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THE HUNCHAKIAN REVOLUTIONARY PARTY AND THE ASSASSINATION ATTEMPTS AGAINST PATRIARCH KHOREN ASHEKIAN AND MAKSUDZADE SIMON BEY IN 1894

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 November 2018

Varak Ketsemanian Open the ORCID record for Varak Ketsemanian [Opens in a new window]
Varak Ketsemanian*
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Varak Ketsemanian is a PhD Student in the Department of Near Eastern Studies, Princeton University, Princeton, N.J.; e-mail: [email protected]
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Abstract

The spring of 1894 was an important period for Constantinople's Armenian community. Two assassination attempts targeted the Armenian patriarch Khoren Ashekian, and the chairperson of the Armenian Political Assembly Maksudzade Simon Bey, respectively. In both cases, the assailants were partisans of the Hunchakian Party, an Armenian revolutionary organization established in 1887. Analyzing the reasons behind these two attacks, and the imperial context in which they took place, this article challenges aspects of mainstream Armenian and Turkish historiography on the Hamidian period. It argues that a critical look at these two attacks through a socio-economic paradigm rather than an ethno-political one provides a viable analytical framework for deconstructing the notion of the “Armenian millet” as an undifferentiated community. More generally, the article explores the role of violence in shaping intracommunal relationships in the early 1890s.

Keywords

ArmenianscommunityOttoman Empiresocio-economicsviolence
Type
Article
Information
International Journal of Middle East Studies , Volume 50 , Issue 4 , November 2018 , pp. 735 - 755
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2018 

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Footnotes

Author's note: I am grateful to Professors Holly Shissler, Orit Bashkin, Şükrü M. Hanioğlu, Stepan Astourian, Ara Sanjian, Barlow Der Mugrdechian, Yaşar Tolga Cora, Ümit Kurt, and Emre Can Dağlıoğlu, and to the three anonymous reviewers of IJMES, for their insightful comments on an earlier draft of this article.

References

NOTES

1 Libaridian, Gerard J., “What Was Revolutionary about Armenian Revolutionary Parties in the Ottoman Empire?,” in A Question of Genocide: Armenians and Turks at the End of the Ottoman Empire, ed. Suny, Ronald Grigor, Göçek, Fatma Müge, and Naimark, Norman (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011), 82Google Scholar.

2 Ibid., 83.

3 Some have characterized this region as (Western) Armenia, others as (Northern) Kurdistan or Eastern Anatolia. On the Ottoman eastern provinces, see Yaşar Tolga Cora, Dzovinar Derderian, and Sipahi, Ali, “Ottoman Historiography's Black Hole,” in The Ottoman East in the Nineteenth Century: Societies, Identities, and Politics, ed. Cora, Yaşar Tolga, Derderian, Dzovinar, and Sipahi, Ali (London: I.B.Tauris, 2016), 1–15Google Scholar.

4 Ibid.

5 For examples, see Hrant Kankrouni, Hay heghapʻokhutʻiwnĕ Osmanean bṛnatirutʻean dem (Beirut: H. Kankrouny, 1973); and Dasnabedian, Hratch, Patmutʻiwn Hay Heghapoʻkhakan sharzhman ew Hay Heghapʻokhakan Dashnaktsʻutʻean (Beirut: Vahe Setian Press, 2009)Google Scholar.

6 Fuccaro, Nelida, “Urban Life and Questions of Violence,” in Violence and the City in the Modern Middle East, ed. Fuccaro, Nelida (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 2016), 13Google Scholar.

7 Rasmus Christian Elling, “The Semantics of Violence and Space,” in Violence and the City in the Modern Middle East, 24; Riedler, Florian, “The City as a Stage for a Violent Spectacle: The Massacres of Armenians in Istanbul in 1895–1896,” in Urban Violence in the Middle East: Changing Cityscapes in the Transformation from Empire to Nation State, ed. Freitag, Ulrike, Fuccaro, Nelida, Ghrawi, Claudia, and Lafi, Nora (New York: Berghahn Books, 2015)Google Scholar, 164.

8 Fuccaro, Urban Life, 4.

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11 Fuccaro, “Urban Life,” 7; Noemi Levy-Aksu, “A Capital Challenge: Managing Violence and Disorder in Late Ottoman Istanbul,” in Urban Violence in the Middle East, 52–70.

12 Libaridian, What Was Revolutionary, 94.

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14 Ter Minassian, Nationalism, 145.

15 Libaridian, What Was Revolutionary, 94.

16 Libaridian, Gerard, Modern Armenia: People, Nation, State (New Brunswick, N.J.: Transactions Publishers, 2004), 73Google Scholar; Libaridian, Gerard, “The Changing Armenian Self-Image in the Ottoman Empire: Reyahs and Revolutionaries,” in The Armenian Image in History and Literature, ed. Hovannisian, Richard (Malibu, Calif.: Undena Publications, 1981), 155–71Google Scholar.

17 Ter Minassian, Nationalism, 150.

18 Libaridian, What Was Revolutionary, 110. On the rise of the Armenian Patriarchate of Istanbul, see Bardakjian, Kevork, “The Rise of the Armenian Patriarchate of Constantinople,” in Christians and Jews in the Ottoman Empire, ed. Braude, Benjamin and Lewis, Bernard (New York: Holmes & Meier Publishers, Inc., 1982), 89–101Google Scholar. The word reaya was often used in a vague sense to refer to a “low-class” provincial but could also designate Muslim and Kurdish peasants. On the socio-economic terms used in Eastern Anatolia, see Aram S. Hamparian, “Sotsyalakan Derminnern Arevmtyan Hayastanum I,” Padmabanasirakan Handes 2–3 (1992): 127–38; and Hamparian, “Sotsyalakan Derminnern Arevmtyan Hayastanum II,” Padmabanasirakan Handes 1–2 (1993): 77–90.

19 Riedler, The City as a Stage, 169. See also Riedler, Florian, “Armenian Labour Migration to Istanbul and the Migration Crisis of the 1890s,” in Migrations and Urban Government in the Ottoman Empire, ed. Freitag, Ulrike, Fuhrmann, Malte, Lafi, Nora, and Riedler, Florian (London: Routledge, 2011), 160–77Google Scholar.

20 Flyers in Turkish were posted on the walls of Merzifon, Kayseri, and Yozgat. Hundreds of people were subsequently arrested and tried. These trials came to be known as the Ankara Tribunals of 1894. Hunchakian sources refer to this incident as “Islamic Declarations” because the flyers were all in Turkish. A booklet published by the party in 1894 suggests a link between the Hunchakians and another non-Armenian opposition movement based in Europe. Turkish mainstream historiography portrays the postings as a Hunchakian bluff to cover the real identity of the organizers. Nevertheless, the booklet comprising the minutes of the Hunchakian convicts in court, claimed that the Hunchakians collaborated with the “Islamic Society of Europe,” which was then publishing the newspaper La Turquie Libre in London, and a preliminary faction of the Young Turk movement. La Turquie Libre published a number of declarations on behalf of the Comité Liberal Ottoman— the cover name used by Freemasons in their political endeavors in the empire. Between 1892 and 1894, “Young Turks” referred to the political wing of the Freemasons. Although more work is needed to unravel possible connections between the Hunchakians and the Young Turks in Europe, some remarks may be suggestive here. Given that the Hunchakian party had a relatively higher number of units throughout Central Anatolia and the eastern provinces, the “Yafta Olayları” may well have been a joint operation by the Hunchakians and the Young Turk factions in Europe. The latter may have effectively used the developing networks of the Hunchakians throughout Anatolia to spread its message among the population. For general discussions of the Yafta Olayları, see Kolbaşı, Ahmet, 1892–1893 Ermeni Yafta Olayları (Istanbul: IQ Kültür Sanat Yayıncılık, 2011)Google Scholar; Altıntaş, Toygun, “The Placard Affair and the Ankara Trial: The Hnchak Party and the Hamidian Regime in Central Anatolia, 1892–1893,” Journal of Ottoman and Turkish Studies Association 4 (2017): 309–37CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Hanioğlu, Şükrü, The Young Turks in Opposition (New York: Oxford University Press, 1995); 36–37Google Scholar; and Hanioğlu, , “Notes on the Young Turks and the Freemasons, 1875–1908,” Middle Eastern Studies 25 (1989): 186–97CrossRefGoogle Scholar. For the booklet published by the Hunchakian party in 1894, see Party, Hunchakian, Bṛnutʻean Dem: Gaghatiayi datavarutʻiwn (Athens: Hunchak Press, 1894)Google Scholar. For works on the cooperation between Armenian revolutionary parties and the Young Turks (particularly the Committee of Union and Progress) before 1908, see Avagyan, Arsen and Minassian, Gaidz F., Ermeniler ve Ittihat ve Terakkı: Işbirliğinden Çatışmaya (Istanbul: Aras, 2013)Google Scholar; and Garabet K. Moumdjian, “Struggling for a Constitutional Regime: Armenian–Young Turk Relations in the Era of Abdülhamid II, 1895–1909” (PhD diss., University of California, Los Angeles, 2012).

21 Gerard J. Libaridian, “Ideology and Reality: Hnchakian Paradoxes at Birth” (unpublished paper). On the reformist movements of the 1870s and 1880s among Ottoman Armenians, see Libaridian, Modern Armenia, 51–73.

22 Elling, The Semantics of Violence, 28.

23 On the Kum Kapu Demonstration, see Kitur, Arsen, Patmutʻiwn S.D. Hnchʻakean Kusaktsʻutʻean, 1887–1962 (Beirut: Shirak Press, 1962), 1:53–63Google Scholar; Social Democrat Hunchakian Party (SDHP), Hisnameak, 1887–1937: Sotsʻ. Demokratakan Hnchʻakean Kusaktsʻutʻean (Providence, R.I., 1938), 48–51Google Scholar; Damadian, Mihran, Im Hushers (Beirut: Ramgavar Liberal Party Club, 1986), 75–93Google Scholar; Hunchak, August 1890.

24 Libaridian, What Was Revolutionary, 87.

25 For examples, see Nalbandian, Louise, The Armenian Revolutionary Movement: The Development of Armenian Political Parties through the Nineteenth Century (Berkeley, Calif.: University of California Press, 1963)Google Scholar, 61, 85. One Hunchakian partisan who had close connections with the Armenian Church was Kalousd Arkhanian; Hunchak, January/February 1906.

26 Güllü, Ramazan Erhan, Ermeni Sorunu ve Istanul Ermeni Patrikhanesi (1878–1923) (Ankara: Türk Tarih Kurumu Yayınları, 2005), 279Google Scholar.

27 On the Hunchakian founders’ social and intellectual interactions in Europe, see Manoukian, Abel, Hah'reniqi azadakro'wt'ean panagin hamo'zo'wadz zino'wo'rnery (Geneva: Araz Printing Press, 2014)Google Scholar.

28 Hunchak, April 1893.

29 Ibid.

30 In contrast to the 160 delegates from Constantinople, only sixty Armenians represented the provinces in the Armenian National Assembly. Petitioning was the standard way of expressing social and economic grievances and was not limited to Armenians. For petitions from Palestine to the Ottoman center in Istanbul, see Ben-Bassat, Yuval, Petitioning the Sultan: Protests and Justice in Late Ottoman Palestine (London: I.B.Tauris, 2013)Google Scholar.

31 Fuccaro, “Urban Life,” 19–20. See also Nora Lafi, “Challenging the Ottoman Pax Urbana: Intercommunal Clashes in 1857 Tunis,” in Violence and the City, 95–109.

32 Sarınay, Yusuf, ed., Osmanlı Belgelerinde Ermenilerin Sevk ve Iskanı (1870–1920) (Ankara: T.C. Başbakanlık Devlet Arşivleri Genel Müdürlüğü, Osmanlı Arşivi Daire Bakanlığı, 2007), 16–17Google Scholar.

33 Ibid, 17.

34 Ibid.; On the Ottoman bureaucracy from the early 19th century to 1876, see Shaw, Stanford, “The Central Legislative Councils in the Nineteenth Century Ottoman Reform Movement Before 1876,” International Journal of Middle Eastern Studies 1 (1970): 51–84CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

35 On the Erzurum demonstration, see Kitur, Patmutʻiwn, 1:51–53.

36 Ibid.; Sarınay, Yusuf, ed., Ermeni Komiteleri (1891–1895) (Ankara: T.C. Başbakanlık Devlet Arşivleri Genel Müdürlügü, Osmanlı Arşivi Daire Bakanlığı, 2001), 15–17Google Scholar; Hunchak, October, November, December 1890.

37 Libaridian, Modern Armenia, 75. On Armenian notables in the provinces, see Krikorian, Mesrob K., Armenians in the Service of the Ottoman Empire 1860–1908 (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1977)Google Scholar.

38 Levy-Aksu, A Capital Challenge, 53.

39 Maksudzade Sebuh also received a death threat from the Hunchakian Party in February1896; Başbakanlık Osmanlı Arşivleri (hereafter BOA), A.MKT.MHM 627/15 (23 February 1896); A.MKT.MHM 627/15 (26 February 1896).

40 Libaridian, What Was Revolutionary, 103.

41 Krikorian, Armenians in the Service, 90.

42 Sarınay, Osmanlı Belgelerinde Ermenilerin Sevk, 18. On Maksudzade Sebuh, see Hartmann, Elke, “The Loyal Nation and Its Deputies: The Armenians in the First Ottoman Parliament,” in The First Ottoman Experiment in Democracy, ed. by Herzog, Christoph and Sharif, Malek (Würzburg, Germany: Ergon, 2010), 188–222Google Scholar.

43 Nalbandian, The Armenian Revolutionary Movement, 108–9.

44 A similar polemic can be found in the official correspondence of the Armenian Revolutionary Federation (ARF) and its official organ, Droshak. See Dasnabedian, Hratch, ed., Niwtʻer H.H. Dashnaktsʻutʻean Patmutʻean Hamar (Beirut: Hamazkayin Vahe Setian Press, 1985), 1:143–47Google Scholar.

45 Parti social-démocrate Hentchakian, Çragir Hnc̆akean kowsakc̕owt̕ean: Handerj meknowt̕iwnnerov (London: Hunchak Press, 1897)Google Scholar; Libaridian, Modern Armenia, 74.

46 Libaridian, What Was Revolutionary, 88.

47 BEO 202/15114 (17 May 1893).

48 Eldem, Edhem, Pride and Privilege: A History of Ottoman Orders, Medals, and Decorations (Istanbul: Ottoman Bank Archives and Research Center, 2004), 277Google Scholar.

49 Deringil, Selim, The Well-Protected Domains: Ideology and Legitimation of Power in the Ottoman Empire 1876–1909 (London: I.B.Tauris, 1998), 35Google Scholar.

50 Eldem, Pride and Privilege, 285.

51 Y.A.HUS 273/31 (24 April 1893).

52 Eldem, Pride and Privilege, 345.

53 Hunchak, February 1893.

54 Hunchak, April 1893. It is not clear whether the 400 Ottoman liras described as a bribe in the report were the monetary award associated with the imtiyāz order or another disctinct financial reward.

55 Ibid.

56 Hunchak, January 1892.

57 Ibid.

58 Eldem, Pride and Privilege, 357. One example of such an assassination is the case of Hagop Hadji Agha Krmlian, the chairman of the Merzifon town council. He was assassinated by the Hunchakian Committee of Merzifon on the grounds that he was an informant to local authorities; Hunchak, March 1893.

59 The Hunchakian headquarters in Europe was in Geneva until 1891 and then moved to Athens for a few years. London became the party center in 1894.

60 Djeredjian, Yeghig, Haverji Djampu Gerditchneren (Beirut: Social Democrat Hunchakian Party Press, 2014), 62Google Scholar; Droshak, March 1893; Hovhannisian, Kegham, Hnchʻakean Kusaktsʻutʻean Patmut'yun 1887–1915 (Yerevan: Institute of History, Yerevan, 2012), 78Google Scholar.

61 One of the Hunchakian guerillas executed in the aftermath of these trials was Toros Dzarukian (Medz Tchello). According to Kegham Hovhannisian, he was hanged on 10 July 1893; Hovhannisian, Hnchʻakean, 69. For a biography of Toros Dzarukian, see Sirvard, , Tʻoros Tsaṛukean: Mets” Chʻello” (Providence, R.I.: Graphic Composition, 1960)Google Scholar; Hunchak, August 1893.

62 Hunchak, October 1893.

63 For a biography of Jirayr Boyadjian, see SDHP, Hisnameak, 60–69; Sirvard, , Khorhrdawor heghapʻokhakane: anmahn Zhirayr, ir keankʻn u gortsuneutʻiwnĕ (Paris: Imprimerie H. Turabian, 1953)Google Scholar.

64 Many of the reports mention provincial clergymen who were imprisoned on real or false charges. However, one should bear in mind that Hunchak probably exaggerated some of the figures in order to galvanize European public opinion. The years 1892–94 were critical for the eastern provinces because the securitization of the region intensified, including vis-à-vis the creation of the Hamidiye Regiments. See Klein, Janet, The Margins of Empire: Kurdish Militias in the Ottoman Tribal Zone (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 2011)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

65 An Ottoman report prepared exclusively for Abdülhamid in 1896 claimed that the first assassination attempt against Patriarch Ashekian had occurred on 28 July 1890, a day after the Kum Kapu protest. The document claims that the reason behind the attack was Ashekian's role in informing the Ottoman authorities about the Hunchakian organizers of the demonstration but expresses some hesitancy over whether the attack was deliberate or an accident. See Sarınay, Osmanlı Belgelerinde Ermenilerin Sevk, 12–13; Recep Karacakaya, “Ermeni Terörün Farklı Bir Boyutu,” Stratejik Öngörü 7 (2004): 104.

66 Hunchak, April 1894. One confidential letter sent by Avedis Nazarbekian from Athens to the Hunchakian Committee in Constantinople shows that the Hunchakian Central Committee in Constantinople had entertained the idea of assassinating Patriarch Khoren Ashekian in 1892. But Nazarbekian warned the addressees that such an act would have detrimental effects on the bourgeoning Hunchakian organization in the capital and that its repercussions would be calamitous. He suggested that the Central Committee should focus instead on strengthening the organizational units in the capital; Kitur, Patmutʻiwn, 1:74. Ramazan Erhan Güllü claims that the assailant was Hagop Karabetyan. He ascribes the family name Mazlumyan to another accomplice, Bedros, who had helped Hagop; Güllü, Ermeni Sorunu,189, 192.

67 Hunchak, April 1894.

68 SDHP, Hisnameak, 268–75.

69 Hunchak, April 1894.

70 Droshak, May 1894

71 Hunchak, June 1895; Dasnabedian, Niwtʻer, 143, 147, 153.

72 Charles Vartanian, Leon Kirishdjian, and Ohannes Afaryan were arrested as suspects in Undjuyan's murder in the early 1900s; Cengiz, Erdoğan H., ed., Ermeni Komitelerinin Amaçları ve Ihtilal Hareketleri: (Meşrutiyet'in ilanından önce ve sonra), (Ankara: Genelkurmay Askeri Tarih ve Stratejik Etüt Başkanlığı, 2003)Google Scholar, 24; Y.MTV 278/133 (23 November 1905); DH.MKT 1251/59 (31 May 1908). For a factual, yet deeply flawed analysis of the major assassinations carried out by the Armenian revolutionaries in the period 1890–96, see Karacakaya, Recep, Ermenilere Yönelik Ermeni Terörü (Istanbul: 47 Numara Yayıncılık Araştırma Dizisi, 2006)Google Scholar. Karacakaya's work is the example par excellence of Turkish nationalist and mainstream historiography in which the assassinations are decontextualized, without proper consideration of the Armenian community's inner dynamics and socio-economic factors.

73 Elling, The Semantics of Violence, 25.

74 Cengiz, Ermeni Komiteleri, 16.

75 On the organization of the Hunchakian Central Committee in Constantinople, see Nalbandian, The Armenian, 117; Kitur, Patmutʻiwn, 2:120, 150; Hovhannisian, Hnchʻakean, 27–37.

76 Hunchak, April 1894.

77 Y.A.HUS 292/82 (26 March 1894).

78 BEO 193/14429 (23 April 1893).

79 A.MKT.MHM 749/13 (26 March 1894).

80 Hunchak, July 1894; MV 81/35 (5 November 1894).

81 Hayrenik, 12 May 1894. This may be in the old Armenian calendar, and would correspond to 22 May 1894 in the new one; Ramazan Güllü, Ermeni Sorunu, 194.

82 Hunchak, July 1894. For Mihran Manisadjian's biography, see Hunchak, August 1894.

83 Y.PRK.ZB 13/31 (21 May 1894).

84 Y.PRK.ZB 13/31 (17 June 1894); BEO 421/31515 (18 June 1894); Y.PRK.ZB 13/31 (24 June 1894); Hunchak, September 1894.

85 Hunchak, July 1894.

86 Hayrenik 12 May 1894.

87 BEO 407/30467 (23 May 1894).

88 Yılmaz, Ilkay, Serseri, Anarşist ve Fesadın Peşinde: II. AbdülHamid Dönemi Güvenlik Politikaları Eksesninde Mürur Tezkereleri, Pasaportlar ve Otel Kayıtları (Istanbul: Tarih Vakfı Yurt Yayınları, 2014), 139–64Google Scholar.

89 Ibid., 39.

90 Cengiz, Ermeni Komiteleri, 16.

91 Hunchak, August 1894.

92 Ibid. No other document corroborates this.

93 Cengiz, ed., Ermeni Komiteleri, 28.

94 Levy-Aksu, A Capital Challenge, 59.

95 Riedler, The City as a Stage, 173. On the social identity of the victims of the 1896 massacre, see Dinçer, Sinan, “The Armenian Massacre in Istanbul 1896,” in Tijdschrift voor Economische en Sociale Geschiedenis 4 (2013): 20–45CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Ormanian, Maghakia, Azgapatum (Istanbul: Nersesian Publishing House, 1932)Google Scholar, 3: 2991.

96 Riedler, The City as a Stage, 173.

97 Y.PRK.ASK 114/66 (31 August 1896), cited in Güllü, Ermeni Sorunu, 290. Güllü’s work exemplifies how Turkish nationalist mainstream historiography passes over the Constantinople massacres of 1896, depicting the violence as mere “incidents.”

98 Edhem Eldem, “Banka Vakası ve 1896 Istanbul Katliamı,” in 1915: Siyaset, Tehcir, Soykırım, ed. Fikret Adanır and Oktay Özel (Istanbul: Tarih Vakfı Yurt Yayınları, 2015), 186.

99 Cengiz, Ermeni Komiteleri, 28.

100 BEO 407/30467 (30 May 1894).

101 Ibid.

102 Y.MTV 101/58 (31 July 1894).

103 Cengiz, Ermeni Komiteleri, 29.

104 An estimate of the number of Hunchakian partisans in Constantinople in 1894–95 can be garnered from the Hunchakian Party's auditing book preserved at the Charents Museum of Arts and Literature in Yerevan. The Hunchakian local organizations were based on groups of ten members that formed one unit in a given district. I was able to identify fifteen such units in Constantinople. Given such a count, we can induce that by 1894, the total number of Hunchakian partisans in Constantinople was no less than 150; Archives of the Charents Museum of Arts and Literature, Folder Arpiar Arpiarian, File 668 (p. 1).

105 Hunchak, August 1894.

106 Ibid.

107 Karacakaya, Ermeni Terörizmin, 109.

108 Ahmad, Feroz, “Some Thoughts on the Role of Ethnic and Religious Minorities in the Genesis and Development of Socialist Movement in Turkey: 1876–1923,” in Socialism and Nationalism in the Ottoman Empire 1876–1923, ed. Tunçay, Mete and Zürcher, Erik Jan (London: I.B.Tauris, 1994), 15Google Scholar.

109 Dasnabedian, Patmutʻiwn, 124–26. For a complete account of the negotiations between Artin Pasha Dadian and the ARF, see also Hayrenik, no. 7, May 1938, 141–47, no. 8, June 1938, 157–160, no. 10, August 1939, 166–75, and no. 11, November 1939, 148–66, cited in Moumdjian, Struggling for a Constitutional Regime, 106. After Ashekian's resignation in 1894, Archbishop Matheos Izmirlian became the new patriarch in 1895, but he was deemed by the sultan to be “too sympathetic” to the revolutionaries and was thus forced to step down in July of 1896. Thereafter, Malachia Ormanian assumed the Patriarchal seat. In 1896 Sultan Abdülhamid abrogated the Armenian National Assembly, and it was only reopened in 1908 after the Young Turk Revolution. Ormanian stepped down in 1908.

110 During this same period Abdulhamid initiated negotiations with the exiled members of the Young Turks most of whom were based in Paris and Geneva. He sent Ahmed Celalettin Pasha to convince some of them to return to Constantinople. As a result, some staunch opponents of the Hamidian regime, such as Mizancı Murad, went back to the Ottoman capital and were recruited in the Hamidian bureaucracy. See Georgeon, François, Abdulhamid II: Le Sultan Calife (Fayard, 2003), 339–42Google Scholar.

111 Hartmann, The Loyal Nation, 222.