Topal Osman Pasha
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Topal Osman Pasha is a Grand Vizier celebrated by Western as well as Ottoman writers.
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[edit] Early life
Osman was born in Morea and was educated in the Serail at Constantinople, where native Turks were now frequently brought up, since the practice of levying Christian children for the Sultan service had been discontinued.
[edit] Career
At the age of twenty-six he had attained the rank of Beylerbeyi; and was sent on a mission from the Porte to the Governor of Egypt. On the voyage his skip encountered a Spanish corsair, and was captured after a bray defence, in the course of which Osman received a wound which lamed him for life, whence he obtained his name of Topal. He became Grand Vizier on September 21, 1731.
Topal Osman was superseded in the Grand Vizierate in 1732. His friends and dependents lamented bitterly over his downfall, but Osman bore it with a nobler feeling than the ordinary stoicism of a Turk under misfortune. According to his English biographer, he summoned his friends and family round him, and addressed them thus: “What is the reason of your affliction l Have I not always said that the office of Grand Vizier is of all the most likely to be short I All my concern was I should get out of it with honour; and, thanks to God, I have done nothing with which I reproach myself. My master, the Sultan, approves of my services, and I resign with perfect satisfaction.” He then gave orders for rendering thanks to Heaven, as if it had been one of the most happy events of his life.
[edit] Retirement
Before Topal Osman had been long in retirement, the alarming progress of the Persian armies made the Porte again require his services; and he was sent into Asia as generaIissimo of the Turkish armies in that continent, and was invested with almost unlimited powers. He marched to encounter the dreaded Nadir; and on the July 19, 1733, gave him a complete throw in a pitched battle, near the banks of the Tigris, about twelve leagues from Bagdad. There is a narrative of this battle by Jean Nicodeme (who attended Topal Osman a physician) to the Marquis of Villeneuve, which exhibits the manners and spirit of Osman in the same amiable and noble light in which they are presented to us by Hanway. He is represented free from all pride and arrogance; he treated his soldiers they were his brothers; and all who served under his command regarded him with the strongest feelings of personal attachment The movements of his troops were ably directed, and in the actual conflict his forces were handled by him with great judgment and decision. The French writer thus describes Topal Osmani own conduct and demeanour on the day of battle. “After he had prayed, he mounted on horseback, which he had not done before throughout the campaign, having been carried in a litter or account of the infirmity of his health, and the pain of his old wounds. I could not attribute the strength which he now showed to aught hut his martial spirit, and the fire that glowed within him I saw before me on horseback, a man, who had been bowed down by weakness and by the numerous sword and gunshot wounds which he had received in war, and several of which has carelessly treated by his surgeons. I saw him riding like young man, sword in hand, with animated countenance sparkling eyes. He rode from rank to rank, examined all with his own eyes, and gave his orders with admirable readiness and presence of mind.”
The victory thus gained by Topal Osman on the Tigris, rescued Bagdat and he again defeated the Persians, near Leitan, in the same year. But in a third battle with Nadir, near Kerkoud, the Turks were routed; and Topal Osman himself died the death a gallant soldier, fighting sword in hand to the last, rather than disgrace himself by flight. His body was borne off the field by some of his attendants, and was afterwards brought for burial to Constantinople.
[edit] Reference
- Incorporates text from History of Ottoman Turks (1878)
