A prominent Turkish military leader, Enver Pasha is one of the leaders of the Young Turk revolution. He was an active promoter of pan-Turkism and pan-Islamism, as well as an ideologist of the Armenian Genocide at the beginning of the 20th century.
Enver Pasha: biography
On November 22, 1881, in Istanbul, Ismail Enver, the future Enver Pasha, was born into the family of a railway worker. Nationality of Enver's father is Turkish, and his mother is a Gagauz or Albanian. Enver was the eldest of five children, he had two brothers and two sisters. From childhood, Enver knew that he would be a soldier, so he went to study at a military school. According to some historical data, he did not study very well, but he graduated from the academy in 1903 with the rank of captain, and three years later he received the rank of major.
Enver was sent to serve in Thessaloniki. There he began to actively participate in the activities of the military movement called "Homeland and Freedom", which met secretly under the auspices of the larger and more peaceful political organization "Unity and Progress."
Young Turks and the first revolution
After the agreement between Nicholas II and Edward VII regarding the reforms necessary in Macedonia, signed in 1908, active protests began in Turkey, fueled by rumors and assumptions about the division of the Ottoman Empire. The Unity and Progress movement began to call itself Young Turks and hold protests and military rallies aimed at overthrowing the Ottoman authorities. Enver began to actively participate in the protests, and after a while thousands of people followed him. Young, active and enterprising, he became one of the leaders of the Young Turk revolution.
In 1908, at a rally in Thessaloniki, Enver Bay proclaimed the restoration of the Turkish constitution and declared July 10 the day of the beginning of the second constitutional era of the Ottoman Empire. After a successful coup, he spent two years as a Turkish attache in Germany, where he praised the military training of German troops and laid the foundation for military cooperation between Turkey and Germany.
Italo-Turkish war in Africa
In 1911, Italy began to challenge Turkish influence in Tripolitania, the region of modern Libya. Enver Bey left Berlin and went to Libya to lead the Turkish army. The leader managed to conduct an excellent mobilization campaign, collecting more than 20 thousand soldiers, but was forced to leave Libya due to the height of the Balkan war. As a result, control over Tripolitania was transferred to the Italian army.
This kind of result led to discontent among the Turks and the destabilization of political forces. “Unity and progress” began to lose popularity and support, and in 1912, the Liberal Union defeated the Young Turks in the parliamentary elections.
Balkan war and coming to power
In October 1912, the Ottoman forces suffered defeat after defeat in the Balkans, which led to the destabilization of the new government. The Young Turks took advantage of these sentiments and in January 1913 made another coup, overthrowing the liberal union and establishing the dictatorship of the three pasha. A kind of triumvirate consisted of:
- Young Turks leader Talaat Pasha, who holds the post of chief vizier or prime minister, as well as the minister of internal affairs;
- Jemal Pasha, the commander of the fleet;
- Enver Pasha, the commander of the army.
During the triumvirate, Sultan Mehmed V was formally considered the sultan, but de facto all power was in the hands of the three pasha. Enver Pasha, the biography of the Sultan confirms this, even married the daughter of Prince Suleiman. So he became part of the royal family.
Participation in the First World War
Being a Germanophile and an ally of Germany, Enver Pasha almost single-handedly involved Turkey in the First World War, even going against the opinions of his associates. Without the consent of the Turkish Cabinet of Ministers, he gave permission to two German warships to enter the Dardanelles and hide from the pursuit of the French fleet. Subsequently, these two ships were granted to the Turkish fleet, which meant the imminent conclusion of an alliance with Germany and the involvement of Turkey in the war.
In late October, these ships entered the Black Sea and attacked Russian ports in Odessa, Sevastopol and Feodosia. As a result of the attack, Russia declared war on Turkey. Enver Pasha organized a general mobilization and took the post of Minister of War.
Genocide of Armenians and Greeks
Being an ardent supporter of pan-Islamism, Enver Pasha had a dislike for the Armenians and Greeks living in the Ottoman Empire and professing Christianity. Although this did not stop Pasha from accepting Armenian soldiers into his army.
During World War I, on the Russian-Turkish front, the Third Turkish Army, led by Enver Pasha, suffered a crushing defeat at the Battle of Sarykamysh. Then, returning to the capital, Enver Pasha accused the Armenian soldiers of cowardice and unwillingness to fight, and made them responsible for the lost battle. It was this defeat that served as the occasion for the genocide of the Armenian population.
The massacre killed about one and a half million people, among whom, apart from Armenians, were Greeks and Syrians. To this day, Armenians call the actions of the Ottoman Empire against their compatriots in 1915 the Great Crime. The wound inflicted by the Turks on the Armenian people was so deep that in 1919, at a meeting of the Armenian Revolutionary Commonwealth, a decision was made to organize Operation Nemesis.
Enver Pasha: "Nemesis" and the flight from Turkey
During Operation Nemesis, 40 people were selected who were responsible for organizing and executing the genocide. Each was monitored and carefully prepared for the murder. The executors of the operation took the lives of two representatives of the triumvirate: Talaal Pasha and Dzhemal Pasha, but Enver Pasha was not killed by them and escaped retaliation, leaving Turkey. He spent some time in Moscow, collaborated with the Bolshevik government, and planned his return to his homeland.
The Bolsheviks, in turn, equivalently supported the party of Enver Pasha and the Republican People's Party of Mustafa Kemal. As soon as Kemal successfully completed his revolution, Enver Pasha lost the support of the Bolsheviks. The former Turkish leader was sent to Bukhara to fight the Basmach movement.
Basmachism
Feeling persona non grata in the red government, Enver Pasha decided to go over to the Basmachi side. From Turkestan, he sent a letter to Moscow demanding to withdraw the Bolshevik army and ensure the independence of the region.
Possessing charisma, confidence and secret knowledge about the location of the Red Army in the region, Enver Pasha quickly rose to the lead among the Basmachis and conducted several successful operations. However, his aggressive desire to take away all power and become the leader of Basmachi did not allow him to establish ties with other leaders. Several times they refused to help Enver Pasha, and the Ibrahim-bek troops, who refused to recognize the supremacy of the Pasha, once even attacked his army, causing irreparable damage. Enver Pasha was not killed or injured, but could no longer continue his vigorous activity.
The former leader was forced to flee to Baljuan, where he was hiding with a small detachment in the vicinity of the city. In early August, the Bolsheviks tracked him down and sent a KGB detachment to capture or kill him. On August 4, 1922, during a battle with a detachment of Bolsheviks, Enver Pasha was shot dead. The assassination of the Basmachi leader was confirmed by Georgy Agabekov, who identified the decapitated body.