Mehmed VI

Mehmed VI Vahideddin ( Meḥmed-i sâdis or Vaḥîdü'd-Dîn; or /; 14 January 1861 – 16 May 1926), also known as Şahbaba among the Osmanoğlu family, was the last sultan of the Ottoman Empire and the penultimate Ottoman caliph, reigning from 4 July 1918 until 1 November 1922, when the Ottoman sultanate was abolished and replaced by the Republic of Turkey on 29 October 1923. The brother of Mehmed V Reshad, he became heir to the throne in 1916, after the death of Şehzade Yusuf Izzeddin, as the eldest male member of the House of Osman. He acceded to the throne after the death of Mehmed V. He was girded with the Sword of Osman on 4 July 1918 as the 36th padishah and 115th Islamic Caliph. Mehmed VI's reign began with the Ottoman Empire suffering defeat with the conclusion of World War I and signing the Armistice of Mudros, resulting in the legal occupation of Istanbul and many illegal occupations in many other parts of the empire. An initial process of reconciliation between the government and Christian minorities over their massacres and deportations by the government ultimately proved fruitless, when the Greeks and Armenians, via their patriarchates, renounced their status as Ottoman subjects by the end of 1918, spelling a definitive end of Ottomanism. İttihadist elements within the Ottoman military, discontent with Sultan Mehmed VI's assertive will for a pro-Allied foreign policy and alliance with the controversial Grand Vizier Damat Ferid Pasha, began taking actions into their own hands by establishing a nationalist resistance, beginning the Turkish War of Independence. Mehmed VI's most significant act as Sultan was dispatching Mustafa Kemal Pasha (Atatürk) to reassert government control in Anatolia, which actually resulted in the further consolidation of anti-appeasement actors against the court, and consequently, the end of the monarchy. With the Turkish Nationalists standing against Allied designs for a partition of Ottoman Anatolia, the Allies pressured Sultan Mehmed VI to dissolve the Nationalist dominated Chamber of Deputies, ending the Second Constitutional Era. Kemal Pasha responded with establishing a provisional government known as the Grand National Assembly based in Ankara, which dominated the rest of the Ottoman Empire, while the Sultan's unpopular Istanbul regime propped up by the Allied powers was effectively impotent.