ABSTRACT
THE eastern question suddenly entered on a new and acute phase in the sumnler of 1908. The" Young" Turks, or party of reform, whom diplomatists had hitherto been wont to regard as dreamers, had long carried on a secret propaganda, which had made great headway in the army. A Committee had been formed under the title of "Union and Progress" at Geneva in 1891, and thence transferred to Paris, and in 1906 to Salonika, where it met with the ardent support of the Jews and Freemasons, who form an important element in the population of the great Macedonian seaport. It was the intention of the Committee to begin the revolution on the anniversary of the Sultan's accession, August 31; but events caused it to hasten its action. The meeting between Edward VII and the Tsar at Reval made it fear foreign intervention; Abdul Hamid, informed by his spies of the agitation among his Macedonian troops, had made preparations to crush it; and an incident, which in any other country would have had no political importance, secured for the conspirators the co-operation of the Albanians, whom of all his subjects the Sultan had humoured, feared, and trusted most. This incident was nothing more alarming than an excursion, organised for the benefit of the Austrian school at Uskiib, to a wood near Ferisovich on the line to Mitrovitza. But the Albanians of that district considered the proposed entertainment, of which dancing was to have been an item, as bad for public morals, already
contaminated by the music-halls of Uskiib; while the rumoured display of Austrian flags aroused their political suspicions. Accordingly, they burnt the platform erected for the dancers, and threatened to fire upon the excursion-train if it attempted to traverse the cut-throat gorge of Katchanik. 'fhis threat alarmed the Committee of Union and Progress, which feared that an Albanian attack upon Austrian subjects would be made the pretext for an Austrian invasion of the country, and that consequently its own scheme would be frustrated. Some of its men1bers parleyed with the Albanians of Ferisovicb to such purpose that the latter threw in their lot with the revolutionary movement, and telegraphed to the Sultan de· manding the revival of the constitution of 1876. Meanwhile, several occurrences had shown the spread of the agitation among the officers of the 3rd army corps. At Resnja, near the lake of Prespa, on July 3, Major Niazi, after seizing the military chest and a number of rifles, took to the nlountains as the chief of a "Young" Turkish band; and Shemshi Pasha, who was sent to suppress him, was killed at ]\fonastir. Other assassinations of reactionary officers follo\ved in quick succession; the Sultan, realising that he could rely upon neither the Albanians nor the army, on July 22 appointed as Grand Vizier " little " Said Pasha, the Liberal statesman who had once fled for refuge to the British Embassy. It was too late, however, for half·measures; on the morrow Major Enver Bey and the Committee proclaimed the constitution at various places in Macedonia, and the 2nd and 3rd army corps threatened to march upon Constantinople. On the 24th a decree of the Sultan announced the restoration of the constitution, which had been suspended since 1878. The censorship of the press and the spy system were abolished, and a Chamber of 280 deputies, elected by grand electors, themselves chosen by every group of from 250 to 750 adult males above 25 years of age, was summoned to meet.
