The failure of Ottomanism: The Albanian Rebellions of 1909--1912
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
Thesis, Dissertation, English, 2012