Then he wrote letters to the commander of the regiment of _gendarmes_ at Monastir, to the lieutenant of _gendarmerie_ at Resna, and to certain other officers who had sold themselves to the Palace, and solemnly warned them, in the name of the two hundred _fedais_ of the Committee of Union and Progress, that if they continued to disgrace their military uniform by acting as spies over their comrades, and by showing themselves the sycophants of the Government and the foreign officers, thereby betraying their fatherland which was agonising “like a sorely wounded lion;” and that if they did not at once reform their conduct and cease to be the active enemies of the National Union, death would be the punishment awarded to them by the Committee. Men had already discovered that the Committee never uttered idle threats, and the recipient of one of these letters was so terrified that he became insane. The momentous day (July 3, 1908) dawned, and Niazi Bey was up betimes to complete his preparations. For his band to march out of Resna while the officers, who were not adherents of the cause, and the considerable garrison remained in it was, of course, out of the question, so he employed a ruse to empty the town of those who might oppose him. By pre-arrangement some members of the Committee came into Resna and reported that a Bulgarian band was moving up the road near Ismilova, that is, in a direction contrary to the one in which he intended to lead his own followers; and some rifles were fired in the hills to support the story. Thanks to this scheme, all the available troops were hurried off to attack this imaginary band, leaving but a few officers and men to guard the barracks, which are situated on a height overlooking the town and about a mile and a half distant from it. Niazi then walked to the barracks in his uniform, while the members of his band in twos and threes collected in the neighbourhood. He passed through the gates of the barracks just after the Moslem officials and inhabitants of Resna had entered the mosques for the Friday midday prayer; he made the appointed signal with his sword, and his _fedais_, to the number of one hundred and fifty, poured into the barracks, arousing no suspicion among the soldiers on guard, who were led to understand that Major Niazi Bey was arming a party of Moslem civilians with the object of proceeding to the scene of action to co-operate with the troops.