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Claude-Alexandre Comte de Bonneval was born in 1675 into a noble family of the Limousin. After serving with great distinction in the French army at the beginning of the War of the Spanish Succession, in 1704, regarding himself as insulted, he changed sides and soon won a European reputation as a general in the Austrian service under Eugène of Savoy in a succession of campaigns against his own countrymen, the Pope, and finally the sultan, being wounded at Peterwardein in 1716 and participating in the siege of Belgrade in the following year. He later, however, fell out with Eugène and, after being imprisoned for a year, in 1727 fled to Venice, whence, after offering his services in vain to various powers inimical to Austria, he resolved to place them at the disposal of Aḥmed III. In 1729 he accordingly travelled by way of Ragusa to Bosna Sarayi̊, where, to avoid being extradited to Austria, he turned Muslim, taking the name Aḥmed; and after the accession of Maḥmūd I was first given a daily allowance while resident at Gümüld̲j̲ine in Thrace, and then, in Sept. 1731, summoned by the grand Vizier Ṭopal ʿOt̲h̲mān Pas̲h̲a, who aimed at training the Ottoman army on European lines, to reform the od̲j̲aḳ of the k̲h̲umbarad̲j̲i̊s . Although on ʿOt̲h̲mān Pas̲h̲a’s fall in the following April, Bonneval was at first neglected by his successor Ḥekīm-og̲h̲lu ʿAlī Pas̲h̲a, in 1733 the latter sought his advice on the course to be followed by the Porte in relation to the problem of the Polish succession, and in Jan. 1735 appointed him Ḵh̲umbaradji̊ Bas̲h̲i̊ with the rank of a pas̲h̲a of two ṭug̲h̲s ( mīrmīrān ). After the dismissal of ʿAlī Pas̲h̲a in July of the same year, however, Bonneval was excluded from the counsels of the Porte until 1737, when he was again called on by Muḥsin-zāde ʿAbd Allāh Pas̲h̲a to advise on the conduct of the war against Austria. But although he eventually accompanied the next Grand Vizier Yeg̲h̲en Meḥmed Pas̲h̲a to the front, a plan he had put forward for the fomentation of a revolt in Hungary was a failure, and on his return to Istanbul in 1738 he fell from favour and in the following year was deprived of his command and exiled to Ḳastamonu. Moreover, although he was restored in less than a year, he never regained his former influence, and up to his death in 1747, by which time he was casting about for means to return to France, he was employed only in the continued management of the k̲h̲umbarad̲j̲i̊s and in furnishing the Porte with comments (some of which have been preserved in Turkish translation) on European political developments. He was buried in the cemetery of the Mewlewī-k̲h̲āne in Galata, and succeeded in his command by his adoptive son, also a French convert, who went by the name of Süleymān Ag̲h̲a.
Title:
Aḥmad Pas̲h̲a Bonneval
Author:
H. Bowen
Encyclopaedia of Islam New Edition Online (EI-2 English)
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.1163/1573-3912_islam_SIM_0416
Language:
English
Source Editors:
P.J. Bearman
First-online:
24 Apr 2012
ISSN:
1573-3912
Publisher:
Brill

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