On April 13, 1909, a reactionary movement set in which failed only because of Abdul Hamid’s irresolute, tottering mind. It was supported by the garrison of Constantinople, which comprised Albanian troops, the very men who had lent their aid to the revolution at first, but had been brought back to the Sultan’s party by the lower clergy and politicians whose interest it was to restore Abdul Hamid’s autocratic rule, or whose personal ambitions had been baulked. Troops, comprising Albanians, Bosnians, and Turkish elements, and reinforced by Greek, Bulgarian, and Serbian volunteers, old komitadjis, were summoned to Salonika.
The reaction of April 13 seems to have been partly due to foreign intrigue, especially on the part of England, who, anxious at seeing Turkey attempt to gain a new life, tried to raise internal difficulties by working up the fanaticism of the hodjas, most of whom were paid and lodged in seminaries, and so were interested in maintaining Abdul Hamid’s autocratic government. These manœuvres may even have been the original cause of the reactionary movement.
Mr. Fitzmaurice, dragoman of the English embassy, was one of the instigators of the movement, and the chief distributor of the money raised for that purpose. He seems to have succeeded in fomenting the first internal difficulties of the new Turkish Government. After the failure of the reactionary movement, the Committee of Union and Progress demanded the dismissal of Mr. Fitzmaurice, who later on settled at Sofia, where he continued his intrigues.
Then the government passed into the hands of the Committee of Union and Progress which had brought on the revolution, and which practically governed the country from 1908 till the signing of the armistice between the Allies and Turkey.
The Committee of Union and Progress, which at the outset had shown a liberal and enlightened spirit, soon became very powerful; but, being the only ruling power in the country, they soon left the straight path and began to indulge in corrupt practices. The leaders’ heads were turned by their sudden success, and they were not sufficiently strong-minded to resist the temptations of office in a time of crisis. All the power was soon concentrated in the hands of a few: Talaat, Enver, and Jemal, all three men of very humble origin, who, when still young, had risen rapidly to the highest eminence in the State.
Enver, born on December 8, 1883, was the son of a road-surveyor. At twenty he left the cadet school of Pancaldi, and became a prominent figure at the time of the revolution. After Abdul Hamid’s downfall, he was sent to Berlin, whence he returned an enthusiastic admirer of Germany. After distinguishing himself in Tripoli, he was made War Minister at the end of the Balkan war. He was naturally very bold; his brilliant political career made him vain, and soon a story arose round him. He became rich by marrying a princess of the Imperial Family, the Sultan’s niece, but it was wrongly said that he married a daughter of the Sultan—a mistake which is easily accounted for as in Turkey anybody who marries a princess of the Imperial Family bears the title of imperial son-in-law, Damad-i-Hazret-i-Shehriyari. At any rate, Enver’s head was turned by his good fortune.
Talaat is supposed to be the son of a pomak—that is to say, his ancestors were of Bulgarian descent and had embraced Islam. He was born at Adrianople in 1870, received an elementary education at the School of the Jewish Alliance, then became a clerk in a post-office and later on in a telegraph-office. Owing to the liberal ideas he propounded and the people he associated with, he was sentenced to imprisonment. Two years after, in 1896, when he came out of prison, he was exiled to Salonika, a centre of propaganda of the Young Turks who were then attempting to overthrow Abdul Hamid. He had learned very little at school, but had a quick wit and great abilities; so he soon obtained a prominent place among the leaders of the revolutionary movement, and in a short time became a moving spirit in the party, together with Enver, Marniassi Zadé Refik Bey, and Javid Bey. Very strongly built, with huge, square fists on which he always leant in a resolute attitude of defiance, Talaat was a man of great will power. When the constitution was granted to the Turkish people, he went to Adrianople, where he was returned Member of Parliament. Soon after he became Vice-President of the Chamber, then Minister of the Interior. But he always remained an unassuming man and led a quiet life in a plain house. He was among those who desired to turn his country into a modern State, in the Anglo-Saxon sense of the word, with the help of Germany and by using German methods, which was perhaps his greatest mistake. When war broke out, Talaat was Minister of the Interior in the Cabinet in which the Egyptian prince Said Halim was Grand Vizier. On February 4, 1917, when this Ministry resigned, he became Grand Vizier, and on February 17, in the course of the sitting of the Constantinople Parliament, he declared that he intended to maintain the alliance with Germany to the end.
Jemal Pasha is of Turkish descent. He left the War Academy as Captain of the Staff, and married the daughter of Bekir Pasha, who commanded a division of the second army garrisoned at Adrianople. This Bekir Pasha had risen from the ranks, and when he was still a non-commissioned officer had throttled Midhat Pasha with his own hands. It has been wrongly stated that his father was the public executioner at Constantinople during the reign of Mahmoud II. Whereas Talaat’s and Enver’s manners were distant, Jemal professed to be affable and strove to please, though he was very cruel at heart. He was looked upon as a friend of France when he came to Paris in 1914 to raise the Ottoman loan. He was appointed military governor of Constantinople after Nazim Pasha’s murder, January 10, 1913, in which he and Talaat and Enver had a share; then he became Minister of Marine.
Talaat fully represented the Committee of Union and Progress, and was supported by it, but Enver and Jemal, though also members, did not make use of their connection with the party. Indeed Enver, who disagreed with Talaat, had nothing to do with the party after he had been appointed War Minister, and when he was called upon to resign during the war, he retained his office with the support of Germany. Only the difficulties which the Empire experienced could have brought together three men who were actuated by such widely different motives; at any rate the omnipotence of the Union and Progress Committee, which even caused some liberals to regret the passing of the old régime, was contrary to the constitutional system which the party had purposed to institute in Turkey.
Though the leaders of the Unionist movement drove Turkey to the verge of ruin, yet the movement itself to a certain extent aroused in the Turkish people a consciousness of their rights, which they had nearly given up under the control of foreign countries; the movements of opinion brought about, and even the reaction that set in finally, roused that national feeling, which found expression soon after the events of the last war.