Hamdi Pasha

Ahmed Hamdi Pasha was a Kurdish Ottoman minister of the Marine, Secretary General of the Society for the Elevation of Kurdistan from 1918-1920 and a General officer of the Ottoman army.^[1]

A graduate of the Ottoman military academy,^[1] he rose to the rank of divisional general and chief of general staff.^[1] He was forced into early retirement by the Committee of Union and Progress, but continued to oppose them politically.^[1]

British government documents describe Hamdi as one of the leading lights of the Kurdish movement.^[2] Hamdi was in continuous contact with Sir Horace Rumbold, 9th Baronet regarding the memorandums of the Society for the Elevation of Kurdistan including the prospect of an independent Kurdistan as a barrier to Bolsheviks progression into Mesopotamia.^[3]

During the Turkish War of independence Hamdi went into exile to Greece and never returned, even after being offered amnesty and permission to return.^[1][4] He was also known as Hamdi the ostentatious.^[1]

References

1. Özoğlu, Hakan (2011). From Caliphate to Secular State: Power Struggle in the Early Turkish Republic. ABC-CLIO. p. 45. ISBN 978-0313379567.
2. British Documents on Foreign Affairs--reports and Papers from the Foreign Office Confidential Print: The end of the war, 1918-1920. University Publications of America. 1985. p. 357. ISBN 089093603X.
3. "Belleten, Issues 221-222". Türk Tarih Kurumu Basimevi: 188.
4. Henning, Barbara (2018). Narratives of the History of the Ottoman-Kurdish Bedirhani Family in Imperial and Post-Imperial Contexts: Continuities and Changes. University of Bamberg Press. p. 449. ISBN 978-3863095512.