Mehmed Talât | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Grand Vizier of the Ottoman Empire | |
| In office 4 February 1917 – 8 October 1918 | |
| Monarchs | Mehmed V Mehmed VI |
| Preceded by | Said Halim Pasha |
| Succeeded by | Ahmed Izzet Pasha |
| Minister of the Interior | |
| In office 12 June 1913 – 8 October 1918 | |
| Grand Vizier | Himself Said Halim Pasha |
| Preceded by | Mehmed Adil [tr] |
| Succeeded by | Mustafa Arif |
| In office August 1909 – March 1911 | |
| Grand Vizier | İbrahim Hakkı Pasha Hüseyin Hilmi Pasha |
| Preceded by | Mehmed Ferid Pasha |
| Succeeded by | Halil Menteşe |
| Minister of Finance | |
| In office November 1914 – 4 February 1917 | |
| Grand Vizier | Said Halim Pasha |
| Preceded by | Mehmed Cavid |
| Succeeded by | Abdurrahman Vefik Sayın [tr] |
| Member of the Chamber of Deputies | |
| In office 17 December 1908 – 8 October 1918 | |
| Constituency | Adrianople(1908,1912,1914) |
| Personal details | |
| Born | (1874-09-01)1 September 1874 Kırcaali,Ottoman Empire (nowBulgaria) |
| Died | 15 March 1921(1921-03-15) (aged 46) Berlin,Germany |
| Manner of death | Assassination by gunshot |
| Resting place | Monument of Liberty, Istanbul |
| Nationality | Ottoman |
| Political party | Union and Progress Party |
| Spouse | Hayriye Talat Bafralı |
| Conviction | Premeditated mass murder[1] |
| Trial | Ottoman Special Military Tribunal |
| Criminal penalty | Death (in absentia) |
| Details | |
| Target | Ottoman Armenians |
| Killed | Around 1 million |
Mehmed Talât (1 September 1874 – 15 March 1921), commonly known asTalaat Pasha orTalat Pasha,[a] was an OttomanYoung Turk activist, revolutionary, politician, andconvicted war criminal who served as thede facto leader of theOttoman Empire from 1913 to 1918. He was chairman of theUnion and Progress Party, which operated a one-party dictatorship in the Empire; duringWorld War I he becameGrand Vizier (prime minister). He has been called the architect of theArmenian genocide,[3] and was responsible for other ethnic cleansings during his time asMinister of Interior Affairs.
Talaat was an early member of theCommittee of Union and Progress (CUP), eventually leading itsSalonica chapter during theHamidian era. After the CUP succeeded in restoring theconstitution andparliament in the 1908Young Turk Revolution, he was elected as a deputy fromAdrianople to theChamber of Deputies and later becameMinister of the Interior. He played an important role in the downfall of SultanAbdul Hamid II the next year during the31 March Incident by organizing a counter government. Multiple crises in the Empire including the 31 March Incident, attacks onRumelian Muslims in theBalkan Wars, and the power struggle with theFreedom and Accord Party made Talaat and theUnionists disillusioned with multiculturalOttomanism and political pluralism, turning them into hard-line authoritarianTurkish nationalists.
In 1913, Talaat andIsmail Enver carried outa coup d'état withMahmud Şevket Pasha as a reluctant partner. With the latter's assassination, an autocratic triumvirate of CUP Central Committee members lead the Ottoman Empire, consisting of himself, Enver, andAhmed Cemal (known as theThree Pashas) of whom Talaat was its civilian leader. Talaat and Enver were influential bringing theOttoman Empire into the First World War. During World War I, heordered on 24 April 1915 thearrest and deportation of Armenian intellectuals inConstantinople (nowIstanbul), most of them being ultimately murdered, and on 30 May 1915 promulgated theTemporary Law of Deportation; these events initiated theArmenian genocide. He is widely considered the main perpetrator of the genocide,[4][5][6][7][8] and is thus held responsible for the death of around 1 million Armenians.
In a move that established total Unionist control over theOttoman government, Talaat Pasha became Grand Vizier in 1917.[9] He personally negotiated theTreaty of Brest-Litovsk with theBolsheviks, regaining parts of Eastern Anatolia which wereoccupied by Russia since 1878, and won therace to Baku on theCaucasus front. However breakthroughs by the Allies in theMacedonia andPalestine fronts meant defeat for the Ottomans and the downfall of the CUP, whereupon he resigned. On the night of 2–3 November 1918, Talaat Pasha and other members of theCUP's central committee fled the Ottoman Empire. TheOttoman Special Military Tribunal convicted and sentenced him to deathin absentia for subverting the constitution, profiteering from the war, and organizing massacres against Greeks and Armenians. Exiled in Berlin, he supported theTurkish Nationalists led byMustafa Kemal Pasha (Atatürk) inTurkey's War of Independence. He wasassassinated in Berlin in 1921 bySoghomon Tehlirian, a member of theArmenian Revolutionary Federation, as part ofOperation Nemesis.[9]
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Mehmed Talaat was born in 1874 inKırcaali,Adrianople (Edirne) Vilayet into a middle-class family[10] ofRomani,[11][12][13] Turkish,[14] andPomak descent.[15][16][17] His father, Ahmet Vasıf, was akadı from Çeplece,[18] a nearby village.[8] His mother Hürmüz was from a Turkish family that migrated to the region from Dedeler village,Kayseri.[19][14] Talaat's family fled toConstantinople (Istanbul) when their home was occupied by Russian troops during the1877–1878 Russo-Turkish war, an experience that contributed to Talaat's nationalism. His father died when Talaat was eleven years old, putting his mother and two sisters under his care.[20]
Talaat had a powerful build and a dark complexion.[21] His manners were gruff, which caused him to be expelled from the military secondary school at the age of sixteen without a certificate after a conflict with his teacher.[10] Without earning a degree, he joined the staff of atelegraph company as a postal clerk in Adrianople to provide for his family. His salary was not high, so he worked after hours as aTurkish language teacher in theAlliance Israelite School which served the Jewish community ofAdrianople.[21] At the age of 21 Talaat was involved in a love affair with the daughter of the Jewish headmaster for whom he worked.[22]
The Ottoman Empire was ruled by the sultanAbdul Hamid II, who ran a modern autocracy, complete witha secret police, mass surveillance, and censorship. This autocracy in turn produced a culture of suspicion as well as a spirit of clandestine rebellion in many Ottoman citizens, young Talaat included. He was caught sending a telegram saying "Things are going well. I'll soon reach my goal." He was confronted by the police for this telegram, and claimed that the message was to his dalliance, who defended him. With two of his friends from the post office, he was charged with tampering with the official telegraph and was arrested in 1893.[22]
After being released from prison, he joined theCommittee of Union and Progress (CUP), a revolutionaryYoung Turk organization which was agitating against Abdul Hamid's autocracy. In 1896 he was imprisoned for having been part of a CUP cell together with his brother-in-law.[23] Sentenced to three years in jail, Talaat was pardoned after serving two years[21] but exiled to Salonika (Thessaloniki), where he became a postal clerk in July 1898.[23] Between 1898 and 1908 he served as a postman on the staff of the Salonika Post Office, during which he continued his revolutionary activities in secret. He was promoted to municipal chief clerk in April 1903, following which he could afford to bring his mother and sisters to Salonika.[24] His job in the postal administration gave him the opportunity to smuggle into the city newspapers published by the dissidents abroad.[25] That year he joined the Salonica Freemason LodgeMacedonia Risorta and began a correspondence withAhmed Rıza. Talaat met then economics professor, later friend and CUP Finance MinisterMehmed Cavid inSalonika Law School, where he took classes to supplement his lackluster education.[23] The government was still monitoring his activities, and he was almost exiled again toAnatolia. However the Inspector General for MacedoniaHüseyin Hilmi Pasha was partial towards the secret committee and intervened, and Talaat returned to Salonika to work as a school principal.[26]
In September 1906, theOttoman Freedom Committee (OFC) was formed as another secret Young Turk organization based in Salonika. The founders of the OFC included Talaat, the CUP's future general secretaryDr. Midhat Şükrü,Mustafa Rahmi, andİsmail Canbulat [tr].[27] He served on the Central Committee of the OFC with Rahmi and Canbulat. Many officers of theThird Army were recruited into the OFC, including the future heroes of the revolutionAhmed Niyazi andİsmail Enver. Under Talaat's initiative, the Salonika-based OFC merged with Ahmed Rıza's Paris-based CUP in September 1907, and the group became the internal center of the CUP in the Ottoman Empire.[27] Talaat was brieflysecretary-general of the internal CUP, whileBahattin Şakir was secretary-general of the external CUP. After the revolution, Talaat's more radical and militant internal CUP would see themselves supplant the older cadre of Young Turks that was Rıza's network of exiles.[28]
TheUnionists found themselves at the behest of a spontaneous revolution in 1908, which commenced with Niyazi and Enver's flight into the Albanian hinterlands. Talaat's role during theYoung Turk Revolution was to organize a plot to assassinate the garrison commander of Salonika, Ömer Nâzım, who was a Hamidian loyalist and spy master of the area. Nâzım survived his hiredFedai with injury, but the incident, as well as other assassinations carried out by the CUP during the revolution, intimidated theHamidian establishment enough to reopen the parliament and reinstate theconstitution.[29] For the first time in three decades, anelection was held for theChamber of Deputies, which this timefeatured political parties. Talaat was easily elected into parliament as Union and Progress's candidate for deputy of Adrianople, and then was elected the parliament's deputy-president under Rıza.[30]
A year later in the31 March Incident, what started out as an anti-Unionist demonstration in the capital quickly turned into an anticonstitutionalist-monarchist counter revolution where Abdul Hamid attempted to reestablish his autocracy. The Grand Vizier Hüseyin Hilmi Pasha was forced to resign forAhmed Tevfik Pasha.Khachatur Malumian, leader of theDashnak Party, hid Talaat andDr. Nâzım in his house while mob violence targeted MPs.[31] Three days later, Talaat and 100 MPs escaped Constantinople for Ayastefanos (Yeşilköy) to organize a separate national assembly from the volatile situation in Constantinople, and declared the change in government illegal.[32] Relief came in the form of pro-constitutionalist forces known as theAction Army led byMahmud Şevket Pasha, which stopped in Ayastefanos before marching on the capital; it was secretly agreed there that Abdul Hamid would be replaced by his brother.[32] After the reactionary revolt was crushed, Talaat bullied theShaykh-al-IslamSahip Molla to get afatwa for Abdul Hamid's deposition, and convinced Tevfik Pasha to step down and return Hilmi Pasha to the premiership.[33] With the fatwa, the parliament voted to depose Abdul Hamid II. Talaat andAhmed Muhtar Pasha headed the delegation to announce toPrince Reşad of his ascension to the throne.
In August 1909 Mehmed Talaat led a 17-member parliamentary delegation toWestminster.[34] He learned there that he was appointedMinister of the Interior in Hilmi Pasha's cabinet reshuffle,[35] becoming the second Unionist with a cabinet position (first beingCavid asFinance Minister). He continued Hamidian era anti-Zionist restrictions inOttoman Palestine,[36] as well as enforce imperial rule in revolting provinces likeAlbania andYemen.[37] That year, Louis Rambert, director of theRégie des Tabacs, wrote that Talaat was "the acknowledged head of the Committee of Union and Progress and the Young Turks."[38] BiographerHans-Lukas Kieser writes that he was under the influence ofBahattin Şakir andMehmed Nâzım before 1908, but after late 1909 he had an increased interest in the new Central Committee memberZiya Gökalp and his more revolutionary andPan-Turkist ideas.[39]
As tension built between the CUP and opposition, a meeting betweenKrikor Zohrab, Cavid, Talat,Halil Menteşe,İbrahim Hakkı Pasha,Vartkes Serengülian, andKarekin Pastermadjian, where the main topic of discussion was the CUP's lack of commitment to pluralism.[40] The central committee voted against the opposition's points for cooperation, inflaming the already toxic political climate. On 21 November, 1911, the opposition united around theFreedom and Accord Party. Talaat already had to step down as Interior Minister in March 1911 for his fellow committee-man Halil Menteşe.[41] As a new election was called for 1912, Talaat made sure to be appointedMinister of Post and Telegraph in 22 January ,1912 so the election outcome could be certain.[42][43]
In the1912 election known as the "election of clubs", Union and Progress won a lopsided victory against theFreedom and Accord Party due to widespread employment of electoral fraud and violence. As a result, Freedom and Accord organized a group in the military known as theSavior Officers to bring down the CUP dominated legislature. Talaat urged for Şevket Pasha, who was appointedMinister of War after the 31 March Incident, to resign as in the lead-up tothe coup d'état, something he wrote that he regretted once Şevket Pasha did so in support of the Savior Officers.[44] Eventually, pro-CUP Grand VizierSaid Pasha had to acquiesce to the Savior Officers demands, and the parliament was dissolved with a new election to take place in autumn of 1912. It was no longer safe for Unionists to be in the open, and it was plausible that the CUP would be banned by the government. Talaat had to once again lay low, hiding with Midhat Şükrü,Hasan Tahsin, andCemal Azmi in Tahsin's brother-in-law's house.[45] By 1912 Talaat definitely abandoned the belief that constitutionalism and rule of law could unite the multi-ethnic and fragmented "Ottoman nation", which was the originalraison d'être of the Young Turks, and turned to more radical politics.[46] He and other high ranking CUP leaders organized and gave speeches in a pro-war rally against the Balkan nations inSultanahmet Square before theBalkan Wars broke out.[47]
The Savior Officer-backed government ofAhmed Muhtar Pasha fell soon after when theBalkan League achieved decisive victory over the Ottoman Empire in theFirst Balkan War. Talaat volunteered for the war, but was dismissed from the army for distributing political propaganda.[48] The CUP's headquarters in Salonika had to be relocated to Constantinople when the city fell to Greece, while his hometown ofAdrianople was besieged by the Bulgarians. The imperial capital swelled withRumelian Muslim refugees that were expelled from the Balkans. The scheduled election had to be canceled, andKâmil Pasha's government startedpeace negotiations with the Balkan League in December. Following rumors that the government was willing to surrender Adrianople which was still under siege, Talaat and Enver began plotting a coup. The coup launched on 23 January 1913, known as theRaid on the Sublime Porte, succeeded in overthrowing the government, with Kâmil Pasha and his cabinet resigning for Mahmud Şevket Pasha'snational unity government which this time included the CUP, and resumed fighting. Talaat and Enver urged Şevket Pasha to accept the Grand Vezierate, but mutual distrust between the generalissimo and the committee meant Talaat only came back as deputy Interior Minister, so he employedkomiteci politics to stay influential.[49] He urged for the Empire to continue fighting in theFirst Balkan War torelieve Adrianople, as well as order the arrests against leading Freedom and Accord members and journalists in the subsequent state of emergency.[50] However, with demands from the great powers to surrender Adrianople and a deteriorating military situation, Şevket Pasha and the CUP finally acknowledged defeat.
Once Şevket Pasha was out of the picture due to his assassination on 12 July 1913, the CUP established a de factoone-party state in the Ottoman Empire. Talaat returned as interior minister inSaid Halim Pasha's cabinet. He kept this post until the CUP's fall from power following theOttoman Empire's surrender inWorld War I in 1918. Talaat, with Enver and commandantAhmet Cemal, formed a group later known as theThree Pashas. These men were atriumvirate that ran the Ottoman government until the end of World War I in October 1918. However historian Hans-Lukas Kieser asserts that this state of rule by triumvirate was accurate for only the years 1913–1914, and thereafter Talaat was the sole dictator of the Ottoman Empire, especially once he became Grand Vizier in 1917.[51]Erik Jan Zürcher instead asserts a rule of diarchy, with Talaat leader of the civilian government and Enver the military, especially after Cemal Pasha's dispatch to Syria.[52] Kieser asserts his Ottoman Empire was not a totalitarian state, but a balance of many factions maintained through kickbacks and corruption. Strong governors had much maneuverability to themselves, provided they execute Talaat and the central committee's newTurkification programmes.[53]
That summer came Bulgaria's attack on Greece and Serbia, starting theSecond Balkan War. Talaat was able to procure an important loan from the Régie to ensure success in retaking Adrianople.[54] The Ottomans soon joined the war, retaking the city even though the great powers had forced the Ottomans to surrender Adrianople only months earlier. Talaat symbolically joined the army and took part in the recapture.[26] This was a failure of diplomacy by the great powers; for Talaat and the committee, this moment made them learn to not take international diplomacy seriously if the situation on the ground reflected otherwise.[55] He led the negotiations with Bulgaria in theConstantinople conference, which resulted in a population exchange and formalizing Ottoman reassertion of sovereignty over Adrianople.[56] Talaat would negotiateanother peace with Greece too.[56] This peace was very tenuous however, as Talaat, Enver Pasha, andMahmud Celal (Bayar), secretary of the local CUP branch, organized thedeportations of Rûm in theSmyrna Vilayet, which almost started a war with Greece.[57] Talaat was confronted by the sultan when the sultan learned of the deportations, but insisted that the stories of persecution ofRûm were fabricated by the Empire's enemies.[58]
Between 1911 and 1914 the Ottoman Empire negotiated with the European powers and the Dashnak Party on reform in the East. He attended multiple meetings with leading Armenian politiciansKrikor Zohrab,Karekin Pastermadjian,Bedros Hallachian [tr], andVartkes Serengülian, however lack of trust between the old allies of the committee and the Dashnaks and growing radicalism within the CUP slowed negotiations.[59] Under overwhelming diplomatic pressure,a reform package was finally produced in December 1914, but it would be soon terminated under wartime conditions and an about-face by the committee on theArmenian question. On 6 September, Talaat Pasha sent a telegram to the governors ofHüdâvendigâr (Bursa),İzmit,Canik,Adrianople,Adana,Aleppo,Erzurum,Bitlis,Van,Sivas,Mamuretülaziz (Elazığ), andDiyarbekir to prepare for the arrests ofOttoman Armenian citizens.[60] Armenians and Assyrians within the Empire began organising themselves intomilitias to protect themselves as theSpecial Organisation, a Unionist paramilitary, started harassing them.[61]
Throughout theSecond Constitutional Era, the Ottoman Empire was diplomatically isolated, which it paid for dearly through territorial losses in the Balkans. Therefore, on 9 May, Talaat andAhmet İzzet Pasha met withCzar Nicholas II andSergei Sazanov to propose an alliance with Russia, which ended up falling through.[62] Talaat, Enver, andHalil were successful in securing asecret alliance with Germany during theJuly Crisis. Following the sale of theGoeben andBreslau to the Ottoman Empire, the three convinced Cemal Pasha to agree toa naval strike against Russia.[46] The resulting declarations of war saw many resign from the government, including Cavid, which saddened Talaat.[63] He became finance minister in Cavid's place.
With the expectation that the new war would free the Empire of its constraints on its sovereignty by the great powers, Talaat went ahead with accomplishing major goals of the CUP; unilaterally abolishing the centuries-oldCapitulations, prohibiting foreign postal services, terminatingLebanon's autonomy, and suspending the reform package for the Eastern Anatolian provinces that had been in effect for just seven months. This unilateral action prompted a joyous rally inSultanahmet Square.[64]
Talaat and his committee hoped to save the Ottoman Empire by quickly and decisively establishingTuran by capitalizing onthe declaration of Jihad. But Enver Pasha's decisivedefeat in Sarikamish and Cemal Pasha'sfailure to take Suez meant Talaat had to come to terms with the reality on the ground, which made him fall into a depression.[65] He worked to keep morale afloat on the crumblingCaucasian front by relaying false information of successes in wars in the Balkans which weren't even happening.[66]
A report presented to Talaat andCevdet Bey (governor ofVan Vilayet) by Dashnak membersArshak Vramian andVahan Papazian on atrocities committed by the Special Organisation against Armenians inVan created more friction between the two organisations. However, the Unionists were still not yet confident enough to purge Armenians from politics or pursue policies of ethnic engineering.[67] Victory of thedefence of the Bosphorus on 18 March though galvanized Talaat, and he decided to take action by starting the machinations of the destruction of Christian minorities in the Ottoman Empire.[68]
On 24 April 1915, Talaat Pasha issued anorder to close all Armenian political organizations operating within the Ottoman Empire and arrest Armenians connected to them, justifying the action by stating that the organizations were controlled from outside the empire, were inciting upheavals behind the Ottoman lines, and were cooperating with Russian forces. This order resulted in the arrest on the night of 24–25 April 1915 of235 to 270 Armenian community leaders in Constantinople, includingDashnak andHunchak politicians, clergymen, physicians, authors, journalists, lawyers, and teachers, the majority of whom were eventually murdered, including his colleaguesZohrab andSerengülian.[69] Although the mass killings of Armenian civilians had begun inVan several weeks earlier, these mass arrests in Constantinople are considered by many commentators to be the start of the Armenian genocide.[69][70][71]
"Talat told Dr. Mordtman, the man in charge of the Armenian desk and the dragoman at the German Embassy at Istanbul, that Turkey was "intent on taking advantage of the war in order to thoroughly liquidate its internal foes, i.e., the indigenous Christians, without being thereby disturbed by foreign intervention."[72]
He then issued the order for theTehcir Law of 1 June 1915 to 8 February 1916 that allowed for the mass deportation of Armenians, a principal means of carrying out what is now recognized as a genocide against Armenians.[73] The deportees did not receive any humanitarian assistance and there is no evidence that the Ottoman government provided the extensive facilities and supplies that would have been necessary to sustain the life of hundreds of thousands of Armenian deportees during their forced march to theSyrian Desert or after.[71][74] Meanwhile, thedeportees were subject to periodic rape and massacre. Talaat, who was a telegraph operator from a young age, had installed a telegraph machine in his own home and sent "sensitive" telegrams during the course of the deportations.[75][76] This was confirmed by his wifeHayriye, who stated that she often saw him using it to give direct orders to what she believed were provincial governors.[77]
Numerous diplomats and notable figures confronted Talaat Pasha over the deportations and news of massacres. He had several conversations with theUnited States ambassador,Henry Morgenthau, Sr. On 2 August 1915 Talaat told him that "our Armenian policy is absolutely fixed and that nothing can change it. We will not have the Armenians anywhere in Anatolia.They can live in the desert but nowhere else." In another exchange, he demanded from Morgenthau the list of the holders of American insurance policies belonging to Armenians in an effort to appropriate the funds to the state. Morgenthau refused.[78][79] Talaat told him in a later conversation that:
It is no use for you to argue . . . we have already disposed of three quarters of the Armenians; there are none at all left in Bitlis, Van, and Erzeroum. The hatred between the Turks and the Armenians is now so intense that we have got to finish with them. If we don't, they will plan their revenge.[80]
Talaat believed Armenian deportation avenged theMuslim expulsions of the Balkan Wars, and resettledMuhacir in abandoned Armenian property.[81]
TheAssyrian Christian community was also targeted by the Unionist government in what is now known as theSeyfo. Talaat ordered the governor of Van to remove the Assyrian population inHakkâri, leading to the deaths of hundreds of thousands, however this anti-Assyrian policy couldn't be implemented nationally.[82]
Meanwhile, deportations of theRûm were put on hold as Germany wished for a Greek ally or neutrality, however for the sake of their alliance,German reaction to the deportations of Armenians was muted. The participation of the Ottoman Empire as an ally against theEntente powers was crucial to German grand strategy in the war, and good relations were needed. Following Russian breakthrough in the Caucasus and signs that Greece would side with the Allied powers after all, the CUP was finally able to resume operations against the Greeks of the empire, and Talaat ordered thedeportation of the Pontus Greeks of the Black Sea coast.[83]
Talaat was also a leading force in theTurkification anddeportation of Kurds. In May 1916 he mandated Kurds be deported to the western region of Anatolia, and prohibited the resettlement of Kurds to the south in order to prevent Kurds from becomingArabized.[84] He was a major force behind the policies regarding the resettlement of Kurds and wanted to be informed of whether the Kurds would really be turkified or not and how they got along with the Turkish inhabitants in the areas where they had been resettled too.[85] Talaat outlined that nowhere in the Empire's vilayets should the Kurdish population be more than 5%.[86] To that end, Balkan Muslim and Turkish refugees were prioritised to be resettled inUrfa,Maraş, andAntep, while someKurds were deported to Central Anatolia.[84] Kurds were also supposed to be resettled in abandoned Armenian property, however negligence by resettlement authorities still resulted in the deaths of many Kurds by famine.[87]
Approximately 1.7 million Christians (including 200,000 Greeks and100,000 Lebanese Christians and Druze) died during World War I and thetotal Ottoman war deaths of some 3.7 million amounted to 14% of the prewar population.[88] According to the Ottoman Interior Ministry, the population of Ottoman Armenians decreased to 284,000 from 1,256,000.[89]
On 4 February 1917, Talaat finally replacedSaid Halim Pasha (a puppet of the committee anyway) by becoming theGrand Vizier of the Ottoman Empire,[90] while also retaining the Ministry of the Interior.[90] This move was precipitated by the liquidation of the Islamist faction of the party.[91] This made him the first member of parliament to become a Prime Minister in Ottoman (and Turkish) history.[2] This move completed the Unionist party-state, as he was both Grand Vizier and chairman of the Union and Progress Party.[92] Talaat, at the time he became Grand Vizier, gained the title "Pasha".[2]
On 15 February, Talaat Pasha gave a speech to parliament of his program, expressing his will to reform Ottoman society to be on par withEuropean civilization. Like first president of thesucceeding republic,Mustafa Kemal (Atatürk), would later say similarly, Talaat Pasha believed that there was "only one civilization in the world [Europe], [and that Turkey] to be saved, must be joined to civilization." Another point brought up was cracking down on corruption, much of which he was responsible for and never followed through with.[93]
Many social reforms were introduced, including modernization ofthe calendar, employment of women as nurses, in charitable organizations, in army shops, and in labor battalions behind the front and new faculties inIstanbul University for architecture, arts, and music. One particular piece of controversial social reform was the 1917 "Temporal Family Law" which was a significant advance inwomen's rights and secularism in Ottomanmatrimonial law. When it came to religious reform, theQuran was translated into Turkish, and even thecall to prayer was held in Turkish in a few select mosques in the capital.[94] These pre-Kemalist secularisation and modernisation reforms paved the way for further and more far reachingreforms by Atatürk's regime.
During this time tensions flared between Talaat and Enver. Enver won out in a conflict over prioritizing rationing in favor of the army. In response Talaat established theMinistry of Rationing, and appointed a loyal friend,Kara Kemal [tr], as its head (Kara Kemal was known as the "Little Master" [KüçükEfendi], whereas Talat was the "Grand Master" [Büyük Efendi]). In a play ofzugzwang after theBalfour Declaration, Talaat reproached with theZionist movement, promising to open up Jewish immigration toJerusalem.[95] This promise did not reflect ground conditions, as his first year as Grand Vizier saw theloss of Jerusalem andBaghdad.
However territorial loss in the south coincided with diplomatic success with the signing of theBrest-Litovsk treaty in March 1918, with Talaat himself negotiating for the Ottoman Empire, resulting in the return ofKars,Batumi, andArdahan to Ottoman rule after their lossforty years ago. Another treaty with theCaucasian states signed in Batum strengthened the Ottoman's position in a futuredrive on Baku, which was accomplished by September. Spring 1918 was the zenith of Unionist power and Talaat Pasha's political career, followed by a slow realization of defeat in WWI over the summer.[96] In a conversation with Cavid, Talaat felt trapped between three "fires": Enver Pasha, who was becoming increasingly erratic and overly optimistic after the breakthrough in the Caucasus; the new sultanMehmed VI, an anti-Unionist who was more assertive than his deceased half brother, and the Allied armies advancing from the West and the South.[97] In October 1918, the British defeated both Ottoman armies they faced in thePalestinian front. Simultaneously on theMacedonian front,Bulgaria capitulated to the allies, leaving no sufficient forces to check an advance on the Ottoman capital. With defeat certain (and growing unrest from years of unfettered corruption) Talaat Pasha announced his intention to resign on 8 October 1918 and lead a caretaker government for a few more days.[98]Ahmed İzzet Pasha, who was Talaat's choice, succeeded him as Grand Vizier and signed theArmistice of Mudros with the Allies, ending hostilities in the Middle East on 30 October.[99]
Talaat Pasha delivered a farewell speech in the last CUP congress on 1 November, where it was decided to dissolve the party. With Enver, Cemal,Nâzım,Şakir,Azmi, andOsman Bedri, he fled the Ottoman capital on a Germantorpedo boat that night where they landed inSevastopol, Crimea and scattered from there. Before escaping the empire, he wrote a letter to İzzet, who facilitated his escape, promising his return to the country.[25][100] Public opinion was shocked and outraged by the departure of Talaat Pasha, as many were expecting him to be arrested.[100] It also left the country in a sudden power vacuum.[101] According to the testimony ofMidhat Şükrü, the CUP's long time secretary-general, and Dr. Nâzım, their decision to flee was driven by them being persecuted for their actions solving theArmenian question.[99]
Talaat, Nâzım, Şakir and some other Turkish officers wound up inBerlin on 10 November, the day afterKaiser Wilhelm II fled the city due to theNovember Revolution. The new chancellor,Friedrich Ebert of theSPD, signed the documents secretly allowing Talaat asylum in Germany, where he and Nâzım settled in a flat at Hardenbergerstraße 4 (Ernst-Reuter Square),Charlottenburg, under the pseudonym "Ali Sâî Bey". Next to his apartment he founded the "Oriental Club" (Şark Kulübü), where anti-Entente Muslims and European activists met. Though he was a wanted man in the Ottoman Empire and Britain, Talaat managed to attend theSocialist International in the Netherlands.[26] He was also able to travel to Italy, Switzerland, Sweden, and Denmark. In all of these visits, he lobbied against the new Allied world-order, specifically against their designs on the Ottoman Empire.[102] Behind bars for his role in theSparticist uprising, Talaat reconnected withKarl Radek (their previous encounter being on opposite sides of the negotiating table atBrest) and frequently visited him with Enver atMoabit prison.[103] Despite his mobility as a fugitive, his exile was one of practical poverty. At one point wishing to start a newspaper, he didn't have enough money to do so, so he wrote hismemoirs instead.
Questioned whether he would return and join theTurkish nationalist movement, Talaat declined, arguing thatMustafa Kemal Pasha (Atatürk) is now the new leader.[104] He held regular correspondences with Mustafa Kemal from Berlin.[105] Unlike Enver, Kemal had friendly relations with Talaat, with Kemal addressing Talaat as his "brother" in their communiques. Even though he effectively endorsed Mustafa Kemal as his "successor", from Berlin Talaat was able to directly issue orders to Turkish commanders in the opening stages of theTurkish War of Independence and hoped to use the commander as a puppet.[106] He also kept in contact withTevfik Rüştü (Aras),Halide Edip (Adıvar), Celal (Bayar),Abdülkadir Cami (Baykut) andNuri (Conker). TheAnkara government sent the ambassadorsBekir Sami (Kunduh) andGalip Kemali (Söylemezoğlu) to meet with Talaat and support his network that assisted the Turkish nationalist movement from abroad.[107] Through these efforts, he cobbled together a disparate coalition of Turkish nationalists, German nationalists, andBolsheviks.
After the failure of theKapp Putsch Talaat offered comments in the subsequent press conference, criticizing the putschists for their dilettantism, exclaiming "A putsch without a cabinet ready at hand was just childish."[108]
The British government exerted diplomatic pressure on theOttoman Porte and brought to trial the Ottoman leaders who had held positions of responsibility between 1914 and 1918 for having perpetrated the Armenian genocide. İzzet Pasha was pressured early on by the British to arrest Talaat, but he didn't order his arrest nor order his extradition from Germany until a Constantinople court demanded it.[109] With the alliedoccupation of Constantinople, İzzet Pasha resigned.Ahmet Tevfik Pasha took the position of grand vizier the same day thatRoyal Navy ships entered the Golden Horn. Talaat's remaining property was confiscated during Tevfik Pasha's premiership, which lasted until 4 March 1919. He was replaced byDamat Ferid Pasha, whose first order was the arrest of leading members of Union and Progress.[citation needed] Those who were caught were put under arrest at the Bekirağa division and were subsequentlyexiled to Malta. Courts-martials were then organized to punish the CUP for the empire's ill-conceived involvement in World War I.[citation needed]
By January 1919, a report to Sultan Mehmed VI accused over 130 suspects, most of whom were high officials. The indictment accused the main defendants, including Talaat, of being "mired in an unending chain of bloodthirstiness, plunder and abuses". They were accused of deliberately engineering Turkey's entry into the war "by a recourse to a number of vile tricks and deceitful means". They were also accused of "the massacre and destruction of the Armenians" and of trying to "pile up fortunes for themselves" through "the pillage and plunder" of their possessions. The indictment alleged that "The massacre and destruction of the Armenians were the result of decisions by theCentral Committee of Ittihadd".[110] The court released its verdict on 5 July 1919: Talaat's title ofpasha was stripped, and he, Enver, Cemal, Nâzım, and Şakir were condemned to death in absentia.[111]
The British government continued to monitor Talaat's activities after the war. The British government had intelligence reports indicating that he had gone to Germany, and the British High Commissioner pressured Ferid Pasha and the Sublime Porte to request that Germany extradite him to the Ottoman Empire.[citation needed] Germany was well aware of Talaat's presence but refused to surrender him.[112]
The last official interview Talaat granted was toAubrey Herbert, a British intelligence agent.[113] During this interview, Talaat maintained at several points that the CUP had always sought British friendship and advice, but claimed that Britain had never replied to such overtures in any meaningful way.[114]
With most CUP leaders in exile, theDashnaks organized a plot to assassinate the perpetrators of the Armenian Genocide, known asOperation Nemesis. On 15 March 1921Talaat was assassinated with a single bullet as he came out of his Hardenbergstraße flat to purchase a pair of gloves. His assassin was a Dashnak agent fromErzurum namedSoghomon Tehlirian, who had members of his family who were killed during the genocide.[115][unreliable source?] Tehlirian admitted to the shooting, but, after acursory two-day trial, he was found innocent by a German court on grounds oftemporary insanity due to the traumatic experience he had gone through during the genocide.[116] Immediately after the assassination, Nâzım and Şakir, the other two Turkish statesmen who were also staying in the area, received German police protection.[117] Şakir would be assassinated a year later by another Dashnak.
According to Hayriye, Talaat had prophesied his own assassination, recalling that he said to her: "One day, someone will shoot me' said he. 'I will collapse, blood spilling from my forehead. I will not have the luxury to die, lying on bed. It doesn't matter; let them shoot me; the motherland shall not be stained with my death. For each Talaat passing away, one thousand Talaats shall come forth (Bir Talât gider, bin Talât yetişir.)' "[118] Mustafa Kemal Pasha remarked, "The motherland has lost her great son; the revolution has lost its great organizer."[119][page needed]
Initially, Talaat's friends hoped he could be buried inAnatolia, but neither the Ottoman government in Constantinople nor the Turkish nationalist movement inAnkara wanted the body; it would be a political liability to associate themselves with the man considered the worst criminal of World War I.[120] Invitations from Hayriye and the Orient Club were sent to Talaat's funeral, and on 19 March, he was buried in theAlter St.-Matthäus-Kirchhof in a well-attended ceremony.[121][117] At 11:00 a.m., prayers led by theimam of the Turkish embassy, Şükri Bey, were held at Talaat's apartment. Afterwards, a large procession accompanied the coffin to Matthäus, where he was interred.[117] Many prominent Germans paid their respects, including former foreign ministersRichard von Kühlmann andArthur Zimmermann, along with the former head ofDeutsche Bank, the ex-director of theBaghdad railway, several military personnel who had served in the Ottoman Empire during the war andAugust von Platen-Hallermünde, attending on behalf of the exiled Kaiser Wilhelm II.[120] TheGerman foreign office sent a wreath with a ribbon saying, "To a great statesman and a faithful friend."[122][120] Şakir, barely able to maintain his composure, read a funeral oration while the coffin was lowered into the grave, covered in anOttoman flag.[120] He asserted the assassination was "the consequence of imperialist politics against theIslamic nations".[121] In 1922, theKemalist government rescinded Talaat's conviction,[123] and then a house and a martyr's pension was granted to Talaat's family with a law passed by theGrand National Assembly in 1926.
DuringWorld War II, at the request of the Prime Minister of Turkey,Şükrü Saracoğlu,[124] Talaat's remains were disinterred from Germany and transported to Turkey, where he received astate funeral on 25 February 1943, attended by German ambassadorFranz von Papen,Ahmet Emin Yalman, and Saracoğlu.[125][126][127] With this gesture,Adolf Hitler hoped to secure Turkish support for theAxis.[126] Talaat's friendHüseyin Cahit (Yalçın) gave the funeral oration as he was buried at theMonument of Liberty, originally dedicated to those who died during the 31 March Incident.[128] His return to Turkey was welcomed by Turkish society.[129]
Many of Talaat's contemporaries wrote of his charm but also of a melancholy spirit.[130] Some occasionally noticed hisnaivety and others commented on his intimidation skills.[131]
Mehmed Cavid wrote of the fall of Talaat and the CUP into a delusional "all or nothing" approach for salvation by war via theJuly Crisis.Krikor Zohrab wrote "[Talaat was] the foremost partisan of war" for "whom [he] and his disciples, this war wastout ou rien [all or nothing]".[132]
Talaat's intentional falsehoods were noted by his countrymen and ambassadors alike, and even some of his close friends (Cahid andRıfkı) considered him a liar.[133][134]
Alfred Nossig described Talaat as "The strongest man of Young Turkey", a "man of will", a "unique and outstanding talent of statesmanship" who dominates "the whole state machine". Whereas "the sultan is a constitutional ruler, Talaat is an autocratic sultan." He called him "the TurkishBismarck" upon his becoming Grand Vizier, a title which German journalist and companionErnst Jäckh affirmed.[135][136] Others drew similarities between Talaat and some of his contemporaries, such as Greek prime ministerEliftherios Venizelos and de facto co-dictator of Germany GeneralErich Ludendorff.[51]
Talaat marriedHayriye Hanım (1895–1983) (later known as Hayriye Talat Bafralı), anAlbanian girl from Yanya (Ioannina) on 19 March 1910.[137] Talaat met Hayriye in 1909, while she was studying in the French girls'Lycée Notre Dame de Sion in Constantinople.[35] He learned to speakFrench in the Israelite School at Salonika, and picked upGreek from his wife. They learned in 1911 that they were not able to have children,[138] but they adopted an orphan, Münevver, as their daughter.[139] Hayriye joined Talaat in Berlin in spring 1920[140] and returned to Turkey after her husband's assassination. She remarried with Hamdi Bafralı in 1946, and they had two sons. Hayriye died in İstanbul on 15 January 1983.
Her granddaughter, Ayşegül Bafralı, providedMurat Bardakçı documents from the interior ministry that Hayriye stored away containing data on Armenian deportatation and resettlement of Muhacirs in their place. Bardakçı went on to publish these documents, and an interview with Hayriye 27 years later, inThe Remaining Documents of Talaat Pasha.[141]
Talaat Pasha was a member of theBektashi order[23][142][143] and a 33°freemason[144] and first became a member of the Salonica Freemason LodgeMacedonia Risorta in 1903[145] during his time in the Ottoman Balkans. He was also the firstGrand Master of the society.[146][147] He used both organizations as channels for his anti-Hamidian activism, as they were inaccessible for thespies of Yıldız Palace.[23][142]
Talaat Pasha is widely considered one of the main architects of the Armenian Genocide by historians.[148]Raphael Lemkin, then a law student who followed Talaat's trial, later coined the termgenocide to describe what Talaat master minded against the Armenians and Assyrians, and later whatGermany committed against Jews.
In his posthumously published memoirs, he propagated a "national myth – that all Ottoman Armenians were rebels, betrayers, secessionists, and that they were responsible for the massacres that took place in 1915–1916". The memoirs were published many times especially when the Armenian genocide was under discussion.[149]
BiographerHans-Lukas Kieser states that many Jews engaged in "open propaganda for him and CUP causes" despite Talaat's involvement in genocide, and that this continued even after his death into the late twentieth century.[150]
Talaat Pasha is viewed as a "great statesman, skillfulrevolutionary, and farsighted founding father" in Turkey, where many schools, streets, and mosques are named after him.[151] In Turkey, Talaat and the rest of the Three Pashas are only criticized for causing the Ottoman Empire's entry into World War I and its subsequentpartitioning by the Allies.Mustafa Kemal criticized Talaat and his colleagues for their policies during and immediately prior to the First World War.[152]
Kieser writes in his biography of Talaat inTalaat Pasha: Father of Modern Turkey, Architect of Genocide.[153]
The Ottoman signature political animal [Talaat Pasha] held up a distorting mirror to Europe. It showed the worst yet nevertheless real sides of Europe, scaled up. Unconcerned by rules and ethics, arguing that he saw both broken numerous times by the European powers, he began to use the ruthless arms of a comparatively weak actor also wanting empire: extortion and aggression toward weaker ones who could not fight back.
On 24 April 1915 the Ministry of the Interior ordered the arrest of Armenian parliamentary deputies, former ministers, and some intellectuals. Thousands were arrested, including 2,345 in the capital, most of whom were subsequently executed ...
'I wish,' Talaat now said, 'that you would get the American life insurance companies to send us a complete list of their Armenian policy holders. They are practically all dead now and have left no heirs to collect the money. It of course all escheats to the State. The Government is the beneficiary now. Will you do so?'
This was almost too much, and I lost my temper.
'You will get no such list from me,' I said, and I got up and left him.
| Political offices | ||
|---|---|---|
| Preceded by Hacı Adil Bey | Minister of Interior 4 February 1913 – 8 October 1918 | Succeeded by |
| Preceded by | Minister of Finance November 1914 – 4 February 1917 | Succeeded by |
| Preceded by | Grand Vizier of the Ottoman Empire 4 February 1917 – 8 October 1918 | Succeeded by |
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