ABSTRACT
Although detected only in July 1878, the last secret society to be examined in this study, called the Skalieri-Aziz committee after its two leaders, was older than Ali Suavi’s group. The committee was founded by friends of the ex-sultan Murad as a reaction to his deposition and aimed at reinstating him to the Ottoman throne. The Skalieri-Aziz committee was not the only group with such an agenda, but the last that concluded the pro-Murad phase in the opposition against Abdülhamid. The committee carries on many of the characteristics of earlier opposition.
An important part of its membership were petty officials in the civil bureaucracy whose involvement in opposition attests to a trickle down of Young Ottoman ideas. However, compared to the other conspiracies the committee also had some peculiar aspects beginning with the wealth of information that is available about it. The verbatim interrogation protocols of the police investigation give insight into the history of the group and its plans as it was explained in the words of its members.1
