Mehmed V.

Mehmed V. (1913)

Coin 5 piastres 1909 (1327AH) with the Tughra of Mehmed V.

Mehmed V. Reşad - also known as Mohammed V - (* November 2, 1844 in Istanbul ; † July 3, 1918 there ) was Sultan of the Ottoman Empire and Caliph of the Muslims from April 27, 1909 until his death . He succeeded his brother Abdülhamid II , who had previously been forced to resign by the Young Turks . Under his rule, the empire became involved in the First World War .

Life

Mehmed was a son of Abdülmecid I , his mother was Gülcemal Kadın Efendi . He was said to have ambitions for the throne, so that his ruling brother Abdülhamid II tried to isolate him from the public and political power.

During the reign of his brother Abdülhamid II, Mehmed Reşad was a political prisoner. He lived in strict custody for 45 years in his Konak Sindschirli Kuju, in northern Istanbul on the European side. This long imprisonment had broken the physical and mental powers of Mehmed Reşad, so that at the time of his brother's deposition he was an apathetic, ailing old man incapable of any work. For this very reason, however, he was a desirable candidate for the throne for the Young Turks, who rule themselves and did not want to be affected by the monarch. In the summer of 1908, Abdülhamid was forced by the Young Turks to put the Ottoman constitution of 1876 into effect and to limit his own power. When the Sultan tried to reverse this the following year, the Young Turks finally deposed him on April 27, 1909 and replaced him with Mehmed, who became Sultan and Caliph at the age of 64.

His reign was marked by setbacks for the Ottoman Empire and the manifestation of the concept of the " sick man on the Bosporus ". At the beginning of his rule he had to recognize the Austrian annexation of Bosnia and Herzegovina and the independence of Bulgaria . He lost the last North African possessions west of Egypt to Italy by 1912 . Egypt itself was only formally under Ottoman rule and was de facto controlled by the British . This was followed by uprisings in Albania and the two Balkan Wars in 1912 and 1913, which ended Ottoman rule there. Shortly afterwards, Mehmed V succeeded in recapturing a smaller area around Adrianople and in 1914 peacefully establishing the border in Armenia by treaty with the Russian Empire .

On August 2, 1914, Mehmed V concluded a defensive alliance with the German Empire against Russia. He initially tried to remain neutral in the beginning World War I ; Under pressure from the Young Turks, he entered the war on the side of the Central Powers at the beginning of October 1914 and appointed Enver Pasha as Minister of War. After the loss of Cyprus and Egypt, Mehmed V managed to build a stable defensive against the British on the Suez Canal and in Iraq . Russia conquered Armenia, but this was later reversed in the peace of Brest-Litovsk . In the final phase of the war, Syria, Palestine and Mesopotamia were lost.

On February 1, 1916, Mehmed V was appointed Field Marshal General of the German Reich and on May 19, 1918 Field Marshal Austria-Hungary .

Mehmed V died on July 3, 1918 at the age of 73, just four months before the end of the First World War. He did not live to see the fall of the Ottoman Empire. His half-brother Mehmed VI followed him as the (last) sultan and caliph .

Mehmed V spent most of his life in the Dolmabahçe Palace and Yıldız Palace in Constantinople. His grave is in the historic Eyup district of the city.

He left two sons: Prince Mehmed Ziyaeddin (1873-1938) and Prince Ömer Hilmi (1886-1935). His only daughter, Princess Refia (* 1888), died as an infant. Another son, Prince Mehmed Necmeddin (1878–1913) died before his father. He was the son of Dürridem Kadın Efendı, who was born in Kars and of Georgian descent. She was the second wife at the time but was divorced in 1887, and the concubine Mihrengiz took her place as the second wife.

Wives

1. Kümüres Baş Kadın: first wife and mother of Prince Mehmed Ziyaeddin
2. Dürridem Kadın Efendi: second wife (divorced) and mother of Prince Mehmed Necmeddin.
3. Mihrengiz: second wife - mother of Prince Ömer Hilmi and Princess Refia.
4. Nazperver: third wife - without children
5. Dilfirib: fourth wife - without children

literature

• James Israel: My Trip to the Sultan. June 10 to August 3, 1915. Diary sheets of the surgeon and urologist (= Jewish memoirs , 7). Hentrich & Hentrich, Teetz 2006, ISBN 3-933471-28-1 .
• Hans-Jürgen Kornrumpf: Mehmed V. Reşad . In: Biographical Lexicon on the History of Southeast Europe . Volume 3. Munich 1979, p. 143 f.

Web links

Commons : Mehmed V.  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

• Newspaper article about Mehmed V. in the press kit 20th century of the ZBW - Leibniz Information Center for Economics .

predecessor	Office	successor
Abdülhamid II.	Sultan and Caliph of the Ottoman Empire 1909–1918	Mehmed VI.