When was the Battle of Konya?

It was fought on 21 December 1832 at Konya in central Anatolia, during the war between Muhammad Ali of Egypt and Sultan Mahmud II.

Who won the Battle of Konya?

Egypt. Ibrahim Pasha's army routed the Ottoman army and captured its commander, Grand Vizier Reşid Mehmed Pasha.

How large were the armies at Konya?

Kemal Beydilli, in the TDV Encyclopedia of Islam, gives the Ottomans 80,000 men in all and says the Egyptian army was smaller.

Why did the Ottomans lose at Konya?

The Egyptians were better drilled and trained, and the grand vizier, who wanted to avoid a pitched battle, was ordered to attack at once.

What were the consequences of the Battle of Konya?

The road to Istanbul lay open, the sultan called in Russian troops, and in 1833 he had to cede Syria and Adana to Muhammad Ali and Ibrahim.

Battle of Konya, 1832: Egypt's army captures the grand vizier

Quick answer

What happened at the Battle of Konya?

On 21 December 1832 the Egyptian army of Ibrahim Pasha, son of Muhammad Ali, the governor of Egypt who had rebelled against Sultan Mahmud II, met the larger Ottoman army of Grand Vizier Reşid Mehmed Pasha at Konya in central Anatolia. The better drilled Egyptians broke the Ottoman army, and the grand vizier was wounded and taken prisoner. With the road to Istanbul open, the sultan turned to Russia for help, and in 1833 he had to give Muhammad Ali Syria and Adana.¹

Muhammad Ali, governor of Egypt since 1805, had strengthened his rule with reforms, among them a new army trained on European lines, and dreamed, as Kemal Beydilli writes in the TDV Encyclopedia of Islam, of an independent state. Britannica notes that Ibrahim had helped train that army. In 1831 his son Ibrahim Pasha marched into Syria. The Ottoman government dismissed father and son, had them declared rebels by a fatwa in May 1832 and sent an army under Ağa Hüseyin Pasha to stop them.²

It did not. Muhammed Hanefi Kutluoğlu's TDV article on Ibrahim traces his advance: a first victory at Zerrâa in April 1832, the surrender of Acre after a six-month siege on 27 May, Damascus on 16 June, a victory over the Ottoman vanguard at Homs on 8 July, Aleppo a week later and the defeat of Ağa Hüseyin's main army at Belen on 29 July. Britannica credits Ibrahim and his French chief of staff, Joseph Sève, known as Suleiman Pasha, with the fame these campaigns won.³

The grand vizier takes the field

After Belen, Sultan Mahmud II gave the command to his grand vizier, Reşid Mehmed Pasha, who had made his name crushing revolts in Rumelia and Bosnia. Beydilli's article on him describes the hopes placed in him when he came to Istanbul in September 1832 with 30,000 men raised in the Balkan provinces. Reinforced with newly trained artillery, he left on 4 November and reached Konya on 20 November with 80,000 men in all.⁴

Reşid knew his enemy. He had directed the siege of Missolonghi in Greece alongside Ibrahim and had seen how well the Egyptian army maneuvered. Aware of his own army's weaknesses, Beydilli writes, he did not mean to risk a pitched battle; he planned to wear the Egyptians down by outflanking moves and guerrilla tactics. But the war minister, Koca Hüsrev Pasha, his rival at court, helped push through orders to attack at once, and that, in the account of the historian Georg Rosen that Beydilli follows, prepared the army's disaster.⁵

Battle at Konya

Ibrahim, meanwhile, had crossed the Taurus and come on to Konya, meeting little resistance on the way. On 18 December the Ottoman vanguard appeared before the town. The Egyptian army was smaller than the Ottoman, and on the eve of the battle some 500 to 600 Albanian irregulars went over to Ibrahim's side.⁶

The armies met on 21 December 1832. The Egyptians were plainly superior in discipline and training, Beydilli writes, and the Ottoman army broke up. The grand vizier, wounded, was taken prisoner. His seal of office, the symbol of the sultan's delegated authority, was not with him, so it did not fall into Ibrahim's hands.⁷

The road to Istanbul

The victory opened the road to the capital, Kutluoğlu writes, and put the Ottoman dynasty itself under direct threat. Ibrahim pushed on to Kütahya, which he reached on 2 February 1833, and wrote to his father proposing to march on Istanbul and depose the sultan. Muhammad Ali, mindful of how the European powers would react, refused.⁸

In Istanbul rumors spread that the captive grand vizier had sided with Ibrahim, even that he had agreed to replace Mahmud II with his son Abdülmecid. Beydilli finds no truth in them. Released after about two months, Reşid returned to Istanbul, but he had already been dismissed from office on 18 February 1833 because of his captivity.⁹

Russia on the Bosphorus

France supported Muhammad Ali, and Britain would not be drawn in, so the Porte accepted Russia's offers of help. A Russian squadron of eight ships anchored off Büyükdere on the Bosphorus on 20 February 1833, and on 5 April a Russian force of 5,000 men landed at Beykoz and camped at Hünkâr İskelesi. Under that pressure, Beydilli writes in his article on the treaty that followed, a settlement was reached: Muhammad Ali received Egypt and all the provinces of Syria, and Ibrahim Adana. Britannica dates the Convention of Kütahya to 4 May 1833 and notes that Ibrahim became governor-general of Syria and Adana.¹⁰

On 8 July 1833 the Ottomans and Russians signed the defensive alliance of Hünkâr İskelesi. Konya had shown that the sultan's new army could not yet stand against his own governor's, and the Egyptian question was settled only for the moment: in 1839 Ibrahim beat the Ottomans again at Nizip, and it took the European powers to make him leave Syria.¹¹