The 1908 Revolution and the CUP in the Arab Provinces

The news of the restoration of the constitution was received with caution in the provinces, though the reaction varied from region to region.^[36] Provincial authorities in the Arab areas failed to realize the magnitude of the political change, or they believed that the revolution would not succeed. Some deliberately held back the announcement of the political changes in İstanbul.^[37] The grand sharif of Mecca, for example, ordered anyone talking about the constitution to be flogged^[38] and was further encouraged by Governor Ratib Pasha to try to win over the tribes against the constitution. On the other hand, army officers responded to the news with enthusiasm and energy. They established impromptu local Committees of Union and Progress, often with the participation of government functionaries, and led popular demonstrations in favor of the new regime.

In Greater Syria the response was relatively more enthusiastic in coastal regions^[39] compared with the interior, where established landed families viewed the developments in İstanbul with reservations. The CUP in Jerusalem, which consisted predominantly of civilians and also included non-Muslims, established communication with Salonika. Even though the mutasarrıf (governor of a subprovince, or sancak) of Jerusalem, Ekrem Bey, was unsympathetic to the CUP, he was obliged to announce the reinstatement of the constitution. The prorevolution committee was stronger in Jaffa, where the kaymakam (district governor) at once declared his support for the constitution and the CUP.^[40] An Iraqi colonel of the Ottoman army established CUP clubs in Iraq and launched the Arabic-Turkish newspaper Baghdad.^[41] In Mecca the self-appointed local committee released the political prisoners in the town jail. It declared an end to the tax levied on entry into town and all but eliminated the camel tax that had been imposed by Governor Ratib.^[42]

The revolution brought into the open social and political divisions throughout the empire. The prorevolution groups represented in individual regions a voice of opposition to the established political and social forces, but there was no common agenda that guided these political bodies. For the most part, the military officers and government officials constituted and led them, but they became rallying points for all disaffected elements, including segments of the indigenous elites. Therefore, the many demonstrations in the Arab provinces and elsewhere should not be viewed merely as public gatherings artificially contrived by officers and officials.^[43] These rallies gave an opportunity to the townspeople to vent disaffection with existing conditions, even if one accepts that not many understood the meaning of the constitution. Moreover, the large turnouts can only be explained by the active support that the demonstrations received from local leaders vying for political power. According to reports of the British consul in Baghdad^[44] and the French consul in Jidda,^[45] the committees in these towns included, in addition to officers of different ranks, a number of notables. The British consul in Jidda reported that several thousand men participated in the demonstrations following the declaration of the constitution and that “crowds of common laborers” marched behind the CUP members to the house of the governor to arrest him.^[46]

As in the Hijaz, in the Syrian sancak of Nablus the newly formed Committee of Union and Progress challenged established social relationships of the Hamidian period. A group of notables, some of whom held provincial offices, had oppressed the people with heavy taxes, even though these notables obtained iltizams (tax-farm, or right of collection) at low biddings. The complaints of the people pitted the CUP against these notables, who responded with anti-Unionist propaganda. Delegates dispatched by the CUP headquarters persuaded the controversial notables to leave the town. During Nazım Pasha’s governorship in Syria, in a move consistent with his favorable relationship with the Damascene notability, he allowed the Nablus notables to return.^[47] Indeed, as political exigencies forced the CUP to compromise more and more with landed interests, one of these notables, Tawfiq Hammad, became a deputy from the CUP list in the third term of Parliament.

The restoration of the constitution and the formation of various committees under the name of Union and Progress were accompanied by parallel organizational activity by various social and professional groups. In Damascus, where the CUP was comparatively weak, two clubs, “Freedom” and “Free Ottoman,” were formed by October 1908.^[48] The names of these two associations reflected developments in İstanbul, specifically the formation there in September of the Ahrar party. Also in Damascus the ulema, the physicians, the merchants, and even the shoemakers formed their own separate associations.

The proliferation of local committees of a different ilk alarmed both the CUP headquarters and the Kamil Pasha government. Babanzade İsmail Hakkı, a Unionist and a Kurd from one of Iraq’s notable families, criticized in Tanin those organizations that sought political power acting under the guise of Committees of Union and Progress.^[49] The Committee, İsmail Hakkı reminded readers, had not arrogated to itself executive authority and was convinced of the dangers of doing so anywhere. According to the agent of the Government of India in Baghdad, Kamil Pasha cabled a message stating that “there is a CUP at Constantinople which is doing all it can to assist the new Cabinet, but it does not recognize the various Committees which are said to have formed themselves at provincial towns and which claim to be members of the Central Committee.”^[50] The grand vizier also announced that attempts by local Young Turk committees to interfere with government would be met with military force. As the CUP had its strongest following in the army units, İstanbul’s threat could have had success in curbing only those clubs and committees cropping up—some even under the name Union and Progress—in opposition to the new order.^[51]

The CUP Central Committee in Salonika was eager to bring the local prorevolution committees under its direct control. Public announcements to the contrary notwithstanding, the CUP was acting as a government within the government in İstanbul; it also desired to see in the provinces loyal branches that reported to Salonika and exercised influence in local government. The Unionists lacked social standing and were careful not to appear to be functioning as a surrogate government in the provinces.^[52] In Jidda they even sent public criers around town to declare that the CUP was nothing more than an advisor to the government.^[53] Nevertheless, more often than not, provincial government officials functioned under the control and instruction of the local CUP.^[54] The Beiruti notable Salim ‘Ali al-Salam testified that all government functions in Beirut were taken over by the president of the local CUP in the days after the revolution.^[55]

With the preparations for parliamentary elections under way, the supervision and organization of the local committees assumed particular importance. Left to themselves, the prorevolution bodies faced the danger of being manipulated or losing their zeal and slowly disappearing. In the fall of 1908 the Salonika Central Committee sent delegations to the Arab provinces to reorganize the existing clubs and also establish new ones.^[56] Two delegates from Salonika stayed close to six weeks in Syria and tried to influence the elections. They found resistance to the new order on the part of the landlords in Damascus and Aleppo, who feared “the loss of their arbitrary power over their peasants.”^[57] The delegates reorganized the local CUP and established the principle of strict secrecy in its correspondence with the Central Committee.^[58] The CUP successfully implemented in Beirut the boycott of Austrian goods that was called in İstanbul following Vienna’s annexation of Bosnia-Herzegovina on 5 October 1908. The boycott created a new opportunity for local business in the production of camel-hair hats to replace the traditional fez, the main item of import from Austria.^[59] Another CUP delegation, inspecting the Benghazi Committee, criticized the absence among its members of “representatives of the great Arab community”^[60] and induced two Arabs to join the Committee, which consisted primarily of Turkish officials. Most Benghazi Arab notables shunned the CUP, which they still considered an unknown quantity, and formed a rival club consisting of twelve members, two from each of the six principal tribes of the sancak.

After the initial excitement about the constitution subsided, the usual local political conflicts came back to center stage, and the local committees became targets of attack. Such was the case in Baghdad, where the local CUP was blamed for the “independent attitude” of the town’s Jews, who were emboldened by the message of equality.^[61] In the fall, the rumors of a new cemetery tax triggered anticonstitutionalist protests in Mecca.^[62] The British consul in Jidda, Monahan, viewed the riots as a protest against “the Committee of Union and Progress in Mecca, the new constitutional body, which is meddling in all government affairs,” while a French official in Cairo reacted to the same events by reporting on the basis of an article in Al-mu’ayyad that “the partisans of the old regime take advantage of this pretext [the cemetery tax] to create agitation against the reforms.”^[63]

The organizational efforts of the CUP yielded limited results in the parliamentary elections. The Committee candidates were successful in some districts. To assure a Unionist victory in others, however, the Committee included on its slates candidates of the local notability whose sympathy for the new regime was suspect but who commanded patronage and popular following. These maneuvers were used not only in Aleppo, Damascus, and the rest of Arab provinces but also elsewhere in the empire. Therefore, the CUP encountered difficulties in disciplining its group and preventing the growth of opposition when Parliament started its work. Once the Committee reconstituted itself as an open political party, it sent delegations to the Arab provinces to settle disputes, to bring the people together around a party program emphasizing economic issues, and to form new branches of the party.^[64]