56 Facts About Enver Pasha

Ismail Enver, better known as Enver Pasha was an Ottoman military officer, revolutionary, and convicted war criminal who formed one-third of the dictatorial triumvirate known as the "Three Pashas" in the Ottoman Empire.

Enver Pasha was a leader of the 1908 Young Turk Revolution which reestablished the Constitution and parliamentary democracy in the Ottoman Empire, and along with Ahmed Niyazi was hailed as "hero of the revolution".

Enver Pasha led a disastrous attack on Russian forces in the Battle of Sarikamish, after which he blamed Armenians for his defeat.

Enver Pasha ended up in Central Asia, where he was killed leading the Basmachi Revolt against the Bolsheviks.

Enver Pasha was born in Constantinople on 22 November 1881.

Enver Pasha had two younger brothers, Nuri and Mehmed Kamil, and two younger sisters, Hasene and Mediha.

Enver Pasha studied in different military institutions and ultimately graduated from the Ottoman Military Academy in 1902.

Enver Pasha became the main figure in the CUP Monastir branch and he initiated Ottoman officers like Ahmet Niyazi bey and Eyup Sabri into the CUP organisation.

For example, Enver Pasha saw deputies as mediocre and in reference to Le Bon he thought that as a collective mind they had the potential to become dangerous and be the same as a despotic leader.

CUP Internal headquarters proposed that Enver Pasha go form a CUP band in the countryside.

Enver Pasha sent an ultimatum to the Inspector General on 11 July 1908 and demanded that within 48 hours Abdul Hamid II issue a decree for CUP members that had been arrested and sent to Constantinople to be freed.

Enver Pasha warned that if the ultimatum was not complied with by the Inspector General, he would refuse to accept any responsibility for future actions.

Enver Pasha possessed strong authority among fellow Muslims in the area where he resided and could communicate with them as he spoke both Albanian and Turkish.

Enver Pasha stated that the CUP had no support in the countryside apart from a few large landowners with CUP membership that lived in towns, yet they retained influence in their villages and were able to mobilise the population for the cause.

Enver Pasha wrote in his memoirs that while he still was involved in band activity in the days toward the end of the revolution he composed more detailed rules of engagement for use by paramilitary units and bands.

Toward the latter part of 1908, photographs of Niyazi and Enver Pasha had reached Constantinople and school children of the time played with masks on their faces that depicted the revolutionaries.

Enver Pasha invited German officers to reform the Ottoman Army.

Enver Pasha decided to join the defense of the province and left Berlin for Libya.

Enver Pasha Bey took advantage of the situation and led an army into Eastern Thrace, recovering Adrianople from the Bulgarians, who had concentrated their forces against the Serbs and Greeks, with the Treaty of Constantinople.

Enver Pasha is therefore recognised by some Turks as the "conqueror of Edirne".

In 1914, he became Minister of War in the cabinet of Said Halim Enver Pasha, and married HIH Princess Emine Naciye Sultan, the daughter of Prince Suleyman, thus entering the royal family as a damat.

Enver Pasha assumed command of the Ottoman forces arrayed against the Russians in the Caucasus theatre.

Enver Pasha thought of himself as a great military leader, while the German military adviser, Liman von Sanders, thought of him as incompetent.

Enver Pasha's strategy seemed feasible on paper, but he had ignored external conditions, such as the terrain and the weather.

Enver Pasha's army was defeated by the Russian force, and in the subsequent retreat, tens of thousands of Turkish soldiers died.

Nonetheless, Enver Pasha later initiated the deportations and sporadic massacres of Western Armenians, culminating in the Armenian genocide.

Enver Pasha was confident that the capital was safe from any Allied attacks.

Enver Pasha then left to attend to pressing concerns on the Caucasus Front.

Later, after many towns on the peninsula had been destroyed and women and children killed by the Allied bombardment, Enver Pasha proposed setting up a concentration camp for the remaining French and British citizens in the empire.

Turkish troops were deserting freely, and when Enver Pasha visited Beirut in June 1917, soldiers were forbidden to be stationed along his route for fear that he would be assassinated.

Enver Pasha looked for victory when Russia withdrew from the Caucasus region.

When Enver Pasha discussed his plans for taking over southern Russia, he ordered the creation of a new military force called the Army of Islam which would have no German officers.

The Third Army under Vehib Enver Pasha was moving forward to pre-war borders and towards the First Republic of Armenia, which formed the frontline in the Caucasus.

The Army of Islam, under the control of Nuri Enver Pasha, moved forward and attacked Australian, New Zealand, British, and Canadian troops led by General Lionel Charles Dunsterville at Baku.

Enver Pasha first went to Germany, where he communicated and worked with German Communist figures like Karl Radek.

Besides working for General von Seeckt, Enver Pasha envisioned cooperation between the new Soviet Russian government against the British, and went to Moscow.

Enver Pasha tried to support the Turkish national movement and corresponded with Mustafa Kemal, giving him the guarantee that he did not intend to intervene in the movement in Anatolia.

Enver Pasha's appearance was a personal triumph, but the congress failed in its aim to create a mass pro-Bolshevik movement among Muslims.

Enver Pasha disliked Mustafa Kemal for his circumspect attitude toward the political agenda pursued by his Committee of Union and Progress, and regarded him as a serious rival.

On 30 July 1921, with the Turkish War of Independence in full swing, Enver Pasha decided to return to Anatolia.

Enver Pasha went to Batum to be close to the new border.

Enver Pasha changed his plans and traveled to Moscow where he managed to win the trust of the Soviet authorities.

Enver Pasha's aim was to unite the numerous Basmachi groups under his own command and mount a co-ordinated offensive against the Bolsheviks in order to realise his pan-Turkic dreams.

Enver Pasha was a vain, strutting man who loved uniforms, medals and titles.

Alternatively, according to Melkumov's memoirs, Enver Pasha managed to escape on horseback and hid for four days in the village of Chaghan.

Enver Pasha's hideout was located after a Red Army officer infiltrated the village in disguise.

Enver Pasha's Koran was taken from his lifeless fingers and was filed in the archives of the Soviet secret police.

Enver Pasha was re-buried on the 4 August, the anniversary of his death in 1922.

Enver Pasha's image remains controversial in Turkey, since Enver and Ataturk had a personal rivalry at the end of the Ottoman Empire and his memory was cultivated by the Kemalists.

On 16 October 1945, their son Hasmet Orbay, Enver Pasha's nephew, shot and killed a physician named Neset Naci Arzan, an event known as the "Ankara murder".

Around 1908, Enver Pasha became the subject of gossip about an alleged romance between him and Princess Iffet of Egypt.

When this story reached Istanbul, the grand vizier, Huseyin Hilmi Pasha decided to exploit Enver's marital eligibility by arranging a rapprochement between the Committee for Union and Progress and the imperial family.

Enver Pasha had never seen Naciye, and he did not trust his mother's letters, since he suspected her of being enamored with the idea of having a princess as her daughter-in-law.

When Enver Pasha left for Russian SSR his family remained there.

Enver Pasha's son, Sultanzade Ali Bey was born in Berlin on 29 September 1921, after Enver's departure and he never saw him.

Enver Pasha plays an important role in The Golden House of Samarkand, a comic book by Hugo Pratt, from the italian series Corto Maltese.