I need scarcely say that the Committee of Union and Progress did not receive a reply to its memorandum from any of the Great Powers. Cabinets cannot well recognise and hold communication with a revolutionary organisation whose aim it is to overthrow the Government of a friendly Power. Probably some of those to whom the manifesto was addressed read it with a contemptuous smile, little dreaming that within two months this band of unknown men would make itself the master of an Empire. One or two newspapers published brief summaries of the manifesto without comment, for the world did not take the Young Turkey party seriously until the revolution was an accomplished fact. On June 10—that is, a week or so after the Committee had issued this manifesto—King Edward VII met the Tsar at Reval and shortly afterwards the details of the Anglo-Russian scheme for the pacification and better rule of Macedonia were communicated to the Powers. This forced the hands of the Committee; it was realised that the blow for Ottoman liberty must be struck soon, or it would be too late; but that which precipitated the movement, driving the Macedonian officers into an immediate revolt in self-defence, was the energetic action taken by the Palace spies at about this time. In the beginning of 1908 the Palace became alarmed by the reports that came from the Macedonian garrisons. It is true that up to that time the discontent of the troops had assumed no revolutionary character, and at the meetings which they held in all the military centres the men, while demanding their rights under the military code, their arrears of pay, their proper rations, and so forth, uttered no threats against the Government; but the discipline and organisation of the army had been destroyed, and a number of the reservists in Macedonia went so far as to refuse to obey the call for service in the Hedjaz. The Palace now learnt that a number of young officers were taking advantage of this disaffection of the rank and file to spread treasonable propaganda. The rapid progress of the Young Turkey movement, and the wide dissemination of its doctrines through the towns and villages by trusted emissaries, made it impossible to preserve a complete secrecy, and the creatures of the Palace, though they could not place their hands upon those who directed this movement, felt that they were in the presence of a great danger, all the more terrible on account of the mystery that enveloped it. So they laid their apprehensions before their ever-fearful master, with the result that it was decided to take steps to effectually stamp out the conspiracy.