Enver Pasha

While stationed in Ottoman Macedonia, Enver joined the Committee of Union and Progress (CUP), an organization affiliated with the Young Turkey movement that was agitating against Sultan Abdul Hamid II's despotic rule. He was a key leader of the 1908 Young Turk Revolution which reestablished the Constitution and parliamentary democracy in the Ottoman Empire, and along with Ahmed Niyazi was hailed as "hero of the revolution". However multiple crises in the Empire including the 31 March Incident, the Balkan Wars, and the power struggle with the Freedom and Accord Party made Enver and the Unionists disillusioned with liberal Ottomanism. After the 1913 Ottoman coup d'état that brought the CUP directly to power, Enver become War Minister, while Talaat took control over the civilian government.


As war minister and de facto Commander-in-Chief (despite his role as the de jure Deputy Commander-in-Chief, as the Sultan formally held the title), Enver was one of the most powerful figures of the government of the Ottoman Empire.^[5][6][7] He led a disastrous attack on Russian forces in the Battle of Sarikamish, after which he blamed Armenians for his defeat. Along with Talaat, he was one of the principal perpetrators of the Late Ottoman Genocides^[8][9][10] and thus is held responsible for the death of between 800,000 and 1,800,000^{[11][12][13][14]} Armenians, 300,000 Assyrians and 750,000 Greeks. Following defeat in World War I, Enver, along with other leading Unionists, escaped the Ottoman Empire. The Ottoman Military Tribunal convicted him and other Unionists and sentenced them to death in absentia for bringing the Empire into World War I and organizing massacres against Greeks and Armenians. Enver ended up in Central Asia, where he was killed leading the Basmachi Revolt against the Bolsheviks. In 1996, his remains were reburied in Turkey and he received rehabilitation by then Turkish president Süleyman Demirel who also praised him and his contributions to Turkish nationalism.


In the course of his career he was known by increasingly elevated titles as he rose through military ranks, including Enver Efendi (انور افندی), Enver Bey (انور بك), and finally Enver Pasha, "pasha" being the honorary title Ottoman military officers gained on promotion to the rank of Mirliva (major general).

Family

After Enver's death, three of his four siblings, Nuri (1889–1949), Mehmed Kamil (1900–62), and Hasene Hanım, adopted the surname "Killigil" after the 1934 Surname Law required all Turkish citizens to adopt a surname.


Enver's sister Hasene Hanım married Nazım Bey. Nazım Bey, an aid-de-camp of Abdul Hamid II, survived an assassination attempt by Talaat during the 1908 Young Turk Revolution of which his brother-in-law Enver was a leader.^[92] With Nazım, Hasene gave birth to Faruk Kenç (1910–2000), who would become a famous Turkish film director and producer.


Enver's other sister, Mediha Hanım (later Mediha Orbay; 1895–1983), married Kâzım Orbay, a prominent Turkish general and politician. On 16 October 1945, their son Haşmet Orbay, Enver's nephew, shot and killed a physician named Neşet Naci Arzan, an event known as the "Ankara murder". At the urging of the Governor of Ankara, Nevzat Tandoğan, Haşmet Orbay's friend Reşit Mercan initially took the blame. After a second trial revealed Haşmet Orbay as the perpetrator, however, he was convicted. The murder became a political scandal in Turkey after the suicide of Tandoğan, the suspicious death of the case's public prosecutor Fahrettin Karaoğlan, and the resignation of Kâzım Orbay from his position as Chief of the General Staff of Turkey after his son's conviction.


Djevdet Bey who was the Vali of Van in 1915, was also a brother-in-law of his.^[93]

By his wife, Enver had two daughters and a son:^[105]