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Rauf Orbay

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Hüseyin Rauf Orbay
3rd Prime Minister of the Government of the Grand National Assembly
In office
12 July 1922 – 4 August 1923
Preceded byFevzi Çakmak
Succeeded byAli Fethi Okyar
Personal details
Born
Hüseyin Rauf

(1881-07-27)27 July 1881
Istanbul, Ottoman Empire
Died16 July 1964(1964-07-16) (aged 82)
Istanbul, Turkey
Political partyProgressive Republican Party (1923–1924)
Alma materTurkish Naval Academy
AwardsMedal of Independence
Signature
NicknameHero of Hamidiye
Military service
AllegianceOttoman Empire
Branch/serviceOttoman Navy
Years of service1895–1918
RankColonel
CommandsOttoman cruiser Hamidiye
Battles/warsBalkan Wars
World War I

Hüseyin Rauf Orbay (27 July 1881 – 16 July 1964) was a Turkish naval officer, statesman and diplomat of Abkhaz origin.[1][2][3] During the Italo–Turkish and Balkan Wars he was known as the Hero of Hamidiye for his exploits as captain of the eponymous cruiser. Orbay briefly served as Minister of Navy in October 1918, and signed the Armistice of Mudros on behalf of the Ottoman Empire.

He played an important role in the Turkish War of Independence, during which he served as the prime minister of the Ankara government between 12 July 1922 and 4 August 1923.

During the Republican period he was one of the founders of the Progressive Republican Party. He was put on trial for his involvement in an alleged assassination attempt against Mustafa Kemal Atatürk and sentenced to ten years in prison. Orbay was rehabilitated in 1939 and served as an MP for Kastamonu and then ambassador to London.

Biography

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Rauf Orbay in naval uniform. The text reads "Brave commander of the resolute Hamidiye, Hüseyin Rauf Bey"

Hüseyin Rauf was born in Constantinople in 1881 to an Abkhazian family.[4]

As an officer in the Ottoman Navy, he achieved fame for his actions as the captain of the cruiser Hamidiye during the First Balkan War.[5] He was Chief of Naval Staff during World War I where he led Ottoman forces during the Gallipoli campaign and by October 1918 was Minister of Marine and led the delegation that signed the Armistice of Mudros which ended the Ottoman Empire's participation in World War I.[5] After a correspondence with his counterpart: Admiral Somerset Arthur Gough-Calthorpe, he claimed that no enemy soldiers would be entering Istanbul or Adana, and that there would be no occupation of Ottoman territory by Allied forces.

The independence of our state, the rights of our sultanate have been preserved in their entirety. This is not an armistice concluded between victor and vanquished; rather it is more a situation in which two equal powers, both desiring to end a state of war, cease hostilities.[6]

On November 13 Allied soldiers landed in Istanbul to begin a partial occupation of the city, as well as take advantage of Article VII to occupy more parts of the Ottoman Empire.

Rauf Orbay also played a role in assisting Mustafa Kemal Atatürk in a near court-martial during a feud with Djemal Pasha and Enver Pasha.[7] When the Turkish War of Independence began, he resigned from his position and went to Ankara to collaborate with Mustafa Kemal. He was elected as a member of the representative committee in the Congress of Erzurum on 23 July 1919. He joined the Congress of Sivas as a delegate for Sivas on 4 September 1919 and was elected deputy chairman.

When the War of Independence ended he became the first Prime Minister of the new provisional Government of the Grand National Assembly on 11 August 1922. In 1924, he was one of the founders of the Progressive Republican Party at the request of Atatürk as part of Atatürk's attempt to begin the tradition of multiparty democracy in the young Republic, in opposition to Atatürk's Republican People's Party. When this party was closed down in 1925 after Atatürk found that Islamist reactionaries had infiltrated its ranks, Rauf went to exile in Europe for 10 years. Later, he was cleared of all accusations and became a member of the Turkish parliament. During World War II, Rauf Orbay was the Turkish ambassador in London,[8] helping keep Turkey out of the war. He always firmly believed in the Republic of Turkey and always stated that Mustafa Kemal Atatürk was the only person who could have organised and led the transformation of the crumbling Ottoman Empire into modern Turkey.

Rauf Orbay and Mustafa Kemal Atatürk in Ankara, 1922 autochrome by Frédéric Gadmer

Autobiography

[edit]
  • Cehennem Değirmeni ("Windmill of Hell"), Emre Publishing, September 1993[9]

References

[edit]
  1. ^ "Hüseyin Rauf Orbay'ın Hayatı (1880-1964), Atatürk Araştırma Merkezi Dergisi, Sayı:58 Mart 2004". Archived from the original on 28 January 2016. Retrieved 22 January 2016.
  2. ^ Akyel, Siyami. Türkiye’deki Ünlü Çerkesler
  3. ^ Ünal, Muhittin (1996). Kurtuluş Savaşında Çerkeslerin Rolü. Cem Yayınları (published 1995). ISBN 9754065829.
  4. ^ Berzeg, S.E. (1990). Türkiye Kurtuluş Savaşı'nda Çerkes göçmenleri. Nart Yayıncılık. Retrieved 26 February 2015.
  5. ^ a b Huseyin Ra'uf Orbey, W.M. Hale, The Encyclopaedia of Islam, Vol. VIII, ed. C.E.Bosworth, E. van Donzel, W.P.Heinrichs and G. Lecomte, (Brill, 1995), 174.
  6. ^ Akçam, Taner (2006). A Shameful Act. p. 208.
  7. ^ Mango, Andrew (1999). Ataturk: The Biography of the Founder of Modern Turkey. Woodstock, NY: The Overlook Press. p. 171. ISBN 1-58567-011-1.
  8. ^ Selim Deringil, Turkish Foreign Policy during the Second World War: An 'Active' Neutrality, (Cambridge University Press, 1989), 206 n48.
  9. ^ Book summaries[permanent dead link] (in Turkish)
  • Rauf Orbay, Siyasi Hatiralar, Örgün Yayinevi, İstanbul, 2003.
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Political offices
Preceded by Prime Minister of Turkey
12 July 1922 – 4 August 1923 		Succeeded by
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