Mehmet Celal Bey (‎; 1863 – 15 February 1926) was an Ottoman-born Turkish statesman and a key witness to the Armenian genocide. During his career as a politician, Celal Bey served as governor of the Ottoman provinces associated with the cities

Erzurum Erzurum (; ) is a List of cities in Turkey, city in eastern Anatolia, Turkey. It is the largest city and capital of Erzurum Province and is 1,900 meters (6,233 feet) above sea level. Erzurum had a population of 367,250 in 2010. It is the site of an ...

Aleppo Aleppo is a city in Syria, which serves as the capital of the Aleppo Governorate, the most populous Governorates of Syria, governorate of Syria. With an estimated population of 2,098,000 residents it is Syria's largest city by urban area, and ...

Aydın Aydın ( ''EYE-din''; ; formerly named ''Güzelhisar; Greek: Τράλλεις)'' is a city in and the seat of Aydın Province in Turkey's Aegean Region. The city is located at the heart of the lower valley of Büyük Menderes River (ancient ...

Edirne Edirne (; ), historically known as Orestias, Adrianople, is a city in Turkey, in the northwestern part of the Edirne Province, province of Edirne in Eastern Thrace. Situated from the Greek and from the Bulgarian borders, Edirne was the second c ...

Konya Konya is a major city in central Turkey, on the southwestern edge of the Central Anatolian Plateau, and is the capital of Konya Province. During antiquity and into Seljuk times it was known as Iconium. In 19th-century accounts of the city in En ...

, and

Adana Adana is a large city in southern Turkey. The city is situated on the Seyhan River, inland from the northeastern shores of the Mediterranean Sea. It is the administrative seat of the Adana Province, Adana province, and has a population of 1 81 ...

. He also served as minister of the interior and minister of agriculture as well as mayor of Istanbul. Celal Bey is known for having saved many lives during the

Armenian genocide The Armenian genocide was the systematic destruction of the Armenians, Armenian people and identity in the Ottoman Empire during World War I. Spearheaded by the ruling Committee of Union and Progress (CUP), it was implemented primarily t ...

by defying deportation orders, which were preludes to starvation and massacres. As a result, he was removed from his post as governor in Aleppo and transferred to Konya, where he was again dismissed upon continuing to obstruct deportations. Today, he is often called the Turkish

Oskar Schindler Oskar Schindler (; 28 April 1908 – 9 October 1974) was a German industrialist, humanitarian, and member of the Nazi Party who is credited with saving the lives of 1,200 Jews during the Holocaust by employing them in his enamelware and amm ...

Early life

Mehmet Celal Bey was born in 1863 in Kiziltoprak,

Kadıköy Kadıköy () is a municipality and Districts of Turkey, district on the Asian side of Istanbul Province, Istanbul Province, Turkey. Its area is 25 km2, and its population is 467,919 (2023). It is a large and populous area in the Asian si ...

, a suburb of

Constantinople Constantinople (#Names of Constantinople, see other names) was a historical city located on the Bosporus that served as the capital of the Roman Empire, Roman, Byzantine Empire, Byzantine, Latin Empire, Latin, and Ottoman Empire, Ottoman empire ...

(today-

Istanbul Istanbul is the List of largest cities and towns in Turkey, largest city in Turkey, constituting the country's economic, cultural, and historical heart. With Demographics of Istanbul, a population over , it is home to 18% of the Demographics ...

) in the

Ottoman Empire The Ottoman Empire (), also called the Turkish Empire, was an empire, imperial realm that controlled much of Southeast Europe, West Asia, and North Africa from the 14th to early 20th centuries; it also controlled parts of southeastern Centr ...

. His father, Hasan Atif Bey, was an official of the ministry of finance. Celal Bey graduated from Mekteb-i Mülkiye (now the

Faculty of Political Science, Ankara University The Faculty of Political Science of the University of Ankara (, more simply known as "''SBF''") is the oldest institution of administrative sciences in Turkey. It is the successor of the "Mekteb-i Mülkiye" ('), also known simply as "Mülkiye," wh ...

) in 1881. He then studied agricultural science at

Bonn University The University of Bonn, officially the Rhenish Friedrich Wilhelm University of Bonn (), is a public research university in Bonn, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. It was founded in its present form as the () on 18 October 1818 by Frederick Will ...

in Germany for three years. He returned to Constantinople where he married a woman named Rukiye Hanım. Celal Bey became a geography teacher at a teacher's institute (darülmuallimin) in 1883. In 1884 he became the principal of

Kastamonu Kastamonu, formerly Kastamone/Castamone () and Kastamon/Castamon (), is a city in northern Turkey. It is the seat of Kastamonu Province and Kastamonu District.

High School. Thereafter, he served various administrative posts, including as an officer at the Beyoğlu Telegraph Center in 1887. Celal Bey then became the director of public instruction in

Trabzon Trabzon, historically known as Trebizond, is a city on the Black Sea coast of northeastern Turkey and the capital of Trabzon Province. The city was founded in 756 BC as "Trapezous" by colonists from Miletus. It was added into the Achaemenid E ...

, Kastamonu and

Selanik Thessaloniki (; ), also known as Thessalonica (), Saloniki, Salonika, or Salonica (), is the second-largest city in Greece (with slightly over one million inhabitants in its Thessaloniki metropolitan area, metropolitan area) and the capital cit ...

(today Thessaloniki). In 1900 he resumed teaching geography, as a professor at Darülfünün. He eventually became the principal of Mekteb-i Mülkiye-i Şahane from 1908 to 1910.

Political career

In March 1910, Mehmet Celal Bey was appointed governor of

. He served there until July 1911, when he was transferred to

; in October 1911 he became governor of Aydin and served there until August 1912. Meanwhile, he served as minister of the interior from December 1911 to July 1912 and as minister of agriculture from January to June 1913. He was appointed governor of

in July 1913. It was during his tenure in Aleppo that he first witnessed and protested the deportations and massacres of the Armenian genocide. Due to his defiance of the official policy against the Armenians, Celal Bey was removed from his post in Aleppo in June 1915 and transferred to

. After further resisting deportation orders in Konya, he was again dismissed from his post as governor on 3 October 1915. After the end of World War I, he was appointed governor of

in November 1919 and served there until August 1920. He was mayor of Istanbul from July 1921 to March 1922.

Witness to the Armenian genocide

In April 1915, the Ottoman government began the systematic extermination of its minority Armenian subjects, known as the

. The genocide carried out during and after World War I was implemented in two phases: the wholesale killing of the able-bodied male population through executions and subjection of army conscripts to forced labour, followed by the deportation of women, children, the elderly and infirm on

death march A death march is a forced march of prisoners of war, other captives, or deportees in which individuals are left to die along the way. It is distinct from simple prisoner transport via foot march. Article 19 of the Geneva Convention requires tha ...

es towards the

Syrian Desert The Syrian Desert ( ''Bādiyat Ash-Shām''), also known as the North Arabian Desert, the Jordanian steppe, or the Badiya, is a region of desert, semi-desert, and steppe, covering about of West Asia, including parts of northern Saudi Arabia, ea ...

. Driven forward by military escorts, the deportees were deprived of food and water and subjected to periodic robbery, rape, and massacre. During these events, Celal Bey was able to save thousands of lives; he is often called the Turkish

. While serving as governor of Aleppo, Mehmet Celal Bey initially did not understand that the deportations were meant to "annihilate" the Armenians: "I admit, I did not believe that these orders, these actions revolved around the annihilation of the Armenians. I never imagined that any government could take upon itself to annihilate its own citizens in this manner, in effect destroying its human capital, which must be seen as the country's greatest treasure. I presumed that the actions being carried out were measures deriving from a desire to temporarily remove the Armenians from the theater of war and taken as the result of wartime exigencies." However, Celal Bey later realized that he was mistaken and that the goal was an "attempt to annihilate" the Armenians. Deportationsf

Upon defying the deportation orders, Celal Bey was removed from his post as governor of Aleppo in June 1915 and transferred to Konya.
Profile at

Google Books Google Books (previously known as Google Book Search, Google Print, and by its code-name Project Ocean) is a service from Google that searches the full text of books and magazines that Google has scanned, converted to text using optical charac ...

As deportations continued, he repeatedly demanded from the central authorities that shelter be provided for the deportees. Celal Bey also sent many telegraphs and letters of protest to the central government stating that the "measures taken against the Armenians were, from every point of view, contrary to the higher interests of the fatherland." His demands and protests, however, were ignored. Under the pretext of seeking treatment for an eye condition, Celal Bey went to Constantinople and visited the headquarters of the

Committee of Union and Progress The Ottoman Committee of Union and Progress (CUP, also translated as the Society of Union and Progress; , French language, French: ''Union et Progrès'') was a revolutionary group, secret society, and political party, active between 1889 and 1926 ...

to raise his objections to the deportations in Konya. He set out to return only after receiving assurances from the central authorities that such deportations would not happen. However, by the time he got back to Konya almost all of the city's Armenians had already been deported. Some Armenian families who hadn't yet been deported were saved by Celal Bey's efforts. He explained in an interview with the newspaper '' Jamanak'' in 1918 that "The capital was constantly pressurizing me to send them on, and to exile them. However, I could not breach my conscience." On 3 October 1915, Celal Bey was dismissed from his post as governor of Konya for defying the deportation orders. After his removal, the remaining Armenians, consisting of 10,000 people, were deported within three days. Mehmet Celal Bey compared himself to "a person sitting by the side of a river, with absolute no means of saving anyone. Blood was flowing in the river and thousands of innocent children, irreproachable old people, helpless women, strong young men, were streaming down this river towards oblivion. Anyone I could save with my bare hands I saved, and the others, I think they streamed down the river never to return."

Death

On 15 February 1926, Mehmet Celal Bey died from a heart attack in his home in Osmanbey, Istanbul. His funeral was attended by thousands of both Turks and Armenians.

References

External links

Mehmet Celal Bey
– official website {{DEFAULTSORT:Bey, Mehmet Celal 1863 births 1926 deaths Mayors of Istanbul 20th-century governors of the Ottoman Empire Witnesses of the Armenian genocide Ankara University alumni Academic staff of Ankara University University of Bonn alumni People from Kadıköy Ottoman governors of Aleppo