The General Who Conquered an Empire and Then Had to Give It Back

Ibrahim Pasha fought five major battles in seven months during the Syrian campaign of 1831–32. He won all of them. He took Acre — the fortress that had defeated Napoleon. He routed the Ottoman Grand Vizier at Konya and marched to within a hundred miles of Constantinople with nothing left to stop him.

Then his father told him to wait, and winter came, and the Russians arrived, and he had to give it all back.

He did it again. In 1839, at the Battle of Nizip, his victory was so complete that the Ottoman fleet simply sailed to Alexandria and surrendered. The Sultan died days later. The Ottoman army, navy, and sovereign all collapsed in the same week. Four European great powers — Britain, Austria, Russia, and Prussia — convened an emergency coalition specifically to prevent Ibrahim from finishing what he'd started. Among the military advisors on the losing Ottoman side that day was a young Prussian artillery officer named Helmuth von Moltke, who went home and redesigned European warfare from scratch.

Ibrahim spent his life winning wars for his father. When Muhammad Ali finally went senile in 1848, Ibrahim became regent — ruler of the country he had spent four decades defending.

He held the title for one hundred and thirteen days. His lungs, ruined by decades of campaigning, gave out on November 10th.

His father outlived him.