Omar Pasha
OMAR PASHA who commands the Turkish army, is an Austrian subject, and a native of Coroalia. He was born in 1801, at Vaski, a village situated in the circle of Ogulina, thirteen leagues from Fiume. His family name is Lattas. His father was lieutenant-administrator of the circle his uncle was a priest of the United Greek Church. Admitted, when very young, into the School of Mathematics of Thum, near Carlstadt, in Transylvania, after having completed his studies with distinction, the young Lattas entered the corps of the Ponts et Chaussees, which, in Austria, is organized on a military footing. In 1830, in consequence of a misunderstanding with his superiors, he left for Turkey, and embraced Islamism. Khosrew Pasha, who was then Seraskier, took him under his protection, procured him admission into the regular army, and attached him to his person al staff. He then gave him his ward in marriage, who was one of the richest heiresses in Constantinople, and a daughter of one of the Janizaries. whose head he had caused to be cut off in 1827, when that corps revolted against Sultan Mahmoud. In 1833, Lattas, who had taken the name of Omar, was chief of battalion, and was appointed aid-de-camp, and interpreter to General Chrzanowski, who had charge of the instruction of the Ottoman troops encamped near Constantinople. Omar was thenceforward actively employed in the reorganization of the Turkish army, and, still protected by Khosrew Pasha, obtained successively important missions and command in the army. The troubles of Syria, and the Albanian insurrection of 1846, gave him occasion to distinguish himself, and attracted to him the attention of the Sultan. He was sent to the Kurdistan, and succeeded in obtaining the submission of that province, which was nearly independent of the Porte. Named in 1848 to the command of the army, sent to the Danubian provinces, he made the authority of the Sultan respected, while at the same time he respected the susceptibilities and the privileges of those provinces, placed, as they were, under the double protection of Russia and Turkey. The year 1851 was the most brilliant period of the military career of Omar Pasha. Named commander-in-chief of Bosnia, the principal chiefs of which had refused to recognize Tanzimat - that is, the new organization of his empire - he combatted successfully, though with an inferior force, the Beys of that country. At last he was sent to Montenegro, where he found himself for the first time commanding an army of 30,000 men. The intervention of Austria, as is known, put a term to that expedition before decisive operations could be commenced. At the present date, Omar Pasha is at the head of nearly 100,000 men in the Crimea.
- 15657 reads