What started the Young Turk Revolution?

Discussions on the final era of the Ottoman Empire, from the Young Turk Revolution of 1908 until the Treaty of Lausanne in 1923.
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Peter H
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What started the Young Turk Revolution?

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Post by Peter H » 11 Jul 2007, 15:10

One view,discontent going back to 1889:

http://www.grecoreport.com/the_young_tu ... e_they.htm
During the last quarter of the 19th century, the Near East Question passed into its critical phase. As a result of the Russo-Turkish war of 1877-78, the Ottoman Empire lost extensive territory mainly in the Balkans where the "autonomous" states of Bulgaria, Bosnia, and Herzegovina passed into the de facto administrative sphere of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Thessaly and the prefecture of Artas were ceded to Greece, and in Asia, Russia annexed the territories of Kars and Ardachan in Turkish Armenia. In Africa, the English claimed Egypt, and the French Tunisia, while the Italians did not bother to conceal their territorial ambitions toward Tripoli. Meanwhile, the dissident movements in Crete, Armenia, and Macedonia were beginning to reach worrisome levels for the Turkish Sultanate.

One of the first real threats to the Ottoman Throne was a hard-core, conspiratorial group that formed in 1889 among the students of the Military Medical School in Constantinople. The dissatisfaction, though, was widespread throughout the entire military, and had to do with what might be considered today to be union demands: low wages that were paid sporadically and after months of waiting, a promotion system that was torturously slow and not based on merit but on connections, and a cynical disappointment engendered by the promised but never actualized modernization of the military. The main motivating factor in the ever-widening discontent, however, was an agony and concern over the independence of the Turkish State and how best to ensure its continuance. Added to this, and of equal concern, was the problem having to do with the welfare and perpetuation of the Muslim populations living among the many other ethnicities within the Empire.

The conspiratorial leadership, who came to be known as the Young Turks, expressed their dissatisfaction with the status quo, throwing all of the blame on the Sultan, Abdul Hamit, who they proclaimed to be too dictatorial. They demanded his exile -- though not the abolishment of the Sultanate -- together with the restoration of the constitution of 1876.

The threathened partition of Macedonia was another cause:

http://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/boshtml/bos132.htm
Early in 1908 Russia and Austria-Hungary fell out over the execution of the Mürzsteg program, by the terms of which a system of reform had been instituted in Macedonia. In January, 1908, Baron Aerenthal announced that Austria-Hungary had applied for permission to survey the ground for a railroad to connect the terminus of the Bosnian Railway with the line running from Metrovitza to Salonica. Russia was especially disturbed by this announcement, which she regarded as destructive of the joint action which she and Austria-Hungary had been commissioned by the powers to exercise over Macedonia. Baron Aerenthal promptly dispelled all doubts as to the correctness of Russia's inference by declaring that the special task of Russia and Austria in Macedonia was concluded. In June, 1908, King Edward of England and Czar Nicholas met at Reval and drew up a further program for the pacification of Macedonia. The execution of this program was interrupted by the startling series of events which transpired during the latter half of 1908.

On July 24, 1908, the bloodless revolution by which the rule of Abdul Hamid was overturned and the Young Turk régime established in the Ottoman Empire was effected; on October 5 Prince Ferdinand proclaimed the independence of Bulgaria; on October 6 the Emperor Francis Joseph announced the formal annexation of Bosnia and Herzegovina to the Hapsburg dominions; and on October 12 the Cretan Assembly voted the union of the island of Crete with the Kingdom of Greece.

The belief of the Young Turks that a regeneration of the Empire was necessary to prevent the inevitable and irretrievable loss of European Turkey precipitated the revolution of 1908, and the paramount plank in the program of regeneration was the solution of the Macedonian problem. The policy which the Young Turk adopted to solve the Macedonian problem was to strengthen the Moslem element and to enroll Christians in the army.

The loss of Bosnia-Herzegovina in September 1908 soon followed:

http://www.balkanalysis.com/2006/04/25/ ... rzegovina/
In September 1908, Austria-Hungary annexed Bosnia-Herzegovina, Bulgaria declared its independence and Greece annexed Crete.

The now empowered Young Turks saw these as acts of aggression by the European powers and as a collective betrayal of the peoples of the Ottoman Empire. In this dizzying atmosphere of annexation and secession, the more centralist, authoritarian and nationalistic elements among the Young Turks came to the fore. Although the Western powers were initially sympathetic to the dismantling of the Hamidian autocracy, they nevertheless continued with their expansionist policies against the Ottoman Empire.

Interestingly enough, the CUP government managed to channel the public disapproval of the loss of the aforementioned Balkan provinces by claiming that they were the outcome of Abdulhamid’s wrongheaded policies. However, the rapid succession of crippling events also called into question the legitimacy of the CUP’s fledgling government, which had based its argument for self-empowerment largely on the promise that it would be able to stop any further dismemberment of the Empire.

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