Mehmed VI

Mehmed VI Vahideddin (محمد سادس Meḥmed-i sâdis or وحيد الدين Vaḥîdü'd-Dîn; VI. Mehmed or Vahdeddin/Vahideddin; 14 January 1861 – 16 May 1926), also known as Şahbaba among the Osmanoğlu family, was the last sultan of the Ottoman Empire and the penultimate Ottoman caliph, reigning from 4 July 1918 until 1 November 1922, when the Ottoman sultanate was abolished and replaced by the Republic of Turkey on 29 October 1923.

Mehmed Vahdeddin was born at the Dolmabahçe Palace, in Constantinople, on 14 January 1861.

His father was Abdulmejid I, who died when he was only five months old, and Vahdeddin's mother Gülistu Kadın died when he was four years old.

She was of Georgian-Abkhazian origin, being the daughter of Prince Tahir Bey Chachba.

After his mother's death, Vahdeddin Efendi was raised and taught by his Şayeste Hanım, another of his father's consorts.

He trained himself by taking lessons from private teachers and attending some of the lessons given at the Fatih Madrasa.

The prince had a rough time with his overbearing adoptive mother, and at the age of 16 he left his adoptive mother's mansion with the three servants who had been serving him since childhood.

He grew up with nannies, female servants, and tutors.

During the thirty-three years of his brother Sultan Abdul Hamid II's reign he lived in the Ottoman Imperial Harem.

During his youth his closest friend was Abdul Mejid (to be proclaimed as Caliph Abdul Mejid II), the son of his uncle, Sultan Abdul Aziz.

In the years to come, however, the two cousins became unyielding rivals.

Before moving to the Feriye Palace, the prince had lived briefly in the mansion in Çengelköy owned by Şehzade Ahmed Kemaleddin.

During the reign of Sultan Abdul Hamid II, Vahdeddin was considered to be the sultan's closest brother.

When he ascended to the throne, this closeness greatly influenced his political attitudes, such as his intense dislike of the Young Turks and the Committee of Union and Progress (CUP), and his sympathy for the British.

Mehmed took private lessons.

He read a great deal, and was interested in various subjects, including the arts, which was a tradition of the Ottoman family.

He took courses in calligraphy and music and learned how to write in the naskh script and to play the qanun.

He became interested in Sufism and, unknown to the Palace, he attended courses at the madrasa of Fatih on Islamic jurisprudence, Islamic theology, interpretation of the Quran, and the Hadiths, as well as the Arabic and Persian languages.

He attended the dervish lodge of Ahmed Ziyaüddin Gümüşhanevi, located not far from the Sublime Porte, where Ömer Ziyaüddin of Dagestan was the spiritual leader, and he became a disciple of the Naqshbandi order.

Vahdeddin held a quiet rivalry with his brother Crown Prince Yusuf İzzeddin and repeatedly requested that his brother Sultan Mehmed V Reshad retract İzzeddin as heir apparent.

The brother of Mehmed V Reşâd, he became heir to the throne in 1916, after the death of Şehzade Yusuf Izzeddin, as the eldest male member of the House of Osman.

In the end İzzeddin committed suicide in 1916, putting Vahdeddin on track to succeed his brother upon his death.

In 1917 he went on a five-week trip to Germany, accompanied by his aide-de-camp, Mustafa Kemal Pasha (Atatürk).

He acceded to the throne after the death of Mehmed V. He was girded with the Sword of Osman on 4 July 1918 as the 36th padishah and 115th Islamic Caliph.

Mehmed VI's reign began with the Ottoman Empire suffering defeat by the Allied Powers with the conclusion of World War I.

The subsequent Armistice of Mudros resulted in the legal occupation of Istanbul and many illegal occupations in other parts of the empire.

An initial process of reconciliation between the government and Christian minorities over their massacres and deportations by the government ultimately proved fruitless, when the Greeks and Armenians, via their patriarchates, renounced their status as Ottoman subjects by the end of 1918, spelling a definitive end of Ottomanism.

İttihadist elements within the Ottoman military, discontent with Sultan Mehmed VI's Anglophilia and his alliance with Damat Ferid Pasha, began taking actions into their own hands by establishing a nationalist resistance, beginning the Turkish War of Independence.

Mehmed VI's most significant act as Sultan was dispatching Mustafa Kemal Pasha (Atatürk) to reassert government control in Anatolia, which actually resulted in the further consolidation of anti-appeasement actors against the court, and consequently, the end of the monarchy.

With the Turkish Nationalists standing against Allied designs for a partition of Ottoman Anatolia, the Allies pressured Sultan Mehmed VI to dissolve the Nationalist dominated Chamber of Deputies, ending the Second Constitutional Era.

Kemal Pasha responded with establishing a provisional government known as the Grand National Assembly based in Ankara, which dominated the rest of the Ottoman Empire, while the Sultan's unpopular government in Istanbul was propped up by the Allied powers and effectively impotent.

Mehmed VI's ministers went on to sign the Treaty of Sévres, a harsh peace treaty which would have partitioned the remainder of his empire leaving a rump Turkish state.

With Ankara's victory in the independence war, the Sévres Treaty was abandoned for their Treaty of Lausanne.

Mehmed Vahdeddin succeeded to the throne after the death of his half-brother, and took the name of Mehmed VI, on 3 July 1918.

He held his Cülûs (enthronement ceremony) the day after.

Instead of commissioning his own anthem he signed an edict making his grandfather Mahmud II's anthem as the official national anthem of the Ottoman Empire.

Vahdeddin reappointed Talat Pasha as Grand Vizier for another term and Mustafa Kemal Pasha commander of Seventh Army.

The end of the Great War allowed Vahdeddin to reassert the Sultanate, in contrast to his deceased brother who was accommodating to the CUP.

On 1 November 1922, the Grand National Assembly voted to abolish the Sultanate and Mehmed VI left for Europe in exile after also being declared persona non grata.

On November 18, the Grand National Assembly of Turkey declared the crown prince Abdülmecid Efendi as caliph, and on October 29, 1923, the Republic of Turkey was declared, with Mustafa Kemal as the first president.