In the era of "Abdul Hamid II", in the year 1889.. and on the hundredth anniversary of the French Revolution, a secret society was founded, called the "Ottoman Union Society", by a student of the Ottoman Military Medical College, "Abdullah Cevdet".. and its activity began to spread quietly, in Paris, Geneva, the Hejaz and Cairo.

The union's goal was to depose "Abdul Hamid" at any cost, and in order to achieve that goal and spread their ideas.. they printed a magazine in Switzerland called "Osmanli".. this magazine was distributed in Switzerland and from there to Europe, and entered Turkey by smuggling.

The union was exposed in 1897, and most of its members fled to Europe, and some of them were arrested before they could travel.. and in 1902, they came back together to gather their scattered ranks.. and they tried to win over the Ottoman Third Army to their side.. through the army's commanders in "Salonika".

In the year 1904, "Herzl" asks "Abdul Hamid" to declare Palestine a national home for the Jews, so "Abdul Hamid" asks him to arrange a loan of 150 million gold pieces from England.. this sum was exorbitant.. and England refuses it.. so "Herzl" backs down and asks him for permission to establish a Hebrew university in Jerusalem.. but "Abdul Hamid" refuses that.. except in exchange for paying off the Ottoman state's debts, plus 4 million liras on top.. but time did not allow them.. for in that same year, "Herzl" died before the negotiations could be completed.

By the year 1906, the union arose again but under the name "the Committee of Union and Progress".. and it appeared on the scene and bared its fangs for the first time, and other movements joined it, such as the "Young Turks", and they decided to pressure "Abdul Hamid" to activate the constitution that he had suspended.. so when "Abdul Hamid" refused, they began preparing for a revolution.. and they held a conference in Paris, from 27 to 29 December 1907.. attended by representatives from the Armenians and Albania.. and on 20 July of the year 1908, the "Young Turk Revolution" broke out.

Because the revolution's command center was "Salonika".. "Abdul Hamid" orders the Ottoman Third Army to intervene and suppress it.. but he is surprised to find the Third Army in revolt with the revolutionaries and in a state of mutiny.. remember this Ottoman Third Army well.. because it contained a famous officer.. a member of another secret society, called "the Society of Fatherland and Freedom", which had also arisen to depose "Abdul Hamid".. and when this society joined the Union and Progress, he joined with them immediately.

This officer whose name we all still hear to this day.. is "Mustafa Kemal Ataturk".. who at that time joined the revolutionaries, he and "Ahmed Pasha", and they decided to move.. so they marched on "Monastir", the headquarters of the Ottoman First Army.. which was taken by surprise by the situation and did not understand what was happening.. and thought there were orders for their arrival.. so they occupied it swiftly and quietly.

"Abdul Hamid" decided to send them "Shemsi Pasha" at the head of forces.. but the movement had men in the capital.. so he was assassinated before he could move.. so he sent them 30 battalions, armed with terrifying weaponry, to suppress them.. and these battalions did indeed set off for "Monastir", and as soon as they arrived, they joined the revolutionaries against "Abdul Hamid".. and they threatened him with a march on the capital.. so he found no solution but to submit to them on 23 July, in the year 1908, and announce the restoration of the Basic Law.. or the constitution.. and matters calmed down relatively.

"Abdul Hamid" cannot of course put on trial the army commanders who sold him out.. among them "Ataturk".. but he acted in another way.. so he sent "Ataturk" to Libya.. which had been occupied by the Ottomans since the year 1551.. and the Libyans were as disgusted with the Ottomans as we were, and as the Greeks were.. so there was always a resistance movement there.. and their history is packed with dozens of heroes who resisted the House of Osman.. from "Abdul Jalil Saif al-Nasr" and passing through "Sheikh Mansur" and "Aziz Ali al-Misri" to Sayyid "Omar al-Mukhtar".

And in Libya, "Ataturk" suppresses a limited revolt against "Abdul Hamid".. carried out by "Sheikh Mansur".. and then he discovers that this is an extremely stupid movement.. because one of his goals is to depose Abdul Hamid.. and these revolts dismantle his rule slowly.. so he went and told the Libyans about the revolution against "Abdul Hamid" and urged them to it.. and he began training the military garrison in Benghazi in guerrilla warfare.

I am very surprised by those who praise the glory of the Ottoman state and its beauty and its cutesy charms.. and at the same time praise Turkey! Turkey was only established on the corpse of the Ottoman state, and the two states are against each other.. so if the Ottoman state had lived, there would be no Turkey...! But it is stupidity and servility and that's that. I mean, someone who supports the Ottoman Caliphate.. and supports the state that brought down the Ottoman Caliphate, both at once!! Your place is not here, my boy.. your place is in Abbasiya, in the dangerous ward.

In the same year, Bulgaria suddenly comes out in October telling you: "Why did the Sultan respond to the demands of the revolutionaries, who included representatives from the Armenians and Albania, and restore the constitution.. and no one told us to attend and have representation? We are no longer part of the Ottoman state anyway".. and Bulgaria went on 5 October 1908.. and sent a delegate to Sultan "Abdul Hamid" demanding Bulgaria's independence, and he agreed in exchange for 5 million gold liras.. and Bosnia and Herzegovina went and did the same.. and joined Austria.. so the Sultan agreed in exchange for 3 million gold liras that he collected from Austria.

"Crete" went and did like them and sent a delegate.. but they were poor and had no money.. so "Abdul Hamid" refused to let them become independent and return to the bosom of Greece.

With this process of "selling" the lands.. the monster broke loose from its leash.. the monster that the Ottomans raised for years under the name of religion.. and the minds saturated with the delusions of being the master of the world and ruling over the infidel Christians and so on.. so these very groups came out.. against "Abdul Hamid" on 31 March, in the year 1909, under the slogan "Judgment belongs to God alone".. and "the Sharia is being violated".. and they demanded that "Abdul Hamid" step down, because he was selling the state's lands to the infidels in their view.. and because the Sultan had become a burden on everyone around him among the allies, and had become like a money incinerator.. so no one intervened to support him.. not even his beloved England.

And although the chants were originally religious.. with the joining of the people and the joining of the Union and Progress and its forces.. everyone agreed on deposing "Abdul Hamid".. and they gathered and staged sit-ins in the streets, and units of the Third Army confronted the Ottoman police.. and "Ataturk" learned of the events, so he returned from Libya to Salonika.. and there.. he found that the people considered "Abdul Hamid" no longer a sultan, even if he was still sitting on the throne, and that they had appointed "the Union and Progress" as ruler of the state in his place temporarily.. and the "Committee of Union and Progress" promoted "Ataturk" to "Chief of Staff of the First Military Units".

And "Abdul Hamid" summons the commander of the Second Army, and demands that he put down the mutiny and the revolution and arrest its leaders immediately.

And that was the surprise with which "Abdul Hamid" realized that the story was over, when the commander of the Ottoman Second Army refused, and announced that he would not move except on the orders of the "Chief of Staff of the Military Units".. meaning "Ataturk".

And the mufti, Sheikh al-Islam "Abdullah Effendi", came out and issued a fatwa against "Ataturk".. in which he accused him of treason and of rebelling against the Sultan's will, declared his blood lawful and made fighting and killing him obligatory.

And after six days.. on 19 April, in the year 1909, "Ataturk" marched with the army on Istanbul along with the Miralay "Mahmud Shawkat Pasha",.. and they confronted the Sultan's sniper forces and occupied Istanbul.. and on 27 April of the same year, the Miralay "Mahmud Shawkat Pasha" called the parliament to convene.. and they summoned the mufti of Istanbul, Sheikh al-Islam.. who read out his new statement, that the Sultan had sold the state's lands for money.. and that he was extravagant in his spending and his pleasures, and that he was a shedder of blood who reaped the profits of prostitution, casting the Qur'an and the religious books behind his back, and he issued a fatwa that he must be deposed from the throne!

Accordingly, "Mahmud Shawkat Pasha's" forces stormed the palace, and a special delegation recited the decision to depose "Abdul Hamid" in his hearing.. so he submitted completely on condition that his life be spared.. and they agreed and exiled him to Salonika with his family.. and they threw him into a palace there under heavy guard.. and they appointed his brother "Mehmed V" in his place.

Later "Abdul Hamid" tries to clear his reputation, in the Palestine affair, so he writes in his memoirs and letters that they offered him 150 million gold liras but he refused! And he said that "I praise the Lord and thank Him that I did not agree to stain the Ottoman state and the Islamic world with this eternal disgrace arising from their tasking them with establishing a Jewish state in the holy lands: Palestine.. and afterwards what happened happened. Therefore I repeat the praise and thanks to God the Most High".

After the deposition of "Abdul Hamid", whose country was bankrupt and could not find anything to eat, they discovered that he had 300 million pounds in the banks of Germany and England.. and they tried to withdraw this money but the two countries refused.. so they began negotiating with "Abdul Hamid" to return the money.. so he stipulated that he not be put on trial.. and that they give him the palace where he was exiled as outright ownership.. and that they leave him a sum of 50 million liras for himself and his family.. along with several other conditions...

And after these negotiations were concluded.. and on 9 February of the year 1910.. his brother "Mehmed V" sent him poison, and got rid of him.. for fear that any other European state might suddenly support him and he would return to power.. and at the same time, Germany laid its hands on the new elected government.. and "Abdul the Accursed" died.. and his story ended.. and martial law was declared in the Ottoman state for two years, and a strict press law was issued by the Chamber of Deputies.

And in the era of "Mehmed V" a great event takes place in the world, the First World War.. and the Ottoman state joins the world war, compelled, on the side of the Central Powers, which are the Ottoman state, Germany, Bulgaria, Prussia and the Austro-Hungarian Empire.. against the Allies.. which are England, France, Russia, Italy, Greece, Portugal, Greece, Japan, Belgium and Canada.

And the reason for the Ottoman state's entry into this war, and Europe's hostility and anger toward it, was a silly reason of the utmost naivety, which occurred because of a fatal mistake committed by the Ottoman state, because of a German spy from among its own sons, in a high-level position, who pushed his country into a furnace of flames.

And at the heart of this war, which the Ottoman state entered for a silly reason, was the Jewish spy "Sarah".. turning over in the arms of "Jamal Pasha", commander of the Ottoman Fourth Field Army, and passing the secrets of the battles to the English one by one.

And the reason for the Ottomans' entry into the war, and "Sarah", and this story, would take long to talk about.. so we will continue our talk later.

And there remains more of the talk.. to come.

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1 - Previous posts in the first comment.

2 - The picture is an English caricature, of an English military boot kicking a pot full of tarbooshes - as a symbol of the Ottoman state - with "Made in Germany." written on it.

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