Mehmed Namık Paşa

Biography

Mehmed Emin Namık Pasha (1804 – 1892) was an Ottoman statesman and military reformer, who is considered to be one of the founding fathers of the modern Ottoman Army. He served under five Sultans and acted as counsellor to at least four of them. He founded the Mekteb-i Harbiye (The Ottoman Military Academy), was twice Viceroy of the province of Bagdad in Ottoman Iraq, was the first ambassador of the Sublime Porte at Saint-James's Court, was appointed Serasker (Supreme Commander of the Ottoman Army), he served as the Minister of War, became a Cabinet minister, and was conferred the title of Şeyh-ül Vüzera (Head of Imperial Ministers). During a long career that spanned a long lifetime (he lived to be eighty-eight), he was one of the personalities who shaped, as well as were themselves shaped by, what historian İlber Ortaylı called “the longest century” of the Ottoman state (İmparatorluğun En Uzun Yüzyılı, 1983).