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November 22, 1881 - Enver Pasha

One of the three men who effectively controlled the Ottoman Empire during World War I, Enver rose from revolutionary hero to war minister through a combination of military ambition and political ruthlessness. His decision to align the empire with Germany and enter the war proved catastrophic, and his defeat at Sarikamish — which he attributed to Armenian treachery — helped set in motion the policies that led to the Armenian Genocide. The trajectory from Young Turk reformer to convicted war criminal spans one of the most consequential political collapses of the early twentieth century.

From Wikipedia

Enver Pasha

İsmâil Enver Pasha (Ottoman Turkish: اسماعیل انور پاشا; Turkish: İsmail Enver Paşa; 23 November 1881 – 4 August 1922) was a Turkish military officer, revolutionary, and convicted war criminal who served as the Ottoman Empire's Minister of War from 1914 to 1918. Along with Talaat and Djemal, he was one of the Three Pashas that ruled the Ottoman Empire during World War I and one of the principal perpetrators of the Armenian, Greek, and Assyrian genocides.

While stationed in Ottoman Macedonia, Enver joined the Committee of Union and Progress (CUP), an organization affiliated with the Young Turks movement that was agitating against Sultan Abdul Hamid II's despotic rule. He was a key leader of the 1908 Young Turk Revolution, which reestablished the Constitution and parliamentary democracy in the Ottoman Empire. Along with Ahmed Niyazi, Enver was hailed as "hero of the revolution". However, a series of crises in the empire, including the 31 March Incident, the Balkan Wars, and the power struggle with the Freedom and Accord Party, left Enver and the Unionists disillusioned with liberal Ottomanism. After the 1913 Ottoman coup d'état brought the CUP directly to power, Enver became War Minister, while Talaat assumed control over the civilian government.

As war minister and de facto Commander-in-Chief, Enver was one of the most powerful figures in the Ottoman government.

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