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In the first place, it was cut short, and to some extent reversed, by the Young-Turk resolution of 1908 which drove Abdul Hamid from the throne. It certainly was never put to the test of a war between Turkey and a first-class European Power. This is what renders any theoretical appraisal so inconclusive.
In the second place, the Young-Turk revolution of 1908 gave an enormous impetus to the Egyptian cry for constitutional self-government.
In Turkey, therefore, it is not a question of a Young-Turk Party, because every civilized Ottoman belongs to this party." In this connection we should note the stirrings of unrest that were now rapidly developing in the Eastern lands subject to European political control.
In this larger sense he succeeded; albeit not so much from his position as caliph as because he incarnated the growing fear and hatred of the West. Thus we may conclude that Abdul Hamid's Pan-Islamic propaganda did produce profound and lasting effects which will have to be seriously reckoned with. The Young-Turk revolution of 1908 greatly complicated the situation.
Regarding the Young-Turk revolution of 1908, Professor Lybyer remarks: "Turkey was not so unprepared for parliamentary institutions as might at first sight appear. There lay hidden some precedent, much preparation, and a strong desire, for parliamentary government. Both the religious and the secular institutions of Turkey involve precedents for a parliament.
Meanwhile, by the closing decades of the nineteenth century, the first phase of nationalism had patently passed into Asia. The "Young-Turk" and "Young-Egyptian" movements, and the "Nationalist" stirrings in regions so far remote from each other as Algeria, Persia, and India, were unmistakable signs that Asia was gripped by the initial throes of nationalist self-consciousness.
They knew that the "Young-Turk" clique which had engineered the coup was made up of Europeanized renegades, many of them not even nominal Moslems, but atheistic Jews. Far-sighted Moslems had no intention of pulling Germany's chestnuts out of the fire, nor did they wish to further Prussian schemes of world-dominion which for themselves would have meant a mere change of masters.
During the remainder of Abdul Hamid's reign his Arab provinces were in a sort of unstable equilibrium, torn between the forces of nationalist sedition on the one hand and Pan-Islamic, anti-European feeling on the other. The Young-Turk revolution of 1908 caused a new shift in the situation.
They burned with that same spirit of Asiatic unrest which pervades India, which produced the 'Young-Turk' movement, and which has more recently manifested itself in the establishment of the Chinese Republic." Mr. Shuster concludes: "Kipling has intimated that you cannot hustle the East. This includes a warning and a reflection.
In Persia the Shah repressed a nascent liberal movement with equal severity, while in Egypt the spendthrift rule of Khedive Ismail ended all native political life by provoking European intervention and the imposition of British rule. Down to the Young-Turk revolution of 1908 there were few overt signs of liberal agitation in those Moslem countries which still retained their independence.
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