Mehmed V

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Mehmed V
Ottoman Caliph Amir al-Mu'minin Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques
Photograph by Carl Pietzner, June 1915
Sultan of the Ottoman Empire (Padishah)
Reign	27 April 1909 – 3 July 1918
Predecessor	Abdul Hamid II
Successor	Mehmed VI
Grand Viziers	See list Ahmet Tevfik Pasha Hüseyin Hilmi Pasha Ibrahim Hakki Pasha Mehmed Said Pasha Ahmed Muhtar Pasha Mehmed Kâmil Pasha Mahmud Shevket Pasha Said Halim Pasha Mehmed Talat Pasha
Born	(1844-11-02)2 November 1844 Old Çırağan Palace, Constantinople, Ottoman Empire (present-day Istanbul, Turkey)
Died	3 July 1918(1918-07-03) (aged 73) Yıldız Palace, Istanbul, Ottoman Empire
Burial	Tomb of Sultan Mehmed V Reşad, Eyüp, Istanbul
Consorts	Kamures Kadın Dürriaden Kadın Mihrengiz Kadın Nazperver Kadın Dilfirib Kadın
Issue	Şehzade Mehmed Ziyaeddin Şehzade Mahmud Necmeddin Şehzade Ömer Hilmi Refia Sultan
Names Mehmed Han bin Abdulmejid[1]
Dynasty	Ottoman
Father	Abdulmejid I
Mother	Gülcemal Kadın (biological mother) Servetseza Kadın (adoptive mother)
Religion	Sunni Islam
Tughra

Mehmed V Reşâd (Ottoman Turkish: محمد خامس, romanized: Meḥmed-i ḫâmis; Turkish: V. Mehmed or Mehmed Reşad; 2 November 1844 – 3 July 1918) was the penultimate sultan of the Ottoman Empire from 1909 to 1918. Mehmed V reigned as a constitutional monarch, interfering little when it came to government affairs, though the constitution was held with little regard by his ministries. The first half of his reign was marked by contentious politicking between factions of the Young Turks, and the second half by war and domination of the Committee of Union and Progress and the Three Pashas.

Reşad was the son of Sultan Abdulmejid I.^[2] He succeeded his half-brother Abdul Hamid II after the 31 March Incident. Coming to power in the aftermath of the failed coup attempt, his nine-year reign featured three coups d'etat, four wars, eleven governments, and numerous uprisings. The Italo-Turkish War saw the cession of the Empire's North African territories and the Dodecanese Islands, including Rhodes, during which the CUP was forced out of power by the military. This was followed up by the traumatic loss of almost all of the Empire's European territories west of Constantinople (now Istanbul) in the First Balkan War, and the return of a now radicalized CUP rule in another coup. Eastern Thrace was retaken in the Second Balkan War.

The Ottomans entered World War I in November 1914, upon which Mehmed declared a jihad against the Allies. In 1915, Ottoman forces successfully fended off an Allied invasion at Gallipoli and captured a large British garrison at Kut. During that year, the CUP initiated the Armenian genocide against the Sultan's wishes, though his private disapproval over his governments' actions was inconsequential. By Mehmed V's death on 3 July 1918, defeat loomed on the Macedonian, Palestinian, and Western fronts. With military collapse in the field and the Arab Revolt spelling impending disaster, the Ottomans signed the Armistice of Mudros, though by then he was dead, and succeeded by Mehmed VI.^[3]