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İsmail Enver, better known as Enver Pasha (Ottoman Turkish: اسماعیل انور پاشا), is a former Ottoman military officer and revolutionary of the Committee of Union and Progress (CUP) who was one of three leading members of the dictatorial triumvirate known as the "Three Pashas" (along with Talaat Pasha and Djemal Pasha) that ruled the Ottoman Empire with an iron fist between a coup d'état in 1913 and late 1918, joined the war on the side of the Central Powers and was responsible for the death of over 2 million Ottoman citizens, mostly of Armenian, Greek and Assyrian descent, in what is known as the late Ottoman genocides. Once the heroes of the Young Turk Revolution of 1908, which restored parliamentary democracy in the Empire, the CUP's grip over the country gradually increased after the disastrous Balkan Wars and Italo-Turkish War and eventually led to the end of political pluralism.
Enver, Minister of War since 1913, was one of the main proponents of an alliance with Germany and can be personally held responsible for the Ottoman entry into the war. As de facto Commander-in-Chief, he contributed much to the disastrous campaign in the Caucasus and was recalled to Istanbul after a crushing defeat in the Battle of Sarikamish and assigned to the 5th Army in the Dardanelles. Enver was swift to return to the Caucasus however, after handing control of the 5th Army to the German general Otto Liman von Sanders. Enver spoke ideally, even delusionally of the glorious victories he was fated to win in the Caucasus, whereafter he dreamed of marching his army east to "liberate" Central Asia, Afghanistan and India. Yet it was only after the Russian October Revolution and the subsequent collapse of the Russian Army, that Enver's forces were able to turn the tide in the east and captured Baku with his so-called "Army of Islam" in September 1918. Enver was recalled back to Istanbul once more during the autumn of 1918, entrusting command of the Army of Islam to his brother Nuri Pasha and his uncle Halil Pasha. He fled the capital following the dismissal of the Young Turks by Sultan Mehmed VI in November 1918, whereafter information about his whereabouts became increasingly scarce and contradictory. According to accounts by his old comrades among the Young Turks, Enver had begun speaking of waging the "Second Phase" of his envisioned great war of liberation and had intended to set out to rejoin the Army of Islam in the Caucasus, which would become the main base of operation for this "Second Phase". He allegedly sought to cross the Black Sea in a small sailing boat in the middle of a storm, whereafter he disappeared. Some of Enver's followers in the rapidly disintegrating Army of Islam made the claim that he had successfully reached the Caucasus, but proved unable to keep the army together as a coherent entity and subsequently fled into the mountains with small group a loyal cadres. Others claim that Enver never arrived and that he most likely drowned en-route in the Black Sea, a plausible explanation as remains of what may have been his personal taka (small sailing boat) washed up on the shores of Pontus in the days after the storm.