Vitalis Pasha

Vitalis Pasha
Born	Nikolaos Vitalidis (1825-12-13)December 13, 1825 Constantinople
💀Died	1899 Constantinople1899
💼 Occupation

Vitalis Pasha (French: Victor Marie Vitalis Pacha, Greek: Nikolaos Vitalidis) (13 December 1825 – 1899) was a Greek, Ottoman and French military man who, after serving in the French Foreign Legion, was appointed divisional general on the Ottoman army and ended up a pasha of Constantinople.

Biography

After his childhood in Constantinople, the young Nikolaos Vitalidis, son of a porter, joined the French Foreign Legion in Algiers on 2 June 1844 under the name Victor Marie Vitalis. He served a simple legionary in the 2nd Foreign Infantry Regiment. On 14 August 1844, he participated in the Battle of Isly.

He was promoted to the rank of corporal on 5 October 1844. Appearing after the battle of Yahya ben Taled on 2 June 1846, he was named corporal fourrier on 26 February and sergeant fourrier on 16 April of the same year. Having become a sergeant by the end of his first contract, he returned to Constantinople.

Reenlisted as 2nd class, in 29 October 1849 in the 1st Foreign Regiment, he quickly regained his rank, and was promoted to sergeant-major on 1 September 1851 and earned the epaulette as a foreigner on 11 June 1854.

He campaigned in Algeria, then in Crimea. Appearing in the Battle of Inkerman, he was shot in the thigh in Sevastopol. He was promoted to lieutenant on 15 May 1855. Returning from Algeria on 21 June 1856, he was assigned the 2nd Foreign Regiment and took part, on 24 June 1857, in the Battle of Icheriden during which he was shot in the right leg. But his wit, his realism, and his language skills (Vitalis spoke fluent Greek, Bulgarian, Russian, Turkish, Arabic and French) and his tendency to critique carelessness and questionable decisions earned him the enmity of marshall Bazaine.

From 3 June to 8 August 1859, during the campaign in Italy, he was promoted to captain. Sent to Mexico with the Foreign Regiment, he again run into Bazaine, who despised him, but this didn't prevent him from requesting and receiving French citizenship in 8 June 1867.

Back in mainland France, he was assigned to the 75th Line Infantry Regiment and was transferred on 24 July 1870 to the 2nd Guard Grenadier Regiment, a prestigious elite corps, and finally to the 4th Zouave Regiment, a unit which lead him to the siege of Paris in 1870, in command of a battalion, with the rank of battalion chief, as of 2 October 1870. He was in Metz during marshall Bazaine's capitulation, but managed to escape and join the troops defending the capital. His unit distinguished itself in the battle of Villiers by capturing two Prussian cannons, the only two taken from the enemy during the siege of Paris.

The ardor of the battalion and its commander, Vitalis, was rewarded by his promotion to the rank of Officer of the Legion of Honour. After the defeat in the war, he returned to North Africa and served successively in the 4th Zouave Regiment, then in the 17th Provisional Infantry Regiment and finally in the 117th Line Infantry Regiment.

Obscured by the defeat, he decided to retire in 1875 and to return to his native country, in order to manage the family property.

Alexander Bogoridi (in the center), Vitalis Pacha (with the medals) and the members of the directory of Eastern Rumelia in 1879.

The Russo-Turkish War (1877-1878) caused the meeting of the Congress of Berlin. The participant powers of the congress had to name, in order to "help" the sultan with the administration of Eastern Rumelia (Ottoman province with Bulgarian majority), a civil and a military governor, who would be Christians but not Bulgarians, so not to promote the secession of the province from the Empire and its annexation by the newly autonomous Bulgaria.

The phanar educated prince Alexander Bogoridi was named civil governor by a common agreement from the sultan and the patriarch of Constantinople. For the post of military governor, the French representative proposed Vitalis who possessed the advantage, compared to the candidates proposed by the other powers, of speaking the local languages and being both Orthodox and an Ottoman subject.

He was chosen and, given the importance of the post granted to him, the Congress elevated him to the rank of general and the sultan granted him the title of pasha. Arriving in Philippopoli, the capital of the province, he organised a militia to maintain order after the departure of the Russian troops. He stayed in Eastern Rumalia for ten years, managing the province efficiently despote the fight against the Russian and Bulgarian plots to make the province a part of Bulgaria. He violently repressed the Bulgarian komitadjis who fought for the unification with Bulgaria, but soon understood that the separation set by the Congress of Berlin wasn't sustainable and, replaced after two years of proconsulate in Philippopoli, he returned to Constantinople where the Sultan took him as aide-de-camp and named him commander of the Turkish army and pasha of Constantinople, charged with reorganising the Ottoman Gendarmerie. He was promoted to the rank of division general. In this new post, he once again faced the inertia of the personel, whose manner of serving he ought to radically change.

Eastern Rumelia proclaimed its union with Bulgaria in 1888, which was recognised in 1908. Vitalis Pasha retired in 1890, with a large fortune, and died in Constantinople in 1899, sourrounded by his wife and nine legitimate children (legend attributes to him thirty more illegitimate children, from wherever he passed, from Mexico to Crimea through Paris).

Brilliant, courageous and efficient, but opportunistic and without ideals, Vitalis Pasha, despite his collection of medals, is forgotten in Greece (he served in the Ottoman Empire), in Turkey (he was a member of the Orthodox Rum Millet, and he fought against Muslims in Algeria), in Mexico (he was a foreigner and a member of an occupation force) and even more in Bulgaria; it's still France that he best served and it's there where he's most remembered.

Orders and decorations

Turkish:

• First Class of the Order of the Medjidie,
• 3rd class commander of the Order of Osmanieh,
• Medal of Thessaly,
• Medal of Imtiaz in gold and silver.

French:

• Grand Officer of the Legion of Honour,
• Officier de l'Instruction Publique,
• Commemorative medal of the 1859 Italian Campaign,
• Commemorative medal of the Mexico Expedition,
• Colonial Medal with "Algeria" bar.

British:

• Crimea Medal with four clasps.

Mexican:

• Officer of the Order of Notre-Dame of Guadalupe,
• Officer of the Order of the Mexican Eagle (it),
• Mexican Medal of Merit.

Greek:

• Officer of the Order of the Redeemer.

Sources

• Képi blanc and "Division histoire et patrimoine de la Légion étrangère"

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