How to Pronounce Ahmet Rüstem Bey
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Apr 18, 1862 Mytilene, North Aegean Region, Greece Died on 01 Jan 0001 (aged 1861)
Ottoman Empire politician
AriesAhmet Rüstem Bey - Place of Birth, Date of Birth, Age, Wiki, Facts, Net Worth, Birthday, Biography and Family
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About Ahmet Rüstem Bey
- Ahmet Rüstem Bey (1862–1935), born Alfred Bilinski, was an Ottoman diplomat who served as last Ottoman ambassador to the United States in 1914.
- Despite neither of his parents being ethnically Turkish, he himself was an ardent Turkish nationalist.Ahmet was born on Midilli (Mytilene) to a Polish father and a British mother.
- His father was an aristocrat who fled Poland after the failed revolution of 1848 and entered the Ottoman Ministry of Foreign Affairs as Sadreddin Nihad Pasha.
- Besides his native Turkish, Ahmet spoke fluent English, French and Italian, and followed his father in the foreign service.
- He was "high-strung and outspoken" and had a "propensity to challenge people to duels".
- Prior to his appointment as ambassador, he had already served twice in the United States capital, both times leaving in a hurry. Ahmet took up the post of ambassador to the United States in June 1914.
- His first task was to defend his country's treatment of Armenians and to respond to the anti-Ottoman perspective of the American press.
- In September, he admitted that massacres had occurred in the past, but he argued that the Ottoman treatment of Armenians was no worse than American treatment of blacks (alluding to lynchings) or Filipinos (alluding to the so-called water cure).
- President Woodrow Wilson took great offense to this and a letter was sent to the Ottoman government informing them that Ahmet would no longer be of use to them in Washington, D.C.
- The United States did not label him persona non grata only because of the outbreak of World War I at the end of July.
- Ahmet defended his words in a letter to Secretary of State Robert Lansing, but the Ottoman government recalled him and he left in October.
- His duties were taken over by the chargé d'affaires Abdülhak Hüseyin Bey, who remained in office until the two countries severed relations on 20 April 1917 as the United States entered the war that the Ottomans had joined in November 1914.In 1914 the New York Times reported that he publicly announced his conversion from Christianity to Islam.In 1915, while in Switzerland, Ahmet wrote a book in French justifying Ottoman Armenian policy.In 1919, Ahmet joined the Turkish National Movement.
- He worked closely with Mustafa Kemal at Sivas during the congress in September and again in November but the two had a falling out and by September 1920 Ahmet had left Turkey for voluntary exile in Europe.
- He never returned, although Kemal eventually gave him a pension.
