Ömer Vehbi Paşa

Ömer Vehbî Paşa, whose date of birth has not been identified, was the son of Tabak Ağa of the Sarhoşoğulları family from the area around the Ulu Mosque of Afyonkarahisar. After receiving his first education in his hometown, he entered the Military Academy and graduated first from both the Military Academy and the Staff College. His rank of ferik was one of the high Ottoman military ranks, above mirliva and below müşir, and corresponds here to the level of major general.

During the Crimean War, he served as a staff officer on the Sevastopol front. In 1861 he served in Bosnia-Herzegovina during the Montenegrin uprisings. In the 1890s his name came to the fore in connection with the activities of the Fırka-i Islahiye around Mosul, Kirkuk and Sinjar. This mission belonged to a difficult period in which the Ottoman state sought to resolve tribal, settlement, tax and security issues in the region through military-administrative measures.

He later served under Müşir Edhem Paşa, commander of the Thessaly forces, on the Ottoman-Greek War front, and rose during the reign of Sultan Abdülhamid II to high military duties in the palace circle.

His family line continued into the Republican period. One of Ömer Vehbî Paşa’s sons, Tahsin Bey, was given the surname “Mayatepek” by Mustafa Kemal Atatürk because of his studies on the Maya civilization. Tahsin Mayatepek served in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and in 1935 became Turkey’s first head of mission in Mexico.

Ömer Vehbî Paşa died on 19 February 1324 in the Rumi calendar, corresponding to 4 March 1909, and was buried in the Fatih Mosque Cemetery.