Une délégation Jeune-Turque à Paris

Abstract

Towards the middle of October 1908, a delegation consisting of two
eminent members of the C.U.P., Doctor Nazim and Lieutenant-Colonel
Djemal, arrived to Paris. Officially, these two men—who were soon to be
joined by one of the best known personalities of the Young-Turk movement,
Ahmed Riza Bey—were entrusted with the task of “enlightening public opinion
on the attempt contemplated in the darkness of diplomatic chanceries against
the very young liberties of Turkey”. But in reality, the objective of their visit
was also to establish contacts with leading French politicians whose support
they hoped to secure in the crisis that was perturbing the Balkans.
The aim of this article is to present a set of private archives—some 65
documents in French and in Turkish—giving a number of interesting details
on the progress of this mission. In particular, this set gives a more or less
precise idea of what the Young-Turk delegates had come to ask of French
leaders. It projects also a light on the methods by which they endeavoured
to act on western public opinion. In general, it contains indications of what
was at the time the “parallel diplomacy” of the C.U.P., carried out on the
fringe of the official diplomatic activity of the Ottoman government often
in opposition with the latter.