TURKEY 1157 



sect, refused to recognise the Sultan as lawful Caliph, and Assir, where an insurrection 

 began under the lead of Seyyid Idris, a chieftain of Moroccan origin. The Government 

 was forced to send out an armed force, weakening the Tripolitan garrison, with effects 

 that proved very serious afterwards. 



Still the Hakki Cabinet managed to keep in office, though there were some resigna- 

 tions. Talaat Bey retired, a concession to the Opposition. So did the minister of 

 tiy Public Works, Halladjian Effendi, because some of the ministerialists and 



Pasha's the grand vizier himself thought him too uncompromising, especially with 

 economic regard to Germany's wishes. On February 28, 1911 there was an an- 

 po cy. nouncement in the Terdjcman-i-Hakikat, the Government organ, that 



Hakki Pasha himself would take over the department of Public Works until the Bagdad 

 Railway question should be settled. This affair, of such great political and financial 

 importance, was concluded almost at once. In the agreement signed on March xyth 

 by Hakki Pasha, the conditions under which Germany should complete the line from 

 Helif to Bagdad, and Germany's share in constructing the line from Bagdad to the 

 Persian Gulf, were denned. At the same time the making of the Osmanieh-Alexan- 

 dretta line was given to Germany, with the concession of Alexandretta harbour. On 

 April igth Hakki Pasha signed a preliminary agreement with a group of French finan- 

 ciers for the construction of railways in Eastern Anatolia, Macedonia and Albania, and 

 a loan of Ta 5,000,000 for the purpose. By further agreements with the Banque 

 Rouvier a loan was to be raised for making some 10,000 kilometres of roadway. 



These economical measures were however the only aspect of official activity. Any 

 real collaboration with the foreign advisers in promoting reform was abandoned. 

 Reaction ^ n April I 7> I 9 11 Nejmeddin Mullah, minister of Justice, announced a 

 azainst triumph for the fanatical anti-foreign party. Count Leon Ostrorog, the 



internal foreign judicial adviser, weary of seeing his schemes of reform shelved or 

 distorted by Moslem fanaticism, sent in his resignation on the 3ist of 

 March. The minister's announcement that henceforth there was to be no foreign judi- 

 cial adviser or inspectors was received with cheers from the " turbaned " party in the 

 Chamber of Deputies, one mullah, deputy for St. John of Acre, declaring that the minis- 

 ter was " indeed defending the sacred Law, like unto a lion." A few days later the 

 Chamber voted the suppression of the post of foreign adviser to the Post and Telegraph 

 department. The Hakki Cabinet might well believe its position secure, with a docile 

 and solid parliamentary majority behind it. Supported by Germany, French capital, 

 and that section of the press which is ruled by Germany and finance; sure of the army, 

 since Mahmud Shevket Pasha was in the Cabinet; and confident that concessions had 

 rallied the fanatical and foreigner-hating elements to the Government, they might have 

 felt themselves unassailable. They were to be cruelly undeceived. 



About the ist of April, a small but very warlike Catholic Albanian tribe on the 

 Montenegrin border, that of the Malissori, had risen in revolt. They demanded to be 

 allowed to carry arms, and that their military service should be localised; 

 Malissori further they claimed exemption from certain taxes, and that their officials 

 Albania. should be of their own race. The benevolent attitude of Montenegro to- 

 wards the insurgents seemed significant from the first. Rifaat Pasha, 

 minister of Foreign Affairs, might declare in the Chamber that Montenegro was friendly 

 and that all would easily be settled; but the situation rapidly gre.w worse, and on April 

 nth Shevket Torgut Pasha with an army corps was despatched to northern Albania. 

 At that very moment, a split in the Party of Union and Progress threatened to break 

 up the bloc on which the Hakki Cabinet was based. A cavalry colonel, Saadik Bey, 

 once an influential member of the Union and Progress committee, till he 

 split la left it on ground of personal discontent, had been secretly working in the 



o/'^/an army and parliament against the Young Turkish committee for some time 

 and Prog- past. An enthusiastic Mahommedan mystic, a member of the Melami 

 ress." dervish sect, he carried out his underground propaganda on religious lines, 



using the tactics which before proved so efficacious against the Young 



