Young Turk Revolution
The Young Turk Revolution of 1908 reversed the suspension of the Ottoman parliament by Sultan Abdul Hamid II, marking the onset of the Second Constitutional Era. A landmark in the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire, the Revolution arose from an unlikely union of reform-minded pluralists, Turkish nationalists, Western-oriented secularists, and indeed anyone who accorded the Sultan political blame for the harried state of the Empire.
The Revolution restored the parliament, which had been suspended by the Sultan in 1878. However, the process of supplanting the monarchic institutions with constitutional institutions and electoral policies was neither as simple nor as bloodless as the regime change. The periphery of the Empire continued to splinter under the pressures of local revolutions.
The Revolution
Revolt
- "...Then we heard of the onward march on Constantinople, of the Army of Liberty, the 3rd Army Corps of Salonica, still faithful to the Committee of Union and Progress. Volunteers were called for, and Armenians, Jews, Greeks, Bulgarians, Koords and Lazes, all flocked to the Turkish standard. For the first time in the history of the world, Christian stood shoulder to shoulder with Moslem in a triumphant onslaught for the recovery of liberty and the reinstatement of the Constitution. Constantinople was besieged. Sultan Hamid 's own guard and the officerless Constantinople Army Corps he had bribed were conquered. Hamid was dethroned and Mohamed V., subordinate to the Constitution and the Committee of Union and Progress, reigned in his stead. "
- "Liberty and The Ottoman" by Robert Chambers [1]
The revolt began in mid-April, when, under Young Turk leadership, the 3rd Army Corps in Macedonia marched against Constantinople.[2] Major Ahmed Niyazi, fearing discovery of his political moves by an investigatory committee sent from the capital, decamped from Resen on July 3, 1908 with 200 followers demanding restoration of the constitution. The sultan's attempt to suppress this uprising failed due to the popularity of the movement among the troops themselves. Rebellion spread rapidly. On July 24, Abdül Hamid announced restoration of the constitution.
Results
Significant results of the 1908 Young Turk Revolution included:
- The gradual creation of a new governing elite.
- Indirectly led to the deposition of Sultan Abdul Hamid II in favor of Mehmed V the following year
- Opening a path for consolidation over the Ottoman civil and military administration, Coup of 1913.
- Young Turks, small organizations, consolidated under the Committee of Union and Progress (CUP).
- Committee of Union and Progress became the new power center in Ottoman politics.
- Armenian Revolutionary Federation, previously outlawed, became the main representative of the Armenian community in the Ottoman Empire,[3] replacing the pre-1908 Armenian elite, which had been composed of merchants, artisans, and clerics who had seen their future in obtaining more privileges within the boundaries of the state's version of Ottomanism.
- The Muslim Albanian elite, who had greatly benefited from the Hamidian regime in return for their fidelity to the sultan, was also replaced by an intellectual-nationalist elite. With members such as Bajram Curri, Nexhib Draga, and Myfit Libohova, the revolution aimed at uniting Albanians of three different faiths under the flag of Skenderbeu and called for reforms for the benefit of all Albanians.
- In some communities, such as the Jewish (cf. Jews in Islamic Europe and North Africa and History of the Jews in Turkey), reformist groups emulating the Young Turks ousted the conservative ruling elite and replaced them with a new reformist one.
See also
References
Further reading
- M. Şükrü Hanioğlu, Preparation for a Revolution: The Young Turks, 1902-1908, Oxford University Press 2001, ISBN 0-19-513463-X
- Esther Benbassa, Un grand rabbin sepharde en politique, 1892-1923 (Paris, 1990), page 27-28