We have already discussed, among Bahaeddin Şakir’s other preparatory work, the fruitless overtures that he made to the leaders of the Hnchak Party in summer 1906. His exchanges with the ARF seem to have been more productive. According to Hanioğlu, the initial negotiations between the two parties were conducted amid the greatest possible secrecy; no public declaration was ever made about them.1 We know only that Ahmed Rıza was sent to Geneva by the CPU to engage in discussions with the ARF’s Western Bureau and that the ARF, for its part, sent Aknuni to Paris to continue the negotiations there.2
During his stay in Paris, the Dashnak leader had a conversation with his classmate from Tiflis’s Nersesian Academy, the Hnchak Stepanos Sapah-Giulian, at the latter’s request. The Dashnak representative informed Sapah-Giulian that he had come to carry out a decision reached at the Vienna Congress, which had voted to organize a second congress of the opposition in collaboration with the Young Turks, with the objective of coming to a general agreement with them. Sapah-Giulian and Aknuni wished to come to terms themselves before pursuing their dialogue with the CPU.3 Before entering into the discussion proper, Sapah-Giulian asked his interlocutor if it was true, as Şakir had told the Hnchaks, that the ARF had already established relations with the CPU and had begun to negotiate an agreement “about the option of a centralized state, with preconditions such as abandoning the Armenian question.” According to Sapah-Giulian, Aknuni confirmed that this was indeed his party’s orientation.4 Examination of the preparations for the congress makes this plausible.
Şakir’s private correspondence suggests that he was, for his part, persuaded that the Armenian Committees had no choice but to rally to the CPU, since the Armenian people was threatened with destruction by the Czarist regime as well as by Abdülhamid, while the policy of the great powers was, at the time, non-interventionist.5 We can form a more precise idea of the CPU’s objectives and Şakir’s strategy by examining their correspondence. It shows that the CPU leaders’ maneuvers were informed by a certain cynicism: they invited the non-Turks to take part in joint actions revolving around Ottomanism, even while reaffirming, internally, that they had rejected this concept of the nation and adopted a clear policy of excluding non-Turks.6
The 1905–6 “events” in the Caucasus – that is, the eruption of violence between Armenians and “Muslims,” especially the Turkish-speaking population of Baku – probably had a greater impact on Young Turk circles than has previously been supposed. While this violence resulted, on the analysis of the Armenian Committees, from a policy of provocation orchestrated by agents of the Czar’s regime,7 Turkish-speaking circles perceived it as a Turkish-Armenian conflict for control of the South Caucasus. Bahaeddin wrote, in response to a March 1906 letter in which the Tatars of the Caucasus complained about Armenian “encroachments,” that “the authors of the detestable massacres are not you, but those Armenian revolutionaries who are enjoying themselves by offending humanity.”8 In public, the CPU’s official organs took a vaguely neutral stance toward the Armenian-Tatar conflict. In private, however, Şakir suggested “putting an end to Armenian wealth and influence in the Caucasus.” He also suggested to his “Muslim Brothers” that they propagate “the patriotic idea of unification with Turkey” while simultaneously declaring to the Russians that they were “loyal to the Russian government” and not engaged in a religious war, but “in a stuggle against Armenians only because [they] have wearied of Armenian acts of agression, outrages, and atrocities, and only in order to defend [their property and honor.”9 These Turkist positions obviously did not prevent the CPU from negotiating with the Armenian Committees and even, as we have seen, from cooperating with independent Armenian personalities.
To date, the ARF has been credited with initiating the organization of the second congress of the Ottoman opposition, approved of in principle by the Party’s Fourth General Congress. Documents presented by Hanioğlu seem to suggest, however, that it was in fact the CPU which took this initiative.10 In any event, both organizations expressed a desire to collaborate. Thus, Şakir observed that Aknuni was “extraordinarily favorably disposed” and showed great flexibility during the preliminary discussions, so much so that the Young Turk leaders became rather suspicious of his motives. At the Dashnak leader’s request, Prince Sabaheddin’s League for Personal Initiative and Decentralization was associated with the mixed commission that was to prepare the congress. This commission comprised Ahmed Rıza and Sâmi Paşazâde Sezaî Bey, members of the CPU’s Central Committee, Dr. Nihad Reşad and Ahmed Fazlı of the League, and Aknuni, the ARF’s official representative. Şakir was not a member of the commission, but archival material shows that he was the real initiator of the congress.11
Interestingly, the twelve-point document drawn up by the mixed commission begins by laying down the principle of the territorial integrity of the Ottoman Empire and the inviolability of the order of succession to the throne, and concludes with a mention of the “legal and revolutionary” means to be mobilized to bring down the Hamidian regime and restore the constitution. It also rejects all foreign intervention and “terrorism,” even while allowing for the possibility of violent action in certain circumstances requiring further definition. The last stipulation states that “the Armenians especially should not participate in the revolt in Erzerum unless we [the CPU] approve it.”12
The three “puissances invitantes,” – the CPU, the ARF, and Prince Sabaheddin’s League – invited the committees of the SDHP and the Verakazmial to take part in the congress. Both refused. The Hellenic League in Paris also received an invitation. Given the League’s relative lack of influence, the debates were in fact an exchange between the CPU and the ARF. A problem cropped up when it came to choosing a name for the national representative body of the “régime représentatif” with which the country was supposed to be endowed. The Young Turks categorically rejected the formula “assemblée constituante” proposed by the Dashnaktsutiun. After an exchange between the ARF’s Western Bureau on the one hand, and the Salonika Committee on the other, an agreement was finally reached on the term “national parliament.”13
Besides these questions of principle, which are indicative of the two parties’ objectives, bitter debates raged around the decision to use “legal and revolutionary” means to bring down the government. It is easy to imagine the uneasiness that the ARF’s revolutionary practices caused the CPU’s leaders, and we may suppose that, in negotiating with the Armenian Party, they intended to bring these practices under control. Among the means proposed by the Armenian revolutionaries were civil disobedience, draft resistance, the organization of armed bands, a general insurrection, a general strike with the participation of government officials and the police, and, finally, terrorist acts with individual or institutional targets. This vast program, coming from militants who had already proved that they were capable of carrying out extremely difficult operations, panicked the CPU leadership, since it maintained, despite all, a legalistic approach and was preoccupied with the fate of the Ottoman Empire. Thus, it made sense that the Young Turks should demand that the activities of the armed bands be closely supervised, that there be no call to resist the draft (for reasons of national security and so as not to weaken the army), and that the ARF abandon collective terrorist action, limiting itself to actions targeting specific individuals.14
When all was said and done, the ARF had made major concessions, agreeing not to call for implementation of the reforms in the eastern provinces or great power intervention in the empire’s internal affairs, while rallying to the idea of a centralized state.15 In exchange, the Armenian party doubtless hoped that the future state would, at least to some extent, have a representative character and respect democratic rules. The ARF may even have expected to acquire a degree of influence over state affairs. Despite this conversion, the Young Turks, who were used to battling their Armenian compatriots’ plans for administrative autonomy, apparently displayed some reluctance to collaborate with them. The Armenian Committee, in turn, had to find acceptable foundations on which to ground its legitimacy in its own community. Precisely because Sabaheddin’s League was among the organizers of the congress, the inclusion of other non-Turkish components of the anti-Hamidian resistance among the prospective participants helped to legitimize the ARF’s choices, since it was now acting in the framework of a vast Ottoman opposition rather than allying itself with the Young Turks alone, a move for which it was harder to gain acceptance.16 Negotiations with opposition movements such as the Interior Macedonian Revolutionary Organization (IMRO) proved much more difficult and ended in failure despite the efforts of the ARF, which had longstanding ties to this movement. A few Jewish and Arab delegates took part in the work of the congress, but exercised no real influence over it.17
Once all the preliminaries had been completed and the work of the various commissions cleared away, the congress could finally take place. It lasted for three days, from 27 to 29 December 1907.18 The preliminary work performed by the commissions notwithstanding, several proposals caused problems. Rıza’s last-minute appeal to the Armenian delegates to acknowledge the rights of the Ottoman Sultan in his capacity as Caliph, for example, led to a heated exchange. These socialist militants, who considered religion proof of obscurantism, can only have perceived this demand as one more manifestation of the “positivist” leader’s conservatism. Fazlı and Şakir managed to resolve the problem by wringing an admission of “the issues of the caliphate and the sultanate which have been considered sacred by [their] Turkish compatriots” from the Armenians. The other source of tension, needless to say, had to do with the adoption of revolutionary methods. In this connection, Hanioğlu nicely brings out the difference between the conceptions of the members of the CPU and the Dashnak militants – that is, between the approach of the former, for whom such methods were simply a form of activism by which to attain their objectives, and the socialist vision of the latter, who were revolutionaries in the true sense of the word.19 The bitter discussion of this issue was carried to its conclusion during the closing banquet, a rhetorical exercise during which all the participants expounded their conceptions of society and the state, without calling the final declaration into question. This declaration called, on the one hand, for the abdication of the sultan, a radical transformation of the existing administration, and the establishment of a consultative system and a constitutional government; and on the other, as a means of arriving at these objectives, it envisaged armed resistance, a general strike, non-payment of taxes, and propaganda activities in the armed forces. Finally, the congress decided to create a “standing mixed committee” responsible for organizing propaganda work and sending out calls to all social classes and the constitutive groups of the empire.20
This accord historique found a by no means negligible echo in the Western press of all political tendencies, including the socialist press, which, as might be imagined, had no love for the CPU. At the same time, the Young Turk Central Committee instructed its local branches to monitor the Armenian Committees and, in particular, report whether they respected the Paris accord. It also called on them to launch a systematic boycott of Prince Sabaheddin, who continued to be accused of disseminating “seditious ideas.”21
The active role played by the Young Turk Central Committee in Paris, especially when it came to relations with the other Ottoman groups, should not blind us to the Salonika Central Committee’s growing influence in the party. On the eve of the July 1908 “revolution,” a good many of the six thousand members of the OFO were army officers by background,22 recruited from the forces concentrated in the Balkans that were supposed to keep these regions under control. The creation of numerous Balkan branches of the party, notably in Manastır,23 Serres, Skopye, and Resen, was a direct result of this internal transformation. The Salonika Central Committee, which included Mehmed Talât, adjutant Major Hafız Hakkı, Captain İsmail Canbolat, Manyasizâde Refık, and Major Enver,24 was, with its majority of officers, itself militarized like the party as a whole. Yet, the CPU was still far from being able to carry out spectacular operations capable of hastening the fall of the regime. Mehmed Talât’s vain attempts to convince his friends in the ARF to launch bombs “to Salonika and Istanbul”25 revealed a certain powerlessness, even as they attested to the CPU’s utilitarian approach to its Armenian allies.
Most historians agree that the implementation of reforms in Macedonia (the Mürtzeg Plan), occurring against the background of the diplomatic crisis between Russia and Great Britain, facilitated the recruitment of rebel officers and made it possible to mobilize Muslim public opinion in the Balkans, which had been unsettled by the prospects opened by the European plans for the region. It is also commonly assumed that these reforms undermined the position of the Sublime Porte, whose main priority remained the maintenance of military control over the region.
The reinforcement of the British commitment to the reforms in Macedonia that came in March 1908 was perceived by the CPU’s Central Committee as an imminent threat of “partition and extinction of the Ottoman State and expulsion of Turks from Europe.”26 The CPU’s reaction showed what the Young Turks understood “reform” to mean: it was, for them, tantamount to “partition.” They even feared that the European plan for Macedonia could well lead to the loss of Albania, push their capital out of Europe, and “make us a second or even a third class Asiatic power.”27
The 9–12 July 1908 meeting at Reval between the Russian Czar Nicolas II and the British sovereign Edward VIII seems to have been the event that finally convinced the CPU to throw itself into the battle against the regime. It is also likely that the sultan, whose political acumen is universally acknowledged, concluded at the same moment that he was no longer in a position to resist the pressure of the great powers – in other words, he had no choice but to yield to the pressures of the CPU in the hope that he could take matters back in hand once the crisis had passed. When he decided to restore the Midhat Constitution and allowed the Young Turks to make their entry onto the stage of history, he was probably well aware that they were much more legalistically minded than many supposed and were by no means averse to maintaining the monarchy. The main objective was to call a halt to the reform process in Macedonia, sure to lead, ultimately, to the partition of the empire.
On of the best experts on the Balkans at the time, the journalist Aram Andonian, points out that “the Young Turks very adeptly took advantage of the enthusiasm [engendered by the revolution] to send the European officials who had just taken up residence in Macedonia politely back home.”28 The Young Turk revolution, which was supposed to make good the democratic deficit and ensure the security of all the empire’s subjects, had another effect as well: it brought all armed activity conducted by Albanians, Macedonians, or Armenians to an end, for they all supported the new regime. However, as Andonian points out, “in putting a successful stop to the scheduled reforms in Macedonia, the Young Turk regime paved the way for events that eventually led to the Balkan War.” In other words, in refusing to heed those who advised it to enact reforms in order to allay separatist tendencies, it simply postponed the day of reckoning. Austria-Hungary compensated for this Young Turk success by annexing Bosnia-Herzegovina, while Russia seized the occasion to intervene in the Balkans, well aware that the new regime would not implement reforms there and would thus spark new revolts with its political intransigence.29
However that might be, the CPU immediately understood that it was by setting out from the Balkans, where it had found a fertile breeding ground, that it was most likely to succeed in bringing down the regime and taking power. Its commitment to the region, especially Macedonia, made a rapprochement with the local committees indispensable, beginning with the Macedonian IMRO. The revolution would come from Europe, not Anatolia. The alliance with the ARF accordingly lost some of its relevance or even utility.30 It is not our task here to review the circumstances that brought about the neutralization of the Macedonian committee, but it may be noted that the process was greatly facilitated by the assassination of its leaders Boris Sarafov and Ivan Garvanov, militants who were close to the Armenian revolutionaries. The Greeks, for their part, remained passive, refusing to take part in these operations.
The CPU nevertheless needed the support of local organizations struggling for autonomy, which of course comprised non-Muslim elements, and even had to recruit members or volunteers directly from their ranks. At the same time, it could not reject the principle of the exclusively “Turkish” nature of the party. As often in the past, the Albanians provided the contingents that would carry the day; they were backed up by Muslim recruits from the Balkans. A few promises from the CPU to satisfy the Albanians’ demands, revolving around the preservation of their identity, allowed the Turks not only to weld together substantial local forces, but also to extinguish a revolutionary project that had been smoldering for months. The work of Ahmed Niyazi, himself of Albanian origin, facilitated recruitment in Resen, Manastır, and Ohrid. There can also be little doubt that Albanian notables played a crucial role in rallying local forces to the Young Turks’ cause. They doubtless hoped to receive special treatment in return, particularly regarding the cultural rights that they had been calling for, a demand that the CPU already regarded as a separatist tendency.31 The CPU leaders’ discourse had not been quite as successful when it came to rallying Jewish circles in Salonika, who had already been giving the local Young Turks logistical support for several years, although the CPU had made no concessions to speak of. The relations they forged with the Jews were nevertheless sufficient to provide conservatives all the occasion they needed to describe the revolution as “a cabal of Salonikan Jews, Freemasons, and Zionists.”32
The latent revolt simmering in the armed forces, the first signs of civil disobedience, and the fact that it proved impossible to carry out the Sublime Porte’s orders to bring the situation back under control left the sultan no other choice than to sign the decree restoring the constitution. It was promulgated on 24 July 1908.33
In Paris, the opposition in exile packed its bags and set out for its native land. In late July 1908, the Ottoman Consul General and Ahmed Rıza visited the Paris headquarters of the SDHP in order to invite the party’s leaders to return to Constantinople. They promised the Hnchaks that they could operate there as they saw fit, even, if they wished, as an opposition party. This invitation, extended to the CPU’s most uncompromising opponents, can be interpreted in various ways. It is likely that, in opting for this course of action, the Young Turks were seeking to neutralize external sources of opposition – they doubtless preferred to have them close to hand in the capital, where it was obviously easier to keep an eye on them than if they remained abroad. When Murad and Sapah-Giulian paid their visit to the Young Turks, they learned from Rıza that a CPU Congress would soon be held in Salonika. True to form, the positivist leader asked that they cease to attack Abdülhamid, who was now their sovereign and caliph.34
The next day, the two Hnchak leaders met with Prince Sabaheddin, who told them:
If the Ittihad controls the government for more than eight months and runs the affairs of state, rest assured that the future of all the nations making up the empire, especially the Armenians, will be compromised and then finished ... Certain persons have held confidential conversations with me: we spoke openly with each other, as Turks. What I say appeared clearly in their declarations and admissions. That is why you must immediately consider your own situation and decide what you have to do.35
This prophetic warning, coming from a leader who had been relegated to the margins, bears witness, at the very least, to the mood prevailing among the Young Turk leaders from the moment they took power, and to the duplicity of their discourse.
On 15 August 1908, Sapah-Giulian and Murad left Paris for Constantinople.36 The Dashnak leaders, too, turned their backs on Geneva and set out for the Ottoman capital. Bahaeddin Şakir reached it first.