Omer Pasha, also known as Omer Pasha Latas (Turkish: Ömer Lütfi Paşa, Serbian: Омер-паша Латас, romanized: Omer-paša Latas; 24 September 1806 – 18 April 1871) was an Ottoman field marshal and governor. Born in the Austrian Empire to Serbian Orthodox Christian parents, he initially served as an Austrian soldier. When faced with charges of embezzlement, he fled to Ottoman Bosnia in 1823 and converted to Islam; he then joined the Ottoman army, where he quickly rose through the ranks. Latas crushed several rebellions all across the Ottoman Empire. He served as the main commander of the Crimean War, where he defeated the Russians at Giurgevo, regaining control of Bucharest and the Danubian Principalities, pushing the Russians outside of the Danube. Latas spearheaded notable victories at Oltenița, Cetate, Eupatoria, Sukhumi, and Sevastopol. As a commander, he was noted for his excellent strategic and diplomatic skills.
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| Native name | Омер-паша Латас Omer-paša Latas |
| Birth name | Mihajlo Latas / Михајло Латас |
| Born | 24 September 1806 Janja Gora, Military Frontier, Austrian Empire (now Plaški, Croatia) |
| Died | 18 April 1871 (aged 64) Constantinople, Ottoman Empire (now Istanbul, Turkey) |
| Allegiance |  Austrian Empire (until 1823) Ottoman Empire (until 1871) |
| Service | Ottoman Army |
| Years of service | 1823–1869 |
| Rank | Field marshal (Mushir) |
| Commands | Commander of Ottoman Forces in Moldavia & Wallachia |
| Battles / wars |
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| Spouse(s) | Ida Hanım (divorced without issue) Adviye Hanım (with issue) |
Early life
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Omer Pasha was born Mihajlo Latas (Serbian: Михајло Латас), an ethnic Serb and Orthodox Christian,[1][2] in Janja Gora, at the time part of the Croatian Military Frontier of the Austrian Empire (in modern Plaški, Lika region, Croatia).[1][3]
His father Petar served in the Austrian Army and in time was appointed lieutenant-governor of the Ogulin district.[4] His uncle was an Orthodox priest.[5] Mihajlo was an intelligent and lively child, if rather sickly. He developed a passion for the military, and on leaving school in Gospić, he went to a military school in Zadar and was accepted as a cadet in his father's Ogulin Regiment on the frontier. He had beautiful handwriting, and was assigned to clerical duties. There he might have languished, if his father had not upset someone along the corruption line and suffered a conviction for misappropriation. Mihajlo escaped charges of embezzlement, having stolen 180 florins from the military safe, by fleeing to the Ottoman Bosnia Eyalet in 1823.[6]
Military career
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After escaping to Bosnia and living rough for a time, Latas was offered, in 1828, a position as tutor to the children of a Turkish merchant, on condition that he converted from Christianity to Islam and was circumcised. After his conversion he took the new name Omer Lutfi. A necessary condition to fulfill in order to get off the streets, it was a huge cultural step that led naturally to his decision that his future lay with the Ottomans. The big break came for the newly named Omer when the family moved to Constantinople. By astute networking and doubtless exploiting his curiosity value as a European ex-military man, he was appointed lecturer at the Turkish Military Academy. With this exposure he shone enough to be snapped up as aide-de-camp to the Polish–Ottoman General Wojciech Chrzanowski, who was engaged in the re-organization of the Ottoman Army after the defeat of the Janissaries.[7]
Now a major, Omer completed a mapping assignment in Bulgaria and the Danube territories, gaining detailed knowledge of the ground which was to serve him well in the future. Chrzanowski also milked his ideas for re-organizing the Army; in return he smoothed the way for Omar's introduction into Turkish society. He thereby met and married a rich heiress Adviye Hanım (a daughter of Çerkes Hafız Mehmed Pasha), the start of his meteoric rise in Ottoman military circles. There is no doubt that Omar's marriage opened all the right doors for him,[7] but equally no doubt that he proved equal to the challenges of high command which resulted. He became writing-master to the Ottoman heir, Abd-ul-Medjid, and on the succession of the latter in 1839 was made a colonel. He was shortly afterwards appointed Military Governor of Constantinople. His only daughter, Saffet Hanım, married Mustafa Celalettin Pasha.
In 1840-41 he led a successful expedition to quell a revolt in Syria, and in 1842 was Governor of the Tripoli Eyalet (Lebanon).[7] He won distinction in suppressing the Albanian Revolt of 1843–44, led by local Muslim aristocrats. There followed the expedition to Hakkari (city) in the Van Eyalet of the Ottoman Empire after the Massacres of Badr Khan (1846).[7] After the Hungarian Revolution of 1848, Omar Pasha was put in command of the Ottoman forces in Moldavia and Wallachia. His firm and effective handling of a powder keg situation involving potential confrontation with the Russian and Austrian armies demonstrated that he possessed considerable diplomatic skills.[8]
There followed his command in Bosnia (1850) where he executed Ali-paša Rizvanbegović of Stolac, who had defended Ottoman power during an earlier revolt but then started to build up an independent power base.[9] Omer Pasha executed, plundered and abolished the respected historical aristocracy of the Muslim faith, in the interest of buttressing Ottoman central power.[10] As the Governor of Bosnia, and leading Turkish official in the region he invaded neighbouring Montenegro. The Austrians intervened forcing The Porte to withdraw their representative to Constantinople; it was a humiliating climbdown proving that Turkish administrative control was ebbing away in the face of the Great Powers.
This was followed by a command in the Principality of Montenegro (1852)[citation needed]. His chief services were rendered when the Crimean War broke out.[11] In 1853 he successfully defended Calafat. Omar made a powerful stand at Oltenitsa in southern Romania defeating (according to Turkish accounts) a numerically-superior Russian force under the indecisive General Pyotr Dannenburg. He entered Bucharest. The Turkish ultimatum was ignored, and so on 27 October 1853 Omer Pasha marched his army over the River Danube creating what became known as The Great Eastern Crisis. The Great Powers called halt to the impending conflict dragging the two combatants Russia and Turkey to the negotiating table. By early December a meeting was fixed for London, and with Pasha one of the representatives. But the naval battle called the 'massacre of Sinope' put an end to any hope of peace.
In January 1854 he successfully persuaded Lord Raglan to keep his word by reinforcing Varna, while the French remained deeply sceptical of Omar's strategy to protect the Turkish army's flank on the Lower Danube. Omar's leadership (such as in the Battle of Giurgevo) showed the Russians their loss of control over the Black Sea must cause a compelling reason for commencement of a Russian withdrawal. Despite later attempts by Raglan to get the Turks to launch an attack over the River Pruth with direct intention to provoke Austria into a defensive counter-attack, neither Vienna nor Pasha's forces would be drawn into such a cataclysm. His firm management of the British in Constantinople helped to stabilise the front in Crimea after January 1855 when finally transports arrived to ferry Turkish troops to Crimea. Turkish troops had just arrived from Wallachia when 19,000 Russians under Lt-Gen. Khrulev decided to attack the garrison at Yevpatoria. The assault on 17 February 1855 was a fiasco in which 800 Russians were killed by superior Turkish artillery fire supported by the Royal Navy.
A later achievement was his capture of Cetinje, Montenegro[citation needed], during the Montenegrin–Ottoman War (1861–62), considered a difficult feat.
A clear and precise military thinker, Omer Pasha took bold decisions and relentlessly followed them through. Although he had a reputation as a strict and ruthless disciplinarian, he was revered and respected by his men. A true professional, while the other allies struggled to come to grips with local campaigning conditions, he had seen it all too often before.[12] Perhaps for that reason the allied troops found his expression cold and uninterested when seated on his horse plodding round their lines.[citation needed]
Timeline
edit- Tutor in the household of Hussein Pasha, Governor of Widdin.
- 1834 - Writing master in a military school at Constantinople.
- Instructor to Abdulmejid, heir apparent to the throne.
- 1842 - Appointed Governor of Lebanon.[13]
- 1843 - Repressed insurrection in Albania.
- 1847 - Repressed a Kurdish insurrection.
- 1850 - Executed Ali-paša Rizvanbegović of Stolac, plundered and abolished the Bosniak elite
- 1852 - Defeated the Montenegrins under Prince Danilo
- 1853 - Defeated the Russians at Olteniţa.
- 1854 - Successfully defeated the Russians at the Battle of Giurgevo, gaining possession of Bucharest.[14]
- 1855 - Repulsed the Russians at Yevpatoria, Crimea and captured Sukhumi in the Caucasus.
- 1857-59 - Governor of Baghdad.
- 1862 - Defeated Montenegrin army and took possession of Cetinje.
- 1864 - Made field marshal.
- 1867 - Fought rebels in Crete.
- 1869 - Made Minister of war.
References
edit- ^ a b Ćirković 2004, p. 222.
- ^ Andrew James McGregor (2006). A Military History of Modern Egypt: From the Ottoman Conquest to the Ramadan War. Greenwood Publishing Group. p. 121. ISBN 978-0-275-98601-8.
- ^ Barbara Jelavich (1983). History of the Balkans. Cambridge University Press. p. 349. ISBN 978-0-521-27458-6.
- ^ Bessé & Morris 1855, p. 23.
- ^ George Julian Harney (1853). The Vanguard. J. P. Crantz. p. 40.
- ^ Georg Martin Thomas (1883). August von Jochmus' gesammelte Schriften, herausg. von G.M. Thomas.
- ^ a b c d de Bessé, Morris, p. 25
- ^ James, p. 121-122
- ^ de Bessé, Morris, p. 26
- ^ Chambler's, p. 707
- ^ Goldstein, p. 24
- ^ de Bessé, Morris, p. 26-27
- ^ Churchill, p. 63
- ^ Murdock,Fiske , pages 36-40
Sources
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- Muradbegović, Ahmed (1944). "Omer-paša Latas u Bosni, 1850-1852". 42. Matica hrvatska.
{{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires|journal=(help) - Laurence Oliphant (1856). The Trans-Caucasian campaign of the Turkish army under Omer Pasha: a personal narrative. W. Blackwood and sons.
- Bessé, Alfred; Morris, Edward Joy (1855). The Turkish empire, embracing the religion, manners and customs of the people, with a memoir of the reigning sultan and Omer Pacha. s.n.
- Sweetman, John (2001). The Crimean War: 1854-1856. Osprey Publishing. ISBN 9781841761862.
- The Ottoman Empire and Its Successors, 1801-1927. CUP Archive.
- Ćirković, Sima M. (2004). The Serbs. Wiley-Blackwell. p. 222. ISBN 0-631-20471-7.
- Chambers's biographical dictionary: the great of all times and nations by David Patrick, Francis Hindes Groome; W. & R. Chambers, limited, 1907 page 706
- The Near East in Modern Times: The Ottoman Empire and the Balkan States to 1900, by G. G. Arnakis, Wayne S. Vucinich; Pemberton Press, 1969 pages 207, 345
- Wars and Peace Treaties, 1816-1991 by Erik Goldstein; Routledge, 1992 page 24
- The encyclopedia of nineteenth-century land warfare: an illustrated world view by Byron Farwell; W. W. Norton & Company, 2001 page 613
- The Balkan Economies C. 1800-1914: Evolution Without Development by Michael R. Palairet; Contributors: Charles Feinstein, Patrick O'Brien, Barry Supple, Peter Temin, Gianni Toniolo; Cambridge University Press, 2004 page 133
- Religious separation and political intolerance in Bosnia-Herzegovina by Mitja Velikonja; Texas A&M University Press, 2003 pages 85–86
- History of the Balkans: Eighteenth and nineteenth centuries by Barbara Jelavich; Cambridge University Press, 1983 page 345
- An Ethnohistorical Dictionary of the Russian and Soviet Empires by James S. Olson, Lee Brigance Pappas, and Nicholas C.J. Pappas; Greenwood Press (March 30, 1994) page 8
- The Druzes And The Maronites Under The Turkish Rule From 1840 To 1860 by Charles Henry Churchill; Kessinger Publishing (June 30, 2004) pages 64, 72–74,77-79
- A military history of modern Egypt: from the Ottoman Conquest to the Ramadan War by Andrew James; Greenwood Publishing Group, 2006 p121-122
- The Turkish Empire; Its Historical, Statistical, and Religious Condition: Also Its Manners, Customs, Etc. by Alfred de Bessé, Edward Joy Morris, Contributors: John Fagan and Thomas S. Sinclair; Lindsay & Blakiston, 1854 pages 24–27
- Murdock, Harold; Fiske, John (1889). The Reconstruction of Europe: A Sketch of the Diplomatic and Military History of Continental Europe, from the Rise to the Fall of the Second French Empire. Houghton, Mifflin and Company.