3/7/1918 The death of Mehmed V of Turkey #1918Live

Today sees the death of 73 year old Mehmed V, Sultan of the Ottoman Empire and to true Muslims the Caliph, successor of the Prophet. Mehmed’s reign recalls that of Austria-Hungary’s Franz Josef (who died in 1916), in that both men have seen decline of their empires to shadows of their former selves. In Franz Josef’s case the decline took place over the long decades of his rule, but Mehmed was unfortunate enough to see his empire wrecked in the nine years since he ascended the throne in 1909. In these short years the Turkish Empire has lost its North African territories and the Dodecanese in the Italo-Turkish war and almost all of European Turkey in the First Balkan War. Following these disasters effective power in Turkey fell to the so-called Three Pashas, Enver, Talaat and Djemal.

Since Turkey’s entry into the current war the British have…