, IS 8 TURKEY 



Turks and brought about the mutiny of April 13, 1909. Then, as now, the Young 

 Turk leaders were called bad Moslems, freethinkers, freemasons, and abettors of Zion- 

 ism; they were said to be in the hands of Salonica Jews, and Djavid Bey in particular 

 was said to be their tool. Suddenly on April 20th the effects of the propaganda came to 

 light. There was a split in the bloc. A section of the party of Union and Progress, 

 called the " new group," comprising all the Moslem clericals, turned against the minis- 

 try and Djavid Bey. Their political programme comprised strengthening the authority 

 of the Caliph, with strict observance of Moslem traditions, and the prohibition of free- 

 masonry. The committee of Union and Progress tacked about. The programme was 

 to be discussed later at a party congress. Djavid Bey was entreated to resign to soothe 

 the fanatics, and union appeared to be re-established. But in reality the split in the 

 bloc was past mending. 



Meantime things were going from bad to worse in northern Albania. Since the 

 Malissori, at the first reverse, "simply went over into Montenegro, where they could 

 find rest and fresh supplies and ammunition for a further resistance, it was 

 Foreign impossible to subdue them. Russia, moreover, warned Turkey to be care- 



protests f u j o f hostility to the Montenegrins; and to crown all, a violent anti-Turkish 

 afrocrt/es press campaign began at Vienna, especially in the Christian-Socialist 

 la Albania, organs. Shevket Torgut Pasha's troops were accused of unspeakable 

 atrocities; the London press took this up; European public opinion was 

 roused. Even Moslem Albania showed signs of ferment. The Hakki Pasha Cabinet, 

 in its anxiety to secure the loyalty of the Albanians, the Mahommedans among them at 

 any rate, tried to rally them to the Caliphate by working on their fanaticism. A great 



spectacular Mahommedan demonstration was got up. In June, after the 

 The Sultan, . - r , , TT n i i TT i ..i i i T ^ 



as Caliph, session, Mahommed V went to Salonica and Uskiib and thence to Kossovo. 



visits There, on the famous " Field of Blackbirds," where (in 1448) Murad II 



dealt Balkan Christendom a final blow, the Sultan, acting in the capacity 

 of a Caliph of the old days, personally officiated at a vast Friday assembly for prayer. 

 Thousands of Moslems, attracted by the unexampled ceremony, came from Albania, 

 Macedonia, and even from Bosnia. 



The showy Mahommedan demonstration only roused uneasiness and prejudice 

 among Macedonian Christians and such of the Great Powers as ruled Mahommedan 



subjects; the Triple Entente for some time past had been blaming the 

 Europe Young Turks for their Pan-Islamist tendencies. No intimidating effect 



insists on whatever was produced on the Malissori, and the European press took so 

 to Albanian violent a tone about the atrocities that the Government recalled Shevket 

 Christians. Torgut Pasha, and replaced him by Abdullah Pasha. Hostilities moreover 



were not renewed. At the end of June 1911 the Austrian Ambassador, 

 Margrave Pallavicini, expressed to Rifaat Pasha the hope of his Government that the 

 demands of the Catholic Malissori would be considered. Abdullah Pasha was ordered 

 to cease fighting; negotiations began which dragged on till August 2nd, when the Porte 

 conceded, by written agreement, a full amnesty to the Malissori chiefs, and the privileges 

 demanded, privileges of capital importance, for they constituted the first breach in 

 the system*of uniform administration and Turkish hegemony which so far had been the 

 principal dogma of the old Turkish Empire and Young Turks alike. 



The bad impression made on the Ottoman mind when the Government thus surren- 

 dered before the revolt of an insignificant tribe which had grown irresistible because it 



was backed by a little Balkan state with Russia behind it, increased the 

 Mahomme- excitement produced by two untoward events. On the nth of July Zeki 

 a*ainlf Cti a Bey ' an official in the Ottoman Public Debt, was murdered at Makrikieuy 

 "Young near Constantinople. Zeki Bey was an important member of Saadik Bey's 

 Turkey." opposition, and the murderer was the brother of a Young Turk deputy. 



In spite of assurances given by the leaders of the party of Union and 

 Progress that they had nothing to do with it and deplored the event, it made a painful 

 impression, and raised a storm in the Opposition newspapers. Then, on the night of 



