Keçecizade Mehmet Fuat Pasha

Fuad Pasha (1815 – 1869) was a Turkish statesman known for his leadership during the Crimean War and in the Westernization movement within the Ottoman Empire.

He was the son of the distinguished poet Kechji-zad Izzet Molla. He was educated at the medical school and was at first an army surgeon. Around 1836 he entered the civil service as an official of the foreign ministry.

He became the first secretary of the Turkish embassy in London in 1840. During 1848 he was employed on special missions in the principalities and at St. Petersburg; and in 1851, he was sent to Egypt as a special commissioner. In that year he became minister for foreign affairs, a post to which he was reappointed on four subsequent occasions and which he held at the time of his death.

During the Crimean War he commanded the troops on the Greek frontier and distinguished himself by his bravery. He was the Turkish delegate at the Paris conference of 1856; was charged with a mission to Syria in 1860; grand vizier in 1860 and 1861; and minister of war. He accompanied the sultan Abd-ul-Aziz on his journey to Egypt and Europe, when the freedom of the city of London was conferred on him.

Generally regarded as the partisan of a pro-English policy, he rendered most valuable service to his country by his able management of the foreign relations of Turkey, not least by his efficacious settlement of affairs in Syria after the massacres of 1860.

He retired due to ill-health to Nice, France, where he died in 1869.

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