Mehmed V

Mehmed V Reşâd (Ottoman Turkish: محمد خامس, romanized: Meḥmed-i ḫâmis; Turkish: V. Mehmed or Mehmed Reşad; 2 November 1844 – 3 July 1918) was the penultimate sultan of the Ottoman Empire from 1909 to 1918. Mehmed V reigned as a constitutional monarch. He had little influence over government affairs and his ministries showed little regard for the Ottoman constitution. The first half of his reign was marked by increasingly polarizing politics, and the second half by war and domination of the Committee of Union and Progress (CUP) and the Three Pashas.

Reşad was the son of Sultan Abdülmecid I. He succeeded his half-brother Abdul Hamid II after the 31 March Incident. Coming to power in the aftermath of the failed coup attempt, his nine-year reign featured three coups d'etat, four wars, eleven governments, and numerous uprisings. The Italo-Turkish War saw the cession of the Empire's North African territories and the Dodecanese Islands, including Rhodes, during which the CUP was forced out of power by the military. This was followed by the traumatic loss of almost all of the Empire's European territories west of Constantinople (now Istanbul) in the First Balkan War, and the return of a now radicalized CUP rule in another coup. Eastern Thrace was retaken in the Second Balkan War.

The Ottomans entered World War I in November 1914, upon which Mehmed declared a jihad against the Allies. In 1915, Ottoman forces successfully fended off an Allied invasion at Gallipoli and captured a large British garrison at Kut. During that year, the CUP initiated the Armenian genocide against the Sultan's wishes, though his private disapproval of his government's actions was inconsequential. By Mehmed V's death on 3 July 1918, defeat loomed on the Palestinian and Macedonian fronts. With military collapse in the field and the Arab Revolt spelling impending disaster, the Ottomans signed the Armistice of Mudros during the reign of his successor Mehmed VI.