To those Englishmen who knew something of the Turkish army it appeared an amazing thing that these soldiers, who worshipped the Sultan with a blind faith not only as their sovereign, but as the head of the one true religion, “the Commander of the Faithful,” “the Shadow of God upon earth,”—however discontented they might be, however ready to mutiny, as they sometimes did mutiny, against their officers—could be persuaded to join in a movement of which the avowed object was the deposition of the Sultan Abdul Hamid. The soldier could only be won over by convincing him that religion itself commanded the overthrow of the tyrant. It will be remembered how, in 1876, the Sheikh-ul-Islam, as chief of the interpreters of the Sacred Law, decreed that the Sultan Abd-ul-Aziz should be deposed because, in ruining the State which God had confided to him, he had broken his sacred trust, and could no longer be head of the believers. The young officers put the case in the same way, and in simple words, to the honest and devout soldiery; they quoted the passages in the Koran which denounce tyranny, and showed that the Sultan was not true to his country, and therefore had forfeited the privileges God had lent to him. The fact that Austria and Germany had been granted concessions to construct railways through Turkish territory (the proposed railway through the Sanjak of Novi-Bazaar, which would afford Austria railway connection with Salonica, and the German-owned Baghdad railway) was a proof to the soldier that the Palace was selling the country bit by bit to the foreigner. During the early days of the propaganda, _hodjas_ who had joined the Committee, and officers disguised as _hodjas_, being freely admitted into barracks in their capacity of preachers, advocated these doctrines, and satisfied the religious scruples of the men; and when, later, the Sheikh-ul-Islam declared himself in favour of the Constitution, there remained no doubt in their minds that they were acting as their creed commanded in following the lead of their young officers. As a matter of fact, it was not difficult to show that Abdul Hamid, to quote from Mr. Hamil Halid’s book, “The Diary of a Young Turk,” was “the worst enemy of Islam, as no Moslem ruler has ever brought by his misdeeds so much shame upon the faith as he has. Any one who has observed his career closely knows that his actions are diametrically opposed to the principles of the Mussulman law and creed.” Moreover, the Turkish soldier, like the soldiers in other armies and the majority of healthy young men, can be appealed to through his stomach, and he naturally acquired an affection for and confidence in these majors, captains, and lieutenants of the new school who sympathised with him, pitied his wretched condition, and with their own money, or the Committee funds, supplemented his miserable rations and supplied him with comforts.