I have long been convinced that the problem with the Ottoman army of the Napoleonic Era was not so much the army, as its leadership. The Pasha system by which the Ottomans ruled their vaste and far flung empire combined the roles of politician, governor and general, all in one man. It is a rare man who can do all three of these well. A case in point is Yusuf Ziya Pasha. His skill in keeping the economy running was good, his political skills were extraordinary, but his military skills were abominable. In his long career as Grand Vezir he would lose a long string of battles against a host of enemies on three continents.

Yusuf Ziya Pasha was twice named Grand Vezir, the Ottoman equivalent of prime minister, holding that job for an unprecedented 11 years during the height of the Napoleonic Wars.

As Grand Vezir he served as chief minister of the Ottoman state and commander-in-chief of all Ottoman military forces in time of war, first against the French in the 1798-1801 campaign and then against the Russians during the 1806-1812 campaign.

The Early Years

Born about 1734, he entered Ottoman service as a Georgian slave, eventually rising to the position of Tutugi-Bashi (Master of the Pipes) to the Pasha of Erzurum. When his master died he purchased first the governorship of the city of Erzurum and eventually that of the entire province with the help of an Armenian banker.

Intelligent and hardworking, he restored and organized the region's gold and silver mines. His good government won him not only the affection of the people, but of the Sultan, who raised him to the position of a Pasha of two tails.

However, his big break came at the time of the French invasion of Egypt. Sultan Selim III's previous Grand Vezir, Mehmed Izzet Pasha, had been a leader of the liberal faction in the capital. As such, he was an important backer of the Sultan's Nizam-i Jedid reform program and strongly pro-French in his sympathies.

When Napoleon invaded Egypt Mehmed tried to delay the declaration of war against France, hoping for a negotiated settlement. However, when all attempts at negotiations failed, he was arrested and charged with treason.

Selim's liberal reform movement had sparked great opposition within the empire, especially from the religious establishment -- the Ulema. As a well-known conservative, Yusuf Ziya Pasha was an ally of the Ulema. His appointment as Grand Vezir was the logical step to unify the empire in the face of the French threat.

The War Years

Yusuf immediately assembled the main Ottoman field army and led it overland through Syria to attack the French in Egypt. In late 1799 General Kleber, then commanding the French forces following Napoleon's return to France, sent agents to meet with the Grand Vezir.

While confident he could defeat the forces of the Grand Vezir, Kleber believed that in the long run his army would eventually be worn away by his seemingly inexhaustable foe. After long negotiations, a document which became known as the Convention of Al Arish, was signed in January, 1800, effectively ending the war. (see the accompanying article on the Battle of Helipolis for details).

The plan collapsed when the British, then allied with the Ottomans, refused to allow the French to surrender. Some have argued that they didn't want to see a fresh supply of 20,000 to 30,000 battle-hardened French troops back in Europe. Others, less generous, have argued they had their own designs on Egypt and didn't want the war to end until their troops were in place to dominate the region.

Whatever the real reason, the fighting began again. In March, the French and Ottoman armies met on the plain of Koubbe, a few miles east of Cairo, beside the ruins of ancient Heliopolis. The battle was a complete victory for the French.

Yusuf fell back to Jaffa where he calmly began to reorganize his army for another attack on Egypt. After a few months of rest and resupply, he returned to Egypt, this time defeating a 5,000-man French force on May 16, 1801, at the Battle of Bilbeis.

Following the victory, Yusuf's army joined with the joint Anglo-Ottoman army which had landed at Abukir Bay earlier in the year. The combined forces took Cairo and then finished the liberation of the country from the French.

Yusuf remained in Egypt after the war in an attempt to restore the province to obedience to the Porte. In this action he was actively opposed by the British who had their own plans for Egypt. They continued to find excuses not to withdraw their army from the region and began to actively support the still rebellious Mamluks, especially the faction led by Elfi Bey. When Yusuf and the Ottoman Grand Admiral, acting on the Sultan's orders, arrested the leaders of the Mamluks, General Hutchinson, then in command of British forces in Egypt, threatened to attack the Ottomans if the Mamluks weren't turned over to him. He then freed the Mamluks who fled to Upper Egypt to renew their struggles against the Porte.

Only when the Sultan threatened to ally with the French did the British finally agreed to withdraw their army from Egypt. Even so, they continued to secretly back the Mamluks with arms, money and technical advisors.

To counter these moves Yusuf decided to leave the Albanian units of his army behind in Egypt as a counter-weight to the Mamluks. In time, this move would have far-reaching consequences, allowing a minor Albanian commander, Mohammad Ali, to become a powerful new force in the empire. However, that would be years in the future and Yusuf had other problems of a more immediate nature.

Ahmed Jezzar Pasha, the hero of Acre who had stopped Napoleon's advance into Syria, had expected, but not received the governorship of Egypt at the end of the war. As a result he was now threatening revolt. To head off this potential crisis Yusuf led the Imperial army back to Istanbul, stopping along the way to oust Jezzar's men and install new local governors loyal to himself throughout Syria, especially in Aleppo.

The Political Years

Once back in Istanbul, Yusuf and the Grand Admiral, Kuchuk Huseyin Pasha, who had fought side-by-side against the French, now came to head opposing political factions. Kuchuck, the liberal, actively backed the Sultan's reform efforts at home and sought to restore the Ottoman Empire's traditionally strong relationship with France. His experience in Egypt had convinced him that the real threat to the empire came from the British.

The conservative Yusuf, on the other hand, led the faction that felt the real threat was from Russia and believed that the friendship of Britian had to be kept at all costs as a bulwalk against both Russia and France.

Yusuf soon proved himself a master of the Byzantine world of Ottoman politics. For almost three years following the war Yusuf Ziya managed to retain his position by using the prestige gained by his defeat of the French in Egypt and by allying himself with Yusuf Agha, a protege of Sultan Selim's mother and leader of the Harem party.

Since his earliest days as Grand Vezir, Yusuf had opposed Hakki Pasha, one of the rising stars in the Ottoman world. Hakki had made his reputation by defeating the bandit hordes which had come to power in the Balkans following the chaos of the war of 1789-1792 against Russia and Austria. The withdrawal of most of the Ottoman forces from the Balkans between 1798-1801 to fight the French had allowed these bandits, never completely repressed, to once again become a serious threat. So in 1801 Sultan Selim once again called on Hakki to restore order to the region which he did with great vigor.

Hakki was a protege of Yusuf's political rival, Grand Admiral Kuchuk Huseyin Pasha. Fearing the power and prestige Hakki was gaining from this campaign, Yusuf set about to sabotage him. He encouraged the local notables to resist Hakki while delaying the flow of money and supplies to Hakki's forces, causing them to become rebellious. As a result Hakki achieved little and was removed from his posts and banished in 1803.

But Yusuf's victory over Hakki proved a disaster for both the empire and himself. Without Hakki's strong leadership the bandit forces and the power of the strong willed independent Pashas of the region continued to grow, leading to a loss of effective Ottoman control of the Balkans. It also proved Yusuf Pasha's own undoing. In 1804 a rising of these very same Balkan notables forced Yusuf from power.

Sultan Selim had never abandoned his plans to replace the Janissaries with the new Nizam-i Jedid army. While his plans were making great progress in Anatolia, he was having almost no success in the Balkans where the local notables were actively supporting the rebellious Janissaries and the various bandit armies as a way of gaining effective independence from the central government.

When, as Grand Vezir, Yusuf Ziya attempted to extend the Sultan's reforms into the Balkans by organizing a Nizam-i Jedid regiment at Edirne during 1804 and early 1805, the Balkan notables became enraged. Their protests, as well as pressure from the Janissaries and the Ulema leaders, compelled Selim to dismiss Yusuf and he returned to his old post as governor of Erzurum.

The Provincial Years

However, Yusuf's service to the state was not at an end. At this time Tayyar Mehmed Pasha, one of the powerful Derebeys (Lords of the Valleys) had risen in revolt and taken much of what is now northern Turkey along the Black Sea coast. An attempt to surpress him by force led by his old enemy and fellow Derebey, Chapanoglu Suleyman Bey, failed in early 1805.

So Sultan Selim dispatched Yusuf to negotiate with Tayyar. Yusuf's enemies in Istanbul, fearing the prestige that he'd get from settling the affair might enable him to regain his old post, sent their own agents to Tayyar.

Tayyar reacted by attacking and pillaging both camps of negotiators. He openly declared his disdain for the Sultan and established himself in full independence, extending his influence until it stretched from Trebizond west to Bursa. While he achieved great success for a short while, by the end of 1805 the combined forces of Yusuf Pasha and Chapanoglu Suleyman Bey had defeated him, forcing him to flee to Russia.

Yusuf was again pressed into service in 1807 after the outbreak of war with Russia. As governor of Erzurum he was named commander of the eastern armies with orders to gather a force in the east to meet any Russian advances out of Georgia. His hastily prepared 30,000-men army was defeated by the Russians near Kars on the banks of the Arpa Su River later that year.

Finally realizing that military command was not Yusuf's strong suit, Selim attempted to move him to the less militarily critical position of Baghdad, but Yusuf refused to go. With the Russians already on the Danube, Selim didn't have time to deal with the matter and instead just left Yusuf in place with orders to regroup his army as soon as possible.

In May of 1807 the Janissaries, long unhappy with Sultan Selim, staged a coup and ousted him in favor of the more conservative Mustafa IV. Mustafa, who had spent his entire life in the Imperial Palace in the capital, was a weak Sultan, completely dominated by those around him, especially Ataullah Effendi, the head of the Ulema.

With the change in politics at the capital, Tayyar Pasha now received a pardon from the new Sultan and left Russia and came to Istanbul. His earlier rebellion against the deposed Sultan Selim gave him hero status and he rapidly rose to become Kaymakam (assistant Grand Vezir).

With the Grand Vezir away at the front fighting the Russians, this made Tayyar one of the most powerful men in the empire.

Tayyar soon became drunk on the heady wine of power and began secret dealings with the new Sultan who was growing increasingly frustrated at his own lack of real authority. Sultan Mustafa promised to make Tayyar Grand Vezir if he could eliminate Ataullah. However, Ataullah found out about this plan and once again used the threat of a Janissary uprising and a revolt by Tayyar's old enemies in eastern Anatolia, Chapanoglu Suleyman and Yusuf Ziya, to force Tayyar's resignation and exile.

The Last Hurrah

About this time Yusuf was briefly named governor of Aleppo, but when Sultan Mahmud II came to the throne in 1808, following yet another revolt in the capital, Yusuf was once again called upon to serve the empire, becoming Grand Vezir in November of 1809.

Unfortuately for Yusuf his tenure as Grand Vezir and Ottoman supreme commander coincided with the appointment of Prince Bagration as Russian commander in the Balkans.

Yusuf had never been a strong military leader and Prince Bagration was without question the greatest Russian commander of the war. As a result 1809 saw an almost unbroken string of defeats for the Ottomans. The defeats of 1809 and 1810 finally caused Yusuf to be dismissed. He was replace by Laz Ahmet Agha in early 1811. Yusuf died in 1819 at the age of about 85.

Note:(As Ottoman names do not easily translate into English, many variations in spelling will be found. You can find Yusuf listed in various sources as Kor Yusuf Ziyauddin Pasha, Jussuf Pacha, Jusuff Pasha, Youzouf Zia Pacha, Yousef Pasha, and Khousreff Pasah.)

Yusuf Ziya Pasha, The British View

British observers during the war against the French described Yusuf Ziya Pasha as polished and affable with a mild manner, but a weak and irresolute character. While they said he took advice from Europeans with patience and even gratitude, his unshakable belief in the superiority of the Ottoman system made it impossible for him to accept any European military innovations.

His love of the Djarid, a military game played on horseback, at which he was considered expert, had cost him his right eye in an accident, but even at 66 he was still an active participant. Captain Thomas Walsh described him as "Notwithstanding the loss of his eye, his highness is a very good looking man of his age. His figure is prepossessing, and a venerable white beard, of which he takes the utmost care, gives him the appearance of a warrior of old.