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presented an extraordinary spectacle. The people seemed to be mad with enthusiasm and delight. Turks, Bulgarians, Greeks, Servians, Wallachs were all as brothers. Several Bulgarian and Greek bands, one of the former led by the redoubtable Cherchis himself, tramped into Resna that day to take part in the universal jollification and fraternisation. Banners bearing the device, Liberty, Equality, Fraternity, Justice," and national flags innumerable waved in the breeze, and all day long the people were shouting themselves hoarse with cries of "Long live the Nation!" "Long live the Army!" "Long live the Committee!" After a twenty-four hours' halt in Resna, during which he was occupied in receiving the Christian band leaders and administering the oath to them, and making arrangements in case of a levée en masse of the people (for it was uncertain yet whether the Sultan would submit or plunge the country into civil war), Niazi, by order of the Committee, marched back to Monastir with the two hundred original fedais of his band, accompanied by Cherchis and other leaders of the Christian bands.

And here Niazi passes out of this story. I have given a somewhat full account of his wanderings, as the narrative will make clear the nature of the work that was done all over the country by those whose mission it was to gain the adherence of the civil population to the revolutionary cause; and

I think that it also shows that those virtues without which no people can be great or worthy of any respect-patriotism, and the readiness to sacrifice self for a high ideal-are possessed in a high degree by the Moslem Turks. Niazi was the first young officer to take to the mountains, and it was to his lot that the most important work fell; but it needed many others like him to make the insurrection so universal as it was. Enver Bey and dozens of other young officers were doing the same work as Niazi and with like success in other parts of the country. The local Committees, too, appear to have been wonderfully organised and to have been directed by single-minded patriots of great ability who kept ever in the background, their names unknown, and took no part in the public rejoicings when the victory was won. Thus the Committees in Uskeb and Janina, by their diligent propaganda, respectively won over the allegiance of the Northern Albanians and the Southern Albanians at the same time that Niazi was gaining that of the Western Albanians. Niazi is essentially the soldier, simple and straightforward and not a politician, and now that his mission at the time of his country's peril has been successfully accomplished, he is back in his own province quietly fulfilling his military duties in the midst of troops who would follow him to hell, as our own private soldiers would put it.

CHAPTER XIV

The Committee in possession of Monastir-The proclamation of the Constitution in Monastir - The Committee's ultimatum to the Sultan-Hilmi Pasha explains the situation to the Palace-Dismissal of the Grand VizierThe last State Council under the old régime-The Sultan restores to Turkey its Constitution.

ON the night of July 22, so soon as Osman Pasha had been made a prisoner, the members of the Monastir Centre of the Committee of Union and Progress proceeded to take over the government of the city and to secure the position that had been gained by Niazi's coup. In the first place, the Committee sent a telegram to the Sultan himself (to the Presence of His Sacred Majesty, the Caliph), beseeching him to command the practical application of the Fundamental Law (the Constitution of 1876) in order that the loyalty and devotion of his subjects might remain unimpaired; and informing him that, unless an Iradé ordering the opening of the Chamber of Deputies was issued by the following Sunday-July 26-events would "occur contrary to your Royal will and pleasure." The telegram concluded with the words: "The civil authorities, the officers of the army, the soldiers, the

ulema and sheikhs, the people great and small, of various creeds, within the Vilayet of Monastir, all united to work for one cause by an oath made upon the Unity of God, await your commands." Another telegram was despatched to inform the head-quarters of the Committee in Salonica that the coup had been made with success, and during that night young officers posted manifestoes on the walls in that city calling upon the people to co-operate with the Committee and overthrow the Despotism.

On the morning of July 23 the citizens of Monastir woke up to find that all signs of the Government's authority had vanished, and that the Committee had become the undisputed master of the Vilayet. It was a day of frenzied rejoicings. The fifty thousand inhabitants of this city and thousands of people from the surrounding country packed the streets to cheer and sing the songs of liberty. Sometimes a narrow way would be opened through the dense crowd to allow the passing of companies of Anatolian troops joyfully marching to some appointed spot where they were to be sworn in on the Unity of God as adherents of the Committee; or of a body of citizens carrying aloft on their shoulders the fedais, the members of the Moslem bands that had saved Turkey, the heroes of the hour.

And ever and again there rose a roar of "Long live the Committee!" and the people went about

seeking the members of the Committee, eager to do them honour and give them an ovation as they had done with the fedais. But the mysterious and invisible Committee was nowhere to be found. An absorbing curiosity got hold of the people. Who were the men, they asked themselves, who had acted on the executive of the Committee, the secret leaders who had issued the manifestoes and orders, who had organised the movement with such skill and daring? But it was impossible to obtain any answer to this question. It was not until some days after the Sultan had granted the Constitution that Niazi himself was given the names of those who composed the Monastir Executive, and then he found that among them were some of his most intimate friends.

But on this wonderful day, July 23, the executive body of the Committee was too busily engaged on most important work to come forward and receive the congratulations that were its due; for much had yet to be done. The Committee decided not to await the Sultan's reply to its demand, but to proclaim the Constitution that very day in Monastir, and it was held that the most fitting person to make this announcement to the people would be the Governor of the Monastir Vilayet himself, the Vali, Hifzi Pasha. The Vali, as we have seen, had been bold enough, a few days earlier, to tell the Palace the exact truth concerning the state of affairs in Macedonia.

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