MEHMET EMIN PASHA (1813-1871)
Mehmet Emin
Pasha, was a Turkish Cypriot, who was three times Grand Vizier (Prime Minister)
of the Ottoman Empire during the sultanates of Abdulmedjit and Abdulaziz:
1st period 29 May 1854-23 November 1854
2nd period 18 October 1859-23 December 1859
3rd period 28 May 1860-6 August 1861
***
He was born
in 1813 in the village of Magunda in the Paphos district of Cyprus. His father,
Huseyin Efendi, was a Turkish Cypriot, the brother of Ottoman Head of the
Exchequer Mehmet Emin Agha. He was a member of one of the families brought to
Cyprus from Anatolia for increasing the population after an epidemic of cholera
in the beginning of the 18th century.
After
he finished the elementary school in Paphos, he was sent to Istanbul, where his
uncle was the Head of Ottoman Exchequer. Through his uncle, he was introduced
to Sultan Mahmut and he was able to enter the Enderun at the Ottoman Imperial
Court in Istanbul. He worked as a
captain for several years in the Imperial Guard regiments which were
established in 1828.
In 1833 he went to London and later
to Paris for higher studies. After Abdulmedjit got into power he returned to
Istanbul and served as Major and later as Colonel in the First Army in
Istanbul, assigned to guard the Ottoman Palace. Later he was appointed to
Tophane.
He was the commander of the Akka
(Acre) Castle in 1844 and later governor in Jerusalem. He was appointed on 31 August 1848 as the
Ottoman Ambassador in London. He visited Flanders for the crowning of the
Flanders’ King.
He was appointed as the governor of
Crete, but he did not go and resigned. He returned to his old profession of
diplomacy. In 1853, he was governor in Sinop and later the chief of the Ottoman
Fleet.
He was appointed as the prime minister
of the Ottoman Empire with the recommendation of Reshit Pasha on 24 May 1854.
He did not approve the war with Crimea and he was dismissed from his post after
6 months. In July 1855, he was the Speaker of the Ottoman Parliament which was
opened during the Tanzimat (Reform) period. When the Prime Minister Ali Pasha
went to participate at the Paris Conference in 1856, he was appointed as the
First Under-Secretary of the Prime Minister. When peace agreement was signed
with Russia, he was sent to St.Petersburg as extraordinary and plenipotentiary
ambassador in August 1856. He was awarded by the Russian Tsar with the Eglban
Order. He was appointed to the head of the Ottoman Fleet in 1858 for the second
time and in the same year to the Parliament with a salary of 75.000 kurushes.
In 1859 he became the grand vizier
(prime minister) for the second time. Since he had a hard character and did not
obey the given orders and he was in disagreement with the cabinet too, he was
dismissed after three months from his post. He told the following day to the
person who came to get his seal: “What do you think of me? Does Your Highness
see me as a toy?”
Since the Sultan wanted to use the
experience of Mehmet Emin Pasha, he appointed him for the third time to the
prime ministry, five months later in June 1860, which caused criticism. Mehmet Emin Pasha had the post of Mufti of
Rumeli simultaneously.
He was dismissed once again from his
post on 6 August 1861, because the Sultan Abdulaziz wanted to strengthen the
army and the navy, whereas Mehmet Emin Pasha wanted to implement the reform
programme (Islahat). He was given the post of governor of Edirne for the second
time in 1861 and he stayed there for three years.
He was appointed to the Ottoman
Parliament in 1865 and he was awarded the Ottoman Murassa (Prize) in 1866. He did not work
after he left his last post as the head of the Supreme Court of Justice in
1867.
When he died on 9 September 1871, he
had no fortune other than his only 81 golden liras and a villa on the Bosphorus
(in Kandilli) and the expences for his medical care and funeral was paid by
Sultan Mahmut. His grave is in the Sultan Mahmut Moseleum in Istanbul.
Beside his mother tongue Turkish, he
was in good command of the following languages: Arabic, Persian, French and
Greek. He had an honest and rebellious character. He could resist the Sultan
and tell his opinion freely. He used to like the Cypriots and help them
especially in getting higher education. He helped his fellow countryman, Mehmet
Kamil Pasha, in 1860, to get appointed to the Head of Evkaf in Cyprus, who
later was four times Grand Vizier of the Ottoman Empire.
According to George Hill, when Cyprus
was included in the Vilayet of the Islands, a mission to Istanbul consisting of
two Greek Cypriots and two Turkish Cypriots, headed by the Archbishop
Sophronios II, who left on 26 May 1870, returning on 5 August. Their arguments
were favoured by the Grand Vizier Kibrizli (Cypriot) Mehmed Pasha, a native of
Paphos and they quickly obtained the
relief for which they asked, to wit, the withdrawal of Cyprus from the Vilayet
of the Archipelago and its constitution as an independent Mütesarriflik, as
well as permission to draw the necessary seed for the following tear from the
Government granaries. Nevertheless, the independence thus conceded seems to
have been very soon withdrawn, possibly when Midhat Pasha restored the Vilayet
system which had been temporarily abolished by Mahmud Nedim Pasha in his first
vezirate (1871-2).” (The History of Cyprus, Cambridge 1952, p.250)
“By another special concession
obtained through the influence of Kibrisli Mehmed Pasha, the conscripts
recruited in Cyprus remained in the island during their term of service and
formed the only military force at the disposal of the Governor. Their complete
inefficiency, we are told, was conspicuous, the majority of them not having
fired a shot, but their qualities were never put to serious test.” (ibid,
p.251)
Melek Hanım (her maiden name was
Marie Dejean) was the first wife of Kibrizli (the Cypriot) Mehmet Emin Pasha.
Her Memoirs were published in 1872 by
the Harper and Brothers Publishing House in New York under the title “Thirty
Years in the Harem or the Autobiography of Melek Hanum, Wife of H.H.Kibrizli
Mehemet Pasha.” (The Turkish translation by Ismail Yerguz was published in 1995
in Istanbul from the French edition and the book is called in Turkish “Haremden
Mahrem Hatiralar: Melek Hanim”.
Melek Hanım's grand-mother was Greek
and her grand-father was Armenian. Her father was French and she met Mehmet
Emin Pasha in Paris where he was serving as a military attaché at the Ottoman
Embassy. When they returned to Istanbul, they lived in a house in Sultanahmet.
They moved to Tophane after Abdulmedjit got into power. Melek Hanım gives us
very important information in her memoirs about the daily life, wedding
ceremonies and the Ottoman statesmen of those years in Istanbul.
Another book called “Memoirs of Kibrizlizade
Major Osman Bey or the British in the 19th Century” was published in Izmir in
1996 (translated into Turkish by Ilhan Pinar) where the narrative of Mehmet
Emin Pasha's son completes Melek Hanım's narrative.
Mehmet Emin Pasha married Feride, the
daughter of Ali Riza Pasha, after he divorced his first wife. Shevket Pasha was
his step son, but he fell into the river in Ishkodra and drowned. He had Atiye,
her only child living. She got married with Tosun Pashazade Mustafa Bey, who later
became Grand Vizier of the Ottoman Empire. Mehmet Emin Pasha gave her daughter
on one condition that Mustafa Pasha would get the surname “Kibrizli”(Cypriot)
and he did so. They had three sons (Nazim Bey, Shevket Bey and Talat Bey) and
three daughters (Azize, Refika, Aliye).
Nazim Bey visited Cyprus during the
First World War. He stayed here until the war was over and he administered the
farms which belonged to the family. (The total surface of the farms called
Kukla, Mamonia, Ashelia and Bodima were 7,831 donums and a part of them was
made public property by the British colonial government and later sold to the
Greek Cypriots and the remaining properties were sold by Nazim Bey.)
Shevket Bey was the body guard of
Nazim Pasha, the President of the Sublime Porte and he was shot dead by Enver
Pasha or his men. Talat Bey was a man of adventure. One of the grand-daughters
of Mehmet Emin Pasha was Refika and her son, Emin Dirvana, as a retired
lieutenant-colonel, was appointed to Cyprus in 1960 as the Ambassador of
Turkey.
Radji Hodja tells the following story
which he heard from the old people of Tera village:
“During the days of Kibrizli Mehmet
Pasha the taxes in Cyprus were very high. A Turkish Cypriot imam, called
“Giavur Imam” of Tremithusa village was tempted by a priest, called Galoyiero,
to rebel, but in the end both were arrested and beheaded. Mehmet Pasha accepted
to have exemption for 30 years from taxes for those who would be settled in
Cyprus. First, Emin Efendi, the uncle of
Mehmet Pasha, went to Istanbul and became the Head of the Exchequer of
Abdulmedjit. He called the son of his brother, Mehmet, who was a shepherd, to
Istanbul, convincing him that he would buy him a flock of sheep and that he had
many farms in Istanbul. Mehmet took his beloved tasselled mace along with him
and went to Istanbul. He was educated in the Ottoman Imperial Court (Enderun),
learning excellent French and served as ambassador in France and Switzerland.
He became three times the Grand Vizier of the Ottoman Empire, but he never
forgot his tasselled mace which he took with him to Istanbul and kept in a
special room. He used to visit this secret room sometimes and he never showed
this room to anyone. The people surrounding him thought that he opted another
religion and hid himself in that room for prayers. After being reported to the
Sultan, Abdulmedjit came one day to Mehmet Emin Pasha's home and asked him to
show what he hid in that room. When the Sultan saw the tasselled mace, he asked
for an explanation. Mehmet Emin Pasha told him that he used to watch this mace
and remember that he had been a shepherd before. By visiting this room, he avoided becoming an
arrogant person!
Radji Hodja told also that Emin
Efendi, the uncle of Mehmet Pasha was the father-in-law of Mehmet Akif, poet of
the Turkish National Anthem.” (Hursoz newspaper, Nicosia, 26 August 1950)
(By Ahmet Djavit, Turkish Cypriot Historian, published
in “The Cyprus Sun”, April-May 2005)
Mehmet Kiamil Pasha was a Turkish Cypriot who
was appointed four times as the Grand Vizier of the Ottoman Empire:
1st period 25 September 1885-4 September 1891
2nd period 2 October 1895-7 November 1895
3rd
period 5 August 1908-14 February
1909
4th
period 29 October 1912-23 January
1913
***
Mehmet
Kiamil Pasha was born in 1832 in Nicosia. His father was Salih Kiamil, a
captain in the imperial Ottoman artillery corps which was sent to Cyprus from
Anamur in 1821 during an attempt of rebellion of the Cypriots against the
Ottoman rulers. Salih settled in Piroi village where he got married with Pembe
Hanım of Deftera village.
Mehmet
Kiamil became an orphan at the age of 10 when his father died. Together with
his brothers Shakir and Sadik, they were given to Zuhtu Efendi, a notable
person from Nicosia for shelter. Mehmet went to medrese and later to a Greek
Cypriot school. He could speak Greek as well.
His
father was a good friend of Mehmet Ali Pasha, first governor of Egypt and the
three brothers were sent to Egypt for education. Kiamil started first to learn
other foreign languages like English, French, Arabic and Persian, but the
language school was later turned into a military college. After he completed
his military education, he was employed by Abbas Pasha, the Hidive of Egypt, as
court translator and as advisor. Together with the Hidive of Egypt, he
travelled extensively in Europe.
After
ten years of service in Egypt, he was appointed in 1860, as the director of the
Cyprus Moslem Religious Foundation (Evkaf) with a salary of 40 pounds. He
served two and half years in this post and later he was the district officer
(kaimakam) of Larnaca for four months. Afterwards he was appointed as the
treasurer of the island, a post which he later continued in Syria. He served as
an administrator in the region of today's Lebanon, Syria and Palestine for 15
years which helped him a lot in his future statesmanship.
His
statement to the “Times” during the Armenian rebellion in Zeytun was
appreciated very much by the British in London and by the Sultan in Istanbul,
because the British Consul had given wrong information.
Between
his appointments as grand vizier he served as governor of Beirut, Jerusalem and
Herzogovina and as governor of the provinces of Kosova and Haleppo. Before his
fourth appointment as grand vizier he served as Undersecretary to the Minister
of Interior and later appointed as the Minister of Education and then Minister
of Evkaf Properties.
During
the reign of Said Pasha, he was appointed as the Prime Minister of the Ottoman
Empire on the recommendation of the Foreign Minister, Kara Todori Pasha with a
salary of 75,000 kurushes. He stayed in this post for 6 years and later he was
removed to become governor of Aydin
according to his wish. The Public Debts Question, the entrance of the foreign
capital into the Ottoman Empire, the construction of the railways and the
promotion of industry were the events during his reign of power. He was not
compromising in the issue of revolting Armenians. When he was dismissed in
1891, the Sultan gave him a pension of monthly 40,000 kurushes.
In
October 1895, the Sultan Abdulhamit was concerned of losing the throne after
the pressure of the big European powers and due to the Armenian activities, he
dismissed Said Pasha and appointed Kiamil Pasha for the second time to the post
of Grand Vizier, because he was friendly with the British. In the same year,
Kiamil Pasha increased his powers and proposed the election of the ministers by
the Grand Vizier. Again Abdulhamit was suspicious of him and Kiamil was
dismissed and sent to Izmir as governor where he served from 1895 to 1907.
Because of the information sent to Abdulhamit against Kiamil Pasha, he was
about to be sent to exile in Rhodes, Kiamil Pasha took refuge in the British
Consulate in Izmir. After the Sultan was properly informed, he was pardoned and
returned to Istanbul.
Kiamil
Pasha was appointed for the third time to the post of Prime Minister of the
Ottoman Empire (Grand Vizier) on 5 August 1908 during a very critical time
right after the proclamation of the second constitutional government. He took
very courageous steps for the modernisation of the administration as he helped
the convention of the Ottoman Parliament in the same year. In the elections
made at the end of 1908, the supporters of the “Unity and Progress Association”
had a very big success. He managed to use various political and religious
groups against each other, but he, after a vote of inconfidence, resigned on 14
February 1909.
Kiamil
Pasha visited Cyprus in 1910, for the first time since the British occupation
in 1878, together with his son Sabahattin and Muzaffer Bey. As he was coming to
Nicosia via Larnaca, he stopped his carriage at his native village of Piroi and
showed to his friends accompanying him, the house where he was born. After
drinking from the water of his village, he came to Nicosia.
He
stayed for two weeks in Nicosia and later went to Egypt in order to see His
Majesty George V who was about to leave for India. The King received him in the
yacht of “Medina” and a picture was taken all together which showed Queen Mary
and Kiamil Pasha sitting on the chairs. This was regarded as a respect to
Kiamil Pasha who was without any title then.
In
the back row, from the left to the right were Extraordinary Commissioner of
Egypt, Lord Kitchener, behind the Pasha, His Majesty the King, Hidive Abbas
Hilmi Pasha, Older Prince Ziyaeddin Efendi, the brother of the Queen, Duke
Doodd, the brother of Abbas Hilmi Pasha, Prince Mehmet Ali Pasha,
Head-Commander of the Egyptian Army General Wikent.
After
a rebellion by the religious elements who wanted to establish an order
according to the rules of Koran, the Ottoman Army captured Istanbul and the
Parliament dismissed Abdulhamit and appointed to his post his brother Mehmet
Reshat. Kiamil Pasha was in 1912 the Head of the State Council in the cabinet
of Ahmet Muhtar Pasha. The oppositional groups which were fighting against the
“Unity and Progress Party” for a coalition government, made Kiamil Pasha the
prime minister for the fourth time on 29 October 1912.
He
was already 80 years old when he took the power and the Ottoman Empire was
under the threat of division. As he was about to talk in a cabinet meeting
about the answer to be given to the big powers on 23 January 1913, he was
removed from office with a raid on Sublime Porte.
HIS RETURN
TO CYPRUS AND HIS DEATH
Kiamil
Pasha married four times. His son Hilmi Kiamil Bayur writes in his book
(Sadrazam Kiamil Pasa-Siyasi Hayati, Sanat Basimevi, Ankara, 1954) in the
chapter of “Kiamil Pasha and Cyprus” the following:
“Kiamil
Pasha had a deep love for the island he was born in and raised up. The first
years of his service as civil servant were spent there. After he left Cyprus,
the remaining close relatives continued the family there.
When
he was high up in the state hierarchy, he used to help the Cypriots, coming to
the fatherland for education, visit or work, as a faithful and benevolent
fellow compatriot. On the other hand, he used to think of retreating one day to
Cyprus, when he was confronted with the insecurities and undecidednesses of the
political life in Istanbul. That was why he bought a small piece of land. Thus
when he had to leave the country in 1913 because of political struggle, he did
not go somewhere else and returned to Cyprus, where after a while he died.”
(p.171)
Let
us read the following account of his return from his close friend Sir Harry
Luke:
“In
May 1913, the veteran octogenarian statesman unexpectedly appeared in his
native island, which he had not seen since he had ceased to govern it as far as
1864.
The
reason for the travels of the Grand Old Man of Turkey in the evening of his
days was no happy one. On the 23rd of the previous January Enver Bey, as he was
then, one of the most forceful of the Young Turk leaders, burst with some of
his associates into the Sublime Porte while the Cabinet was actually in
session, shot dead the Minister of War, the genial and popular Nazim Pasha, at
the Council table and overturned literally by force Kiamil's fourth and last
Ministry. Unable to remain in Turkey after this bloody coup, the ex-Grand
Vizier was invited by his friend Lord Kitchener to stay with him in Cairo, and
after three months in Egypt decided to await a favourable turn of fortune's
wheel, such as patience had brought him on previous occasions during the many
vicissitudes of his long and chequered career, in Cyprus. Suddenly conceived,
then, as was his journey and unforeseen his arrival in the island, the provision
of suitable accommodation for someone of His Highness's status presented a
problem. As I was about to go to Troodos for the summer, I offered him the loan
of my house during my absence, a suggestion the old gentleman was glad to
accept.
Kiamil
had landed in Cyprus with only two attendants, a valet and a black eunuch, but
five weeks later came the assassination of his Young Turk successor in the
Grand Vizierate, Mahmud Shevket Pasha, possibly to avenge the murder of Nazim;
and prominent Old Turks were either expelled or fled the country. These
included Kiamil Pasha's family, who had hitherto been unmolested and now joined
the old man in Nicosia. On my return from Troodos Kiamil took the house next to
mine, which was roomier and could accommodate his greatly enlarged household.
It was now a sight of considerable piquancy to watch from my windows his eldest
son, Said Pasha, a decrepit roué and invalid of sixty or thereabouts, being
wheeled up and down the ramparts for his morning airing in a bath-chair side by
side with the push-cart containing His Highness's youngest son, aged five or
six. An unusual pair of brothers.
On
the 14th November following his arrival in the island, while full of plans for
revisiting England in 1914, Kiamil Pasha died suddenly of syncope while engaged
in his morning correspondence, and was buried that afternoon by his and my
friend and landlord, Taib Effendi, in the court of the Arab Ahmed Mosque of
which Taib Effendi was the Imam. Truly Turkish in its contrasts and ups and
downs had been his life; truly Turkish was his burial. After a service in
S.Sophia, the great Mosque, the coffin was borne through the narrow streets of
the walled town and beneath overhanging lattices to its last resting-place,
followed by the highest and lowest in the island. Crowding upon the High
Commissioner, the principal British officials and the Moslem dignitaries, the
rabble of the town struggled and pushed, instigated partly by curiosity, partly
by the hope of being able for the moment or two to take part in the bearing of
the coffin.
As
the procession approached the Arab Ahmed Mosque with its swaying burden a
flower-seller, dressed in the baggy white breeches of the Turkish peasant of
Cyprus and with bare legs and clippers, joined the throng, laid aside the tray
of violets he had brought into the bazaar for sale and put his shoulder under
the coffin. It was the Grand Vizier's nephew, his sister's son, who grew
flowers and vegetables in the neighbouring village of Deftera and had come into
the town that afternoon to ply his trade. He encountered the procession
accidentally, unaware of his uncle's death; but, when he learned who was being
carried to burial, he took his place as a matter of course and no one thought
his participation strange.” (Cyprus- A
Portrait and an Appreciation, London 1973, p.158-160)
H.K.Bayur,
writes that after he retreated to Cyprus, he brought his family from Istanbul
to his near:
“In
the pictures taken a few days before he died, he was a strong man, walking. As
usual, he used to read and write three to five hours a day regularly. He just
started to write his memoirs about the development in the period of
constitutional government. But his life did not last.
According
to his wife Layika's account, he woke up early in the morning of 14 November
1913 and took his breakfast. He woke up his smallest son, 8-year-old Nazim to
go to the school. When he returned to his room, he told his wife that he felt
bad and asked his cardiac medicine which he used to take sometimes for relief.
He could not have the time to get the medicine and lay on the couch and
surrendered his soul without any difficulty. He died of arteriosclerosis. So he
died in the country of his birth, on the soil of Cyprus with the age of 81. On
that day, both the Mohammedans and the Christians, all the Cypriots were
mourning. They buried him, who was raised amongst them up to the highest rank
of the Ottoman Empire and played an important role in the fate of the empire in
its critical days in the garden of the Arab Ahmet Mosque in Nicosia.” (ibid,
s.397)
The
Times newspaper of London wrote on 14 November 1913 that the grand old man of
Turkey died and that it would not be wrong to say that there was no other
personality similar to him living then among the whole Ottoman high
officials.
Sir
Harry Luke writes that when Kiamil Pasha visited London for the Great
Exhibition of 1851, there he began the daily reading of the Times. He told this
to Luke in 1913 and that he had never interrupted since then for a single
issue. (ibid, p.157-158)
The
personalities who took part in his funeral were the following:
The
British governor of Cyprus, Sir Hamilton John Gould Adams, Chief Kadi (Judge)
Ali Rifat Efendi and the Mufti Hadji Hafız Ziyai, State Secretary Chief Judge
Sir Teisser, The Treasurer, Commissioner of Nicosia Mr.Kate, Major of Nicosia
A.Iliasides, Director of Education Mr. Newham, Kadi A.Muhiddin, Chief Inspector
of Education Ibrahim Hakki, Chief Inspector of Mohammedan Schools Halil
İbrahim, Hadji Dervish Pasha, Turkish Delegate of Evkaf Musa Irfan, Retired Judge Ahmet İzzet,
Dr.A.Esat, Dr.Nuri, Dr.Behich, Advocate Hafız Osman Djemal Bey and many other
notables and a big crowd. After the funeral,
Advocate Hafiz Djemal Bey made a speech about him. After 14 years, the British
Governor Sir Storrs made a new grave for him and opened it with a ceremony in
1928.
He
won many high decorations of the Ottoman Empire and other foreign countries. He
opened 12 Ottoman schools for the benefit of the island's education. Laleli, Turunchlu,
Tahtakale and Yeni Djami were among them.
Kiamil
Pasha was known as a man of integrity and intellectual capacity. He also made a
name for himself as an able administrator and played a significant role in
suppressing the Armenian revolts in Anatolia. His three-volume-work “The
Political History of the High Ottomans”, published between 1909 and 1911 is
considered to be an important source by the historians. Only the first volume
of his three- volume-”Memoirs” was published. His booklet “Answers to Said
Pasha” is considered to be a witty and brilliant piece of political writing.
His private library was transported to Cyprus when he returned in 1913. These
books, together with his decorations and other related documents, are currently
kept in the Turkish Cypriot National Archives in Kyrenia.
(This second
article was not published in The Cyprus Sun magazine. No information was given
to the author!)
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