ملف F/1 المخابرات الجنائية، مذكرة دورية: الوحدة الإسلامية [ظ‎‎٢‎٠] (٦٨/٤٠)

A
the latter part of the 18th century and the beginning: of the 19th hns robbed
the provinces of any power of independent action, the only persons not
members of the bureaucracy now remaining in the Ottoman' Empire who
count as leaders being the desert Arab chieftains, a few of the Kurdish Aghaa
in the remoter fastnesses, and in a lower degree some of the notables of the
cities of Damascus, Aleppo, Mosul and Baghdad.
Consequently, in the Ottoman Empire nothing counts except the bureau^
cracy, and bureaucracy is always at the mercy of those who control the army
and the treasury.
In analysing the interior forces of the Ottoman Empire the whole mass
of the people may be dismissed as submissive and docile, while the
bureaucracy is mechanically controlled by those who hold power at Constanti
nople. _ Formerly this power lay in the hands of the Sultan, the Palace, the ^
inner ring of high functionaries and the Moslem clergy. Since the advent of
the Committee of Union and Progress these elements have entirely disappeared,
the Sultan has become a puppet, the Palace has been scattered, the older
ministers have retired or died off, the Moslem clergy has been completely tamed
by terrorism, executions and the appointment of religious chiefs, such as the
present Shaykh-al-Islam and the Grand Shelabi of Konia, who had no con
nection whatever with religion before assuming office.
This tendency might be cited as the cause of the loss of Tunis and
Egypt, but lack of communications was practically alone responsible.
The administration of the Wakfs is now designed with the object of
making the religious bodies political slaves of the Government. As a conse
quence, the Committee of Union and Progress, though small, and containing
many non-Turkish elements, is absolutely supreme and, wherever the Turkish
flag flies, unchallengeable. At first there were signs of opposition in the so-
called Liberal Union, but the idea of opposition to the Government except as
a conspiracy was too alien to Turkey to have any vitality, while the Committee
of Union and Progress itself had views quite incompatible with the surrender
of office after an unsuccessful election.
Wholesale executions, assassination, delation, exile and confiscation have
crushed atd possibility of a revolution of a real kind, though it must never be
forgotten that the Committee of Union and Progress is always ready to
engineer a revolution against itself for the purpose of reappearing in another
role, or of ridding itself of some cumbrous appendage.
This evolution the Committee of Union and Progress has performed on
different occasions. The first was during the so-called counter-revolution of
1909. The Committee felt that the prestige of Abdul Hamid was too strong
and that the Liberal Union showed signs of becoming a real political force.
The modus operandi was as follows :—The Committee of Union and Progress
officers were withdrawn to Salonica, the ignorant troops who formed the
garrison at Constantinople were excited to mutiny by 44 agents provocateurs
in the pay of the Committee of Union and Progress who passed themselves off
as agents of the Sultan. As a consequence the liberal officers were murdered,
by their men who imagined they were acting according to the wishes of the ^
Sultan. The Committee of Union and Progress returned to Constantinople
with an army previously prepared for the purpose, as saviours of the
situation, with their political opponents killed and a mandate to dethrone ^
the Sultan and hang whosoever they desired.
Again when the Turco-Italian War was nearing an unfavourable crisis, the
Committee of Union and Progress retired and lay dormant, until the Balkan
situation became strained, then by means of mobs and demonstrations forced
the Government into war, withdrew all Committee officers from the army on
the eve of mobilization, ensured defeat at Luli Burgas, remobiliaed the
Committee officers, assassinated the Commander-in-Chief, overthrew the
Government and retook Adrianople.
Subsequently, desiring to get an excuse to eradicate the last remnants of
the Liberal Union, the Committee of Union and Progress on discovering a
plot to assassinate Enver, Tala'at, Jemal and Shevket Pasha, and considering