Young Turk Revolution

The Young Turk Revolution of 1908 reversed the suspension of the Ottoman parliament by Sultan Abdul Hamid II, marking the onset of the Second Constitutional Era. A landmark in the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire, the Revolution arose from an unlikely union of reform-minded pluralists, Turkish nationalists, Western-oriented secularists, and indeed anyone who accorded the Sultan political blame for the harried state of the Empire.

The Revolution restored the parliament, which had been suspended by the Sultan in 1878. However, the process of supplanting the monarchic institutions with constitutional institutions and electoral policies was neither as simple nor as bloodless as the regime change. The periphery of the Empire continued to splinter under the pressures of local revolutions.

The Revolution

Revolt

"...Then we heard of the onward march on Constantinople, of the Army of Liberty, the 3rd Army Corps of Salonica, still faithful to the Committee of Union and Progress. Volunteers were called for, and Armenians, Jews, Greeks, Bulgarians, Koords and Lazes, all flocked to the Turkish standard. For the first time in the history of the world, Christian stood shoulder to shoulder with Moslem in a triumphant onslaught for the recovery of liberty and the reinstatement of the Constitution. Constantinople was besieged. Sultan Hamid 's own guard and the officerless Constantinople Army Corps he had bribed were conquered. Hamid was dethroned and Mohamed V., subordinate to......

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