Young Turks

Young Turks, late 19th- and early 20th-century opposition movement in the Ottoman Empire against the absolute rule of the Ottoman sultan of the time, Abdulhamid II. The Young Turks, many of whom were governmental bureaucrats, considered themselves heirs to the reform movement begun under Sultan Selim III, and favoured modernization and Westernization of the Ottoman Empire. Forerunners to the Young Turk movement included the Tanzimat reforms by and within the government hierarchy, and the Young Ottomans for a Constitution. Publicly, the Young Turks sought to make themselves acceptable to devout Muslims by proclaiming their intentions of maintaining the Islamic nature of the empire, but privately their personal views on religion bordered on atheism. The Young Turk ideology was technocratic and non-religious, and favoured a governmental system based on merit, not on loyalty to the sultan.

“Young Turk” is an umbrella term that encompassed many groups of the time. One was led by Prince Sabaheddin, the sultan’s nephew, who wanted to include all Ottoman minorities in the movement and sought the aid of European leaders. Another was the Committee of Union and Progress (CUP), founded at the Royal Medical Academy in Constantinople (now İstanbul) in 1889 by Abdullah Cevdet and other medical students. The CUP would eventually become the dominant voice of the Young Turk movement.

At first, however, the CUP itself did not speak with a single voice, as different branches of the group throughout the empire held differing opinions. Although all the factions resented European interference in the affairs of the empire, especially in favour of the Ottoman Christian minority, some supported a coup against the sultan. Turkish nationalism became a dominant element in the CUP’s ideology after 1906, partly in response to the growing nationalism of some of the empire’s other ethnic groups. This shift attracted more military support to the CUP, especially from the Third Army Corps stationed in Salonica (Thessaloníki) in Greece. In 1908, with living conditions in the army worsening, two young army officers, Enver Bey (later Enver Pasha) and Niyazi Bey, led a mutiny among the Third Army Corps that was joined and then led by the CUP. They demanded that Sultan Abdulhamid II restore the constitution of 1876, which he had suspended in 1878, a demand that was granted on July 23, 1908.

Over the next decade the Young Turk revolution went from great expectations to dictatorship and failure. The period was marked by uprisings, assassinations, wars, and by internal dissension within the CUP and between the CUP and leading government officials. Conservative, pro-Islamic elements, especially among the First Army Corps stationed in Constantinople, mutinied on April 13, 1909, calling for the restoration of Islamic Shari’ah law. They were put down on April 24 by an army force sent from Salonica. The CUP retained power, and immediately put its consolidated position to use: two days after the suppression of the mutiny, Abdulhamid II was deposed and exiled to Salonica. Repressive and illegal measures by the CUP led to an attempt by the former sultan’s government to rein them in. In response, on January 23, 1913, Enver and other officers attacked a Cabinet meeting, killing the Minister of War. Following the murder of the grand vizier (chief minister) in June 1913, the three main leaders of the CUP, Enver Pasha, Talat Pasha, and Cemal Pasha, took control of the government.

Under Enver the Ottoman Empire entered World War I, joining Germany, the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and Bulgaria in the coalition of the Central Powers, and was eventually defeated. Before the Ottoman Empire could be divided among the victors of the war, a Turkish nationalist revolution under Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, a former member of the CUP, rose up to create the independent Republic of Turkey.