Şehzade Ömer Faruk

Şehzade Ömer Faruk Efendi (; also Ömer Faruk Osmanoğlu; 27 February 1898 – 28 March 1969) was an Ottoman prince, the son of the last caliph of Muslim world Abdulmejid II and his first consort Şehsuvar Hanım. He was also the son-in-law of Sultan Mehmed VI of the Ottoman Empire because he married his younger daughter Rukiye Sabiha Sultan.

Early life

Şehzade Ömer Faruk Efendi was born on 27 February 1898 in Ortaköy Palace. His father was Abdulmejid II, son of Sultan Abdulaziz and Hayranidil Kadın, and his mother was his first consort Şehsuvar Hanım. He had a younger half-sister Dürrüşehvar Sultan.

Education

Ömer Faruk attended the Galatasaray High School. His father, Abdulmejid spoke French, and had a connection to the school through his close friend and relative Şehzade Ibrahim Tevfik. Ömer Faruk's application was prepared by Salih Keramet Bey, son Ottoman poet Nigar Hanım, who had given private lessons to the prince.

Ömer Faruk attended the school for a few years, until it was decided that he should have more serious vocational training, and at the age of eleven he was sent to Europe. He was to have a military education, as was common for princes at the time. He attended the school created by Empress Maria Theresa in Vienna in 1751, known as the Theresian Military Academy. Ömer Faruk spoke English, German, and French with a German accent. His German was as good as his Turkish.

After a visit to the Chamber of the Blessed Mantle in the Topkapı Palace, where lengthy prayers were said, he made his way to Vienna. Salih Keramet Bey accompanied him, and settled him into the academy. He spent several years there, undergoing military training that also included extracurricular courses in basket-weaving, carpentry, masonry, construction works, metalworking, and other manual skills. But for more rigorous, iron-fisted, and disciplined training, Ömer Faruk was transferred from Vienna to Potsdam Military Academy in Prussia. The transfer was the idea of Enver Pasha, the Young Turk Ottoman War Minister.

Enver Pasha thought young princes should receive a military education, and for this purpose he allocated the Palace of Ihlamur as the Princes School. It became compulsory for all princes below the age of fifteen to attend this school. Here, besides their military training, they were taught literature, history, religion, mathematics, and geometry. Ömer Faruk and Abdulmejid I's grandson Şehzade Mehmed Şerefeddin, the brother of Enver Pasha's wife, Naciye Sultan, were transferred to Germany for military training. The Ministry of War issued a decree for the education of the two princes.

Military career

Ömer Faruk graduated from the Prussian Military Academy in Potsdam as a professional Prussian officer. His demeanour reflected his strict German education, and until his death he remained a severe soldier but only in appearance, as deep down he was a romantic at heart, and he never gave up his Ottoman habits.

During the First World War, Ömer Faruk fought for the Germans. The prince was sent to Galicia, and from there to Verdun, where he was assigned to the battlefield and where the battles with the French were quite bloody. He fought like a professional soldier, and Kaiser Wilhelm II granted him first the Red Eagle medal, then the Iron Cross of the First Degree. The Kaiser sent a golden cigarette case, as well as a signed photograph of himself together with the medal.

When the Germans lost the Battle of Verdun, Ömer Faruk returned to Potsdam, where he was appointed to the German emperor's First Foot Guards Regiment. The two requirements for enrollment in this regiment were that one must belong to one of the most aristocratic families in Germany and be taller than 1.9 meters. Every Prussian prince was registered as an officer in this regiment from the age of ten, but those short in height would not take part in the parades. The prince was accepted into the regiment despite being only 1.85 meters tall. He was the shortest among his colleagues, yet he took part in all the parades in front of the kaiser.

By 1918, he was serving as honorary aide-de-camp to Sultan Mehmed VI. He was also serving as first lieutenant in the infantry of the Ottoman army and saw action in the Caucasus campaign and the Sinai and Palestine campaign.

During the Turkish War of Independence, he attempted to defect to the nationalist movement after his father's residence (Dolmabahçe Palace) was put under siege, and according to his wife Sabiha Sultan knew of Mustafa Kemal's invitation to Abdul Mejid to be the face of the nationalists. Hearing his father demure from the invitation, Faruk's patriotism made him angry and he declared, "Then I will go and fight under Mustafa Kemal's command like a private." When his daughter Neslişah Sultan was just two months old, on 26 April 1921 he smuggled himself, with the help of Yümni Guresin, aboard a steamer and landed at İnebolu, after which he received a telegram from Mustafa Kemal rebuffing his defection and ordering him back to the capital, as he did not want members of the imperial family being involved in the conflict. Sabiha delivered his defection letter to her father, Mehmed VI, who wasn't surprised of his defection. Faruk returned to the capital and faced no punishment. He developed severe claustrophobia after the attempt, as he was hidden in a small iron compartment in the ship for several hours, and contemplated suicide with the pistol he took during a British inspection of the ship.Years later, he learned the true reason his service was rejected by Ankara was due to the possibility of him being a British spy. Even though Kemal would expel the Osmanoğlu family, Faruk had no hard feelings for Mustafa Kemal. Abroad, he framed and hung Kemal's rejection telegram to him in a prominent place in his apartment.

Personal life

In 1919, a prospective bride was proposed for Faruk. Emine Dürriye Hanım was the daughter of Mahmud Muhtar Pasha and his wife, the Egyptian princess Nimetullah, the daughter of Khedive Isma'il Pasha. Mahmud Mukhtar himself proposed the marriage. However, Faruk declined the proposal. Between 1919 and 1924, he served as president of the Fenerbahçe Sports Club.

First marriage

Ömer Faruk and Sabiha Sultan, the daughter of Mehmed VI Vahdeddin and Nazikeda Kadın, were in love with each other. When Abdulmejid asked Sabiha's hand in marriage for his son, Mehmed flatly refused because between the descendants of Abdülmecid I as Mehmed VI and those of Abdülaziz as Abdülmecid II there were disagreements, due to the controversial deposition and death of Abdülaziz: Abdülaziz's family believed that he was killed in a plot hatched in favor of sons of Abdülmecid I (Murad V, Abdülhamid II, Mehmed V, Mehmed VI). His mother Şehsuvar, called on Sabiha's mother Nazikeda Kadın, and succeeded in convincing her.

The marriage took place on 20 April 1920, in the pavilion of the sacred relics, Topkapı Palace. The marriage was performed by Şeyhülislam Hayrizade Ibrahim Efendi. Sabiha Sultan's deputy was Başkatip Ali Fuad Bey, and Ömer Faruk's deputy was Ömer Yaver Pasha. Faruk's witnesses were İsmail Hakkı Pasha and Mehmed VI's chamberlain Naci (Eldeniz). The wedding reception took place at the Yıldız Palace.

In May 1920, ten days after their wedding, Faruk and Sabiha moved to a mansion in Rumelihisarı gifted to them by Sultan Vahdeddin, the Zeki Pasha Palace. In October of the same year, the Sultan bought two houses for his daughters in Nişantaşı. The mansions were known as the Twin Palaces. He gave one house to Ulviye Sultan, and the other to Sabiha. Faruk and Sabiha decided to live in Nişantaşı during the winter and Rumelihisarı in the summer.

Issue and exile

The couple's eldest daughter, Fatma Neslişah Sultan was born on 2 February 1921 in the Nişantaşı Palace. She was followed two years later by Zehra Hanzade Sultan, born on 12 September 1923 in the Dolmabahçe Palace.

At the exile of the imperial family in March 1924, Ömer Faruk and his wife and daughters and his parents firstly settled in Switzerland, when Faruk and his father were when they received the sentence of exile. Later they moved to Nice