Mehmed VI

Mehmed VI Vahideddin was the last sultan of the Ottoman Empire and penultimate Ottoman caliph, reigning from 4 July 1918 until the sultanate was abolished on 1 November 1922. He acceded after the death of his half brother Mehmed V amid Ottoman defeat in World War I, and the resulting Armistice of Mudros led to Allied occupation of Istanbul; his most significant act was dispatching Mustafa Kemal Pasha to reassert government control in Anatolia, which backfired when Mustafa Kemal instead became leader of the Turkish nationalist movement against the sultan's wishes. Mehmed opposed the nationalists, dissolved the nationalist dominated Chamber of Deputies, and had his Istanbul government sign the Treaty of Sevres, but after the nationalists' victory in the Turkish War of Independence the Grand National Assembly abolished the sultanate on 1 November 1922 and deposed him; he died in exile in San Remo, Italy, in 1926.