Mehmed VI Vahideddin (Ottoman Turkish: محمد السادس Meḥmed-i sâdis, وحيد الدين Vahideddin, Turkish: Vahideddin or Altıncı Mehmet) was the 36th Sultan of the Ottoman Empire, reigning from 1918 to his death in May 1926. He acceded to the throne after the death of Mehmed V, a de facto powerless puppet of the Young Turk-controlled government, and was succeeded by his cousin Abdulmejid II.
Mehmed VI is widely beloved by his people for dismissing the Turkish ultra-nationalist Young Turk Triumvirate from power in late 1918, which had ruled over the Empire with an iron grip since 1913 and was responsible for joining the Weltkrieg on the sides of the Central Powers, therefore causing the death of millions of Ottoman citizens - on the fronts of the Caucasus, Gallipoli and the Levant, but also in Anatolia, where the Young Turks were responsible for one of the most gruesome genocides in human history. Under Mehmed VI, the Empire could be saved from complete collapse and slowly transitioned back to a stable, but flawed democracy after the war.
Biography[]
Early Life[]
Mehmed VI was born at the Dolmabahçe Palace in Constantinople on 14 January 1861. Both of Mehmed's parents died before he reached the age of four. He was raised and taught by his step-mother Şayeste Hanım. The prince had a rough time with his overbearing stepmother, and at the age of 16 he left his stepmother's mansion with the three servants who had been serving him since childhood. During his youth his closest friend was Prince Abdulmejid, the son of his uncle, Sultan Abdülaziz. But, sadly, in the years to come, the two cousins became unyielding rivals.
Mehmed grew up with nannies, female servants, and tutors. During the thirty-three year reign of his brother Sultan Abdülhamid II (1876-1909) he lived in the Ottoman Imperial Harem and was considered to be the Sultan’s closest brother. This closeness would greatly influence his political attitudes in his later life, including his intense dislike of the Young Turks (who had deposed Abdülhamid during the Young Turk Revolution of 1909) and his distrust against the Germans.
Mehmed took private lessons, enjoyed reading and he was interested in various subjects, including the arts, which was a tradition of the House of Osman. He took courses in calligraphy and music and learned how to write in the naskh script and to play the kanun, a traditional Anatolian instrument. He also became involved in Sufism and followed courses at the madrasa of Fatih on Islamic jurisprudence, Islamic theology, interpretation of the Quran, and the Hadiths, as well as in Arabic and Persian.
In 1916, he became heir to the throne after the suicide of former Sultan Abdülaziz's son Şehzade Yusuf Izzeddin as the eldest male member of the House of Osman. The Weltkrieg was already in full swing at this time, and the Empire did not particularly well and was put under pressure by the British and Arabs from the south and by the Russians from the east. In early 1918, he went on trip to Europe, accompanied by general Mustafa Kemal Pasha, visiting the German and Austro-Hungarian Empire and meeting high-ranking political and military figures.
Reign[]
On 3 July 1918, Sultan Mehmed V died aged 73, and Vahideddin succeeded to the throne as Mehmed VI. The Ottoman Empire was in a dire situation at that time; British and Sharifian forces had occupied Mesopotamia, Hejaz and most of the Levant during the war and the old Empire was close to complete collapse. However, in late 1918, during the Battle of Maraş, the British advance towards Anatolia was halted in a surprising turn of events by the Ottoman Seventh Army under Mustafa Kemal Pasha; With the collapse of Greece in mid-1919, many British troops were withdrawn from the Mediterranean and the Ottomans managed to hold the line around Nablus in Palestine until the Ceasefire of Chantilly in August 1919; The Ottoman Empire had been saved in the last minute.
Nonetheless, Mehmed VI had inherited an empire in chaos, an army on the verge of collapse and separatist sentiment on all fronts; The situation looked very grim for the new Sultan. Mehmed definitely had no intentions to follow the example of his predecessor, a lapdog for the Young Turk CUP. Riding on the wave of anti-German and anti-CUP sentiment in the capital, caused by a never before seen famine, he would become a beacon of the anti-Young Turk opposition. Fearful that he would retake power from them, Talaat Pasha at the instigation of Djemal Pasha, both members of the so called "Young Turk Triumvirate", attempted to put the Sultan under house arrest and stop his meddling in politics. However, due to dwindling public support, this plan was never executed and the cabinet of Talaat Pasha was forced to resign and concede to the Sultan. Although the CUP would retain all pawns and even an attempted government of national unity including the FAP (whom the Sultan preferred) was shut down, cracks started to form in their monopoly on power.
As peace finally arrived in the Ottoman Empire following the Jerusalem Accords of April 1920, the Sultan was celebrated as the "Saviour of the Sublime Ottoman State"; The Empire's economy laid in tatters, millions had died, separatist movements were plaguing the countryside and wide-reaching concessions had been made to foreign powers (like the Mutasarrifate of Jerusalem), but at least the state itself remained intact, different to Russia or France. The CUP's popularity on the other hand was at a low point; Many made them responsible for the horrors of the war that almost had spelled a short and painless end to the "Eternal State".
Some conservatives saw Mehmed VI as a possibility to return to the Hamidian era, a strong and independent Ottoman Empire under the lead of a Sultan who combined all the powers in his person. Their hope would be in vain however, as whilst Vahideddin did his best to push the FAP towards power, the CUP (later renamed into Teceddüt, and eventually OPP) would remain in power, after ousting the old autocratic dictators and replacing them with more moderate, democratic candidates like popular war hero Mustafa Kemal Pasha. Nonetheless, from his palace, he would be able to push for the recognition of Arabic as the second language of the empire and the official language of the greater Mashriq, to great anger of the Young Turks.
Passing away quietly in his sleep in 1926, Mehmet VI would be remembered by the Ottoman people as the Sultan that saved the Empire from the brink of destruction, yet ultimately proved unable to steer it on a radically new course. He was succeeded by Abdulmejid II, who spelled the end to the conservatives' dream of a strong Sultan, as he was completely uninterested in politics and therefore transformed the Empire into a true constitutional monarchy, making the Grand Vizier the most influential figure within the Empire again.
Grand Viziers during his reign[]
- Talaat Pasha (1918)
- Ahmet Tevfik Pasha (1918-1919)
- Ahmed Izzet Pasha (1919-?)
- ?