The Turkish soldier Enver Pasha (1881-1922) was the dominant member of the Young Turk triumvirate ruling the Ottoman Empire during World War I.

On Nov. 23, 1881, Enver Pasha was born of a Turkish father, a bridge keeper in the Black Sea town of Apana, and an Albanian mother. Joining the military, he was posted as a subaltern to Salonika, where he joined a secret antigovernment group. He rose rapidly in the public eye when, in the spring of 1908, he defied Sultan Abdul Hamid II and fled with fellow rebel officers into the Macedonian hills. Their demand was for restoration of the 1876 Constitution, suspended since 1877. Always action-minded, always alert to the dramatic, he enjoyed his activities as a member of the liberal Committee of Union and Progress, the "Young Turks," particularly after the 3d Army Corps threatened to march on Istanbul in July and forced Abdul Hamid to restore the...