Editor's Pick

ON 16 AUGUST 1908, Mehmet Kâmil, the grand vizier of the Ottoman Empire, announced a political programme that restored constitutional rule, introduced comprehensive reforms to modernise state institutions and granted equal rights to all subjects, irrespective of their religion or national origin. Kâmil had been named grand vizier, ten days earlier, as part of an agreement between the sultan, Abdülhamid II, and the Ittihat ve Terakki Cemiyeti—Committee of Union and Progress—the leading faction of the Young Turks movement, which had successfully carried out an armed uprising in July.

Abdülhamid had suspended the first Ottoman constitution in 1878, two years after it was promulgated, and ruled by fiat ever since. He made significant concessions to European powers and sought to manufacture consent for his despotism through pan-Islamism, leading to nationalist movements in non-Muslim parts of the empire. In 1889, medical students in Istanbul set up a secret society to depose the sultan. Once their plot was uncovered, many of the leaders fled abroad, establishing contacts with the liberal intelligentsia in Western Europe and planning a future revolution. The Young Turks modelled themselves on Giuseppe Mazzini’s La Giovine Italia—Young Italy—which had been instrumental in catalysing the Risorgimento a few decades earlier.

The 1908 uprising was concentrated in Macedonia, where Greek and Bulgarian subjects of the empire had been in revolt for over a decade. The Young Turks made common cause with disaffected Ottoman soldiers and underground activists in the region, who carried out a series of mutinies and assassinations. Unable to ascertain the extent to which the military had been infiltrated and fearing that the insurgents would march on Istanbul, Abdülhamid accepted defeat, on 23 July 1908, and opened negotiations. Following Kâmil’s restoration of the constitution, a general election was held in December. The Young Turks won 287 out of the 288 seats in the legislature.