- Hüseyin Hilmi Pasha
Hüseyin Hilmi Pasha (also spelled Hussein Hilmi Pasha) was an Ottoman statesman who held the top post of
grand vizier for a brief period in the wake of theSecond Constitutional Era in the Ottoman Empire , but who is also notable for being one of the founders of theTurkish Red Crescent and for having been one of the most successful Ottoman administrators in the explosiveBalkans of the early 20th century. Hüseyin Hilmi Pasha was born in 1855 inMidilli (Lesbos today) and did his primary studies there, in a stressed religious focus, but he also learned good French at an early age. He started out as a clerk in the Ottoman state structure and gradually climbing up the ladders of hierarchy, became the governor ofAdana in 1897 and ofYemen in 1902. The same year, he was appointed as inspector general with responsibility over virtually all Balkan territories of the Ottoman Empire at the time (thevilayet s ofSelanik ,Kosovo andManastır ).After the re-enactment of the Ottoman constitution in 1908, he was appointed as Interior Minister, and then served as grand vizier, at first between
14 February 1909 and13 April 1909 underAbdülhamid II and then, re-assuming the post a month later, between5 May 1909 and28 December 1909. As such, in his first vizierate, he was the last grand vizier of Abdülhamid II. This first vizierate had had to be suddenly interrupted because of31 March Incident which, despite its name, had occurred on13 April 1909 and for up to a monthfundamentalist s had reigned in the streets ofİstanbul till the arrival of an extraordinary army fromSelanik .He also held the post of Minister of Justice in the succeeding
Gazi Ahmed Muhtar Pasha cabinet. In October 1912, he was sent as Ottoman ambassador inVienna , a position he held till the end of theWorld War I . Due to health problems, he remained in Vienna till his death in 1922. He was buried inBeşiktaş ,İstanbul .ee also
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List of Ottoman grand viziers
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