The Powder Keg of a Failing Empire
In the twilight years of the 19th century, the Ottoman Empire stood as a crumbling giant, its vast territories stretching across three continents but its power waning with each passing decade. Sultan Abdul Hamid II, ruling from Istanbul’s Yıldız Palace since 1876, had become the focal point of discontent across this fractious realm. The empire’s diverse populations – Muslims and Christians, Turks and Arabs, Armenians and Kurds, Greeks and Jews – all found reasons to resent the increasingly paranoid autocrat they called the “Red Sultan” or “Bloody Abdul.”
The situation reached a boiling point in the first years of the 20th century. Military officers, frustrated by budget cuts and European interference; intellectuals, chafing under strict censorship; and minority groups, suffering under discriminatory policies – all began organizing against the Sultan’s rule. The Committee of Union and Progress (CUP), founded by exiled Ottoman intellectuals like Ahmed Rıza, emerged as the most prominent opposition force, advocating for constitutional government and modernization.
The Spark of Revolution: 1908
The revolution began not in the imperial capital, but in the restive provinces of Macedonia. In July 1908, Major Ahmed Niyazi Bey, a CUP sympathizer in the Ottoman Third Army based in Monastir (modern Bitola), took to the hills with 200 armed followers after learning of an impending purge of reformist officers. His act of defiance sparked a chain reaction across military units in the region.
The crisis came to a head when CUP officers murdered the Sultan’s investigator, General Şemsi Pasha, in broad daylight on July 7. Faced with military rebellion in Macedonia and losing control, Abdul Hamid made a stunning announcement on the night of July 23-24: he would restore the constitution suspended since 1878 and reconvene parliament.
The news sent waves of euphoria across the empire. In Istanbul, crowds of Muslims, Christians, and Jews embraced in the streets, chanting French revolutionary slogans of “Liberty, Equality, Fraternity.” The multicultural celebration seemed to herald a new era of Ottoman unity. As Halidé Edib, then a young intellectual, later recalled: “The memory is so vivid that even today I cannot recall it without emotion. I thought it was the embrace of simple love between the peoples of Turkey.”
The Fragile Experiment in Constitutional Government
The period following the revolution was marked by both hope and turmoil. Elections in November 1908 produced a remarkably diverse parliament, with 142 Turks, 60 Arabs, 25 Albanians, 23 Greeks, 12 Armenians, 5 Jews, 4 Bulgarians, 3 Serbs and 1 Vlach. Ahmed Rıza, the positivist intellectual who had led the CUP’s exile wing, became speaker of parliament.
However, tensions quickly emerged. The CUP, while dominant in parliament, struggled to govern effectively. Their secularist tendencies alienated conservative Muslims, while their Turkish nationalist inclinations worried Arab and other non-Turkish subjects. Meanwhile, the empire suffered humiliating territorial losses – Bulgaria declared full independence, Austria-Hungary annexed Bosnia-Herzegovina, and Crete united with Greece – all in quick succession during late 1908.
The Counterrevolution and Its Aftermath
In April 1909, conservative backlash erupted in what became known as the “31 March Incident” (named for the Ottoman calendar date). Islamic students and disgruntled soldiers marched on parliament demanding restoration of sharia law and an end to CUP influence. For two weeks, Istanbul fell under the control of counterrevolutionaries while the CUP leadership fled or went into hiding.
The CUP struck back decisively. The “Action Army,” composed mainly of Third Army units from Macedonia under Mahmud Şevket Pasha, marched on Istanbul. After brief fighting on April 24, they crushed the uprising. The victorious reformers then took the unprecedented step of deposing Abdul Hamid II, sending him into exile in Thessaloniki – the very city where the revolution had begun. His milder brother Mehmed V became the new sultan, but real power now lay with the CUP.
The Contradictions of the Young Turk Era
The years following 1909 saw the CUP consolidate power while struggling with fundamental contradictions. Initially secular and modernist, they increasingly embraced Islamic rhetoric to maintain popular support. German diplomat Baron Marschall observed presciently in October 1909: “When Muslims realize the new Caliph’s weakness and that he is merely a puppet of those who have practically abandoned Islam, a major crisis will become inevitable.”
Meanwhile, military reforms accelerated under German advisors like Colmar von der Goltz. The Ottoman army, purged of traditionalist elements, became a more professional, modern fighting force – though one increasingly dominated by Turkish nationalist officers like Enver Pasha and Mustafa Kemal (later Atatürk).
Legacy of a Revolution
The Young Turk Revolution’s legacy remains deeply contested. For some, it represented the last hope for a multicultural Ottoman state transitioning peacefully to constitutional government. For others, it marked the beginning of Turkish nationalism and the end of genuine pluralism. The tensions between secular modernization and Islamic identity, between Turkish dominance and minority rights, would continue to shape Turkish politics through the republic’s founding and into the present day.
The revolution’s mixed outcomes reflect the immense challenges of reforming a crumbling empire in an age of rising nationalism and great power interference. As Halidé Edib’s poignant memory suggests, the brief moment of intercommunal harmony in 1908 proved tragically fleeting, giving way to new forms of conflict that would culminate in World War I and the empire’s final collapse. Yet the constitutional framework and military modernization begun in this period would provide crucial foundations for the Turkish Republic that emerged from the empire’s ashes.