Mehmed V: 35th Sultan of the Ottoman Empire

Mehmed V Reşâd, the 35th and last Ottoman Sultan (r. 1909–1918), was born on 2 November 1844 and died on 3 July 1918. Sultan Abdulmejid I was his father. After the 31 March Incident, he succeeded his half-brother Abdul Hamid II. Mehmed VI, his half-brother, succeeded him. The partition of the Empire's North African regions and the Dodecanese Islands, including Rhodes, in the Italo-Turkish War, the traumatic loss of almost all of the Empire's European territories west of Constantinople (now Istanbul) in the First Balkan War, and the Ottoman Empire's entry into World War I in 1914 marked his nine-year reign.

On November 2, 1844 Mehmed V was born , in Istanbul's Çırağan Palace. Sultan Abdulmejid I was his father, and Gülcemal Kadın, an ethnic Bosnian, was his mother. Fatma Sultan and Refia Sultan were his older sisters. After his mother died in 1851, he and his sisters were given to Servetseza Kadın, his father's elder consort. She had requested Abdulmejid to adopt and nurture the motherless children as her own. She had performed the responsibilities of a mother who cares for her children with compassion and concern. In 1856, he and his younger half-brothers, Şehzade Ahmed Kemaleddin, Şehzade Mehmed Burhaneddin, and Şehzade Ahmed Nureddin, were ceremoniously circumcised. Mehmed received his education at the palace. This was regarded as a bad one by Halid Ziya, the head secretary of the Chamberlain's office, from 1909 to 1912. However, because of his comparably high intelligence, he made good use of the knowledge he received and used it to enhance his career. He studied Arabic and Persian and was fluent in the latter. He studied music with an Italian pianist and calligraphy with Kazasker Mustafa Izzet Efendi, the Ottoman scribe who created the Hagia Sophia's huge pendant medallions.

His reign began on 27 April 1909, with the end of the 31 March Incident. However, he was primarily a figurehead with little actual political authority due to the CUP's strength being demonstrated in the 31 March Incident and the Young Turk Revolution (which restored the Ottoman Constitution and Parliament). The CUP staged a coup d'état in 1913, bringing the authoritarian triumvirate of the Three Pashas to power. Mehmed V was the oldest person to assume the Ottoman throne at the age of 64. He went on an imperial tour of Selânik and Manastır in 1911, stopping at Florina along the route. He also went to Üsküp and Priştine, where he went to Friday prayers at Sultan Murad's Tomb. The Manaki brothers captured the visit on film and in photos.

Before the disaster of the Balkan Wars the following year, it would be the final visit of an Ottoman sultan to the Rumelian regions. The Ottoman Empire lost all of its remaining North African territory to Italy in the Italo-Turkish War and virtually all of its European holdings in the First Balkan War under his reign. The Ottomans achieved some minor victories in the subsequent conflict, recapturing the peninsula of East Thrace up to Edirne, but this was only a partial consolation for the Turks: the majority of Ottoman territory that they had fought to preserve had been lost for good. The Ottoman Turks were shocked by the abrupt loss of these vast swaths of land, which had been Ottoman territory for centuries and were surrendered to its opponents in just two years, resulting in a significant widespread backlash against the government, culminating in the 1913 Ottoman coup d'etat. Mehmed V's most influential political act, despite his preference for the country to remain out of further conflict, was to declare jihad against the Entente Powers formally (World War I Allies) on 14 November 1914, following the Ottoman government's decision to join the war on the side of the Central Powers. He was believed to disapprove of Enver Pasha's pro-German policies but did nothing to avert conflict owing to the sultanate's decreased authority since Abdülhamit II's fall in 1909. Because the Caliphate was destroyed in 1924, this was the first faithful proclamation of jihad by a Caliph in history. The British seized Cyprus and the Khedivate of Egypt outright as a direct result of the declaration of war; both provinces had been under nominal Turkish administration at the time. Even though many Muslims resided in Ottoman lands, the order had little influence on the conflict. With the Arab Revolt of 1916, several Arabs finally joined the British soldiers against the Ottomans. On 15 October 1917, Mehmed V welcomed Kaiser Wilhelm II, a World War I ally, in Constantinople. On 27 January 1916, he was appointed Generalfeldmarschall of the Kingdom of Prussia, and on 1 February 1916, he was appointed Generalfeldmarschall of the German Empire. On 19 May 1918, he was appointed Generalfeldmarschall of Austria-Hungary.

Mehmed V died in Yıldız Palace on 3 July 1918, barely four months before World War I ended, at 73. As a result, he did not survive to see the Ottoman Empire fall. Instead, he lived much of his life in Istanbul, at the Dolmabahçe Palace and the Yıldız Palace. His tomb is located in contemporary Istanbul's Eyüp neighbourhood.