Topal Osman Pasha

Topal Osman Pasha (died 1733) was a Grand Vizier in the Ottoman Empire. Osman was born in Morea and was educated in the Seraglio at Constantinople. At the age of twenty-six he attained the rank of Beylerbeyi; and was sent on a mission to the Governor of Egypt. On the voyage his ship encountered a Spanish corsair and Osman was captured after a fight in the course of which he received a wound which lamed him for life, whence he obtained his name of Topal. He became Grand Vizier on September 21, 1731. Topal Osman was superseded in the Grand Vizierate in 1732. Before Topal Osman had been long in retirement, the military victories of the Persian army of Nader Shah made the sultan again require his services; and he was sent into Asia as generaIissimo of the Turkish armies in that continent, and was invested with almost unlimited powers. He marched to encounter Nader and on July 19, 1733, defeated him in a pitched battle, near the banks of the Tigris close to Baghdad. The victory thus gained by Topal Osman on the Tigris, rescued Baghdad and he again defeated the Persians, near Leilan, in the same year. But in a third battle with Nader, near Kirkuk, the Turks were decisively defeated by Persians; and Topal Osman himself died fighting sword in hand. He killed by Allahyar Beig Gerayli And his head was cut. His body was borne off the field by some of his attendants, and was afterwards brought for burial to Constantinople.