1.
Abdul Hamid II
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Abdul Hamid II was the 34th Sultan of the Ottoman Empire and the last Sultan to exert effective autocratic control over the fracturing state. Abdul Hamids 1909 removal from the throne was hailed by most Ottoman citizens, the most far-reaching of these reforms were in education, professional schools were established. The University of Istanbul, although shut down by Abdul Hamid himself in 1881, was reopened in 1900, and a network of secondary, primary, Railway and telegraph systems were developed by primarily German firms. Between 1871 and 1908, the Sublime Porte thus reached a new degree of organizational elaboration and articulation. Abroad, Abdul Hamid was nicknamed the Red Sultan or Abdul the Damned due to the massacres committed against minorities during his rule and use of a police to silence dissent. These led to an attempt in 1905, contributing to the sultans worsening paranoia until his eventual removal from the throne. Abdul Hamid II was born at the Topkapı Palace in Istanbul and he was the son of Sultan Abdülmecid and Tirimüjgan Kadınefendi, originally named Virjin. After the death of his mother, he became the adoptive son of his fathers wife. He was a carpenter and personally crafted some high quality furniture. Abdul Hamid II was also interested in opera and personally wrote the first-ever Turkish translations of many opera classics and he ascended to the throne following the deposition of his brother Murad on 31 August 1876. At his accession, some commentators were impressed by the fact that he rode practically unattended to the Eyüp Sultan Mosque where he was given the Sword of Osman. Most people expected Abdul Hamid II to have ideas. In any event, like many other reforms of the Ottoman Empire change proved to be nearly impossible. Russia continued to mobilize for war, however, everything changed when the British fleet approached the capital from the Sea of Marmara. Early in 1877 the Ottoman Empire went to war with the Russian Empire, Abdul Hamids biggest fear, near dissolution, was realised with the Russian declaration of war on 24 April 1877. In that conflict, the Ottoman Empire fought without help from European allies, Russian chancellor Prince Gorchakov had effectively purchased Austrian neutrality with the Reichstadt Agreement. The Russian victory was quickly realised, the conflict ended in February 1878. After the war with Russia, Abdulhamid suspended the constitution in February 1878, for the next three decades, the Ottoman Empire was ruled by Abdulhamid from Yıldız Palace
2.
Mehmed VI
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Mehmed VI, who is also known as Şahbaba among his relatives, was the 36th and last Sultan of the Ottoman Empire, reigning from 1918 to 1922. The brother of Mehmed V, he succeeded to the throne as the eldest male member of the House of Osman after the 1916 suicide of Abdülazizs son Yusuf Izzettin Efendi and he was girded with the Sword of Osman on 4 July 1918, as the thirty-sixth padishah. His father was Sultan Abdülmecid I and mother was Gülüstü Hanım, Mehmed was removed from the throne when the Ottoman sultanate was abolished in 1922. He was born in the Dolmabahçe Palace, in Istanbul, the First World War was a disaster for the Ottoman Empire. British and allied forces had conquered Baghdad, Damascus, and Jerusalem during the war, at the San Remo conference of April 1920, the French were granted a mandate over Syria and the British were granted one over Palestine and Mesopotamia. On 10 August 1920, Mehmeds representatives signed the Treaty of Sèvres, Turkish nationalists rejected the settlement by the Sultans four signatories. A new government, the Turkish Grand National Assembly, under the leadership of Mustafa Kemal was formed on 23 April 1920, in Ankara. The new government denounced the rule of Mehmed VI and the command of Süleyman Şefik Pasha who was in charge of the Kuvâ-i İnzibâtiyye, the Turkish Grand National Assembly abolished the Sultanate on 1 November 1922, and Mehmed was expelled from Istanbul. Leaving aboard the British warship Malaya on 17 November, he went into exile in Malta, Mehmed died on 16 May 1926 in Sanremo, Italy, and was buried at the Tekkiye Mosque of Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent in Damascus. Circassian HIH Princess Inşirah Hanım, married at Istanbul, Üsküdar, Çengelköy, Çengelköy Palace on 8 July 1905 and divorced on 7 November 1909, daughter of Zekeriya Aziz Bey Voçibe, without issue. Abkhazian HIM Empress Nevvare Hanım, married at Istanbul, Dolmabahçe Palace on 20 June 1918, daughter of Mustafa Bey Çıhcı by his wife Hafize Hanım Kap, without issue. Albanian HIM Empress Nevzad Hanım, married at Istanbul, Yıldız Palace on 1 September 1921, daughter of Şaban Efendi Bargu by his wife Hatice Hanım, without issue
3.
Grand vizier
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In the Ottoman Empire, the Grand Vizier was the prime minister of the Ottoman sultan, with absolute power of attorney and, in principle, dismissible only by the sultan himself. His offices were located at the Sublime Porte, the term “vizier” was originally a denomination used by the Abbasid Dynasty in the 8th century AD. This position then came to the Ottomans in the early 14th century by way of the Seljuks of Anatolia, during the nascent phases of the Ottoman state, vizier was the only title used. The first of these Ottoman viziers who was titled Grand Vizier was Çandarlı Halil Pasha the Elder, the purpose in instituting the title Grand Vizier was to distinguish the holder of the Sultans seal from other viziers. The initially more frequently used title of vezir-i âzam was gradually replaced by sadrazam, throughout Ottoman history, the grand viziers have also been termed sadr-ı âlî, vekil-i mutlak, sâhib-i devlet, serdar-ı ekrem, serdar-ı azam and zât-ı âsafî. Çandarlı Halil Pasha the Elder reformed the role of the vizier in several ways, several before him held an equivalent but differently named office, he was the first who held the position of “Grand Vizier”, during the reign of Sultan Murad I. He was the first advisor with a military background – his forerunners had come from a more class of men. It is also significant that he was the first of a family that, at the time. Several of Çandarlı Halil Pasha the Elder’s kin went on to hold the office of Grand Vizier in the following his death. Çandarlı Halil Pasha the Younger, the grandson of Pasha the Elder, was highly influential in shaping the role of the Grand Vizier. During the reign of Mehmed II, the Younger opposed the siege of Constantinople, two days after the siege was won by Mehmed II, the Younger was executed for his opposition. After his death, the position of Grand Vizier was chosen nearly exclusively from the kul system, often and this was usually a political move, designed to appease powerful European factions to Ottoman supremacy. Grand Viziers gained immense political supremacy in the days of the Ottoman Empire. Power was centralized in the position of the Grand Vizier during the Köprülü era, Köprülü Mehmed Pasha was a powerful political figure during the reign of Mehmed IV, and was appointed to the office of Grand Vizier in 1656. He consolidated power within the position and sent the Sultan away from the city on hunting trips, next, he forcibly removed any officers suspected of corruption, those who did not leave were executed. He also conducted campaigns against Venice and the Hapsburgs, as well as quelling rebellions in Anatolia, on his deathbed five years later, he convinced Mehmed to appoint his son as the next Grand Vizier, thus securing his dynasty a position of supreme power in the Empire. It was during the Köprülü era that the Ottoman Empire reached its largest geographic expansion across Europe, Asia Minor, in Ottoman legal theory, the Sultan was supposed to conduct affairs of state exclusively via the Grand Vizier, but in reality this arrangement was often circumvented. He might, too, be inclined to take the advice of his mother
4.
Mahmud Shevket Pasha
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Mahmud Shevket Pasha was an Ottoman general and statesman. He was born in Baghdad, where he finished his education before going on to the Military Academy in Constantinople. He joined the army in 1882 as a lieutenant and he spent some time in France investigating military technology and was stationed in Crete for a while. He then returned to the Military Academy as a faculty member and he worked under Colmar Freiherr von der Goltz for a while and traveled to Germany. A voice recording of Mahmud Shevket Pasha speaking to rally his troops against the counterrevolutionaries in 1909 was released in by journalist Murat Bardakçı in 2012 and he played an important role in ending the 31 March Incident and with it, the reign of Abdul Hamid II. He served as a Grand Vizier to Mehmed V from 23 January and he was assassinated in Constantinople on 11 June 1913 in a revenge attack by a relative of the murdered Nazım Pasha. Among other things, he is credited with the creation of the Ottoman Air Force in 1911, Mahmud Shevket Pasha gave much importance to a military aviation program and as a result the Ottoman Air Force became one of the pioneering aviation institutions in the world. Though raised as a Turk, various sources claim that he may have also had Iraqi Arab, Georgian, Chechen, or Circassian ancestry
5.
Talaat Pasha
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Mehmed Talaat, commonly known as Talaat Pasha, was one of the triumvirate known as the Three Pashas that de facto ruled the Ottoman Empire during the First World War. He was one of the leaders of Young Turks and his career in Ottoman politics began by becoming deputy for Edirne in 1908, then minister of the interior and minister of finance, and finally grand vizier in 1917. He is widely considered the perpetrator of the genocide. On the night of 2–3 November 1918 and with the aid of Ahmed Izzet Pasha, Talaat Pasha, Talaat was assassinated in Berlin in 1921 by Soghomon Tehlirian, a member of the Armenian Revolutionary Federation, as part of Operation Nemesis. Mehmed Talaat was born in 1874 in Kırcaali town of Edirne Vilayet into a family of Pomak and his father was a junior civil servant working for the government of the Ottoman Empire and was from a village in the mountainous southeastern corner of present-day Bulgaria. Mehmed Talaat had a build and a dark complexion. His manners were gruff, which caused him to leave the civil preparatory school without a certificate after a conflict with his teacher, without earning a degree, he joined the staff of the telegraph company as a postal clerk in Edirne. His salary was not high, so he worked after hours as a Turkish language teacher in the Alliance Israelite School which served the Jewish community of Edirne, at the age of 21 he had a love affair with the daughter of the Jewish headmaster for whom he worked. He was caught sending a telegram saying Things are going well, with two of his friends from the post office, he was charged with tampering with the official telegraph and arrested in 1893. He claimed that the message in question was to his girlfriend, the Jewish girl came forward to defend him. Sentenced to two years in jail, he was pardoned but exiled to Salonica as a postal clerk and he married Hayriye Hanım, a young girl from Ioannina on 19 March 1910. Between 1898 and 1908 he served as a postman on the staff of the Thessaloniki Post Office, eventually, having served 10 years at this postal unit, he became head of the Thessaloniki Post Office. In 1908, he was dismissed from membership in the Committee of Union and Progress, however, after the Young Turk Revolution of 1908, he became deputy of Edirne in the Ottoman Parliament, and in July 1909, he was appointed minister of interior affairs. He became minister of post, and then secretary-general of the CUP in 1912, after the assassination of the prime minister, Mahmud Şevket Pasha, in July 1913, Talaat Pasha again became minister of interior affairs. Talaat, with Enver Pasha and Djemal Pasha, formed a group known as the Three Pashas. These men formed the triumvirate that ran the Ottoman government until the end of World War I in October 1918, according to various sources, Talaat Pasha had developed plans to eliminate the Armenians as early as 1910. Danish philologist Johannes Østrup wrote in his memoirs that in the autumn of 1910, according to Østrup, Talaat stated, If I ever come to power in this country, I will use all my might to exterminate the Armenians. In November of that year, a decision to carry out such a plan was made in Thessaloniki where a conference was held by prominent members of the CUP
6.
Istanbul
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Istanbul, historically known as Constantinople and Byzantium, is the most populous city in Turkey and the countrys economic, cultural, and historic center. Istanbul is a city in Eurasia, straddling the Bosphorus strait between the Sea of Marmara and the Black Sea. Its commercial and historical center lies on the European side and about a third of its population lives on the Asian side, the city is the administrative center of the Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality, both hosting a population of around 14.7 million residents. Istanbul is one of the worlds most populous cities and ranks as the worlds 7th-largest city proper, founded under the name of Byzantion on the Sarayburnu promontory around 660 BCE, the city developed to become one of the most significant in history. After its reestablishment as Constantinople in 330 CE, it served as a capital for almost 16 centuries, during the Roman and Byzantine, the Latin. Overlooked for the new capital Ankara during the period, the city has since regained much of its prominence. The population of the city has increased tenfold since the 1950s, as migrants from across Anatolia have moved in, arts, music, film, and cultural festivals were established at the end of the 20th century and continue to be hosted by the city today. Infrastructure improvements have produced a complex transportation network, considered a global city, Istanbul has one of the fastest-growing metropolitan economies in the world. It hosts the headquarters of many Turkish companies and media outlets and accounts for more than a quarter of the gross domestic product. Hoping to capitalize on its revitalization and rapid expansion, Istanbul has bid for the Summer Olympics five times in twenty years, the first known name of the city is Byzantium, the name given to it at its foundation by Megarean colonists around 660 BCE. The name is thought to be derived from a personal name, ancient Greek tradition refers to a legendary king of that name as the leader of the Greek colonists. Modern scholars have hypothesized that the name of Byzas was of local Thracian or Illyrian origin. He also attempted to promote the name Nova Roma and its Greek version Νέα Ῥώμη Nea Romē, the use of Constantinople to refer to the city during the Ottoman period is now considered politically incorrect, even if not historically inaccurate, by Turks. By the 19th century, the city had acquired other names used by foreigners or Turks. Europeans used Constantinople to refer to the whole of the city, pera was used to describe the area between the Golden Horn and the Bosphorus, but Turks also used the name Beyoğlu. The name İstanbul is commonly held to derive from the Medieval Greek phrase εἰς τὴν Πόλιν and this reflected its status as the only major city in the vicinity. The importance of Constantinople in the Ottoman world was reflected by its Ottoman name Der Saadet meaning the gate to Prosperity in Ottoman. An alternative view is that the name evolved directly from the name Constantinople, with the first, a Turkish folk etymology traces the name to Islam bol plenty of Islam because the city was called Islambol or Islambul as the capital of the Islamic Ottoman Empire
7.
Ottoman Empire
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After 1354, the Ottomans crossed into Europe, and with the conquest of the Balkans the Ottoman Beylik was transformed into a transcontinental empire. The Ottomans ended the Byzantine Empire with the 1453 conquest of Constantinople by Mehmed the Conqueror, at the beginning of the 17th century the empire contained 32 provinces and numerous vassal states. Some of these were later absorbed into the Ottoman Empire, while others were granted various types of autonomy during the course of centuries. With Constantinople as its capital and control of lands around the Mediterranean basin, while the empire was once thought to have entered a period of decline following the death of Suleiman the Magnificent, this view is no longer supported by the majority of academic historians. The empire continued to maintain a flexible and strong economy, society, however, during a long period of peace from 1740 to 1768, the Ottoman military system fell behind that of their European rivals, the Habsburg and Russian Empires. While the Empire was able to hold its own during the conflict, it was struggling with internal dissent. Starting before World War I, but growing increasingly common and violent during it, major atrocities were committed by the Ottoman government against the Armenians, Assyrians and Pontic Greeks. The word Ottoman is an anglicisation of the name of Osman I. Osmans name in turn was the Turkish form of the Arabic name ʿUthmān, in Ottoman Turkish, the empire was referred to as Devlet-i ʿAlīye-yi ʿOsmānīye, or alternatively ʿOsmānlı Devleti. In Modern Turkish, it is known as Osmanlı İmparatorluğu or Osmanlı Devleti, the Turkish word for Ottoman originally referred to the tribal followers of Osman in the fourteenth century, and subsequently came to be used to refer to the empires military-administrative elite. In contrast, the term Turk was used to refer to the Anatolian peasant and tribal population, the term Rūmī was also used to refer to Turkish-speakers by the other Muslim peoples of the empire and beyond. In Western Europe, the two names Ottoman Empire and Turkey were often used interchangeably, with Turkey being increasingly favored both in formal and informal situations and this dichotomy was officially ended in 1920–23, when the newly established Ankara-based Turkish government chose Turkey as the sole official name. Most scholarly historians avoid the terms Turkey, Turks, and Turkish when referring to the Ottomans, as the power of the Seljuk Sultanate of Rum declined in the 13th century, Anatolia was divided into a patchwork of independent Turkish principalities known as the Anatolian Beyliks. One of these beyliks, in the region of Bithynia on the frontier of the Byzantine Empire, was led by the Turkish tribal leader Osman, osmans early followers consisted both of Turkish tribal groups and Byzantine renegades, many but not all converts to Islam. Osman extended the control of his principality by conquering Byzantine towns along the Sakarya River and it is not well understood how the early Ottomans came to dominate their neighbours, due to the scarcity of the sources which survive from this period. One school of thought which was popular during the twentieth century argued that the Ottomans achieved success by rallying religious warriors to fight for them in the name of Islam, in the century after the death of Osman I, Ottoman rule began to extend over Anatolia and the Balkans. Osmans son, Orhan, captured the northwestern Anatolian city of Bursa in 1326 and this conquest meant the loss of Byzantine control over northwestern Anatolia. The important city of Thessaloniki was captured from the Venetians in 1387, the Ottoman victory at Kosovo in 1389 effectively marked the end of Serbian power in the region, paving the way for Ottoman expansion into Europe
8.
Ottoman Imperial Harem
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The utmost authority in the Imperial Harem was the Valide Sultan, who ruled over the other women in the household and was often of slave origin herself. The Kizlar Agha was the head of the responsible for guarding the Imperial Harem. The word harem is derived from the Arabic harim or haram which give connotations of the sacred, the female quarters of Turkish households were then referred to as haremlik due to their prevailing exclusivity. The harem was the symbol of the Sultans power. His ownership of women, mostly slaves, was a sign of wealth, power, the institution was introduced in the Turkish society with adoption of Islam, under the influence of the Arab Caliphate, which the Ottomans emulated. To ensure the obedience of the women, many of them were bought, however, not all members of the Harem were slaves. The main wives, especially taken into marriage to consolidate personal. This was the exception, not the rule, the relationship between slavery and polygamy/harems in the Turkish Harem continued until 1908, at the very least. The imperial harem also served as an institution the sultans household of male servants. The Imperial Harem occupied one of the sections of the private apartments of the sultan at the Topkapi Palace which encompassed more than 400 rooms. After 1853, an equally lavish harem quarter was occupied at the new palace at Dolmabahçe. The mother of a new sultan came to the harem with pomp, circumstance and she was paramount chief and ran the Harem and ruled over the members of the dynasty. The Valide Sultan who influenced the life of the Ottoman Empire during various periods of history had the authority to regulate the relations between the sultan and his wives and children. In 1868, Empress Eugénie of France visited the Imperial harem, the visit of the Empress, however, did cause a dress reform in the harem by making Western fashion popular among the harem women, who dressed according to Western fashion ever after. The court ladies who were introduced into the harem in their age were brought up in the discipline of the palace. They were promoted according to their capacities and became kalfas and ustas, the court ladies with whom the sultan shared his bed became a member of the dynasty and rose in rank to attain the status of Gözde, Ikbal or Kadın. The highest position was the Valide Sultan, the mother of the sultan. No court lady could leave or enter the premises of the harem without the permission of the valide sultan
9.
Ottoman dynasty
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The Ottoman dynasty was made up of the members of the imperial House of Osman. According to Ottoman tradition, the family originated from the Kayı tribe branch of the Oghuz Turks, the Ottoman dynasty, named after Osman I, ruled the Ottoman Empire from c.1299 to 1922. During much of the Empires history, the sultan was the regent, head of state. The imperial family was deposed from power and the sultanate was abolished on 1 November 1922 after the Turkish War of Independence, the Republic of Turkey was declared the following year. The living members of the dynasty were sent into exile as persona non gratae, though some have been allowed to return. In its current form, the family is known as the Osmanoğlu family, before Orhans proclamation of the dynasty, the tribe was known as the Bilecik Söğüt Beylik or Beys but was renamed Osmanlı in honor of Osman. The Ottoman dynasty is known in modern Turkish as Osmanlı Hanedanı, meaning House of Osman, in Ottoman Turkish it was known as Hanedan-ı Âl-i Osman, thus they still formally acknowledged the sovereignty of the Seljuk Empire and its successor, the Seljuk Sultanate of Rûm. The first Ottoman ruler to claim the title of Sultan was Murad I. The holder of the title Sultan was in Arabic-Islamic dynasties originally the power behind the throne of the Caliph in Bagdad, the Ottoman sultans also claimed the title of Caliph starting with Murad I, who transformed the Ottoman state into a transcontinental empire. With the Conquest of Constantinople in 1453, Sultan Mehmed II Fatih claimed the title Kaysar-i-Rûm Emperor of Rome and he appointed the Patriarch of Constantinople Gennadius Scholarius, whom he protected and whose status he elevated into leader of all the Eastern Orthodox Christians. As Emperor of Rome he laid claim to all Roman territories, Sultan Mehmed II also took the title of Padishah, a Persian title meaning Master of Kings and ranking as Emperor, claiming superiority among the other kings. He was the first Ottoman ruler to adopt the title of Padishah. The Ottoman claim to caliphate was strengthened when they defeated the Mamluks in 1517, as the empire grew, sultans adopted secondary titles expressing the empires claim to be the legitimate successor of the absorbed states. Furthermore, they tended to enumerate even regular provinces, not unlike the long lists of -mainly inherited- feudal titles in the style of many Christian European monarchs. Some early Ottoman Sultans even had to accept the status in the eyes of a foreign overlord. However, the Ottoman Caliphate too was abolished soon afterwards, and Abdulmecid II was utterly deposed and expelled from Turkey with the rest of the Ottoman dynasty on 3 March 1924
Grand Master of the Order of the Crescent
Grand Master of the Order of Nichan Iftikhar
Grand Master of the Order of the Medjidie
Grand Master of the Order of Osmanieh
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Knight of the Military Order of Max Joseph (Bavaria)
Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1922). "Mahommed V.". Encyclopædia Britannica (12th ed.). London & New York.
Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1922). "
Media related to Mehmed V at Wikimedia Commons
