Ahmet Rıza, 1859-1930

Ahmed Rıza Bey (1858 – 26 February 1930) was a Turkish activist, intellectual, politician, author, educator, polymath, and a prominent Young Turk. He was an early leader of the Committee of Union and Progress. During the nearly twenty years that he lived in Paris, he led the Paris branch of the Committee of Ottoman Union, which would later be named the Committee of Union and Progress, and together with Doctor Nâzım Bey he founded Meşveret, the first official publication of the society, where he was exiled. In addition to his work as an opposition leader, Rıza doubled as a positivist ideologue. Following the 1908 revolution, he was proclaimed as the "Father of Liberty" and became the first President of the revived Chamber of Deputies, the lower house of the Ottoman Parliament. By 1910 he distanced himself from the CUP as it turned more radical and authoritarian. In 1912, he was appointed as a Senator. He was the leading negotiator during the failed talks for a military alliance between the Ottoman Empire, France, and Britain for World War I. During the war, he was among the few politicians who opposed and condemned the Armenian genocide while it was ongoing. In the Armistice Era he was appointed as president of the Senate and prosecuted his former Unionist comrades. After a falling out with Damat Ferid Pasha he once again went to France, where he supported Mustafa Kemal Pasha (Atatürk)'s Nationalists, returning to Turkey after the signing of the Treaty of Lausanne.