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{{Short description|Ottoman politician and physician}}
{{For|the 19th-century Ottoman grand vizier|Reşid Mehmed Pasha}}
{{family name hatnote|Mehmed Reshid|||lang=Ottoman Turkish}}
{{Infobox officeholder {{Infobox officeholder
| name = Mehmed Reshid | name = Mehmed Reshid
| image = | image = Resit bey.jpg
| imagesize = | imagesize = 185px
| smallimage = | smallimage =
| caption = | caption =
| order = Governor of Diyarbekir | order = Governor of ]
| term_start = 25 March 1915 | term_start = 25 March 1915
| term_end = | term_end = 1918?
| leader = | leader =
| predecessor =Hamid Bey | predecessor = Hamid Bey
| successor = | successor = ''Office abolished''
| birth_date = 8 February 1873 | birth_date = 8 February 1873
| birth_place = ] | birth_place = ]
| death_date = {{Death date and age|df=yes|1919|2|6|1873|2|8}} | death_date = {{Death date and age|df=yes|1919|2|6|1873|2|8}}
| death_place = ], ] {{Infobox person | child = yes | death_cause= ]}}
| death_place =
| constituency = | constituency =
| party = ] (CUP) | party = ] (CUP)
| spouse = Mazlûme Hanım | spouse = Mazlûme Hanım
| children = | children =
| profession = Doctor | profession = Doctor
| alma_mater = Constantinople Military School of Medicine | alma_mater = Constantinople Military School of Medicine
| cabinet = | cabinet =
| religion = | religion =
| signature = | signature =
| footnotes = | footnotes =
| allegiance = | allegiance =
| branch = | branch =
| unit = | unit =
| serviceyears = | serviceyears =
| rank = | rank =
| battles = | battles =
| known_for = ]
| native_name = <small>Mehmed Reşid</small>
}} }}


Dr. '''Mehmed Reshid''' ({{lang-tr|Mehmed Reşit Şahingiray}}; b. 8 February 1873 - 6 February 1919)<ref name="ungor39">{{Harvnb|Üngör|2005|p=39.}}</ref> was the governor ('']'') of the ] of the ] during ]. He is known for organizing the wartime destruction of the ], ] and ] communities of Diyarbekir.<ref name="ungor11">{{Harvnb|Üngör|2011|pp=61–83, 88, 98, 106.}}</ref> '''Mehmed Reshid''' ({{langx|tr|Mehmed Reşid Şahingiray}}; 8 February 1873 – 6 February 1919)<ref name="ungor39">{{Harvnb|Üngör|2005|p=39.}}</ref> was an ] politician and physician, official of the ], and ] of the ] (province) of the ] during ]. He is known for organizing the ] of the ] and ] communities of Diyarbekir, in which between 144,000 and 157,000 Armenians, Assyrians, and other Christians were killed.<ref name="ungor11">{{Harvnb|Üngör|2011|pp=61–83, 88, 98, 106.}}</ref> During the ], Reshid was arrested and his roles in the massacres were exposed. He later escaped from prison, but committed suicide after being cornered by local authorities.

According to historian ], despite being one of the worst perpetrators, Reshid "is perceived as a patriot and martyr in official Turkish-nationalist diction."<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Kieser |first1=Hans-Lukas |date=2019 |title=Narrating Talaat, Unlocking Turkey's Foundation: Talaat Pasha Father of Modern Turkey, Architect of Genocide, by Hans-Lukas Kieser, Princeton, Princeton University Press, 2018, 552 pp., USD$39.95 (hardcover), ISBN 9780691157627 |journal=Journal of Genocide Research |volume=21 |issue=4 |pages=562–570 |doi=10.1080/14623528.2019.1613835 |s2cid=182444792}}</ref>


==Biography== ==Biography==
Reshid was born on 8 February 1873 to a ] family in the Russian Caucasia, but due to increasing ] to ] In 1874.<ref name="ungor11">{{Harvnb|Üngör|2011|pp=61-106.}}</ref> Vengeance may have played an important role for him and the Circassian men he employed, during the Armenian genocide.<ref name="ungor11">{{Harvnb|Üngör|2011|pp=106.}}</ref> Reshid was born on 8 February 1873 to a ] family; due to increasing ], he left with his family for the ] in 1874.<ref>{{Harvnb|Kieser|2011|p=126.}}</ref>{{sfn|Howard|2017|page=305}}


He enrolled in Constantinople's Military School of Medicine and was one of the founders of the ] (CUP). In 1894, Reshid was appointed as an assistant to the German professor Düring Pasha at the ] hospital. When his links to the CUP were discovered by police in 1897 he was exiled to ].<ref name="Kieser">{{Harvnb|Kieser|2011|p=130.}}</ref> He served as a doctor in ] until 1908, when he returned to Constantinople following the ]. He resigned from his position in the Ottoman military the following year, and pursued a career in state administration that took him from İstanköy to the ] to ] and ultimately Diyarbekir.<ref name="Kieser2">{{Harvnb|Kieser|2011|pp=130–33.}}</ref> He enrolled in the Imperial Military School of Medicine at the capital, ], and was one of the founders of the ] (CUP).<ref name=":0">{{Cite book|title=A Quest for Belonging|last=Kieser|first=Hans-Lukas|publisher=ISIS Press|year=2007|isbn=9789754283457|location=Istanbul|pages=181}}</ref> In 1894, Reshid was employed as an assistant to the German professor Düring Pasha at the ] hospital. When his links to the CUP were discovered by police in 1897 he was exiled to ]. where he served as a doctor in ] until 1908.<ref name=":0" /> When he returned to Constantinople (today Istanbul) and got promoted to Adjudant Major, he worked as a military doctor for some months but resigned from his position in the Ottoman military the following year on the 20 August 1909.<ref>{{Cite book|title=A Quest for Belonging|last=Kieser|first=Hans-Lukas|publisher=ISIS Press|year=2007|isbn=9789754283457|location=Istanbul|pages=192}}</ref> He then pursued a career in state administration that on the 9 October 1909 took him as a '']'' to İstanköy and in February 1910 he was promoted to '']'' in Hums, Tripolis, where he worked until his removal in June 1911.<ref>Kieser, Hans-Lukas (2007), p.193</ref> From Tripoli his career led him as a ''Mutasarrıf'' to Kozan, ] and ]<ref>Kieser, Hans-Lukas (2007), p.195</ref> before he was named Vali of Diyarbekir on the 13 August 1914.<ref>{{Cite book|title=A Quest for Belonging|last=Kieser|first=Hans-Lukas|publisher=ISIS Press|year=2007|isbn=9789754283457|location=Istanbul|pages=200}}</ref>


===Diyarbekir governorship=== ===Diyarbekir governorship===
{{further|1915 genocide in Diyarbekir}}
Over the years, Reshid became increasingly radicalized and by 1914 he was convinced that the Christians of the empire were to blame for its economic woes.<ref name="ungor39"/> During his tenure as district governor of Karesi, he had organized the forced deportation of the ] (''Rumlar'') in the ], whom he no longer considered to be faithful citizens of the empire. This policy was supported by the Ottoman Interior Minister ].<ref name="Kieser3">{{Harvnb|Kieser|2011|pp=132–35.}}</ref> Over the years, Reshid became increasingly radicalized and by 1914 he was convinced that the Christians of the empire were to blame for its economic woes.<ref name="ungor39"/> During his tenure as district governor of Karesi, he had organized the ] of the ] (''Rumlar'') in the ], whom he no longer considered to be faithful citizens of the empire. This policy was supported by the Ottoman Interior Minister ].<ref name="Kieser3">{{Harvnb|Kieser|2011|pp=132–35.}}</ref>


In 1914, the Ottoman Empire entered World War I on the side of the ] and fighting erupted at the border against Russia. In the spring of 1915, the Russians advanced successfully into Ottoman territory and the quick march of their army toward Diyarbakir, according to historian Uğur Üngör, must have confirmed Reshid's "apocalyptic fear" of the Russians and their perceptions of all Armenians to be Russian spies.<ref name="ungor11">{{Harvnb|Üngör|2011|p=106.}}</ref> Before the war, the economic and political competition between the Muslim and Christian urban elite also played an important role in the violence.<ref name="ungor11">{{Harvnb|Üngör|2011|pp=106.}}</ref> In 1914, the Ottoman Empire entered World War I on the side of the ] and fighting erupted at the border against Russia. In the spring of 1915, the Russians advanced into Ottoman territory and the quick march of their army toward Diyarbekir, according to historian ], must have confirmed Reshid's "apocalyptic fear" of the Russians and their perceptions of all Armenians to be Russian spies.<ref name="u0ngor11">{{Harvnb|Üngör|2011|p=106.}}</ref> Before the war, the economic and political competition between the Muslim and Christian urban elite also played an important role in the violence.<ref name="ungor11"/>


His particularly strong hatred for the empire's ] was made manifest in the mass murders of Armenians and ]s he organized in the Diyarbekir province following his accession to the governorship on March 25, 1915, at the height of World War I. Reshid had persuaded himself that the native Armenian population was conspiring against the Ottoman state and he had accordingly drawn up plans for the "solution of the ]."<ref name="ungor63">{{Harvnb|Üngör|2011|pp=63–64.}}</ref> He recounted in his memoirs: His particularly strong hatred for the empire's ] was made manifest in the mass murders of Armenians and ] he organized in the Diyarbekir province following his accession to the governorship on 25 March 1915, at the height of World War I. Reshid had persuaded himself that the native Armenian population was conspiring against the Ottoman state and he had accordingly drawn up plans for the "solution of the ]."<ref name="ungor63">{{Harvnb|Üngör|2011|pp=63–64.}}</ref> He recounted in his memoirs:


{{quotation|My appointment to Diyarbekir coincided with a very delicate period of the war. Large parts of ] and ] had been invaded by the enemy , deserters were transgressing, pillaging and robbing everywhere. ] and ] uprisings in or at the border of the province required the application of drastic measures. The transgressional, offensive and impudent attitude of the Armenians was seriously endangering the honor of the government.<ref name="ungor5">{{Harvnb|Üngör|2011|p=63.}}</ref>}} {{quotation|My appointment to Diyarbekir coincided with a very delicate period of the war. Large parts of ] and ] had been invaded by the enemy , deserters were transgressing, pillaging and robbing everywhere. ] and ] uprisings in or at the border of the province required the application of drastic measures. The transgressional, offensive and impudent attitude of the Armenians was seriously endangering the honor of the government.<ref name="ungor5">{{Harvnb|Üngör|2011|p=63.}}</ref>}}


Over the next two months the Armenians and Assyrians of the province were targeted in a brutal campaign of extermination and were wiped out by way of wholesale massacres and deportations.<ref name="ungor">{{Harvnb|Üngör|2011|pp=55–106.}}</ref> According to the ] officer and mercenary ], who visited the region in June 1915, Reshid had recently received a three-worded telegram from Talat Pasha to "Burn-Destroy-Kill," an order cited as official government approval of his persecution of the Christian population.<ref>{{Harvnb|De Nogales|1926|p=147.}}</ref><ref name="ungor72-73">{{Harvnb|Üngör|2011|pp=72–73.}}</ref> He is said to have burned 800 Syriac Christian children alive by himself after enclosing them in a building.<ref name="ungor74">{{Harvnb|Üngör|2005|p=74.}}</ref> Nesimi Bey and Sabit Bey, the governors of the districts of Lice and Sabit, respectively, are both suspected to have been assassinated under the express orders of Reshid for their opposition to the killings.<ref name="Kieser4">{{Harvnb|Kieser|2011|p=142.}}</ref> Anywhere from 144,000 to 157,000 Armenians, Syriacs and other Christians were killed or driven away during Reshid tenure as governor of Diyarbekir.<ref>{{Harvnb|Üngör and Polatel|2011|p=149}}</ref> Over the next two months the Armenians and Assyrians of the province were targeted in a brutal campaign of extermination and were wiped out by way of wholesale massacres and deportations.<ref name="ungor">{{Harvnb|Üngör|2011|pp=55–106.}}</ref> He established a "Committee of Inquiry" with the aim of the solution of the "Armenian Question".<ref name=":02222">{{Cite book|last=Üngör|first=Uğur Ümit|title=Social Relations in Ottoman Diyarbekir, 1870-1915|publisher=Brill|year=2012|isbn=9789004225183|editor-last=Jorngerden|editor-first=Joost|pages=279|editor-last2=Verheij|editor-first2=Jelle}}</ref> According to the ] officer and mercenary ], who visited the region in June 1915, Reshid had recently received a three-worded telegram from Talat Pasha to "Burn-Destroy-Kill," an order cited as official government approval of his persecution of the Christian population.<ref>{{Harvnb|De Nogales|1926|p=147.}}</ref><ref name="ungor72-73">{{Harvnb|Üngör|2011|pp=72–73.}}</ref> He is said to have personally burned 800 Assyrian children alive after enclosing them in a building.<ref name="ungor74">{{Harvnb|Üngör|2005|p=74.}}</ref> Nesimi Bey and Sabit Bey, the governors of the districts of Lice and Sabit, respectively, are both suspected to have been assassinated under the express orders of Reshid for their opposition to the killings.<ref name="Kieser4">{{Harvnb|Kieser|2011|p=142.}}</ref> Anywhere between 144,000 and 157,000 Armenians, Assyrians, and other Christians, or 87 to 95% of the province's Christian population, were killed or deported during Reshid's tenure as governor of Diyarbekir.<ref>{{Harvnb|Üngör|2011|p=85.}}</ref>


When later asked by the CUP secretary general Mithat Şukru Bleda how he, as a doctor, had had the heart to kill so many people he replied: When later asked by the CUP secretary general ] how he, as a doctor, had had the heart to send so many people to death their deaths he replied:


{{quotation|Being a doctor could not cause me to forget my nationality! Reshid is a doctor. But he was born as a Turk....Either the Armenians were to eliminate the Turks, or the Turks were to eliminate the Armenians. I did not hesitate when I was confronted with this dilemma. My Turkishness prevailed over my profession. I figured, instead of wiping us out, we will wipe them out....On the question how I, as a doctor, could have murdered, I can answer as follows: the Armenians had become hazardous microbes in the body of this country. Well, isn’t it a doctor’s duty to kill microbes?<ref name="Gaunt">{{tr icon}} Salâhattin Güngör, "Bir Canlı Tarih Konuşuyor" , ''Resimli Tarih Mecmuası'', part 3, vol.4, no. 43, July 1953, pp. 2444-45, cited in {{Harvnb|Gaunt|2006|p=359.}}</ref>}} {{quotation|"Being a doctor could not cause me to forget my nationality! Reshid is a doctor. But he was born as a Turk....Either the Armenians were to eliminate the Turks, or the Turks were to eliminate the Armenians. I did not hesitate when I was confronted with this dilemma. My Turkishness prevailed over my profession. I figured, instead of wiping us out, we will wipe them out....On the question how I, as a doctor, could have murdered, I can answer as follows: the Armenians had become hazardous microbes in the body of this country. Well, isn’t it a doctor’s duty to kill microbes?"<ref name="Gaunt">{{in lang|tr}} Salâhattin Güngör, "Bir Canlı Tarih Konuşuyor" , ''Resimli Tarih Mecmuası'', part 3, vol.4, no. 43, July 1953, pp. 2444-45, cited in {{Harvnb|Gaunt|2006|p=359.}}</ref>}}


When asked by Bleda how history might remember him, Reshid simply responded, "Let other nations write about me whatever history they want, I couldn't care less."<ref>{{Harvnb|Üngör and Polatel|2011|p=151}}</ref> When asked by Bleda how history might remember him, Reshid simply responded, "Let other nations write about me whatever history they want, I couldn't care less."<ref>{{Harvnb|Üngör|Polatel|2011|p=151}}</ref>


===Final years=== ===Final years===
Most of the jewelry and possessions Reshid had confiscated from the Armenians were, in theory, to be forwarded to the central government's treasury. Talat Pasha's concern for these valuables resulted in an investigation into Reshid for embezzlement, which found that he had amassed a personal fortune from the killings. A doctor, Hyacinth Fardjalian, attested, "I myself saw Rechid Bey arrive at Aleppo by a train bound for Constantinople with 43 boxes of jewellery and two cases of precious stones."<ref>{{Harvnb|Üngör and Polatel|2011|p=147}}</ref> He was transferred to ] province, where he had been appointed the new governor. At this time he purchased a mansion on the ]. When Talat found out about this, he had Reshid removed from his post.<ref name="Akçam">{{Harvnb|Akçam|2012|pp=211–12.}}</ref> Most of the jewellery and possessions Reshid had confiscated from the Armenians were, in theory, to be forwarded to the central government's treasury. Talat Pasha's concern for these valuables resulted in an investigation into Reshid for embezzlement, which found that he had amassed a personal fortune from the killings. A doctor, Hyacinth Fardjalian, attested, "I myself saw Rechid Bey arrive at Aleppo by a train bound for Constantinople with 43 boxes of jewellery and two cases of precious stones."<ref>{{Harvnb|Üngör|Polatel|2011|p=147}}</ref> He was transferred to ], where he assumed as the ] between March 1916 and 1917.<ref>Kieser, Hans-Lukas (2007), p.211</ref> At this time he purchased a mansion on the ] with money stolen from murdered Armenians. When Talat found out about this, he had Reshid removed from his post.<ref name="Akçam">{{Harvnb|Akçam|2012|pp=211–12.}}</ref> ] commented, "Talat Pasha dismissed Resit as a thief, while he adored him as murderer".<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Akçam |first1=Taner |title=Guenter Lewy's The Armenian Massacres in Ottoman Turkey |journal=Genocide Studies and Prevention |date=2008 |volume=3 |issue=1 |pages=111–145 |doi=10.1353/gsp.2011.0087|s2cid=143686528 |url=https://scholarcommons.usf.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1185&context=gsp}}</ref>


On November 5, 1918, a little less than a week after Ottoman capitulation to the Allies, Reshid was arrested and sent to Bekirağa prison in Constantinople. His role in the massacres was exposed in the Constantinople press, though he would go on to deny his actions and having ever committed any crime. Reshid managed to escape in January 1919, but when government authorities cornered him he committed suicide by shooting himself in the head.<ref name="ungor62">{{Harvnb|Üngör|2011|p=62.}}</ref> He then returned to Istanbul and began a business importing perfumes.<ref>Kieser, Hans-Lukas (2007), p.182</ref> On 5 November 1918, less than a week after Ottoman capitulation to the Allies, Reshid was arrested and sent to Bekirağa prison in Constantinople. His role in the massacres was exposed in the Constantinople press, albeit he would deny his actions and of ever having committed a crime. Reshid managed to escape from the prison in January 1919, but when government authorities cornered him, he committed suicide by shooting himself in the head.<ref name="ungor62">{{Harvnb|Üngör|2011|p=62.}}</ref>


==Legacy== ==Legacy==
In ], there is a boulevard named after him in his honor.<ref name=anderson>{{cite book|last=Anderson|first=Perry|title=The New Old World|year=2011|publisher=Verso|location=London|isbn=9781844677214|page=459}}</ref> Despite his role in the destruction of the Christian communities of Diyarbekir, Reshid was embraced by the authorities of the newly established ]. In ], a boulevard was named after him in his honour.<ref name=anderson>{{cite book|last=Anderson|first=Perry|title=The New Old World|url=https://archive.org/details/newoldworld00ande|url-access=limited|year=2011|publisher=Verso|location=London|isbn=9781844677214|page=}}</ref> The Ministry of Economy saw to it that his wife Mazlûme Hanım was properly cared for and in 1928 provided shops formerly belonging to deported Armenians to help support her livelihood. Reshid's family was also given two houses and, in a 1930 decree signed by President ] and other members of the cabinet, was allocated further Armenian properties.<ref>{{Harvnb|Üngör|Polatel|2011|pp=155–56}}</ref>

Even though he is now known as the "Butcher of Diyarbakir",<ref>{{cite book|last=Anderson|first=Perry|title=The New Old World|url=https://archive.org/details/newoldworld00ande|url-access=limited|year=2011|publisher=Verso|location=London|isbn=9781844677214|edition=pbk.|page=|quote=Resit Bey, the butcher of Diyarbakir.}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|title=The First World War As Remembered in the Countries of the Eastern Mediterranean|year=2006|publisher=Ergon-Verl.|location=Würzburg|isbn=3899135148|page=52|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=rlVtAAAAMAAJ|editor=Olaf Farschid|quote=Later, Reshid became infamous for organizing the extermination of the Armenians in the province of Diarbekir, receiving the nickname "kasap" (the butcher).}}</ref><ref>{{cite news|last1=Dağlıoğlu|first1=Emre Can|title=Diyarbekir celladı Doktor Reşid|url=http://www.agos.com.tr/tr/yazi/11242/diyarbekir-celladi-doktor-resid|agency=Agos|date=10 April 2015|language=tr}}</ref> Reshid claimed, during a conversation with ], to bear no legal or moral responsibility for the systematic massacre of Christians in his province, as he ] from the ], ]. According to De Nogales, "Talat had ordered the slaughter by a circular telegram, if my memory is correct, containing a scant three words: ''Yak - Vur - Oldur'', meaning, 'Burn, demolish, kill'. The authenticity of that terrible phrase was confirmed by the press of Constantinople after the Armistice with the publication of a certain telegram which the Ottoman commission engaged in investigating the massacres and deportations had discovered among the papers of the ]."<ref>Rafael de Nogales, ''Four Years beneath the Crescent'', page 147.</ref>

], the former ], had a very different opinion and testified after the Armistice, "The catastrophic deportations and murders in Diyarbekir were Reshid's work. He alone is responsible. He recruited people from the outside in order to perpetrate the killings. He murdered the ]s in order to scare all other opposed Muslim men and women; he displayed the corpses of the Kaimakams in public."<ref>''Armenian Tigranakert/Diarbekir and Edessa/Urfa''. ] (ed.) UCLA Armenian History and Culture Series: Historic Armenian Cities and Provinces, 6. Costa Mesa, CA: Mazda Publishers, 2006, page 341.</ref>


==See also== ==See also==
*]
⚫ *]
*] *]
*]
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==Notes== ==Notes==
Line 73: Line 88:


==Bibliography== ==Bibliography==
*{{citation|last=Akçam|first=Taner|authorlink=Taner Akçam|title= The Young Turks' Crime Against Humanity: The Armenian Genocide and Ethnic Cleansing in the Ottoman Empire|year=2012|publisher=Princeton University Press|location=Princeton|isbn=0-6911-5333-7}}. *{{citation|last=Akçam|first=Taner|author-link=Taner Akçam|title= ]|year=2012|publisher=]|location=Princeton|isbn=978-0-6911-5333-9}}.
*{{citation|last=Gaunt|first=David|contribution =Death's End, 1915: The General Massacres of Christians in Diarbekir|title=Armenian Tigranakert/Diarbekir and Edessa/Urfa|editor=]| series = UCLA Armenian History and Culture Series: Historic Armenian Cities and Provinces, 6|year=2006|publisher=Mazda Publishers|location=Costa Mesa, CA}}. *{{citation|last=Gaunt|first=David|contribution =Death's End, 1915: The General Massacres of Christians in Diarbekir|title=Armenian Tigranakert/Diarbekir and Edessa/Urfa|editor=]| series = UCLA Armenian History and Culture Series: Historic Armenian Cities and Provinces, 6|year=2006|publisher=Mazda Publishers|location=Costa Mesa, CA}}.
*{{citation|last=Kieser|first=Hans-Lukas|contribution =From 'Patriotism' to Mass Murder: Dr. Mehmed Reşid (1873-1919)|title=A Question of Genocide: Armenians and Turks at the End of the Ottoman Empire|editor=] and Fatma Müge Göçek|year=2011|publisher=Oxford University Press|location=Oxford}}. *{{cite book|last1=Howard|first1=Douglas A.|title=A History of the Ottoman Empire|date=2017|publisher=Cambridge University Press|isbn=978-1108107471}}
*{{cite book|last=Kieser|first=Hans-Lukas|authorlink=Hans-Lukas Kieser|chapter =From 'Patriotism' to Mass Murder: Dr. Mehmed Reşid (1873-1919)|title=A Question of Genocide: Armenians and Turks at the End of the Ottoman Empire |title-link=A Question of Genocide|date=2011 |publisher=Oxford University Press |isbn=978-0-19-979276-4|pages=126–150}}
*{{citation|last=De Nogales|first=Rafael|title=Four Years Beneath the Crescent|year=1926|publisher=C. Scribner's Sons|location= New York, London|isbn=|oclc=|postscript=<!--none-->}}. *{{citation|last=De Nogales|first=Rafael|title=Four Years Beneath the Crescent|year=1926|publisher=C. Scribner's Sons|location= New York, London}}.
*{{citation|last=Üngör|first=Uğur|authorlink=Uğur Ümit Üngör|title=''CUP Rule in Diyarbekir Province, 1913-1923''|year=2005|location=|url=http://www.ermenisoykirimi.net/thesis.pdf|publisher=University of Amsterdam, Master's Thesis|isbn=|oclc=|postscript=}}.
*{{citation|last=Üngör|first=Uğur|title=The Making of Modern Turkey: Nation and State in Eastern Anatolia, 1913-1950|year=2011|publisher=Oxford University Press|location=Oxford|isbn=0-19-960360-X|oclc=|postscript=}}. *{{citation|last=Üngör|first=Uğur|author-link=Uğur Ümit Üngör|title=''CUP Rule in Diyarbekir Province, 1913-1923''|year=2005|url=http://www.ermenisoykirimi.net/thesis.pdf|publisher=University of Amsterdam, Master's Thesis|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120321064308/http://www.ermenisoykirimi.net/thesis.pdf|archive-date=2012-03-21}}.
*{{citation|last1=Üngör|first1=Uğur|last2=Polatel|first2=Mehmet|title=Confiscation and Destruction: The Young Turk Seizure of Armenian Property|year=2011|publisher=Continuum International|location=London|isbn=|oclc=|postscript=}}. *{{citation|last=Üngör|first=Uğur|title=The Making of Modern Turkey: Nation and State in Eastern Anatolia, 1913-1950|year=2011|publisher=Oxford University Press|location=Oxford|isbn=978-0-19-960360-2}}.
*{{citation|last1=Üngör|first1=Uğur|last2=Polatel|first2=Mehmet|title=Confiscation and Destruction: The Young Turk Seizure of Armenian Property|year=2011|publisher=Continuum International|location=London}}.

⚫ {{Armenian Genocide}}
{{Sayfo}}
{{Authority control}}


{{Persondata <!-- Metadata: see ]. -->
| NAME = Mehmed Reshid
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES =
| SHORT DESCRIPTION =
| DATE OF BIRTH = 8 February 1873
| PLACE OF BIRTH = ]
| DATE OF DEATH = 6 February 1919
| PLACE OF DEATH =
}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Mehmed Reshid}} {{DEFAULTSORT:Mehmed Reshid}}
] ]
]
] ]
] ]
] ]
]
]
]
] ]
] ]
] ]
]
]
]
]
]
]
]

Latest revision as of 09:47, 22 November 2024

Ottoman politician and physician For the 19th-century Ottoman grand vizier, see Reşid Mehmed Pasha. In this Ottoman Turkish style name, the given name is Mehmed Reshid. There is no family name.
Mehmed Reshid
Mehmed Reşid
Governor of Diyarbekir
In office
25 March 1915 – 1918?
Preceded byHamid Bey
Succeeded byOffice abolished
Personal details
Born8 February 1873
Russian Empire
Died6 February 1919(1919-02-06) (aged 45)
Allied-occupied Istanbul, Ottoman Empire
Cause of deathSuicide by firearm
Political partyCommittee of Union and Progress (CUP)
SpouseMazlûme Hanım
Alma materConstantinople Military School of Medicine
ProfessionDoctor
Known for1915 genocide in Diyarbekir

Mehmed Reshid (Turkish: Mehmed Reşid Şahingiray; 8 February 1873 – 6 February 1919) was an Ottoman politician and physician, official of the Committee of Union and Progress, and governor of the Diyarbekir Vilayet (province) of the Ottoman Empire during World War I. He is known for organizing the 1915 genocide of the Armenian and Assyrian communities of Diyarbekir, in which between 144,000 and 157,000 Armenians, Assyrians, and other Christians were killed. During the Allied occupation of Istanbul, Reshid was arrested and his roles in the massacres were exposed. He later escaped from prison, but committed suicide after being cornered by local authorities.

According to historian Hans-Lukas Kieser, despite being one of the worst perpetrators, Reshid "is perceived as a patriot and martyr in official Turkish-nationalist diction."

Biography

Reshid was born on 8 February 1873 to a Circassian family; due to increasing Russian persecution, he left with his family for the Ottoman Empire in 1874.

He enrolled in the Imperial Military School of Medicine at the capital, Dersaadet, and was one of the founders of the Committee of Union and Progress (CUP). In 1894, Reshid was employed as an assistant to the German professor Düring Pasha at the Haydarpaşa hospital. When his links to the CUP were discovered by police in 1897 he was exiled to Libya. where he served as a doctor in Tripoli until 1908. When he returned to Constantinople (today Istanbul) and got promoted to Adjudant Major, he worked as a military doctor for some months but resigned from his position in the Ottoman military the following year on the 20 August 1909. He then pursued a career in state administration that on the 9 October 1909 took him as a Kaymakam to İstanköy and in February 1910 he was promoted to Mutasarrıf in Hums, Tripolis, where he worked until his removal in June 1911. From Tripoli his career led him as a Mutasarrıf to Kozan, Lazistan and Karesi before he was named Vali of Diyarbekir on the 13 August 1914.

Diyarbekir governorship

Further information: 1915 genocide in Diyarbekir

Over the years, Reshid became increasingly radicalized and by 1914 he was convinced that the Christians of the empire were to blame for its economic woes. During his tenure as district governor of Karesi, he had organized the forced deportation of the Ottoman Greeks (Rumlar) in the Aegean, whom he no longer considered to be faithful citizens of the empire. This policy was supported by the Ottoman Interior Minister Talat Pasha.

In 1914, the Ottoman Empire entered World War I on the side of the Central Powers and fighting erupted at the border against Russia. In the spring of 1915, the Russians advanced into Ottoman territory and the quick march of their army toward Diyarbekir, according to historian Uğur Üngör, must have confirmed Reshid's "apocalyptic fear" of the Russians and their perceptions of all Armenians to be Russian spies. Before the war, the economic and political competition between the Muslim and Christian urban elite also played an important role in the violence.

His particularly strong hatred for the empire's Armenians was made manifest in the mass murders of Armenians and Assyrians he organized in the Diyarbekir province following his accession to the governorship on 25 March 1915, at the height of World War I. Reshid had persuaded himself that the native Armenian population was conspiring against the Ottoman state and he had accordingly drawn up plans for the "solution of the Armenian question." He recounted in his memoirs:

My appointment to Diyarbekir coincided with a very delicate period of the war. Large parts of Van and Bitlis had been invaded by the enemy , deserters were transgressing, pillaging and robbing everywhere. Yezidi and Nestorian uprisings in or at the border of the province required the application of drastic measures. The transgressional, offensive and impudent attitude of the Armenians was seriously endangering the honor of the government.

Over the next two months the Armenians and Assyrians of the province were targeted in a brutal campaign of extermination and were wiped out by way of wholesale massacres and deportations. He established a "Committee of Inquiry" with the aim of the solution of the "Armenian Question". According to the Venezuelan officer and mercenary Rafael de Nogales, who visited the region in June 1915, Reshid had recently received a three-worded telegram from Talat Pasha to "Burn-Destroy-Kill," an order cited as official government approval of his persecution of the Christian population. He is said to have personally burned 800 Assyrian children alive after enclosing them in a building. Nesimi Bey and Sabit Bey, the governors of the districts of Lice and Sabit, respectively, are both suspected to have been assassinated under the express orders of Reshid for their opposition to the killings. Anywhere between 144,000 and 157,000 Armenians, Assyrians, and other Christians, or 87 to 95% of the province's Christian population, were killed or deported during Reshid's tenure as governor of Diyarbekir.

When later asked by the CUP secretary general Mithat Şukru Bleda how he, as a doctor, had had the heart to send so many people to death their deaths he replied:

"Being a doctor could not cause me to forget my nationality! Reshid is a doctor. But he was born as a Turk....Either the Armenians were to eliminate the Turks, or the Turks were to eliminate the Armenians. I did not hesitate when I was confronted with this dilemma. My Turkishness prevailed over my profession. I figured, instead of wiping us out, we will wipe them out....On the question how I, as a doctor, could have murdered, I can answer as follows: the Armenians had become hazardous microbes in the body of this country. Well, isn’t it a doctor’s duty to kill microbes?"

When asked by Bleda how history might remember him, Reshid simply responded, "Let other nations write about me whatever history they want, I couldn't care less."

Final years

Most of the jewellery and possessions Reshid had confiscated from the Armenians were, in theory, to be forwarded to the central government's treasury. Talat Pasha's concern for these valuables resulted in an investigation into Reshid for embezzlement, which found that he had amassed a personal fortune from the killings. A doctor, Hyacinth Fardjalian, attested, "I myself saw Rechid Bey arrive at Aleppo by a train bound for Constantinople with 43 boxes of jewellery and two cases of precious stones." He was transferred to Ankara province, where he assumed as the Vali between March 1916 and 1917. At this time he purchased a mansion on the Bosphorus with money stolen from murdered Armenians. When Talat found out about this, he had Reshid removed from his post. Süleyman Nazif commented, "Talat Pasha dismissed Resit as a thief, while he adored him as murderer".

He then returned to Istanbul and began a business importing perfumes. On 5 November 1918, less than a week after Ottoman capitulation to the Allies, Reshid was arrested and sent to Bekirağa prison in Constantinople. His role in the massacres was exposed in the Constantinople press, albeit he would deny his actions and of ever having committed a crime. Reshid managed to escape from the prison in January 1919, but when government authorities cornered him, he committed suicide by shooting himself in the head.

Legacy

Despite his role in the destruction of the Christian communities of Diyarbekir, Reshid was embraced by the authorities of the newly established Republic of Turkey. In Ankara, a boulevard was named after him in his honour. The Ministry of Economy saw to it that his wife Mazlûme Hanım was properly cared for and in 1928 provided shops formerly belonging to deported Armenians to help support her livelihood. Reshid's family was also given two houses and, in a 1930 decree signed by President Mustafa Kemal and other members of the cabinet, was allocated further Armenian properties.

Even though he is now known as the "Butcher of Diyarbakir", Reshid claimed, during a conversation with Rafael de Nogales, to bear no legal or moral responsibility for the systematic massacre of Christians in his province, as he only followed orders from the Minister of the Interior, Talat Pasha. According to De Nogales, "Talat had ordered the slaughter by a circular telegram, if my memory is correct, containing a scant three words: Yak - Vur - Oldur, meaning, 'Burn, demolish, kill'. The authenticity of that terrible phrase was confirmed by the press of Constantinople after the Armistice with the publication of a certain telegram which the Ottoman commission engaged in investigating the massacres and deportations had discovered among the papers of the Committee of Union and Progress."

Süleyman Nazif, the former Vali of Mosul, had a very different opinion and testified after the Armistice, "The catastrophic deportations and murders in Diyarbekir were Reshid's work. He alone is responsible. He recruited people from the outside in order to perpetrate the killings. He murdered the Kaimakams in order to scare all other opposed Muslim men and women; he displayed the corpses of the Kaimakams in public."

See also

Notes

  1. ^ Üngör 2005, p. 39.
  2. ^ Üngör 2011, pp. 61–83, 88, 98, 106.
  3. Kieser, Hans-Lukas (2019). "Narrating Talaat, Unlocking Turkey's Foundation: Talaat Pasha Father of Modern Turkey, Architect of Genocide, by Hans-Lukas Kieser, Princeton, Princeton University Press, 2018, 552 pp., USD$39.95 (hardcover), ISBN 9780691157627". Journal of Genocide Research. 21 (4): 562–570. doi:10.1080/14623528.2019.1613835. S2CID 182444792.
  4. Kieser 2011, p. 126.
  5. Howard 2017, p. 305.
  6. ^ Kieser, Hans-Lukas (2007). A Quest for Belonging. Istanbul: ISIS Press. p. 181. ISBN 9789754283457.
  7. Kieser, Hans-Lukas (2007). A Quest for Belonging. Istanbul: ISIS Press. p. 192. ISBN 9789754283457.
  8. Kieser, Hans-Lukas (2007), p.193
  9. Kieser, Hans-Lukas (2007), p.195
  10. Kieser, Hans-Lukas (2007). A Quest for Belonging. Istanbul: ISIS Press. p. 200. ISBN 9789754283457.
  11. Kieser 2011, pp. 132–35.
  12. Üngör 2011, p. 106.
  13. Üngör 2011, pp. 63–64.
  14. Üngör 2011, p. 63.
  15. Üngör 2011, pp. 55–106.
  16. Üngör, Uğur Ümit (2012). Jorngerden, Joost; Verheij, Jelle (eds.). Social Relations in Ottoman Diyarbekir, 1870-1915. Brill. p. 279. ISBN 9789004225183.
  17. De Nogales 1926, p. 147.
  18. Üngör 2011, pp. 72–73.
  19. Üngör 2005, p. 74.
  20. Kieser 2011, p. 142.
  21. Üngör 2011, p. 85.
  22. (in Turkish) Salâhattin Güngör, "Bir Canlı Tarih Konuşuyor" , Resimli Tarih Mecmuası, part 3, vol.4, no. 43, July 1953, pp. 2444-45, cited in Gaunt 2006, p. 359.
  23. Üngör & Polatel 2011, p. 151
  24. Üngör & Polatel 2011, p. 147
  25. Kieser, Hans-Lukas (2007), p.211
  26. Akçam 2012, pp. 211–12.
  27. Akçam, Taner (2008). "Guenter Lewy's The Armenian Massacres in Ottoman Turkey". Genocide Studies and Prevention. 3 (1): 111–145. doi:10.1353/gsp.2011.0087. S2CID 143686528.
  28. Kieser, Hans-Lukas (2007), p.182
  29. Üngör 2011, p. 62.
  30. Anderson, Perry (2011). The New Old World. London: Verso. p. 459. ISBN 9781844677214.
  31. Üngör & Polatel 2011, pp. 155–56
  32. Anderson, Perry (2011). The New Old World (pbk. ed.). London: Verso. p. 459. ISBN 9781844677214. Resit Bey, the butcher of Diyarbakir.
  33. Olaf Farschid, ed. (2006). The First World War As Remembered in the Countries of the Eastern Mediterranean. Würzburg: Ergon-Verl. p. 52. ISBN 3899135148. Later, Reshid became infamous for organizing the extermination of the Armenians in the province of Diarbekir, receiving the nickname "kasap" (the butcher).
  34. Dağlıoğlu, Emre Can (10 April 2015). "Diyarbekir celladı Doktor Reşid" (in Turkish). Agos.
  35. Rafael de Nogales, Four Years beneath the Crescent, page 147.
  36. Armenian Tigranakert/Diarbekir and Edessa/Urfa. Richard G. Hovannisian (ed.) UCLA Armenian History and Culture Series: Historic Armenian Cities and Provinces, 6. Costa Mesa, CA: Mazda Publishers, 2006, page 341.

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