Şehzade Osman Fuad

Osman Fuad was born on 25 February 1895 in the Çırağan Palace. His father was Şehzade Mehmed Selaheddin, son of Sultan Murad V and Reftarıdil Kadın, and his mother was Jalefer Hanım.[3] He spent his early childhood confined in the Çırağan Palace. The Palace served as an enforced residence to his grandfather Sultan Murad, who had been deposed in 1876, and replaced by his brother, Abdul Hamid II. The restrictions imposed on the former sultan extended to his entire family, and were not lifted until his death in 1904. On the death of his grandfather, Fuad left this life of confinement and for a few years lived in his father's villa in Feneryolu, before returning to the Çırağan Palace to live with his step-grandmother Şayan Kadın, the third wife of Sultan Murad.[4] Between 1911 and 1913, he served as the president of Fenerbahçe Spor Kulübü.[5]

Osman Fuad's only wife was Nebile Kerime Hanım.[11] She was born on 15 March 1898.[12] She was the daughter of Egyptian prince Abbas Hilmi Pasha.[13][14] They married on 2 February 1920 in the Çırağan Palace.[6] One of the people who attended the wedding was the future president of Turkey, İsmet İnönü.[6] A year earlier, her sister Nebile Emine Hanım married Şehzade Abdurrahim Hayri, son of Sultan Abdul Hamid II.[13][14] They remained childless.[3] They divorced in 1932. She died on 28 March 1971.[12]

In 1921, when the Ankara movement took a stance against Istanbul, he went to Rome with his wife. On 28 March 1922, he was warned to return to the country with other members of the dynasty abroad, after which he came back to Istanbul. However, when Sultan Mehmed VI went into exile in November 1922, Osman Fuad went to Rome again. He was in Karlovy Vary, when the imperial family went into exile in March 1924. While there he received a letter via military courier from Mustafa Kemal Pasha, his former friend and fellow veteran of the Ottoman campaigns of the First World War. In this letter Mustafa Kemal said, "I am very sorry. I am unable to make an exception for you and you will have to remain in exile. The law applies to everyone in the Imperial family". Osman Fuad sent a reply via Muhtar Pasha, the Turkish Ambassador in Washington, saying, "If Mustafa Kemal Pasha wishes, I will come to Anatolia." He never received a reply.[6]

He then went to Cairo, Egypt and later to France. The reputation and skill of Osman Fuad as a soldier and tactician were much admired. While Marshal Erwin Rommel was in Libya, he studied the operations carried out there by Osman and subsequently imitated these tactics in his own desert warfare. During the Second World War, Osman Fuad was living in Alexandria, Egypt, under the occupation of the British. Appreciating that he had commanded the loyalty of the Libyan people, the British offered to make him a Colonel in their army and to award him full powers if he agreed to conduct a commando campaign against the Germans there. However, he refused on the grounds that he did not wish to fight against his former comrades-in-arms.[6]

In 1926, upon the death of Sultan Mehmed VI, when Abdulmejid II became the head of the Ottoman dynasty, he held a family council in Nice that included his son Şehzade Ömer Faruk, his daughter-in-law Sabiha Sultan, Osman Fuad, and Damad Şerif Pasha, who had been a minister in various governments during the reign of Sultan Mehmed VI. The purpose of the council was to decide on family matters.[15]

Upon the death of Seniha Sultan, daughter of Sultan Abdulmejid I, in 1931, Abdulmejid II could not bear the thought of burying his cousin in a common grave. So he instructed his son, Ömer Faruk, and Osman Fuad to request the money for the burial from Jefferson Cohn & Ranz, the company that had been officially appointed to reclaim the properties of the Ottoman family on their behalf. The negotiations between the princes and the company were lengthy and tiring, and ended with a threat. They obtained the payment. After which, Seniha Sultan was buried in the cemetery of the Sulaymaniyya Takiyya, Damascus, Syria, alongside other members of her family who had died after 1924.[16]

In 1931, he and his wife Kerime played an important role in enabling his niece Princess Niloufer's marriage to Prince Moazzam Jah, second son of Mir Osman Ali Khan, the last Nizam of Hyderabad.[17] After the marriage the Nizam granted him a monthly salary of twenty five thousand pounds. The prince received this amount regularly until 1952, when the couple divorced, after which the payments were immediately stopped.[18] In 1940, he attended the wedding of Neslişah Sultan and Prince Muhammad Abdel Moneim of Egypt.[19]

On the death of his elder brother, Ahmed Nihad, on 4 June 1954, Osman Fuad assumed the position of head of the Ottoman family. Unlike his brother, Osman Fuad chose to adopt an extremely modern lifestyle, and was known to be fond of his pleasures and to have a natural love for life. As a young Imperial Ottoman Prince, he had been popular and well-loved, and had often been seen driving in an open-topped Mercedes in Istanbul, always dressed impeccably. He was brave, loyal, and generous, as well as being good-looking and a skilled horseman. He possessed a large number of medals and decorations awarded for his courage and service to his country, and which covered his chest when he wore his dress uniform. Like all other members of his family, he had a talent for music.[6]

In 1970, he was interviewed by a reporter from the Hürriyet newspaper named Doğan Uluç. At the time, Osman Fuad was living in Room Number 6 at the Hotel Royal Bretagne in Montparnasse, Paris. This room contained only a bed, a cracked washbasin and two chairs. His description of the life the members of the Imperial family were leading in exile was a graphic one, and shocking. "Who would have thought it would come to this? Who would have thought that General Prince Osman Fuad, the former commander of the Ottoman army in Tripoli, would one day be thrown out of a third-rate hotel in Paris as he could not afford to pay the bill? No longer can we set foot in the land which our forefathers fought for and ruled over, that land that holds so many bitter-sweet memories for us. Is it right that we should be treated thus? How shameful that the Ottoman family should be living out their days far from their native country, forced to take refuge in foreign lands. Some of us have committed suicide, unable to bear the poverty and destitution. Some of us have died whispering "Ah, Turkey! Turkey!” with our last breaths. Our children, born abroad, go to foreign schools and grow up without learning Turkish, knowing nothing of our history or our religion – just as if they were foreigners. What I would request from you is that you should print a photograph of me in your newspaper when I leave this world. Under it, write 'Osman Fuad' – no more than that. It may be that some people will remember me."[6]

Fuad died at Nice, France on 22 May 1973 and was buried in the Bobigny cemetery, Paris.[20]

Styles of Osman Fuad
Reference style	His Imperial Highness
Spoken style	Your Imperial Highness

Ottoman honours

• Order of the House of Osman, Jeweled[21]
• Order of the Medjidie, 1st Class[21]
• Liakat War Medal in Gold[21]
• Hicaz Demiryolu Medal in Gold[21]
• Gallipoli Star[21]
• Liakat War Medal in Silver[21]
• Navy Medal in Gold[21]

• Line of succession to the former Ottoman throne

• Bardakçı, Murat (2017). Neslishah: The Last Ottoman Princess. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-9-774-16837-6.
• Brookes, Douglas Scott (1 January 2010). The Concubine, the Princess, and the Teacher: Voices from the Ottoman Harem. University of Texas Press. ISBN 978-0-292-78335-5.
• Glencross, M.; Rowbotham, J. (2018). Monarchies and the Great War. Palgrave Studies in Modern Monarchy. Springer International Publishing. ISBN 978-3-319-89515-4.
• Kayali, H. (2021). Imperial Resilience: The Great War's End, Ottoman Longevity, and Incidental Nations. University of California Press. ISBN 978-0-520-34369-6.

• "Ottoman Family". Official website of the immediate living descendants of the Ottoman Dynasty. Retrieved 14 February 2010.
• "Genealogy of the Ottoman Family". Retrieved 19 August 2008.
• Family Tree, descendants of Sultan Mahmud II. Retrieved 2011-02-28.
• Hamit Pehlivanlı,"Teşkilat-ı Mahsusa Kuzey Afrika'da (1914–1918)", Atatürk Araştırma Merkezi Dergisi, Sayı 47, Cilt: XVI, Temmuz 2000. (in Turkish)