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| 1908–14 |
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| Promotion of women's rights. The Young Turk Revolution gave a boost to the movement to improve the status of women. Some Young Turks advocated the emancipation of women as a key to progress in the empire. Various women's groups emerged, among them the Association for the Advancement of Women founded in 1908 by Halide Edip Adivar, who sought improved education for women. A more radical group, the Society for the Defense of Women's Rights (founded 1912), demanded the economic emancipation of women and their access to employment in the public sector. There were also several journals devoted to feminist concerns. | 1 |
| The movement and its achievements remained modest, limited largely to the elite. Conservative religious authorities upheld the prohibitions against the mixing of the sexes in public, and during the Balkan Wars (1912–13) some even argued that the emancipation of women had contributed to Ottoman defeats. | 2 |
| Development of Turkish nationalism. From the late 19th century, a Turkish cultural consciousness began to take shape as writers promoted an interest in the history of the Turkish peoples, in the cultivation of Turkish literature, and in the reform of the Turkish language. These pursuits and the promotion of the idea of a Turkish nation became more pronounced after the 1908 revolution. Literary clubs such as the Turkish Homeland Society and the Turkish Hearth emerged, and the most prominent ideologue of Turkish nationalism, Ziya Gökalp (1876–1924), celebrated the folk culture of the Turkish people and the notion of pan-Turkism. However, the political ideas of Turkish nationalism had little popular appeal until the dissolution of the empire, when a predominantly Turkish population was all that was left of what had been a multiethnic mix of peoples. | 3 |
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| 1908, April |
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| Uprising and political crisis in Istanbul. Soldiers in the capital mutinied on April 13, and with the support of religious students and sympathizers of the Society of Muhammadan Union (a conservative Muslim group that condemned the secularist policies of the new leaders) took control of the city, attacked known supporters of the Committee of Union and Progress, called for strict observance of Islamic law, and forced the resignation of the grand vezir. Alongside some acts of violence in the capital, the insurrection provoked the massacre of thousands of Armenians in Adana (in several days of attacks by Muslims, beginning on April 14). A large army from Macedonia established control of Istanbul (April 24), and the rebels were put on trial. On April 27 the Parliament proclaimed the deposition of Sultan Abdulhamid on the grounds of his complicity in the insurrection and installed his brother Mehmed on the throne. | 4 |
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| 1909–18 |
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| SULTAN MEHMED V RESHAD. Unlike his forceful predecessor, Mehmed was essentially a figurehead who posed no threat to the rule of the Young Turks. | 5 |
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| 1910–12 |
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| Albanian revolt and independence (See 1910, March). A revolt broke out in Kosovo in 1910 in protest against Young Turk plans to impose new taxes, population censuses, Turkish schools, and the Turkish language on the Albanian population. Harsh repression measures by the authorities only inflamed nationalist sentiments among both Muslims and Christians and reinforced the drive for Albanian autonomy. The Ottoman government finally conceded to the demands of the Albanian nationalists, granting them broad autonomy (Sept. 4, 1912). The Albanian National Assembly proclaimed Albania's complete independence on Nov. 28, 1912, at a time when the Balkan War threatened to carve up Albania among the Balkan states. | 6 |
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| 1911–12 |
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| War with Italy (See Sept. 28). Seeking to fulfill three decades of designs on Libya, Italy declared war on the Ottomans on Sept. 29, 1911. Its forces occupied Tripoli and other port towns, and also captured the Dodecanese Islands. The Ottomans were obliged to cede their rights in Tripoli and Cyrenaica to Italy by the Treaty of Ouchy (Oct. 15, 1912). Italy recognized Ottoman sovereignty over the Dodecanese Islands, but continued to occupy and administer them. | 7 |
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| 1912–13 |
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| THE BALKAN WARS (See Oct. 18). In Oct. 1912 a coalition of Bulgaria, Serbia, Greece, and Montenegro launched a war against the Ottoman Empire, aimed at partitioning its European territories. The Ottomans suffered disastrous defeats, and in the Treaty of London (May 30, 1913) had to give up all of their European lands with the exception of a narrow strip around Istanbul. Disputes among the Balkan allies over the spoils soon led to the Second Balkan War (June–July 1913), and the Ottomans took advantage of Bulgaria's defeat to recover from it Adrianople and most of eastern Thrace. | 8 |
| The Ottoman holdings in Europe were reduced to 27,500 square kilometers and 2 million people (from 162,500 square kilometers and 6 million people before the Balkan Wars). Without its European lands the empire became a more homogeneous state in which Muslims, mostly Turks and Arabs, made up the vast majority of the population. | 9 |
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| 1913, June |
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| At the Arab Congress in Paris, Arab nationalists, mostly from Syria, publicized their political aims: the autonomy of the Arab provinces, Arab participation in the Ottoman central government, and the recognition of Arabic, along with Turkish, as the official languages of the empire. Although some writers and groups began expressing Arab or Syrian nationalist ideas and demands for political rights in the late 19th century, in 1914 Arab nationalist sentiments still had little mass appeal, and the demands of Arab nationalist societies (such as al-Fatat and Hizb al-Lamarkaziyya) focused on greater Arab autonomy within the Ottoman Empire, not full independence. Even in Syria, considered the hub of Arabist aspirations, there was no extensive Arab nationalist movement, and most members of the elite remained loyal to the Ottomans until the collapse of the empire. | 10 |
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| 1913–14 |
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| ASCENDANCY OF THE COMMITTEE OF UNION AND PROGRESS. In 1908, when it was widely credited with masterminding the revolution, the committee was little more than a label covering a variety of factions. In the following years it steadily improved its central organization, hammered out policies at party congresses, built up popular support, won parliamentary elections, and placed its members in prominent government positions. In July 1912 opposition groups forced the replacement of the committee-dominated government, but on Jan. 23, 1913, the committee seized power again in a coup led by Enver Pasha. Following this takeover, the committee suppressed all opposition parties and by 1914 controlled practically all the seats in the Parliament as well as all government ministries, establishing an authoritarian regime that ruled until the end of World War I. (See The Ottoman Empire and Turkey) (See Syria) (See Lebanon) (See 1917, Nov. 2) (See Transjordan) (See Iraq) | 11 |
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