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Young Turks : the Young Turk movement brought together various intellectuals & dissidents, many living in exile & officers in the army, especially those based at the headquarters of the Third Army Corps in Salonika. The overall goal of early Young Turks such as Abdullah Cevdet (1869-1932, a Turkish intellectual & physician of ethnic Kurdish origin, who graduated from the Military College in Constantinople) was to bring to end the absolutist regime of Sultan Abdul-Hamid II (q.v.). Their Revolution started in 1908, & restored the Ottoman Parliament, which had been suspended by the Sultan in 1878. Their movement’s initial goal was “modernization & strengthening of the Empire, under Western constitutional principles, & these included the equality of all races”, beginning with a democratic solution to the Empire’s problems, which included the need for economic reform, tax reform & halting any further disintegration. Its vision of a democratic multi-national multi-ethnic empire was supported by some like-minded Bulgarian, Arab, Jewish, Armenian & Greek groups. By granting greater autonomy to these ethnic groups it hoped to preserve the Ottoman Empire. However, the process of replacing existing institutions with constitutional institutions proved much more difficult than expected. It wanted to modernize & democratize on the one hand while on the other it wanted to preserve what was left of the empire. It promised racial-harmony & equality & participation in the state by all ethnic groups, but ended up abandoning decentralisation when the leaders realized that this compromised security. As a result, the periphery of the Empire continued to splinter under pressure from local revolutions. As ethno-linguistic nationalism swept through Europe, this became the basis for the emergence of many new states, including those that broke free in the Balkans from Ottoman rule (see Balkan Wars). Indifference from former allies such as the British which, as did France, had ambitions in the region, compelled the Young Turks to embrace Germany (which had been invited by Abdul Hamid) as an ally in the hope that this would preserve the empire. Instead, World War I saw two multi-ethnic empires disintegrate: the Ottoman & the Austro-Hungarian; both fractured into a series of independent, homogeneous nation-states. However, they laid some of the ground on which the new nation-state of Turkey would be built under the leadership of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk (1881-1938). A ‘Young Turk’ & an army officer, Atatürk founded the independent Republic of Turkey out of the ruins of the Ottoman Empire. A new peace treaty was then signed in July 1923 that recognized an independent Turkish state. That October, the Grand National Assembly proclaimed the Republic of Turkey & elected Mustafa Kemal as its first president. Even before he became president, Greece agreed to send some 380,000 Muslims to Turkey in exchange for over 1 million Greek Orthodox practitioners. Although Turkey was now almost homogeneously Muslim, Mustafa Kemal deposed the caliph, the theoretical successor to the prophet Muhammad & spiritual leader of the worldwide Muslim community (see Khilafat Agitation). His government espoused industrialization & adopted new law codes based on European models. “The civilized world is far ahead of us,” he told an audience in October 1926. “We have no choice but to catch up.” Eight years later, he required all Turks to choose a surname, selecting Atatürk (literally Father Turk) as his own. By that time, Atatürk’s government had joined the League of Nations, improved literacy rates & given women the right to vote, though in practice he essentially imposed single-party rule. He also closed opposition newspapers, suppressed leftist workers’ organizations & bottled up any attempts at Kurdish autonomy.