A general love-feast now followed the establishment of the new régime, and scenes of almost frenzied reconciliation, in which Turks and Armenians embraced each other publicly, apparently signalised the absolute union of the once antagonistic peoples. The Turkish leaders, such as Talaat and Enver, visited Christian churches and sent forth prayers of thanksgiving for the new order, and went to Armenian cemeteries to shed tears of retribution over the bones of the martyred Armenians who lay there. Armenian priests reciprocally paid their tributes to the Turks in Mohammedan mosques. Enver Pasha visited several Armenian schools, telling the children that the old days of Moslem-Christian strife had passed for ever and that the two peoples were now to live together as brothers and sisters. There were cynics who smiled at all these demonstrations, and yet one development encouraged even them to believe that an earthly Paradise had arrived. All through the period of domination only the master Moslem had been permitted to bear arms and serve in the Ottoman Army. To be a soldier was an occupation altogether too manly and glorious for the despised Armenian. But now the Young Turks encouraged all Armenians to arm, and enrolled them in the Army on an equality with Moslems. These Armenians fought, both as officers and soldiers, in the Italian and the Balkan Wars, winning high praise from the Turkish Generals for their valour and skill. Armenian leaders had figured conspicuously in the Young Turk movement; these men apparently believed that a constitutional Turkey was possible, and they preferred such a Turkey to the suzerainty of the great European Powers or even to an independent State of their own. They were conscious of their own intellectual and industrial superiority to the Turks, and knew that they could prosper in the Ottoman Empire if left alone, whereas, under European control, they would have greater difficulty in meeting competition of the more rigorous European colonists who might come in. With the deposition of the Red Sultan, Abdul Hamid, and the establishment of a constitutional system, the Armenians now for the first time in several centuries felt themselves to be free men.