The Young Turk Revolution (July 1908; Turkish: Jön Türk Devrimi) was a constitutionalist revolution in the Ottoman Empire. Revolutionaries belonging to the Internal Committee of Union and Progress (CUP), an organization of the Young Turks movement, forced Sultan Abdul Hamid II to restore the Constitution, recall the parliament, and schedule an election. Thus began the Second Constitutional Era which lasted from 1908–1912 and also the Turkish Revolution, an era of political instability and social change which lasted for more than four decades.
The revolution took place in Ottoman Rumeli in the context of the Macedonian Struggle and the increasing instability of the Hamidian regime. It began with CUP member Ahmed Niyazi's flight into the Albanian highlands. He was soon joined by İsmail Enver, Eyub Sabri, and other Unionist officers. They networked with local Albanians and utilized their connections within the Salonica based Third Army to instigate a large revolt. A string of assassinations by Unionist Fedai also contributed to Abdul Hamid's capitulation. Though the constitutional regime established after the revolution eventually succumbed to Unionist dictatorship by 1913, the Ottoman sultanate ceased to be the base of power in Turkey after 1908.
Immediately after the revolution, Bulgaria declared independence from the Ottoman Empire and Austria-Hungary's annexation of nominal Ottoman territory sparked the Bosnian Crisis.
After an attempted monarchist uprising known as the 31 March incident in favor of Abdul Hamid the following year, he was deposed and his half-brother Mehmed V ascended the throne.
Background
Sultan Abdul Hamid II was brought to the throne in August 1876 after a series of palace coups by constitutionalist ministers overthrew first his uncle Abdul Aziz, and then his half-brother Murad V. Under duress, he promulgated a constitution and held elections for a parliament. However, with the unsuccessful war with Russia which ended in 1878, he suspended enforcement of the constitution and prorogued parliament. After further consolidating his rule by purging the Young Ottomans he governed as an absolutist monarch for the next three decades. This left a very small group of individuals able to partake in politics in the Ottoman Empire.
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 educational institutions in the Ottoman Empire also established the background for political opposition. Abdul Hamid's political circle was close-knit and ever-changing.
Rise of the opposition
The origins of the revolution lie within the Young Turk movement, an opposition movement which wished to see Abdul Hamid II's authoritarian regime dismantled, and saw themselves as successors of the Young Ottomans. Being imperialists, they believed Abdul Hamid was an illegitimate sultan for giving away territories in the Berlin Treaty and for not being confrontational enough to the Great Powers. In addition to a return to rule of law instead of royal arbitrary rule, they believed that a constitution would negate any motivation for non-Muslim subjects to join nationalist separatist organizations, and therefore negate any justification by the Great Powers to intervene in the Empire. Most of the Young Turks were exiled intelligentsia, however by 1906–1908 many officers and bureaucrats in the Balkans were inducted into the Committee of Union and Progress, the preeminent Young Turk organization.
While the Young Turks were in consensus that some reform was necessary for Ottomanism, the idea of national unity among the ethnic groups of the Ottoman Empire, they disagreed how far reform should go. The anti-Hamidians in the Ottoman Empire that joined the CUP were conservative liberal, imperialist, technocratists. To what extent they could have achieved praxis was dubious, as Ahmet Rıza, the exiled CUP leader, initially denounced revolution. Some Young Turks wished for a federation of nations under an Ottoman monarch, as exemplified in Prince Sabahaddin's movement, though after his failed coup attempt in 1903 his faction was discredited.
Causes
Grievances by oppressed minorities
The struggles of oppressed nationalities within the Ottoman Empire also contributed significantly to the movement led by the Young Turks. These included Armenian, Macedonian, Bulgarian, and Albanian struggles against Hamidian rule.
The Armenian Revolutionary Federation (ARF) was one of the most important revolutionary organizations opposing Abdul Hamid II, and its alliance with Young Turk factions helped transform unrest in eastern Anatolia into a constitutional political movement. The cooperation was operational as well as political: in Van in 1907, Unionist and ARF fedais jointly resisted government troops and coordinated a threat against the governor, while practical cooperation also occurred in Erzurum. Turkish and Armenian revolutionaries jointly challenged provincial authority and helped formulate a common programme encompassing strikes, tax resistance, military propaganda, armed resistance, and general insurrection. By organizing Armenian peasants around land repossession and resistance, the ARF inserted the material grievances of an oppressed population into constitutional politics and encouraged the Committee of Union and Progress (CUP) to pursue a broader uprising.
Economic issues
By the 20th century, the Hamidian system seemed bankrupt. Crop failures caused a famine in 1905, and wage hikes could not keep up with inflation. This led to civil unrest in Eastern Anatolia, which the CUP and the Armenian nationalist Dashnak Committee took advantage of. In December 1907 the government put down the Erzurum Revolt. Constitutionalist revolutions occurred in neighbors of the Ottoman Empire, in Russia in 1905, and in Persia the next year. In 1908, workers began to strike in the capital, which kept the authorities on edge. There were also rumors that the Sultan was in poor health on the eve of the revolution.
Situation in Ottoman Macedonia
Starting in the 1890s, chronic intercommunal violence took hold of Ottoman Macedonia in what came known as the Macedonian struggle, as well as in Eastern Anatolia. The Ottoman military based in Macedonia resented the anarchy which it found itself in: sectarian militias not only skirmished with the army but among themselves to achieve the most influence among the provincial Orthodox population which hadn't yet strongly identified with either Greece or Bulgaria. Muslim Macedonians would get caught up in the violence, bearing the brunt of attacks like the Bulgarian nationalist Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization (IMRO) or Greek Nationalist Macedonian Committee, compelling Muslim Turks and Albanians to form militias of their own. Terrorist attacks by national liberation groups were regular occurrences. In response to the Ilinden Uprising of 1903, the Ottoman Empire capitulated to international pressure to implement reforms in Macedonia, known as the Mürzsteg program, under Great Power supervision, offending Muslims living in Macedonia and especially army officers. In 1905, another intervention by the Great Powers for reform in Macedonia was greeted with dread amongst the Muslim population.
Throughout this period, the Ottoman Empire's weak economy and Abdul Hamid's distrust of the military meant the army was in constant pay arrears. The Sultan was weary of having the army train with live ammunition anyway, lest an uprising against the order occurred. This sentiment especially applied to the Ottoman navy; once the third largest fleet in 19th century Europe, it was rotting away locked inside the Golden Horn.
The defense of their empire was a matter of great honor within the Ottoman military, but the terrible conditions of their service deeply affected morale for the worse. Senior alaylı officers, temperamentally conservative and some of them illiterate, distrusted Mektebli officers, upstart graduates of the modern military schools, resulting in promotions becoming increasingly bottlenecked. Those stationed in Macedonia were outraged against the sultan, and believed the only way to save Ottoman presence in the region to join revolutionary secret societies. Many Unionist officers of the Third Army based in Salonika were motivated by the fear of a partition of Ottoman Macedonia. A desire to preserve the state, not destroy it, motivated the revolutionaries.
Preparation for the revolution
Following the 1902 Congress of Ottoman Opposition, Ahmed Rıza's Unionists abandoned political evolution and formed a coalition with the Activists, which were political revolutionaries. With the fall of Prince Sabahaddin, Rıza's coalition was once again the leading Young Turk current. In 1907 a new anti-Hamidian secret society was founded in Salonica known as the Ottoman Freedom Committee, founded by figures which achieved prominence post-revolution: Mehmed Talaat, Bahaeddin Şakir, and Doctor Nazım. Following its merger with the CUP, the former became the Internal Headquarters of the CUP, while Rıza's Paris branch became the External Headquarters of the CUP.
In the CUP's December 1907 Congress, Rıza, Sabahaddin, and Khachatur Malumian of the Dashnak Committee pledged to overthrow the regime by all means necessary. In practice, this was a tactile alliance between the CUP and Dashnaks which was unpopular in both camps, and the Dashnaks did not play a significant role in the coming revolution.
In the lead up to the revolution the CUP courted the many ethnic committee of the volatile melting pot that was Macedonia. With the conclusion of the IMRO's left-wing congress in May–June 1908, the CUP reached a deal for the left's support and neutrality from their right, but the Macedonian-Bulgarian committee's disunity and their late decision also meant no joint operations between the two groups during the revolution. The Unionists did not seriously court the Serbian Chetniks, but did reach out to the Greek bands for support. Using more sticks than carrots, the CUP walked away with a tenuous declaration of neutrality from the Greeks. The most resources were invested in attaining Albanian support. Albanian feudal lords and notables enjoyed CUP patronage. While the Unionists were less successful in recruiting bourgeois nationalists to their cause they did cultivate a relationship with the Bashkimi Society. The CUP always held a close relationship with the non-Muslim groups of the Vlachs, their Christianity being an important propaganda asset, and the Jews.
According to Ismail Enver the CUP set the date for their revolution to be sometime in August 1908, though a spontaneous one happened before August anyway.
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 on 9–12 June 1908. While "the Great Game", had created a rivalry between the two powers, a resolution to their relationship was sought after. 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. It was rumored that in this latest meeting another reform package would be imposed on the Ottoman Empire which would formally partition Macedonia.
With the newspaper reports of the meeting, the CUP's Monastir (Bitola) branch decided to act. A memorandum was drawn up by Unionists that was distributed to the European consuls which rejected foreign intervention and nationalist activism. They also called for constitutional government and equality amongst Ottoman citizens.
With no action taken by the Great Powers or the government, the revolt began in earnest in the first week of July 1908. On 3 July Major Ahmed Niyazi began the revolution by raiding the Resne (Resen) garrison cache of money, arms, and ammunition and assembled a force of 160 volunteers to the mountains surrounding the city. From there he visited many villages around the predominantly Muslim Albanian area to recruit for his band and warn of impending European intervention and Christian supremacy in Macedonia. Niyazi would highlight the government's (not the sultan) weakness and corruption as the reason for this crisis, and that a constitutional framework would deliver the systematic reform necessary to negate Western intervention. Niyazi's Muslim Albanian heritage worked to his advantage in this propaganda campaign which also involved settling clan rivalries. When touring Christian Bulgarian and Serbian villages, he highlighted that the constitution would bring about equality between Christians and Muslims, and was able to recruit Bulgarians into his force.
Other Unionists, following Niyazi's example, took to the mountains of Macedonia: Ismail Enver Bey in Tikveş, Eyub Sabri in Ohri (Ohrid), Bekir Fikri in Grebene (Grevena), and Salahaddin Bey and Hasan Bey in Kırçova (Kičevo). In each post office the rebels came across, they transmitted their demands to the government in Constantinople (Istanbul): reinstate the constitution and reconvene the parliament otherwise the rebels would march on the capital.