Osman Pazvantoğlu

Austro-Turkish war

Pazvantoğlu is mentioned as quarreling with his father, then making peace on the interference of the Vidin population.^[3] The two joined forces and together removed their rivals in the area, which led to unrest in late 1787.^[3] The unrest led to Sultan Abdul Hamid I issuing a firman (decree) to Mehmed Pasha of Vidin and Abdi Pasha of Belgrade to get rid of the rebellious Omar and Osman and protect the cities from their violence.^[3] Abdi Pasha was caught up with the threat of an Austrian invasion, while Mehmed Pasha set out and managed to disperse the Vidin rebels, forcing them to take refuge in Krajina.^[4] From Krajina, some of them went into Serbia and Bosnia, while Omar and Osman went to Niš and then found refuge with Memiş Pasha at Ada Kaleh.^[4]

The Austro-Turkish war began in February 1788, and Orșova was lost, with Memiş Pasha tasked to return it. He asked Wallachian prince and Ottoman vassal Nicholas Mavrogenes to give "courageous" Omar Pazvant-zade "who was denigrated with slander" an army to attack Orsova from Černec.^[5] Omar fled Černec with his 17 men and ahead of an Austrian incursion on 18 April, and was captured and executed on the order of Mehmed Pasha of Vidin.^[6] Osman had in the meantime joined Mavrogenes' army and fought in Wallachia.^[7] He decided to avenge his father and in 1789 took a band which surprise attacked Vidin and forced Mehmed Pasha to give up the garrison, but remained alive with his small entourage after showing the Sultan's ferman on his father's execution.^[7] When Belgrade was besieged in July 1789, Osman left Vidin and joined serasker Yusuf Pasha at Kladovo.^[7] Osman was defeated by an Austrian Free Corps unit at the Morava and retreated, and after the Ottoman reconquest of the Danube points, he returned to Vidin by autumn 1790.^[8]

Osman befriended the Greek Rigas Feraios while in Wallachia, when Feraios became the clerk of Mavrogenes. When Pazvantoğlu disobeyed Mavrogenes on one occasion, he was saved from reprisals through Feraios' intervention.

Rise

In springtime 1792, Osman is mentioned as a Janissary leader in Vidin.^[9] Despite the end of the war, soldiers remained on the terrain and became bandits and robbers, employed as mercenaries to Turk lords in the Balkans, becoming kircali.^[9] The other disorderly group present in the Balkans were the expelled Janissaries from the Belgrade Pashalik, of which the majority gathered in Vidin.^[10] In 1792, the Austrians tried to have the 400 prisoners of war in Vidin released, but the Vidin Pasha explained that the Vidin Turks under Pazvantoğlu refused to accept this.^[11] In May 1792 a ferman ordered for the release of all Austrian prisoners in Vidin, but this was not done, and another ferman sentenced Pazvantoğlu and his two friends to expulsion to Kars due to the rebellion against the former Vidin Pasha and their gathering of "rebels of the Belgrade environs to provoke unrest in the empire".^[11] Pazvantoğlu paid the new Vidin Pasha off, to remain in Vidin with his followers, and even received the right to collect the tax on the gypsies in the Sanjak of Vidin, which showed his growing reputation.^[12] The expulsion to Kars was terminated by the Sultan, and Pazvantoğlu's entourage was left to live in Vidin "only in peace".^[12] The Belgrade Janissaries, who had been expelled earlier and now revolted and took the Belgrade town, were expelled in November 1792.^[12]

In 1793, he undertook a military expedition to the Sanjak of Smederevo but was soundly defeated by the Serbs in Ottoman service at the Battle of Kolari.^[13]

Having gathered a large army of mercenaries, he revolted against the Ottoman sultan Selim III, and, acting as an independent ruler, minted his own coins and had diplomatic relations with foreign states (including the French Republic).^[14] In 1798, he held territories which spread from the Danube to the Balkan Mountains and from Belgrade to Varna.^[14]

The 1797-8 military expedition of Küçük Hüseyin Pasha (having 100,000 soldiers)^[14] failed in its goal to conquer Vidin and capture Pazvantoğlu partially due to the French invasion of Egypt, and indirectly resulted in the fall and execution of Prince Constantine Hangerli, after Küçük accused him of not having provided the Ottoman Army with enough funds.^[15] His power had grown to the point that Napoleon and Talleyrand had hoped to have him become the Ottoman Sultan under French protection.^[16] He also attempted to annex the Sanjak of Smederevo but was stopped by Stanko Arambašić and his 16,000 Serbian soldiers in Ottoman service. In 1799, the Ottoman sultan forgave Pazvantoğlu's rebellion and agreed to make him a pasha.^[14]

For contacting the French regarding the Greek cause in the Ottoman Empire, Rigas Feraios was imprisoned and tortured at Belgrade in the Sanjak of Smederevo, then sent to Constantinople to be sentenced by Sultan Selim III. While in transit, Feraios and his five collaborators were strangled, with the bodies thrown into the Danube, to prevent their being rescued by Pazvantoğlu.

Pazvantoğlu often made violent raids in Wallachia, where he often set on fire the cities which he plundered. In 1800, his troops, colloquially known as pasvangii, set on fire a large portion of the city of Craiova: out of 7,000 houses, only around 300 were still standing after the fire stopped.^[17] This caused Prince Alexander Mourousis to hand in his resignation to Sultan Selim, a rare statement of defeat in the context of Phanariote reigns.^[18]

In late January 1802, Bucharest was gripped by panic after rumors spread that the pasha had sent his army in its direction. Prince Michael Soutzos left the city and ordered its defense by the remaining garrison of Albanians, but disagreements over payment owed led the troops themselves to discard the place; the city soon fell to widespread disorder and the brief rule of beggars and vagabonds (who apparently mimicked a coronation ceremony) which was ended by the violent intervention of Ottoman troops stationed in the vicinity, and ultimately led to Soutzos' deposition.^[19]