Mehmed Sabahaddin was born in
Istanbul in 1879. His mother was
Seniha Sultan, daughter of Ottoman Sultan
Abdulmejid I and
Nalandil Hanım, and half-sister to
Abdul Hamid II. His grandfather being Sultan Abdulmejid, and his uncles were
Murad V,
Abdulhamid II,
Mehmed V, and
Mehmed VI. His father was
Mahmud Celaleddin Pasha, the son of
Grand Admiral Damat Gürcü Halil Rifat Pasha. Having royal blood on his maternal side made him a
Sultanzade, but he preferred to use the title
Prince. Sabahaddin had a versatile and Western education at the Ottoman palace. For a time, he was put under house arrest when his father, who was a
damat of the palace and a close friend of Sultan
Abdul Hamid II, was dismissed from office on the grounds he was involved in the
Raid on the Çırağan Palace. Sabahaddin Efendi showed great interest in natural sciences and learned French. Sabahaddin fled the Ottoman Empire in late 1899 with his brother Ahmed Lutfullah and his father, who had fallen out with Abdul Hamid II, first to
Great Britain, then to
Geneva, to join the
Young Turks. After a warning by the Federal Council of Geneva in 1900, they left the city for
Paris. Prince Sabahaddin rose rapidly among the Young Turks in France, having the advantage of being a member of the royal family and son of a government minister. In France, he met
Edmond Demolins, and became a follower of the school of social sciences. Sabahaddin advocated privatized economic policies and decentralized government, in opposition to
national economy. This division plagued the Young Turk movement before 1908 and would be the central dispute in the more institutionalized political discourse of the
Second Constitutional Era. In the first phase of his career in political opposition (1900–1908), he sought unity between Christians and Muslims, and met with leaders from the respective groups. On February 4, 1902 Prince Sabahaddin convened what was called the "First Congress of Ottoman Opposition". Ideological differences between the Young Turks were on full display. Prince Sabahaddin was a proponent of overthrowing Abdul Hamid II with British assistance. Ahmed Rıza disagreed with revolution, especially foreign intervention. When asked what sort of government would replace the Hamidian regime, Prince Sabahaddin and his supporters answered "a decentralized government based on the cooperation of the local and foreign bourgeoisie, supporting individual initiatives", while
Ahmed Rıza's supporters in the
Committee of Union and Progress defended a "centralized Constitutional Monarchy". This division is considered to have created the paradigm of the center-right and center-left in Turkey today. After the First Congress of Ottoman Opposition, Prince Sabahaddin used his supposed majority mandate to turn the congress into a committee known as the Ottoman Freedom-Lover's Committee, and made an unsuccessful coup attempt in 1902. In 1906 after developing an obsession with
Anglo-Saxon civilization he founded the
Private Initiative and Decentralization Committee. He published the journal
Terakki, which was the publication organ of the society, and defended the principles of decentralization in administration and
free enterprise in economics. The journal won support among the minorities and merchants of the empire. Branches of the society were opened in Istanbul,
Izmir,
Alanya and
Damascus. After the
Young Turk Revolution in 1908 and the seizure of power by the CUP, Prince Sabahaddin returned to the Ottoman Empire. He founded the
Liberty Party, which largely professed his own politics and opposed the CUP. The party was unsuccessful in the
1908 general election. The party was soon accused of playing a role in the
31 March Incident and was shuttered. Sabahaddin was arrested but released through the mediation of
Mahmut Şevket Pasha and Hurşit Pasha. Later, when he was tried in absentia for being involved in this incident and sentenced to death, he fled abroad again. He played a role in the establishment of the
Freedom and Accord Party. After the
Raid on the Sublime Porte on 23 January 1913, his supporters planned to overthrow the government and put him into power by carrying out a similar operation. When the operation commenced on June 11, 1913, they only managed to assassinate Shevket Pasha. The assassins were caught and executed, and Prince Sabahaddin was forced to flee Paris. He lived in various cities in Europe during
World War I, and was head of the opposition in exile in western
Switzerland. In 1919, Sabahaddin returned to
Istanbul after the end of the Union and Progress regime. Upon his return to
Turkey, he published his work
Türkiye Nasıl Kurtarılabilir? (How Can Turkey Be Saved?), which was banned during the CUP regime. He supported the
Turkish Nationalist Movement in Anatolia led by
Mustafa Kemal Pasha. After the proclamation of the
Turkish Republic, in 1924 he was forced to leave the country due to the law exiling members of the
House of Osman. Prince Sabahaddin returned to Switzerland. In his autobiography
Witness (1962, first edition; 1974, revised and enlarged second edition),
John G. Bennett notes that in Sabahaddin's later years, because of his frustrations, disappointments, and exile he reportedly had become an alcoholic and had died in 1948, in
Neuchâtel, in great poverty. His body was brought to Turkey in 1952; and he was buried in the
Halil Rıfat Pasha Tomb in the
Eyüpsultan district of
Istanbul, where his father and grandfather's graves are located. == Family ==