Mehmed Talat Pasha was one of leaders of the Young Turks , Ottoman statesman, grand vizier (1917) , and leading member of the Ottoman government from 1913 to 1918. The son of a minor Ottoman official, Mehmed Talat was born in 1874 and graduated from Edirne High School. He joined the staff of the telegraph company in Edirne , but he was soon arrested (1893) for subversive political activity. Released two years later, he was appointed chief secretary of posts and telegraphs in Salonika and rendered important services to the Young Turk cause. In 1908, he was dismissed for being a member of the Committee of Union and Progress (CUP), the conspiratorial nucleus of the Young Turk movement. After the Young Turk Revolution of 1908, however, he became deputy for Edirne in the Ottoman Parliament, and in 1909, he was appointed minister of the interior. He became minister of post and then the secretary-general of the CUP (1912). Before the outbreak of World War I , Talat sided with the Allied powers. In 1914, however, under the influence of Enver Pasha, minister of war and one of the triumvirates, the Ottoman Empire entered the war on the side of Germany . Talat, as minister of the interior, had to take responsibility for the deportation of the Armenians from the empire's eastern provinces, open to Russian influence, to Syria and Mesopotamia; some historians blame him for the barbarity of the operation. In 1917, he became the grand vizier; he resigned on Oct. 14, 1918, shortly before the Ottoman capitulation to the Allies. In November, together with Enver Pasha and Cemal Pasha , he fled to Germany, where he was executed by an Armenian three years later. He was buried into the Turkish Cemetery in Berlin. In 1943, his remains were taken to Istanbul and reburied in Sisli. His war memories were published after his death. This article refers to the Turkish nationalist reform party. ... The Ottoman Empire at the height of its power Imperial motto El Muzaffer Daima The Ever Victorious (as written in tugra) Official language Ottoman Turkish Capital İstanbul ( Constantinople/Asitane/Konstantiniyye ) Sovereigns Sultans of the Osmanli Dynasty Population ca 40 million Area 12+ million km² Establishment 1299 Dissolution October 29, 1923... Selimiye Mosque, built by Sinan in 1575 Edirne is a city in (Thrace), the westernmost part of Turkey, close to the borders with Greece and Bulgaria. ... This article refers to the Turkish nationalist reform party. ... Missing image Ypres, 1917, in the vicinity of the Battle of Passchendaele. ... Ismail Enver Ismail Enver, known to Europeans during his political career as Enver Pasha ( Istanbul, November 22, 1881 - August 4, 1922) was a military officer and a leader of the Young Turk revolution in the closing days of the Ottoman Empire. ...

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