Who was Enver Pasha, a Hero or Villain?

 

On this day, August 4, 1922, Ottoman general and commander in chief, a hero of the Young Turk Revolution of 1908, Enver Pasha died Turkestan, modern-day Tajikistan. While Enver Pasha was celebrating Qurban Bayram with his comrades, Russian troops attacked his headquarters. Enver died fighting the Russians, he is buried in the village of Abiderya in Tajikistan. He played a key role in the Ottoman entry into World War I on the side of Germany, and after the Ottoman defeat in 1918, he attempted to organize the Turkic peoples of the Caucasus and Central Asia against the Russians.

Enver Pasha was born as Ismail Enver in 1881 in Constantinople (now Istanbul). His family came from Manastir (now Bitola) in Macedonia. Ismail Enver's father, Ahmed Bey, was a civil servant who received the title "Pasha" in later years. He served as Minister of War from 1913 until October 1918 when he fled to Germany just before the Armistice between the Ottoman Empire and the Allies came into force.  

Enver attended military schools and graduated from the 'Harp Academy' in 1903. He attained the rank of Major General in 1906 and joined the 'Third Army' stationed at Salonika. At the same time, many groups were standing against the rule of Sultan Abdul Hamid II for the establishment of democracy by ending the monarchy. Enver became involved in the movement by associating himself with the 'Ottoman Liberty Association', which later morphed into the 'Union and Progress Committee'.

Enver, the leading symbol of the Young Turks movement and one of the most controversial figures in the history of the Young Turks, is presented as both idealized and demonized. Because he was held responsible for the Armenian and Greek genocides, together with Talaat Pasha and Jemal Pasha. Were they a genuine political movement or a group of seditious Young Turks? In fact, in the last decades of the Ottoman Empire, Young Turks played an important role in politics. Enver "Pasha" left office after the 1908 reform and remained a key decision-maker and figure of action until he was assassinated just before the end of the Ottoman period and the beginning of the Republic of Turkey.