The Young Turk Revolution restores the constitution
Army officers threaten to march on Constantinople, and Abdul Hamid II reinstates the parliament he had suspended thirty years earlier.
Quick facts
- Movement
- Committee of Union and Progress (Young Turks)
- Constitution restored
- 24 July 1908
- Abdul Hamid II deposed
- 1909
- Successor sultan
- Mehmed V (figurehead)
What happened
The Committee of Union and Progress, a reform movement popularly known as the Young Turks and based largely among army officers in the empire's Balkan territories, forced Sultan Abdul Hamid II to restore the constitution he had suspended in 1878. Facing the threat of an armed march on the capital, Abdul Hamid reinstated the parliament on 24 July 1908, opening the Second Constitutional Era. The sultan attempted a countercoup the following April, but it failed, and he was deposed in 1909 and replaced by his brother Mehmed V, who ruled as a figurehead while the Committee of Union and Progress held real power.
Why it matters
The revolution ended thirty years of personal autocratic rule and put a nationalist, secular political movement in effective control of the empire, but it did not resolve the empire's territorial and financial crises. Within a decade the same movement's leadership, known as the Three Pashas, took the empire into the First World War and directed the Armenian Genocide.
How we know
World History Encyclopedia's overview of the Ottoman Empire dates Abdul Hamid's deposition to 1909 following the restoration of constitutional rule and identifies the Committee of Union and Progress leadership, the Three Pashas, as the same figures later held responsible for the Armenian Genocide.
Sources
- World History Encyclopedia. Ottoman Empire · Reputable sourceworldhistory.org · The domain "worldhistory.org" is on our Reputable source registry. · Link is live and its text matches the event's key terms (Jul 2026)
- World History Encyclopedia. Ottoman Empire · Reputable sourceworldhistory.org · The domain "worldhistory.org" is on our Reputable source registry. · Link is live and its text matches the event's key terms (Jul 2026)
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