With the Young Turk Revolution of 1908, Sultan Abdülhamid was forced to reconvene the parliament and maintain his symbolic position. In January 1909, when the Parliament convened under the presidency of Ahmet Rıza, the CUP enjoyed only a slight majority in the Chamber of Deputies. Between January and April, the CUP came under criticism from opponents for its political tactics.

Bureaucrats, officials of the palace, and Ulema rallied around slogans of restoring Şeriat (Shariat or Islamic Law) and calling for the return of Sultan Abdül Hamid II to power.

On the evening of April 12–13, 1909, Albanian conscripts of the First Army in the barracks in Taksim Square mutinied in the name of Şeriat and Sultan Abdül Hamid II.

The mutinous soldiers gathered against the constitutional system in support of the restoration of Abdulhamid's rule as Sultan and the Caliph of the Muslim world and besieged the Parliament.

The CUP in Salonica reacted immediately and General Mahmud Şevket Paşa raised an army that occupied Istanbul on April 24, 1909, and defeated the countercoup. The event is famously known as the 31 March Incident.

The CUP discussed the question as to whether Abdul Hamid would be permitted to remain on the throne or be deposed or even be executed. Eventually, he was deposed on April 27, 1909, after 33 years of rule. He was exiled to Thessaloniki (Salonica), in modern-day Greece, along with 38 people, including his family members. 

Disaster will follow the Ottoman Empire first in the Balkan Wars and then in World War I.