Mehmed VI Vahdeddin: The Last Ottoman Sultan’s Reign and Exile
Follow the last Ottoman sultan from his 1918 accession to a British battleship, Malta, the Hejaz, Sanremo and his grave in Damascus, in documents of the time.
Table of Contents
Mehmed VI Vahdeddin (Vahdettin in modern Turkish) was the last sultan of the Ottoman Empire. He was proclaimed in Istanbul on 4 July 1918; on 1 November 1922 the Grand National Assembly in Ankara ended the sultanate, and on 17 November he left Istanbul on a British battleship. He died in exile in Sanremo, Italy, in May 1926 and was buried in Damascus.
Short answer
The last sultan, but not the last caliph.
- Sultan from 4 July 1918 to 1 November 1922. That day the Assembly in Ankara declared the Istanbul government a thing of the past.
- Caliph until 18 November 1922. The day after he left, the Assembly elected his cousin Abdülmecid Efendi caliph.
- Exile from 17 November 1922: on HMS Malaya to Malta, then the Hejaz, then Sanremo in Italy.
- Died in Sanremo in the night of 15 to 16 May 1926; buried in Damascus.
- Traitor, or a sultan with no room to act? Turkey still argues about him. We give both cases with their documents and take no side.
Documents checked on 17 October 2026.
The exile, entry by entry
From Istanbul to a grave in Damascus
Eleven entries, from the morning he left Istanbul in 1922 to his burial in 1926. Each gives the date, the place, how he travelled and the reports it comes from. Step through them or tap a place on the map.
- By sea
- By train
- Way not recorded
Istanbul
41°01′ N, 28°59′ E
On board: HMS Malaya, a British battleship
Early in the morning he leaves the palace by a back gate, which the Associated Press calls the Malta gate, with his ten-year-old son Ertuğrul and a few members of his household. The British admiral’s barge takes them out to the Malaya.
Source: The Sunday Oregonian, 19 November 1922, p. 5 (Associated Press); Current History, January 1923; Record of the closed sitting of 18 November 1922
Malta
35°54′ N, 14°31′ E
On board: HMS Malaya
He lands at 3 p.m. and is driven to Fort Tigné, where the Royal Artillery officers’ mess has been put at his disposal. He stays on Malta for about six weeks.
Source: Hong Kong Telegraph, 21 November 1922 (Reuters); The Illustrated London News, 2 December 1922
Port Said
31°16′ N, 32°18′ E
On board: HMS Ajax, a British warship
On 5 January he leaves Malta on the Ajax, bound for Mecca. At Port Said, at the mouth of the Suez Canal, British representatives and Prince Abdullah, a son of the King of the Hejaz, receive him.
Source: Hong Kong Telegraph, 6 January 1923 (Reuters); Current History, February 1923
Jeddah and Mecca
21°29′ N, 39°10′ E
By: a steamer through the Red Sea
He lands at Jeddah, the port for Mecca, and spends a little over three months in the Hejaz as the guest of King Hussein. On 15 April 1923 he issues a proclamation asking the Muslim world to ignore the Ankara Assembly’s decision of 1 November 1922.
Source: Los Angeles Times, 5 March 1923; The Near East, 1923 (10, 24 and 31 May); Current History, June 1923
Suez and Alexandria
31°12′ N, 29°55′ E
By: sea to Suez, then a special train
He lands at Suez early on Sunday 6 May and goes on by special train to Alexandria. There he spends three days in a villa in the Antoniades Gardens as the guest of King Fuad of Egypt.
Source: The Irish Times, 7 May 1923; The Near East, 1923 (10, 24 and 31 May)
Sanremo, Italy
43°49′ N, 7°47′ E
By: the steamer Esperia to Genoa
He sails from Alexandria for Genoa; the report says he means to live in Switzerland. Instead he settles in Sanremo on the Italian Riviera, where a press photographer records his arrival on 21 May. He lives at the Villa Nobel, the house where the inventor of dynamite used to spend his summers.
Source: The Near East, 1923 (10, 24 and 31 May); China Mail, 20 July 1923
Sanremo
43°49′ N, 7°47′ E
A message to the Muslim world
Ahead of a Muslim congress on the caliphate in Cairo, he writes:
I still retain for myself all the attributes of that high office … I shall never recognize a vacancy in the Caliphate nor shall I ever abdicate.
Source: Xenia Evening Gazette, 17 May 1926; Current History, July 1926
Sanremo
43°49′ N, 7°47′ E
Death in exile
He dies late on Saturday 15 May, according to the Associated Press and Reuters; his gravestone gives 16 May 1926. The reports name the cause as “cardiac paralysis” or “apoplexy”.
Source: Victoria Daily Times, 17 May 1926; The Bombay Chronicle, 18 May 1926 (Reuters); The Near East and India, 20 May 1926
Sanremo
43°49′ N, 7°47′ E
The coffin held back
The body was to leave for Damascus on 16 June. Reuters reports that the departure is postponed because he died owing 200,000 lire, and that seals have been put on his house.
Source: North China Herald, 19 June 1926 (Reuters, San Remo, 11 June)
Beirut
33°53′ N, 35°30′ E
With the body: his son-in-law and his former secretary
The body reaches Beirut with his son-in-law Ömer Faruk and his former secretary. After prayers at the Great Mosque, a special train is to take it to Damascus.
Source: The New York Times, 26 June 1926 (Jewish Telegraphic Agency)
Summer 1926
Damascus
33°31′ N, 36°17′ E
The grave
He is buried in Damascus. His gravestone stands in the cemetery of the Süleymaniye Tekkiye; it calls him the sixth Sultan Mehmed Vahideddin Han, “sultan, son of a sultan”. No report we could read gives the day of the burial.
Source: The New York Times, 26 June 1926 (Jewish Telegraphic Agency)
Who he was a sultan’s son, on the throne at the end of a war
Mehmed Vahdeddin was born in 1861, a son of Sultan Abdülmecid. Two of his brothers reigned before him, Abdülhamid II and Mehmed V. When Mehmed V died on 3 July 1918, Vahdeddin succeeded him, and on 4 July he was proclaimed sultan in Istanbul as Mehmed VI.
At his accession
The empire was in the fourth year of the First World War. Four months after he came to the throne, on 30 October 1918, the Ottoman government signed the armistice of Mudros.
Ottoman papers spell his name Vahidüddin or Vahideddin; the 1929 English edition of Mustafa Kemal’s Speech writes Wahideddin, and a British chronology of 1920 Vahid-ed-Din.
Two men named Abdülmecid
His father was Sultan Abdülmecid. The Abdülmecid Efendi whom the Assembly elected caliph in November 1922 was another man: Vahdeddin’s cousin, the last Ottoman caliph.
Sources: Chronology of the War, vol. III (London, 1920); The Near East and India, 20 May 1926; Current History, July 1926; The Sunday Oregonian, 19 November 1922, p. 5 (Associated Press).
Four years on the throne 1918 to 1922
His reign ran from the last months of the war, through the occupation of Istanbul, to the rise of a rival government in Ankara. These are the dates that shaped it, each from a document of the time.
Istanbul
His brother Mehmed V died on 3 July; Vahdeddin is proclaimed sultan as Mehmed VI. Chronology of the War, vol. III (London, 1920)
Mudros
Rauf Bey and the British admiral Calthorpe sign the armistice that ends the Ottoman Empire’s war. A Speech delivered by Ghazi Mustapha Kemal, October 1927 (Leipzig, 1929)
Samsun
Mustafa Kemal Pasha, sent to Anatolia as an army inspector, lands at Samsun. A Speech delivered by Ghazi Mustapha Kemal, October 1927 (Leipzig, 1929)
Istanbul
British troops begin to occupy Istanbul. A Speech delivered by Ghazi Mustapha Kemal, October 1927 (Leipzig, 1929)
Ankara
The Grand National Assembly holds its first sitting in Ankara. Record of the first sitting, 23 April 1920
Sèvres
The Istanbul government’s delegates sign the Treaty of Sèvres. Current History, September 1920
Ankara
The Assembly declares the Istanbul government and the sultanate a thing of the past. Assembly decisions nos. 307 and 308, 1922
Istanbul
Mehmed VI leaves on a British battleship. Record of the closed sitting of 18 November 1922
Ankara
The Assembly elects his cousin Abdülmecid Efendi caliph. Record of the closed sitting of 18 November 1922
Lausanne
İsmet Pasha signs the Treaty of Lausanne for Turkey, on the Ankara Assembly’s authority. Current History, September 1923
Ankara
Turkey’s form of government becomes a republic. Law no. 364 of 29 October 1923
Ankara
The caliphate is abolished and the dynasty sent abroad. Law no. 431 of 3 March 1924
Two governments
From April 1920 there were two centres of power: the sultan and his government in occupied Istanbul, and the Grand National Assembly in Ankara, led by Mustafa Kemal Pasha. The Istanbul government signed the Treaty of Sèvres in August 1920. The peace that held was signed at Lausanne in July 1923 by İsmet Pasha, on the Ankara Assembly’s authority.
1 November 1922 the Assembly ends the sultanate
On Wednesday 1 November 1922 the Grand National Assembly voted by show of hands on a declaration with two articles, prepared by three of its committees. The chair announced it as passed unanimously; the deputy for Lazistan, Ziya Hurşid Bey, objected: “I am against it, so it was passed not unanimously but by a majority.”
Decision no. 308 · 1 November 1922
The government in Istanbul has passed into history, “for ever”.
Article 1: the people of Turkey do not recognise any government but the Assembly’s, and they consider the form of government in Istanbul, which rested on one person’s sovereignty, to have passed into history for ever, from 16 March 1920, the day British troops began to occupy Istanbul.
Article 2: the caliphate belongs to the Ottoman dynasty, and the Assembly elects as caliph the member of the dynasty it finds most fit in learning and character. The sultan lost his throne; for the Assembly, the office of caliph remained.
A second decision, no. 307, declared that the Ottoman Empire had come to an end and that the new Turkish government had taken its place. Sources: Assembly decisions nos. 307 and 308, 1922; Record of the sitting of 1 November 1922.
17 November 1922 the British battleship
Sixteen days later he left. That night Refet Pasha, who held Istanbul for the Ankara government, wired: “Vahidüddin Efendi bu gece saraydan gaybubet eylemiştir”, “Vahdeddin has disappeared from the palace tonight.”
He had left early on Friday 17 November with his ten-year-old son and a small household, and gone out to HMS Malaya in the British admiral’s barge. General Sir Charles Harington, commander of the British forces in Turkey, wrote the same day that the sultan had placed himself under British protection. His statement said the sultan, seeing his life and freedom in danger, had asked for protection as caliph of all Muslims, and to be taken away from Istanbul.
Refet Pasha told the Associated Press that by going under Christian protection he had lost the caliphate. On board, according to Current History, the sultan said he was not abdicating.
On 18 November the Assembly met behind closed doors. It heard the telegrams and the British letter, and its minister for religious law, Vehbi Efendi, said that a caliph who seeks a foreign enemy’s protection has in fact given up the office. The Assembly then elected Abdülmecid Efendi caliph “by a great majority”.
Sources: Record of the closed sitting of 18 November 1922; The Sunday Oregonian, 19 November 1922, p. 5 (Associated Press); Current History, January 1923; A Speech delivered by Ghazi Mustapha Kemal, October 1927 (Leipzig, 1929).
The last sultan was not the last caliph: that office went on until 3 March 1924.
Malta, the Hejaz, Sanremo three and a half years abroad
The Malaya reached Malta on 20 November. He stayed there for six weeks, then sailed for the Hejaz, in western Arabia, as the guest of King Hussein. While he was there, in April 1923, he sent a proclamation to the Muslim world asking it to ignore the Assembly’s decision of 1 November 1922.
In May 1923 he left the Hejaz for good. After three days in Alexandria as the guest of King Fuad of Egypt, he sailed for Genoa and settled in Sanremo on the Italian Riviera, at the Villa Nobel. He lived in Sanremo for the rest of his life.
Meanwhile Turkey changed around the throne he had left: the Republic was declared on 29 October 1923, and on 3 March 1924 the caliphate was abolished and the whole dynasty sent abroad. In May 1926 he still wrote that he would never give up the caliphate.
Sources: Hong Kong Telegraph, 21 November 1922 (Reuters); The Illustrated London News, 2 December 1922; Hong Kong Telegraph, 6 January 1923 (Reuters); Los Angeles Times, 5 March 1923; The Near East, 1923 (10, 24 and 31 May); The Irish Times, 7 May 1923; China Mail, 20 July 1923; Current History, June 1923; Xenia Evening Gazette, 17 May 1926.
Death in Sanremo and a grave in Damascus
He died in Sanremo in the night of 15 to 16 May 1926. The Associated Press and Reuters reported that he died late on Saturday 15 May; his gravestone, like the American monthly Current History, gives 16 May 1926.
His body did not leave at once. On 11 June Reuters reported from Sanremo that its departure for Damascus, set for 16 June, had been postponed because he died owing 200,000 lire, and that seals had been put on his house. On 25 June the body reached Beirut, with his son-in-law Ömer Faruk; after prayers at the Great Mosque, a special train was to carry it to Damascus.
What the stone says
The gravestone stands in the cemetery of the Süleymaniye Tekkiye in Damascus. Its Ottoman Turkish lines read “sultan, son of a sultan, Sultan Mehmed Vahideddin Han the Sixth”, with his birth in 1861 (1277 in the Hijri calendar) and his death on 16 May 1926.
Sources: Victoria Daily Times, 17 May 1926; The Bombay Chronicle, 18 May 1926 (Reuters); The Near East and India, 20 May 1926; North China Herald, 19 June 1926 (Reuters, San Remo, 11 June); The New York Times, 26 June 1926 (Jewish Telegraphic Agency).
The family’s exile in law 1924, 1952, 1974
The law of 3 March 1924 sent every member of the Ottoman dynasty abroad. In 1952 it was eased for all but the men of the sultans’ line, and in 1974 it was lifted for them too, nearly fifty years after Mehmed VI died.
Law 431 and its two changes
Who in the family could come to Turkey?
Pick a year. Each door shows what the law of that year said for one group of the Ottoman family.
3 March 1924 · Law no. 431The same law that abolished the caliphate sent the whole dynasty abroad.
Women of the dynasty
Barred
All members of the dynasty, men and women, may never live in Turkey (article 2).
Men in the sultans’ line
Barred
The same ban; they had ten days to leave, and their Turkish citizenship ended (articles 3 and 4).
Husbands of the dynasty’s women
Barred
The article names the husbands too, and the children of the dynasty’s women.
They had to sell their land and houses in Turkey within a year. The deeded property of those who had reigned as sultans passed to the nation (articles 7 and 8). Law no. 431 of 3 March 1924
16 June 1952 · Law no. 5958Article 2 was rewritten: one group stayed barred, everyone else could come.
Women of the dynasty
May come
Not in the barred group, so they may come; the government may grant citizenship on request.
Men in the sultans’ line
Still barred
The men of the sultans’ line and their male descendants may neither come nor pass through Turkey.
Husbands of the dynasty’s women
May come
Not in the barred group: the new article 2 lets “those outside” it come.
Those who came could not use dynastic titles such as sultan or prince; the law set prison terms for it. Law no. 5958 of 16 June 1952
15 May 1974 · Law no. 1803, article 8An amnesty law for the Republic’s 50th year lifted the rest of the ban.
Women of the dynasty
May come
As since 1952.
Men in the sultans’ line
May come
Articles 2 to 5 of Law 431 are repealed; the men get the rights the 1952 law gave the women.
Husbands of the dynasty’s women
May come
As since 1952.
Mehmed VI himself had died in 1926; the 1924 law was aimed at the dynasty as a whole. Law no. 1803 of 15 May 1974, article 8
Traitor, or a sultan with no room to act? two readings
In Turkey his record is still argued over. One reading, set down by the Assembly in 1922 and by Mustafa Kemal in 1927, holds that he sided with the occupiers and deserted his post. The other, which he made himself, holds that he never abdicated and left only to save his life. Here is each case in the words of the documents it rests on. We do not judge between them.
Reading one
The case made against him
- The Assembly’s declaration of 1 November 1922 speaks of “the treachery of the Palace and the Sublime Porte”, which it says joined the enemies and acted against the nation.Assembly decisions nos. 307 and 308, 1922
- The Istanbul government signed the Treaty of Sèvres in 1920. A telegram from Ankara of 30 January 1921, signed by Fevzi Pasha as head of its Council of Ministers and printed in Mustafa Kemal’s Speech, called the Istanbul cabinet the successor of the one that signed
the fatal Treaty of Sevres
.A Speech delivered by Ghazi Mustapha Kemal, October 1927 (Leipzig, 1929) - On 18 November 1922 the Assembly heard its minister for religious law, Vehbi Efendi: a man in the office of caliph who takes refuge under the protection of a foreign enemy has in fact given up the caliphate.Record of the closed sitting of 18 November 1922
- In his 1927 Speech Mustafa Kemal calls him
the traitor who polluted the highest office in the State by his presence
, who was seekingsome despicable way to save his person and his throne
.A Speech delivered by Ghazi Mustapha Kemal, October 1927 (Leipzig, 1929)
Reading two
The case he made himself
- He did not abdicate. On board the Malaya, according to Current History, he said
he was not abdicating, but was merely removing himself from the danger which was immediately threatening
.Current History, January 1923 - He asked for protection to save his life. The British statement read out in the Assembly says that he saw his life and freedom in danger and asked for British protection as caliph. The Associated Press wrote that he left
in the face of threatened trial for treason by the Angora government
.Record of the closed sitting of 18 November 1922; The Sunday Oregonian, 19 November 1922, p. 5 (Associated Press) - He kept his claim to the caliphate: in April 1923 he asked Muslims to ignore the Assembly’s decision, and in May 1926 he wrote that he would
never recognize a vacancy in the Caliphate
.Current History, June 1923; Xenia Evening Gazette, 17 May 1926
A document both sides quote
In April 1920 Mustafa Kemal told the new Assembly that in 1919 he had been appointed army inspector for Anatolia with civil and military duties
, and the telegrams he read out were signed as inspector and honorary aide-de-camp of the sultan. In his Speech he writes that he resigned my positions as Army Inspector and A. D. C. to His Majesty
to lead the movement himself, and calls it a decision to rebel against the Government and the Sultan-Caliph
.
The appointment itself is not in dispute. What it says about the sultan’s own intentions is, and these documents do not settle it.
Record of the sitting of 24 April 1920; A Speech delivered by Ghazi Mustapha Kemal, October 1927 (Leipzig, 1929)
Common questions
Who was the last Ottoman sultan?
Mehmed VI Vahdeddin. He was proclaimed on 4 July 1918, and the Grand National Assembly ended the sultanate on 1 November 1922.
Was Mehmed VI the last caliph?
No. After he left Istanbul, the Assembly elected his cousin Abdülmecid Efendi caliph on 18 November 1922. The caliphate itself was abolished on 3 March 1924.
Did Mehmed VI abdicate?
He said he did not, both on the day he left in 1922 and in a message of May 1926. The Assembly treated the sultanate as ended on 1 November 1922 and elected a new caliph on 18 November.
Why did he leave on a British ship?
The British statement says that he saw his life and freedom in danger and asked for British protection. The Associated Press wrote that he left as the Ankara government threatened him with a trial for treason.
Where is Mehmed VI buried?
In Damascus, in the cemetery of the Süleymaniye Tekkiye. His body reached Beirut on 25 June 1926 and went on to Damascus by train.
Did he have children?
His son Ertuğrul, ten years old in 1922, went into exile with him. Mustafa Kemal’s Speech names a daughter, Ulviye Sultan, and The Near East wrote in 1926 that he had three children.
When could the Ottoman family return to Turkey?
Women of the dynasty from 1952 (Law 5958); the men of the sultans’ line from 1974 (Law 1803, article 8).
Vahdeddin, Vahdettin or Vahideddin?
All are the same name. Vahdettin is the modern Turkish spelling; Ottoman documents write Vahidüddin or Vahideddin.
Sources and limits
This page uses only documents of the time: the Assembly’s records and laws, Mustafa Kemal’s 1927 Speech, and newspapers and magazines of 1918–1926. It does not judge Mehmed VI. Where the documents disagree we say so: he died on 15 or 16 May 1926, and he boarded the Ajax at Malta on 1 or 5 January 1923 (we follow the dated Reuters wire). We give no burial day, because no report we could read states it, and the lines on the map are drawn by us. Quotations from the Speech follow its 1929 English edition. All sources were checked on 17 October 2026.
See the documents we read
- Assembly decisions nos. 307 and 308, 1922 — TBMM, checked on 17 October 2026
- Record of the sitting of 1 November 1922 — TBMM, checked on 17 October 2026
- Record of the closed sitting of 18 November 1922 — TBMM, checked on 17 October 2026
- Record of the first sitting, 23 April 1920 — TBMM, checked on 17 October 2026
- Record of the sitting of 24 April 1920 — TBMM, checked on 17 October 2026
- Law no. 364 of 29 October 1923 — TBMM, checked on 17 October 2026
- Law no. 431 of 3 March 1924 — TBMM, checked on 17 October 2026
- Law no. 5958 of 16 June 1952 — TBMM, checked on 17 October 2026
- Law no. 1803 of 15 May 1974, article 8 — TBMM, checked on 17 October 2026
- A Speech delivered by Ghazi Mustapha Kemal, October 1927 (Leipzig, 1929) — Internet Archive, checked on 17 October 2026
- Chronology of the War, vol. III (London, 1920) — Internet Archive, checked on 17 October 2026
- Current History, September 1920 — Internet Archive, checked on 17 October 2026
- Current History, January 1923 — Internet Archive, checked on 17 October 2026
- Current History, February 1923 — Internet Archive, checked on 17 October 2026
- Current History, June 1923 — Internet Archive, checked on 17 October 2026
- Current History, September 1923 — Internet Archive, checked on 17 October 2026
- Current History, July 1926 — Internet Archive, checked on 17 October 2026
- The Sunday Oregonian, 19 November 1922, p. 5 (Associated Press) — Historic Oregon Newspapers, checked on 17 October 2026
- Hong Kong Telegraph, 21 November 1922 (Reuters) — Internet Archive, checked on 17 October 2026
- The Illustrated London News, 2 December 1922 — Internet Archive, checked on 17 October 2026
- Hong Kong Telegraph, 6 January 1923 (Reuters) — Internet Archive, checked on 17 October 2026
- Los Angeles Times, 5 March 1923 — Internet Archive, checked on 17 October 2026
- The Irish Times, 7 May 1923 — Internet Archive, checked on 17 October 2026
- The Near East, 1923 (10, 24 and 31 May) — Internet Archive, checked on 17 October 2026
- China Mail, 20 July 1923 — Internet Archive, checked on 17 October 2026
- Xenia Evening Gazette, 17 May 1926 — Internet Archive, checked on 17 October 2026
- Victoria Daily Times, 17 May 1926 — Internet Archive, checked on 17 October 2026
- The Bombay Chronicle, 18 May 1926 (Reuters) — Internet Archive, checked on 17 October 2026
- The Near East and India, 20 May 1926 — Internet Archive, checked on 17 October 2026
- North China Herald, 19 June 1926 (Reuters, San Remo, 11 June) — Internet Archive, checked on 17 October 2026
- The New York Times, 26 June 1926 (Jewish Telegraphic Agency) — Internet Archive, checked on 17 October 2026
Pictures: the photographs are from the time and in the public domain, except the photo of the grave (CC BY-SA 4.0); each caption names the photographer or agency and links to its file page. The map’s land comes from Natural Earth (public domain). No picture on this page is drawn or generated.
