The first and most important task before the Committee was, of course, that of bringing round to the cause the Macedonian garrison—the Third Army Corps. The disaffection of these troops, the reasons for which I have explained, had in places manifested itself in open mutiny, and the incompetence and corruption of some of the officers of superior rank, who were indebted to Palace favouritism for their position, filled both the junior officers and the rank and file with an ever-increasing disgust. By degrees a number of the young officers were affiliated to the Committee, and received instructions to win over the rank and file. The fact that the troops were moving about in small bodies, hunting down the Bulgarian bands, rendered this proceeding the more easy; for while engaging in this work, regimental officers, unrestrained by the supervision of their superiors, could give political instruction to the men, and were able to hold meetings among themselves without attracting the attention of spies; the company commanders used also to deliver lectures to their men in out-of-the-way places, where any stranger would be conspicuous and Palace spies would be immediately recognised. Whenever a spy was discovered he promptly disappeared, soldiers who had taken the oath of fealty to the Committee being given the word to kill him. At last the whole Macedonian army was won over to the cause of the Young Turks, and as a consequence of the work performed by the disguised officers in other parts of the Empire, the Second Army Corps, which garrisons the Vilayet of Adrianople, also contained a large proportion of officers and men in sympathy with the movement—troops hostile to the Despotism thus enclosing the capital on all sides—while on the farther shore of the Bosphorus, Anatolia, whose sturdy peasantry supplies the Ottoman Empire with its finest troops, had been similarly prepared by Dr. Nazim Bey and numerous officers.