fervent hopes were soon to be dashed. Almost immediately there were substantial losses of territory, and rather than serving unity, the first parliament opened five months later, intensified division. In pursuing its aim of holding the Empire together through its strong centralist policies, the CUP increasingly resorted to force. The 31st of March Incident provided it with the opportunity to disband the opposition parties and restrict political freedom. Though the opposition reformed, within five years the CUP had set up the military dictatorship that was to lead the Empire to its final collapse in 1918.
In the first months of Freedom, opposition to the CUP was centered in the Liberals, or Ahrar, who, with hasty preparations, were the only party to challenge the new regime in the first elections at the end of 1908. Their leader was Prince Sabahaddin Bey, a nephew of Sultan Abdulhamid and rival in their days of exile in Paris to Ahmed Riza, who became one of the main ideologues of the CUP. While the CUP were committed to a policy of strong central government, following a different school of French philosophers, Sabahaddin Bey had developed what he believed would be the solution for the Empire based on the totally opposite principles of `Personal Initiative and Decentralization'. These ideas, which involved a devolvement of power from the Government to the various millets and religious and ethnic minorities, aroused extreme opposition.
Included in Bediuzzaman’s first work, Nutuk, (Speech) published in 19I0, is an open letter to Sabahaddin Bey entitled, Reply to Prince Sabahaddin Bey's Good but Misunderstood Idea
In it Bediuzzaman points out that a federal system for the Ottoman Empire was theoretically acceptable but because the level of development of the different millets and groups varied greatly, it was not practicable at that time. "Life lies in unity", he wrote. It is interesting to note that at that time of mudslinging, intimidation, and political violence, Sabahaddin Bey himself commented on Bediuzzaman's "intellectual excellence", describing his manner of address as "the very model of polite discourse."