Young Turk Revolution

The Young Turk Revolution (July 1908) was

Young Turk Revolution
a constitutionalist revolution in the Ottoman
Empire. The Committee of Union and Progress Part of the collapse of the Ottoman Empire
(CUP), an organization of the Young Turks
movement, forced Sultan Abdul Hamid II to
restore the Ottoman Constitution and recall the
parliament, which ushered in multi-party
politics within the Empire. From the Young
Turk Revolution to the Empire's end marks the
Second Constitutional Era of the Ottoman
Empire's history. More than three decades
earlier, in 1876, constitutional monarchy had
been established under Abdul Hamid during a
period of time known as the First Constitutional
Era, which lasted for only two years before
Abdul Hamid suspended it and restored
Declaration of the Young Turk Revolution by the
autocratic powers to himself.
leaders of the Ottoman millets in 1908
The revolution began with CUP member Date July 1908
Ahmed Niyazi's flight into the Albanian
Location Ottoman Empire
highlands. He was soon joined by İsmail Enver
and Eyub Sabri. They networked with local Result Young Turks victory
Albanians and utilized their connections within
Second Constitutional Era begins
the Salonica based Third Army to instigate a
large revolt. Various coordinated assassinations Repromulgation of the Constitution
by Unionist Fedai also contributed to Abdul Reinstatement of the parliament
Hamid's capitulation. With a Constitutionalist General elections are called
revolt in the Rumelian provinces instigated by
the CUP, Abdul Hamid capitulated and Belligerents
announced the restoration of the Constitution, Ottoman Imperial
recalled the parliament, and called for elections. Young Turks
Government
CUP

After an attempted monarchist

counterrevolution known as the 31 March Ottoman Army
Incident in favor of Abdul Hamid the following
year, he was deposed and his brother Mehmed Third Army
V ascended the throne. Second Army
First Army
IMRO
Contents Commanders and leaders
Background İsmail Enver
Abdul Hamid II

Ahmed Niyazi
Mehmed Ferid Pasha

Young Turks Movement

Rexhep Pasha Mati
Shemsi Pasha †
Revolution
Eyub Sabri

Aftermath
 Cultural and international impact Yane Sandanski

In popular culture Hristo Chernopeev

Gallery
See also
References
Bibliography
External links

Background
Countering the conservative politics of Abdul Hamid II's reign was the amount of social reform that
occurred during this time period. The development of a more liberal environment in Turkey strengthened
the culture, and also provided the grounds for the later rebellion. Abdul Hamid's political circle was close-
knit and ever-changing. When the sultan abandoned the previous politics from 1876, he suspended the
Ottoman Parliament in 1878. This left a very small group of individuals able to partake in politics in the
Ottoman Empire.[1]

Young Turks Movement

The origins of the revolution lie within the Young Turk movement, which wished to see Abdul Hamid's
regime dismantled and reintroduce the Constitution. Most Young Turk intellectuals were exiled, however
many in the military held sympathies to the Young Turks. The Macedonian Conflict, a low intensity ethnic
conflict in the Macedonian region revealed to many army officers stationed there the state was in need of
drastic reform. While the Young Turks were in consensus that democratization was required for
Ottomanism, the idea of national unity among the ethnic groups of the Ottoman Empire, they disagreed on
further reform.[1][2]

The Liberals, led by Prince Sabahattin (who was in exile in Switzerland) called for a more relaxed form of
government as well as laissez faire economics. They also pushed for more autonomy of the different ethnic
groups, which was popular among the minorities within in the Empire.

A more influential Young Turk faction organized under the Committee of Union and Progress (CUP),
whose leader, Ahmed Rıza, was in exile in Paris. The Unionists wished for an Ottoman Empire dominated
by Turks. From 1905, the CUP was able to infiltrate many institutions within the Ottoman government,
most recruits being young officers of the Ottoman Third Army.

Revolution
The event that triggered the Revolution was a meeting in the Baltic port of Reval between Edward VII of
the United Kingdom and Nicholas II of Russia in June 1908. Though these imperial powers had
experienced relatively few major conflicts between them over the previous hundred years, an underlying
rivalry, otherwise known as "the Great Game", had exacerbated the situation to such an extent that
resolution was sought. The Anglo-Russian Convention of 1907 brought shaky British-Russian relations to
the forefront by solidifying boundaries that identified their respective control in Persia (eastern border of the
Empire) and Afghanistan.
The defense of their shrinking state had become a matter of intense professional pride within the military
which caused them to raise arms against their state. Many Unionist officers of the Ottoman Third Army
based in Salonika (modern Thessaloniki), feared that the meeting was a prelude to the partition of
Macedonia and mutinied against Sultan Abdul Hamid II. A desire to preserve the state, not destroy it,
motivated the revolutionaries. The revolt began in July 1908.[3] Major Ahmed Niyazi, Ismail Enver, Eyub
Sabri, and other Unionists within the Third Army fled into the mountains to organize guerilla bands of
volunteers and deserters all the while pressuring Abdul Hamid to reinstate the Constitution. The Committee
threatened Hayri Pasha, field marshal of the Third Army, into passive cooperation, while also assassinating
Şemsi Pasha, whom Abdul Hamid had sent to suppress the revolt in Macedonia.[4] At this point, the mutiny
which originated in the Third Army in Salonica took hold of the Second Army based in Adrianople
(modern Edirne) as well as Anatolian troops sent from Izmir. The rapid momentum of the Unionist's
organization, intrigues within the military, and discontent with Abdul Hamid's autocratic rule and a desire
for the Constitution meant Abdul Hamid was alone and compelled to capitulate. Under pressure of being
deposed, on July 24, 1908, Abdul Hamid capitulated and reinstated the Constitution to great jubilation.

July 24, 1908 started the Ottoman Empire's Second Constitution Era.[5] Importantly, the CUP did not
overthrow the government and nominally committed itself to democratic ideals and Constitutionalism.[6]
After the revolution, power was informally shared between the palace (Abdul Hamid), the Sublime Porte,
and the CUP, whose Central Committee was still based in Salonica, and now represented a powerful deep
state faction.

Historian Ronald Grigor Suny states that the revolution had no popular support and was actually "a coup
d'état by a small group of military officers and civilian activists in the Balkans".[7]

Aftermath
The 1908 Ottoman general election took place during November and
December 1908. The candidates backed by the CUP won 60 seats in
the parliament. The Senate of the Ottoman Empire reconvened for the
first time in over 30 years on 17 December 1908 with the living
members like Hasan Fehmi Pasha from the First Constitutional Era.
The Chamber of Deputies' first session was on 30 January 1909.
These developments caused the gradual creation of a new governing
elite.

Following the revolution, many organizations, some of them

previously underground, established political parties.[8] Among these
the CUP and the Liberty (Ahrar) Party and later on Freedom and
Accord, were the major ones. There were smaller parties such as
Ottoman Socialist Party. On the other end of the spectrum were the
ethnic parties which included; People's Federative Party (Bulgarian
Section), Bulgarian Constitutional Clubs, Jewish Social Democratic
Labour Party in Palestine (Poale Zion), Al-Fatat, and Armenians Enver Bey and Niyazi Bey from a
organized under Armenakan, Hunchakian and Armenian postcard in 1908.
Revolutionary Federation (ARF).

While the Young Turk Revolution had promised organizational improvement, once instituted, the
government at first proved itself rather disorganized and ineffectual. Although these working-class citizens
had little knowledge of how to control a government, they imposed their ideas on the Ottoman Empire. In a
small Liberal victory, Kâmil Pasha, a Liberal supporter and Anglophile, was appointed as the Grand Vizier
on 5 August 1908. His policies helped to maintain some balance between the CUP and the Liberals, but
conflict with the former led to his removal barely 6 months later, on 14 February 1909.[9]

Abdul Hamid maintained his throne by conceding its existence as a symbolic position, but in April 1909
attempted to seize power (see 31 March Incident) by stirring populist sentiment throughout the Empire. The
Sultan's bid for a return to power gained traction when he promised to restore the caliphate, eliminate
secular policies, and restore the Sharia-based legal system. On 13 April 1909, army units revolted, joined
by masses of theological students and turbaned clerics shouting, "We want Sharia", and moving to restore
the Sultan's absolute power. The Action Army commanded by Mahmud Shevket Pasha reversed these
actions and restored parliamentary rule after crushing the uprising on 24 April 1909. The deposition of
Abdul Hamid II in favor of Mehmed V followed.

Two European powers took advantage of the chaos by decreasing Ottoman sovereignty in the Balkans.
Bulgaria, de jure an Ottoman vassal but de facto all but formally independent, declared its independence on
the 5th of October. The day after, Austria-Hungary officially annexed Bosnia and Herzegovina which used
to be de jure Ottoman territory but de facto occupied by Austria-Hungary.

Cultural and international impact

Hüseyin Hilmi Pasha's government signed into law the commemoration of the Young Turk Revolution and
the second proclamation of the Constitution as a national holiday known as İyd-i Millî (National Holiday)
in the Ottoman Empire and the Republic of Turkey. It was celebrated every July 23 starting in 1909, but the
holiday decreased in importance due to Republic Day, the proclamation of the Turkish Republic on
October 29, 1923. It stopped being celebrated as a national holiday by 1935.

In some communities, such as the Jewish (cf. Jews in Islamic Europe and North Africa and Jews in
Turkey), reformist groups emulating the Young Turks ousted the conservative ruling elite and replaced them
with a new reformist one.

Armenian Revolutionary Federation, previously outlawed, became the main representative of the Armenian
community in the Ottoman Empire,[10] replacing the pre-1908 Armenian elite, which had been composed
of merchants, artisans, and clerics.

The revolution and CUP's work greatly impacted Muslims in other countries. The Persian community in
Istanbul founded the Iranian Union and Progress Committee. The leaders of the Young Bukhara movement
were deeply influenced by the Young Turk Revolution and saw it as an example to emulate. Indian
Muslims imitated the CUP oath administered to recruits of the organization.

In popular culture
In the 2010 alternate history novel Behemoth by Scott Westerfeld, the Young Turk Revolution in 1908 fails,
igniting a new revolution at the start of World War I.

Gallery
 Popular support for the Revolution

Flag of the Young Turk Demonstration in the Greek demonstration in Monastir

Revolution Sultanahmet in favour of the constitution

Postcard for the new constitution Postcard for the new constitution in Lithograph, with Ottoman
in Ottoman Turkish and Greek Ottoman Turkish and French Turkish, Greek, and French
text, celebrating the new
constitution and the promised
equality and brotherhood
among the Ottoman subjects

See also
Iranian Constitutional Revolution
Charter of Alliance
Goudi Coup
March on Rome
Xinhai Revolution

References
1. Ahmad, Feroz (July 1968). "The Young Turk Revolution". Journal of Contemporary History. 3
(3): 19–36. doi:10.1177/002200946800300302 (https://doi.org/10.1177%2F0022009468003
00302). JSTOR 259696 (https://www.jstor.org/stable/259696). S2CID 150443567 (https://api.
semanticscholar.org/CorpusID:150443567).
2. Asatovic Petrosyan, Yuriy. Sosyalist Açıdan Jön Türk Hareketi.
3. The Encyclopædia Britannica, 15th Edition, 1983, page 788, Volume 13
4. Kieser 2018, p. 53-54.
5. Quataert, Donald (July 1979). "The 1908 Young Turk Revolution: Old and New
Approaches". Middle East Studies Association Bulletin. 13 (1): 22–29.
doi:10.1017/S002631840000691X (https://doi.org/10.1017%2FS002631840000691X).
JSTOR 41890046 (https://www.jstor.org/stable/41890046).
6. E. Ramsaur, Ernest. Jön Türkler ve 1908 İhtilali.
7. Suny, Ronald Grigor (2015). "They Can Live in the Desert but Nowhere Else": A History of
the Armenian Genocide. Princeton University Press. p. 155. ISBN 978-1-4008-6558-1.
 Ronald Grigor Suny (26 May 2015). "Armenian Genocide" (https://encyclopedia.1914-19
18-online.net/article/armenian_genocide). 1914-1918-online. International Encyclopedia
of the First World War.
8. Erickson, Edward (2013). Ottomans and Armenians: A Study in Counterinsurgency.
Palgrave Macmillan. p. 32. ISBN 978-1137362209.
9. Somel, Selçuk Akşin (2003). Historical Dictionary of the Ottoman Empire. The Scarecrow
Press. p. 147. ISBN 0-8108-4332-3.
10. Zapotoczny, Walter S. "The Influence of the Young Turks" (https://web.archive.org/web/2011
0725162234/http://www.wzaponline.com/TheInfluenceoftheYoungTurksRevolution.pdf)
(PDF). W zap online. Archived from the original (http://www.wzaponline.com/TheInfluenceoft
heYoungTurksRevolution.pdf) (PDF) on 25 July 2011. Retrieved 11 August 2011.

Bibliography
Bedross Der Matossian (2014). Shattered Dreams of Revolution: From Liberty to Violence in
the Late Ottoman Empire. Stanford University Press. ISBN 978-0-8047-9263-9.
Benbassa, Esther (1990), Un grand rabbin sepharde en politique, 1892‐1923 [A great
sephardic Rabbi in politics, 1892–1923] (in French), Paris, pp. 27–28.
Erickson, Edward (2013). Ottomans and Armenians: A Study in Counterinsurgency.
Palgrave Macmillan. ISBN 978-1137362209.
Lévy-Aksu, Noémi; Georgeon, François (2017). The Young Turk Revolution and the
Ottoman Empire: The Aftermath of 1908. Bloomsbury Publishing.
Hanioğlu, M Şükrü (2001), Preparation for a Revolution: The Young Turks, 1902–1908,
Oxford University Press, ISBN 0-19-513463-X.
Kieser, Hans-Lukas (26 June 2018), Talaat Pasha: Father of Modern Turkey, Architect of
Genocide, Princeton University Press (published 2018), ISBN 978-0-691-15762-7
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e/rakovsky/1908/08/01.htm).
Unal, Hasan (1998). "Ottoman policy during the Bulgarian independence crisis, 1908–9:
Ottoman Empire and Bulgaria at the outset of the Young Turk revolution". Middle Eastern
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63209808701247). hdl:11693/51943 (https://hdl.handle.net/11693%2F51943).
Zürcher, Erik Jan (2019). "Young Turk Governance in the Ottoman Empire during the First
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55 (6): 897–913. doi:10.1080/00263206.2019.1590820 (https://doi.org/10.1080%2F0026320
6.2019.1590820). S2CID 150573160 (https://api.semanticscholar.org/CorpusID:150573160).
Zürcher, Erik Jan (2019). "The Young Turk revolution: comparisons and connections" (http
s://doi.org/10.1080%2F00263206.2019.1566124). Middle Eastern Studies. 55 (4): 481–498.
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External links
Proclamation of the Young Turks, 1908 (http://www.firstworldwar.com/source/youngturkprocl
amation.htm)

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