The failure of Ottomanism: The Albanian Rebellions of 1909--1912.
详细信息
文摘
The Constitutional Revolution of 1908 promised a new start for the Ottoman Empire and placed the reins of government in the hands of the Committee of Union and Progress,frequently known as the Young Turks. This new government sought to aggressively initiate a program of reform and centralization. Using the most modern technology and weapons the Young Turk government pursued a policy of regularizing administrative procedures in the Ottoman Empire. The greatest challenge to this project were peripheral areas of the Empire where the last of the autonomous local powers held out,which were often located in the geographical extremes of the Empire,such as Kurdistan,Yemen,Asir,Transjordan,Hawran,the Aegean,and Albania. Not only were many of these areas often rather inaccessible and nearly devoid of infrastructure,but they bordered foreign powers that had irredentist designs on the Empire. In some cases these areas had never been fully incorporated into the Empire,and if they had they were often administered by local nobility that had an agreement with Istanbul. Many of these areas had strong tribal affiliations that were difficult to penetrate and had no notion of interference in their daily lives by the Empire except perhaps in times of war or occasionally when they gave an annual tribute to the Sultan. Albania was one of these peripheral areas. It was a part of one of the most vulnerable regions of the Empire,the Balkans. Throughout the late 19th and early 20th centuries rebellion raged and foreign powers intrigued. For these reasons the Young Turk government wanted to establish greater security in this reason and squelch dissent. When uprisings in Albania broke out two years after the proclamation of the constitution the new government acted swiftly and forcefully. The Albanian Rebellions 1910-1912 were an important turning point in the history of the late Ottoman Empire. The Albanians had historically been integral members of Ottoman society and perhaps most importantly the majority of them were Muslims. Islam was the state religion and large-scale defection of Muslims from the Ottoman Empire was unprecedented. This unprecedented defection of Muslims signaled a growing dissatisfaction among those citizens who,theoretically,shared religious sentiments with the ruling elite； this trend did not bode well for the future of the CUP and the reforms they would hope to implement. The rebellion itself put tens of thousands of Ottoman soldiers in the field and dragged on for years. The fighting became more and more brutal as time passed. The Albanian Rebellions showed the limitations of aggressive centralization and the cost of these policies.