Talaat Pasha

Grand vizier of the Ottoman Empire

• Born: April 10, 1874
• Birthplace: Edirne, Ottoman Empire (now Turkey)
• Died: March 15, 1921
• Place of death: Berlin, Germany

Also known as: Mehmet Talaat Pasha; Talaat Bey; Mehmet Talaat Pacha; Mehmed Talaat Pascha

Significance: In his official capacity as grand vizier of the Ottoman Empire and minister of the interior of Turkey, Talaat Pasha issued orders that ultimately resulted in the deaths of more than a million Armenian Christians between 1915 and 1917. He was subsequently sentenced to death for his crimes but was assassinated before his sentence could be carried out. Talaat's crimes were considered so grievous that the man who killed him was acquitted for the assassination.

Background

Talaat Pasha was born on April 10, 1874, in the city of Edirne, a city in the former Ottoman Empire (and now modern-day Turkey). He was born Mehmet Talaat. He acquired the name "Pasha," a government title, later. According to the naming traditions in the Ottoman Empire at the time, Talaat did not have a family name.

Talaat was the son of a minor government official. He worked as a telegrapher and a postal employee for a time in his youth. He was an active participant in the Young Turk movement. Named the Young Turks by European observers, the group arose in opposition to Sultan Abdulhamid II. The Young Turks sought to reform the autocratic way in which the sultan ruled. The group was aligned with the Committee of Union and Progress (CUP), also known as Unionists, who favored a nationalist viewpoint and the removal of any non-Turkish ethnic groups from Turkey. The Young Turks were instigators of the revolution that began July 6, 1908, and Talaat played a key role in their efforts. The revolution resulted in the sultan returning constitutional government and calling for an election.

Following the success of the revolution, Talaat was appointed to Parliament, where he represented Edirne. He rose through the ranks very quickly. By 1909, he was selected for the cabinet post of minister of the interior. He later served a term as minister of the postal service. In 1912, Talaat became secretary general of the CUP, which increased his political influence when he once again became minister of the interior in 1913.

Life's Work

In his role as interior minister, Talaat was one of three rulers of the Ottoman Empire through 1918 and the end of World War I (1914–1918). The others were Ismail Enver Pasha and Ahmed Djemal Pasha. Talaat was made grand vizier, a role comparable to that of prime minister in other countries, in 1917. He became a powerful leader, holding positions with both the official government and the revolutionary CUP that spawned the Young Turks.

Although the revolutionaries as a group had little interest in involvement with outside governments, Talaat believed the empire could benefit from association with Russia and the other countries that were part of the Triple Entente military alliance. These countries included Great Britain and France. The Triple Entente was held together by a loose, informal agreement and their mutual concern about the increasing power of Germany. Talaat and the Turks were unable to ally with the Triple Entente, however, because the alliance viewed Turkey as too weak to help.

In his memoirs, written in 1921, Talaat stated that the Entente powers had abandoned Turkey. When the Germans approached Talaat and the Turkish leadership in the summer of 1914 and offered an alliance, the Turks accepted and entered the war on Germany's side. The move was a gamble for Turkey, and it was Talaat's responsibility to make sure Turkey did not fail.

One of the ways Talaat tried to prevent failure was by starting to expel Armenians from the eastern provinces of Turkey. The Armenians were in close proximity to the Russians and could presumably be influenced by the Entente ally. Beginning in April 1915, Talaat, in his position as leader of the CUP, signed and dispatched orders calling for the removal of the Armenians. One of the first orders resulted in the assassinations of more than six hundred Armenians, including those in Istanbul and all those serving in the Turkish army.

European governments soon began reporting on the large number of deaths resulting from the forcible extraction of Armenians from Turkey. Reports told of men being shot, beheaded, or drowned while women were herded in groups through the desert with little food, water, or shelter, which led to the deaths of many. Children were killed outright, sometimes by being burned alive. Women and children were frequently raped before they were killed. Estimates for the number of Armenians killed between 1915 and 1917 range from 800,000 to 1.5 million.

When the end of the war was imminent in November 1918, Talaat and the other Turkish leaders fled to Germany. As Talaat escaped, the Turkish parliament was bringing charges against him for his role in the Armenian massacre. An Ottoman tribunal tried him in absentia (without his being present) and sentenced him to death on July 5, 1919.

At the time of his trial and sentencing, Talaat was living in Berlin under the name Ali Salieh. On March 15, 1921, an Armenian member of a group called Operation Nemesis assassinated him. Operation Nemesis was an organized effort to seek out and kill all those responsible for the Armenian massacre. Called avengers, the assassins each received an assigned target to track and kill. Avenger Soghomon Tehlirian found Talaat walking through a Berlin park on March 15, 1921, and fatally shot him.

Bystanders quickly captured Tehlirian, and he was put on trial. The information about the murders of the Armenians in Turkey so affected the German court that heard Tehlirian's case, however, that after two days, Tehlirian was found not guilty. Talaat's ashes eventually were returned to Turkey in 1943 and placed in a mausoleum in Istanbul.

Impact

The mass killing of Armenians that Talaat instituted is considered the first genocide of the twentieth century. Talaat is considered a war criminal in most of the world, though he is still honored in parts of Turkey. His actions resulted in the first use of the phrase "crimes against humanity."

Bibliography

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Fisk, Robert. "My Conversation with the Son of Soghomon Tehlirian, the Man Who Assassinated the Organiser of the Armenia Genocide." Independent, 20 Jun. 2016, www.independent.co.uk/voices/robert-fisk-armenian-genocide-conversation-son-of-soghomon-tehlirian-mehmet-talaat-pasha-a7091951.html. Accessed 14 Oct. 2017.

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