Mehmed VI

Mehmed VI
Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques Khan
Mehmed VI in 1918
Sultan of the Ottoman Empire (Padishah)
Reign	4 July 1918 – 1 November 1922
Sword girding	4 July 1918
Predecessor	Mehmed V
Successor	Monarchy abolished
Grand Viziers	See list Mehmed Talaat Pasha Ahmed Izzet Pasha Ahmet Tevfik Pasha Damat Ferid Pasha Ali Rıza Pasha Salih Hulusi Pasha
Ottoman caliph (Amir al-Mu'minin)
Reign	4 July 1918 – 19 November 1922
Predecessor	Mehmed V
Successor	Abdulmejid II
Head of the Osmanoğlu family
Reign	19 November 1922 – 16 May 1926
Successor	Abdulmejid II
Born	(1861-01-14)14 January 1861 Dolmabahçe Palace, Constantinople, Ottoman Empire
Died	16 May 1926(1926-05-16) (aged 65) Sanremo, Liguria, Italy
Burial	3 July 1926[1] Cemetery of Sulaymaniyya Takiyya, Damascus, Syria
Consorts	Nazikeda Kadın ​ ​ (m. 1885)​ Inşirah Hanım ​ ​ (m. 1905; div. 1909)​ Müveddet Kadın ​ ​ (m. 1911)​ Nevvare Hanım ​ ​ (m. 1918; div. 1924)​ Nevzad Hanım ​ ​ (m. 1921)​
Issue	Münire Fenire Sultan Fatma Ulviye Sultan Rukiye Sabiha Sultan Şehzade Mehmed Ertuğrul
Names Mehmed Vahdeddîn Han bin Abdülmecid[2]
Dynasty	Ottoman
Father	Abdulmejid I
Mother	Gülistu Kadın (biological) Şayeste Hanım (adoptive)
Religion	Sunni Islam
Tughra

Mehmed VI Vahideddin (Ottoman Turkish: محمد سادس Meḥmed-i sâdis or وحيد الدين Vaḥîdü'd-Dîn; Turkish: VI. Mehmed or Vahdeddin/Vahideddin; 14 January 1861 – 16 May 1926), also known as Şahbaba (lit. 'Emperor-father') among the Osmanoğlu family,^[3] was the last sultan of the Ottoman Empire and the penultimate Ottoman caliph, reigning from 4 July 1918 until 1 November 1922, when the Ottoman sultanate was abolished and replaced by the Republic of Turkey on 29 October 1923.

The brother of Mehmed V Reşâd, he became heir to the throne in 1916, after the death of Şehzade Yusuf Izzeddin, as the eldest male member of the House of Osman. He acceded to the throne after the death of Mehmed V.^[4] He was girded with the Sword of Osman on 4 July 1918 as the 36th padishah and 115th Islamic Caliph.

Mehmed VI's reign began with the Ottoman Empire suffering defeat by the Allied Powers with the conclusion of World War I. The subsequent Armistice of Mudros resulted in the legal occupation of Istanbul and many illegal occupations in other parts of the empire. An initial process of reconciliation between the government and Christian minorities over their massacres and deportations by the government ultimately proved fruitless, when the Greeks and Armenians, via their patriarchates, renounced their status as Ottoman subjects by the end of 1918, spelling a definitive end of Ottomanism. İttihadist elements within the Ottoman military, discontent with Sultan Mehmed VI's Anglophilia and his alliance with Damat Ferid Pasha, began taking actions into their own hands by establishing a nationalist resistance, beginning the Turkish War of Independence. Mehmed VI's most significant act as Sultan was dispatching Mustafa Kemal Pasha (Atatürk) to reassert government control in Anatolia, which actually resulted in the further consolidation of anti-appeasement actors against the court, and consequently, the end of the monarchy.

With the Turkish Nationalists standing against Allied designs for a partition of Ottoman Anatolia, the Allies pressured Sultan Mehmed VI to dissolve the Nationalist dominated Chamber of Deputies, ending the Second Constitutional Era. Kemal Pasha responded with establishing a provisional government known as the Grand National Assembly based in Ankara, which dominated the rest of the Ottoman Empire, while the Sultan's unpopular government in Istanbul was propped up by the Allied powers and effectively impotent. Mehmed VI's ministers went on to sign the Treaty of Sévres, a harsh peace treaty which would have partitioned the remainder of his empire leaving a rump Turkish state. With Ankara's victory in the independence war, the Sévres Treaty was abandoned for their Treaty of Lausanne. On 1 November 1922, the Grand National Assembly voted to abolish the Sultanate and Mehmed VI left for Europe in exile after also being declared persona non grata. On November 18, the Grand National Assembly of Turkey declared the crown prince Abdülmecid Efendi as caliph, and on October 29, 1923, the Republic of Turkey was declared, with Mustafa Kemal as the first president.