the national assembly, of which he was one of the few eloquent speakers. He is also a leading member of the Peace Congress, and was its president in 1849—a position remarkable enough for the author of the bellicose 'Lettres du Rhin.' He was an energetic opponent of Louis Napoleon in December, and on that account was compelled to fly to Brussels in an assumed name.
OMAR PASHA.
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.
