Mehmet Vehib Kaçı
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Mehmet Vehib Kaçı (1877 - 1940), was a general in the Ottoman Empire. He was the famous commander of the Third Army.
[edit] Biography
Mehmet Vehip was born in 1877 in Yanya, then located in Turkey and now located in Greece. His friends called him "Kaci" as that was where he immigrated from. He was from a prominent family: his family was the city mayor and his brothers likewise grew to become famous. His elder brother Esad Pasha (who later took the name Balkat due to the Family Name Act of the 1930s) defended Gallipoli in 1915, and Kazim Tashkent founded the Turkish bank, "Yapi Kredi." Mehmet himself graduated from Harbiye, or the Turkish War Academy in 1899, as staff captain, and joined the Fourth Army, which was then stationed in Yemen.
In 1909, after the 31 March Incident, he was called to Istanbul, where he began to work at the Ministry of War and shortly afterwards Mahmut Sevket Pasha appointed him commander of the cadet school, and he reached the rank of Major.
During the Balkan Wars he defended the Fortress Yanya with his brother Esad until February 20, 1913, when they surrendered to the Greek Gender Metaxas as a result of a peace treaty. After his release as a Prisoner of War, he was made a colonel and sent to Hejaz, in Arabia, with the 22nd Infantry Division. He participated in the Gallipoli campaign, commanding the 15th Army Corps. His successes there lead to his being made commander of the 2nd Army in 1917. He held against the Russians, taking back Trabzon and Hora on February 24, 1918, and capturing Batumi on March 26, 1918. With the Armistice of Mudros, he returned to Istanbul.
He participated in the Second Italo-Abyssinian War, commanding the Ethiopians. However, once the Italians broke through the northern front, Vehip returned to Istanbul.
