The idea of an independent and united Armenia was the main goal of the Armenian national liberation movement during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. By the 1890s, a low-intensity armed conflict developed between the three major Armenian parties—the Armenian Revolutionary Federation (Dashnak), Hnchak and Armenakan— and the Ottoman government. Calls from the great powers for reforms in the Armenian provinces and Armenian aspirations to independence resulted in the Hamidian massacres between 1894 and 1896, during which up to 300,000 Armenian civilians were slaughtered by the order of Sultan Abdul Hamid II, after whom the massacres were named. After the 1908 Young Turk Revolution, some Armenians felt that the situation would improve; however, a year later the Adana massacre took place and Turkish-Armenian relations deteriorated further. After the Balkan Wars of 1912–1913, the Ottoman government was pressured to accept the Armenian reform package concerning the Armenian provinces in early 1914.