Mahmud Shevket Pasha

Mahmud Shevket Pasha (1856 – 11 June 1913) was an Ottoman field marshal and statesman, the dominant soldier of the empire after the 1909 counter-coup and Grand Vizier from 23 January 1913 until his assassination five months later. Born in Baghdad and educated there and at the War Academy in Istanbul, he commanded the Action Army that marched on the capital in 1909, served twice as Minister of War, and was shot in his car at Beyazıt Square by opponents of the Committee of Union and Progress. ¹

He was born in Baghdad in 1856, a son of Kethüdazade Süleyman Faik Bey, governor of Basra; his ancestry is variously reported as Georgian, Chechen, Circassian or Arab. After schooling in Baghdad and study at an Alliance Israélite Universelle school in Istanbul, he graduated from the Mekteb-i Harbiye in 1882, taught there, served on an arms-purchasing commission in Germany under Colmar von der Goltz, and rose to lieutenant general; his 1902 book on the organisation and uniforms of the Ottoman army remains a standard work. ^{1 2}

In April 1909, after the 31 March Incident, Shevket Pasha led the Action Army from Salonica that suppressed the counter-coup and deposed Abdul Hamid II. As Minister of War from January 1910, and again from January 1913, he ran the army as something close to a military dictator, reorganised it and founded its air squadrons; his pre-war dispositions before the Italo-Turkish War drew later criticism. ¹

After the Unionist raid on the Sublime Porte of 23 January 1913, in which he succeeded Kâmil Pasha, he became Grand Vizier under Mehmed V and resumed the Balkan War. On 11 June 1913 he was shot dead in his car at Beyazıt Square, Istanbul, by Freedom and Accord partisans in a wider counter-coup attempt. He was buried at the Monument of Liberty in Istanbul. ^{1 2}

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