'The Turkish and Pan-Turkish Ideal by Tekin Alp' [‎5v] (15/58)

8
affiliated leagues, having the object of collecting together all the Ottoman
elements. This league has been much talked about and has created a great
deal of disturbance, but it must be admitted that it has accomplished
nothing definite.
The enthusiasm of the first inspired hours of newly-won freedom
began to wear off. The Greeks, Bulgarians, and Serbians, who had laid
down their arms and come down from the mountains in great exultation
to celebrate the birth of the constitution with the young liberators in
Salonica, began gradually, one by one, to return to their mountains
and their arms, to resume their struggle against Turkish authority.
This was the Young Turks’ first awakening from their dreams of
Ottomanism, upon which all their best hopes and beliefs were based.
The pillars of the proud building were shaken.
From time to time voices were heard advocating “ Pan-Islamism
They preached the union of all the Mohammedan elements in the kingdom,
which would form a strong and reliable power upon which the Govern
ment could unfailingly depend. But this was shortly followed by the
rising of the Mohammedan Albanians, and the revolts in Yemen and
Hauran. The upholders of Pan-Islamism did not, however, allow their
faith to be so easily shaken by these revolutionary movements, opposed
as they were to the whole Pan-Islamitic ideal. They, like the Ottomanists,
would not admit defeat. Far from giving up their policy, they struggled
with undiminished enthusiasm and unquenched zeal against the diffi
culties of the time, with the firm conviction that they were only dealing
with passing opposition.
CHAPTER II
THE TURKISH MOVEMENT BEFORE THE BALKAN WAR
There were, however, a number of people who were anxious to believe
that the political ideas of the Ottomanists and Pan-Islamists had proved
themselves to be empty dreams ; these people regarded the Turkish
element as the saviour of the Ottoman Empire ; the Turkish movement
was considered as the one hope of the nation. The weak and still tenta
tive voices of these “ saviours ” were, however, shouted down by their
antagonists, though the seed of the Turkish movement continued to grow
underground. Unknown to the people, the ideals of this movement
spread even to the heart of the Committee of Union and Progress, which
was the supporter of the Government and at that time had its head
quarters in Salonica.
The mainspring of the National movement must be sought in the
Branch Committee of Union and Progress in Constantinople. The
Secretary of this branch (the Central Committee was still established in
Salonica) was Kemal Bey, who was one of the delegates to the Committee