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LABOR ACTIVISM AND THE STATE IN THE OTTOMAN TOBACCO INDUSTRY

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 July 2014

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Abstract

In the late 19th and early 20th century, tobacco exports from the Ottoman Empire rapidly increased. Thousands of workers began to earn their livelihoods in warehouses, sorting and baling tobacco leaves according to their qualities. Ottoman towns where tobacco warehouses were concentrated soon became the sites of frequent labor protests. This article analyzes strikes that broke out in two such towns, İskeçe (Xanthi) and Kavala, in 1904 and 1905. It underlines the active role of the Ottoman government in the settlement of these strikes. It also shows that mobilized tobacco workers devised effective protest tactics and often secured a say in key decisions, such as when and under what conditions the warehouses operated. However, in both towns, labor activism was characterized by fragmentation as well as unity. The workers who took to the streets did not equally share the burdens and benefits of their collective actions. That inequality, the article argues, was rooted in gendered power relations, intercommunal rivalries, and other social tensions among the workers.

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Articles
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International Journal of Middle East Studies , Volume 46 , Issue 3 , August 2014 , pp. 533 - 551
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Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2014 

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References

NOTES

Author's note: I thank David Gutman, Mark Baker, and the anonymous reviewers and editors of IJMES for their insightful comments.

1 Başbakanlık Osmanlı Arşivi (Prime Ministry Ottoman Archives, hereafter BOA), İrade Hususi (hereafter İ.HUS) 1310.L.37 (9 Şevval 1310/26 April 1893).

2 BOA, Dahiliye Nezareti Mektubi Kalemi (hereafter DH.MKT) 993/67, Governor of Trabzon province to the Ministry of Interior (16 Temmuz 1321/29 July 1905).

3 As compensation for unpaid wages, the company gave its workers a certain sum of money annually on Easter. BOA, DH.MKT 912/53, report from the Grand Vizierate to the Ministry of Interior (17 Mart 1322/30 March 1906); report from the Ministry of Police to the Ministry of Interior (17 Mart 1322/30 March 1906); report from the Prefect of Istanbul to the Ministry of Interior (17 Mart 1322/30 March 1906).

4 See, for example, Gülmez, Mesut, “Tanzimat'tan Sonra İşçi Örgütlenmesi ve Çalışma Koşulları (1839–1919),” in Tanzimat'tan Cumhuriyet'e Türkiye Ansiklopedisi, 3. Cilt (Istanbul: İletişim Yayınları, 1985), 792–802Google Scholar; Şehmus Güzel, “Tanzimat'tan Cumhuriyet'e İşçi Hareketi ve Grevler,” in Tanzimat'tan Cumhuriyet'e Türkiye Ansiklopedisi, 3. Cilt, 803–30; Karakışla, Yavuz Selim, “Osmanl ı İmparatorluğu'nda 1908 Grevleri,” Toplum ve Bilim, no. 78 (1998): 187–208Google Scholar; and Cevdet Kırpık, “Osmanlı Devleti'nde İşçiler ve İşçi Hareketleri (1876–1914)” (PhD diss., Süleyman Demirel University, 2004), 233–74.

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6 Quataert, “Machine Breaking.”

7 Hanssen, Jens, Fin de Siécle Beirut: The Making of an Ottoman Provincial Capital (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005), 105–12Google Scholar. In his study on the coal heavers of Port Saʿid, John Chalcraft similarly demonstrates that the Egyptian state was not always an adversary of worker protest. See Chalcraft, John, “The Coal Heavers of Port Saʿid: State-Making and Worker Protest, 1869–1914,” International Labor and Working-Class History 60 (2001): 110–24Google Scholar.

8 Khuri-Makdisi, Ilham, The Eastern Mediterranean and the Making of Global Radicalism, 1860–1914 (Berkeley, Calif.: University of California Press, 2010), 155CrossRefGoogle Scholar. On the militancy of tobacco workers in the Ottoman Empire and Egypt, see also Beinin, Joel and Lockman, Zachary, Workers on the Nile: Nationalism, Communism, Islam, and the Egyptian Working Class, 1882–1954 (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1987), 50–57Google Scholar; Shechter, Relli, Smoking, Culture and Economy in the Middle East: The Egyptian Tobacco Market 1850–2000 (New York: I. B. Tauris, 2006), 43–44Google Scholar; E. Tutku Vardağlı, “Tobacco Labor Politics in the Province of Thessaloniki: Cross-Communal and Cross-Gender Relations” (PhD diss., Boğaziçi University, 2011); and Haupt, George and Dumont, Paul, Osmanlı İmparatorluğunda Sosyalist Hareketler (Istanbul: Gözlem Yayınları, 1977)Google Scholar.

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10 In his study on the Zonguldak coalfield, Quataert discusses a similar problem. “One body of mining documents, the accountants’ records,” he writes, “offers a vision of the workers’ world as anonymous and collective.” Quataert, Donald, Miners and the State in the Ottoman Empire: The Zonguldak Coalfield, 1822–1920 (New York: Berghahn Books, 2006), 109Google Scholar.

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12 Quataert, Donald, “The Regie, Smugglers, and the Government,” in Social Disintegration and Popular Resistance in the Ottoman Empire, 1881–1908: Reactions to European Economic Penetration (New York: New York University Press, 1983), 13–40Google Scholar; Birdal, Murat, The Political Economy of the Ottoman Public Debt: Insolvency and European Financial Control in the Late Nineteenth Century (New York: I. B. Tauris, 2010), 15Google Scholar; “The Ottoman Tobacco Industry,” Journal of the Society of Arts 42 (1894): 733–34; Ilıcak, Şükrü, “Jewish Socialism in Ottoman Salonica,” Southeast European and Black Sea Studies 2 (2002): 115–46, 121CrossRefGoogle Scholar; BOA, DH.MKT 847/67, report from the Vice-Director of the Régie Company to the Ministry of Interior (21 Nisan 1320/4 May 1904).

13 Birdal, The Political Economy of the Ottoman Public Debt, 158.

14 BOA, Yıldız Esas Evrakı (hereafter Y.EE) 11/17, report from the Régie Superintendent to the Imperial Palace (13 Cemaziyelevvel 1307/5 January 1890); Quataert, “The Regie, Smugglers, and the Government,” 21.

15 Export merchants were not a homogenous group. Some, having considerable capital at their disposal, engaged in buying and selling tobacco leaves on a large scale. They established companies and employed other merchants as their agents. The Allatini family was among such prominent export merchants. The family's company, mentioned later in this article, ranked second in Macedonia, after the Hungarian Herzog Company, in exporting tobacco leaves. See Quataert, Donald, “The Workers of Salonica, 1850–1912,” in Workers and the Working Class in the Ottoman Empire and the Turkish Republic 1839–1950, ed. Quataert, Donald and Zürcher, Erick Jan (New York: I. B. Tauris, 1995), 59–74, 68Google Scholar.

16 Block, Adam, Special Report on the Ottoman Public Debt (London: 1906), 85Google Scholar.

17 Rudy, Jarrett, “Cigarettes,” in Tobacco in History and Culture: An Encyclopedia, vol. 1, ed. Goodman, Jordan (Detroit, Mich.: Thomson Gale, 2005), 144–50Google Scholar.

18 1296 Senesi Martı İbtidasından Şubatı Nihayetine Değin Bir Sene Zarfında Memâlik-i Mahrûsa-i Şahane Mahsulât-ı Arziyye ve Sınaiyyesinden Diyar-ı Ecnebiyeye Giden ve Bilcümle Diyar-ı Ecnebiyeden Memâlik-i Mahrûsa-i Şahaneye Gelen Eşyanın Cins ve Mikdarını Mübeyyin Tanzim Olunan İstatistik Defterlerinin Hûlâsatü’l-Hûlâsa Cedvelidir (Dersaadet: n.p., 1301/1885), 25; “Tabakerzeugung, Bearbeitung und Handel in Der Europaishen Turkei,” Berichte über Handel und Industrie 18 (5 December 1912): 338.

19 Quataert, Donald, “The Age of Reforms, 1812–1914,” in An Economic and Social History of the Ottoman Empire, vol. 2, 1600–1914, ed. İnalcık, Halil with Quataert, Donald (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997), 852Google Scholar.

20 “Tabakerzeugung, Bearbeitung und Handel in Der Europaishen Turkei,” 339.

21 Rüsumat Müdiriyet-i Umumiyesi Ticaret-i Hariciye İstatistiği 1326 (Dersaadet: n.p., 1328/1912), 8; Rüsumat Müdiriyet-i Umumiyesi, Ticaret-i Hariciye İstatistiği 1327 (Dersaadet: n.p., 1329/1913), 8; Rüsumat Müdiriyet-i Umumiyesi Ticaret-i Hariciye İstatistiği 1329 (Dersaadet: n.p., 1331/1915), 8.

22 Konstandinos A. Vakalopoulos, Modern History of Macedonia, 1830–1912 (Thessaloniki, Greece: Barbounakis, 1988), 144; BOA, Rumeli Müfettişliği Selanik Evrakı (hereafter TFR-I-SL) 68/6732, Governor of Drama sub-province to the Inspectorate of Rumelia (21 March 1321/3 April 1905); BOA, TFR-I-SL 67/6659, report from Colonel Fairholme to Degiorgis Pasha (25 March 1905); 1322 Sene-i Hicriyesine Mahsus Selanik Vilayet Salnamesi, 441; 1325 Sene-i Hicriyesine Mahsus Selanik Vilayet Salnamesi, 426. According to Gounaris, the population of Kavala was 22,000 in 1898 and 24,000 in 1908. See Gounaris, Basil C., Steam over Macedonia 1870–1912: Socio-Economic Change and the Railway Factor (Boulder, Colo.: East European Monographs, 1993), 235Google Scholar.

23 , Ahmet, Anadolu'da Tanin, ed. Börekçi, Mehmed Çetin (Ankara: Türk Tarih Kurumu, 1999), 256Google Scholar. The population of Samsun was estimated at 25,000 in 1912. See Quataert, “The Age of Reforms,” 781.

24 BOA, DH.MKT 1686/47, the Ministry of Interior to the Commander-in-Chief (20 Kanunuevvel 1305/1 January 1890); BOA, Dahiliye Nezareti İdare Kısmı (hereafter DH. İD) 132/7, telegram from the administrative board of tobacco workers’ union in İskeçe (12 Teşrinievvel 1327/25 October 1911). In 1912, the population of İskeçe was reported to be 18,000. See Consul General Ravndal, G. Bie, “Census and Divisions of Turkish Empire,” 23 October 1912, Daily Consular and Trade Reports (Washington, D.C.: United States Department of Commerce and Labor Bureau of Manufactures), 426–27Google Scholar.

25 Quataert, “The Workers of Salonica,” 71.

26 The Egyptian cigarette industry grew rapidly at the turn of the century; migrant workers (Greeks, Armenians, Europeans, and Syrians) held the better-paid and more skilled positions. See Beinin and Lockman, Workers on the Nile, 50; and Shechter, Smoking, Culture and Economy, 42–43.

27 Constantinides, C. L., Turkish Tobacco: A Manual for Planters, Dealers, and Manufacturers (London: W. & J. Rounce Ltd., 1912), 25Google Scholar; 1315 Sene-i Hicriyesine Mahsus Selanik Vilayet Salnamesi, 571; 1318 Sene-i Hicriyesine Mahsus Selanik Vilayet Salnamesi, 509; 1325 Sene-i Hicriyesine Mahsus Selanik Vilayet Salnamesi, 426.

28 Constantinides, Turkish Tobacco, 25. Constantinides referred to migrant workers as men, but as discussed below they also included women and girls.

29 This event took place in the context of the fierce struggle between Bulgarian and Greek armed groups for territorial gains in the Ottoman Balkans. The governor wrote that the attack was in revenge for the murder of a Greek consulate official in Salonica by Bulgarians. The leader of the migrant group carrying out the attack was an Ottoman Greek subject from Kozana, Salonica. The sources consulted do not give information on the other workers. See BOA, DH.MKT 1249/64, the Ministry of Interior to the Grand Vizierate (22 Rebiülevvel 1326/23 April 1908). For the struggle between Bulgarian and Greek armed groups, see Ahsene Gül Tokay, “The Macedonian Question and the Origins of the Young Turk Revolution, 1903–1908” (PhD diss., University of London, 1994).

30 Anderson, W. C. F., “A Journey from Mount Athos to Hebrus,” in Papers Printed to Commemorate the Incorporation of the University College of Sheffield (London: Taylor and Francis, 1897), 211–52, 241Google Scholar.

31 Constantinides, Turkish Tobacco, 48.

32 Drama Tütüncü Kongresi Mukarreratı (Istanbul: Ahmed İhsan ve Şürekası Matbaacılık Osmanlı Şirketi, 1326/1910), 70; Kavala Tütün Kongresi (Selanik: Yeni Asır Matbaası, 1327/1911), 17, 29.

33 1315 Sene-i Hicriyesine Mahsus Selanik Vilayet Salnamesi, 571; 1318 Sene-i Hicriyesine Mahsus Selanik Vilayet Salnamesi, 509.

34 Vardağlı, “Tobacco Labor Politics,” 169, 380.

35 BOA, DH. İD 107/29, the Ministry of Interior to the Governor of Aydın province (26 Haziran 1328/9 July 1912) and telegram from the Governor of Aydın province to the Ministry of Interior (27 Haziran 1328/10 July 1912).

36 “The Ottoman Tobacco Industry,” 733–34; “Osmanlı Tütünleri ve Reji Şirketi,” Servet-i Fünun 6 (1894): 296.

37 Hadar, Gila, “Jewish Tobacco Workers in Salonika: Gender and Family in the Context of Social Life and Ethnic Strife,” in Women in the Ottoman Balkans: Gender, Culture and History, ed. Buturovic, Amila and Schick, Irvin Cemil (New York: I. B. Tauris, 2007), 132Google Scholar.

38 “The Home of Turkish Tobacco,” in The Cornhill Magazine, New Series, vol. 11 (London: Smith, Elder & Co., 1888), 191.

39 Anderson, “A Journey from Mount Athos to Hebrus,” 241.

40 Kosova, Zehra, Ben İşçiyim (Istanbul: İletişim Yayınları, 1996), 13Google Scholar.

41 In the late 19th century, more than 10,000 women and girls worked in the silk factories of Mount Lebanon, while only 1,000 men were employed, exclusively as overseers. See Khater, Akram Fouad, “‘House’ to ‘Goddess of the House’: Gender, Class and Silk in the 19th-Century Mount Lebanon,” International Journal of Middle East Studies 28 (1996): 330Google Scholar. A tobacco monopoly was established in Lebanon in 1935. Women dominated the least-skilled and lowest-paid jobs in the monopoly company's factories. See Abisaab, Malek, Militant Women of a Fragile Nation (Syracuse, N.Y.: Syracuse University Press: 2010), 3, 29–30Google Scholar.

42 Avdela, Efi, “Class, Ethnicity, and Gender in Post-Ottoman Thessaloniki: The Great Tobacco Strike of 1914,” in Borderlines: Genders and Identities in War and Peace, 1870–1930, ed. Melman, Billie (New York: Routledge, 1998), 424Google Scholar.

43 Tanin, 29 Mart 1327 (11 April 1911) and 13 Nisan 1327 (26 April 1911); Mentzel, “Nationalism and Labor Movement in the Ottoman Empire,” 208.

44 Avdela, “Class, Ethnicity, and Gender in Post-Ottoman Thessaloniki,” 425; BOA, ŞD 2027/12, Governor of Salonica province to the Ministry of Interior (14 Receb 1314/19 December 1896); BOA, Başbakanlık Evrak Odası (hereafter BEO) 3051/228761, report from the Kaymakam of İskeçe to the Governor of Edirne province (7 Mart 1323/20 March 1907); Mr. G. Barclay to Sir Edward Grey, 18 September 1906, Great Britain, Parliamentary Papers, Accounts and Papers, vol. 100 (Cd. 3454), 123.

45 BOA, DH.MKT 854/21, report addressed to the Régie Superintendent (17 Rebiülevvel 1322/1 June 1904).

46 BOA, ŞD 1918/6, petition from peasants to the inspection committee in İskeçe (20 Teşrinievvel 1309/1 November 1893).

47 BOA, Rumeli Müfettişliği Edirne Evrakı (hereafter TFR-I-ED) 8/718, telegram from Finance Inspector Rami to the Inspectorate of Rumelia (7 Temmuz 1320/20 July 1904).

48 BOA, DH.MKT 854/21, telegram from the Kaymakam of İskeçe (10 Mayıs 1320/23 May 1904) and telegram from the Vice-Governor of Edirne province to the Ministry of Interior (5 Mayıs 1320/18 May 1904).

49 BOA, DH.MKT 854/21, telegram from the Kaymakam of İskeçe (10 Mayıs 1320/23 May 1904).

50 See BOA, DH.MKT 854/21, telegram from the Governor of Gümülcine sub-province to the Governor of Edirne province (16 Mayıs 1320/29 May 1904).

51 BOA, DH.MKT 854/21, telegram from the Governor of Gümülcine sub-province (3 Mayıs 1320/16 May 1904).

52 BOA, TFR-I-ED 7/611, two telegrams from the Governor of Gümülcine sub-province to the Inspectorate of Rumelia (3–4 Mayıs 1320/16–17 May 1904); BOA, DH. MKT 854/21, telegram from the Vice-Governor of Edirne province to the Ministry of Interior (5 Mayıs 1320/18 May 1904). These documents suggest that the problems of unemployed workers were not discussed at the meeting. The unemployed sorters and balers quite possibly did not have a representative there.

53 BOA, DH.MKT 854/21, telegram from the Kaymakam of İskeçe (10 Mayıs 1320/23 May 1904) and telegram from the Vice-Governor of Edirne province to the Ministry of Interior (11 Mayıs 1320/24 May 1904).

54 BOA, DH. MKT 854/21, telegram from the Vice-Governor of Edirne province to the Ministry of Interior (3 Mayıs 1320/16 May 1904).

55 BOA, TFR-I-ED 7/611, telegram from the Governor of Gümülcine sub-province to the Inspectorate of Rumelia (3 Mayıs 1320/16 May 1904).

56 BOA, DH.MKT 854/21, telegram from the Vice-Governor of Edirne province to the Ministry of Interior and the Ministry of Interior to the Ministry of Finance (11 Mayıs 1320/24 May 1904).

57 BOA, DH.MKT 854/21, telegram from the Governor of Gümülcine sub-province to the Governor of Edirne province (16 Mayıs 1320/29 May 1904).

58 BOA, TFR-I-ED 8/718, telegram from Finance Inspector Rami to the Inspectorate of Rumelia (7 Temmuz 1320/20 July 1904).

59 Report from Mr. Vice Council Pecchioli, Great Britain, Parliamentary Papers, Accounts and Papers, vol. 93, no. 3430 (Cd. 2236–174), 16.

60 The Exarchate, a semiautonomous Bulgarian church, was founded by an imperial decree in 1870. Article 10 of the decree stipulated that if two-thirds of the Orthodox population of a given district expressed their will to change their ecclesiastical authority through a local referendum, the Ottoman administration would recognize the change. See Konortas, Paraskevas, “Nationalist Infiltrations in Ottoman Thrace (ca. 1870–1912),” in State-Nationalisms in the Ottoman Empire, Greece and Turkey: Orthodox and Muslims, 1830–1945, ed. Fortna, Benjamin, Katsikas, Stefanos, Kamouzis, Dimitris, and Konortas, Paraskevas (New York: Routledge, 2013), 77–78Google Scholar.

61 Vermund Aarbakke, “Urban Space and the Bulgarian-Greek Antagonism in Thrace, 1870–1912,” paper presented at the workshop The Balkans: From Academic Field to International Politics, Athens, 2012. I thank Dr. Aarbakke for letting me use his paper.

62 BOA, TFR-I-ED 8/718, telegram from Finance Inspector Rami to the Inspectorate of Rumelia (7 Temmuz 1320/20 July 1904).

63 BOA, DH.MKT 854/21, report addressed to the Régie Superintendent (17 Rebiülevvel 1322/1 June 1904).

64 BOA, Yıldız Perakende Evrakı Askeri Maruzat (hereafter Y.PRK.ASK) 227/86, telegram from Field Marshal İbrahim to the Imperial Palace (17 Muharrem 1323/24 March 1905); BOA, TFR-I-SL 67/6659, two telegrams from the Governor of Drama sub-province to the Inspectorate of Rumelia (7 Mart 1321/20 March 1905).

65 BOA, TFR-I-SL 67/6659, telegram from the Governor of Drama sub-province to the Inspectorate of Rumelia and telegram from the Kaymakam of Kavala to the Inspectorate of Rumelia (7 Mart 1321/20 March 1905); BOA, Yıldız Mütenevvi Maruzat (hereafter Y.MTV) 272/107, telegram from the Ottoman Ninth Infantry Division (11 Mart 1321/24 March 1905).

66 British consul's report, quoted in Mentzel, “Nationalism and Labor Movement in the Ottoman Empire,” 88.

67 Ibid., 88–89; BOA, Y.MTV 272/107, telegram from the Ottoman Ninth Infantry Division (11 Mart 1321/24 March 1905).

68 BOA, TFR-I-SL 67/6659, telegram from the Kaymakam of Kavala to the Inspectorate of Rumelia (7 Mart 1321/20 March 1905).

69 Yannis Vyzikas, Chronico ton Ergatikon Agonon (Kavala, Greece: Tobacco Museum, 1994), 12–13. I thank Anna Maria Aslanoğlu and Tutku Vardağlı for the translation of related chapters in this manuscript from Greek to Turkish.

70 BOA, Y.MTV 272/107, telegram from the Ottoman Ninth Infantry Division (11 Mart 1321/24 March 1905).

71 Ibid.

72 BOA, TFR-I-SL 67/6659, report from Colonel Fairholme to Degiorgis Pasha (25 March 1905). For more information on gendarmerie reform in Macedonia, see Tokay, “The Macedonian Question.”

73 BOA, TFR-I-SL 68/6732, report from the Governor of Drama sub-province to the Inspectorate of Rumelia (21 March 1321/3 April 1905); Yeni Asır, 14 Mart 1321 (27 March 1905) and 7 Nisan 1321 (20 April 1905).

74 BOA, TFR-I-SL 67/6659, report from Colonel Fairholme to Degiorgis Pasha (25 March 1905).

75 In virtually all labor protests discussed in this article, Kavala tobacco workers were organized across ethnic and religious lines. However, this does not mean that the tobacco industry in the town was free of communal tensions. When, for instance, Greek Christian foremen closed two tobacco warehouses during a short visit by the Greek Archbishop of Drama in June 1909, a serious dispute broke out between Greek and Muslim workers. See Tanin, 16 Haziran 1325 (29 June 1909).

76 BOA, TFR-I-SL 196/19560, telegram from the Governor of Drama sub-province (31 Ağustos 1324/13 September 1908).

77 BOA, TFR-I-SL 67/6659, telegram from the Governor of Drama sub-province to the Inspectorate of Rumelia and telegram from the Kaymakam of Kavala to the Inspectorate of Rumelia (7 Mart 1321/20 March 1905).

78 BOA, TFR-I-SL 67/6659, telegram from the Kaymakam of Kavala to the Inspectorate of Rumelia (7 Mart 1321/20 March 1905).

79 BOA, Y.PRK.ASK 227/86, telegram from Field Marshal İbrahim to the Imperial Palace (17 Muharrem 1323/24 March 1905).

80 BOA, TFR-I-SL 68/6732, report from the Governor of Drama sub-province to the Inspectorate of Rumelia (21 March 1321/3 April 1905) and report addressed to the Governor of Drama sub-province (27 Mart 1321/9 April 1905)

81 BOA, TFR-I-SL 196/19560, telegram from the Governor of Drama sub-province to the Inspectorate of Rumelia (2 Eylül 1324/15 September 1908).

82 BOA, DH.İD, 132/4, report from the Kavala Tobacco Workers’ Welfare Association (6 Teşrinievvel 1325/19 October 1909).

83 Rentetzi, Maria, “Tobacco Factories: The History of a Lost Culture,” in Tobacco Factories, ed. Nollas, Kamilo (Athens: Kastaniotis Editions, 2007), 31–37Google Scholar; Labrianidis, Lois, “Restructuring the Greek Tobacco Industry,” Antipode 19 (1987): 141CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

84 On the sultan's gift-giving ceremonies in the imperial capital, see Özbek, Nadir, Osmanlı İmparatorluğu'nda Sosyal Devlet: Siyaset, İktidar ve Meşruiyet, 1876–1914 (Istanbul: İletişim Yayınları, 2002)Google Scholar.

85 BOA, İ.HUS 1324.S.1 (4 Safer 1324/29 March 1906).

86 On the relationship between tobacco balers and members of the local Committee of Union and Progress, see BOA, TFR-I-SL 196/19560, telegram from the Governor of Drama sub-province (6 Eylül 1324/19 September 1908).

87 BOA, DH.MKT 1173/32, report from the Ministry of Interior to the Grand Vizierate (22 Rebiülevvel 1325/5 May 1907); BOA, DH.MKT 1171/89 (26 Rebiülahir 1325/8 June 1907); BOA, BEO 3051/228761, telegram from the Kaymakam of İskeçe to the Governor of Edirne province (9 Nisan 1323/22 April 1907); Gooch, G. P. and Temperley, Harold, eds., British Documents on the Origins of the War, 1898–1914, vol. 5, The Near East (London: n.p., 1928), 23Google Scholar.