Omar Pasha

Omar Pasha by Roger Fenton

Omar Pasha

Omar Pasha Latas (1806-71) was an Ottoman General of Serb origin whose birth name was Mihailo Latas (Michael Latas).

He was born in Serbian Krajina Janja Gora, municipality of Plaški in present-day Croatia, at the time part of the Austrian Empire. Educated at a military school, he joined a frontier regiment. Latas fled to Bosnia in 1823 to escape charges of embezzlement. There he converted to Islam.

His father Petar served in the Austrian Army and in time was appointed lieutenant-governor of the Ogulin district. Michael was an intelligent and lively if rather sickly child. He developed a passion for military, and on leaving school he was accepted as a cadet in his father's Ogulin Regiment. He had beautiful handwriting, and was assigned to clerical duties. There he might have languished, if his father had not upset someone along the corruption line and suffered a conviction for misappropriation. Michael understandably felt that he couldn't stay with the Regiment, and he took off for Bosnia.

He became writing-master to the Ottoman heir, Abd-ul-Medjid, and on the succession of the latter in 1839 was made a colonel. He was military governor of Lebanon in 1842, won distinction in suppressing rebellions in Albania (1843), Kurdistan(1846), and Bosnia (1850), but his chief services were rendered in the Russian War; he successfully defended Kalafat in 1853, entered Bucharest in 1854, and defeated 40,000 Russians next year at Eupatoria in the Crimea. His capture of Cetinje, Montenegro, in 1862 was a difficult feat.

After living rough for a time, he was offered a position as tutor to the children of a Turkish merchant, on condition that he changed his religion from Serbian Orthodoxy to Islam. Although an easy enough condition to fulfill in order to get off the streets, it was a huge cultural step that led naturally to his decision that his future lay with the Turks.

The big break came for the newly named Omar when the family moved to Istanbul. By astute networking and doubtless exploiting his curiosity value as an ex-European military man, he was appointed lecturer at the Turkish Military Academy. With this exposure he shone enough to be snapped up as ADC to the Polish Ottoman General Chrzanowski, who was engaged in the re-organization of the Ottoman Army after the defeat of the Janissaries

Now a Major, Omar completed a mapping assignment in Bulgaria and the Danube territories, gaining detailed knowledge of the ground which was to serve him well in the future. Chrzanowski also milked his ideas for re-organizing the Army; in return he smoothed the way for Omar's introduction into Turkish society. He thereby met and married a rich heiress, the start of his meteoric rise in Turkish military circles. He was shortly afterwards appointed Military Governor of Istanbul. In 1840-41 he led a successful expedition to quell a revolt in Syria, and for a time was Governor of the Lebanon.

After the Hungarian Revolution of 1848, he was put in command of the Turkish forces in Moldavia and Wallachia. His firm and effective handling of a powder keg situation involving potential confrontation with the Russian and Austrian Armies, demonstrated that he possessed considerable diplomatic skills. Subsequent successful combat command in Bosnia in 1851 and in Montenegro in 1852 made the 1853 tangle with the Russians seem like just another war to be won .

There is no doubt that Omar's marriage had opened all the right doors for him, but equally no doubt that he proved equal to the challenges of high command which resulted. A clear and precise military thinker, he took bold decisions and relentlessly followed them through. Although he had a reputation as a strict and ruthless disciplinarian, he was revered and respected by his men. A true professional, while the other allies struggled to come to grips with local campaigning conditions, he had seen it all too often before. Perhaps for that reason the allied troops found his expression cold and disinterested when seated on his horse plodding round their lines.

Activities

Tutor in the household of Hussein Pasha, Governor of Widdin.

1834 - Writing master in a military school at Constantinople.

Instructor to Abd ul Medjid, heir apparent to the throne.

1842 - Appointed Governor of Lebanon.

Successfully repressed insurrections in Albania, Kurdistan, and Bosnia.

1850 crushed a rebellion of beys in Bosnia.

1852 defeated the Montenegrins under Prince Danilo

1853 - Defeated the Russians at Olteniţa.

1854 - Defeated the Russians at Silistria, gaining possession of Bucharest. Repulsed the Russians at Eupatoria, in Crimea.

1857-59 - Governor of Baghdad.

1862 - Repressed the insurrection in Montenegro and took possession of Cetinje.

1864 - Made field marshal.

1867 - Fought rebels in Crete.

1869 - Made Minister of war.

Literature

• The Serbs by Sima M. Ćirković, Vuk Tošić translated by Vuk Tošić; Wiley-Blackwell, 2004 page 222
• Chambers's biographical dictionary: the great of all times and nations by David Patrick, Francis Hindes Groome; W. & R. Chambers, limited, 1907 page 706
• The Near East in Modern Times: The Ottoman Empire and the Balkan States to 1900, by G. G. Arnakis, Wayne S. Vucinich; Pemberton Press, 1969 pages 207, 345
• Wars and Peace Treaties, 1816-1991 by Erik Goldstein; Routledge, 1992 page 24
• The encyclopedia of nineteenth-century land warfare: an illustrated world view by Byron Farwell; W. W. Norton & Company, 2001 page 613
• The Balkan Economies C. 1800-1914: Evolution Without Development by Michael R. Palairet; Contributors: Charles Feinstein, Patrick O'Brien, Barry Supple, Peter Temin, Gianni Toniolo; Cambridge University Press, 2004 page 133
• Religious separation and political intolerance in Bosnia-Herzegovina by Mitja Velikonja; Texas A&M University Press, 2003 pages 85-86
• History of the Balkans: Eighteenth and nineteenth centuries by Barbara Jelavich; Cambridge University Press, 1983 page 345
• An Ethnohistorical Dictionary of the Russian and Soviet Empires by James S. Olson, Lee Brigance Pappas, and Nicholas C.J. Pappas; Greenwood Press (March 30, 1994) page 8
• The Druzes And The Maronites Under The Turkish Rule From 1840 To 1860 by Charles Henry Churchill; Kessinger Publishing (June 30, 2004) pages 64, 72-74,77-79
• A military history of modern Egypt: from the Ottoman Conquest to the Ramadan War by Andrew James; Greenwood Publishing Group, 2006 p121-122
• The Turkish Empire; Its Historical, Statistical, and Religious Condition: Also Its Manners, Customs, Etc by Alfred de Bessé, Edward Joy Morris, Contributors: John Fagan and Thomas S. Sinclair; Lindsay & Blakiston, 1854 pages 24-27
• The Reconstruction of Europe: A Sketch of the Diplomatic and Military History of Continental Europe, from the Rise to the Fall of the Second French Empire by Harold Murdock, John Fiske; Houghton, Mifflin and Company, 1889

External links

• Omer Pasa Latas [1]