Young Turk Revolution

In July 1908, officers and officials associated with the Committee of Union and Progress (CUP) forced the Ottoman sultan Abdülhamid II to restore the constitution he had suspended three decades earlier. The Young Turk Revolution ended his personal autocracy, brought parliamentary politics back to the empire, and opened a turbulent period in which a new political elite tried, with mixed success, to save a state under severe pressure.

The roots of the revolution lay in the empire's long struggle to reform and survive. The Tanzimat reforms of the nineteenth century had modernized the army, bureaucracy, and schools, and in 1876 a constitution was proclaimed, creating a parliament. Abdülhamid suspended both in 1878, after a disastrous war with Russia, and ruled through a large network of censors and informants. Yet the schools he expanded produced graduates, especially military officers and medical students, who resented the regime's repression and feared the empire's gradual dismemberment. Exiles in Paris, Geneva, and Cairo, together with secret societies inside the empire, kept alive the call for constitutional government. The most important group became the CUP, strong in Macedonia, where Balkan nationalist movements and European intervention made the sense of crisis acute.

The spark came in the summer of 1908. Officers of the Third Army, based in Salonica and Monastir, were alarmed by rumors of Anglo-Russian plans for Macedonia and by the threat that the regime would uncover their networks. Some, such as Niyazi Bey and Enver Bey, took to the hills with their followers and demanded the constitution's return. The sultan's attempts to send loyal troops failed, since many soldiers sympathized with the rebels. In late July, Abdülhamid yielded and announced that the constitution was back in force. Elections followed, and parliament reopened in the capital that December.

The revolution was greeted with real enthusiasm among many communities, including Muslims, Christians, and Jews, who hoped for equality and an end to arbitrary rule. That optimism faded quickly. In October 1908, Austria-Hungary annexed Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria declared full independence, and Crete moved toward union with Greece. In April 1909 a counter-revolutionary uprising in Istanbul was crushed by troops from Macedonia, and Abdülhamid was deposed in favor of his brother, Mehmed V.

Over the following years the CUP became increasingly dominant and authoritarian, especially after a coup in 1913. The Italian invasion of Libya in 1911 and the Balkan Wars of 1912 and 1913 cost the empire most of its remaining European territory, and the leadership's growing Turkish nationalism strained relations with Arabs, Armenians, Albanians, and others. The empire entered the First World War under CUP leaders. Historians continue to debate whether 1908 was a genuine democratic opening or the start of a path toward single-party rule, but it clearly reshaped Ottoman politics and shaped the later Turkish Republic.