Baltaji Mehmed Pasha

Baltajı Mehmed Pascha (also Baltacı Mehmed Pascha ; * 1662 in Osmancık , † July 1712 in Lemnos ) was Grand Vizier of the Ottoman Empire .

Ascent

Baltajı Mehmed was born in the province of Çorum in northern Anatolia . He was of Turkish descent. After a stay in the North African provinces of the Ottoman Empire, he came to the capital İstanbul , where he found a job as a secretary in the Sultan's palace through the mediation of his relative Hacı Sefer Ağa . He also worked as a muezzin . Soon he was promoted to stable master ( İmrahor ) and then to admiral ( Kapudan Pasha ) of the Ottoman fleet. On December 25, 1704 he became Grand Vizier.

There were no notable events in his first term as Grand Vizier. In 1706 he was released again. For the next four years, he was appointed governor of three peripheral provinces: Erzurum , the island of Chios and Aleppo . On August 18, 1710, his second term as Grand Vizier began, which should be remembered for his participation in the Great Northern War .

The Prut Treaty

After the defeat of Sweden at Poltava (June 27 ^jul. / 28 of June. ^Swed. / 8 July 1709 ^greg. ) In the Ukraine fled King Karl XII. south on Ottoman territory. When the victorious Tsar Peter I with Sultan Ahmed III. urged the extradition of the fugitive king, the Hohe Pforte declared war in November 1710. Peter I then marched with his army across the Dniester and Prut rivers to Jassy in the Principality of Moldova . There he met Baltajı Mehmed Pasha as Commander-in-Chief ( Serdar ) of a far superior Turkish army. When the Russians withdrew and moved into a permanent camp, the Grand Vizier managed to lock them up on July 19, 1711 near the Prut. In the greatest need, the tsar asked for peace by sending his secret wife Ekaterina Alexejewna with 250,000 rubles to his besiegers, who agreed to negotiate. In the Peace of Prut , Russia ceded the Azov fortress, which had been conquered in 1696, to the Ottoman Empire and committed itself to Charles XII. to let pass on the way back to Sweden.

Discharge and death

Sultan Ahmed III. was initially pleased with the contract. The opponents of an understanding, especially Charles XII. and the hetman of the Crimean Tatars , Devlet II. Giray , managed to change the mood by publicizing the suspicion of corruption against the Grand Vizier. On November 20, 1711, Baltaji Mehmed was dismissed on charges of corruption. He was exiled first to the island of Lesbos and then to the island of Lemnos , where he died in the summer of the following year.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ İsmail Hâmi Danişmend, Osmanlı Devlet Erkânı , Türkiye Yayınevi, İstanbul, 1971, p. 52.
2. ↑ Baltacı Mehmet's biography
3. ↑ Ayhan Buz: Osmanlı Sadrazamları , Neden Yayınları, İstanbul, 2009, p. 165, ISBN 978-975-254-278-5
4. ↑ Prof. Yaşar Yüce-Prof. Ali Sevim: Türkiye tarihi Cilt III , AKDTYKTTK Yayınları, İstanbul, 1991, pp. 259-262

predecessor	Office	successor
Hacı Ahmet Pasha	Grand Vizier of the Ottoman Empire December 25, 1704 - May 3, 1706	Çorlulu Ali Pasha
Köprülü Numan Pascha	Grand Vizier of the Ottoman Empire August 18, 1710 - November 20, 1711	Aga Yusuf Pasha