Three Pashas

"The Three Pashas", also known as the "dictatorial triumvirate", of the Ottoman Empire included the Ottoman minister of the interior, Mehmed Talaat (1874–1921), the minister of war, Ismail Enver, (1881–1922) and the minister of the Navy, Ahmed Djemal, (1872–1922). As organizers of the Young Turks they were the dominant political figures in the empire during World War I.

Legacy

Western scholars hold that after the Coup of 1913, these three men became the de facto rulers of the Ottoman Empire until its dissolution following World War I (Emin, 310; Kayali, 195). They were members of the Committee of Union and Progress (Derogy, 332; Kayali, 195) a party with goals of creating a “Pan-Turkish”state (Allen, 614) which meant, in the words Enver Pasha, “relocating the dhimmi,” (Joseph, 240; Bedrossyan, 479) the non-Muslim population of the Ottoman Empire. These eventually resulted in the Armenian Genocide, killing 1.5 million Ottoman-Armenian citizens^{[citation needed]}, and the Assyrian Genocide.

The Three Pashas were principal players in the Ottoman-German Alliance and the Ottoman Empire's entry into World War I on the side of the Central Powers. One of the three, Ahmed Djemal, was opposed to an alliance with Germany, and French and Russian diplomacy attempted to keep the Ottoman Empire out of the war, but Germany was agitating for a commitment. Finally on 29 October, the point of no return was reached when Admiral Wilhelm Souchon took SMS Goeben, SMS Breslau and a squadron of Turkish warships into the Black Sea (see pursuit of Goeben and Breslau) and raided the Russian ports of Odessa, Sevastopol and Theodosia. It was claimed that Ahmed Djemal agreed in early October 1914 to authorize Admiral Souchon to launch a pre-emptive strike.

Ismail Enver had only once took the control of any military activity (Battle of Sarikamis), and left the Third Army in ruins. The First Suez Offensive and Arab Revolt are Ahmed Djemal's most significant failures.

Fate of triumvirate

On November 2, after the Armistice of Mudros, Enver, Talaat and Djemal, fled from Istanbul. All three were later tried in absentia at Turkish Courts-Martial of 1919-20 and were sentenced to death. Talaat and Djemal were assassinated by Operation Nemesis and Enver was killed by a Red Army soldier in Russian Central Asia during the Basmachi Revolt

Journalist Hrant Dink claimed that the Parliament granted the bereft families of the Party's sentenced members, most of whom were later assassinated abroad by Armenian nationalists, a stipend using assets left over from Armenians.

References

Allen, W.E.D. and R. Muratoff. Caucasian Battlefields: A History Of The Wars On The Turco-Caucasian Border, 1828-1921. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1953. 614 pp.

Bedrossyan, Mark D. The First Genocide of the 20th Century: The Perpetrators and the Victims. Flushing, NY: Voskedar Publishing, 1983. 479 pp.

Derogy, Jacques. Resistance and Revenge: "Fun Times" The Armenian Assassination of the Turkish Leaders Responsible for the 1915 Massacres and Deportations. New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publishers and Zoryan Institute, April 1990. 332 pp.

Duzel, Nese (2005-05-23). "Ermeni mallarını kimler aldı?". Radikal. "Enver Paşa, Talat Paşa, Bahaittin Şakir gibi bir dizi insanın ailelerine maaş bağlanıyor... Bu maaşlar, Ermenilerden kalan mülkler, paralar ve fonlardan bağlanıyor."

Emin [Yalman], Ahmed. Turkey in the World War. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1930. 310 pp.

Joseph, John. Muslim-Christian Relations and Inter-Christian Rivalries in the Middle East. Albany: State Univ. of New York Press, 1983. 240 pp.

Kayali, Hasan. "Arabs and Young Turks: Ottomanism, Arabism, and Islamism in the Ottoman Empire, 1908-1918" 195 pp.