Mehmed Talaat | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Grand Vizier | |
| In office 4 February 1917 – 8 October 1918 | |
| Monarchs | Mehmed V Mehmed VI |
| Preceded by | Said Halim Pasha |
| Succeeded by | Ahmed Izzet Pasha |
| Minister of the Interior | |
| In office 12 June 1913 – 8 October 1918 | |
| Grand Vizier | Himself Said Halim Pasha |
| Preceded by | Mehmed Adil |
| Succeeded by | Mustafa Arif |
| In office August 1909 – March 1911 | |
| Grand Vizier | İbrahim Hakkı Pasha Hüseyin Hilmi Pasha |
| Preceded by | Mehmed Ferid Pasha |
| Succeeded by | Halil Menteşe |
| Minister of Finance | |
| In office November 1914 – 4 February 1917 | |
| Grand Vizier | Said Halim Pasha |
| Preceded by | Mehmed Cavid |
| Succeeded by | Abdurrahman Vefik Sayın |
| Member of the Chamber of Deputies | |
| In office 17 December 1908 – 8 October 1918 | |
| Constituency | Adrianople (1908, 1912, 1914) |
| Personal details | |
| Born | 1 September 1874 Kırcaali, Ottoman Empire (now Bulgaria) |
| Died | 15 March 1921 (aged 46) Berlin, Germany |
| Manner of death | Assassination by gunshot |
| Resting place | Monument of Liberty, Istanbul |
| Nationality | Ottoman |
| Political party | Union and Progress Party |
| Spouse | Hayriye Talaat Bafralı |
| Conviction(s) | Premeditated mass murder[1] |
| Trial | Ottoman Special Military Tribunal |
| Criminal penalty | Death (in absentia) |
| Details | |
| Target(s) | Ottoman Armenians |
| Killed | Around 1 million |
Mehmed Talaat[a] (1 September 1874 – 15 March 1921), commonly known as Talaat Pasha or Talat Pasha,[b] was an Ottoman Young Turk activist, politician, and convicted war criminal who served as the de facto leader of the Ottoman Empire from 1913 to 1918. He was chairman of the Union and Progress Party, which operated a one-party dictatorship in the Empire; during World War I he became Grand Vizier (prime minister). He has been called the architect of the Armenian genocide,[3] and was responsible for other ethnic cleansings during his time as Minister of Interior Affairs.
Talaat was an early member of the Committee of Union and Progress (CUP), eventually leading its Salonica chapter during the Hamidian era. After the CUP succeeded in restoring the constitution and parliament in the 1908 Young Turk Revolution, he was elected as a deputy from Adrianople to the Chamber of Deputies and later became Minister of the Interior. He played an important role in the downfall of Sultan Abdul Hamid II the next year during the 31 March Incident by organizing a counter government. Multiple crises in the Empire including the 31 March Incident, attacks on Rumelian Muslims in the Balkan Wars, and the power struggle with the Freedom and Accord Party made Talaat and the Unionists disillusioned with multicultural Ottomanism and political pluralism, turning them into hard-line authoritarian Turkish nationalists.
In 1913, Talaat and Ismail Enver carried out a coup d'état with Mahmud Şevket Pasha as a reluctant partner. With the latter's assassination, an autocratic triumvirate of CUP Central Committee members lead the Ottoman Empire, consisting of himself, Enver, and Ahmed Cemal (known as the Three Pashas) of whom Talaat was its civilian leader. Talaat and Enver were influential bringing the Ottoman Empire into the First World War. During World War I, he ordered on 24 April 1915 the arrest and deportation of Armenian intellectuals in Constantinople (now Istanbul), most of them being ultimately murdered, and on 30 May 1915 promulgated the Temporary Law of Deportation; these events initiated the Armenian genocide. He is widely considered the main perpetrator of the genocide,[4][5][6][7][8] and is thus held responsible for the death of around 1 million Armenians.
In a move that established total Unionist control over the Ottoman government, Talaat Pasha became Grand Vizier in 1917.[9] He personally negotiated the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk with the Bolsheviks, regaining parts of Eastern Anatolia which were occupied by Russia since 1878, and won the race to Baku on the Caucasus front. However breakthroughs by the Allies in the Macedonia and Palestine fronts meant defeat for the Ottomans and the downfall of the CUP, whereupon he resigned. On the night of 2–3 November 1918, Talaat Pasha and other members of the CUP's central committee fled the Ottoman Empire. The Ottoman Special Military Tribunal convicted and sentenced him to death in absentia for subverting the constitution, profiteering from the war, and organizing massacres against Greeks and Armenians. Exiled in Berlin, he supported the Turkish Nationalists led by Mustafa Kemal Pasha (Atatürk) in Turkey's War of Independence. He was assassinated in Berlin in 1921 by Soghomon Tehlirian, a member of the Armenian Revolutionary Federation, as part of Operation Nemesis.[9]
- ^ Balint Jennifer (2013). "The Ottoman State Special Military Tribunal for the Genocide of the Armenians: 'Doing Government Business'". In Kevin Heller; Gerry Simpson (eds.). The Hidden Histories of War Crimes Trials. Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199671144.003.0004. ISBN 9780199671144. Archived from the original on 23 April 2021. Retrieved 4 April 2021.
- ^ Kieser 2018, p. 2.
- ^ Kieser 2018, p. xi, 22–23, 247, 333.
- ^ Akçam, Taner (2006). A Shameful Act. New York City: Holt & Co. pp. 165, 186–187.
- ^ Kiernan, Ben (2007). Blood and Soil: Genocide and Extermination in World History from Carthage to Darfur. Yale University Press. p. 414.
- ^ Rosenbaum, Alan S. (2001). Is the Holocaust Unique?. Westview Press. pp. 122–123.
- ^ Naimark, Norman (2001). Fires of hatred. Harvard University Press. p. 57. ISBN 9780674003132.
- ^ Kieser 2018, p. xi.
- ^ a b Kedourie, Sylvia; Wasti, S. Tanvir (1996). Turkey: Identity, Democracy, Politics. Psychology Press. p. 96. ISBN 0-7146-4718-7.
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