Said Halim Pasha

Said Halim Pasha
Said Halim Pasha in 1915
Grand Vizier of the Ottoman Empire
In office 12 June 1913 – 4 February 1917
Monarch	Mehmed V
Preceded by	Mahmud Şevket Pasha
Succeeded by	Talaat Pasha
Personal details
Born	18 January 1865 Cairo, Khedivate of Egypt
Died	6 December 1921 (aged 56) Rome, Kingdom of Italy
Nationality	Ottoman
Relations	Muhammad Ali of Egypt (grandfather)
Religion	Islam

Said Halim Pasha (Ottoman Turkish: سعيد حليم پاشا ‎; modern Turkish: Sait Halim Paşa; Albanian: Said Halimi; 18 January 1865 – 6 December 1921) was an Ottoman statesman of Albanian origin^[1] who served as the Grand Vizier of the Ottoman Empire from 1913 to 1917.

Biography

Born in Cairo, Egypt, he was the grandson of Muhammad Ali of Egypt, often considered the founder of modern Egypt.

He was one of the signers in Ottoman–German Alliance. Yet, he resigned after the incident of the pursuit of Goeben and Breslau, an event which served to cement the Ottoman–German alliance during World War I. It is claimed that Mehmed V wanted a person in whom he trusted as Grand Vizier, and that he asked Said Halim to stay in his post as long as possible. Said Halim's term lasted until 1917, cut short because of continuous clashes between him and the Committee of Union and Progress, which by then controlled the Imperial Government of the Ottoman Empire.

During the court martial trials after World War I in the Ottoman Empire, he was accused of treason as he had his signature under Ottoman–German Alliance. He was exiled on 29 May 1919 to a prison on Malta.^[2] He was acquitted from the accusations and set free in 1921, and he moved to Sicily. He wanted to return to the Istanbul, the capital of the Ottoman Empire, but this request was rejected. He was assassinated soon after in Rome by Arshavir Shirakian, an agent of the Armenian Revolutionary Federation, for his role in the Armenian Genocide.^[3] Other sources, however, stated that he was unrelated to the Genocide.^[4]

See also

• Operation Nemesis
• List of Ottoman Grand Viziers

Footnotes

1. Danişmend (1971), p. 102.
2. Sukran Vahide (2005). Islam in Modern Turkey. State University of New York Press.
3. Robert Gerwarth; John Horne (27 September 2012). War in Peace: Paramilitary Violence in Europe After the Great War. Oxford University Press. p. 176. ISBN 978-0-19-965491-8.
4. Robert Gerwarth; John Horne (27 September 2012). War in Peace: Paramilitary Violence in Europe After the Great War. Oxford University Press. p. 180. ISBN 978-0-19-965491-8.