A group of reform-minded nationalist army officers in Constantinople, known as the Young Turks, forces Sultan Abdul Hamid II in 1908 to restore the 1876 Ottoman constitution.

The next year the Young Turks depose Hamid in favor of his malleable brother, Mehmed V.

Under the constitution, Ottoman provinces are represented by delegates elected to an imperial parliament.

The restoration of the constitution and installation of Mehmed V initially generates a wave of good feeling among the empire's non-Turkish subjects and stimulates expectations of greater self-government.

Abdullah and Faisal establish contact with the Arab nationalists in Syria.

Faisal delivers to his father the so-called Damascus Protocol in which the nationalists, who appeal to Hussein as "Father of the Arabs" to deliver them from the Turks, set out the demands for Arab independence that will be used by Faisal in his subsequent negotiations with the British.

In return, the nationalists accept the Hashimites as spokesmen for the Arab cause.

Arab opposition to the Turkish nationalist policies asserts itself in two separate arenas: among urban intellectuals and in the countryside.

One source of opposition develops among Arab intellectuals in Cairo, Beirut, and Damascus, who
formulate the ideas of a new Arab nationalism.

The primary moving force behind this nascent Arab nationalist movement is opposition to the policies of Sultan Abdul Hamid.

The removal of Sultan Abdul Hamid by the Committee of Union and Progress (the umbrella organization of which the Young Turks is the major element) is widely supported by Arab nationalists.

The committee's program of institutional reform and promised autonomy raises Arab nationalist hopes.

It becomes apparent soon after 1908 that the nationalism of Abdul Hamid's successors is Turkish nationalism bent on Turkification of the Ottoman domain, rather than on granting local autonomy.

In response, Arab urban intellectuals form clandestine political societies such as the Ottoman Decentralization Party, based in Cairo; Al Ahd (The Covenant Society), formed primarily by army officers in 1914; and Jamiat al Arabiyah al Fatat (The Young Arab Society), known as Al Fatat (The Young Arabs), formed by students in 1911.

The Arab nationalism espoused by these groups, however, lacks support among the Arab masses.

The remote desert tribes of Jordan and the Arabian Peninsula are politically inarticulate but resentful of foreign control.

The link between the urban political committees and the desert tribesmen is Hussein ibn Ali Al Hashimi, the grand sharif and amir of Mecca and hereditary custodian of the Muslim holy places. Hussein, head of the Hashimite branch of the Quraysh tribe, claims descent from the Prophet.

Hussein and his sons Abdullah and Faisal (who have been educated as members of the Ottoman elite as well as trained for their roles as Arab chieftains) had spent the years 1893 to 1908 under enforced restraint in Constantinople.

In 1908 Abdul Hamid II appoints Hussein amir of Mecca and allows him and his sons to return to the Hijaz, the western part of present-day Saudi Arabia.

Some sources contend that Hussein's nomination was suggested by the Young Turks, who believed that he would be a stabilizing influence there, particularly if he were indebted to them for his position.

In his memoirs, however, Abdullah will state that Abdul Hamid II had named his father in preference to a candidate proposed by the Young Turks.

Hussein had reportedly asked for the appointment on the grounds that he had an hereditary right to it.

From the outset, Abdullah will write, his father was at odds with the attempts of the Young Turk regime to bring the Hijaz under the centralized and increasingly secularized administration in Constantinople.

Once in office, Hussein proves less tractable than either the sultan or the Turkish nationalists had expected.

A new ruling clique, the Young Turks, takes power in Istanbul in 1908.

The Young Turks, who aim at making the Ottoman Empire a unified nation-state based on Western models, stress secular politics and patriotism over the pan-Islamic ideology preached by Sultan Abdul Hamid II.

They reintroduce the 1876 constitution (this Ottoman constitution sets forth the rights of the ruler and the ruled, but it derives from the ruler and has been called at best an "attenuated autocracy"), hold elections throughout the empire, and reopen parliament.

Although the Iraqi delegates represent only the well-established families of Baghdad, their parliamentary experience in Istanbul proves to be an important introduction to self-government.

The Armenian populace remaining in the Ottoman Empire after the 1895 massacre has supported the 1908 revolution of the Young Turks, who have promised liberal treatment of ethnic minorities.

The Young Turk government, its revolution a success, now plots elimination of the Armenians, who are a significant obstacle to the regime's evolving nationalist agenda.

The anticipated break-up of the enfeebled Ottoman Empire raises hopes among Arab nationalists on the eve of the First World War.

The Arab nationalists want an independent Arab state covering all the Ottoman Arab domains. The nationalist ideal, however, is not very unified; even among articulate Arabs, competing visions of Arab nationalism—Islamic, pan- Arab, and statist—inhibit coordinated efforts at independence.

Britain, in possession of the Suez Canal and playing a dominant role in India and Egypt, attaches great strategic importance to the Near and Middle East.

British policy, however, espouses conflicting objectives; as a result, London becomes involved in three distinct and contradictory negotiations concerning the fate of the region.

The earliest British discussions of the Near and Middle East question revolve around Sharif Hussein ibn Ali, scion of the Hashimite (also seen as Hashemite) family that claims descent from the Prophet and acts as the traditional guardians of Islam's most holy sites of Mecca and Medina in the Arabian province of Hijaz, which Sharif Hussein governs for the Ottomans.

Amir Abdullah, the second of three sons of Sherif Hussein bin Ali, visits Cairo, where he holds talks with Lord Kitchener, the senior British official in Egypt, in February 1914.

Abdullah inquires about the possibility of British support should his father raise a revolt against the Ottoman Empire.

Kitchener's reply is necessarily noncommittal because Britain considers the Ottoman Empire a friendly power.

War breaks out in August, however, and by November the Ottoman Empire has aligned with Germany against Britain and its allies.

Kitchener is by now British secretary of state for war and, in the changed circumstances, seeks Arab support against the Turks.

In Cairo, Sir Henry McMahon, British high commissioner and Kitchener's successor in Egypt, carries on an extensive correspondence with Hussein.