Slanders On Muslims In History

Young Ottomans or the New Ottomans

Sultan Abdülaziz's opponents organized as Young Ottomans, under the leadership of Midhat Pasha, who was behind the coup of 1876. Ali Suavi, who attempted another coup a couple of years later, did so with his wife, who was also a British spy. This group was the beginning of Young Turks and the Committee of Union and Progress. Young Ottomans believed that the Ottoman Empire could only be saved with the help of the British.

Young Turks, İsmail Kemal Bey and Damad Mahmud Celaleddin Pasha

As a continuation of Young Ottomans, this group later turned into the Committee of Union and Progress. Most Young Turks were supported by the British deep state. When in 1899, İsmail Kemal Bey, Damad Mahmud Celaleddin Pasha and their sons fled to Europe, the Young Turk movement began to assume a pro-British stance. Those Young Turks that believed in the necessity of British intervention in Ottoman lands later split from the core society and founded the 'Ottoman Society of Promoters of Freedom', and tried to stage a coup with the help of the British, but failed.

Prince Sabahaddin, who was considered one of the names behind the 31 March Incident, was the son of Damad Mahmud Celaleddin Pasha. He argued that the Ottoman state system should be modeled on the British system. Another Young Turk, Ahmed Rıza, who was the son of 'English' Ali Rıza Bey, one day came across a British ambassador who was going to Sarayburnu; he untied the horses drawing the ambassador's cart and tied himself in their place. That was the shocking extent of the anglophilia of those sycophants.

Nevertheless, when the Committee of Union and Progress finally came into power, it failed to secure the support it expected from Britain. Because the real intent of the British had been supporting the opposition and radical anti-state movements to create an atmosphere of conflict around the empire, which, to a large extent, it achieved.