hamidieh_ to be
used by a succession of would-be voters.

The Greeks would now be represented by a powerful party in the Turkish
Parliament had not the Committee of Union and Progress kept a close
watch on them during the elections. The Greeks have themselves to blame
for the under-representation of which they now complain. They compelled
the Committee to exercise an influence in the elections which, though
technically unfair, was fully justified by the circumstances. The
liberty so recently won had to be safeguarded by the return of a solid
majority of patriotic Turks to the Chamber of Deputies.

The Greeks, gifted as they are with administrative capacity, held
high appointments under the old _régime_, and will no doubt do so to
a greater extent under a constitutional Government; but as a people
they have yet to prove themselves loyal Ottomans. During the elections
their one thought was for the interests of their own race. Headed by
the [OE]cumenical Patriarch, they demanded the maintenance of all the
privileges that had been granted to them from the time of the Turkish
conquest. The Moslems have had to give up their special rights, but the
Greeks refused to surrender a single one of their privileges for the
sake of Ottoman unity. The Greeks chatter about liberty, equality, and
fraternity, but their aim is to secure to themselves advantages over
the other Christian peoples; and the Patriarchate, the most cruel and
intolerant ecclesiastical tyranny remaining in the world, makes use
of “liberty” to increase its persecutions of the exarchists and other
schismatics. In the ranks of the reactionaries are to be found many
Greeks who profited much by the Despotism whose parasites they were. A
large number of the Greeks in Turkey still cling to their separatist
aspirations. Even as I write this the Greeks in Macedonia are breaking
the peace which the Young Turks brought to that long harassed land;
for large Greek bands are once more in the field, with no shadow of a
grievance as their excuse for brigandage this time, but agitating for
various things, including the annexation of Crete to Greece. If the
great Powers would act together and let it be clearly understood that
under no conceivable circumstances will Greece be permitted to annex
another foot of Ottoman territory, the Greeks in Turkey might become
the useful citizens of a united country; for they, like all the other
peoples in European Turkey, would prefer even a Hamidian despotism to
the domination of Germany, Austria, or Russia.




CHAPTER XX

_THE OPENING OF PARLIAMENT_


On December 17 Abdul Hamid drove through the streets of his capital
between cheering crowds to open the Turkish Parliament. The scene
has been often described, and it is unnecessary here to relate again
the events of that memorable day. That night I sailed through the
Dardanelles, and on either side of me, on the shores of both Europe and
Asia, every little town and village and the anchored fleets of fishing
craft in the harbours were brightly illuminated; isolated farm-houses
on snowy hillsides had their windows full of lights; fires blazed on
many a lonely peak; and so it was all along the shores of Turkey from
the Adriatic and the Ægean to the Black Sea and the shores of the
Persian Gulf. It was a day and a night of rejoicing, and so contagious
was the sincere enthusiasm that even the most cynical foreigner in the
land had not the heart to speak otherwise than hopefully of the future
of this freed country.

Some months have passed since that winter’s day. As might have been
expected, things have not gone altogether smoothly in Turkey, and
there have been reports of internal dissensions that have puzzled and
alarmed the English well-wishers of the new _régime_. As regards the
open rebellions against the Government that have occurred in various
portions of the Empire, no one imagined that the proclamation of a
Constitution would suddenly bring peace, once and for all, to restless
races that have been fighting and raiding for centuries. The complete
pacification of these regions cannot but be a work of time. The lawless
Albanian tribes are again carrying on their organised brigandage, even
in that Dibra district where Niazi Bey’s propaganda had been so wholly
successful; the Northern Albanians are agitating for autonomy, even as
they were thirty years ago when I wandered through their highlands;
Turkish troops, even as I am writing this, are defending Armenians
against raiding Kurds;[1] risings of fanatical Arabs in Arabia
are being suppressed; and the Greek bands are once more troubling
Macedonia. These are unfortunate happenings, but with a Government
that combines firmness with justice and patience, this lawless state
of things will disappear; and it must be remembered that sheer love of
fighting and raiding rather than political disaffection is the cause of
some of these disturbances. These revolts and raids had become almost
chronic complaints under the old _régime_; the world is now watching
Turkey; events that would have passed almost unnoticed a year ago are
reported in the European press, and their importance is naturally
overrated by those who read of them.

[1] This was written before the counter-revolution and the
terrible massacre of Armenians that followed it.

But the political dissensions among the Turks themselves—which have
been much embittered of late—are more alarming to the friends of
Turkey than are any of these risings of lawless peoples. This is no
time for the patriotic element to be divided against itself, and it
behooves the Young Turks to present a solid and united front to the
many external and internal enemies of Turkey’s liberty and the Empire’s
integrity. The Committee of Union and Progress, the deliverer of Turkey
from the Despotism, has enemies in the land who are unsparing and
unscrupulous in their attacks, and most cunning in their intriguings.
The anomalous position of the organisation has naturally invited some
honest criticism. Almost immediately after the proclamation of the
Constitution, not only reactionary Turks and politicians jealous of
the Young Turk party, but also European friends of Turkey, including
certain British diplomatists and a section of the Press that voices
their views, began to urge that the Committee, its work having been
accomplished, no longer had a _raison d’être_ and should be dissolved
at once. It was pointed out that an irresponsible power behind the
Parliament was unconstitutional, and that the Committee, with its
unknown leaders, had become an illegal institution now that Turkey had
been granted representative government.

Now surely this argument savours of a legal pedantry that ignores
surrounding conditions. The Committee was, of course, an illegal
institution from its inception; it saved Turkey by illegal methods;
a revolution cannot but be an illegal operation: and it would be
obviously unsafe on the morrow of a successful revolution—when a
nation is still in confusion, when the people have yet no idea how
they should exercise their new rights, when the new institutions from
their very freedom lie open to the attack of cunning foes—to adhere
strictly to constitutional technicalities and legalities, and to break
up the strong organised power that has brought about the overthrow of
a _régime_. After the English revolution Cromwell had no scruples in
violating law to save a cause. If there had been a strong Committee
of Union and Progress behind the Constitution which the Sultan swore
to observe on his coming to the throne, Turkey might have been saved
thirty years of despotism and the loss of much territory.

The Young Turks fully realised the difficulties and dangers before
them. Many were the foes of the newly freed fatherland. There were
those of the Great Powers to whom constitutional liberty in Turkey
meant interference with their designs to enrich themselves and obtain
territorial expansion at Turkey’s expense; there were the smaller
Powers on the frontier, Bulgaria, Servia, Greece, eager to scramble
over the partition of Macedonia; and, far more dangerous than these,
there were the Turkish reactionaries, who began to intrigue everywhere
against the Constitution immediately after its proclamation, ready
to seize their chance when they saw it. The Young Turks in their
hour of triumph had freely pardoned all save a few of the worst of
the creatures of the Palace, but this great clemency gained them no
gratitude. It was also a source of no small danger that the Young
Turks, having but few trained administrators in their own ranks, had
retained the services of such high officials of the old _régime_ as had
no notoriously evil records for corruption or oppression. Some of these
men are the secret enemies of the new order of things. The Young Turks,
therefore, determined to remain on their guard and see to it that
Turkey’s newly won liberty was not wrested from her. As I have stated
in a previous chapter, they held that, far from losing its _raison
d’être_ on the opening of Parliament, the Committee of Union and
Progress would be more necessary than ever for the protection of the
country, and they decided not to dissolve this powerful organisation,
but to maintain it, legally or illegally, supported as heretofore
by the army, until such time as the Constitution should be firmly
established. Such was their justification, and they were sincere in
their explanations of their resolution.

As will have been gathered from what I have said in this book the
Committee of Union and Progress is no small body of patriots. When I
was in Turkey it numbered seventy thousand members. I understand that
it now has a membership of about a hundred thousand. It includes all
that is best and most patriotic of the educated young Moslem manhood of
the country. There are now the many Christians, too, on the Committee
who have rejected the idle separatist aspirations of their several
races and have Ottoman unity as their ideal, and also many of those
Jews who from the beginning have co-operated loyally with the Young
Turks. When I was in the country last autumn it looked much as if this
Committee had as its members nearly all the men to whom it would be
safest to leave the guidance of the Empire.

Unfortunately, it seems to be an undoubted fact that the Committee of
Union and Progress has made many enemies even among those who cannot
be accused of reactionary tendencies. The Committee has undoubtedly
done some ill-advised and tactless things, and its arbitrary methods
have raised up against itself some relentless foes; but there can, I
think, be no doubt that it has been actuated throughout by pure and
patriotic motives, and that its errors have been those of zeal and
inexperience. I have met several members of the party recently, and
they all sincerely believe that the Committee had very good reasons
for compelling Kiamil Pasha to resign the Grand Vizierate in February
last; they are confident that the aged statesman had been misled by
the plausible enemies of Turkey’s liberties and was being duped by
reactionaries. The friction between the Committee and the Grand Vizier
commenced some months before the opening of the Parliament; Kiamil,
being a Pasha of the old school, naturally resented the dictation of
the Committee, and complained that while his was the responsibility
the Committee held all the power. The Committee was alarmed by
Kiamil Pasha’s friendly relations with the Liberal Union, the party
in opposition to the Committee, and recognised the insidious work of
reactionary influence when Kiamil despatched from Constantinople to
Macedonia certain battalions that were faithful to the Committee,
thus imperilling, in the eyes of the Young Turks, the safety of the
constitutional cause in the capital. When the Grand Vizier, without
consultation with his ministers or with the party, suddenly dismissed
the Ministers of War and Marine, the nominees of the Committee, and
placed others in their stead, the crisis was precipitated. The Young
Turks, above all things, were determined that those in whom they did
not place implicit confidence should not control the army, so the
Committee, even as it had compelled the resignation of Said Pasha,
because he had left the appointment of the Ministers of War and Marine
in the hands of the Sultan, now insisted upon the resignation of Kiamil
Pasha, and effected its purpose in so peremptory a way that it lost
much of its popularity with the people and afforded its unscrupulous
enemies a handle for attack. The intrigues connected with the fall of
Kiamil Pasha need not be discussed here; but one gathers that the man
chiefly to blame is Kiamil’s own son, Said, a worthless person who
enriched himself by co-operating with the brigands in the neighbourhood
of Smyrna. On several previous occasions he has compromised by his
intrigues his aged father, the one person in Turkey who believes that
there is no real harm in this very bad specimen of a young Turkish
gentleman. Of Kiamil Pasha’s successor to the Grand Vizierate, Hilmi
Pasha, I have already spoken.

The Committee justified its treatment of Kiamil Pasha and its other
arbitrary acts by pleading the necessity of protecting the nation
against the strong reactionary forces which certainly do exist, despite
the assertions of the organs of the Liberal Union, which have ever
ridiculed the possibility of a reactionary movement, and have accused
the Committee of having invented this bogey as an excuse for its own
despotic methods. Kiamil Pasha had ever been the friend of the English,
and his removal from the Grand Vizierate produced—to the great regret
of the Young Turks—a somewhat bad impression in England, the country
above all others whose friendship is valued by patriotic Turks. Those
who had held that the Committee was an illegal institution and ought
to be dissolved became alienated for a while from the men who had been
the saviours of Turkey; and it is a great pity that this was so, for
at that critical time the Young Turks, who never before had trod the
tortuous ways of politics, and were apt to fall into the traps that
were cunningly laid for them, were much in need of the sympathetic help
and advice from those whose experience and knowledge qualified them to
offer these. The result is, I think, that the Young Turk side of the
question has not been understood in England.

The Young Turk party, as represented by the Committee of Union and
Progress, is now but one of several parties in Turkey professing
Liberal principles. In Parliament the Committee’s nominees form the
large majority; but the rival parties, though they may be numerically
small and were regarded as insignificant when I was in the country,
have displayed great energy in winning supporters outside the Chamber,
and are no longer a negligible quantity. Though diametrically
opposed to each other in their principles, they appear to be united
in their hatred and jealousy of the Young Turk party, without whose
self-sacrificing struggle for freedom they would never have had an
opportunity of existing at all. The Young Turks, as I have explained,
desired Ottoman unity, perhaps an impossible but certainly a noble
ideal, and it was a disappointment to them that, so soon as Parliament
met, the Deputies who were not partisans of the Committee divided
themselves into distinct nationalist groups, some of them impracticably
socialistic in their aims, others separatist at heart.

By far the most powerful of these groups, a composite party, composed
of Moslems, Christians, and others, calls itself the Liberal Union.
Whereas the Young Turks, while advocating equality without distinction
of race or creed, insists that the supremacy of the Mussulman Turks
should be safeguarded, desires to bring about a fusion of the different
elements, and wants no greater administrative decentralisation than is
necessary; the Liberal Union, on the other hand, is opposed to what it
terms Turkish Chauvinism, and asks for a degree of decentralisation
which the Young Turks regard as dangerous to the integrity of the
Empire. The Liberal Union therefore stands for home rule. It is largely
supported by the Greek element, and this fact does not commend it to
those who desire Ottoman unity. It is understood that the party has
been well supplied with funds by the Greek merchants in Turkey, who are
ever generous in their subscriptions to a Greek national cause; but
one cannot feel that the integrity of the Ottoman Empire is safe in
their hands. A source of weakness to the Committee are its self-denying
principles, whereby there are to be no known leaders, no gratification
of personal ambition by its members, and no seeking for the plums of
office. The Liberal Union has no such principles of self-abnegation,
and it has for its leader the Albanian Ismail Kemal Bey, a victim of
the Despotism and for some time an exile, a man of marked ability and
of great ambition. He left the Young Turk party on the grounds that
its principles were not sufficiently Liberal, and formed this party
of his own, which is the bitterest and most unscrupulous enemy of the
Committee of Union and Progress.

The organs of the Liberal Union have been carrying on a press campaign
against the Committee of Union and Progress. Among other things they
have asserted that the best men have deserted the Committee, that
the heroes of the revolution, such as Niazi Bey and Enver Bey, have
left it in disgust, that reactionaries and self-seeking adventurers
have worked their way into the Committee’s centre and are directing
its policy. It is, of course, possible, and even probable, that some
unworthy men have been admitted into the Committee, but I am certain
that they have exercised no influence, and I am of opinion that
they would not have been allowed to remain in it after their true
characters had been discovered. When I was in Turkey last autumn it
was not altogether an easy matter to become a member of the Committee.
On more than one occasion when I have asked a member whether some
mutual friend was in the Committee, he has replied in the negative,
explaining that the person in question had expressed his wish to join
the Committee, and that he seemed a fitting person, but that the
Committee would not elect him until more was known concerning him. As
to the allegations made by the organs of the Liberal Union, many of the
most active members of the Committee, men obviously actuated by the
sincerest patriotism, are my friends, and I know that not one of them
has left the Committee or has lost faith in it. I also know that the
single-minded patriots who made the revolution are still members of the
Committee. Both Niazi Bey and Enver Bey have flatly contradicted the
statements that were made concerning them.

The Young Turks who write to me from their own country or who converse
with me in London are unanimous in describing the situation as serious,
but in their opinion the Committee is too strong for its enemies. They
say that the Sultan himself is on the side of the Committee, and
disapproves of the machinations of the Liberal Union. They maintain
that whatever professions of Liberalism the Liberal Union may make
it is reactionary in its policy, has known reactionaries within its
ranks, and is led by self-seeking politicians lacking in patriotism.
They allege that many of the Greeks who support the Liberal Union,
having thrived as parasites of the old _régime_, prefer despotisms to
constitutions. They, moreover, explain that some members of the Liberal
Union are exceedingly clever and cunning men who have succeeded in
winning over honest men of the Young Turk party—including _ulemas_ and
other strict adherents of the Mussulman creed—by specious arguments and
misrepresentations. All this seems probable, and it is certain that
numbers of the Young Turks, though true patriots, are simple-minded
honest men who are likely to be duped by the trained intriguers among
the Committee’s enemies.

One gathers, therefore, that an incongruous alliance of non-Moslem
socialists, Greek separatists, reactionaries, and misled upright
Mussulmans is opposed to the Committee of Union and Progress. A most
malignant press campaign is being carried on against the Committee, and
the organs of the Committee strike hard in return, with the unfortunate
result that on either side an intense hatred has been engendered which
cannot but be injurious to the country’s interests, imperils the
Constitution, and plays into the hands of Turkey’s external foes.

The Committee of Union and Progress is not rich and has not attempted
to enrich itself; but it appears that the Liberal Union is well
supplied with funds wherewith to carry on its campaign, purchase
newspapers, and buy the consciences of men. It is known that the Greeks
have been the largest contributors to these funds. The Palace gang is
also said to have supplied its share. When I was in Constantinople I
was informed that the Committee had intercepted correspondence between
the Palace and a certain Pasha—who was then an exile in England passing
under various aliases—and had obtained proof that this notorious
person was the trustee of large sums lying in London banks which
were intended to meet the expenses of intriguing for the restoration
of the old _régime_. Certain foreign Powers, which have no love for
the Young Turk _régime_, have also been openly accused of intriguing
with the reactionaries. If they are innocent of this they have but
themselves to blame for the suspicion that attaches to them, for one
can only judge of their present policy by regarding their past. How
unscrupulously Germany exploited the old _régime_ is known to all the
world. Some of the Germans whom I met in Constantinople expressed
their conviction and their hope that the days of the new _régime_
were numbered. It was interesting to hear these men, who represented
the political commercialism of their country, frankly state, as if it
were an incontrovertible axiom, that all European peoples, whether
German, British, or any other, had for their one aim in Turkey the
exploitation of a helpless country. The Germans are perfectly sincere
when they assert that the Balkan Committee is the paid agent of a
cunning British Government, that the expression of British sympathy
for oppressed nationalities is organised hypocrisy with the attainment
of selfish ends as its one motive. As they look with their cold, blue
eyes into yours you realise that they quite believe these things.
The materialism of modern Germany has so sunk into the souls of her
sons—including some of the most illustrious of them—that it has become
inconceivable to them that a nation, or a group of the citizens of
that nation, can take a disinterested interest in the affairs of
other nations and sympathise unselfishly with its misfortunes or
triumphs. To the Germans the enthusiasm with which the success of the
Young Turk cause was welcomed in England was all humbug—a cleverly
engineered manifestation of friendship whose object it was to secure
for Great Britain the influence in Turkey which Germany had lost by the
revolution but confidently looked forward to recovering at an early
date by more straightforward if more brutal methods.

The thirty years of despotism, by its deliberate encouragement of
corruption, had demoralised a great part of the Turkish nation. The
cure cannot come in a day, and those well provided with money can still
buy power in Constantinople. It was amid very corrupt surroundings
that the Young Turks, pure themselves, set to work to undertake the
regeneration of Turkey and to make the Empire strong. To begin with,
Constantinople is full of men who have lived by corrupt practices
all their lives—the men who were blackmailing spies under the old
_régime_, or had belonged to that huge tribe of useless functionaries
who used to crowd every public department and had to be bribed by
those whom business brought into contact with them. All these people,
their occupation now gone, are wandering about the capital in very
disconsolate mood, hard up, regretting “the good old days,” and hating
the purifying influence that has brought this change about. These men
are all reactionaries; many of them know well how to poison the minds
of ignorant people against the Committee with cunning inventions.
They are largely responsible for the growing popular dislike of the
Committee. It is very difficult for the people in the capital to arrive
at the truth, and they are largely at the mercy of paid agitators
and schemers. Even foreign Governments are able to influence public
opinion in Turkey. The Germans and Austrians possess a useful piece of
machinery for the dissemination of news to serve their own interests in
the shape of a telegraphic agency which supplies Constantinople with
practically all its foreign information, and sells its despatches by
the column to the newspapers of that city at a low rate that cannot
possibly pay the expenses of the service. The news which purports to
come from London is often of an astonishing character.

I understand that the Committee of Union and Progress is now about to
reorganise its constitution and convert itself into what we should
call a Parliamentary party; but under whatever name it continues its
existence it is to be hoped that this body of men, which has done
such great and noble work for Turkey, which contains so many men of
single-minded, self-sacrificing patriotism, will remain the dominating
party in the country. But it will have to be as the strong man armed
and ever watchful, for its enemies are many and have the money
wherewith, alas! the consciences of both men and newspapers can still
be purchased in Turkey.




CHAPTER XXI

_THE NEW SULTAN_


The greater part of this book was in the press, and the preceding
chapter, which was to have been the final one, lacked but a few
concluding paragraphs to bring my work to a close, when the news
reached London that a revolution had broken out in Constantinople. On
that eventful thirteenth of April I was lunching in a literary club off
the Strand with two well-known members of the Young Turk party. The
information conveyed by an early issue of a so-called evening paper
was scanty, and we hoped that nothing worse had occurred than one of
those mutinous demonstrations on the part of the Sultan’s pampered
Body-guard which the Young Turks have already proved themselves capable
of suppressing with promptitude and vigour. But later and fuller
information brought anger and sorrow to the friends of Turkey: nearly
the whole garrison of the capital had risen against the Government; the
soldiers were killing their young officers; fanatical mobs were hunting
out the members of the Young Turk party to murder them; the Committee
of Union and Progress, in Constantinople at any rate, was at the feet
of its enemies.

The members of the Committee were fleeing for their lives from their
fellow-countrymen, whom they had saved from a hated despotism. A
few months ago I heard these same Constantinople mobs shouting
themselves hoarse with cries of “Long live the Committee of Union and
Progress!” and all seemed grateful to this band of men who, animated by
single-minded patriotism and a spirit of self-sacrifice, had organised
the revolution. But a large portion of the population of Constantinople
is a very vile thing; it is made up of everything that is worst of the
various races of the Levant and of regions farther east. The fanatical
Kurds are ever ready to join in any rising that gives them the
opportunity of pillage and murder; the greater part of the Christian
population is too cowardly to defend itself; here, too, are collected
all the ex-spies and other corrupt products of the old _régime_. One
is inclined to think that one of the chief lessons to be learnt by the
Young Turks from the counter-revolution is that the seat of Government
might with advantage be removed from Constantinople to some place at a
considerable distance from it. My Turkish friends, I may state here,
were perfectly confident, through those mid-April days when Turkey’s
future seemed so dark, that the triumph of the reactionaries would be
but short-lived, that right would prevail, and that within a few days
the provinces, strongly supporting the Young Turk cause, would compel
the capital to submit to their will.

I have postponed the writing of this final chapter until the last
possible moment, in order that I might obtain a perspective view of
these strange happenings in the Turkish capital. As may be gathered
from the preceding chapter, there was a good deal of uneasiness in
Constantinople for some time before the outbreak of the 13th. The
bitter strife between the Committee of Union and Progress and the
Liberal Union weakened the constitutional cause. A newly formed society
called the Jemiyet-Mohammedieh (the League of Mohammed) was obtaining
a hold upon the Moslem population. It professed to be in favour of the
Constitution, but called for a strict application of the Sheriat or
Sacred Law. It was the enemy of the Committee of Union and Progress,
maintaining that the members of the Committee, including the young
army officers, did not observe the precepts of the Koran, and by
their irreligious ways set a bad example to the rank and file. These
movements afforded an opportunity for mischief to the reactionaries,
the men who cared little for religion or country, but desired the
return of the absolutism with the corruption on which they had lived.
So men from the Palace, together with ex-spies and dishonest Government
_employés_ who had been deprived of their posts by the new _régime_,
began to intrigue with success, and were much helped by the fact that
many of their own base order had wormed themselves both into the
Liberal Union and the Mohammedan League.

The Liberal Union apparently took the lead in the plot against the
Government, and it became obvious that it was well provided with
funds. I am told that for a considerable time before the outbreak the
members of this association used to frequent the principal hotel in
Pera, and made of it a sort of head-quarters. Here, spending plenty of
money, they used to converse plausibly with foreign visitors, including
the correspondents of newspapers; for it was part of their aim to gain
foreign sympathy—and especially English sympathy—for their cause;
their efforts were attended with some success, for while plotting with
reaction they prated of liberty, and their arguments to the effect
that in the Committee of Union and Progress Turkey had but found a new
despotism in place of the old one were convincing to many.

The acrimony of the strife between the two parties was much intensified
by the assassination of the editor of a Liberal newspaper, presumably
by some one in sympathy with the Committee; and as it became clear
that the loyalty of the First Army Corps, forming the garrison of
Constantinople, was being undermined by the agents of reaction,
General Mukhtar Pasha, who was in command of that army corps, began
to take due precautions; on April 12 he issued most stringent orders
to his men, explaining to them that they were to shoot down even
_softas_ and other civilians if ordered to do so by their officers.
I have already explained that the fidelity to the Constitution of
this army corps, which included the pampered Palace Guards, had been
doubtful from the beginning. The Young Turks, after the mutiny in
November, had removed some of the least reliable battalions and had
replaced them with troops from Salonica. They had intended greatly to
reduce the Imperial Guard itself, but had refrained from doing so at
the earnest wish of the Sultan. I have pointed out that before the
revolution these Palace troops were officered with men risen from their
own ranks—_alaili_—ignorant and faithful men who could be relied on
to support their benevolent master, the Sultan. The Young Turks had
removed these rankers, replacing them with _mekteblis_, officers who
have passed through the military schools, and therefore to a man are
supporters of the Young Turk party, many of them being members of the
Committee. There is no doubt that the rank and file bitterly resented
this innovation, and there grew up a sullen discontent, which subtle
agitators who appealed to Mussulman fanaticism could easily fan into
a flame. The _hodjas_ and _softas_ were assiduously preaching in the
barracks that the Committee was endangering the Moslem faith, and the
minds of the men became poisoned against their officers.

But though there was uneasiness in the capital, the counter-revolution
came to the citizens as a complete surprise. In the afternoon of the
12th a British officer, who had just arrived in the capital, visited
the various barracks, and found the troops peacefully drilling or
performing their other ordinary duties, the officers and men alike
seeming happy and contented, and an Inspector of Police of great
experience informed him that the city had never been more quiet and
orderly. During the early hours of the 13th, while it was still
dark, people were awakened by the tramp of soldiery in the streets
(successive bodies of men marching in silence), wondered a little what
these unwonted movements signified, and then went to sleep again. When
they went out a few hours later the citizens found the whole city at
the mercy of nearly twenty thousand mutinous troops. The plot had
been carefully organised with the same extraordinary secrecy that had
characterised the Young Turk revolution of the previous July, and no
one save those concerned had any suspicion as to what was about to
happen.

Before dawn the troops, after shooting some of their officers and
binding and imprisoning others, marched through the streets under the
command of their non-commissioned officers, and concentrated in the
neighbourhood of the House of Parliament. The Salonica Chasseurs, who,
as Macedonian troops, had been regarded as being wholly loyal to the
Young Turk cause, took a leading part in the revolt. A large number of
marines also joined the mutineers and were guilty of the murder of many
officers. When the sun rose the square outside the Parliament House
and the Mosque of St. Sophia was packed with the mutineers and a great
number of _softas_ and _hodjas_ in their turbans and flowing robes,
who harangued the soldiers and inflamed their fanatical zeal. In front
of St. Sophia waved the red and green banner of the Sheriat. Brave
officers who occasionally arrived to remonstrate with their men were
immediately killed.

It was apparent that the revolt had been very carefully planned, and
that the troops had received detailed instructions which they obeyed
to the letter, and there can be no doubt that they were assured that
they were doing as the Padishah wished them to do. Bodies of troops
were detached to seize the bridges and the telegraph offices, and
dispositions were made to meet resistance from any point. It was
made quite clear that the main object of the counter-revolution was
the destruction of the Committee of Union and Progress; for, while
killing officers and others who belonged to that association, the
soldiers preserved order, in no way interfered with the civilian
population, and spoke reassuring words to the Christians whom they
met. But notwithstanding this, there was, of course, a panic in the
city, and all the shops put up their shutters. Mobs of Mussulmans of
the dangerous class, Kurds and Lazes, armed with pistols and clubs,
and in many cases with rifles, joined the soldiery; but even these had
apparently been given the word that excesses would damage the cause
of the faithful, for the massacres and pillage which might have been
expected from this rough and fanatical element of the population did
not occur.

The conspirators had not secured the support of the entire garrison of
Constantinople; for troops loyal to the Government—cavalry, artillery,
and infantry—were holding the Ministry of War on the morning of the
13th. General Mukhtar Pasha, the commander of the First Army Corps,
was on duty on the Asiatic side of the Bosphorus, and he has told
an interviewer that the signal for revolution had been purposely
given while he was absent. So soon as he was informed as to what was
happening he hurried back to Stamboul, and on reaching head-quarters
on the morning of the 13th found the Ministry of War surrounded by a
wildly excited mob. He collected the troops who had not joined the
mutineers and dispersed the crowd with his cavalry. He states that had
he been given full powers he could have nipped the revolt in the bud,
and that had the Ministry taken the proper measures in time the mutiny
could have been mastered without bloodshed. But Mukhtar was expressly
impeded from taking energetic action and, as the natural result, his
own troops began to desert him. When Mukhtar heard that the Sultan had
issued an amnesty to the mutineers he realised that he could do no
more, and resigned his command. He only escaped the death that had been
prepared for him by taking a circuitous route, and ultimately found a
refuge on a foreign man-of-war.

The demands that were made by the mutineers showed pretty conclusively
that the plot had been arranged by the Liberal Union working hand in
hand with reactionaries and fanatics. The troops cheered loudly for
the Sultan, called for the strict application of the Sacred Law, the
overthrow of the Government, the destruction of the Committee, and
the removal of the officers of the Salonica Chasseurs and the marines.
The following specific demands, which could never have been thought
out by the ignorant soldiers, who know nothing of politics, were also
put forward by them—demands which had obviously been prompted by the
Liberal Union—the dismissal of the Grand Vizier, the Ministers of War
and Marine, the commander of the First Army Corps, and the President
of the Chamber of Deputies; the removal from Constantinople of the
editor of the Young Turk newspaper, the _Tannin_, and the expulsion of
Rahmi Bey and Djavid Bey, Deputies for Salonica, and members of the
Committee of Union and Progress. The soldiers also asked that Ismail
Kemal Bey, the leader of the Liberal Union, and his supporter, Zohrab
Bey, should be made President and Vice-President of the Chamber of
Deputies. Their acts as well as their words proved who had instigated
them to revolt; they murdered Nazim Pasha, the Minister of Justice, and
wounded the Minister of Marine; they killed the Emir Mohammed Arslan,
a highly respected Deputy, as he was entering the House, mistaking him
for the editor of the _Tannin_, and they destroyed the offices of the
Committee of Union and Progress, as well as those of its organs, the
_Shura-i-Ummet_ and the _Tannin_.

During April 13 the reactionaries ruled Constantinople; the members
of the Committee of Union and Progress had to take to flight or hide
themselves, and several of the Generals crossed the Bosphorus and
took refuge in the house of a well-known British merchant. The Liberal
Union, which had let loose the forces of disorder, enjoyed but a short
triumph. In the evening of the 13th some Deputies met in the House
and elected the Liberal Union leader, Ismail Kemal Bey, as President
of the Chamber—an illegal proceeding, as there was no quorum, and the
Young Turk members who represented the parliamentary majority naturally
were not present. In the course of the day Ismail Kemal and some
members of the Liberal Union went to the Yildiz and begged the Sultan
to appoint Kiamil Pasha, who was a supporter of the Union, as Grand
Vizier, but the Sultan refused to listen to their advice. From this
time the Liberal Union lost its hold on the people, and was deserted
by many members of the party who were good patriots and adherents
of the Constitution, for these recognised and were horrified at the
mischief that had been wrought by the self-seeking wire-pullers of this
so-called “Liberal” organisation.

And in the meanwhile all eyes were turned anxiously to the Yildiz to
discover what would be the attitude of the inscrutable monarch at this
crisis. In the evening of the 13th, when the Sultan granted an amnesty
to the mutineers, called them his children, and yielded to many of
their demands, there were lovers of liberty who feared the worst; but
when it became known that the Sultan had not taken immediate advantage
of the situation to restore absolutism, but, on the contrary, on
the resignation of the Young Turk Ministry in the afternoon, had
appointed Tewfik Pasha as Grand Vizier and Edhem Pasha as Minister of
War, great relief was felt; for these were two trusted and able men,
who, though they were no partisans of this or that political group,
were undoubtedly men of Liberal principles and no creatures of the
Despotism. So the Constitutionalists took heart, and they were still
more reassured when on the 15th Nazim Pasha was appointed Commander of
the First Army Corps and Assistant Minister of War. The appointment
of Nazim Pasha as Minister of War in February last had roused the
opposition of the Committee of Union and Progress, and was one of the
chief causes of the fall of Kiamil Pasha; but, as the Young Turks
clearly explained at the time, it was with Kiamil’s policy that they
found fault; Nazim himself was admired and respected by them as a fine
soldier and a man of distinctly Liberal views, for which the Palace had
made him suffer in his time. It was therefore recognised that the newly
created temporary Government was at any rate not a reactionary one, and
that the cause of liberty, though still in great peril, was not yet
lost.

For twenty-four hours the soldiers celebrated their victory by firing
off their rifles in the streets, thereby accidentally killing and
wounding a good many people. It was noticed that they had plenty of
money to spend, and it was evident that a large sum had been provided
by the organisers of the conspiracy to buy the support of the army.
As many of the men confessed afterwards, they had succumbed to gifts
of money and had been misled by lying preachers who approached them
in the name of religion. On April 15 Nazim Pasha, who is popular with
the army, though a strict disciplinarian, announced that the severest
punishment would be inflicted on any soldiers who fired in the streets,
and explained that the Sultan’s amnesty only protected them from
punishment for crimes committed during the two previous days. Next
he released all officers who had been imprisoned by the mutineers,
and warned the soldiers that no mercy would be shown to those who
molested these officers or any of the civilian population. The bulk
of the troops now returned to their barracks, order was restored, and
outwardly Constantinople was once again a city of peace.

But a crime had been committed with what far-reaching evil results to
Turkey no man knows yet. This wanton conspiracy, doomed to failure
from the beginning, not only threatened the destruction of the
Constitution, but, stirring up all the forces of reaction, sent a wave
of fanaticism sweeping through Asia that it will be difficult indeed
to stem. It has brought about the massacre of Christians, civil war,
the fratricidal fighting between Turkish armies, the menace of foreign
intervention, and the possibility of the disintegration of the Empire
itself. The counter-revolution soon bore its evil fruit. On April 15,
telegrams from Mersina, in Asia Minor, announced the beginning of
those massacres which have cost the lives of thousands of Armenians.
It is probable that the reactionaries planned these massacres, for the
fact that certain notable Armenians were warned as to what was about
to happen by their Moslem friends, disproves the theory that a chance
affray was responsible for all this slaughter; at any rate the outbreak
of murderous fanaticism would have been suppressed speedily had not
the authority of the Government officials on the spot been destroyed
by the revolt in the capital. Then came the news of a rising of the
Moslem Albanians, whom the agents of reaction had converted into the
bitter enemies of the Young Turks. During these days of doubt and fear
for patriotic Turks, but one event of hopeful augury occurred. On April
19 the Turko-Bulgarian Protocol, by which Turkey recognised Bulgaria’s
independence, was signed. The provisional Government had acted wisely,
for thus was removed the danger of a war with Bulgaria at this very
critical time.

A member of the Young Turk party said to me: “If the reactionaries
imagine that we will take this lying down they will find themselves
much mistaken. We are very strong: practically all European Turkey is
on our side, and you will see that we will now set to work to crush
the power of the reactionaries once and for all.” And so indeed it has
come to pass. When the news of the counter-revolution reached Salonica,
the city that is proud that it was the cradle of Turkey’s liberty, the
inhabitants—Moslems, Christians, and Jews—were infuriated, and called
for an immediate march upon Constantinople. To Salonica flocked the
officers and other members of the Committee who had escaped from the
capital, and thither, too, hurried the two gallant young leaders of
the July revolution, Enver Bey and Hakki Bey, who at the time were the
Turkish military _attachés_ in Berlin and Vienna respectively. Niazi
Bey, too, in Monastir, sent the word to his Albanian and Bulgarian
friends to collect volunteers, and he himself, with the regulars under
his command, took train to Salonica. And now it was made manifest that
Macedonia, at any rate, remained faithful to the Constitution and to
the Young Turk party. The men of the Third Army Corps were eager to be
led against the traitorous reactionaries of the capital; the civilian
Moslems formed themselves into bands of _fedais_; all the Bulgarian
clubs in Macedonia declared themselves the supporters of the Young Turk
cause, and their members expressed their readiness to die in defence
of the Constitution, and this despite the fact that the Bulgarians
had not been treated fairly during the Parliamentary elections; the
famous Bulgarian chiefs, Sandansky and Panitza, and other Bulgarian
leaders, brought their bands of enthusiastic mountaineers to Salonica;
the Albanian Christian mountain tribes, including my old friends the
Miridites, sent their armed men to fight for the cause; the Jews
volunteered in numbers; indeed, of the various elements composing the
population of Macedonia the Greeks alone appear to have held aloof.

In Constantinople the reactionaries, notwithstanding the appointment of
a Ministry that supported the Constitution, had taken it for granted
that the success of their cause was assured, and, having seduced the
garrison to their side, they but awaited the order of the Sultan to
complete their work and give the _coup de grace_ to the _régime_ of
liberty. They had apparently omitted to consider whether the rest of
Turkey would support their action; for the news from Macedonia came as
a shocking surprise to them, and irritated the well-named _Volkan_, the
organ of the League of Mohammed, into an eruption of furious articles
of a highly inflammatory and dangerous character. First came the news
from Salonica that the Committee of Union and Progress refused to
acknowledge the new Government, and that the Macedonians intended to
march upon Constantinople. On April 16 a telegram announced that the
first sixteen battalions of the Constitutional army (the Third Army
Corps) had already entrained at Salonica. Next it became known that
the Second Army Corps at Adrianople had agreed to support the Salonica
force. On the 19th the advanced patrols of the avenging Macedonian army
were at St. Stefano within two leagues of the capital. It was all in
vain that the Government sent telegrams and deputations to Salonica to
reassure the Young Turks and to explain that the Constitution was in no
danger, and would be respected by the Sultan and his new Ministry, for
the Young Turks could not be brought to believe that the Constitution
was secure while the capital was full of triumphant reactionaries and
troops who had been bought over to their cause, acting in the name of a
Sultan whom it would be folly to trust again.

So the Parliamentary troops began to concentrate round the capital,
and the reactionaries lost heart. The Palace spies and other deeply
compromised persons thought it prudent to flee from the capital. A
friend of mine, writing from Constantinople, tells me that a panic
seized the people, including many Europeans, and that their hurried
departure to catch any steamer in the port, bound for no matter
where, was comic, but lacking in dignity. On the other hand, the
different Liberal political groups, Moslem, Christian, and Jew, agreed
to put aside their party differences and to unite in upholding the
Constitution. The Committee of Union and Progress recovered much of the
influence and popularity that it had lost, for it was recognised that
this organisation alone had the power behind it to enforce the will of
the people and defeat the reactionaries. It became plain, too, that the
Ministry itself was co-operating with the leaders of the Macedonian
army, so as to come to some arrangement that would safeguard the
Constitution and at the same time prevent, if possible, the shedding
of blood. As for the Sultan, he remained in the Yildiz, inscrutable
as ever, and had frequent conferences with Tewfik Pasha, his Grand
Vizier, who announced that “His Sublime Majesty awaits benevolently the
arrival of the so-called constitutional army. He has nothing to gain
or fear, since His Sublimity is for the Constitution and is its supreme
guardian.”

No preparations for defence or resistance of any sort were made by
the Government, and Nazim Pasha and the other Generals in the capital
confined themselves to maintaining order in the garrison and preventing
any fanatical outbreak on the part of the rough element of the
Moslem population. Of the troops forming the garrison a considerable
proportion repented that they had taken part in the mutiny, and,
acknowledging that they had been misled by lies, were ready to take the
oath of fidelity to the Constitution; but, on the other hand, a great
many, including the six thousand who were guarding the Yildiz, were
faithful to those who had deceived and bribed them, and were prepared
to die for the Sultan.

General Husni Pasha rapidly brought up the troops that were to
invest the capital, the bulk of them belonging to the Third Army
Corps; but the force also included contingents from the Second, or
Adrianople, Army Corps and numbers of volunteers, for the most part
Moslem Macedonians, Bulgarians, and Albanians, wild-looking men from
the mountains clad in their picturesque native dress. General Mahmut
Shevket Pasha, the commander of the Third Army Corps, directed the
operations, and on the 21st he left Salonica for the front to take
over the supreme command of the army of investment. Foreign military
observers have spoken in terms of highest praise of the rapidity with
which the Third Army Corps was mobilised, the admirable organisation,
the discipline, _morale_, and excellent condition of the troops, the
arrangements for the supply of food, the completeness of the equipment
of the force, which included field hospitals, field telegraphs, and
other details. The Turkish army has profited much by the splendid
training of Baron von der Goltz and the German officers under him, and
has become a fighting machine which will be able to give a very good
account of itself if the enemies of Turkey venture to attack her.

It is unnecessary to give an account here of the various negotiations
which were carried on between the Ministry in Constantinople and the
advancing army, for it is clear that these were mostly simulated
with the object of keeping the capital quiet and gaining time until
Shevket Pasha had collected a force sufficiently large to overawe
the reactionary portion of the garrison and so secure the entry and
occupation of Constantinople with as little bloodshed as possible.
Of the many statements made at this time by the Ministry and the
Young Turk leaders, one stands out as important and significant. The
Committee of Union and Progress, recognising that this was no time
for any political party to assert itself, and that all friends of
liberty should unite to save the Constitution, announced its intention
of remaining completely in the background and not intervening in
any way, while the army, acting quite independently, would free the
Constitution from the fetters which traitors had placed upon it. The
army, it was maintained, had nothing to do with politics or parties. It
was the army of the nation, and it was for Shevket Pasha, representing
the army, to redeem its honour by entering the capital, proclaiming
martial law, and severely punishing the traitors who had corrupted the
soldiers and used them to forward their reactionary schemes.

The army of investment increased in numbers daily, and on April 22
a semi-circle of thirty thousand men enclosed Constantinople on its
land side while men-of-war guarded its sea approaches. On that day a
National Assembly, composed of Senators and Deputies, with Said Pasha
as President, held a secret session at St. Stefano, within the lines
of the investing army, and apparently agreed on the deposition of the
Sultan. On Friday, April 23, Abdul Hamid, for the last time, was the
central figure of the Selamlik and drove to the mosque between faithful
Guards and a crowd of many thousands of his subjects. Only ten days had
passed since the counter-revolution had restored to him much of his
former despotic power, but the action of the Young Turks was quick and
decisive, and this was to be the last day of his long and calamitous
reign.

Shevket Pasha, having completed his dispositions, lost no time in
further parleying, recognising that to do as speedily as possible what
had to be done would probably save much bloodshed in the capital, and
prevent the further spreading of the dangerous reactionary movements
in Asia Minor and Albania. At three in the morning of April 24 the
Macedonian troops, regulars and volunteers, began to work their way
into the city from all sides, and proceeded to occupy Stamboul,
Galata, and Pera. They entered Stamboul by the principal gates that
pierce the ancient walls, encountering resistance at one gate only.
Near the Sublime Porte a portion of the garrison offered a determined
resistance, which was overcome by Niazi Bey, at the head of the
Resna battalion, and a band of Macedonian volunteers. Some of the
guard-houses had to be taken at the point of the bayonet. The entry
into Stamboul of the Parliamentary troops seems to have taken a great
part of the garrison by surprise, for Shevket Pasha, in his official
report, states that “the troops quartered at the Ministry of War were
compelled to surrender before they had time to defend themselves.”

On the farther side of the Golden Horn the fighting was more severe
than in Stamboul. Shortly after 5 A.M. firing commenced in the
outskirts of Pera. The Macedonian troops attacked the Taksim and
Tashkishla barracks, which were defended in most stubborn manner
by desperate men who thought that they would receive no mercy, and
there was fierce street fighting in the European quarter, where the
guard-houses were bravely held by the misguided men of the First Army
Corps. From the Tashkishla barracks a heavy fire was opened upon
the advancing troops, and the barracks had to be shelled and almost
destroyed by the artillery on the heights above, before the garrison,
after several hours’ fighting and heavy losses, surrendered.

Equally desperate was the defence of the Taxim barracks, the attack on
which was led by Enver Bey. This young officer, who, during the months
that preceded the revolution, had wandered, disguised and at great risk
to his life, through the Macedonian garrison towns, and there, though
surrounded by spies, had successfully won officers and men over to the
cause, like his friend Niazi desired no recognition of his patriotic
work, and, modest as he is able, was glad to accept the simple post of
military _attaché_ at Berlin. Recalled by his country’s danger when
the counter-revolution broke out, he joined the army at Salonica, and
now, on April 24, he was leading across the Taxim Square a charge of
regular troops and volunteers—Moslems, Christians, and Jews—fighting
shoulder to shoulder against a Moslem foe, a strange thing, indeed, to
come about in Turkey. These men fought splendidly under their young
leader, but so deadly a fire was opened upon them from the loopholed
barracks that here, too, artillery had to be employed to overpower the
defence. Guns were dragged up the steep, narrow streets by the willing
populace and opened fire at very short range upon the barracks and the
Taxim guard-house. Then there was a rush of the Turks, Bulgarians,
and white-capped Albanians, and the defenders, after a three hours’
resistance, which cost the attacking force many casualties, hoisted the
white flag and surrendered.

While barracks were being thus assaulted, and there was hand-to-hand
fighting in the streets of Pera, the commander-in-chief of the
Macedonian forces had made most careful dispositions to preserve order
in the great city and protect the civilian population. A detachment
of troops was sent to guard each embassy. Bodies of regulars, cadets
and volunteers patrolled the streets of Pera and Galata, shooting down
such Marines and Kurds as were attempting to loot the shops, and making
prisoners of all the soldiers belonging to the garrison whom they came
across. In Stamboul the troops seized hundreds of spies, _softas_ and
_hodjas_, who, after stirring up the evil passions of the garrison and
the populace, had taken refuge in the mosques. By noon, quiet had been
restored in Constantinople, and in the evening the troops quartered
in the Selimieh barracks at Scutari surrendered to the Macedonian
regiments which had been transported across the Bosphorus to compel the
submission of these men, and to intercept fugitives from the capital.

These operations were all planned and carried into execution with a
wonderful skill. The discipline, courage, and irreproachable conduct of
the Macedonian troops aroused the admiration of all foreign observers.
The wild-looking volunteers from the mountains fought as bravely as the
regulars, and their behaviour was exemplary. That evening nearly twenty
thousand fighting men, flushed with victory, were scattered through the
great city, and yet there appear to have been no cases of drunkenness
or irregularities of any description. It was the triumph of the right
cause—the cause that represents enlightenment, justice, liberty, and
true patriotism—as opposed to tyranny, corruption, fanaticism, and
ignorance.

The capital was in the hands of the Young Turks; the forces of reaction
had been crushed; a state of siege was proclaimed; some thousands of
arrests were made; the more guilty received the punishment which they
deserved, and the others were treated with leniency, for, while justice
was administered, anything that savoured of vengeance was disallowed;
the First Army Corps was disbanded and the mutinous soldiers were sent
to Macedonia, to be employed in constructing roads; Tewfik Pasha and
his ministers consented to carry on the government provisionally.

In short, the Young Turk _régime_ was firmly reestablished by men
who acted with discretion and decision after a crisis that perhaps
has cleared the atmosphere and effected a reconciliation between
such political foes as have in common the love of country and the
determination to uphold the Constitution.

Early in the morning of April 27 Reshad Effendi left his residence,
the Dolma Baghche Palace, and drove to the War Office, where he was
proclaimed Sultan with a salvo of 101 guns. After thirty-three years of
luxurious but depressing isolation he now changes places with his elder
brother, the former going from captivity to a throne, the latter from
a throne to captivity. The new Sultan is an amiable man, beloved by
his _entourage_, and he has already produced a favourable impression on
such foreigners as have been received by him.




INDEX


  Aali Pasha, 26.

  Aassim Bey, 248.

  Abd-ul-Aziz, accession of, 25;
    deposed, 29.

  Abdul Hamid, accession of, 30.

  Abdul Houda, 205.

  Abd-ul-Mejid, 25.

  Administration by the Young Turks, 214.

  Ahmed Riza, 248;
    and the Central Committee, 102;
    in London, 76, 78.

  Albania, revolt in, 66-70.

  Albanian chiefs, the, 154;
    horrors, 22.

  Albanians support the Committee, 169-194.

  Ali Bey, 69.

  Ameer Ali, 61.

  Anatolian troops, 169-184.

  Anti-Christian feeling, 10.

  Animals, kindness to, 8.

  Army, the, 40;
    a strong, needed, 261, 280;
    and the Revolution, 113-115;
    discontent in the, 87-100;
    and the Committee, 224;
    mutinous, 300;
    Young Turks and, 89-100.

  Astrologer at Court, an, 205.

  Atrocities, 15-24.

  Austria’s annexations, 238;
    trade, boycott of, 218.

  “Awakening of Turkey,” play, 257.


  “Bag and Baggage” policy, the, 21.

  Balance of Power, the, 36.

  Bloodless Victory, a, 185, 197.

  Boer War and the Turks, 47.

  Bosnia, annexation of, 238;
    risings in, 27.

  Boycott of Austrian trade, 218.

  Brigands, Macedonian, 18;
    Turkish, 7.

  British, hatred of the, 45.

  Bulgarian Atrocities, 18;
    insurrection, 152-158.

  Bulgarians and Greeks, 93;
    friendly, 169-184.


  Camarilla, dispersal of, 232.

  Causes of revolt, 49.

  Censorship, the, 41.

  Central Committee, the, 101, 117, 119, 132, 199, 224, 246.

  Characteristics of Turks, 5.

  Christian propagandists, 94.

  Congress at Salonica, 252;
    of 1907, 85.

  Constantinople after the revolt, 211.

  Constitution granted, 205;
    proclaimed, 200;
    suspended, 33.

  Corruption in Constantinople, 294;
    spread of, 35-53.

  Counter-revolution, the, 297-320.

  _Coup d’état_, of 1876, 28.

  Crawford, Mr., 235.

  Customs, reorganisation of, 235.

  Czar, the, and Edward VII, 122.


  Death of Shemshi Pasha, 168.

  Demonstrations, 209.

  Despotism, final efforts of, 169-184.

  “Diary of a Young Turk,” 115.

  Discontent in the Army, 87-100.

  Dismemberment of Turkey, 1.

  Disunion, 299.

  Djavid Bey, 248.

  Dogs in Constantinople, 8.

  Domination of the Committee, 224.


  Early Reformers, 25-34.

  Education, spread of, 54-63.

  Edward VII and the Tsar, 122;
    congratulations from, 231.

  Elections, the, 273-280.

  Electoral law, the, 270.

  Enemies of the Young Turks, 284.

  England and Turkey, 4;
    friendship with, 229.

  Enver Bey, 125, 130, 169, 248.

  European assistance, 227-237;
    influence, 13.

  Exile of leaders, 31.

  Exiles, return of the, 208.

  Eyoub Effendi, 188.


  Faik Bey, 248.

  Fehim Pasha, 42.

  Ferid Pasha dismissed, 204.

  Finances, organisation of, 235.

  Fraternising, 209.

  Freemasonry, 101.

  French influence, 13.

  Fuad Pasha, 26.


  Geneva, Young Turks at, 72.

  German influence, 45, 93, 295.

  Greek influence, 253-277;
    Patriarchate influence of, 221.

  Greeks and Bulgarians, 93.

  Guards, the Palace, 238-248.


  Halil Halid, 19.

  Hamidian _régime_, the, 35-53.

  Hatti-Sherif of Gulhane, the, 25.

  Herzegovina, annexation of, 238;
    risings in, 27.

  Hilmi Pasha, 202, 234.

  _Hurriet_, newspaper, the, 64.


  Ignatieff, 26.

  Influence, European, 13;
    German, 45, 93, 295.

  Insurrection, in Bulgaria, 152, 158;
    the Macedonian, 90.

  Intermarriage with Westerns, 57.

  Internal dissensions, 281-296.

  Interregnum, the, 222.

  Ismail Pasha, 131.

  Istarova, Niazi at, 172.


  Japan-Russo War, influence of, 54.

  Jews and the Young Turks, 83.


  Kemil Bey, poet, 57.

  Kermanle Metre, 139.

  Kiamil Pasha, 39, 230;
    resignation of, 287.


  Labcha, 156.

  Laurent, Monsieur, 235.

  Liberal Union, the, 290.

  Liberty secured for all, 225.

  Literature, Turkish, 13.


  Macedonia, in 1908, 133;
    pacification of, 227;
    partition of, 2.

  Macedonian brigands, 18;
    Committees, 84;
    insurrection, 90.

  Magna Charta of Turkey, the, 25.

  Mahmud II, 25.

  Mahmud Nedim Pasha, 26-27.

  Manifesto of Central Committee, 120.

  Mascot, a, 191.

  Mehemet Ali, murder of, 69.

  Midhat Pasha, premier, 26, 31;
    exile and death, 33.

  Military and the Revolution, 113;
    condition of the, 50-53.

  Mohammedans and the Committee, 224.

  Monastir 152;
    capture of, 192, 194;
    Vali of, 169, 184.

  Mongolians, the, 5.

  Moslem reformation, the, 60.

  Murad V, 29.

  Mussulman, the, 5;
    influence, 154.


  Nationalist parties, 288.

  Navy, decay of the, 36.

  Nazim Bey, Colonel, sent to Salonica, 127.

  Niazi Bey, 133-138, 141;
    called to Ochrida, 185;
    letters of, 116;
    revolt of, 125;
    work in Bulgaria, 160;
    at Velijon, 166;
    manifesto, 164.


  Ochrida, 186;
    the march on, 190.

  Osman Pasha, a prisoner, 195.

  Ottoman Committee, the, 75-97.


  Palace, corruption at, 6;
    and the Greeks, 159, 184.

  Pan-Islamic schemes, 38.

  Pan-Islamism, repudiated, 58.

  Paris, Young Turks at, 72.

  Parliament, dissolved, 65;
    opening of, 281-296;
    the new, 249, 260, 276, 280, 287.

  Parties in Parliament, 287.

  People, the Turkish, 1.

  Police, secret, 42.

  Polygamy, 11.

  Poole, Stanley Lane, 13.

  Power, the balance of, 36.

  Press, liberty of, 41;
    and the Committee, 224.

  Proclamation to the Greeks, 182.

  Programme of Young Turk party, 261.


  Reactionary intrigues, 239, 293.

  Reformation, the Moslem, 60.

  Reformers, early, 25-34.

  Religious questions, 9.

  Reshad Effendi proclaimed Sultan, 319.

  Reshid Pasha, 25.

  Resources, development of, 264.

  Revolt, causes of, 49;
    standard of, 133.

  Revolution, after the, 207-221;
    beginning of, 117-132;
    of 1907, 54.

  Rise of the Young Turks, 64-86.

  Resna, the rising of, 146.

  Russia, peace of 1878, 33.

  Russian influence, 16.

  Russo-Turkish War, the, 16.


  Sabah-ed-Din, Prince, 76.

  Said Pasha, Grand Vizier, 204, 229.

  Salonica, Central Committee at, 103;
    Congress at, 252;
    Ottoman Committee at, 97-100.

  Sandansky, king of the mountains, 211.

  Secret police, the, 42.

  Secret proceedings, 105.

  Sefer Bey, 30.

  Selamlik, the, 243.

  Self-rule, preparing for, 249-260.

  Sheik-ul-Islam, the, 11.

  Shemshi Pasha, 126-152;
    assassinated, 168.

  Shura-i-Ummet journal, the, 248.

  “Sick man of Europe,” the, 21.

  “Silistria,” the, 57.

  Softas, the, 28.

  Spies in Turkey, 20;
    system of, 41, 44, 66.

  Spread of Corruption, the, 35-53.

  Spread of Education, 54-63.

  Spy system, the military, 89.

  Standard of Revolt, the, 133-151.

  “Story of the Nations,” the, 13.

  Sultan, character of the, 37;
    the new, 297-320.


  Taxation, re-adjustment of, 265.

  Theatre, influence of the, 257.

  Tolerance of the Young Turks, 59.

  Treachery against Turkey, 3.

  Troops, the palace, 242.

  Tsar, the, and Edward VII, 122.


  Ulemas, the, 11, 61.

  Ultimatum of the Committee, 198-206.

  Union and Progress, Committee of, 261, 280, 284.

  “Unspeakable Turks,” the, 15.


  Vali of Monastir, the, 169, 184.

  Velijon, Niazi at, 166.

  Victory, a Bloodless, 185-197.

  Von der Goltz, Baron, 103.


  Western ideas, influence of, 56.

  Whittall, Sir William, 7.

  Women, in the Revolution, 112;
    status of, 12.


  Yildiz soldiers, the, 239.

  Young Turk party, the, 3, 55, 59-63, 86;
    programme, 261;
    movement of, 79;
    administration by, 214;
    rise of the, 64-86.



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