The state of affairs in the third week in July may therefore be summed up as follows: The Government still nominally ruled and administered the three Vilayets of Monastir, Salonica, and Kosovo, but its authority had been reduced to impotence. In the chief military centre, Monastir, General Osman Pasha was in command, but, knowing the temper of his men, hesitated to attempt decisive action to crush the insurrection. The men of the Second and Third Army Corps, and of the regiments that had been brought from Anatolia, were either adherents of the Committee or wavering in their allegiance to the Government. It was unlikely that more than a small proportion of the troops would be found willing to fight the battles of the Palace. The Moslem and Bulgarian peasants, among whom arms had been distributed by the Committee of Union and Progress, were awaiting the word to take part in the general rising. Ten thousand Albanian warriors were in arms, eager to fall upon the supporters of the Despotism. The one doubtful element of the population was the Greek. It appears that the Palace had not only sent Munir Pasha to Athens to seek the assistance of those intriguing subjects of King George who used to equip the brigand bands that had been the curse of Macedonia; but it also issued instructions to General Osman Pasha in Monastir to persuade the Greek bands within his district, by means of what bribes or promises I cannot say, to hunt down and capture Niazi and the other leaders of the insurrection. It is undoubtedly the fact that the Greek bands, assisted by hired Mussulman desperadoes, were displaying great activity at this period, and that the Greek clergy were directing a vigorous persecution of the Bulgarian exarchists. The Committee of Union and Progress dealt firmly with this one disturbing element in an otherwise peaceful and united country. For example, the Committee carried away the Greek Bishop of Vodena as a hostage and let it be known that he would be put to death in three days unless by that time all the bands in that neighbourhood had been broken up. On July 22, by which time, as I shall show, the young Turk leaders had come boldly into the open to demand from the Sultan his abdication or a Constitution, the Committee of Union and Progress in Monastir issued a manifesto, of which copies were sent to the Greek Committee in Athens, the spiritual head of the Greek community in Monastir, and to the chiefs of the various Greek bands in the neighbourhood.