33 Facts About Djemal Pasha

1.

Djemal Pasha was initially praised by Christian missionaries and provided support to the Armenian victims of the Adana massacres.

2.

Djemal Pasha was posted to serve with the 1st Department of the Imperial General Staff, and then he worked at the Kirkkilise Fortification Construction Department bound to Second Army.

3.

Djemal Pasha was assigned to the II Army Corps in 1896; being appointed two years later, the staff commander of Novice Division, stationed on the Salonica frontier.

4.

Djemal Pasha became influential in the department of military issues of the Committee of Union and Progress.

5.

Djemal Pasha was elected to the Board of the III Army Corps in 1907.

6.

Between 1908 and 1918, Djemal Pasha was one of the most important leaders of the Ottoman government.

7.

Djemal Pasha then resigned to rejoin the army in the Balkan Wars on the Salonica front line, attempting to bolster Turkey's European possessions from encroachment.

8.

Djemal Pasha played a significant role in the Second Balkan War, and with the revolution of the CUP on 23 January 1913, he became the commander of Constantinople and was appointed Minister of Public Works.

9.

Djemal Pasha was assigned the military command in the Constantinople Vilayet by Grand Visier Mahmud Sevket Pasha and by December 1913 he was given the title Pasha.

10.

Djemal Pasha went to France to negotiate an alliance with the French, but failed and then sided with Enver and Talaat, who favoured the German side.

11.

Previously snubbed by the Allies, Djemal Pasha switched his attention to an alliance with the Central Powers, although he had at first been opposed to a full alliance with Germany.

12.

Djemal Pasha was appointed with full powers in military and civilian affairs as Governor of Syria in 1915.

13.

Djemal Pasha was known among the local Arab inhabitants as al-Saffah, "the Blood Shedder", being responsible for the hanging of many Lebanese and Syrian Arab nationalists, including Sunni Muslims, Shia Muslims and Christians, wrongly accused of treason on 6 May 1916 in Damascus and Beirut.

14.

Jamal Djemal Pasha resumed his campaign of vengeance; he began to imprison most Arab personalities, charging them with treason against the State.

15.

Djemal Pasha was appointed to command and marshaled a vast army, ultimately led by Halil Kut Pasha, which by the time of the siege of Kut al-Amara numbered 200,000 Turks and Arab auxiliaries.

16.

Djemal Pasha refused to compromise his advantageous position, and strafed enemy attempts by the Tigris Corps to take relief boats up river.

17.

Djemal Pasha instituted strict control over Syria Province against Syrian opponents.

18.

Djemal Pasha's forces fought against the Arab nationalists and Syrian nationalists from 1916 onwards.

19.

Djemal Pasha used the information from these documents as well as from others belonging to the Decentralization Party.

20.

Djemal Pasha believed that insurgency under French control was the main reason for his military failings.

21.

Kressenstein was delighted to have repelled the British assault and wanted to mobilise aggressively by driving into Shellal, Wadi Ghazze, and Khan Yunis, but Djemal Pasha absolutely forbade it.

22.

The British had a whole division in retreat, so Djemal Pasha apprehended that a two-battalion sortie would have been annihilated.

23.

Djemal Pasha insisted that an extended railway would be needed to attack British Egypt.

24.

Djemal Pasha was completely committed to the Turko-German military machine, which he saw as necessary to resist the new wave of offensives launched by the British High Command.

25.

Mustafa Kemal Pasha and Djemal Pasha became increasingly skeptical of German capabilities, but Djemal was not yet prepared to openly back the German allies.

26.

Djemal Pasha's army delayed them further at the vital Junction railway station.

27.

On 9 April and then 19 April 1918, Djemal Pasha ordered the evacuation of civilians from Jaffa and Jerusalem.

28.

Djemal Pasha's policies allowed some Armenians to survive in the territories under his control.

29.

Later in 1920, Djemal Pasha went to Central Asia, where he worked as a military advisor, charged with modernising the Afghan Royal Army.

30.

Djemal Pasha's first wife was a daughter of Bekir Pasha, and they married on 19 February 1897.

31.

Djemal Pasha's grandson, Hasan Cemal, is a well-known columnist, journalist and writer in Turkey.

32.

Djemal Pasha is known in the Lebanon and Syria as Jamal Basha as-Saffah, for his treatment of the local Syrian population during WWI.

33.

Djemal Pasha named a street in Damascus after himself, but the name was later changed to "al-Nasr Street".