Ismail Pasha and his fellow-Commissioners returned to Constantinople, their efforts having had the effect of spreading the growth which they had been sent to root up. The Palace, which throughout this crisis exemplified the truth that whom the gods wish to destroy they first make demented, for it took every precaution too late and displayed a vacillation that ruined what chances it had, now decided to do what, if it had been done some months earlier, might have crushed the Young Turk movement and left Abdul Hamid the undisputed master of the Ottoman Empire. It was decided to despatch a large army from Asia to overpower the mutinous troops in Europe, and orders were given that no less than forty-eight battalions of Anatolian troops should be landed forthwith at Salonica. But before describing the failure of this last move on the part of the Despotism it will be necessary to go back a little to give an account of what had been happening in the interior of Macedonia since Niazi Bey had raised the standard of revolt at Resna on July 3, and of how everything was there being made ready for the general insurrection.
CHAPTER X
THE STANDARD OF REVOLT
THE situation in Macedonia in July, 1908, when Niazi Bey took to the mountains, may be summed up thus: The Bulgarian, Greek, Servian, Wallach, and Albanian bands were murdering, robbing, outraging each other’s kin all over the country; the Committee of Union and Progress, having established its branches in Monastir, Ochrida, Resna, Persepe, and other places, was engaged in steadily spreading its propaganda through all the countryside, a large proportion of the young officers of the Macedonian army being initiates or sympathisers with the cause; and, lastly, the Palace had taken its precautions, and there was not a town or regiment without its secret Government agents ferreting out the secrets of the conspiracy and denouncing the suspects.
Niazi Bey, the young officer who was the first to raise the standard of revolt, was a good example of the men who were forthcoming in numbers at this period of Turkey’s great danger, men who proved to the world the stubborn virtues of the old Ottoman stock, intensely patriotic, brooding over the sorrows of their country, seeking a plan for her deliverance, and, that plan once found, devoting themselves, with the passionate zeal of men obsessed by a fixed idea, to the carrying out of their high aim. They were not self-seeking; if they cherished ambition, it was for the martyr’s death; they were prepared to sacrifice their careers, their wives and families, and their property for the cause, and, as we shall see, when Niazi set out with his little band of followers on that wonderful forlorn hope of his, each took an oath not to return to his wife and family until Turkey was freed; before going they bade last farewells to those they loved; for them it was to be victory or death. With a Mussulman Turk, love of country is a part of his religion, and his single-minded devotion has the strength of fanaticism. When in an oppressed country there is a sufficiency of men of this stamp, the days of the tyranny are numbered.
This spirit breathes through the published letters and diary of Niazi Bey, wherein, telling us a good deal in very frank fashion about his thoughts, aspirations, and emotions, he provides us with a most interesting human document. That he thus writes so freely and often with poetical diction concerning his sentiments will surprise Englishmen, who have always heard that reserve is one of the characteristics of the Turk. The Turk is reserved in his relations with the Western European, who so little understands him. But the Turk, as all his literature proves, is sentimental and emotional with the sentiment and emotion that are the sources of strength and not of weakness. The Turk reveals his heart to his friend with a truthful simplicity that would seem lack of proper reticence to Englishmen, many of whom appear to be ashamed to let it be supposed that they have any affection for their wives or parents; but we ourselves, as the memoirs of the time show, did not take so much care to hide our emotions when Nelson was gaining victories on the seas. So Niazi, having no false shame, makes no secret of his brave deeds, his musings, and his affections, and one likes him the better for it. But Niazi, though devoted to high ideals, was no dreamer or unpractical and rash revolutionary. Like most of his countrymen he was endowed with plenty of cool common sense, and displayed the shrewdness and cunning of the Homeric Odysseus in the carrying through of his audacious adventure.
Niazi Bey is himself an Albanian, his family belonging to the Mussulman land-owning class. He was born in Resna, a little town between Monastir and Ochrida, in a region where fertile valleys studded with orchards and cornfields, grassy downs, forest-clad mountains, craggy Balkan peaks and gorges, and broad lakes combine to make as beautiful a scenery as can be found in Europe. Niazi had known this countryside from his childhood, and he had friends in all the villages, so when it was decided to make this the scene of the first outbreak of the insurrection it was recognised that he was the right man to come forward as leader. Niazi entered the army as a very young man and greatly distinguished himself in the Greek war. Then he was sent to his own country, and for the five years preceding the revolution he was employed with his battalion of chasseurs in pursuing the various brigand bands in the mountains. Again he gained distinction, temporarily crushed the power of the Bulgarian insurrectionary Committee in the Resna district, and became very popular with the Moslem section of the population, whose property and lives he zealously set himself to protect. The Committee of Union and Progress, exercising its powerful underground influence, obtained for him promotion to the rank of Major and his appointment to head-quarters at Resna, the place in which he could serve the cause best. For Niazi had been initiated into the secret Society by his brother officer, the now famous Enver Bey, and throughout his operations against the bands was acting as the instrument of the Committee rather than that of the despotic Government.
The story of Niazi’s work at this time throws an interesting light on the condition of Macedonia. When he was moved to Resna, Bulgarian and Albanian bands, acting in conjunction, were terrorising that district. It was his duty to seize the leaders of the non-Moslem bands and to scatter the bands themselves. He was successful in doing this, though his methods were not cruel or vindictive; for, as he tells us, he was sorry to be hunting down these men who, after all, were fighting against a despotism which was as detestable to himself as it was to them. So he used to call together the Christian notables, who had known him from his childhood and trusted him, and point out to them that their separatist dreams could never be realised, that it was better for them to repudiate those bringers of bloodshed, the agitators in Athens, Sophia, and Belgrade, and join in union and brotherhood with their Moslem fellow-countrymen, whose grievances against the Government were as heavy as their own. His words, recognised as sincere, produced a good effect.
At Niazi’s advice some Moslem inhabitants of the district formed themselves into a band which was under the direction of the Committee of Union and Progress. This band used to go about the country, protecting the villagers without any distinction of race or creed. Thus at one time it would be defending a village of Bulgarians against the attack of a Serb band, and at another time a Serb village against a Bulgarian band. This band was well disciplined, committed no excesses of any kind, and did not even requisition the necessaries of life in the villages; conduct so extraordinarily Quixotic for a Macedonian band that it gained for the Committee the good opinion of the Albanians, who began to come in numbers to Ochrida and Monastir to take the oath of allegiance to the revolutionary leaders.