Kıbrıslı Kâmil Pasha

Kiamil Pasha

Kıbrıslı Kâmil Pasha ( Ottoman محمد كامل پاشا Mehmed Kamil Paşa , German  "Kiamil Pascha of the Cypriots" , * 1833 in Nicosia , Ottoman Empire ; †  November 14, 1913 in Cyprus ) was an Ottoman statesman of Cypriot Turkish origin of the late 19th and early 20th centuries who, in addition to holding regional and international offices in the Ottoman state, was also four times Grand Vizier .

Family and career

He was born in Nicosia in 1833 as the son of Captain Salih Ağa from the village of Gaziler. His first post was within the household of the Khedives in Egypt , which at the time was only nominally under the Ottoman power in Istanbul. In the course of his position he attended the Great Exhibition in London in 1851 as a supervisor of one of the sons of the Khedives. Kâmil's stay in England left him with a lifelong admiration for Britain, and during his career within the Ottoman state he was known as an Anglophile . With his very good knowledge of English, he strove for friendship between England and Turkey from then until the end of his career.

After staying in Egypt for ten years, he exchanged his post with Abbas I for a post in the Ottoman government around 1860 and for the next 19 years - until he first joined the cabinet - held many administrative positions in all parts of the Rich. He ruled or helped rule provinces such as eastern Rumelia , Herzegovina , Kosovo and his native Cyprus .

Between 1885 and 1913 he was Grand Vizier four times . He served under Abdülhamid II and Mehmed V.

Deposition and exile

In May 1913 he returned to Cyprus, which he had not seen since his last post there in 1864. The reason wasn't a pleasant one. After the Young Turks Revolution in 1908, Kâmil initially tried to come to terms with the new rulers. But soon he decided to be against the Young Turks regime and became the figurehead of the so-called liberal (more conservative-traditional) opposition. After the fall of the Young Turk regime in the summer of 1912, he became the grand vizier of the now ruling liberals. But he did not have time to consolidate power, because the Ottoman Empire was embroiled in the First Balkan War of 1912/13 and suffered serious military defeats, accompanied by massacres and a mass exodus of Muslim residents from the contested Balkan provinces. In January 1913, the Kamil government decided to accept the harsh peace conditions, including massive territorial losses. The Young Turks in the army take advantage of this period of great weakness and the unpopularity of the government for their second coup d'état.

On January 23, 1913, Enver Pasha , who was one of the military leaders of the Young Turks, and some of his aides burst into a cabinet meeting of the Sublime Porte . One of Enver Pasha's officers, Yakup Cemil, shot and killed the Minister of War, Nazim Pasha, and the group forced Kâmil Pasha to resign quickly.

Kâmil was placed under house arrest. The former grand vizier, who was probably in mortal danger, was invited to Cairo by his British friend Herbert Kitchener, 1st Viscount Kitchener . After three months in Egypt, Kıbrıslı Kâmil Pasha decided to wait for an opportune time to return to Cyprus.

Five weeks after his return to Cyprus, his Young Turkish successor Mahmud Şevket Pasha was murdered in June 1913 , possibly to avenge the murder of Nazım Pasha. The Young Turkish regime reacted by persecuting well-known opposition politicians. The well-known old Turks were either exiled or had to flee Turkey. Cemal Pascha , who was the Young Turk prefect of Constantinople, indicated to the Kâmils family that they had to leave the Ottoman Empire, otherwise they would be imprisoned. His family chose exile.

death

On November 14, 1913, Kıbrıslı Kâmil Pasha suddenly died of syncope and was buried in the cemetery of the Arabahmet Pasha Mosque. He had already made plans to visit England again in 1914. One of his descendants was the actor Zeki Alasya .

Sir Ronald Storrs , the British governor of Cyprus from 1926 to 1932, had a memorial posted on Kıbrıslı Kâmil Pasha's grave. He wrote the English inscription, which was carved on the tombstone under an ancient Turkish inscription. It read:

His Highness Kiamil Pasha
Son of Captain Salih Agha of Pyroi
Born in Nicosia in 1833
Treasury Clerk
Commissioner of Larnaca
Director of Evqaf
Four times Grand Vizier of the Ottoman Empire
A Great Turk and
A Great Man.

literature

• Ischtiraki (Friedrich Schrader): The spiritual life in Turkey and the current regime . In: Die neue Zeit: Revue des intellectual and public life , 18th, 1899–1900, 2nd volume (1900), no. 45, pp. 548–555; P. 551 ff. Friedrich Ebert Foundation

Web links

• Newspaper article about Kıbrıslı Kâmil Pascha in the 20th century press kit of the ZBW - Leibniz Information Center for Economics .
• Harry Luke: Cyprus. short biography of Kamil Pasha and a moving account of his funeral

predecessor	Office	successor
Küçük Mehmed Said Pasha	Grand Vizier of the Ottoman Empire September 25, 1885–4. September 1891	Ahmed Cevad Pasha
Küçük Mehmed Said Pasha	Grand Vizier of the Ottoman Empire October 2, 1895–7. November 1895	Halil Rifat Pasha
Küçük Mehmed Said Pasha	Grand Vizier of the Ottoman Empire August 5, 1908-14. February 1909	Ahmed Tevfik Pasha
Ahmed Muhtar Pasha	Grand Vizier of the Ottoman Empire October 29, 1912–23. January 1913	Mahmud Şevket Pasha