Mehmed Talat Pasha
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| Mehmed Talat Pasha | |
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280th Grand Vizier
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| Preceded by | Said Halim Pasha |
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| Succeeded by | Ahmed İzzet Pasha |
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| Born | 1874 Kırcaali (Edirne) |
| Died | March 15th 1921 Berlin, Germany |
| Political party | Committee of Union and Progress |
| Religion | Islam |
| Armenian Genocide |
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| Background |
| Armenians in the Ottoman Empire · Armenian Question · Hamidian Massacres · Zeitun Resistance (1895) · 1896 Ottoman Bank Takeover · Yıldız Attempt · Adana Massacre · Young Turk Revolution |
| The Genocide |
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Armenian notables deported from the Ottoman capital · Tehcir Law · Armenian casualties of deportations · Ottoman Armenian casualties · Labour battalion |
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Major extermination centers: |
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Resistance: |
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Foreign aid and relief: |
| Responsible parties |
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Young Turks: |
| Aftermath |
| Courts-Martial · Operation Nemesis · Partitioning of the Ottoman Empire · Denial of the Genocide
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Mehmed Talat Pasha (Turkish: Mehmet Talat Paşa) (1874-1921) was one of the leaders of the Young Turks, an Ottoman statesman, grand vizier (1917) , and leading member of the Sublime Porte from 1913 until 1918. He is infamously tied to the Armenian Genocide possibly even more than the other two "Pashas" and is alleged to have ordered "Kill every Armenian man, woman, and child without concern",[1] a quote from the "Andonian Telegrams", whose authenticity is in dispute[2]
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[edit] Early life
Mehmed Talat, born in Kırcaali, province Edirne in 1874, was the son of a prominent member of the Ottoman army. His position in society allowed him to receive a top quality education. He was graduated from Edirne High School. He joined the staff of the telegraph company in Edirne, but he was soon arrested in 1893 for subversive political activity. He was actively involved in the resistance movement against the despotic regime of Sultan Abdülhamit II. Released two years later, he was appointed chief secretary of posts and telegraphs in Salonika and rendered important services to the Young Turk cause. Between 1898 and 1908 he served as a postman, on the staff of the Selanik Post Office, and eventually Head of Selanik Post Office.
[edit] Involvement with the Young Turks and the Armenian Genocide
In 1908, he was dismissed for membership in the Committee of Union and Progress (CUP), the conspiratorial nucleus of the Young Turk movement. After the Young Turk Revolution of 1908, however, 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 the Secretary-General of the CUP in 1912.
After the assassination of the Prime Minister Mahmud Sevket Pasa in July 1913, Talat Pasha once again became Minister of Interior Affairs. Talat, along with Enver Pasha and Djemal Pasha formed a group called the Three Pashas. These men formed the triumvirate of the Ottoman government until the end of war in October, 1918.
Talat, as minister of the interior, bears much of the responsibility for the deportation of the Armenians from the empire's eastern provinces to Syria. Most historians blame him for the barbarity of the operation and the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people. For more on this see Armenian Genocide. Although Talat was the minister of the interior, many historians argue that Enver Pasha deserves equal blame for the deportations of the Armenians.[3][4]
In 1917, Talat became the grand vizier, but he was unable to reverse the downward spiral of Ottoman fortunes in his new position.
[edit] The end of the war
Over the next year, Jerusalem and Baghdad were lost and in October of 1918, the British shattered both Ottoman armies they faced. With defeat certain, Talat resigned on October 14, 1918. Just a week later the Ottoman government capitulated to the Allies and signed an armistice at the island of Mudros.
A week later, Talat Pasha, Enver Pasha and Djemal Pasha fled to Berlin. All three men would be dead by the end of 1922. Talat was killed by an Armenian named Soghomon Tehlirian in March 1921 for his role in ordering the massacre of Armenians in his village. Even though Soghomon Tehlirian did conduct the murder, he was fount Innocent by German court; due to the crimes and person Talat Pasha was. This was one of the few times the defendant admitted to murder, and was found innocent.
He was buried into the Turkish Cemetery in Berlin. In 1943, his remains were taken to Istanbul and reburied in Şişli. His war memories were published after his death.
[edit] The role of the British Intelligence service in the assasination
After the Mudros Armistice, the British had intelligence reports indicating that they had gone to Germany, and the British High Commissioner pressured Damad Ferit Pasha and the Sublime Porte to demand from Germany to return to Turkey Talat Pasha, Enver Pasha, Cemil Pasha, Said Halim Pasha, Dr. Nazim, Bahattin Sakir and Cemal Azmi. As a result of efforts pursued personally by (Sir) Andrew Ryan, a former Dragoman and now a member of the British intelligence service, Germany responded to Turkey stating that it was willing to be helpful if official papers could be produced showing these persons had been found guilty, and added that the presence of these persons in Germany could not as yet be ascertained.[5]
England was not pleased with this response, and embarked upon hunting down the Unionists with its own methods. The British intelligence services finally identified Talat Pasha in Stockholm where he had gone for a few days. The British intelligence first planned to apprehend him in Berlin where he was planning to return, but then changed its mind because it feared the complications this would create in Germany. Another view in the British intelligence was that Talat Pasha should be apprehended by the British navy in the sea while returning from Scandinavia by ship. At the end, it was decided to let him return to Berlin, find out what this famous Unionists was trying to accomplish with his activities abroad, and to establish direct contact with him before giving the final verdict. Nine days before Talat Pasha's assassination, Aubrey Herbert, a British intelligence agent had short meetings with him during three days in a park in a small German town. This meetings corroborated earlier intelligence to the effect that Talat Pasha was seeking support from Muslim countries to help Mustafa Kemal's movement, that he was organizing abroad a serious opposition movement against the Allied Powers, and that he was soon intending to take refuge in Ankara. Furthermore, Talat Pasha also dared to make the threat that he was going to incite the Pan-Turanist and Pan-Islamist movements against England, unless she signed a peace treaty favorable for Turkey. This courageous action of Talat Pasha made the British very anxious. Their intelligence service established contact with its counterpart in the Soviet Union to evaluate the situation. Talat Pasha's plans made the Russian officials as anxious as the British. The two intelligence services collaborated and signed among them the 'death warrant of Talat Pasha. Information concerning his physical description and his whereabouts was forwarded to their men in Germany. However, it was decided that Armenian revolutionaries carry out the verdict. As a matter of fact, Talat Pasha was assassinated with a single bullet on 15 March 1921 as he came out of his house in Hardenbergstrasse, Charlottenburg..[6]
Famous Arab journalist Mustafa Amin's contention is that the British intelligence itself was behind the assassinations of exiled Young Turk leaders in the early 1920s: Talat Pasha, Jemal Pasha..[1] .[7]
[edit] Trivia
[edit] See also
[edit] References
- ^ Rep. Weiner Commemorates Armenian Genocide
- ^ As recently as February 2007, a New York Times review by Christopher de Bellaigue, who is currently writing a book on eastern Turkey, of the film Skylark Farm tried to separate Antonia Arslan, the promising novelist despite marred by uneven writing, from Arslan, the "iffy historian". "Arslan reports dialogues involving the architects of the deportations, including the interior minister, Talat Pasha, who writes in a telegram: “No mercy for women, old men or children. If even one Armenian were to survive, he would later want revenge.” This is a prophetic reference to Talat’s murder in exile at the hands of an Armenian who chanced upon him in a Berlin street. She describes the Armenians as a “gentle, daydreaming people” who would like nothing more than to share their ancestral homeland, a platitude that ignores the existence of Armenian political groups seeking independence from the Turks. And in a novel containing footnotes to explain historical events, readers might mistakenly assume Arslan’s Talat telegram is irreproachably historical. The lack of a universally authenticated document implicating the Ottoman leadership in a plan to kill the Armenians is a central part of the Turks’ argument that the massacres were not a premeditated genocide but a tragic and unintended consequence of war." (full text) New York Times review of "Skylark Farm" by Christopher de Bellaigue
- ^ David Fromkin "A Peace to End all Peace", pg 212-213
- ^ The Story of Enver Pasha and his Times Part 4: Armenians are nothing to me
- ^ Oke, Mim Kemal: The Armenian question 1914-1923. Nicosia: Oxford 1988 http://www.ataa.org/ataa/ref/armenian/oke.html
- ^ Oke, Mim Kemal: The Armenian question 1914-1923. Nicosia: Oxford 1988 http://www.ataa.org/ataa/ref/armenian/oke.html
- ^ Donald M. Reid, Political Assassination in Egypt, 1910-1954 The International Journal of African Historical Studies, Vol. 15, No. 4 (1982), pp. 625-651
