Hurschid Pasha

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Adam Friedel , Portrait of Hurschid Pascha (1832)

Hurschid Ahmed Pascha , also Khurschid Pascha , ( Turkish Hurşid Ahmed Paşa , Arabic خورشيد أحمد پاشا; * in the 18th century ; † November 19, 1822 in Larisa ) was an Ottoman general and grand vizier of the Ottoman Empire .

Life

Origin and youth

Hurschid Ahmed Pasha was born in the Caucasus to parents of Georgian origin. In his youth he was taken to Constantinople , had to convert to Islam and joined the Janissaries . There he won the favor of Sultan Mahmud II and held high positions.

Egypt (1801-1805)

Print by Adam Friedel

After the French expeditionary army marched into Egypt, Hurschid Pasha became governor of Alexandria in 1801 . In 1804 he was appointed Ottoman Wālī of all Egypt at the request of the influential Governor of Jeddah Muhammad Ali Pasha , who in fact had large areas in Egypt under his control . But Hurschid Pasha was soon unpopular with the population because he demanded high taxes to maintain his army. Muhammad Ali turned against Hurschid Pasha. With the help of the allies from the United Kingdom, he tried to drive Muhammad Ali and his Albanian troops out of Egypt and brought the Ottoman Deli troops , a light cavalry unit, from Ottoman Syria to Egypt. But Muhammad Ali was able to pull the Delis on his side and after the uprising of the Muslim community in Cairo and its leaders in May 1805, appointed himself governor. Hurschid refused to give up the post, withdrew with his troops to the city citadel and barricaded himself there until the sultan's decree arrived, making Muhammad Ali Egypt's Ottoman governor.

Rumelia

In 1808, Hurschid Pasha served as governor in Rumelia .

Suppression of the Serbian Revolution

In 1804, Serbia rose up against the almost 300 years of Ottoman rule in the Balkans. In March 1809, Hurschid Pasha was sent to the Sanjak Smederevo to put down the first Serbian uprising under the leadership of Karađorđe .

On September 5, 1812 he was appointed Grand Vizier and remained in office until April 1, 1815. He remained as commander-in-chief in the campaign in Serbia and ended the uprising after retaking Belgrade in October 1813 . In the same year he became governor of Eyâlet Bosnia and in this capacity also put down the second Serbian uprising under the leadership of Miloš Obrenović .

Suppression of Ali Pasha's revolt and the Greek revolution

In November 1820 he became governor of Eyâlet Morea in the Peloponnese , based in Tripoli, and commander ( Serasker ) of the campaign against the rebellious Tepedelenli Ali Pasha in Yanya , who ruled over parts of Greece and had allied himself with the Greek independence movement . Before Hurschid Pasha left for Yanya, however, rumors of a possible uprising among the Greeks of Morea arose. However, his fears were allayed when a gathering of Greek personalities visited him in Tripoli on November 8, 1820. So he left the city on January 6, 1821, heading north, leaving behind his treasury and harem, while his deputy ( kaimakam ) Mehmed Salih maintained order with a force of 1,000 Albanians. But just a few months later, when the Ottoman armies besieged Yanya, the first uprisings of the Greek War of Independence began .

Hurschid Pasha immediately informed the Sultan about the events, but did not wait for his answer and sent Omer Vryonis and Köşe Mehmed Pasha to put down the uprisings first in central Greece and then in the Peloponnese. At the same time he sent his chief of staff Mustafa Bey with 3,000 men to reinforce the Tripoli garrison. Hurschid himself stayed in Yanya to continue the siege. Despite his quick reaction, his plans ultimately failed: Vryonis and Köşe Mehmed Pascha were unable to suppress the uprising in central Greece, while Mustafa Bey's troops were insufficient to save Tripoli, which was under Theodoros Kolokotronis on September 23, 1821 after a long period of siege fell to the Greeks.

Despite a massacre of the Muslim residents, Hurschid's harem and part of his property were saved. Finally, in January 1822, Hurschid Pasha was able to kill Ali Pasha by treason and sent his severed head to the Sultan. Then he put together an army of 80,000 men and wanted to put down the Greek uprising once and for all. But his political opponents in Constantinople, worried about the fame and power he had gained, now accused him of misappropriating a large part of Ali's treasure. Hurschid had sent 40 million piastres to the Sultan, while the Sultan's ministers estimated Ali's fortune at over 500 million piasters. When they asked him to send them a detailed report, the offended Hurschid did not reply. Shortly thereafter, he was denounced for embezzlement and disgraced. He was dismissed from all offices and replaced by Mahmud Dramali Pascha as Serasker and Vali. Hurschid was ordered to stay in Larissa to take care of Dramali's army.

When the news of the failure of Dramali's campaign against the rebellious Greeks in Dervenakia arrived in Constantinople, the Sultan ordered Hurschid to take matters into his own hands and save what he could. However, his opponents continued to intrigue against him, and agents were sent to kill him. Although he was informed of the threat to himself, Hurschid did not react. Instead, he committed suicide by taking poison on November 30, 1822.

literature

  • A. Goldschmidt: Biographical Dictionary of Modern Egypt . American University in Cairo Press, 2000, ISBN 978-977-424-579-4 , p. 106

Web links

Commons : Hurschid Pascha  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ İsmail Hâmi Danişmend: Osmanlı Devlet Erkânı . Türkiye Yayınevi, Istanbul 1971, p. 71
  2. ↑ Ahmad Fadl Shabloul: List of governors of Alexandria (1798-2000). (No longer available online.) Archived from the original on November 29, 2007 ; accessed on March 27, 2020 .
  3. ↑ a b c d Hurşid Ahmed Paşa kimdir? , Sabah Sözlük, accessed March 27, 2020
  4. ↑ Ali Yayçıoglu: Partners of the Empire: The Crisis of the Ottoman Order in the Age of Revolution . Stanford University Press, ISBN 978-0-8047-9612-5 , pp. 220-2.
  5. ↑ Süleyman Uygun: Sırp İsyanı ve Hurşid Ahmet Paşa , Uluslararası Sosyal Araştırmalar Dergisi, Volume 4, No. 17 (Spring 2011)
  6. ^ Frederick F. Anscombe: The Balkan Revolutionary Age . In: The Journal of Modern History , Vol. 84, No. 3 (September 2012), pp. 572–606, here p. 592
  7. ^ John S. Koliopoulos, Thanos M. Veremis: Modern Greece: A History since 1821 . Wiley-Blackwill, Chichester 2010, p. 19
personal data
SURNAME Hurschid Pasha
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Hurschid Ahmed Pasha (full name); Khurschid pasha; Hurşid Ahmed Paşa (Turkish); خورشيد أحمد پاشا (Arabic)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Ottoman general and grand vizier of the Ottoman Empire
DATE OF BIRTH 18th century
DATE OF DEATH November 19, 1822
Place of death Larisa