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The Young Turks originated from groups of so-called Progressive university students.
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The first congress of Ottoman Opposition was held on February 4,
1902, at the house of Germain Antoin Lefevre-Pontalis, in Paris France. He was a member of the Institute France. -
The Young Turks became a truly organized movement with the Committee of Union and Progress as an organizational umbrella. They recruited individuals prepared to sacrifice themselves for the establishment of a constitutional monarchy. In 1906, the Ottoman Freedom Society was established in Thessalonica by Mehmed.
Talaat. -
The Second congress of the Ottoman opposition took place in
Paris, France in 1907. Opposition leaders including Ahmed Riza, Sabahheddin Bey, and Khachatur Maloumian of the Armenian Revolutionary Federation were in attendance. The goal was to unite all the parties, including the CUP, in order to bring about the revolution. -
In September 1907, Ottoman Freedom Society announced they would be working with other organizations under the umbrella of Committee of Union and Progress. In reality, the leadership of the Ottoman Freedom Society would exert significant control over the Committe Of Union and Progress.
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In 1908, the Macedonian Question was facing the Ottoman Empire. Czar Nicholas II and Franz Joseph, who were
both interested in the Balkans. -
On July 3, 1908, Maj. Ahmed Niyazi of the 3rd Corps led a revolt against the provincial authorities in Resna. Other conspirators soon followed his example, and the rebellion rapidly spread throughout the empire
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While in power, the Young Turks carried out administrative reforms, especially of provincial administration, that led to more centralization.
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The Young Turks had succeeded in establishing a constitutional government, but their deep-seated ideological differences resurfaced and prevented them from taking effective control of that government until 1913, when the CUP under new leaders—the triumvirate of Talât Paşa, Cemal Paşa, and Enver Paşa—set itself up as the real arbiter of Ottoman politics.
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The Young Turks were also the first Ottoman reformers to promote industrialization.
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The programs of the Young Turk regime effectuated greater secularization of the legal system and provided for the education of women and better state-operated primary schools.
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An overly hasty appraisal of Germany’s military capability by the Young Turk leaders led them to break neutrality and enter World War I (1914–18) on the side of the Central Powers.
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Ottoman troops made an important contribution to the Central Powers’ war effort, fighting on multiple fronts.
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In 1915, members of the Young Turk government directed Ottoman soldiers and their proxies in Eastern Anatolia, near the Russian front, to deport or execute millions of Armenians in an event that later came to be known as the Armenian Genocide.
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Upon the end of the war, with defeat imminent, the CUP cabinet resigned on October 9, 1918, less than a month before the Ottomans signed the Armistice of Mudros.
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The Ottoman Empire collapsed after World War I, but the Westernizing principals of the Young Turks shaped the new Turkish nation that emerged in 1919.
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By the early 1920s, when the massacres and deportations finally ended, some 1.5 million of Turkey’s Armenians were dead, with many more forcibly removed from the country.
