ABSTRACT
The events of 1905 demonstrated forcibly that the sultan no longer had control over empire-wide security. Wages of state employees and the army stagnated and Abdülhamid’s preferences for tribal cavalries over his military organization stirred much discontent in hitherto loyal populations of the empire. Modeled as revolutionary cells, and run by a tightly controlled Central Committee, the new insurgency issued repeated calls to arms for the restoration of the constitution and Ottomanism as a means of saving the empire. Imminent war in the Balkans, however, forced the Ottoman capitulation to the Italians as laid out in the Ouchy peace treaty of 15 October 1912, ending Ottoman sovereignty in north Africa. With Russian encouragement, aimed at halting further Austro-Hungarian expansion, Greece, Bulgaria, Serbia and Montenegro had improbably signed mutual defense agreements, including secret clauses to defend one another against the Ottoman empire.
