Cezayirli Gazi Hasan Pasha

Statue of Cezayirli Gazi Hasan Pasha in Istanbul

Cezayirli Gazi Hasan Pascha (* 1713 ; † March 30, 1790 ) was an Ottoman naval officer, military leader and politician. From 1774 to 1789 he was Kapudan Pasha in command of the Ottoman Navy . He modernized the fleet and put down various uprisings. Shortly before his death in 1789 he was appointed Grand Vizier . His nickname was Palabıyık .

Early years

As a child he was robbed on the Iranian border and sold as a slave to the trader Hacı Osman Ağa from Tekirdağ . He grew up with his children in Tekirdağ. He later served as a janissary in the Ottoman army and took part in the Russo-Austrian Turkish War from 1737 to 1739. After the war he served in Algiers . Hence the Cezayirli (i.e. from Algiers) in his name. Later Hasan Bey was from Tlemcen . Due to conflicts with the governor of Algiers, he had to flee to Spain. There he was from King Charles III. recorded. Hassan served briefly in Spain and the Kingdom of Naples .

After his return to the Ottoman Empire in 1760, Sultan Mustafa III. given command of a warship. In 1766 he was naval commander in chief with the title of Kapudan Pasha. He took part in the Russo-Ottoman War from 1768 to 1774 and distinguished himself in the naval battle of Çeşme . There are different accounts of the course of the battle. According to one, Hasan's flagship fought an enemy ship. Both caught fire and he was able to save himself by swimming. After the other he succeeded in saving most of the ships under his command from annihilation and so on his return he did not fall out of favor like the other commanders.

Grand Admiral

In 1770 he carried out a daring attack on the island of Limnos, which was occupied by the Russians . For this he received the rank of Kapudan Pasha and the title of Ghazi . It was on his initiative in particular that the first school for seafarers in the Ottoman Empire was founded in 1773. As General ( Serasker ) he served on the Danube in 1773/74 and fought against the Russians.

After the end of the war he returned to the fleet. He successfully fought insurgents in Syria in 1775/76 . On the occasion of another threatened war with Russia, he demonstrated strength with the fleet in the Black Sea . However, some of his larger ships ran aground and the expedition was hit by the plague. A year later he drove Albanian settlers from Morea who had settled there under Russian protection. In 1780 he forced the Mameluks in Egypt to resume paying tribute to the Sultan. On the way back he put down another riot. A year later, after the grand vizier's death, he took over his duties for two months.

In the following years he was mainly responsible for the modernization of the Ottoman fleet. In addition to the Grand Vizier Halil Hamid , he was one of the leading reformers in the Ottoman Empire at this time. But both were also competitors. He introduced a regulated career for the fleet service, had accommodations built for the crews, and reorganized the garrisons of the forts on the Bosporus at the entrance to the Black Sea. When reorganizing the fleet, he sometimes made use of European experts. His successors were able to build on this policy. The fleet he created and led was the most powerful that the Ottoman Empire had owned in about 200 years.

He was the leader of the most important political and military household (Kapu) of the empire in the 1780s, with a wide-ranging clientele system . It was the military on which Sultan Abdülhamid I relied most. On the other hand, Hasan saw his position at risk as a result of the grand vizier's reforms. Halil Hamid recognized this. Because his adversary had the support of the Sultan, the Grand Vizier tried to depose him himself through an intrigue. When that failed, the grand vizier was executed.

In the years 1786/87 he led the Ottoman fleet again against the rebelling Mameluks in Egypt. Although he only had relatively weak land troops, he fought his way to Cairo with the support of the Mamluk Emir Ismail Bey and freed a besieged Ottoman pasha there. After the suppression of the uprising, the vanquished again undertook to pay tribute.

In the political crisis with Russia, the then Grand Vizier Koca Yusuf Pascha was the leader of the war party. Hasan Pascha also belonged to this group, but he urged greater prudence. After the war party prevailed, the Ottoman Empire declared war on Russia in August 1787. Austria entered the conflict on the Russian side in 1788. During the war, Hasan served in the Russo-Austrian Turkish War, especially in the Black Sea. In 1788 he did not succeed in ending the siege of the Ochakiv fortress . He lost various naval battles.

Grand Vizier

After returning to Constantinople, he was appointed Grand Admiral by the new Sultan Selim III. dismiss. After the previous Grand Vizier had been beaten several times, Hasan Pascha was appointed Grand Vizier and Commander-in-Chief in October 1789. During the winter he negotiated with Grigory Alexandrovich Potemkin to end the war. He died of a fever on March 30, 1790. According to contemporary rumors, he was poisoned.

Contrary to what is sometimes claimed, he could not have fought several battles in the summer of 1790, for example in the sea ​​battle of Tendra . After his death he was buried in Çeşme . There is a memorial to him that shows him with a lion, which he is said to have tamed during his time in Africa and taken with him on his campaigns. There is a similar statue in Istanbul.

Individual evidence

1. ^ Friedrich-Karl Kienitz: The Mediterranean. The scene of world history from the early advanced civilizations to the 20th century. Munich, 1976 p. 267
2. ↑ Christoph K. Neumann: The Ottoman Empire in its existential crisis (1768-1826). In: Klaus Kreiser, Christoph K. Neumann: Little History of Turkey (= Federal Center for Political Education. Series of publications. Vol. 529). Federal Agency for Political Education, Bonn 2005 p. 293f.
3. ↑ Virginia H. Aksan: The Ottoman Wars 1700-1870: An Empire Besieged. Harlow, 2007 p. 161

literature

• Alexander Mikaberidze: Cezayirli Gazi Hasan Pascha In: Conflict and Conquest in the Islamic World: A Historical Encyclopedia, Vol 1 Santa Barbara, 2011 pp. 240f.
• JH Mordtmann: Cezayirli Gazi Hasan Pascha in EJ Brill: First encyclopaedia of Islam, Volume 2, first edition, 1927 [Leiden reprint, 1993] pp. 1039f. Digitized

predecessor	Office	successor
Cenaze Hasan Pasha	Grand Vizier of the Ottoman Empire January 2, 1790 - March 30, 1790	Çelebizade Şerif Hasan Pasha