Modern Management Concepts and Skills 14th Edition Certo Solutions Manual
Modern Management Concepts and Skills 14th Edition Certo Solutions Manual
Modern Management Concepts and Skills 14th Edition Certo Solutions Manual
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22. racial and religious zeal. Let the Hellenes among them return to their
homes in Greece. Let them scatter. It is also intolerable to us that
these bands have low Moslems in their pay who commit atrocities.
We will find out and kill these Moslems if they do not at once
abandon the Greek bands. We call upon you to have these Moslems
sent away, else with you will be the responsibility for the blood that
will be shed, and you will be condemned by the civilised world. With
much affection we invite our Greek compatriots to unite with us in
striving for our main objects—the restoration of our Constitution and
the gaining of equality for all. We cannot doubt that God, who has
created us all, will grant success to those only who work for
humanity and civilisation.”
23. A
CHAPTER XIII
A BLOODLESS VICTORY
ND now the hour was drawing near when Niazi was to be called
upon to do the deed that would bring the insurrection to a head
and send the Despotism tumbling down like a house of cards.
Leaving Istarova on July 17, Niazi and his band of fedais set out for
Resna. After a fatiguing march across the mountains (in the course
of which the provisional administration was introduced into several
friendly Moslem and Christian villages, and some détours had to be
made in order to avoid collision with a battalion of chasseurs, whose
officers and men, being strangers to the country and not members
of the Committee, were likely to be dangerous) the band entered
Labcha, the first village, it will be remembered, that Niazi had visited
and organised on the day of his setting out from Resna. Here, as in
Istarova, the fedais were among staunch friends and were enabled
to sleep in security; there was no necessity for sending out patrols or
for posting sentries, for these duties were performed by the villagers
themselves, who were proud to guard the saviours of the nation as
they rested. The village was also protected by a detachment of
troops which, like many another little garrison in the three Vilayets,
had mutinied, its officers and men becoming the sworn associates of
the Committee.
On the following day, July 19, there was a great gathering of people
in Labcha, wild hillmen, shepherds, deserters from the army, and
others, who had come in to see Niazi and his band and to declare
their readiness to take up arms for the Committee. Niazi addressed
the people, told them how successful had been the mission of his
own and of the other bands, and assured them that the sand had all
but run out of the glass, and the day was very near when the
Despotism would fall and liberty prevail. That glad day was indeed
24. nearer than Niazi himself imagined; for that very evening there came
a messenger into the village with a letter for Niazi from the Ochrida
Centre of the Committee of Union and Progress. In this letter the
Committee informed him that very important and grave intelligence
had been received from Monastir, and ordered him to set out at once
for Ochrida. He was to leave his band outside that town and come in
alone to confer with the Committee and receive his instructions.
So soon as Niazi had read this letter he collected his men and made
a forced march throughout the night, for all were eager to learn the
nature of the duty which they were to be called upon to perform.
Before dawn—July 20—the outskirts of Ochrida were reached, and
Niazi, leaving his band, entered the town and went to the house of
his brother, where the members of the Committee came to meet
him. It was then explained to him that he and Eyoub Bey were to
collect two thousand men from Ochrida and Resna, form them into
two bands, and march on Monastir without delay. The detailed
instructions as to what he was to do would be delivered to him
before he reached that town.
As Niazi learnt later, the Committee of Union and Progress had
decided that the time had arrived for it to make its great coup. The
plan was simultaneously to proclaim the Constitution at Monastir and
send an ultimatum to the Sultan, who would have to choose
between constitutional government, abdication, and a bloody civil
war. In the first place it was necessary for the Committee to secure
the possession of Monastir, the head-quarters of the Government’s
military strength in Macedonia, where General Osman Pasha, an able
man who exercised a greater moral influence over his troops than
did his predecessor, Shemshi Pasha, was still in command. The bulk
of the troops in Monastir were adherents of the Committee, but
there were also many ready to obey the orders of the General. It
was realised that if Osman Pasha could be got out of the way the
supporters of the Government would be demoralised, and the
Committee might then be able to establish its authority without
bloodshed. The killing of each other by Turkey’s Moslem soldiers was
a calamity to be avoided. It was therefore decided to entrust to Niazi
25. and Eyoub Beys the special duty of removing Osman Pasha from
Monastir as suddenly and quietly as possible, so as to allow no time
for the organisation of opposition.
To collect the necessary two thousand men was no difficult matter.
In the first place it was decided to employ the very troops who had
been the first to pursue Niazi and his band after the raising of the
standard of revolt at Resna. This was a battalion of redifs of the
Ochrida district which had been disbanded after its fruitless chase of
the revolutionary leader, because the authorities rightly suspected
that most of the men were adherents of the Committee of Union and
Progress. So messengers were sent to the neighbouring villages to
summon these disbanded soldiers—who had not yet given up their
arms to the Government—to assemble at an appointed place outside
Ochrida. Niazi with his band marched into his own country to collect
the men of Resna, Persepe, and Labcha. Throughout the night of the
20th and throughout the following day he traversed the
mountainous countryside, his band being ever increased by the
accession of fresh volunteers who came to him generally in threes
and fours, but occasionally in bodies of from forty to fifty men.
Whenever the band passed through a village it was received with
extraordinary enthusiasm, and the villagers brought presents of
bread and cheese until each man was provided with two days’
rations, the supply which Niazi deemed to be necessary.
In the morning of July 21 Eyoub Effendi, with his Ochrida band of
disbanded redifs and others, a thousand men in all, joined Niazi’s
band at Labcha, and now the column formed by the two united
bands set off in the direction of Monastir. After dark, as they were
approaching their appointed night’s halting place, an incident
occurred which is interesting as illustrating the manners and customs
of the wild Albanian hillmen. The stillness of the night was suddenly
broken by the sound of rifle-fire on the mountainside above the
road; so Niazi sent out scouts to ascertain what was happening. It
turned out that the Faragas and the Quapris, between which two
tribes there had existed for ages a deadly blood feud, had each sent
a band of about one hundred men to join Eyoub Bey’s battalion;
26. these two bands met in the mountain, and what happened may be
best described in Niazi’s own words: “It was indeed a sight worth
witnessing—this meeting of the men of these two tribes, between
whom there had been so intense an enmity, but who were now
united, as with one heart, ready to die together for the sake of the
same ideal. These tribesmen, who for two centuries had hated to
see each other’s faces or to hear each other’s voices, and who had
ever pursued each other with rifle-shots, had now, on meeting on
the hillside, saluted each other with rifle-shots, and were eager,
standing together as comrades, to use rifle-shots against the traitors
and enemies of the fatherland.”
The column passed the night in the village of Gauchar, where many
volunteers from the surrounding country joined the battalions of
Niazi and Eyoub, bringing the force up to the strength of over two
thousand men. The people gathered from the countryside to crowd
the village streets throughout the night to honour and entertain the
fedais with simple refreshments. All these people were prepared to
risk everything in the civil war, the immediate outbreak of which they
considered as inevitable.
On the following morning, July 22, the column marched under a
blazing sun by the steep zigzag tracks that cross the precipitous
ranges of Mount Pelista. At ten o’clock a halt was made, and the
“National Battalion of Ochrida” under Eyoub Bey, and the “National
Battalion of Resna” under Niazi Bey, were arranged in their roll-call
order. There were twenty companies or bands in all, under twenty
commanders, who included among them one lieutenant-colonel,
several majors and captains, one doctor of medicine, and leading
Beys of the Macedonian and Albanian land-owning class. Up to that
moment these National troops had not been informed of their
destination or of the object of the expedition. So now, while Eyoub
enlightened his battalion, Niazi addressed the men of his own
command. He explained how, in order to serve the beneficent
Committee which was working for the salvation of the country, the
men of his band had cheerfully given up comfort, and their wives
and families, and had been ready to sacrifice their lives. “But now,”
27. he said, “these hardships and troubles will soon be a thing of the
past, and they have achieved their purpose well. Relying upon the
success which God gives and the inspiration of the Prophet, we are
now on our way to the head-quarters of the Vilayet of Monastir to
carry into execution a most important command of the Committee.
Within a few hours, if we are successful, we shall have delivered our
country from its afflictions. Without hurting a hair of his head we
shall take the Mushir (Field Marshal), Osman Pasha, from his
residence so as to prevent him from carrying into effect the injuries
which it is in his mind to inflict upon the Committee and the
fatherland. May God enable us to perform this duty with complete
success. It is therefore necessary, my comrades, that you should
carry out the orders which you will receive, literally and implicitly.
The strictest order and discipline must be maintained.”
The men rejoiced to hear what they were called upon to do, and,
despite their fatigue, when the order to resume the march was
given, they proceeded along the rough roads at the double, eager to
reach Monastir as soon as possible. While the column was on its
way, there came to it a most acceptable mascot in the shape of a
young roebuck. It was accompanying a half-dozen or so of bashi-
bazouks, who had with them a letter from the Committee at
Monastir ordering that they should be admitted into Niazi’s band.
They had found the roebuck in the hills, and as all Turks, even if
they be savage bashi-bazouks, are fond of animals and are invariably
kind to them, they caressed the creature and gained its confidence
so well that it had followed them along the road. So this roebuck
now became the pet of the column and marched at the head of it,
fulfilling, says Niazi, the function of a guide, “for by some instinct it
always ran on in the direction we had to go.” Niazi’s description of
this incident well illustrates the kindly and religious sentiment of the
Turks. “The soldiers,” he tells us, “caressed and blessed it, and
thanked God who had sent us this beautiful animal, which fascinated
all with its charming ways. We regarded its presence as a propitious
sign, a divine message of approval of our enterprise.”
28. In the evening, the column, after an extraordinary forced march,
reached a village which was within a few miles of Monastir. A halt
was called so that the men could have a meal and rest; and here, as
had been arranged, there arrived from Monastir Lieutenant Osman
Effendi with fifty men, bringing a sealed letter for Niazi which
contained the Committee’s detailed instructions for the execution of
the plan. Once more Niazi impressed the necessity of silence,
steadiness, and obedience on the men; the order was given to
march, and the eager fedais hurried along the road, sandal-shod,
and therefore almost noiselessly, at the double, and covered the few
miles that lay between them and their destination in a very short
time. It was about eleven o’clock at night, and there were but few
citizens in the streets, when the column came to the outskirts of
Monastir. Here the main body remained while eight hundred men,
divided into several detachments, and guided by members of the
Monastir Committee, passed into the town by various routes and
quickly and silently approached and surrounded the group of
buildings which contained the Government House, the Headquarters
of the Commander-in-Chief, and the official residence of General
Osman Pasha. At the same time agents of the Committee cut the
telegraph wires and so prevented the General from holding any
communication with the Yildiz or with his own staff. The sentries
guarding the General’s residence were quickly disarmed; only one
man offered resistance, but he was pinioned before he could fire his
rifle and give the alarm. Then two officers and some of the men of
Niazi’s band broke into the room where the General was in bed
sleeping, and he was awakened, not unnaturally furiously angry, to
find himself the prisoner of the revolutionaries. In the meanwhile
other bodies of men discovered and placed under arrest the Chief of
the Staff, the Officer in Command of the Zone, and some other
officers who were known to be no friends of the Committee of Union
and Progress.
His captors assured Osman Pasha that his life was in no danger, but,
while addressing him with all the respect due to his high rank, they
courteously explained to him that their instructions were to escort
29. him with all marks of honour to Resna, where he was to remain for a
short time as the guest of the Committee of Union and Progress.
Then they handed him a letter which had been drawn up by the
Committee. It opened with the correct ceremonial salutations: “In
the name of the most merciful and compassionate God. To His
Excellency, Mushir, Osman Pasha. Peace be on you and the mercy of
God. May God guide us and you.” Then the letter proceeded—in
terms so polite and flattering that one wonders whether the
Committee was indulging in sarcasm—to point out that the courage
and ability with which God had endowed His Excellency ought to be
used to direct armies to crush the enemies of the fatherland, and
not to attack the nation itself; but that, unfortunately, His
Excellency’s official appointment and the extensive powers and
instructions that had been given to him by the Yildiz were calculated
to induce him—no doubt against the dictates of his own conscience
—to commit acts that might be injurious to the fatherland and cause
the repetition of such regrettable events as occurred in Erzeroum
(the Armenian massacres). His Excellency’s life, the letter explained,
was precious to the country; when the Despotism had been changed
for constitutional government his services might be required for the
reform and reorganisation of the army. Consequently the Committee
proposed to rescue His Excellency from his present awkward
situation, and ventured to beg him to consent to become the
Committee’s honoured guest; it trusted that he would not regard this
as in any way bringing disgrace upon himself, and assured him that
everything had been arranged that could safeguard his dignity and
contribute to his comfort. It reminded him that opposition to the
Committee’s will could not avail, for his house was surrounded, all
officers on whose obedience he could rely were under arrest, while
the troops in the town and all the inhabitants were adherents of the
Committee.
Osman Pasha read this document without making any comment
upon its contents, and asked whether he might go into the adjoining
room to put on his clothes; but the two officers, fearing lest he
might attempt suicide, were present while he dressed. Then the
30. General left the house and, mounting a horse, was escorted by Niazi
and his National Battalion of one thousand men to Resna, which was
reached the following night, and here Osman was confined as an
honoured prisoner in the house of one of the notables of the place.
On that day, July 23, Macedonia and Albania threw off the
Despotism, and even as Niazi’s men were marching to Resna with
their prisoner they heard behind them, far off, the sound of the
cannon in Monastir that were saluting the Constitution. Niazi and his
fedais had sworn not to return to their homes until their country had
won its freedom, and now, having faithfully observed their oaths, he
and many of his followers rejoined their rejoicing wives and families
in Resna. Throughout the following day, July 24, Resna, like every
other town and village in Turkey, presented an extraordinary
spectacle. The people seemed to be mad with enthusiasm and
delight. Turks, Bulgarians, Greeks, Servians, Wallachs were all as
brothers. Several Bulgarian and Greek bands, one of the former led
by the redoubtable Cherchis himself, tramped into Resna that day to
take part in the universal jollification and fraternisation. Banners
bearing the device, “Liberty, Equality, Fraternity, Justice,” and
national flags innumerable waved in the breeze, and all day long the
people were shouting themselves hoarse with cries of “Long live the
Nation!” “Long live the Army!” “Long live the Committee!” After a
twenty-four hours’ halt in Resna, during which he was occupied in
receiving the Christian band leaders and administering the oath to
them, and making arrangements in case of a levée en masse of the
people (for it was uncertain yet whether the Sultan would submit or
plunge the country into civil war), Niazi, by order of the Committee,
marched back to Monastir with the two hundred original fedais of his
band, accompanied by Cherchis and other leaders of the Christian
bands.
And here Niazi passes out of this story. I have given a somewhat full
account of his wanderings, as the narrative will make clear the
nature of the work that was done all over the country by those
whose mission it was to gain the adherence of the civil population to
the revolutionary cause; and I think that it also shows that those
31. virtues without which no people can be great or worthy of any
respect—patriotism, and the readiness to sacrifice self for a high
ideal—are possessed in a high degree by the Moslem Turks. Niazi
was the first young officer to take to the mountains, and it was to
his lot that the most important work fell; but it needed many others
like him to make the insurrection so universal as it was. Enver Bey
and dozens of other young officers were doing the same work as
Niazi and with like success in other parts of the country. The local
Committees, too, appear to have been wonderfully organised and to
have been directed by single-minded patriots of great ability who
kept ever in the background, their names unknown, and took no
part in the public rejoicings when the victory was won. Thus the
Committees in Uskeb and Janina, by their diligent propaganda,
respectively won over the allegiance of the Northern Albanians and
the Southern Albanians at the same time that Niazi was gaining that
of the Western Albanians. Niazi is essentially the soldier, simple and
straightforward and not a politician, and, now that his mission at the
time of his country’s peril has been successfully accomplished, he is
back in his own province quietly fulfilling his military duties in the
midst of troops who would follow him to hell, as our own private
soldiers would put it.
32. O
CHAPTER XIV
THE COMMITTEE’S ULTIMATUM
N the night of July 22, so soon as Osman Pasha had been
made a prisoner, the members of the Monastir Centre of the
Committee of Union and Progress proceeded to take over the
government of the city and to secure the position that had been
gained by Niazi’s coup. In the first place, the Committee sent a
telegram to the Sultan himself (to the Presence of His Sacred
Majesty, the Caliph), beseeching him to command the practical
application of the Fundamental Law (the Constitution of 1876) in
order that the loyalty and devotion of his subjects might remain
unimpaired; and informing him that, unless an Iradé ordering the
opening of the Chamber of Deputies was issued by the following
Sunday—July 26—events would “occur contrary to your Royal will
and pleasure.” The telegram concluded with the words: “The civil
authorities, the officers of the army, the soldiers, the ulema, and
sheikhs, the people great and small, of various creeds, within the
Vilayet of Monastir, all united to work for one cause by an oath made
upon the Unity of God, await your commands.” Another telegram
was despatched to inform the head-quarters of the Committee in
Salonica that the coup had been made with success, and during that
night young officers posted manifestos on the walls in that city
calling upon the people to co-operate with the Committee and
overthrow the Despotism.
On the morning of July 23 the citizens of Monastir woke up to find
that all signs of the Government’s authority had vanished, and that
the Committee had become the undisputed master of the Vilayet. It
was a day of frenzied rejoicings. The fifty thousand inhabitants of
this city and thousands of people from the surrounding country
packed the streets to cheer and sing the songs of liberty. Sometimes
33. a narrow way would be opened through the dense crowd to allow
the passing of companies of Anatolian troops joyfully marching to
some appointed spot where they were to be sworn in on the Unity of
God as adherents of the Committee; or of a body of citizens carrying
aloft on their shoulders the fedais, the members of the Moslem
bands that had saved Turkey, the heroes of the hour.
And ever and again there rose a roar of “Long live the Committee!”
and the people went about seeking the members of the Committee,
eager to do them honour and give them an ovation as they had
done with the fedais. But the mysterious and invisible Committee
was nowhere to be found. An absorbing curiosity got hold of the
people. Who were the men, they asked themselves, who had acted
on the executive of the Committee, the secret leaders who had
issued the manifestos and orders, who had organised the movement
with such skill and daring? But it was impossible to obtain any
answer to this question. It was not until some days after the Sultan
had granted the Constitution that Niazi himself was given the names
of those who composed the Monastir Executive, and then he found
that among them were some of his most intimate friends.
But on this wonderful day, July 23, the executive body of the
Committee was too busily engaged on most important work to come
forward and receive the congratulations that were its due; for much
had yet to be done. The Committee decided not to await the Sultan’s
reply to its demand, but to proclaim the Constitution that very day in
Monastir, and it was held that the most fitting person to make this
announcement to the people would be the Governor of the Monastir
Vilayet himself, the Vali, Hifzi Pasha. The Vali, as we have seen, had
been bold enough, a few days earlier, to tell the Palace the exact
truth concerning the state of affairs in Macedonia. In reply to this
the Grand Vizier had telegraphed to rebuke him for lack of zeal and
to give him certain instructions. On this the Vali had sent in his
resignation to the Grand Vizier on the ground that he would not be
responsible for the bloodshed and outrages which must follow the
execution of such orders. It was well known to the Committee that
34. the Vali was a just and upright man whose sympathies were rather
with the friends of liberty than with the Despotism which he served.
On the morning of the twenty-third the Vali openly joined the
revolutionary party. He sent telegrams to the Sultan and the Grand
Vizier informing them of the capture of Osman Pasha, and stating
that the entire military force in Monastir and 3500 armed men from
among the inhabitants were now the sworn adherents of the
Committee. In the afternoon the Vali read out the Committee’s
proclamation of the Constitution in the presence of tens of
thousands of enthusiastic Moslems and Christians, and the garrison
of Monastir; and then the cannon thundered out a salute that told
the surrounding country that Turkey was to be made free at last.
On this same day the Central Committee in Salonica and the branch
Committees in other towns came forward to give clear proof to the
people that the domination of the Palace was over. The Constitution
was proclaimed in Resna, Dibra, and other towns in Macedonia and
Albania at the same hour that it was proclaimed in Monastir. In
Salonica the Central Committee, which here, too, had the garrison
on its side and the Government at its mercy, decided that it would
be to the interest of the revolutionary cause to make as short as
possible the period of uncertainty as to whether it was to be civil war
or peace; the enemies of liberty must be allowed no time for
preparation or intrigue. Accordingly, at an early hour on June 23, the
Committee telegraphed its ultimatum to the Sultan, informing His
Majesty that unless he granted the Constitution within twenty-four
hours the Second and Third Army Corps would march upon
Constantinople.
The Committee’s next step was to approach the Inspector-General,
Hilmi Pasha (who was made Grand Vizier in February last), and to
call upon him, as the highest Government official in Macedonia, to
proclaim the Constitution to the people. Hilmi had been a good
servant of the Sultan, but at heart he hated the corrupt Palace and
its ways, and recognised the justice of the Young Turkey cause
which he had been instructed to persecute, but had persecuted so
35. half-heartedly that he had drawn upon himself the rebukes of the
Grand Vizier, Ferid Pasha. Hilmi’s attitude was now correct and
courageous. He told the Committee that though his sympathies were
with the Young Turkey party, he was still the servant of the Sultan,
and consequently could not proclaim the Constitution unless ordered
to do so by his sovereign. Upon this the Committee informed him
that unless he proclaimed the Constitution within twenty-four hours
he would have to suffer the penalty—that is, to be put to death—
that the telegraph lines were at his disposal and it behooved him,
within the given time, to persuade the Sultan that resistance to the
will of the people would be of no avail, and that His Majesty could
only retain his position on the throne by the immediate restoration of
the Constitution.
So Hilmi Pasha now sent telegram after telegram to the Palace to
explain the exact state of affairs. He exposed the absolute
hopelessness of the cause of the old régime—the two Pashas on
whom the Sultan had relied to destroy the Committee of Union and
Progress, Hilmi and Osman, were the prisoners of the Committee;
the Anatolian troops that were to have stamped out the rebellion
had become the sworn adherents of the Committee; the Second and
Third Army Corps now formed the army of the Committee; of the
First Army Corps in Constantinople itself the Palace Guards alone
were above suspicion; there was no time to arouse the fanaticism of
the Arabs and other Asiatics against the Young Turks; the action of
the Anatolian regiments that had been brought to Salonica had
proved that the Army Corps in Asia Minor had also been brought
round to the side of the reformers; and lastly, from all over the
Empire the news was coming in that Valis of provinces and other
high officials had deserted the Palace Camarilla for the constitutional
party.
That day the people of Turkey were rejoicing in their newly found
liberty; but it was a twenty-four hours of suspense and anxiety for
the men who knew that it rested on the decision of one old man as
to whether it was to be peace or civil war. The ultimatum of the
Committee and the telegrams of Hilmi Pasha were submitted to the
36. Sultan by his terrified courtiers; but in the council chambers of the
Yildiz, almost up to the last moment, there was hesitation and a
conflict of opinions as to the course that should be adopted by the
Government. There were, of course, members of the Camarilla, Izzet
Pasha among them, who advocated resistance at any cost to the
demands of the Committee, for these men, conscious of the evil
they had wrought, knew that the Constitution would mean for them
ruin and exile, and perhaps death.
But, in the meanwhile, the Sultan had dismissed his Grand Vizier,
Ferid Pasha, and had summoned to his Palace Said Pasha and Kiamil
Pasha, the two oldest, most experienced, and upright statesmen of
his reign, both of whom, though no admirers of Palace methods, had
been Grand Viziers, and both of whom had been in disgrace and
danger of their lives through the monarch’s caprice and the jealousy
of corrupt courtiers. The Sultan now appointed Said Pasha Grand
Vizier in the place of Ferid Pasha. Throughout the day there had
been fear and wrath and hesitation in the Yildiz, but on the evening
of the twenty-third all the ministers were summoned to the Palace,
and there was held the famous last State Council under the old
régime. There was a long and anxious discussion, and to and fro
between the Council and the Sultan went the Chief Chamberlain and
other messengers, keeping His Majesty informed of the progress of
the debate—a mere matter of form as laid down by the etiquette of
the Palace, for, as every one there knew, the Sultan was in the
adjoining chamber sitting on the other side of the curtain which
alone divided him from his consulting ministers, and could hear
every word that was spoken.
The night passed by, the morning was near, and the ministers were
still debating. Said and Kiamil urged the necessity of yielding, and
there were others who agreed with them; but Abdul Hamid inspired
as much fear as ever in his advisers, and each of these, knowing of
what things that listening man was capable when in a fit of anger,
was afraid to be the first to utter the long-forbidden name
“Constitution”; and the question was discussed in that ambiguous
and circuitous fashion that Orientals understand so well how to
37. employ. At last there was brought in to the Council Chamber on a
litter the bedridden old Arab Court Astrologer, Abdul Houda, a
favourite of the Sultan, who has recently died. He boldly put into
plain words what was in the minds of all. Then Said Pasha asked the
ministers whether it was their decision that the Sultan should be
advised to grant the Constitution. To this they made no reply, and
averted their eyes when he looked from one to another. Then, after
a pause, Said quoted a Turkish proverb which is the equivalent of
our own “Silence gives consent.” The Sultan was forthwith informed
of the decision of his ministers, and to the relief of all he agreed
without any demur to restore the Constitution; for the shrewd
monarch had by now fully realised the position and had made up his
mind.
So on the morning of July 24 the great news was telegraphed to
every corner of the Ottoman Empire, and everywhere there were the
same extraordinary demonstrations of popular joy. In Constantinople
huge crowds, composed of Moslems, Christians, and Jews, flocked to
the Yildiz to cheer the Sultan. On the broad quay of Salonica, Hilmi
Pasha, to whom the Sultan’s decision had meant the withdrawal of
his death warrant, read out the proclamation of the Constitution to
tens of thousands of exulting citizens.
The Sultan had promised the Constitution, and all that remained to
be done now was for him to issue the Iradé that should confirm that
promise and to take the oath of allegiance to the Constitution. Some
days passed, and his Majesty had taken no steps to perform these
necessary formalities. The ever-vigilant Committee of Union and
Progress therefore saw to it that there should be no further delay,
and issued its orders. Some Macedonian troops were hurriedly
brought up to the capital and were placed outside the Yildiz, while a
man-of-war was stationed in the Bosphorus immediately below the
Palace, with its guns directed on it. Then some young officers
belonging to the Committee demanded an audience of the Sultan
and explained to him that he must sign the Iradé there and then,
else the Macedonian troops would overpower the Palace Guard and
seize his Majesty’s person. The Sultan yielded, the Iradé was signed,
38. and shortly afterwards the Sheikh-ul-Islam administered to Abdul
Hamid the oath by which he bound himself to restore, and to
observe faithfully, the Constitution which he had violated thirty years
before.
39. T
CHAPTER XV
AFTER THE REVOLUTION
HE victory had been won; the Young Turkey party was
triumphant; the Ottoman people had gained their liberty. There
was complete individual liberty and liberty of the press; there
were no more spies, no more domiciliary visits, no more oppression.
In short, the Turks, who for a generation had been groaning under
the crudest of Oriental despotisms, in one day became as free as the
people of England, indeed in some respects considerably freer than
them. Peace came of a sudden to this troubled land which had for so
long been an inferno of implacable racial hatreds, all men went
about in security, and the peasants were able to sow their fields
knowing that they themselves would be the reapers. This was not as
other revolutions; for though for a time there was no law in the land
and no administration, there was no anarchy, there were no cruel
reprisals, there were no excesses; the conduct of the entire
population was admirable.
These revolutionaries, unlike those in some other lands, did not
hasten, so soon as they had freed themselves of one despotism, to
cast upon the country the still more galling chains of democratic
tyranny. The people who made this revolution were the educated
men in Turkey, all that was best in the country; and thus from the
beginning this had been the most conservative of revolutions. There
was nothing approaching to socialism or anarchism in this
movement. The Young Turks, as I have already explained, have no
theories about the reconstruction of society; they have no schemes
for the benefiting of one class by the spoliation of another; they do
not believe that one man is as good as another, or that manhood
suffrage will bring the millennium. Like the English revolution of
1688, this one came from above and not from below. That the
40. ignorant masses did not usurp the direction of the movement, and
by discrediting it prepare the way for the restoration of the despotic
power, was largely due to the fact that Turkey, fortunately for
herself, has had her revolution before she has arrived at that stage
of economic and industrial development when what we term the
working-classes think out political and social theories or, rather,
accept the views of the mischievous demagogues who mislead them.
There is no class hatred in Turkey; there are no large manufacturing
industries to produce hordes of discontented people in the big cities,
and, so far, there are no agrarian questions to trouble the minds of
the simple and pious Turkish peasantry.
Of the seventy thousand exiles who returned to Turkey from Europe
and America after the proclamation of the Constitution there were of
course some who had mixed with Russian anarchists, with
internationalists and other political extremists, and had absorbed
their theories; but these are in a small minority and exercise no
appreciable influence. The same may be said of a certain set of well-
to-do exiles who for years were idle Paris flaneurs, lost some of their
Ottoman virtues, became poor patriots, and have now returned as
dilettante politicians, some of them to join the party which advocates
a thorough-going home rule all round for the various races of Turkey
—a programme detestable to the more earnest Young Turks, who
realise that such a policy would lead to the certain disintegration of
the Empire.
But it is of the attitude of the people themselves and not of the
politicians that I wish to speak in this chapter. When the Ottomans
of all races and creeds suddenly found themselves free they became
filled with an exceeding joy, a new sentiment of brotherhood, and a
profound gratitude to the saviours of the country, the Committee of
Union and Progress, that took the practical form of implicit
obedience to the Committee’s mandates, so that it had little difficulty
in preserving order. All over the country there were great
demonstrations and rejoicings of enthusiastic and good-natured
crowds, that touched foreign spectators of these scenes and
compelled the sympathy even of the cynically inclined. In the streets
41. and cafés and tramcars of the capital, wherein men had been wont
to meet in silence, each suspecting the other, strangers, united by a
common joy, now spoke to each other freely and in kindly fashion. It
was a reign of universal amity, and it seemed as if all that is best in
human nature had come to the top. European witnesses have
described the wonderful fraternisations of men of all races and
creeds: how Turks, Armenians, Bulgarians, and Jews harangued
sympathetic crowds in the streets of the capital, preaching peace
and good will among men; how even in Beyrout, notorious for the
massacres of Christians under the late régime, Christian priests and
turbanned mollahs embraced publicly before fraternising mobs of
Moslems and Armenians; how in the same city the Turkish
commander with his officers and troops attended a service in the
Armenian church to lament over the massacres of their Christian
fellow-countrymen; and how, with the same object, crowds of
Moslems in Stamboul went to the Armenian cemetery to pray and
place flowers upon the graves of those who had been slaughtered by
the orders of the Palace. It was the same in Jerusalem, where the
various Christian sects—hitherto kept from flying at each other’s
throats by the bayonets of the Moslem soldiery—now made friends
and joined in processions with Mussulmans and Jews.
In Salonica, the head-quarters of the revolution, there were scenes
of intense national rejoicing that astonished European observers.
The Bulgarian, Greek, and other leaders of bands, the Albanian
brigand chiefs, and all their followings of ferocious outlaws of the
hills, on whose heads there had been a price for years, men of
different races who since boyhood had been burning each other’s
villages and killing each other’s women, flocked into the town to
submit to the Committee, to be reconciled to one another, and to
become the friends of the Moslem Turks. Sandansky himself, the
king of the mountains, the most formidable of the Bulgarian leaders
of bands, came in, harangued the crowds on liberty, fraternity, and
justice, and was received with the greatest enthusiasm. All these
fighting men, who had spread terror through Macedonia and
Albania, clad in the picturesque dress of Europe’s wildest and least
42. known regions, forgot civil war and blood feuds, fraternised with
each other and with the Turkish soldiery, marched down the streets
roaring the songs of liberty, hobnobbed together over cups of coffee,
and sometimes mastic and raki, in the cafés, embraced each other,
and swore to be brothers.
I was in Salonica four months after Turkey had won her freedom,
and the national jubilation had not yet subsided; it was everywhere
exultation and good-fellowship. Here, in this city of many races, I
found myself surrounded by a refreshing atmosphere of joyous
delight in the new-found liberty. From the window of my hotel I
looked out upon the busy quay and the blue sea that stretched to
the snows of Olympus. Along this quay passes most of the life of the
town, and at frequent intervals something happened in front of me
to remind me of the revolution and of the keenness of the people.
Now it was a procession of Christians and Mussulmans fraternising
and singing patriotic songs on their way to the railway station to
cheer a newly elected Deputy who was starting for Constantinople;
now it was a body of troops of the Macedonian army marching
through crowds which hailed them as their liberators; now a
battalion paraded on the quay to be exhorted by some general
before embarking for Constantinople, for at that time the Young
Turks were despatching more of their faithful troops to the capital,
determined to be in readiness should the forces of reaction reassert
themselves; now it was the return from over the water of some exile
of despotism to the friends and relatives who had not seen him for
years. Thus one morning I saw a flag-decorated tender come off
from a newly arrived steamer and land on the stage in front of me
the Albanian General, Mehmed Pasha, just freed from a long exile in
Baghdad; he was welcomed with shouts and clapping of hands by
the large crowd of Albanians and others who had come to escort him
to his house.
There were most affecting sights, too, to be seen in those early days
of liberty. When it was decreed that political prisoners should be
liberated, the gates of the prisons were thrown open, and out
poured, in their thousands, the captives of the Despotism, to be
43. received by crowds of deeply moved sympathisers. Many of these
unfortunate men had been confined for years in cells but twelve feet
square, and came out into fresh air and sunshine dazed and weak in
mind, like the prisoner of the Bastille in Dickens’ famous story, to be
led home by relatives and friends. Here one would see outside the
prison door a husband and wife greet each other with tears of joy
after years of separation, and here some poor wretch, with spirit
long since tortured out of him, weeping miserably as he wandered to
and fro because no dear ones had come to meet him, and he
realised that they had died while he was in captivity.
It was pleasant to observe the confidence and pride of the
population in the Young Turk leaders, who had sacrificed so much
for liberty and justice. The patriotism of the people of Salonica was
then being displayed in various ways. Large sums were being
collected to supply comforts to the troops who throughout the winter
were to guard the northern frontier against any attack on the part of
Turkey’s enemies, and a movement had also been started in the
town, which, if it spreads far enough, may relieve the Government of
some of its embarrassments. Officers of the garrison and civil
servants of all grades, reading of the depleted treasury and the
heavy burden of the floating debt, were abandoning their claims to
their arrears of pay, because, as they said, their country needed the
money. Deputies, also, were refusing to accept their travelling
allowances.
For one who knew Turkey under the old régime it was very
interesting, in Constantinople, to observe the outward signs of the
great change which had come to the country, and to note the
attitude of a population which found itself suddenly in the enjoyment
of the widest liberty. In most countries, after such a revolution, the
people would have been intoxicated with their new freedom; the
forces of disorder would have been let loose; there would have
been, for a while, a condition approaching anarchy. But
Constantinople is not like other European capitals, and it took its
revolution in a sensible fashion. All the old restrictions had been
swept away; but liberty had not broken into license. Though there
44. was no longer a censorship of printed matter, the Turkish press
observed a dignified moderation in its tone. For the first time the
comic papers were free to publish political caricatures in which the
highest personages were represented; but if one might judge from
such as were exhibited in the windows of the newspaper shops,
there was nothing offensive in these somewhat crude pictures. Large
crowds attended political meetings in the capital; but there was no
disturbance of the peace and there was no need for the presence of
the police or the troops, save when the Greeks, who are never
happy unless they have some real or imaginary grievance to make a
noise about, made demonstrations during the elections. People now
enjoyed the right to form themselves into associations, but one
heard of no anarchical societies; and apparently the first result of
this new privilege was that the Turkish temperance reformers availed
themselves of it to establish a total abstinence league in Cæsarea.
But, as might be expected, the interregnum between the withdrawal
of the authority of the old régime with its severe code and its armies
of spies, and the reorganisation of the police and other departments
by the Young Turks was taken advantage of to some extent by the
ignorant and lawless. At the beginning of the revolution all prisoners,
including the criminals, were released from the gaols—probably
because it was impossible in many cases to ascertain whether the
offence for which a man had been confined was a political one or
otherwise. The restrictions on the sale and carrying of fire-arms
were also removed, with the result that revolvers in tens of
thousands poured into the city and were at once bought up. A large
proportion of the population carried revolvers and also let them off;
men practised with them in the streets; accidents were frequent;
and in some quarters of the city, especially in the poorer Greek
quarters, it was not unusual to hear a regular fusillade going on at
night, generally in honour of something or other, or to spread the
news that a house was on fire. Robbery with violence in the streets
certainly increased after the revolution. But, notwithstanding all this,
it could not be fairly said that Constantinople was a dangerous place
to walk about in at any hour; and indeed, when it is remembered
45. what a lot of cosmopolitan blackguardism there is in that city of over
a million inhabitants, it is astonishing that there was so large a
measure of security for life and property.
It was natural, too, that Turks of the poorer and more ignorant class
should be under the impression that this new constitutional liberty
meant that each man was free to do what he liked—a common error
which before long was eradicated from the minds of this naturally
law-abiding people by the Young Turk administration. Thus many
thought that the Constitution wiped out the liability to pay any
private debts incurred before the revolution. In the country, peasants
came to the conclusion that they would no longer be called upon to
pay taxes; in the towns the contrabandists sold their smuggled
tobacco openly; and in Constantinople itself the popular conception
of liberty produced some amusing results. The firewood sellers were
to be seen calmly chopping up their logs in the middle of a busy
thoroughfare; pavements were often blocked with the wares of the
hawkers; and others in like manner carried on their avocations in
public; so that the narrow, crowded streets and the Galata Bridge,
difficult enough to traverse in the days of the old régime, became
almost impassable. This sums up the inconveniences of the
interregnum; they were wonderfully few and trifling when one bears
in mind what a revolution this had been.
It was, of course, difficult for the Young Turks to reorganise the
police and carry out administrative reforms until Parliament met; for
the provisionary Ministry was naturally disinclined to accept much
responsibility. But in the meanwhile, though there was a little license
in small matters, the people were made to understand clearly that
the Committee would stand no nonsense. This was proved at the
time of the coaling strike in Galata not long after the proclamation of
the Constitution. The men, having struck once and obtained the
concession of their demands, came to the conclusion that under the
new Constitution they were free to extort what they pleased and
terrorise the population; so they struck again for a prohibitive rate of
wage which would have closed the port to commerce. It was a
critical time: the Young Turks were on their trial; their movement
46. had been represented by their enemies as anarchical; their cause
would be lost were they to fail to preserve order among the
populace. It must be remembered that this was not only the
question of a strike, but of probable rioting of so serious a nature
that it might have caused European intervention; for these labourers
who coal the ships at Galata belong to that rabble of Kurds and
other Mussulmans of the lowest class which is only too ready, on a
hint from the Palace, to set about massacring Armenians and other
Christians.
It therefore behooved the Young Turks to prove that they could rule
men, and they did so. Two young officers rode boldly, unescorted,
into the middle of a dangerous crowd of the strikers, and by their
firm attitude compelled the men to listen to them. First they tried
persuasion, and pointed out to the strikers that by their action they
were prejudicing the cause of freedom which they had so loudly
acclaimed but a few days before. But the men would not be
persuaded and refused to go back to their work. Then the two
officers changed their attitude. One, drawing his revolver, reminded
the men that under the old régime the soldiers would have been
sent to throw them into the water or cast them into prison! “And as
you are conducting yourselves as friends of the old régime, so shall
you be treated,” he exclaimed. “I will come down here to-morrow
and ask you to return at once to your work. I will with my own hand
shoot down the first man who refuses to do so, and the rest of you
will be swept into the sea or into prison.” The next morning the two
officers rode to the quay followed by a body of cavalry. The strikers
knew that what had been said was meant, and quietly went off to
work, and there has been no trouble since with this dangerous
element of the population.
Indeed, the Committee, by its firmness and justice, made itself loved
of the people, who at last came to obey its orders without question.
Thus, when the Committee enjoined the strict boycott of Austrian
trade, while at the same time forbidding the populace to molest or
insult Austrian subjects, a wonderful thing happened. The Austrians
were able to go about the streets in perfect safety; and the Austrian
47. shops remained open, but no one would buy of them, however
cheaply they offered their goods. The rough and ignorant Kurds who
do the coaling and also earn their living as lightermen and as porters
in Galata, and the poor Jews who do the same work in Salonica, to a
man enforced the boycott, though it meant for them a great falling
off in their small wages, and short commons for their families. Thus
no Constantinople boatman would take a passenger off to an
Austrian steamer, or carry him on shore from it when he reached his
destination. These steamers had to use their own launches for the
embarkation and disembarkation of passengers; and the person who
had sailed under this tabooed flag sometimes found himself in a
sorry plight even after he had been landed on a Turkish quay, no
porter being willing to carry his baggage. But in February last, so
soon as the Governments of Turkey and Austria had arranged their
differences, the Committee of Union and Progress gave the word
that the boycott should cease; and cease it did within an hour of this
order: the boatmen, porters, lightermen, and dock labourers in every
port in Turkey coming out as one man to work again for the
Austrians.
In the cities and in the countryside all seemed to be going well with
the cause of the Young Turks; but foreigners who observed this
harmonious opening of the new régime and this extraordinary
fraternisation of men of different races and creeds hitherto
irreconcilable asked themselves how long this reign of universal
friendship could last, and whether this falling into each other’s arms
of Turks, Armenians, Bulgarians, and others was due to any
sentiment more deep and permanent than the joyous intoxication
caused by this unaccustomed wine of liberty. Like other Englishmen
in Turkey at that time, I came to the conclusion that the Young Turks
were quite sincere; that they were honestly desirous to have done
with internal strife, to give equality to all the elements of the
population, and to live in peace and friendship with their non-
Moslem fellow-countrymen. The Armenians and Jews have proved
their sincerity by cooperating loyally with the Young Turks
throughout the parliamentary elections and since. Of the
48. Macedonian Christians the bulk had become weary of bloodshed and
the internecine conflict that had brought nothing but suffering and
ruin to the population; and there was no insincerity about the
friendly relationship that sprang up between the sturdy Bulgarian
leaders of fighting bands and their former foes, the Turkish officers,
for they respected each other. The civil warfare in Macedonia had
been deliberately fomented by the machinations of the Palace gang,
to whom the doctrine of divide et impera was ideal statesmanship,
and to the intrigues of Bulgaria, Servia, and Greece. There is no
reason why, if left alone, these peoples might not dwell together in
peace. A short time since a mollah, addressing the people, said,
“Before the reign of Abdul Hamid the Moslem and Christian mothers
used to nurse each other’s children.” But will these Macedonian
peoples be left alone by Palace agents of reaction, by those Great
Powers whose interests are opposed to the creation of a strong and
independent Turkey, and by the greedy little neighbouring states?
It is, of course, too much to hope that constitutional government has
put a sudden end to the religious and racial strife in Macedonia. The
Greeks in the country have already demonstrated the illusiveness of
such an expectation. The Greeks, like the others, welcomed the
Constitution and fraternised with their Ottoman fellow-countrymen.
Carried away by the enthusiasm of the moment they may have been
sincere in their protestations of brotherhood, but one suspects that
the mental reservations were at the back of their brains all the while.
If one misjudges them in this, then their own actions and the
utterances of their press belie them. In the hour of national
jubilation they supplied the one discordant note. One of the first
uses that they made of the freedom which the Young Turks had won
for them was to boycott and insult the Bulgarians in Salonica, and
the news came that the Greek clergymen in the interior were once
more persecuting the Bulgarian exarchists, and had drawn up
prescription lists of the leading Bulgarians with a view to getting
them assassinated. The Greek element of the population, as might
be expected, was the first to express dissatisfaction with the policy
and administration of the Young Turks. The intolerant and often
49. mischievously active Greek Patriarchate in Constantinople, which
denied the Bulgarians the use of their own language, supported the
Greeks in clamouring for much more than was their due. Their idea
of Ottoman citizenship, so far as themselves were concerned, was to
avoid all the obligations of that citizenship, while enjoying all the
rights conferred by it and retaining all their special privileges intact.
They seemed to think that the government of Turkey should be in
their hands. During the elections it was they alone who provoked
rioting and at Smyrna they created a dangerous disturbance with
their armed mobs.
50. D
CHAPTER XVI
EUROPEAN ASSISTANCE
URING the four months’ interregnum between the granting of
the Constitution and the opening of Parliament, the Committee
of Union and Progress was the undisputed ruler of Turkey. It
dictated to the monarch what his decrees should be, it moved
armies, it removed and appointed ministers, governors of provinces,
and other high officials. These untried young men who formed the
Committee, while introducing a new order of things and protecting
their country against the numerous dangers that threatened to
destroy the newly gained liberty, displayed a wisdom, tact,
moderation, shrewdness, and foresight that were astonishing to
foreign observers. They maintained order with firmness, greatly
assisted in this by the dignified self-control and patriotism of the
people themselves. Though they and thousands of others had
suffered much from the cruelty and rapacity of the Despotism and its
parasites, they displayed no vindictiveness; they punished only the
most guilty of these; removed only those who showed by their
actions that they were a source of danger to the Constitution; and
they frankly forgave the others. The relations of Turkey with foreign
Powers were directed by them with a tactful and resourceful
statesmanship. Their mistakes were remarkably few.
From the beginning they showed their fitness to rule. The avowed
object of the Young Turks had been to depose the Sultan, and when
they offered him the alternative of acceptance of the Constitution or
abdication, they had little expectation that he would submit to their
conditions. But when the astute Sultan did submit in a very graceful
manner, protesting that he was a believer in a constitutional form of
government, and posing as if he and not the revolutionary party had
brought the boon of liberty to his subjects, the Young Turks showed
51. their statesmanship by as graciously accepting the situation, and
became once more the loyal subjects of a constitutional monarch,
whose cleverness and diplomatic experience, if he would now use
them rightly, might be of great service to his country and his people.
The Sultan is the Commander of the Faithful to millions of
Mussulmans, and had the Committee attempted to depose him at
that critical time a long civil war might have resulted. So Abdul
Hamid was left on the throne of Othman, nominally ruling, to
outward seeming popular with the people, who cheered him
enthusiastically whenever he appeared in public. But the Young
Turks had not forgotten how Abdul Hamid, in 1878, destroyed the
Constitution which he had sworn to uphold, so that power behind
the throne, the Committee of Union and Progress, remained ever
watchful, as the strong guardian of the people’s liberties.
I will now briefly sum up the results of the Committee’s energetic
action during the few weeks immediately following the proclamation
of the Constitution. In the first place it had to make itself as strong
as possible so as to combat the reactionary intrigues that were
working for the restoration of the Despotism. It therefore set itself to
establish its hold on the army, to obtain the sanction of the Moslem
religion, and to complete the pacification of Macedonia. It took the
precaution of removing from the Second and Third Army Corps all
officers suspected of reactionary views, and concentrated the bulk of
the troops loyal to the Constitution at Adrianople, within striking
distance of the capital, where, at any rate, a considerable portion of
the First Army Corps and the Sultan’s Prætorian Guard only needed
the word from the Palace to become the instrument of the
reactionaries. Later on the Committee was able to obtain the
removal of most of the battalions of the Imperial Guard from
Constantinople and to replace them with troops from Salonica, thus
securing the Committee’s domination in the capital.
52. CHATEAU OF ASIA
As regards the religious question, the work of the Young Turks was
made easy by the Sheikh-ul-Islam, who—so soon as he had
administered to the Sultan the oath by which the latter swore to
respect the Constitution—proclaimed to the faithful that
constitutional government was not contrary to, but was in
accordance with, the teaching of the Koran; he rebuked the fanatics
who were preaching against the reforms as being anti-religious, and
saw to it that the mosques were not used as centres of reactionary
agitation and intrigue. For the reactionaries were not idle, and, in
European as well as in Asiatic Turkey, their agents—often ex-Palace
spies disguised as doctors of the sacred law and hodjas—were
appealing to Moslem bigotry and denouncing the Constitution as the
invention of the Evil One himself. To counteract this mischievous
propaganda the Committee sent out its own missionaries all over the
country, and doctors learned in the sacred law and others
enlightened the people, supporting their arguments with quotations
from the Koran, and in many cases preaching sermons that had
been written for this purpose by the Sheikh-ul-Islam himself. It was
53. also a great help to the cause that nearly all the Turkish press
supported the Committee. Indeed, during the first few months of the
new régime, a paper holding the unpopular opposite opinions would
have had but few readers.
The Committee, having army, religion, and press on its side, was
strong enough to dominate the Palace. It demanded of the Sultan
the signing of Iradé after Iradé, and if the required Imperial decree
was not immediately forthcoming, a threat that the Adrianople army
would march upon Constantinople within twenty-four hours always
produced the desired effect. Thus, within a few days after the
proclamation of the Constitution, Abdul Hamid had to sign Iradés by
virtue of which he granted a general amnesty, the release of all
political prisoners, the abolition of the spy system, the inviolability of
domicile, a free press, the abolition of the censorship, the liberty of
the individual to travel in foreign countries, in short, all the privileges
enjoyed by the citizens of free countries.
Then the Sultan was compelled to dismiss his favourites and
principal advisers, including his hated secretary, Izzet Pasha, his old
Arab astrologer, Abdul Houda, Tashin Pasha, and Ismail Pasha, the
founder of the detestable military spy system. The Camarilla, that
had all but destroyed Turkey, was broken up and scattered. Izzet
and several other notorious people effected their escape to England
and elsewhere—fortunately for some of them, who, had they
remained, would probably have been torn to pieces by infuriated
mobs, like the infamous Fehmi Pasha. But the Young Turks, as I
have explained, despite the intense hatred which some of them must
have nourished against the cruel oppressors and traitors to their
country who had acted as the instruments of the Despotism,
refrained from vengeance, and there were no reprisals. Penalties
were only inflicted where the country’s good demanded these. Some
of the worst ministers of the tyranny were imprisoned in the War
Office, or confined in their own houses on Prinkipo Island in the Sea
of Marmora, where many rich Turks have their summer residences.
Some have undergone their trial, and have been compelled to
disgorge the public moneys which they had embezzled. For the rest
54. it was complete amnesty, and when the Constantinople mobs began
to occupy themselves in hunting down men recognised to have been
spies of the Palace, in order to carry them off to the prison of the
War Office, the Committee, whose word had to be obeyed,
peremptorily forbade this practice. On the other hand, if any man
took advantage of this leniency to indulge in reactionary intrigue,
sterner justice was administered. Ismail Pasha, for example, the
inventor of the military spy system, for very good reasons was shot
in Constantinople in December last by a young officer.
The Committee recognised that one of their first duties was to
complete the pacification of Macedonia. They successfully
accomplished this within a very short time, and without bloodshed.
The Greeks alone were causing any difficulty; but the Greek bishops,
clergy, and leaders of bands came to understand that the Young
Turks would put up with no nonsense from them, and that the
sympathy of Europe would not be with them if they resisted the new
régime. So it was not long after the granting of the Constitution that
the last Greek band came in, and for the first time for many years
there was peace in Macedonia. The British Government, recognising
that there was no longer any need for European intervention in that
region, withdrew from the arrangement with Russia that had
resulted from the Reval meeting, displaying a confidence in the
Young Turks that won their deep gratitude. The Young Turks had a
very keen appreciation of the sympathy that was displayed for them
by the English. To Englishmen travelling in the country, at that time,
the sincere and hearty friendship extended to them by the Turkish
people was most gratifying and affecting.
It is one thing to make a revolution, but it is quite another thing to
undertake to govern and administer a country after the successful
revolution has swept away the old order. The Young Turks showed
that they were wise enough to know their own limitations. There
were few among them who had any knowledge of administration,
public finance, and diplomacy; so they decided to make use of the
existing machinery of government. They got rid of the notoriously
corrupt among the high officials, but retained the services of the
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