Edhem Pasha

Edhem Pasha (1844 – 17 December 1909), also known as Gazi Edhem Pasha, was an Ottoman field marshal. He was Osman Nuri Pasha's deputy at the defence of Plevna in 1877 and, twenty years later, commander-in-chief of the army that defeated Greece in the Greco-Turkish War of 1897, for which Abdul Hamid II gave him the title Gazi. He is a different man from Ibrahim Edhem Pasha, the grand vizier of 1877–78. ^{1 2}

His birth year is disputed: both articles, and the TDV encyclopedia behind the Turkish one, give 1844, while Wikidata's description and one of its two birth-year values give 1851; his birthplace is likewise split between Trabzon (English article) and Istanbul (Turkish article). ^{1 3}

Edhem graduated from the military college in 1863 and served in Serbia and Rumelia. In the war of 1877–78 he fought at Gorni Dubnik, where he was wounded in the head, and commanded the Grivitsa position at Plevna, earning promotion to pasha. Afterwards he governed Kosovo, Skopje and Beirut, commanded at Adana, Aleppo and in Crete, and was made field marshal in 1895. ²

Appointed commander-in-chief in April 1897, Edhem beat the Greek army at the Milona Pass, took Larissa and Trikala, and routed the Greeks again at Domokos on 17 May, forcing the Thermopylae pass in a day; the European powers intervened before he could advance on Athens. Abdul Hamid II conferred on him the title Gazi and the jeweled Order of Imtiyaz. ^{1 2}

After the 1908 revolution he sat in the Senate. In April 1909, the day after the 31 March Incident, he was made Minister of War, but held the post only two weeks; his health failed, he went to Egypt, and he died there on 17 December 1909. His body was brought to Istanbul and buried at Eyüp Cemetery. ²

No consulted source names a religion or school for Edhem Pasha personally: the English article says only that he was born to a Muslim Turkish family, neither article carries a religion field, and Wikidata records no religion value for him. His faith is therefore recorded as unknown in the museum's data. ^{1 3}

• The defined source entities cited above, recorded in data/source/.
• Revisions of this article must be dated, and must name the source that changed each fact.