Ahmed Djemal

Ahmed Djemal, also known as Djemal Pasha, was an Ottoman military leader and one of the Three Pashas that ruled the Ottoman Empire during World War I. He was born in Mytilene, Lesbos, to a military pharmacist father. He graduated from the Military Academy in Istanbul and joined the Committee of Union and Progress (CUP), a reformist political movement. He rose to prominence as a military commander and a member of the CUP central committee. He was appointed as the Minister of the Navy in 1914 and became one of the main decision-makers of the Ottoman war effort. He was also the commander of the Fourth Army, which operated in Syria and Palestine. He implemented various reforms and modernization projects in the region, but also faced resistance from the local Arab population and the British forces. He was also involved in the Armenian genocide, ordering the deportation and massacre of thousands of Armenians in his jurisdiction. He was accused of war crimes by the Ottoman post-war government and sentenced to death in absentia. He fled to Germany and then to the Soviet Union, where he served as a liaison officer and a military advisor to Afghanistan. He was assassinated by Armenian agents in Tbilisi, Georgia, in 1922. He was buried in Erzurum, Turkey.