6 - Ottoman Revolution, Italian War

Summary

Driven by years of unpaid salaries, failures in Macedonia and European actions against the Ottoman Empire, in July of 1908 the Ottoman army in Europe revolted in favour of a new constitutional government – the so-called Young Turk Revolution. Although led by the army, the revolt had long been the aim of the nationalist reformers of the Committee of Union and Progress (İttihad ve Terakki Cemiyeti, CUP) that had organised revolutionary cells within and without the Empire. Faced with the rebellion, Sultan Abdülhamid II, ever an accomplished politician, yielded. He revoked his suspension of the Ottoman Parliament, which had never theoretically been abolished, only prorogued for thirty years.

The secret organisation of the CUP did not formally take part in the elections of November to December 1908. The revolutionaries did not have any experience in governing, so they at first selected established politicians to operate the organs of the state. Men who had risen during Abdülhamid's reign remained as Grand Vezirs – first Mehmed Sait Paşa, followed by Mehmed Kâmil Paşa and Hüseyin Hilmi Paşa.

The CUP, though not yet officially a political party, remained the real power in the state. Kâmil Paşa attempted to assert his own authority over that of the CUP but failed, becoming the committee's greatest enemy. Abdülhamid remained as a constitutional monarch, but in April 1909 he was believed to have supported a counter-revolution, intended to return him to power. The revolt was swiftly put down by the army and Abdülhamid deposed. The army retained much power, but the CUP emerged from its secrecy to become a secularist and reformist political party which took control of parliament.

The Italian War (see below) damaged the authority of the CUP and led to defections in parliament and dissensions within the party. Nevertheless, in April 1912 the CUP won an unfair election in which it used all the power of the state to insure victory. The opposition Liberal Entente Party (the Freedom and Accord Party, Hürriyet ve İtilâf Fırkası) protested the results. A group of army officers, the Saviour Officers (Halâskâr Zabitan), threatened armed action unless the CUP-dominated cabinet resigned, which it did.