Hasan Tahsin Pasha

Biography and career[edit]

Hasan Tahsin was an Albanian,^[1][2] born in Mesare (located in Albania on the border with Greece), which at the time was part of the kaza of Leskovik. During his youth, he attended and graduated from the Greek Zosimaia School at Ioannina, and spoke Greek fluently. He began service as a gendarme ca. 1870 in Katerini, and later joined the Ottoman Army as an NCO. He soon received a commission as an officer, and by 1881 he commanded the Ottoman Gendarmerie at Ioannina. During the Greco-Turkish War of 1897, he commanded the 6th Trabzon Division, and around 1900, he was placed as garrison commander of Thessaloniki. In 1908–1910, he served as the governor of Yemen before returning to Thessaloniki, where he assumed the post of commanding officer of the III Corps with the rank of Ferik (Lieutenant General). After his retirement in 1912, he was persuaded to return to duty as governor-general of the Ioannina Vilayet.


As tensions with the Balkan League grew at however over the summer of 1912, he was switched to command the VIII Provisional Corps at Thessaloniki. After the outbreak of the First Balkan War, he led his forces against the Greek Army of Thessaly under Crown Prince Constantine. The Greek army, better prepared and outnumbering his own forces, defeated VIII Corps in the battles of Sarantaporo and Yenidje. Surrounded and blockaded in Thessaloniki and with no hope of outside succor, and learning of the approach of the 7th Bulgarian Division from the northeast, Hasan Tahsin resolved to surrender the Thessaloniki fortress and his 26,000 men to the Greeks. After a few days of negotiations, a surrender protocol was signed on 8 November [O.S. 26 October] 1912, with the handover carried out the next day. The Ottoman side immediately considered him a traitor and a court martial gave a death sentence.