File No. 10044/42.
Ambassador Leishman to the Secretary of State.
Constantinople , August 8, 1908 .
Sir: I have the honor to report further with regard to recent occurrences here During the last week the power of the Young Turks has unquestionably received an enormous impetus, especially since the arrival of plenipotentiaries from the committee at Salonica, who have apparently been able to negotiate directly and successfully with the Palace, and whose partisans have administered the oath of fidelity to the constitution to the troops at Constantinople The Sultan has been forced to dismiss his immediate advisers, several of whom now find themselves in prison along with prominent officials and even cabinet ministers of the late régime He has been obliged to give further guaranties for the permanent enforcement of the constitution and to retire Said Pasha as grand vizier in favor of Kiamil Pasha, a statesman more liberal in his ideas and acceptable to the reformers A new cabinet has been constituted which it is hoped will serve to bridge over the necessary transition until Parliament can convene And it is also to be hoped that it may be able to enforce the semblance of authority which in the past fortnight has been almost nonexistent.
Demonstrations have of late been the order of the day, and the people, who are feeling their new power, have roughly handled several former officials on their way to prison Even the Armenian patriarch was shamefully treated in the streets by a mob composed chiefly of his coreligionists One notorious personality, Fehim Pasha, who had been chief of police, has been hacked to pieces by infuriated peasants near Broussa while attempting to escape.
If acts of violence have unfortunately not been absent in the capital, owing to the present lack of authority, the brightest feature [Page 748] of the situation lies in Macedonia The action of the Bulgarian, Greek, Servian, and Vlach bands, which for years had disturbed the calm of European diplomacy and elicited project after project of reform, has suddenly ceased, and their chiefs, declaring their readiness to abide by the constitution, have made their submission What the concerted efforts of diplomacy and an international gendarmerie have been unable to accomplish the success of the Young Turks has apparently brought about.
I have, etc.,