title: Paul Reynaud

text: On 16 June de Portes kept putting her head around the door during a meeting and US diplomats testified that she was constantly coming and going from Reynaud's office. President Roosevelt's reply to Reynaud's inquiry, stating that he could do little to help without Congressional approval, was then received on the morning of Sunday 16 June. Churchill's telegram also arrived that morning, agreeing to an armistice provided the French fleet was moved to British ports, a proposal unacceptable to Darlan, who argued that it would leave France defenceless. De Gaulle was in London that afternoon for talks about the planned Franco-British Union, a far-reaching and imaginative proposal which Churchill and his advisers had hastily put together in a desperate effort to support Reynaud against his armistice-minded ministers and keep France - but especially its extensive naval fleet - in the war on the side of Britain. It was De Gaulle who telephoned Reynaud to inform him that the British Cabinet had agreed, reporting that "a sensational declaration" was imminent, amounting to a proposal for no less than the union of the two nations into a single Franco-British government. Time was desperately short, and De Gaulle ended up dictating the "Declaration of Union" to an astonished and gratified Reynaud over the telephone, word for word, so that Reynaud could present it to his Cabinet that very afternoon in a bid to fend off armistice. What Reynaud did not know was that General Weygand had instructed army listeners to tap his phone, and therefore had advance warning of what was coming, robbing Reynaud of the element of surprise. When the French Cabinet met in Bordeaux that afternoon, Reynaud presented the British union plan and - with Georges Mandel - declared his determination to fight on, but events were moving fast and the grand British offer was by then not sufficient to win round the waverers. Contrary to Lebrun's mistaken recollection, no formal vote appears to have been taken at Cabinet on Sunday 16 June. The outcome of the meeting is unclear. Ten ministers wanted to fight on while seven favoured an armistice, though these included the two Deputy Prime Ministers: Pétain and Chautemps. An armistice was also favoured by Weygand. Another eight ministers were undecided, but ultimately swung towards an armistice. This time, Lebrun reluctantly accepted Reynaud's resignation, and the government of France - at this historic and fateful moment - fell into the hands of Petain and those who favoured armistice and, ultimately, collaboration with the German invader. De Gaulle later wrote that Reynaud was "a man of great worth unjustly crushed by events beyond measure".


title: Paul Reynaud

text: Julian Jackson writes that Reynaud felt guilty for 20 years for having let Pétain into power, and gave ever more convoluted explanations of what had happened: despite his own fighting spirit, apart from a brief vacillation on 26 May, "he had failed to be Clemenceau (France's great war Prime Minister of 1917-18), but missed the chance to be de Gaulle and never forgave himself". Reynaud later claimed that he had hoped Pétain would resign if the armistice terms were too harsh, which if true was wishful thinking in Jackson's view. There were claims that he could have mustered a majority in the Cabinet for fighting on, so he later claimed that he could not have argued against the political weight of the "softs", especially Pétain and Weygand, France's two leading soldiers.


title: Paul Reynaud

text: Spears recorded that Reynaud appeared relieved to be rid of his burden. In the immediate aftermath, he appears to have been in denial, hoping still to meet Churchill at Concarneau on 17 June (in fact Churchill, who was at Waterloo Station, had cancelled his travel plans on learning of Reynaud's resignation).


title: Paul Reynaud

text: Jules Jeanneney and Édouard Herriot, Presidents respectively of the Senate and the Chamber of Deputies, urged Lebrun to reappoint Reynaud as Prime Minister (all four men wanted to continue the war from North Africa). Lebrun felt he had little choice but to appoint Pétain, who already had a ministerial team ready, as Prime Minister. Pétain became the leader of the new government (the last one of the Third Republic), and signed the armistice on 22 June. De Gaulle had returned to Bordeaux at around 10pm on 16 June. He visited Reynaud, who still hoped to go to North Africa and declined to come to London. Reynaud still had control of secret government funds until the handover of power the next day, and made money available to de Gaulle. De Gaulle flew to London with Edward Spears at 9 a.m. on 17 June, and the next day made his famous broadcast announcing that he would fight on. It has been suggested that Reynaud had ordered de Gaulle to go to London, but no written evidence has ever been found to confirm this.


title: Paul Reynaud

text: Reynaud would later provisionally accept Pétain's offer of the post of French Ambassador to the USA. Lebrun refused to confirm the appointment, apparently as he admired Reynaud and wanted to save him from association with the Pétain government.


title: Paul Reynaud

text: Reynaud and de Portes left the Hotel Splendid, Bordeaux, driving southeast ahead of the advancing German armies, intending to stop at Reynaud's holiday home at Grès, Hérault, (other sources state they were bound for his daughter's home at Sainte-Maxime) before fleeing to North Africa. On 28 June, with Reynaud at the wheel, their Renault Juvaquatre car inexplicably left the road and hit a plane tree at la Peyrade, near Sète; de Portes was all but decapitated while Reynaud escaped with relatively minor head injuries. While hospitalized at Montpellier, Reynaud allegedly told Bill Bullitt, American ambassador, "I have lost my country, my honour, and my love."


title: Paul Reynaud

text: Reynaud was arrested on his discharge on Pétain's orders and imprisoned at Fort du Portalet. Pétain decided against having Reynaud charged during the Riom Trial of 1942, but handed him over to the Germans instead, who removed him firstly to Sachsenhausen concentration camp, thence Itter Castle near Wörgl, Austria, where he remained with other high-profile French prisoners until liberated by Allied troops on 7 May 1945. Major Josef Gangl, a Wehrmacht officer who had gone over to the anti-Nazi Austrian resistance, was killed by a sniper's bullet while trying to move Reynaud out of harm's way during the Battle for Castle Itter on 5 May 1945.


title: Paul Reynaud

text: After the war, Reynaud was elected in 1946 as a member of the Chamber of Deputies. He was appointed to several cabinet positions in the post-war period and remained a prominent figure in French politics. His attempts to form governments in 1952 and 1953 in the turbulent politics of the French Fourth Republic were unsuccessful.


title: Paul Reynaud

text: Reynaud supported the idea of a United States of Europe, along with a number of prominent contemporaries. He was a member of the Consultative Assembly of the Council of Europe for ten years, from 1949 to 1959, where he worked alongside his old wartime allies Churchill, Spaak and others to build a united Europe as a way of preventing future wars and a recurrence of the Nazi atrocities. Reynaud presided over the consultative committee that drafted the constitution of France's (current) Fifth Republic. In 1962, he denounced his old friend de Gaulle's replacement of the electoral college system by a direct public vote for the Presidency. Reynaud left office the same year.


title: Paul Reynaud

text: Reynaud was a physically small man, with "the countenance of a samurai who had been educated at Cambridge". His head was set deep between his shoulders, and he had "a sharp, nasal, metallic voice" and "mechanical" bearing.


title: Paul Reynaud

text: By his first marriage in 1912 to Jeanne Anne Henri-Robert, he was the father of a daughter, Collette, born in 1914. At some time in the early 1920s, Reynaud was introduced to Hélène Rebuffel by Andre Tardieu, a friend of her father's. Rebuffel's father, however, was displeased at her relationship with a married man, actively seeking other suitors for her, and she was eventually persuaded to marry the Italian Comte Henri de Portes. After she had borne him two children, the marriage failed, and when Reynaud and his wife separated in 1938, Hélène de Portes was his mistress until her death in the


title: Paul Reynaud

text: road accident at Frontignan in 1940. Reynaud and his first wife were finally divorced in 1949. Reynaud then married Christiane Mabire (one of his former office assistants, who had voluntarily joined him at the Castle Itter in 1943) at Versailles in the same year, at the age of 71. Mabire had already borne him a son, Serge Paul-Reynaud, in 1945; they had two more children, Evelyne, in 1949, and Alexandre in 1954.


title: Ottoman Empire in World War I

text: The Ottoman Empire came into World War I as one of the Central Powers. The Ottoman Empire entered the war by carrying out a surprise attack on Russia's Black Sea coast on 29 October 1914, with Russia responding by declaring war on 2 November 1914. Ottoman forces fought the Entente in the Balkans and the Middle Eastern theatre of World War I. The Ottoman Empire's defeat in the war in 1918 was crucial in the eventual dissolution of the empire in 1922.


title: Ottoman Empire in World War I

text: Ottoman entry into World War I was the result of two recently purchased ships of its navy, still manned by their German crews and commanded by their German admiral, carrying out the Black Sea Raid on 29 October 1914. There were a number of factors that conspired to influence the Ottoman government, and encourage them into entering the war. The political reasons for the Ottoman Sultan's entry into the war are disputed and the Ottoman Empire was an agricultural state in an age of industrial warfare. Also, the economic resources of the empire were depleted by the cost of the Balkan Wars of 1912 and 1913. The reasons for the Ottoman action were not immediately clear.


title: Ottoman Empire in World War I

text: In November 1914, Mehmed V, Sultan of the Ottoman Empire, declared "jihad" (meritorious struggle or effort) against the powers of the Triple Entente during World War I. The declaration, which called for Muslims to support the Ottomans in Entente-controlled areas and for "jihad" against "all enemies of the Ottoman Empire, except the Central Powers", was initially drafted on the 11 November and first publicly read out in front of a large crowd on 14 November. That same day, a "fatwa" (Islamic religious decree) to the same effect was declared by the Fetva Emini (""fatwa" consultant", the Ottoman official in charge of dictating "tafsir" on behalf of the Shaykh al-Islām).


title: Ottoman Empire in World War I

text: Arab tribes in Mesopotamia were initially enthusiastic about the edict. However, following British victories in the Mesopotamian campaign in 1914 and 1915, enthusiasm declined, and some chieftains like Mudbir al-Far'un adopted a more neutral, if not pro-British, stance.


title: Ottoman Empire in World War I

text: There were hopes and fears that non-Turkish Muslims would side with Ottoman Turkey, but according to some historians, the appeal did not "[unite] the Muslim world", and Muslims did not turn on their non-Muslim commanders in the Allied forces. However, other historians point to the 1915 Singapore Mutiny and allege that the call did have a considerable impact on Muslims around the world. In a 2017 article, it was concluded that the declaration, as well as earlier jihad propaganda, had a strong impact on attaining the loyalty of Kurdish tribes, who played a major role in the Armenian and Assyrian genocides.


title: Ottoman Empire in World War I

text: The war led to the end of the caliphate as the Ottoman Empire entered on the side of the war's losers and surrendered by agreeing to "viciously punitive" conditions. These were overturned by the popular war hero Mustafa Kemal, who was also a secularist and later abolished the caliphate.


title: Ottoman Empire in World War I

text: The Ottoman entry into World War I began on 29 October 1914 when it launched the Black Sea Raid against Russian ports. Following the attack, Russia declared war on the Ottomans on 2 November, followed by their allies (Britain and France) declaring war on the Ottomans on 5 November 1914. The Ottoman Empire started military action after three months of formal neutrality, but it had signed a secret alliance with the Central Powers in August 1914.


title: Ottoman Empire in World War I

text: The great landmass of Anatolia was between the Ottoman army's headquarters in Istanbul and many of the theatres of war. During Abdul Hamid II's reign civilian communications had improved, but the road and rail network was not ready for war. It took more than a month to reach Syria and nearly two months to reach Mesopotamia. To reach the border with Russia, the railway ran only 60 km east of Ankara, and from there, it was 35 days to Erzurum. The Army used Trabzon port as a logistical shortcut to the east. It took less time to arrive at any of those fronts from London than from the Ottoman War Department because of the poor condition of Ottoman supply ships.


title: Ottoman Empire in World War I

text: The empire fell into disorder with the declaration of war along with Germany. On 11 November a conspiracy was discovered in Constantinople against Germans and the Committee of Union and Progress (CUP) in which some of the CUP leaders were shot. That followed the 12 November revolt in Adrianople against the German military mission. On 13 November, a bomb exploded in Enver Pasha's palace, which killed five German officers but failed to kill Enver Pasha. On 18 November there were more anti-German plots. Committees formed around the country to rid the country of those who sided with Germany. Army and navy officers protested against the assumption of authority by Germans. On 4 December, widespread riots took place throughout the country. On 13 December, an anti-war demonstration was led by women in Konak (Izmir) and Erzurum. Throughout December, the CUP dealt with mutiny among soldiers in barracks and among naval crews. The head of the German Military Mission, Field Marshal von der Goltz, survived a conspiracy against his life.


title: Ottoman Empire in World War I

text: Military power remained firmly in the hands of War Minister Enver Pasha, domestic issues (civil matters) were under Interior Minister Talat Pasha, and, interestingly, Cemal Pasha had sole control over Ottoman Syria. Provincial governors ran their regions with differing degrees of autonomy. An interesting case is Izmir; Rahmi Bey behaved almost as if his region was a neutral zone between the warring states.


title: Ottoman Empire in World War I

text: The Ottoman's entrance into the war greatly increased the Triple Entente's military burdens. Russia had to fight alone on the Caucasus Campaign but fought with the United Kingdom on the Persian Campaign. İsmail Enver Pasha set off for the Battle of Sarikamish with the intention of recapturing Batum and Kars, overrunning Georgia and occupying north-western Persia and the oil fields. Fighting the Russians in the Caucasus, however, the Ottomans lost ground, and over 100,000 soldiers, in a series of battles. 60,000 Ottoman soldiers died in the winter of 1916–17 on the Mus—Bitlis section of the front. The Ottomans preferred to keep the Caucasus militarily silent as they had to regroup reserves to retake Baghdad and Palestine from the British. 1917 and the first half of 1918 was the time for negotiations. On 5 December 1917, the armistice of Erzincan (Erzincan Cease-fire Agreement) was signed between the Russians and Ottomans in Erzincan that ended the armed conflicts between Russia and Ottoman Empire. On 3 March, the Grand vizier Talat Pasha signed the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk with the Russian SFSR. It stipulated that Bolshevik Russia cede Batum, Kars, and Ardahan. In addition to these provisions, a secret clause was inserted which obligated the Russians to demobilize Armenian national forces.


title: Ottoman Empire in World War I

text: From 14 March to April 1918 the Trabzon peace conference was held between the Ottoman Empire and the delegation of the Transcaucasian Diet. Enver Pasha offered to surrender all ambitions in the Caucasus in return for recognition of the Ottoman reacquisition of the east Anatolian provinces at Brest-Litovsk at the end of the negotiations. On 5 April, the head of the Transcaucasian delegation Akaki Chkhenkeli accepted the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk as a basis for more negotiations and wired the governing bodies urging them to accept this position. The mood prevailing in Tiflis was very different. Tiflis acknowledge the existence of a state of war between themselves and the Ottoman Empire.


title: Ottoman Empire in World War I

text: In April 1918, the Ottoman 3rd Army finally went on the offensive in Armenia. Opposition from Armenian forces led to the Battle of Sardarapat, the Battle of Kara Killisse, and the Battle of Bash Abaran. On 28 May 1918, the Armenian National Council based in Tiflis declared the First Republic of Armenia. The new Republic of Armenia was forced to sign the Treaty of Batum.


title: Ottoman Empire in World War I

text: In July 1918, the Ottomans faced the Centrocaspian Dictatorship at the Battle of Baku, with the goal of taking Armenian/Russian/British occupied Baku on the Caspian Sea.


title: Ottoman Empire in World War I

text: The British captured Basra in November 1914, and marched north into Iraq. Initially Ahmed Djemal Pasha was ordered to gather an army in Palestine to threaten the Suez Canal. In response, the Allies—including the newly formed Australian and New Zealand Army Corps ("ANZACs")—opened another front with the Battle of Gallipoli. The army led by Ahmed Djemal Pasha (Fourth Army) to eject the British from Egypt was stopped at the Suez canal in February 1915, and again the next summer. The canal was vital to the British war effort. In addition, the 1915 locust plague broke out in the Palestine region; the Ottoman military hospitals record the period as March–October 1915.


title: Ottoman Empire in World War I

text: The expected, and feared, British invasion came not through Cilicia or northern Syria, but through the straits. The aim of the Dardanelles campaign was to support Russia. Most military observers recognized that the uneducated Ottoman soldier was lost without good leadership, and at Gallipoli Mustafa Kemal realized the capabilities of his men if their officers led from the front. The war was something from a different era, as the agrarian Ottoman Empire faced two industrialized forces; in silent predawn attacks, officers with drawn swords went ahead of troops and the troops shouted their battlecry of "Allahu Akbar!" when they reached the enemy's trenches.


title: Ottoman Empire in World War I

text: Great Britain was obliged to defend India and the southern Persian oil territory by undertaking the Mesopotamian campaign. Britain also had to protect Egypt in the Sinai-Palestine-Syria Campaign. These campaigns strained Allied resources and relieved Germany.


title: Ottoman Empire in World War I

text: The repulse of British forces in Palestine in the spring of 1917 was followed by the loss of Jerusalem in December of the same year. The Ottoman authorities deported the entire civilian population of Jaffa, pursuant to orders from Ahmet Cemal on 6 April 1917. While the Muslim evacuees were allowed to return shortly after, the Jewish deportees were unable to until after the war. The events occurred simultaneously with the formation of the Balfour Declaration (published on 2 November 1917) in which the British Government declared its support for the establishment of a homeland for the Jewish people in Palestine.


title: Ottoman Empire in World War I

text: The war tested to the limit the empire's relations with its Arab population. In February 1915 in Syria, Cemal Pasha exercised absolute power in both military and civil affairs. Cemal Pasha was convinced that an uprising among local Arabs was imminent. Leading Arabs were executed, and notable families deported to Anatolia. Cemal's policies did nothing to alleviate the famine that was gripping Syria; it was exacerbated by a British and French blockade of the coastal ports, the requisitioning of transports, profiteering and—strikingly—Cemal's preference for spending scarce funds on public works and the restoration of historic monuments During the war, Britain had been a major sponsor of Arab nationalist thought and ideology, primarily as a weapon to use against the power of the Empire. Sharif Hussein ibn Ali rebelled against the Ottoman rule during the Arab Revolt of 1916. In August he was replaced by Sharif Haydar, but in October he proclaimed himself king of Arabia and in December was recognized by the British as an independent ruler. There was little the Empire could do to influence the course of events, other than try to prevent news of the uprising spreading to keep it from demoralizing the army or acting as propaganda for anti-Ottoman Arab factions. On 3 October 1918 forces of the Arab Revolt entered Damascus accompanied by British troops, ending 400 years of Ottoman rule.


title: Ottoman Empire in World War I

text: In order to support the other Central Powers, Enver Pasha sent 3 Army Corps or around 100,000 men to fight in Eastern Europe.


title: Ottoman Empire in World War I

text: On 10 September 1915, Interior Minister Talat Pasha abolished the "Capitulations". On 10 September 1915 Grand Vizier Said Halim Pasha annulled (Vizer had the authority on annuls) the Capitulations, which ended the special privileges they granted to foreign nationals. The capitulation holders refused to recognize his action (unilateral action). The American ambassador expressed the Great Power view:


title: Ottoman Empire in World War I

text: Beside the capitulations, there was another issue which evolved under the shadow of capitulations. The debt and financial control (revenue generation) of the empire was intertwined under single institution, which its board was constituted from Great Powers rather than Ottomans. There is no sovereignty in this design. The public debt could and did interfere in state affairs because it controlled (collected) one-quarter of state revenues. The debt was administered by the Ottoman Public Debt Administration and its power extended to the Imperial Ottoman Bank (equates to modern central banks). Debt Administration controlled many of the important revenues of the empire. The council had power over every financial affairs. Its control extended to determine the tax on livestock in districts. Ottoman public debt was part of a larger scheme of political control, through which the commercial interests of the world had sought to gain advantages that may not be to Empire's interest. The immediate purpose of the abolition of capitulations and the cancellation of foreign debt repayments was to reduce the foreign stranglehold on the Ottoman economy; a second purpose - and one to which great political weight was attached - was to extirpate non-Muslims from the economy by transferring assets to Muslim Turks and encouraging their participation with government contracts and subsidies.


title: Ottoman Empire in World War I

text: The Ottoman–German Alliance was an alliance was ratified on August 2, 1914, shortly following the outbreak of World War I. The alliance was created as part of a joint-cooperative effort that would strengthen and modernize the failing Ottoman military, as well as provide Germany safe passage into neighboring British colonies.


title: Ottoman Empire in World War I

text: The Constantinople Agreement on 18 March 1915 was a set of secret assurances, which Great Britain promised to give the Capital and the Dardanelles to the Russians in the event of victory. The city of Constantinople was intended to be a free port.


title: Ottoman Empire in World War I

text: During 1915, British forces invalidated the Anglo-Ottoman Convention, declaring Kuwait to be an "independent sheikdom under British protectorate."


title: Ottoman Empire in World War I

text: The French-Armenian Agreement of 27 October 1916, was reported to the interior minister, Talat Pasha, which agreement negotiations were performed with the leadership of Boghos Nubar the chairman of the Armenian National Assembly and one of the founder of the AGBU.


title: Ottoman Empire in World War I

text: In 1917 the Ottoman Cabinet considered maintaining relations with Washington after the United States had declared war on Germany on 6 April. But the views of the war party prevailed and they insisted on maintaining a common front with their allies. Thus, relations with America were broken on 20 April 1917.


title: Ottoman Empire in World War I

text: The 1917 Russian revolution changed the realities. The war devastated not only Russian soldiers, but also the Russian economy, which was breaking down under the heightened strain of wartime demand by the end of 1915. The tsarist regime's advances for the security on its southern borders proved ruinous. The tsarist regime's desire to control the Eastern Anatolia and the straits (perceived as an underbelly), in the end created the conditions that brought about Russia's own downfall. Inability to use the Straits significantly disrupted the Russian supply chain, Russia might have survived without the Straits, but the strain was the tipping point for its war economy. This question was left to Soviet historians: "whether a less aggressive policy toward the Ottoman Empire before the war would have caused Istanbul to maintain neutrality or whether Russia later might have induced Istanbul to leave the war, the outcome of tsarist future would be different. Nicholas's inept handling of his country and the war destroyed the Tsar and ended up costing him both his reign and his life.


title: Ottoman Empire in World War I

text: Enver immediately instructed the Vehib Pasha, Third Army, to propose a ceasefire to Russia's Caucasus Army. Vehib cautioned withdrawing forces, as due to the politics in Russia—neither Russia's Caucasus Army nor Caucasian civil authorities could give assurances that an armistice would hold. On 7 November 1917 the Bolshevik Party led by Vladimir Lenin overthrew the Provisional Government in a violent coup plunged Russia into multitude of civil wars between different ethnic groups. The slow dissolution of Russia's Caucasus Army relieved one form of military threat from the east but brought another one. Russia was a long time threat, but at the same time kept the civil unrest in his land at bay without spreading to Ottomans in a violent. On 3 December the Ottoman foreign minister Ahmed Nesimi Bey informed the "Chamber of Deputies" about the prospects. The Chamber discussed the possible outcomes and priorities. On 15 December Armistice between Russia and the Central Powers signed. On 18 December Armistice of Erzincan signed. The Bolsheviks' anti-imperialist formula of peace with no annexations and no indemnities was close to Ottoman position. The Bolsheviks' position brought a conflict with the Germany's aim to preserve control over the East European lands it occupied and with Bulgaria's claims on Dobruja and parts of Serbia. In December Enver informed the Quadruple Alliance that they would like to see a restoration to pre-Russo-Turkish War (1877–1878) borders, pointing out that only the Ottomans lost territory and that the territories at issue was inhabited primarily by Muslims. However the Ottomans did not push this position too hard, scared to fall back to bilateral agreements. On the other hand, Germany, Austria-Hungary, and Bulgaria clearly stood behind the pulling back of the Ottoman and Russian forces from Persia, which the Ottomans coveted control over. The ambassador to Berlin, Ibrahim Hakki Pasha, wrote: "Although Russia may be in a weakened state today, it is always an awesome enemy and it is probable that in a short time it will recover its former might and power.


title: Ottoman Empire in World War I

text: On 22 December 1917, the first meeting between Ottomans and the Bolsheviks, the temporary head Zeki Pasha, until Talat Pasha's arrival, requested of Lev Kamenev to put an end to atrocities being committed on Russian-occupied territory by Armenian partisans. Kamenev agreed and added "an international commission should be established to oversee the return of refugees (by own consent) and deportees (by forced relocation) to Eastern Anatolia. The battle of ideals, rhetoric, and material for the fate of Eastern Anatolia opened with this dialog .


title: Ottoman Empire in World War I

text: The Treaty of Brest-Litovsk represented an enormous success for the empire. Minister of Foreign Affairs Halil Bey announced the achievement of peace to the Chamber of Deputies. He cheered the deputies further with his prediction of the imminent signing of a third peace treaty (the first Ukraine, second Russia, and with Romania). Halil Bey thought the Entente to cease hostilities and bring a rapid end to the war. The creation of an independent Ukraine promised to cripple Russia, and the recovery of Kars, Ardahan and Batum gave the CUP a tangible prize. Nationalism emerged at the center of the diplomatic struggle between the Central Powers and the Bolsheviks. The Empire recognized that Russia's Muslims, their co-religionists, were disorganized and dispersed could not become an organized entity in the future battles of ideals, rhetoric, and material. Thus, the Ottomans mobilized the Caucasus Committee to make claims on behalf of the Muslims. The Caucasus Committee had declined Ottoman earnest requests to break from Russia and embrace independence. The Caucasian Christians was far ahead in this new world concept. Helping the Caucasian Muslims to be free, like their neighbors, would be the Ottomans' challenge.


title: Ottoman Empire in World War I

text: In the overall war effort, the CUP was convinced that the empire's contribution was essential. Ottoman armies had tied down large numbers of Allied troops on multiple fronts, keeping them away from theatres in Europe where they would have been used against German and Austrian forces. Moreover, they claimed that their success at Gallipoli had been an important factor in bringing about the collapse of Russia, resulting in the revolution of April 1917. They had turned the war in favor of Germany and her allies. Hopes were initially high for the Ottomans that their losses in the Middle East might be compensated for by successes in the Caucasus Campaign. Enver Pasha maintained an optimistic stance, hid information that made the Ottoman position appear weak, and let most of the Ottoman elite believe that the war was still winnable.


title: Ottoman Empire in World War I

text: Ottoman policy toward the Caucasus evolved according to the changing demands of the diplomatic and geopolitical environment. What was the Ottoman premise in involving with the Azerbaijan and the North Caucasus?


title: Ottoman Empire in World War I

text: The principle of "self-determination" became the criterion, or at least in part, to give them a chance to stand on their feet. The Bolsheviks did not regard national separatism in this region as a lasting force. Their expectation was whole region come under a "voluntary and honest union" and this union bearing no resemblance to Lenin's famous description of Russia as a "prison house of peoples." Lenin's arrival to Russia was formally welcomed by Nikolay Chkheidze, the Menshevik Chairman of the Petrograd Soviet.


title: Ottoman Empire in World War I

text: Ottomans did not see a chance of these new states to stand against new Russia. These new Muslim states needed support to be emerged as viable independent states. In order to consolidate a buffer zone with Russia (both for the Empire and these new states), however, Ottomans needed to expel the Bolsheviks from Azerbaijan and the North Caucasus before the end of war. Based on 1917 negotiations, Enver concluded that Empire should not to expect much military assistance from the Muslims of the Caucasus as they were the one in need. Enver also knew the importance of Kars—Julfa railroad and the adjacent areas for this support. Goal was set forward beginning from 1918 to end of the war.


title: Ottoman Empire in World War I

text: The Empire duly recognized the Transcaucasian Democratic Federative Republic in February 1918. This preference to remain part of Russia led Caucasian politics to the Trebizond Peace Conference to base their diplomacy on the incoherent assertion that they were an integral part of Russia but yet not bound The representatives were Rauf Bey for the Empire, and Akaki Chkhenkeli from the Transcaucasian delegation.


title: Ottoman Empire in World War I

text: On 11 May, a new peace conference opened at Batum. The Treaty of Batum was signed on 4 June 1918, in Batum between the Ottoman Empire and three Trans-Caucasus states: First Republic of Armenia, Azerbaijan Democratic Republic and Democratic Republic of Georgia.


title: Ottoman Empire in World War I

text: The goal was to assist the Azerbaijan Democratic Republic at the Battle of Baku, then turn north to assist the embattled Mountainous Republic of the Northern Caucasus and then sweep southward to encircle the British in Mesopotamia and retake Baghdad. The British in Mesopotamia were already moving north, with forty vans (claimed to loaded with gold and silver for buying mercenary) accompanied with only a brigade, to establish a foothold. At the time Baku was under the control of the 26 Baku Commissars which were Bolshevik and Left Socialist Revolutionary (SR) members of the Baku Soviet Commune. The commune was established in the city of Baku. In this plan, they expected resistance from Bolshevik Russia and Britain, but also Germany, which opposed the extension of their influence into the Caucasus. Ottoman's goal to side with Muslims of Azerbaijan and MRNC managed to get Bolsheviks of Russia, Britain and Germany on the same side of a conflict box at this brief point in the history.


title: Ottoman Empire in World War I

text: Developments in Southeast Europe squashed the Ottoman government's hopes. In September 1918, the Allied forces under the command of Louis Franchet d'Espèrey mounted a sudden offensive at the Macedonian front, which proved quite successful. Bulgaria was forced to sue for peace in the Armistice of Salonica. This development undermined both the German and Ottoman cause simultaneously—the Germans had no troops to spare to defend Austria-Hungary from the newly formed vulnerability in Southeast Europe after the losses it had suffered in France, and the Ottomans suddenly faced having to defend Istanbul against an overland European siege without help from the Bulgarians.


title: Ottoman Empire in World War I

text: Grand Vizier Talaat Pasha visited both Berlin, and Sofia, in September 1918, and came away with the understanding that the war was no longer winnable. With Germany likely seeking a separate peace, the Ottomans would be forced to as well. Grand Vizier Talaat convinced the other members of the ruling party that they must resign, as the Allies would impose far harsher terms if they thought the people who started the war were still in power. Despite the Ottoman Empire and the United States not being at war, Talaat petitioned America to see if he could surrender to them on the terms of the Fourteen Points. The U.S. never responded, defering to the British for advice. On 13 October, Talaat and the rest of his ministry resigned. Ahmed Izzet Pasha replaced Talaat as Grand Vizier.


title: Ottoman Empire in World War I

text: Two days after taking office, Ahmed Izzet Pasha sent the captured British General Charles Vere Ferrers Townshend to the Allies to seek terms on an armistice. The British government, interpreted that not only should they conduct the negotiations, but should conduct them alone. There may have been a desire to cut the French out of territorial "spoils" promised to them in the Sykes-Picot agreement. Talaat had sent an emissary to the French as well, but that emissary had been slower to respond back. The British cabinet empowered Admiral Calthorpe to conduct the negotiations, and to explicitly exclude the French from them. The negotiations began on 27 October on . The British refused to admit the senior French naval officer in the area, Vice-Admiral Jean Amet, to the negotiations. The Ottoman delegation was headed by Minister of Marine Affairs Rauf Bey.


title: Ottoman Empire in World War I

text: Unknown to each other, both sides were actually quite eager to sign a deal and willing to give up their objectives to do so. The British delegation had been given a list of 24 demands, but were told to concede on any of them save allowing the occupation of the forts on the Dardanelles and free passage through the Bosphorus; the British desired access to the Black Sea for the Rumanian front . Prime Minister David Lloyd George desired to make a deal quickly before the United States could step in; according to the diary of Maurice Hankey: The Ottomans, for their part, believed the war to be lost and would have accepted almost any demands placed on them. As a result, the initial draft prepared by the British was accepted largely unchanged; the Ottomans did not know they could have pushed back on most of the clauses, and the British did not know they could have demanded even more. The Ottomans ceded the rights to the Allies to occupy "in case of disorder" any Ottoman territory, a vague and broad clause. The French were displeased with the precedent; Premier Clemenceau disliked the British making unilateral decisions in such an important matter. Lloyd George countered that the French had concluded a similar armistice on short notice in Salonica, and that Great Britain and Russia had committed the vast majority of the troops in the campaigns against the Ottomans. The French agreed to accept the matter as closed.


title: Ottoman Empire in World War I

text: On 30 October 1918, the Armistice of Mudros was signed, ending Ottoman involvement in World War 1. The Ottoman public, however, was given misleadingly positive impressions of the severity of the terms of the Armistice. They thought its terms were considerably more lenient than they actually were, a source of discontent later that the Allies had betrayed the offered terms.


title: Ottoman Empire in World War I

text: Ottoman casualties of World War I, the Ottoman Empire mobilized a total of 2.6 million men. It lost 325,000 men and 400,000 were injured. 202,000 men were taken prisoner, mostly by the British and the Russians, and one million deserted, leaving only 323,000 men under arms at the time of the armistice. The British Empire engaged in the conflict 2,550,000 men on the various Ottoman fronts, or 32% of its total strength; the Russian Empire, up to 7,020,000 men in September 1916, or 19% of its forces; France, 50,000 men, mainly to the Dardanelles, and Italy, 70,000 men in Libya against a pro-Ottoman rebellion. In total, both sides, Ottomans and Allies, lost 1,400,000 men. Without the Ottoman entry into the war, it is likely that the Allied victory would have been faster.


title: Ottoman Empire in World War I

text: The financial losses are also huge with an expense of 398.5 million Ottoman Lira, the equivalent of 9.09 billion gold francs of the time: the Empire was practically bankrupt in 1918.


title: Ottoman Empire in World War I

text: During WWI the Ottoman Empire engaged in a genocide against local ethnicities in its territory. The Armenian genocide, also known as the Armenian Holocaust, was the Ottoman government's systematic extermination of 1.5 million Christian Armenians, mostly Ottoman citizens within the Ottoman Empire and its successor state, the Republic of Turkey. The starting date is conventionally held to be 24 April 1915, the day that Ottoman authorities rounded up, arrested, and deported 235 to 270 Armenian intellectuals and community leaders from Constantinople to Ankara, the majority of whom were eventually murdered.


title: Ottoman Empire in World War I

text: The genocide was carried out during and after World War I and implemented in two phases: the wholesale killing of the able-bodied male population through massacre and subjection of army conscripts to forced labour, followed by the deportation of women, children, the elderly, and the infirm on death marches leading to the Syrian desert. Driven forward by military escorts, the deportees were deprived of food and water and subjected to periodic robbery, rape, and massacre. Other indigenous and Christian ethnic groups such as the Assyrians and the Ottoman Greeks were similarly targeted for extermination by the Ottoman government in the Assyrian genocide and the Greek genocide, and their treatment is considered by some historians to be part of the same genocidal policy. Most Armenian diaspora communities around the world came into being as a direct result of the genocide.


title: Ottoman Empire in World War I

text: Raphael Lemkin was explicitly moved by the Armenian annihilation to define systematic and premeditated exterminations within legal parameters and to coin the word "genocide" in 1943. The Armenian genocide is acknowledged to have been one of the first modern genocides, because scholars point to the organized manner in which the killings were carried out in order to eliminate the Armenians, and it is the second most-studied case of genocide after the Holocaust.


title: Ottoman Empire in World War I

text: Turkey, the successor state of the Ottoman Empire, denies the word "genocide" as an accurate term for the mass killings of Armenians that began under Ottoman rule in 1915. It has in recent years been faced with repeated calls to recognize them as genocide. To date, 29 countries have officially recognized the mass killings as genocide, as have most genocide scholars and historians.


title: Pay-per-click

text: Pay-per-click (PPC) is an internet advertising model used to drive traffic to websites, in which an advertiser pays a publisher (typically a search engine, website owner, or a network of websites) when the ad is clicked.


title: Pay-per-click

text: Pay-per-click is usually associated with first-tier search engines (such as Google Ads, Amazon Advertising, and Microsoft Advertising formerly Bing Ads). With search engines, advertisers typically bid on keyword phrases relevant to their target market and pay when ads (text-based search ads or shopping ads that are a combination of images and text) are clicked. In contrast, content sites commonly charge a fixed price per click rather than use a bidding system. PPC display advertisements, also known as banner ads, are shown on web sites with related content that have agreed to show ads and are typically not pay-per-click advertising, but instead usually charge on a cost per thousand impressions (CPM). Social networks such as Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Reddit, Pinterest, TikTok, and Twitter have also adopted pay-per-click as one of their advertising models. The amount advertisers pay depends on the publisher and is usually driven by two major factors: quality of the ad, and the maximum bid the advertiser is willing to pay per click measured against its competitors' bids. In general, the higher the quality of the ad, the lower the cost per click is charged and vice versa.


title: Pay-per-click

text: However, websites can offer PPC ads. Websites that utilize PPC ads will display an advertisement when a query (keyword or phrase) matches an advertiser's keyword list that has been added in different ad groups, or when a content site displays relevant content. Such advertisements are called "sponsored links" or "sponsored ads", and appear adjacent to, above, or beneath organic results on search engine results pages (SERP), or anywhere a web developer chooses on a content site.


title: Pay-per-click

text: The PPC advertising model is open to abuse through click fraud, although Google and others have implemented automated systems to guard against abusive clicks by competitors or corrupt web developers.


title: Pay-per-click

text: Pay-per-click, along with cost per impression (CPM) and cost per order, are used to assess the cost-effectiveness and profitability of internet marketing and drive the cost of running advertisement campaign as low as possible while retaining set goals. In Cost Per Thousand Impressions (CPM), the advertiser only pays for every 1000 impressions of the ad. Pay-per-click (PPC) has an advantage over cost per impression in that it conveys information about how effective the advertising was. Clicks are a way to measure attention and interest. If the main purpose of an ad is to generate a click, or more specifically drive traffic to a destination, then pay-per-click is the preferred metric. The quality and placement of the advertisement will affect click through rates and the resulting total pay-per-click cost.


title: Pay-per-click

text: Cost-per-click (CPC) is calculated by dividing the advertising cost by the number of clicks generated by an advertisement. The basic formula is:


title: Pay-per-click

text: There are two primary models for determining pay-per-click: flat-rate and bid-based. In both cases, the advertiser must consider the potential value of a click from a given source. This value is based on the type of individual the advertiser is expecting to receive as a visitor to their website, and what the advertiser can gain from that visit, which is usually short-term or long-term revenue. As with other forms of advertising, targeting is key, and factors that often play into PPC campaigns include the target's interest (often defined by a search term they have entered into a search engine or the content of a page that they are browsing), intent (e.g., to purchase or not), location (for geo targeting), device used (e.g. whether the user is searching from a desktop device or mobile) and the day and time that they are browsing.


title: Pay-per-click

text: In the flat-rate model, the advertiser and publisher agree upon a fixed amount that will be paid for each click. In many cases, the publisher has a rate card that lists the pay-per-click (PPC) within different areas of their website or network. These various amounts are often related to the content on pages, with content that generally attracts more valuable visitors having a higher cost per click than content that attracts less valuable visitors. However, in many cases, advertisers can negotiate lower rates, especially when committing to a long-term or high-value contract.


title: Pay-per-click

text: The flat-rate model is particularly common to comparison shopping engines, which typically publish rate cards. However, these rates are sometimes minimal, and advertisers can pay more for greater visibility. These sites are usually neatly compartmentalized into product or service categories, allowing a high degree of targeting by advertisers. In many cases, the entire core content of these sites is paid ads.


title: Pay-per-click

text: The advertiser signs a contract that allows them to compete against other advertisers in a private auction hosted by a publisher or, more commonly, an advertising network. Each advertiser informs the host of the maximum amount that he or she is willing to pay for a given ad spot (often based on a keyword), usually using online tools to do so. The auction plays out in an automated fashion every time a visitor triggers the ad spot.


title: Pay-per-click

text: When the ad spot is part of a search engine results page (SERP), the automated auction takes place whenever a search for the keyword that is being bid upon occurs. All bids for the keyword that target the searcher's Geo-location, the day and time of the search, etc. are then compared and the winner determined. All this happens in real time, therefore this is called real-time-bidding or RTB, and in a fraction of a second. In situations where there are multiple ad spots, a common occurrence on SERPs, there can be multiple winners whose positions on the page are influenced by the amount each has bid and the quality of their ad. The bid and Quality Score are used to give each advertiser's advert an ad rank. The ad with the highest ad rank shows up first. The predominant three match types for both Google and Bing are Broad, Exact and Phrase Match. Google Ads and Bing Ads also offer the Broad Match Modifier type (although Google retired it in July 2021) which differs from broad match in that the keyword must contain the actual keyword terms in any order and doesn't include relevant variations of the terms.


title: Pay-per-click

text: In addition to ad spots on SERPs, the major advertising networks allow for contextual ads to be placed on the properties of 3rd-parties with whom they have partnered. These publishers sign up to host ads on behalf of the network. In return, they receive a portion of the ad revenue that the network generates, which can be anywhere from 50% to over 80% of the gross revenue paid by advertisers. These properties are often referred to as a "content network" and the ads on them as "contextual ads" because the ad spots are associated with keywords based on the context of the page on which they are found. In general, ads on content networks have a much lower click-through rate (CTR) and conversion rate (CR) than ads found on SERPs and consequently are less highly valued. Content network properties can include websites, newsletters, and e-mails.


title: Pay-per-click

text: Advertisers pay for every single click they receive, with the actual amount paid based on the amount of bid. It is common practice amongst auction hosts to charge a winning bidder just slightly more (e.g. one penny) than the next highest bidder or the actual amount bid, whichever is lower. This avoids situations where bidders are constantly adjusting their bids by very small amounts to see if they can still win the auction while paying just a little bit less per click.


title: Pay-per-click

text: In order to maximize success and achieve scale, automated bid management systems can be deployed. These systems can be used directly by the advertiser, though they are more commonly used by advertising agencies that offer PPC bid management as a service. These tools generally allow for bid management at scale, with thousands or even millions of PPC bids controlled by a highly automated system. The system generally sets each bid based on the goal that has been set for it, such as maximize profit, maximize traffic, get the very targeted customer at break even, and so forth. The system is usually tied into the advertiser's website and fed the results of each click, which then allows it to set bids. The effectiveness of these systems is directly related to the quality and quantity of the performance data that they have to work with — low-traffic ads can lead to a scarcity of data problem that renders many bid management tools useless at worst, or inefficient at best.


title: Pay-per-click

text: As a rule, the contextual advertising system (Google Ads, Yandex.Direct, etc.) uses an auction approach as the advertising payment system.


title: Pay-per-click

text: There are several sites that claim to be the first PPC model on the web, with many appearing in the mid-1990s. For example, in 1996, the first known and documented version of a PPC was included in a web directory called Planet Oasis. This was a desktop application featuring links to informational and commercial websites, and it was developed by Ark Interface II, a division of Packard Bell NEC Computers. The initial reactions from commercial companies to Ark Interface II's "pay-per-visit" model were skeptical, however. By the end of 1997, over 400 major brands were paying between $.005 to $.25 per click plus a placement fee.


title: Pay-per-click

text: In February 1998 Jeffrey Brewer of Goto.com, a 25-employee startup company (later Overture, now part of Yahoo!), presented a pay per click search engine proof-of-concept to the TED conference in California. This presentation and the events that followed created the PPC advertising system. Credit for the concept of the PPC model is generally given to Idealab and Goto.com founder Bill Gross.


title: Pay-per-click

text: Google started search engine advertising in December 1999. It was not until October 2000 that the AdWords system was introduced, allowing advertisers to create text ads for placement on the Google search engine. However, PPC was only introduced in 2002; until then, advertisements were charged at cost-per-thousand impressions or Cost per mille (CPM). Overture has filed a patent infringement lawsuit against Google, saying the rival search service overstepped its bounds with its ad-placement tools.


title: Pay-per-click

text: Although GoTo.com started PPC in 1998, Yahoo! did not start syndicating GoTo.com (later Overture) advertisers until November 2001. Prior to this, Yahoo's primary source of SERPs advertising included contextual IAB advertising units (mainly 468x60 display ads). When the syndication contract with Yahoo! was up for renewal in July 2003, Yahoo! announced intent to acquire Overture for $1.63 billion. Today, companies such as adMarketplace, ValueClick and adknowledge offer PPC services, as an alternative to AdWords and AdCenter. Similarly Google provides pay per click services, this was pioneered in APAC by Tim Schaare-Weeks.


title: Pay-per-click

text: Among PPC providers, Google Ads (formerly Google AdWords), Microsoft adCenter and Yahoo! Search Marketing had been the three largest network operators, all three operating under a bid-based model. For example, in the year 2014, PPC(Adwords) or online advertising attributed approximately US$45 billion of the total US$66 billion of Google's annual revenue In 2010, Yahoo and Microsoft launched their combined effort against Google, and Microsoft's Bing began to be the search engine that Yahoo used to provide its search results. Since they joined forces, their PPC platform was renamed AdCenter. Their combined network of third party sites that allow AdCenter ads to populate banner and text ads on their site is called BingAds.


title: Pay-per-click

text: In 2012, Google was initially ruled to have engaged in misleading and deceptive conduct by the Australian Competition & Consumer Commission (ACCC) in possibly the first legal case of its kind. The ACCC ruled that Google was responsible for the content of its sponsored AdWords ads that had shown links to a car sales website Carsales. The ads had been shown by Google in response to a search for Honda Australia. The ACCC said the ads were deceptive, as they suggested Carsales was connected to the Honda company. The ruling was later overturned when Google appealed to the High Court of Australia. Google was found not liable for the misleading advertisements run through AdWords despite the fact that the ads were served up by Google and created using the company's tools.


title: Mahima Nambiar

text: Nambiar hails from Kasaragod, Kerala. In 2014, she was pursuing a BA in English Literature privately. She is a trained classical dancer and a singer.


title: Mahima Nambiar

text: At age 15, she made her acting debut in the Malayalam film "Kaaryasthan", playing Dileep's sister, with Mahima calling it a "blink and miss role". She was working as an advertisement model, when director Samy tried to cast her for "Sindhu Samaveli" (2010) but she had to decline the offer for personal reasons. The production team later recommended her for "Saattai" (2012), which marked her Tamil film debut. She was in class 12 when she acted in the film, in which she played the lead role of Arivazhagi, a village school girl. After "Saattai", she took a year's sabbatical to complete her school, and returned to acting with roles in four Tamil films. Her next release was "Ennamo Nadakkudhu" (2014) in which she appeared as a nurse named Madhu. Her future projects include "Mosakutty", directed by Jeevan, "Puravi 150cc", directed by Cheran's associate Venkat, and "Agathinai", directed by Marudhu. She has been signed to play a dual role in Samuthirakani's "Kitna".


title: Mahima Nambiar

text: At "Toronto Tamil International Film Festival 2021" she has won the Special Jury Award: Outstanding Performance - Award for Best Supporting Actress for the film "Magamuni".


title: 1 Night in China

text: 1 Night in China is a pornographic film directed by Marcos Nunez and featuring professional wrestling personalities Sean Waltman and Joanie Laurer. It was released by Red Light District Video in 2004 but recorded in 2003. While Waltman and Laurer were engaged at the time they made the film, they broke up before it was released. Laurer was 32 whereas Waltman was 31 at the time of recording. Laurer subsequently made several pornographic films, beginning with "Another Night in China" in 2009, which is considered to be a sequel to "1 Night in China".


title: 1 Night in China

text: The film features scenes of Laurer and Waltman taking a guided tour of China, intercut with footage of the pair participating in explicit anal, vaginal, and oral sex acts, with special emphasis on an anal sex scene, which serves as the climax of the film. Waltman admits to being under the influence of methamphetamine and marijuana during much of the film.


title: 1 Night in China

text: The title of the film is a play on words, as Laurer wrestled in the World Wrestling Federation under the ring name Chyna (pronounced "China"). A similarly named sex tape featuring Paris Hilton, also distributed by Red Light District, was titled "1 Night in Paris".


title: 1 Night in China

text: Laurer and Waltman approached Red Light District Video in late 2004 to distribute the tape. The film sold over 100,000 copies. According to the company, both Laurer and Waltman shared in the profits. Because of the film, Laurer received a career boost, soon appearing as a cast member on "The Surreal Life" on VH1.


title: Friedrich Merz

text: Joachim-Friedrich Martin Josef Merz (born 11 November 1955) is a German lawyer and politician, serving as Leader of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) since 31 January 2022 and as leader of the Union parliamentary group as well as the Leader of the Opposition in the Bundestag since 15 February 2022.


title: Friedrich Merz

text: Merz joined the Young Union in 1972 and is reputed to be a member of the Andean Pact, a powerful network formed by politically ambitious members of the Young Union in 1979 during a trip to the Andes. After finishing law school in 1985, he worked as a judge and corporate lawyer before entering full-time politics in 1989 when he was elected to the European Parliament. After serving one term he was elected to the Bundestag, where he established himself as the leading financial policy expert in the CDU. He was elected chairman of the CDU/CSU group in the same year as Angela Merkel was elected chairwoman of the CDU, and at the time they were chief rivals for the leadership of the party.


title: Friedrich Merz

text: In 2002, he stepped down as leader of the opposition in favour of Merkel and gradually withdrew from politics, focusing on his legal career and leaving parliament entirely in 2009, until his return to parliament in 2021. In 2004 he became a senior counsel with Mayer Brown, where he has focused on mergers and acquisitions, banking and finance, and compliance. He has served on the boards of numerous companies. In 2018, he announced his return to politics. He was elected CDU leader in 2022, having failed to win the position in two previous leadership elections in 2018, and then 2021.


title: Friedrich Merz

text: As a young politician in the 1970s and 1980s, he was a staunch supporter of anti-communism, the dominant state doctrine of West Germany and a core tenet of the CDU. Merz has described himself as socially conservative and economically liberal, and is seen as a representative of the traditional establishment conservative and pro-business wings of the CDU. His book "Mehr Kapitalismus wagen" ("Venturing More Capitalism") advocates economic liberalism. He has been chairman of the Atlantik-Brücke association which promotes German-American understanding and Atlanticism, and is a staunch supporter of the European Union and NATO, having described himself as "a truly convinced European, a convinced transatlanticist". Merz advocates a closer union and "an army for Europe".


title: Friedrich Merz

text: Merz is Catholic and of French Huguenot descent on his mother's side. His wife, Charlotte Merz, is a judge; they have three children. A corporate lawyer and reputed multimillionaire, he is also a licensed private pilot and owns two airplanes.


title: Friedrich Merz

text: Joachim-Friedrich Martin Josef Merz was born on 11 November 1955 to Joachim Merz (born 1924) and Paula Sauvigny (born 1928) in Brilon in the state of North Rhine-Westphalia in then-West Germany. His father was a judge and a member of the CDU. The Sauvigny family was a locally prominent patrician family in Brilon, of French Huguenot ancestry, and his maternal grandfather was mayor of Brilon. Friedrich Merz is Roman Catholic. Merz was raised in his mother's family home Sauvigny House in Brilon. The house was announced for sale for 2 million euros in 2021.


title: Friedrich Merz

text: After finishing his Abitur exam in 1975 Merz served his military service as a soldier with a self-propelled artillery unit of the German Army. From 1976 he studied law with a scholarship from the Konrad Adenauer Foundation, first at the University of Bonn, later at the University of Marburg. At Bonn he was a member of , a Roman Catholic student fraternity founded in 1844 that is part of the "Cartellverband". After finishing law school in 1985, he became a judge in Saarbrücken. In 1986 he left his position as a judge in order to work as an in-house attorney-at-law at the German Chemical Industry Association in Bonn and Frankfurt from 1986 to 1989.


title: Friedrich Merz

text: In 1972, at the age of seventeen, he became a member of the CDU's youth wing, the Young Union, and he has been described by German media as a member of the "Andean Pact," a supposed network of influential CDU members formed by members of the Young Union during a trip to the South American Andes region in 1979. He became President of the Brilon branch of the Young Union in 1980.


title: Friedrich Merz

text: Merz successfully ran as a candidate in the 1989 European Parliament election and served one term as a Member of the European Parliament until 1994. He was a member of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and of the parliament's delegation for relations with Malta.


title: Friedrich Merz

text: From the 1994 German elections, he served as member of the Bundestag for his constituency, the Hochsauerland. In his first term, he was a member of the Finance Committee.


title: Friedrich Merz

text: In October 1998 Merz became vice-chairman and in February 2000 Chairman of the CDU/CSU parliamentary group (alongside Michael Glos), succeeding Wolfgang Schäuble. In this capacity, he was the opposition leader in the Bundestag during Chancellor Gerhard Schröder's first term.


title: Friedrich Merz

text: Ahead of the 2002 elections, Edmund Stoiber included Merz in his shadow cabinet for the Christian Democrats’ campaign to unseat incumbent Schröder as chancellor. During the campaign, Merz served as Stoiber's expert for financial markets and the national budget. After Stoiber's electoral defeat, Angela Merkel assumed the leadership of the parliamentary group; Merz again served as vice-chairman until 2004. From 2002 to 2004, he was also a member of the executive board of the CDU, again under the leadership of Merkel.


title: Friedrich Merz

text: Between 2005 and 2009, Merz was a member of the Committee on Legal Affairs. In 2006, he was one of nine parliamentarians who filed a complaint at the Federal Constitutional Court against the disclosure of additional sources of income; the complaint was ultimately unsuccessful. By 2007, he announced he would not be running for political office in the 2009 elections.


title: Friedrich Merz

text: Upon leaving politics, Merz worked as a corporate lawyer. Since 2004 he has been a Senior Counsel at Mayer Brown's Düsseldorf office, where he works on the corporate finance team; before 2004 he was a senior counsel with Cornelius Bartenbach Haesemann. His work as a lawyer and board member has made him a multimillionaire. He has also taken on numerous positions on corporate boards, including the following:


title: Friedrich Merz

text: Between 2010 and 2011, Merz represented the shareholders of WestLB, a publicly owned institution that had previously been Germany's third-largest lender, in talks with bidders. In 2012, he joined Norbert Röttgen’s campaign team for the North Rhine-Westphalia state election as advisor on economic policy. He served as a CDU delegate to the Federal Convention for the purpose of electing the President of Germany in 2012 and in 2017.


title: Friedrich Merz

text: In November 2017, Merz was appointed by Minister-President Armin Laschet of North Rhine-Westphalia as his Commissioner for Brexit and Transatlantic Relations, an unpaid advisory position.


title: Friedrich Merz

text: After Angela Merkel announced her intention to step down as Leader of the CDU party, Merz announced he would run in the subsequent 2018 party leadership election. His candidacy was promoted by the former CDU chairman and "crown prince" of the Kohl era, Wolfgang Schäuble (current President of the Bundestag, ranked second in federal precedence). On 7 December 2018, in the second round of the leadership election, Merz was defeated by Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer.


title: Friedrich Merz

text: On 25 February 2020, he announced his candidacy in the first 2021 CDU leadership election. His closest competitors were Armin Laschet and Norbert Röttgen. After several postponements, the election of the new CDU party president took place at the party congress on 15–16 January 2021, which was the first time in the party's history that it was held fully online. In the first round, Merz received 385 votes, 5 more than Laschet. In the second round, Merz received 466 votes out of 1001 delegates, while Laschet received 521 votes, thus failing to win the party president's post for the second time.


title: Friedrich Merz

text: The same day, after losing the leadership election, Merz proposed to "join the current government and take over the Ministry for Economy". The ministry was already headed by his party colleague Peter Altmaier at the time and the proposal was rebuffed. Laschet was quick to placate Merz by recruiting him to his campaign team. Laschet justified this by saying that Merz was "without doubt a team player" and that his economic and financial expertise could provide crucial help in overcoming the huge challenge of the pandemic in a sustainable way.


title: Friedrich Merz

text: Ahead of the 2021 German federal election, Patrick Sensburg, Merz's successor in his seat in the Bundestag, failed to secure his party's support for a new candidacy. Merz instead replaced him, returning to the Bundestag after a 12-year absence.


title: Friedrich Merz

text: On 15 November 2021, Merz announced his candidacy in the second 2021 CDU leadership election. His opponents were Norbert Röttgen and Helge Braun.


title: Friedrich Merz

text: During their short campaign, Merz's rivals positioned themselves as Merkel's heirs. Against them, Merz promised a decisive break with the centrist line Merkel had followed for 16 years.


title: Friedrich Merz

text: In total, some 400 000 CDU members were able to vote online or by letter. By 17 December 2021, Merz had already won an absolute majority of 62.1 percent of the membership in the first round of voting, so a second round of voting was not necessary. This meant that at his third attempt, he managed to win the party presidency. Asked for his reaction to the results of the vote, Merz said: "Quietly I just said to myself, 'WOW'; but only quietly, the winning marching songs are far from me."


title: Friedrich Merz

text: Merz was formally elected Chairman of the CDU by its 1001 congress delegates at the virtual federal party congress on 22 January 2022. In the end, 915 out of 983 delegates voted for him, winning 94.6% of the valid votes to become the leader of the largest opposition party in the Bundestag. The vote was formally a so-called "digital pre-vote", the result of which has been confirmed in writing by the delegates.


title: Friedrich Merz

text: After Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer and Armin Laschet, Merz became the third leader of the Christian Democratic Union within three years. He officially took office as party president on 31 January 2022.


title: Friedrich Merz

text: Merz has focused on economic, foreign, security, and family policies. He has described himself as socially conservative and economically liberal, and is seen as a representative of the traditional establishment conservative and pro-business wings of the CDU.


title: Friedrich Merz

text: As a young politician in the 1970s and 1980s, he was a staunch supporter of anti-communism, the dominant state doctrine of West Germany and a core tenet of the CDU. His book "Mehr Kapitalismus wagen" advocates economic liberalism. He has been chairman of the Atlantik-Brücke association which promotes German-American understanding and Atlanticism, and is a staunch supporter of the European Union and NATO. In 2018, he described himself as "a truly convinced European, a convinced transatlanticist" and said that "I stand for a cosmopolitan Germany whose roots lie in Christian ethics and the European Enlightenment and whose most important political allies are the democracies of the West. I gladly use this expression again: The democracies of the West." He advocates a closer union and especially closer relations between Germany and France. Merz has criticized Donald Trump more harshly than Angela Merkel did and has especially criticized Trump's trade war against Europe. In 2018, he co-authored an article in defence of the European project, which among other things called for "an army for Europe."


title: Friedrich Merz

text: In November 2018, Merz said that the introduction of same-sex marriage in Germany is correct. Also in 2018, Merz rejected the Ludwig Erhard Prize, citing objections to publications by the chairman of the Ludwig Erhard Foundation, Roland Tichy, considered by some to be on the extreme right. In January 2022, he said that sanctioning Russia from SWIFT over Donbas would be a mistake. Following the start of the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, Merz adopted strong pro-Ukrainian and anti-Russian positions, urging Chancellor Olaf Scholz to supply Ukraine with weapons and personally travelling to Kyiv in May to meet Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.


title: Friedrich Merz

text: Friedrich Merz is married to the judge Charlotte Merz. He has three children and resides in Arnsberg in the Sauerland region. In 2005, the couple established the Friedrich und Charlotte Merz Stiftung, a foundation supporting projects in the education sector. He is a Roman Catholic.


title: Percy Harvin

text: William Percival Harvin III (born May 28, 1988) is a former American football wide receiver. He played college football at Florida, when the Gators won the BCS National Championship in 2006 and 2008, and was drafted by the Minnesota Vikings of the National Football League (NFL) in the first round of the 2009 NFL Draft. Harvin also played for the Seattle Seahawks, New York Jets and Buffalo Bills. He was named the Associated Press Offensive Rookie of the Year in 2009 and won Super Bowl XLVIII with the Seahawks in 2013 over the Denver Broncos. He attended and played football for Landstown High School in Virginia Beach, where his team won the high school state championship in 2004.


title: Percy Harvin

text: Harvin was born to William Percival Harvin, Jr. and wife Linda in Chesapeake, Virginia, where after his father's departure, he lived with his mother and his older sister, Lintera. His mother, Linda, ran a daycare out of their home as Harvin helped with the children. Harvin's mother ran track at Princess Anne High School in Virginia Beach and later coached an AAU track team. His sister, Lintera, ran track, both at Salem High School in Virginia Beach and at Eastern Michigan University. As a child, Harvin was a gifted athlete whose prowess was first noted as a six-year-old flag football participant. At the age of 13, he played for coach Bruce Pearl and the Virginia Beach Mustangs Pop Warner football team, leading the team to a national championship.


title: Percy Harvin

text: At Landstown High School in Virginia Beach, Harvin was noted for his speed (4.32 seconds in the 40-yard dash as a freshman) and ability to make people miss in the open field. In 2003, during his sophomore year, the Landstown Eagles were the state Group AAA runner-up in football. A year later, Harvin led the Eagles' football team to a perfect 14-0 record and a Virginia High School League (VHSL) Group AAA Division 6 state championship. In the title game against James Robinson High School, Harvin accounted for 476 all-purpose yards in rushing, receiving, kick returns, and interception returns, as well as scoring five touchdowns in the 47-20 victory. In 2005, Landstown finished 13-1 after a 28-7 state championship game upset loss to Oakton High School of Vienna, Virginia. Following his stellar high school career, Harvin participated in the 2006 U.S. Army All-American Bowl. He also triumphed in basketball, where he helped the team to a 33-6 record and runner-up in the 2005 VHSL AAA state championship game.


title: Percy Harvin

text: After receiving National Junior Player of the Year honors in 2005, Harvin became one of the most highly acclaimed high school football players in the country. As one of the top recruits in the 2006 high school class, Harvin was ranked number one overall by Rivals.com and the number two receiver by Scout.com.


title: Percy Harvin

text: Despite his accomplishments, Harvin's high school athletic career was not without controversy. He served a one-game suspension early in his junior football season for unsportsmanlike conduct. As a senior, he was suspended for the final two regular-season games after making contact with an official and using inappropriate language during a game against First Colonial High School. In basketball, Harvin and a Green Run High School player were involved in a scuffle that prompted referees to stop the game with time remaining on the clock. As a result of this and prior incidents, Harvin was suspended from athletic competition by the VHSL.


title: Percy Harvin

text: Despite these missteps, Harvin ranks as one of the greatest high school athletes to come out of the Hampton Roads area. He scored 77 career touchdowns, accounted for more points than any player in South Hampton Roads history, and led Landstown High School to three consecutive Group AAA Division 6 state football championship games. As a junior Harvin led the Landstown basketball team to the state final, and became the first athlete since 1936 to win five gold medals at the state track meet. Despite several earlier statements that he would attend Florida State University, on December 19, 2005, Harvin committed to the University of Florida over Florida State, University of Miami (FL), University of Michigan, and University of Southern California.


title: Percy Harvin

text: In 2000, at the age of 12, he was a member of the National Champion 4 × 100 m relay team in the Midget (11-12) Age Group. Harvin was also a standout track athlete at the Landstown High School. He became the first athlete in 69 years to capture five state titles at 2005 Virginia Class AAA state meet, winning the 100 meters, with a time of 10.69 seconds, 200 meters, with a time of 21.59 seconds, long jump, with a leap of 7.15 meters, and in triple jump, with a leap of 14.50 meters. He captured the 2005 Virginia Class AAA indoor title in triple jump, with a leap of 14.70 meters. He also won the 2004 state title in long jump as a sophomore with a leap of 7.14 meters. As a result of various incidents, Harvin was suspended from athletic competition by the Virginia High School League (VHSL). The suspension prevented Harvin from competing in the VHSL Group AAA State Indoor Track Meet at George Mason University that year. His loss, after becoming the first athlete to win five state track titles in the same meet during his junior year, was a huge blow to his high school track team.


title: Percy Harvin

text: Harvin's personal bests are 10.43 seconds in the 100 meters, 21.19 seconds in the 200 meters, and 7.40 meters in long jump.


title: Percy Harvin

text: Harvin accepted an athletic scholarship to attend the University of Florida in Gainesville, Florida, where he played on coach Urban Meyer's Florida Gators football team from 2006 to 2008. Harvin had an immediate and dramatic impact for the Gators as a freshman in 2006, and was a key offensive player during the Gators' national championship season in 2008.


title: Percy Harvin

text: Harvin made his collegiate debut for the Florida Gators on September 2, 2006 against the Southern Mississippi Golden Eagles. Harvin was a dual threat, lining up at both running back and wide receiver. He caught three passes for 33 yards and carried the ball four times for a team-leading 58 yards. Harvin's second game was on September 9 against the Central Florida Golden Knights. He caught four passes for 99 yards, including a 58-yard touchdown pass. He also ran for 11 yards on two carries. In the third and fourth games of the season, Harvin saw limited action against the Tennessee Volunteers, where he had one catch for 12 yards and one rush for 13 yards. He was injured in the second quarter and thus played very little for the rest of the game and during practice the following week . A week later against the Kentucky Wildcats, Harvin had only one rush for two yards. Due to his injuries, Harvin did not play against the Alabama and played sparingly against LSU. He returned to the lineup for the Auburn game and continued his sporadic freshman year performance, rushing for a 42-yard touchdown against rival Florida State. However, Harvin suffered a neck sprain in the game and was taken off the field on a stretcher. Harvin returned the next week for the SEC Championship Game against Arkansas, by catching five passes for 62 yards and a touchdown. He also ran six times for a team high 105 yards, including a 67-yard touchdown run. With that performance, Harvin was named the game MVP. He finished off his freshman season with a win in the BCS National Championship Game against the Ohio State Buckeyes. In the game, Harvin lined up at quarterback numerous times, and was a factor in both the run game and the pass game with 22 yards rushing, 60 yards receiving, and a rushing touchdown. Despite his injury-plagued freshman season, Harvin was awarded SEC College Freshman of the year.


title: Percy Harvin

text: Harvin entered the 2007 season as the starting receiver for the Gators. In the season opener, a 49-3 victory over Western Kentucky, Harvin recorded 3 receptions for 53 yards and a touchdown. A week later against Troy, Harvin grabbed 3 receptions for 42 yards and a touchdown and also rushed for 56 yards on four carries. The next game, a blowout victory over Tennessee, Harvin contributed greatly with 120 yards on 4 receptions and 75 rushing yards with a touchdown. The next game Harvin grabbed 11 passes for 121 yards and a score in a 30-24 win over Mississippi. In the Gators' first loss of the season to Auburn, Harvin recorded 119 yards on 7 receptions. The game marked his third-consecutive 100-yard receiving game. The next three weeks resulted in modest numbers from Harvin, but he did go over 100 yards in either rushing or receiving. Then on November 3, Harvin had his best game of the season statistically, in a victory over Vanderbilt, when he recorded 110 receiving yards on 9 receptions and 11 rushes for 113 yards and two rushing scores. After missing the South Carolina and Florida Atlantic victories with a sinus infection, Harvin returned with a 16 rush, 157 yard performance with a rushing touchdown against Florida State. The Gators took their 9-3 record to the Capital One Bowl in Orlando, where they lost to University of Michigan, 35-41. He put up monster numbers as he had 9 receptions for 77 yards and a touchdown, also rushing for 165 yards and a score. He finished the season with 858 yards on 59 receptions for 4 touchdowns. He also totaled 764 yards on 83 rushes for 6 touchdowns for a total of 1,622 yards from scrimmage and 10 touchdowns, becoming the first receiver in University of Florida history to have over 1,000 yards rushing and receiving in his career. Harvin earned All-SEC first team honors as an all-purpose player, while earning second team honors as a receiver. He was named to the preseason All-American list and the Heisman Trophy contenders list in March 2008.


title: Percy Harvin

text: In the spring prior to his junior season, Harvin underwent arthroscopic heel surgery on his right heel to address the underlying issue that caused injury trouble throughout his career (achilles tendonitis, knee tendonitis, hip flexor, hamstring and quadriceps issues) dating back to his high school days in Virginia Beach. The surgery was performed by Dr. Robert Anderson of OrthoCarolina of Charlotte, North Carolina. Due to the invasive nature of the procedure, the recovery time was very long and associated with significant risk. Harvin used the recovery to his advantage though. Limited to on-field practice and running, he focused his efforts on getting stronger, increasing his weight to 205 pounds and notably increasing his bench press max to 405 pounds.


title: Percy Harvin

text: In light of his increased strength and past production from the running back position, Florida head coach Urban Meyer officially announced his position had changed from wide receiver to running back, prior to the start of the season. However, Harvin continued to line up as a receiver for the Gators on a part-time basis. In fact, he was more of a full-time receiver than a running back.


title: Percy Harvin

text: Initially expected to be ready for the season opener against Hawaii, team doctors and the coaches felt he was not fully ready to play, and kept him out of the game. He made his season debut in the much anticipated game against Miami, seeing limited action he amassed 39 total yards on one reception and five carries, scoring a rushing touchdown. After that game Harvin was given the green light to play without concern for the surgically repaired heel. Later in the season, Harvin suffered another ankle injury in a game against FSU on November 20. Harvin appeared to have suffered a high ankle sprain from a tackle and hobbled off the field, and did not return. This injury prevented him from playing in the SEC Championship on December 6 in which the Gators defeated Alabama 31-20. Going into the 2009 BCS National Championship Game against Oklahoma, Harvin had totaled 35 receptions for 595 yards and seven touchdowns, as well as 61 rushes for 538 yards and 9 touchdowns. In the game, he accounted for nine carries for 122 yards with a touchdown, and five catches for 49 yards, playing on the injured ankle. Urban Meyer stated the day after the game that Harvin had suffered a hairline fracture in his lower right leg in addition to the high ankle sprain.


title: Percy Harvin

text: On January 15, 2009, Harvin announced he would forgo his remaining college eligibility and participate in the 2009 NFL Draft. Harvin finished his college career as one of the most prolific offensive threats in school history. In three seasons, he totaled 133 catches for 1,929 yards and 13 touchdowns, while rushing the ball 194 times for 1,852 yards with 19 touchdowns. His 32 career touchdowns is the most ever by a University of Florida wide receiver. He averaged an astounding 9.5 yards per carry as a running back and averaged 11.6 yards overall (running back, receiver, return man). He was the first player in University of Florida history to rush for 100 yards and have 100 yards receiving in the same game (against Vanderbilt, 2007).


title: Percy Harvin

text: In February 2009, Harvin tested positive for marijuana at the NFL Combine. Some teams reportedly removed him from their potential draft rosters.


title: Percy Harvin

text: On April 25, 2009, Harvin was selected by the Minnesota Vikings with the 22nd overall pick in the first round of the 2009 NFL Draft, the fourth wide receiver selected in the draft. Following extended contract negotiations, on August 3, 2009, Harvin signed a five-year contract worth up to $14.5 million, including $8.7 million in guarantees. Harvin wore jersey #12 for the Minnesota Vikings.


title: Percy Harvin

text: Harvin caught his first touchdown pass September 13, 2009 in the season opener against the Cleveland Browns, thrown by quarterback Brett Favre. He ended his first career NFL game with a total of 36 yards receiving and 22 yards rushing. On September 27, Harvin had a 101-yard kickoff return for a touchdown against the San Francisco 49ers. With this touchdown, Harvin became the first Viking ever to score a touchdown in each of his first three games as well as the second youngest player to return a kickoff for a touchdown in NFL history (21 years, 122 days). On October 25, 2009, Harvin had an 88-yard kickoff return for a touchdown against the Pittsburgh Steelers. He finished the regular season with 60 receptions and eight touchdowns, two on kickoff returns, and a rushing average of nine yards per carry.


title: Percy Harvin

text: On January 4, Harvin was a late addition to the 2010 Pro Bowl roster as a kick returner. Harvin filled a spot created because the Philadelphia Eagles's DeSean Jackson made the NFC team at two positions—wide receiver and kick returner. On January 6, the Associated Press announced Harvin's selection as the AP Offensive Rookie of the Year. Harvin is the sixth Vikings player to win the award, joining Adrian Peterson (2007), Randy Moss (1998), Sammy White (1976), Chuck Foreman (1973) and Paul Flatley (1963). On January 14, he was named Sporting News' 2009 NFL Rookie of the Year. Harvin later declined the offer to play in the Pro Bowl.


title: Percy Harvin

text: After a stellar first year in the NFL, Harvin suffered a string of illnesses. On April 30, 2009, while en route to a Minnesota Vikings rookie mini-camp, Harvin fell ill and was hospitalized prior to changing planes in Atlanta. He was released from the hospital the following day. Vikings coach Brad Childress said Harvin was dehydrated and had a virus. Additionally, Harvin did not participate in the 2009 NFL Rookie Symposium due to illness and also missed the team's first three practices and first two days of training camp at Minnesota State University, Mankato. Further, Harvin did not play in the Vikings 30-10 victory over the Cincinnati Bengals in week 14 due to migraine headaches, which also prevented him from practicing the following week. However, he did play in the Vikings week 16 overtime loss to the Chicago Bears, but missed two postseason practices before the New Orleans Saints playoff game, due to migraine headaches. On August 19, 2010, he passed out during practice due to a migraine attack and was taken to a local hospital in an ambulance. He was discharged from the hospital the following day but remained on the sidelines in practice.


title: Percy Harvin

text: On September 11, 2011 in the season opener against the San Diego Chargers, Harvin returned a 103-yard game opening kick off for a touchdown, setting a Vikings franchise record of 4 career kick off return touchdowns. On November 27, 2011 in a Vikings game against the Atlanta Falcons in Atlanta, Harvin returned a kickoff for 104 yards, to the Falcons 3-yard line. This was the longest non-scoring play in NFL history, a feat made again by Ameer Abdullah in 2015. However, the Vikings failed to score on the next 4 plays. Harvin led the Vikings with 87 receptions for the 2011 season. He scored 6 touchdowns and was active for all 16 games for the first time in his three-year NFL career.


title: Percy Harvin

text: In the first six games of the 2012 season, Harvin had three games with over 100 yards receiving. On December 6, 2012 Harvin was placed on injured reserve with an ankle injury. Harvin's season ended with 62 receptions of 85 targets for 677 yards and 3 touchdowns. Harvin rushed for 96 yards on 22 attempts and 1 touchdown. He returned 16 kickoffs for 574 yards with 1 touchdown.


title: Percy Harvin

text: The Minnesota Vikings traded Harvin to the Seattle Seahawks on March 11, 2013 in exchange for a first (Xavier Rhodes was selected with the pick) and seventh-round draft pick in the 2013 Draft, and a third-round draft pick in the 2014 Draft. Immediately after the Seahawks acquired Harvin, they signed him to a new six-year, $67 million contract with $25.5 million guaranteed. Harvin selected the number 11 to wear with the Seahawks, as the number 12 is retired for the Seahawks fanbase "The 12th Man". This trade reunited him with offensive coordinator Darrell Bevell, quarterback Tarvaris Jackson, and wide receiver Sidney Rice, all of whom he worked with during his time in Minnesota.


title: Percy Harvin

text: Harvin was diagnosed with a slight labrum tear in his hip while training during the offseason. On August 1, 2013, Harvin underwent successful hip surgery. On August 27, 2013, the Seahawks placed Harvin on the reserve/physically unable to perform list.


title: Percy Harvin

text: On November 11, 2013, the Seahawks activated Harvin from the reserve/physically unable to perform list. Harvin made his Seahawks debut during Week 11 against his old team, the Vikings, making 1 reception for 17 yards and a kick return for 58 yards. A week following his first game of the 2013 season, Harvin experienced inflammation in his recently surgically repaired hip which prevented him from playing. He was ruled out for Week 15 after dealing with soreness in the same hip on which he had surgery.


title: Percy Harvin

text: After not playing in the NFC Championship game due to a concussion, Harvin returned the opening kickoff of the second half of Super Bowl XLVIII 87 yards for a touchdown, helping the Seahawks win their first Super Bowl title.


title: Percy Harvin

text: Harvin allegedly had locker room altercations with teammates during his tenure with Seattle; also reported was that there were games where he sat himself down, refusing to go back on the field.


title: Percy Harvin

text: Harvin was traded to the New York Jets on October 17, 2014 for a conditional draft pick in the 2015 NFL Draft. With the number 11 already taken and the number 12 retired for Joe Namath, Harvin wore the number 16. In his lone Jets season, Harvin recorded 29 receptions out of 52 targets for 350 yards with one touchdown and 110 rushing yards on 22 attempts. Harvin also had 20 kickoff returns for 495 yards. He was released on March 10, 2015 after the team traded for Brandon Marshall.


title: Percy Harvin

text: On March 18, 2015, Harvin signed a one-year, $6 million contract with the Buffalo Bills. He was placed on injured reserve on November 7. Harvin's season ended with 19 catches on 30 targets for 218 yards and a touchdown with an additional 31 rushing yards on five attempts.


title: Percy Harvin

text: On April 15, 2016, Harvin announced his retirement from the NFL stating that he needed time to recover from injury but didn't rule out a possible return. On November 1, 2016, Harvin signed a one-year contract with the Buffalo Bills, coming out of retirement to re-join the team due to injuries to wideouts Sammy Watkins and Greg Salas.


title: Percy Harvin

text: On November 7, 2016, Harvin appeared in his first game of the season in a "Monday Night Football" game against his former team, the Seattle Seahawks. Harvin began to experience severe migraine headaches that kept him out two games and was placed on reserve/non-football illness list, ending his season early after coming out of retirement.


title: James Honeyman-Scott

text: James Honeyman-Scott (4 November 1956 – 16 June 1982) was an English rock guitarist, songwriter and founding member of the band The Pretenders.


title: James Honeyman-Scott

text: With the band, Honeyman-Scott established a reputation, in the words of AllMusic, as "one of the most original and versatile guitarists of the early-'80s new wave movement." In addition to his role as lead guitarist, Honeyman-Scott co-wrote a number of songs for the band, sang back-up vocals and played keyboards on a few tracks. The song "2000 Miles" was written for him by Chrissie Hynde and released the year after his death.


title: James Honeyman-Scott

text: Honeyman-Scott, along with Pretenders bandmates Pete Farndon (bass guitar, vocals) and Martin Chambers (drums, vocals, percussion), came from Hereford. Before joining the Pretenders, Honeyman-Scott played in several bands, including a precursor to The Enid with Robert John Godfrey, the Hawks (Kelv Wilson, bass guitar & vocals; Dave Plowman, guitar; Stan Speak, drums), The Hot Band, and The Cheeks.


title: James Honeyman-Scott

text: Fellow members in The Cheeks included Chambers and ex-Mott the Hoople keyboardist Verden Allen, Kelv Wilson (bass guitar, vocals). When Honeyman-Scott joined The Pretenders, he was growing vegetables and selling guitars in a music store in Widemarsh Street, Hereford, called Buzz Music.


title: James Honeyman-Scott

text: Honeyman-Scott acknowledged a number of influences on his guitar-playing ("Guitar Player", 1981). Early musical influences included Cream and the Allman Brothers Band. Later, he was influenced by the lead lines and finger vibrato used by Mick Ralphs of Mott the Hoople.


title: James Honeyman-Scott

text: Honeyman-Scott also credited Nick Lowe and Elvis Costello with their "big jangly" Rickenbacker-influenced guitar sound. During his tenure with the Pretenders, Dave Edmunds and Billy Bremner from Rockpile were influential, as well as Nils Lofgren and Chris Spedding.


title: James Honeyman-Scott

text: During the mid-1970s, Honeyman-Scott met future Pretenders bandmate Pete Farndon while the bassist was playing with Cold River Lady in Hereford (Melody Maker, 1979). In 1978, Farndon recruited Honeyman-Scott for a series of Pretenders rehearsals and recording sessions, and he officially joined the group that summer (New Musical Express, 1980). Chrissie Hynde recalled, "As soon as I heard Jimmy Scott, I knew I was getting close. Jimmy and I turned out to have a genuine musical affinity".


title: James Honeyman-Scott

text: Honeyman-Scott's role in shaping the Pretenders' sound primarily involved adding melodic lead lines to existing songs to help tie them together. He recalled in the early days, "We did lots of rehearsing – seven days a week, all hours of the day and night. At first a lot of the licks were very heavy – like 'Up the Neck' started off as a reggae song. I said, 'Let's speed it up,' and put in that little guitar run. The melodic parts of the numbers really all started coming together by me putting in these little runs and licks. And then Chrissie started to like pop music, and that's why she started writing things like 'Kid'".


title: James Honeyman-Scott

text: Hynde and Honeyman-Scott have both acknowledged the influence their contrasting styles had on each other (Guitar Player, 1981; Uncut, 1999). According to Honeyman-Scott, Hynde had a unique style he adjusted to in several ways: "She does quite a bit of rhythm guitar, and I don't know anybody who plays like her. It's real distinct, and I can't count her beat half the time. Instead, I just put a little guitar line over it, like the lick in 'Tattooed Love Boys'" (Guitar Player, 1981). He joked about his other strategy: "I've never told them I can't work out their time at all! They are used to me coming in a bar too late; they think that's the way I play. But it's because I've missed where she comes in! I just bluff it and hope for the best."


title: James Honeyman-Scott

text: In May and June 1982, Honeyman-Scott was first in Los Angeles and then in Austin, Texas, for a short visit with his wife Peggy Sue Fender (an actress/model based in Austin, Texas and also a member of the British girl group Girls Can't Help It), whom he had married in April 1981. His wife was staying with local guitarist Mark Younger Smith at this time (FamousInterview.com). While in Austin, he became involved in his first co-production effort for an album by Stephen Doster that was never released. During the sessions with Stephen Doster in Austin, Honeyman-Scott was called back to London for a band meeting on 14 June with Chrissie Hynde and Martin Chambers that resulted in the dismissal of Pete Farndon from the Pretenders, due to Farndon's increasing substance dependence.


title: James Honeyman-Scott

text: Two days after the dismissal of Pete Farndon, Honeyman-Scott was found dead in a girlfriend's apartment of heart failure caused by cocaine intolerance.


title: James Honeyman-Scott

text: He was 25 years old at the time of his death. He was buried in the churchyard at St Peter's Church, Lyde, Herefordshire.


title: James Honeyman-Scott

text: Although Honeyman-Scott died young, he influenced other well-known guitarists such as Johnny Marr, who noted that "most of all, the jingle-jangle came from James Honeyman-Scott of the Pretenders. He was the last important influence on my playing before I went out on my own. The first time I played 'Kid' with the Pretenders, I couldn't believe it. I've used that solo to warm up with every day for years."


title: James Honeyman-Scott

text: Honeyman-Scott is also credited with discovering Violent Femmes, who opened for the Pretenders at the Oriental Theatre in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, while the band was on tour.


title: James Honeyman-Scott

text: Honeyman-Scott's death profoundly affected the Pretenders' subsequent direction and longevity. Hynde later said, "One of the things that kept the band alive, ironically, was the death of Jimmy Scott. I felt I couldn't let the music die when he died. We'd worked too hard to get it where it was... I had to finish what we'd started". At the group meeting on 14 June 1982, Honeyman-Scott suggested bringing Robbie McIntosh into the group in some capacity. After Honeyman-Scott's death, McIntosh became the group's lead guitarist for several years.


title: James Honeyman-Scott

text: In 2005, Honeyman-Scott was posthumously inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame alongside Hynde, Farndon and Chambers as a member of the Pretenders.