Djemal Pasha (6 May 1872-21 July 1922) was the Governor of Ottoman Syria under the Ottoman Empire as well as Minister of the Navy during World War I. He was murdered in 1922 by the Armenian Revolutionary Federation during Operation Nemesis.
Biography[]
Ahmed Djemal was born on 6 May 1872 in Midilli, Ottoman Empire (present-day Mytilene, Lesbos, Greece) and served as a soldier, becoming a rival with Young Turks leader Mustafa Kemal Ataturk. In 1911, he was appointed Governor of Baghdad, but he later resigned his post so that he could serve in the First Balkan War. He later fought in the Second Balkan War, and Djemal was appointed Minister of the Navy at the start of World War I; he had advocated an alliance with France, but negotiations broke down and he instead allied with the German Empire. While serving as Governor of Syria, he had a hand in the implementation of the Armenian Genocide in 1915, having Armenians sent on death marches from Turkey to the Syrian desert. He failed to fight against Lawrence of Arabia's Arab forces during the Arab Revolt, and Damascus fell to the United Kingdom in 1918. Djemal attempted to negotiate peace with the Allies, and he would be made King of Syria, but the Allies did not agree with his plans, and his secret negotiations failed. On 21 July 1922, he was assassinated by three Armenians in Tiflis (Tbilisi, Georgia) while negotiating over Afghanistan with the Soviet Union; his death was the last major assassination in Operation Nemesis.