Crisis of Authority in the Capital and the Provinces

The Ottoman state experienced a crisis of authority in the aftermath of the revolution that manifested itself on different levels in the capital. The developments in the provinces can be understood only in the light of the transformations in the capital. The CUP’s admitted lack of political acumen and social standing necessitated that it rely on statesmen outside the Committee to occupy the top government positions.^[7] Its insistence on manipulating the government from outside to conform to its political aims compounded the typical problems associated with legitimacy in revolutionary transfers of power. Not until the spring of 1909 did the Committee create the beginnings of a formal political organ and prepare to take on the responsibility of governing the empire.

The reinstatement of the constitution sparked anew the competition between the Palace and the Porte, which under the autocratic rule of Abdülhamid had been resolved definitively in favor of the former. The revolution left the sultan on his throne but restricted his prerogatives, allowing greater independence to the cabinet. The Committee now became a third contender for the reins of government, particularly through its influence in Parliament after December 1908. The existence of three loci of power, with no defined separation of powers, was at the root of the political instability. Not surprisingly, the first year of the second constitutional period witnessed five changes of government, a counterrevolutionary uprising, and the beginnings of organized opposition.

The Committee showed its determination to exercise its controlling influence over the Palace and the Porte when it orchestrated the downfall of Said Pasha, the first grand vizier of the new era, a mere two weeks after his appointment to the post by Abdülhamid. He was replaced by Kamil Pasha, who, like Said, had served as grand vizier under Abdülhamid before. On the day of Kamil Pasha’s appointment, Hüseyin Cahid wrote in justification of this seasoned statesman’s reappointment that one would have to forget the past in view of the shortage of able administrators and confessed that “the old regime did not prepare any of us as men of administration.”^[8] Kamil Pasha served approximately six months before he became involved in bitter conflict with the CUP and resigned. He was replaced by another “Old Turk,” Hüseyin Hilmi Pasha, a diplomat and administrator well known to the Unionists as the former inspector-general of Rumelia.

A second component of the administrative crisis was the tension between civilian officials and army officers. In 1908 officers of the Third Army stationed in Macedonia had played the crucial part in winning over and leading army units to force Abdülhamid to restore the constitution. It was again units from the Third Army, under the command of Mahmud Shawkat Pasha, that suppressed the counterrevolutionary uprising of 13 April 1909, known from the old-style calendar as the “31 March Incident.”^[9] Shawkat Pasha later exerted considerable influence in government and was appointed minister of war in 1910 and grand vizier in 1913. The issue of the involvement of the military in politics occupied both the councils of the CUP and Parliament.^[10]

During the first eighteen months of constitutional rule large numbers of the old regime’s functionaries were purged. Unionist pressure forced those who were believed to have had close connections with the Palace—in most cases a precondition for security of tenure before 1908—to be dismissed, despite the realization that there was a shortage of replacements. Because the ranks of the bureaucracy had been bloated, partly due to Abdülhamid’s disposition to distribute sinecures,^[11] some lesser bureaucrats could be dispensed with, but at the higher ranks those dismissed needed to be replaced. The cadres with the requisite experience, however, were not there. Administrators were constantly shifted and changed, either because of incompetence or as the result of the frequent shuffling in ministries. A purge took place also in the army. Officers who rose from the ranks through the sultan’s patronage (unlike the military members of the CUP, who were graduates of academies) were dismissed by the hundreds.^[12] The CUP’s determination to purge the bureaucracy of officials with suspected loyalty to Abdülhamid and the scarcity of capable and reliable men to replace them led Tanin to plea for the employment of “honest foreign advisors” in the Ottoman government.^[13]

In July 1908 Abdülhamid’s palace entourage, which included many Arabs and their protégés, was the first to go. Other officials were implicated in having spied for the sultan. Abdülhamid himself, who as sultan-caliph still enjoyed the veneration of the people and who had consented to the reinstatement of the constitution, was spared direct incrimination. The most incisive attacks were directed at one of his closest advisors in the palace, ‘Izzat Pasha al-‘Abid, who fled abroad in the days following the revolution.^[14] Many Arab officials, whose connections with ‘Izzat Pasha and other Arab palace functionaries had won them positions in the capital and in the provinces, were removed in the overhaul. Layoffs and new appointments constituted the “driving force of the process of politicization.”^[15] The attempt by individuals to gain or regain government positions constituted the main arena of political activity and increasingly underlay ideological rivalries.

The Committee’s immediate concern was to consolidate its position in İstanbul, but the reorganization of provincial administration proved to be the greater challenge. Abdülhamid’s centralization was premised on patronage and personal ties to local notables, who often received administrative positions with considerable independence. After 1908 the local elites became suspicious of the CUP’s designs and feared loss of power.^[16] In order to avoid this, the notables attempted to reaffirm their authority vis-à-vis the newly appointed officials.

Consequently, finding qualified administrators to serve in areas where government authority had yet to be asserted proved to be particularly difficult. In the hope of making these administrative jobs more attractive, the CUP declared in September that it would promote the principle of tevsi’-i mezuniyet and give wider authority to officials sent to the provinces.^[17] The measure was also expedient for political reasons because Sabahaddin’s decentralist associates announced at this time the formation of the Liberal Party (Ahrar) to enter the upcoming elections.^[18]

Anticipating the CUP announcement about tevsi’-i mezuniyet, Hüseyin Cahid addressed in the pages of Tanin the two main features of the decentralist program, private initiative and decentralized administration, and endorsed the former while taking issue with the latter.^[19] He criticized Sabahaddin’s notion of tevsi’-i mezuniyet, which he claimed gave the provinces surveillance rights over the central government.^[20] No matter how interpreted, tevsi’-i mezuniyet was tantamount to affirming one aspect of the administrative practice of the previous regime: select desirable candidates for provincial posts and allow them latitude in administration.

The CUP was destined to be plagued by the shortage of capable and reliable administrative personnel for several years, particularly in the Arab provinces.^[21] The Hamidian administration had indulged the illegal profit-making practices of its appointees to those regions less desirable because of their remoteness or disturbed social conditions.^[22] Under the new regime, the local CUP organizations exercised a greater degree of control over the local administration. The confiscation of the rapacious Hijaz governor Ratib Pasha’s^[23] property and his dismissal just days after the restoration of the constitution, followed by the dismissal of the grand sharif of Mecca, were well-publicized signs that the new regime would look askance at extortion.^[24] In January 1909 the minister of the interior lamented in Parliament that officials were reluctant to go to distant provinces, where the authority of the new government had not been established yet. Unqualified and uneducated administrators had to be sent to these areas.^[25]

The government had difficulty in making appointments even for the highest positions in provincial administration. For instance, in March 1909 the governorship of the province of the Hijaz in Arabia was offered first to the müşir (marshal) of the Fifth Army, Osman Fevzi Pasha,^[26] and then to Ferid Pasha,^[27] the director of the Infantry Department. Both turned it down. Then the appointment of Kosova governor Hadi Pasha was announced, but never materialized.^[28] The governor who was finally appointed, Monastir’s military commander Fuad Pasha, arrived in Mecca only in July and stayed at his new post for only a few weeks.^[29] The turnover in governorships accelerated in all Arab provinces for several reasons. First, the governors’ traditional alliances with local centers of power, often sanctioned independently by the Palace, now gave way to competition with notables for authority and induced frustrated governors to ask for transfers within short periods. Second, because the central government suffered from a shortage of able men, it could not always appoint candidates best suited for the job and, hence, was disposed toward making frequent changes. Third, crises of government in İstanbul and cabinet changes also resulted in dislocations in top-level provincial positions. Finally, many high officials and officers preferred to be in İstanbul at a time when new opportunities for advancement were opening up in the capital and shunned even the more prestigious positions in the provinces.

The news of the restoration of the constitution and the spread of the word of liberty challenged traditional power relationships in the provinces. Consecutive labor strikes affected communications and industry throughout the country.^[30] Beirut witnessed strikes in the gas company and the harbor. Workers of the Damascus-Hama railroad struck for wage increases and improved working conditions.^[31] Butchers in Damascus and Beirut protested the slaughter tax.^[32] In the countryside peasants and tribes engaged in acts of disobedience. In order to restore order a more effective local administration was clearly needed, but, hard-pressed as the regime was to provide the cadres, the traditional political prerogatives of local leaders had to be acknowledged, especially in outlying areas.^[33]

In the provinces, as in the capital, there were tensions between the military and civilian functionaries. Stephen Hemsley Longrigg noted about the Iraqi provinces, “A state of feud between the Wali and the General was in each wilaya [vilayet, or province] more usual than collaboration, and was curable only when the two posts were combined.”^[34] Where major army units were stationed, officers often came into conflict with civilian provincial authorities who were relatively more predisposed to ally with local notables. The conflict between the governor of Damascus, Nazım Pasha, and the commander of the Fifth Army, Osman Fevzi Pasha, in the spring of 1909 illustrated the tensions between military and civil authority in that province. Governor Nazım in this case sided with the notables and complained to İstanbul that the commander failed to supply military forces to prevent the Beduin from plundering local crops. Fevzi Pasha, in turn, felt that landowners wanted to exploit the presence of military units on the countryside to augment their authority over the peasants and to enhance their economic and political control by intimidation. He dismissed the Beduin raids as fabrications to induce troops to appear on peasant land and thus to force them to greater obedience.^[35]

The CUP’s reluctance to take the reins of government because of its inexperience and lack of self-confidence was at the root of the administrative crisis. Its indirect but unremitting interference in the political process introduced a problem of legitimacy. Its policy of availing of the skills and experience of certain statesmen of the old regime by keeping them under surveillance conflicted with its denunciation of all association with the Hamidian era. In İstanbul the CUP failed to displace the old bureaucratic elite. In the provinces it did not succeed in breaking the political power of conservative notables. Centralization continued to be dependent on co-optation, although the exchange mechanisms shifted from the personal framework to a bureaucratic and increasingly partisan one.