Omar Pasha who commands the Turkish army, is an Austrian subject, and
a native of Coroalia. He was born in 1801, at Vaski, a village
situated in the circle of Ogulina, thirteen leagues from Fiume. His
family name is Lattas. His father was lieutenant-administrator of the
circle; his uncle was a priest of the United Greek Church. Admitted,
when very young, into the School of Mathematics of Thurm, near
Carlstadt, in Transylvania, after having completed his studies with
distinction, the young Lattas entered the corps of the Ponts et
Chaussees, which, in Austria, is organized on a military footing. In
1830, in consequence of a misunderstanding with his superiors, he left
for Turkey, and embraced Islamism. Khosrew Pasha, who was then
Seraskier, took him under his protection, procured him admission into
the regular army, and attached him to his personal staff. He then gave
him his ward in marriage, who was one of the richest heiresses in
Constantinople, and a daughter of one of the Janizaries, whose head he
had caused to be cut off in 1827, when that corps revolted against
Sultan Mahmoud. In 1833, Lattas, who had taken the name of Omar, was
chief of battalion, and was appointed aid-de-camp, and interpreter to
General Chrzanowski, who had charge of the instruction of the Ottoman
troops encamped near Constantinople. Omar was thenceforward actively
employed in the reörganization of the Turkish army, and, still
protected by Khosrew Pasha, obtained successively important missions
and command in the army. The troubles of Syria, and the Albanian
insurrection of 1846, gave him occasion to distinguish himself, and
attracted to him the attention of the Sultan. He was sent to the
Kurdistan, and succeeded in obtaining the submission of that province,
which was nearly independent of the Porte. Named in 1848 to the
command of the army, sent to the Danubian provinces, he made the
authority of the Sultan respected, while at the same time he respected
the susceptibilities and the privileges of those provinces, placed, as
they were, under the double protection of Russia and Turkey. The year
1851 was the most brilliant period of the military career of Omar
Pasha. Named commander-in-chief of Bosnia, the principal chiefs of
which had refused to recognize Tanzimat――that is, the new organization
of his empire――he combatted successfully, though with an inferior
force, the Beys of that country. At last he was sent to Montenegro,
where he found himself for the first time commanding an army of 30,000
men. The intervention of Austria, as is known, put a term to that
expedition before decisive operations could be commenced. At the
present date, Omar Pasha is at the head of nearly 100,000 men in the
Crimea.
[Illustration: OMAR PASHA.]