The Fall of the Dynasties: The Collapse of the Old Order: 1905-1922

by Edmond Taylor

In the early spring of 1909 the Moslem Brotherhood, a recently created secret counterrevolutionary society — for whose activities Abdul Hamid accepted no responsibility — instigated a mutiny of private soldiers and non-coms against their Young Turk officers in the main barracks of the capital. Mobs of religious fanatics, led by Moslem theological students — and in some cases by unemployed former spies of the Sultan — joined the rioting troops. For a few days the counterrevolution took over Istanbul; the Committee of Union and Progress had to go underground again, and a return to autocracy seemed close at hand, though Abdul prudently refrained from committing himself.