The Committee of Ottoman Union, soon renamed as the Committee of Union and Progress, was founded in 1889 by Ibrahim Temo, Dr. Mehmed Reşid, Abdullah Cevdet, İshak Sükuti, Ali Hüseyinzade, Kerim Sebatî, Mekkeli Sabri, Dr. Mehmet Nazım, Şerafettin Mağmumi, Cevdet Osman and Giritli Şefik, all of whom were medical students of the Imperial Military School of Medicine in Constantinople. The organization was a part of the Young Turks movement, as they called for a reinstatement of the constitution and Ottomanism, which would be achieved by overthrowing Abdulhamid II for one of his brothers: either future Sultan Mehmed V or former Sultan Murad V. The organization rapidly gained membership, but after a failed putsch against Abdulhamid in 1895, it was repressed and most of its members fled into exile to Paris, London, Geneva, Bucharest, and British occupied Egypt. After the Ottoman Empire's victory over Greece in 1897 Abdulhamid attempted to use the prestige he gained from the victory to coerce the exiled Young Turks network back into his fold. Cevdet and Sükuti accepted, leaving Ahmet Rıza in Paris as leader of the exiled Young Turks network and the CUP. Rıza was a more moderate and conservative member of the CUP, as well as an avid follower of positivist theory. Rıza called for Abdulhamid's overthrow and the reinstatement of the constitution, but also a more centralized and sovereign, Turkish-dominated Ottoman Empire without European influence.