V
THE YOUNG TURKISH REVOLUTION
"ON THE MORNING OF JULY 23, 1908"—THE OLD
TURKISH COUNTER-REVOLUTION AND ITS DEFEAT—HOW
ISLAM AND THE CHRISTIAN COMMUNITIES
NULLIFIED THE YOUNG TURKISH PROGRAM—KEMAL'S
BREAK WITH ENVER AND HIS RETIREMENT
FROM POLITICS—THE BALKAN WARS AND
NATIONALISM.
Three months after King Edward's visit to Reval in the spring of 1908, the frightened Young Turks launched their revolution with Niazi Bey's mutiny at Resna, fifteen miles from Monastir. On the morning of July 23, 1908, the house walls of Monastir were placarded with mottoes in Turkish—"Death or Liberty," "The Nation and Liberty," "Freedom and the Constitution." Enver Bey proclaimed the Constitution at Salonica. Telegrams from Salonica invited the Sultan to choose between the Constitution and war. The officers of his Army were Young Turks to a man. Even the reliable Anatolian regiments refused to march against the rebels. Abdul Hamid surrendered. Parliamentary government with free and
