Kapudan Pasha of the Ottoman Navy
What was the position of Koca Hüsrev Mehmed Pasha from 1811 to 1817?
Koca Hüsrev Mehmed Pasha Koca Hüsrev Mehmed Pasha ( also known as Koca Hüsrev Pasha ; sometimes known in Western sources as just Husrev Pasha or Khosrew Pasha ; 1769–1855 ) was an Ottoman admiral , reformer and statesman , who was Kapudan Pasha ( Grand Admiral ) of the Ottoman Navy . He reached the position of Grand Vizier rather late in his career , between 2 July 1839 and 8 June 1840 during the reign of Abdulmejid I . However , during the 1820s , he occupied key administrative roles in the fight against regional warlords , the reformation of the army , and the reformation of Turkish attire . He was one of the main statesmen who predicted a war with the Russian Empire , which would eventually be the case with the outbreak of the Crimean War . In Egypt . He was a protégé of Küçük Hüseyin Pasha , a reformer who became Kapudan Pasha in 1792 . In 1801 , Hüsrev Pasha commanded the 6,000 Ottoman troops who assisted the British in removing the French from Rashid ( Rosetta ) . For this , he was made governor of Egypt Eyalet ( province ) , in which position he was charged with assisting Hüseyin Pasha in the killing or imprisoning the surviving leaders of the Mamluks . Many of these were freed by or fled with the British , while others held Minia between Upper and Lower Egypt . Amid these disturbances , Husrev Pasha attempted to disband his Albanian bashi-bazouks without pay . This led to rioting that drove him from Cairo to Damietta , where he was ultimately captured by a combined Mamluk-Albanian army ( see Muhammad Alis seizure of power ) . He was later made governor again by Muhammad Ali for 2 days , although he held no real power ; he was released later . Provincial governor and Kapudan Pasha . Before leaving Egypt , he was appointed as governor of the Diyarbekir Eyalet . A year later , he was appointed governor of Salonica . In 1806 he was governor of Bosnia Eyalet ( as which he features in Ivo Andrićs novel Travnička hronika ) , before being reappointed as governor of Salonica in 1808 . Hüsrev Pasha held the rank of Kapudan Pasha of the Ottoman Navy from 1811 to 1818 . He was then appointed governor of the Eyalet of Trabzon twice , during which time he conducted for the Black Sea region of Turkey the struggle the central Ottoman state was waging against local feudal rulers ( Derebeys ) . On 19 January 1815 , Hüsrev Pasha summoned Dr . Lorenzo Noccrola , the long-serving chief physician to the Seraglio , to attend him at the Arsenal , explaining that his own physician was absent . The next morning , Noccrolas body was found lying on a road close to the Arsenal . On examination , he was found to have been strangled . Greek War of Independence . During the Greek War of Independence , he was appointed Kapudan Pasha again in the end of 1822 . In this role , he captured and destroyed the island of Psara in June 1824 and then moved against Samos , where he was joined by the Egyptian fleet . During the months of July and August , several skirmishes and constant maneuvers followed between the Ottoman and Greek fleets , culminating in the Battle of Gerontas , a Greek victory . Moderniser of the army . In 1826 , Husrev Pasha played vital roles both in the Auspicious Incident ( the annihilation of the Janissary Corps in 1826 ) and in the formation of the new Mansure Army modeled after those of the European Powers . Appointed as serasker ( commander the army ) of the Mansure in May 1827 , Husrev reformed and disciplined the corps . Himself ignorant of modern military methods , he assembled a staff of foreign experts and other personnel to assist him , the Seraskeriye , which constituted the first staff in Ottoman history . Due to his early championing of military reform and virtual control over the new Ottoman army , Husrev was able to install many of his protégés in senior military positions . In total , Husrevs household produced more than 30 generals . Adoption of children raised to become high-ranking officers . Hüsrev Pasha adopted at early ages up to one hundred children , sometimes including slaves bought at market , who , after an attentive education , later became his protégés and rose to important positions in the state structure , the most notable of these being Ibrahim Edhem Pasha , a child from Chios bought in an İzmir slave market in 1822 after the horrific Chios massacre . Levy mentions that in the 27,000-strong initial Mansure Army of 1827 , the direct ancestor to todays Turkish Army , the officer corps included a core group of 70–80 of Husrev Pashas children . Adoption of the fez to replace the turban . Hüsrev Pasha was also instrumental for the near-abandonment of the turban and the adoption of the fez as a universal headgear for Muslim men of the Ottoman Empire ( excluding the religious classes ) under Sultan Mahmud II . He had seen the fez as worn occasionally by Tunisians and Algerians during a Mediterranean journey and introduced it to the Ottoman capital , from which the custom spread to all Ottoman lands including the nominal dependency of Egypt . Dress and headgear often signified symbol-laden and politically charged statements in Turkish lands . External links . - Gökçek Papers - Macedonia : Henry Noel Brailsford