On the following morning, July 22, the column marched under a blazing sun by the steep zigzag tracks that cross the precipitous ranges of Mount Pelista. At ten o’clock a halt was made, and the “National Battalion of Ochrida” under Eyoub Bey, and the “National Battalion of Resna” under Niazi Bey, were arranged in their roll-call order. There were twenty companies or bands in all, under twenty commanders, who included among them one lieutenant-colonel, several majors and captains, one doctor of medicine, and leading Beys of the Macedonian and Albanian land-owning class. Up to that moment these National troops had not been informed of their destination or of the object of the expedition. So now, while Eyoub enlightened his battalion, Niazi addressed the men of his own command. He explained how, in order to serve the beneficent Committee which was working for the salvation of the country, the men of his band had cheerfully given up comfort, and their wives and families, and had been ready to sacrifice their lives. “But now,” he said, “these hardships and troubles will soon be a thing of the past, and they have achieved their purpose well. Relying upon the success which God gives and the inspiration of the Prophet, we are now on our way to the head-quarters of the Vilayet of Monastir to carry into execution a most important command of the Committee. Within a few hours, if we are successful, we shall have delivered our country from its afflictions. Without hurting a hair of his head we shall take the Mushir (Field Marshal), Osman Pasha, from his residence so as to prevent him from carrying into effect the injuries which it is in his mind to inflict upon the Committee and the fatherland. May God enable us to perform this duty with complete success. It is therefore necessary, my comrades, that you should carry out the orders which you will receive, literally and implicitly. The strictest order and discipline must be maintained.”
The men rejoiced to hear what they were called upon to do, and, despite their fatigue, when the order to resume the march was given, they proceeded along the rough roads at the double, eager to reach Monastir as soon as possible. While the column was on its way, there came to it a most acceptable mascot in the shape of a young roebuck. It was accompanying a half-dozen or so of bashi-bazouks, who had with them a letter from the Committee at Monastir ordering that they should be admitted into Niazi’s band. They had found the roebuck in the hills, and as all Turks, even if they be savage bashi-bazouks, are fond of animals and are invariably kind to them, they caressed the creature and gained its confidence so well that it had followed them along the road. So this roebuck now became the pet of the column and marched at the head of it, fulfilling, says Niazi, the function of a guide, “for by some instinct it always ran on in the direction we had to go.” Niazi’s description of this incident well illustrates the kindly and religious sentiment of the Turks. “The soldiers,” he tells us, “caressed and blessed it, and thanked God who had sent us this beautiful animal, which fascinated all with its charming ways. We regarded its presence as a propitious sign, a divine message of approval of our enterprise.”
In the evening, the column, after an extraordinary forced march, reached a village which was within a few miles of Monastir. A halt was called so that the men could have a meal and rest; and here, as had been arranged, there arrived from Monastir Lieutenant Osman Effendi with fifty men, bringing a sealed letter for Niazi which contained the Committee’s detailed instructions for the execution of the plan. Once more Niazi impressed the necessity of silence, steadiness, and obedience on the men; the order was given to march, and the eager fedais hurried along the road, sandal-shod, and therefore almost noiselessly, at the double, and covered the few miles that lay between them and their destination in a very short time. It was about eleven o’clock at night, and there were but few citizens in the streets, when the column came to the outskirts of Monastir. Here the main body remained while eight hundred men, divided into several detachments, and guided by members of the Monastir Committee, passed into the town by various routes and quickly and silently approached and surrounded the group of buildings which contained the Government House, the Headquarters of the Commander-in-Chief, and the official residence of General Osman Pasha. At the same time agents of the Committee cut the telegraph wires and so prevented the General from holding any communication with the Yildiz or with his own staff. The sentries guarding the General’s residence were quickly disarmed; only one man offered resistance, but he was pinioned before he could fire his rifle and give the alarm. Then two officers and some of the men of Niazi’s band broke into the room where the General was in bed sleeping, and he was awakened, not unnaturally furiously angry, to find himself the prisoner of the revolutionaries. In the meanwhile other bodies of men discovered and placed under arrest the Chief of the Staff, the Officer in Command of the Zone, and some other officers who were known to be no friends of the Committee of Union and Progress.
His captors assured Osman Pasha that his life was in no danger, but, while addressing him with all the respect due to his high rank, they courteously explained to him that their instructions were to escort him with all marks of honour to Resna, where he was to remain for a short time as the guest of the Committee of Union and Progress. Then they handed him a letter which had been drawn up by the Committee. It opened with the correct ceremonial salutations: “In the name of the most merciful and compassionate God. To His Excellency, Mushir, Osman Pasha. Peace be on you and the mercy of God. May God guide us and you.” Then the letter proceeded—in terms so polite and flattering that one wonders whether the Committee was indulging in sarcasm—to point out that the courage and ability with which God had endowed His Excellency ought to be used to direct armies to crush the enemies of the fatherland, and not to attack the nation itself; but that, unfortunately, His Excellency’s official appointment and the extensive powers and instructions that had been given to him by the Yildiz were calculated to induce him—no doubt against the dictates of his own conscience—to commit acts that might be injurious to the fatherland and cause the repetition of such regrettable events as occurred in Erzeroum (the Armenian massacres). His Excellency’s life, the letter explained, was precious to the country; when the Despotism had been changed for constitutional government his services might be required for the reform and reorganisation of the army. Consequently the Committee proposed to rescue His Excellency from his present awkward situation, and ventured to beg him to consent to become the Committee’s honoured guest; it trusted that he would not regard this as in any way bringing disgrace upon himself, and assured him that everything had been arranged that could safeguard his dignity and contribute to his comfort. It reminded him that opposition to the Committee’s will could not avail, for his house was surrounded, all officers on whose obedience he could rely were under arrest, while the troops in the town and all the inhabitants were adherents of the Committee.
Osman Pasha read this document without making any comment upon its contents, and asked whether he might go into the adjoining room to put on his clothes; but the two officers, fearing lest he might attempt suicide, were present while he dressed. Then the General left the house and, mounting a horse, was escorted by Niazi and his National Battalion of one thousand men to Resna, which was reached the following night, and here Osman was confined as an honoured prisoner in the house of one of the notables of the place.
On that day, July 23, Macedonia and Albania threw off the Despotism, and even as Niazi’s men were marching to Resna with their prisoner they heard behind them, far off, the sound of the cannon in Monastir that were saluting the Constitution. Niazi and his fedais had sworn not to return to their homes until their country had won its freedom, and now, having faithfully observed their oaths, he and many of his followers rejoined their rejoicing wives and families in Resna. Throughout the following day, July 24, Resna, like every other town and village in Turkey, presented an extraordinary spectacle. The people seemed to be mad with enthusiasm and delight. Turks, Bulgarians, Greeks, Servians, Wallachs were all as brothers. Several Bulgarian and Greek bands, one of the former led by the redoubtable Cherchis himself, tramped into Resna that day to take part in the universal jollification and fraternisation. Banners bearing the device, “Liberty, Equality, Fraternity, Justice,” and national flags innumerable waved in the breeze, and all day long the people were shouting themselves hoarse with cries of “Long live the Nation!” “Long live the Army!” “Long live the Committee!” After a twenty-four hours’ halt in Resna, during which he was occupied in receiving the Christian band leaders and administering the oath to them, and making arrangements in case of a levée en masse of the people (for it was uncertain yet whether the Sultan would submit or plunge the country into civil war), Niazi, by order of the Committee, marched back to Monastir with the two hundred original fedais of his band, accompanied by Cherchis and other leaders of the Christian bands.
And here Niazi passes out of this story. I have given a somewhat full account of his wanderings, as the narrative will make clear the nature of the work that was done all over the country by those whose mission it was to gain the adherence of the civil population to the revolutionary cause; and I think that it also shows that those virtues without which no people can be great or worthy of any respect—patriotism, and the readiness to sacrifice self for a high ideal—are possessed in a high degree by the Moslem Turks. Niazi was the first young officer to take to the mountains, and it was to his lot that the most important work fell; but it needed many others like him to make the insurrection so universal as it was. Enver Bey and dozens of other young officers were doing the same work as Niazi and with like success in other parts of the country. The local Committees, too, appear to have been wonderfully organised and to have been directed by single-minded patriots of great ability who kept ever in the background, their names unknown, and took no part in the public rejoicings when the victory was won. Thus the Committees in Uskeb and Janina, by their diligent propaganda, respectively won over the allegiance of the Northern Albanians and the Southern Albanians at the same time that Niazi was gaining that of the Western Albanians. Niazi is essentially the soldier, simple and straightforward and not a politician, and, now that his mission at the time of his country’s peril has been successfully accomplished, he is back in his own province quietly fulfilling his military duties in the midst of troops who would follow him to hell, as our own private soldiers would put it.