Mehmed Orhan

Mehmed Orhan in childhood

Şehzade Mehmed Orhan was born on 12 October 1909 in Üsküdar.[3] According to his aunt Ayşe Sultan, he was born in Naime Sultan's palace.[4] His father was Şehzade Mehmed Abdülkadir, son of Abdul Hamid II and Bidar Kadın, and his mother was Mihriban Hanım,[4] and ethnic Abkhazian.[5] After his parents divorced in 1913, he and his mother went to live in with his uncle.[6] He was then enrolled in Galatasaray High School.[6] and Robert College[7]

At the exile of the imperial family in March 1924, Mehmed Orhan settled in Budapest, Hungary. He then went to live with his uncle in Beirut, Lebanon, and then to his aunt Naime Sultan in Nice, France. From here he moved to Buenos Aires, Argentina where he lived for two and a half years.[6][2]

Mehmed Orhan worked as shipbuilder and picture seller at an art gallery in São Paulo Brazil, taxi driver in Beirut and Damascus, Mandate for Syria and the Lebanon, a cemetery attendant in the United States of America and an Advisor of King Zog I of Albania.[8][2]

From 1983, following the death of Ali Vâsib, he served as the head of the imperial house from his home in Nice, France.[9] In a 1990 feature in Life magazine, he said his legacy is "both sacred and laughable," and said, "To be Ottoman is to know how to breathe with time."[10]

Mehmed Orhan's first wife was Nafia Hanım. She was the third daughter of Ali Reza Bey of the Yeğen family and wife Nimet Hanım. They married in 1932. She was mother of a daughter, Fatma Necla Sultan, born in 1933. After the two divorced in 1933, she married Prince Abbas Halim of Egypt.[11][12] Her eldest sister, Berkemal Hanım, was married to Mehmed Abdulaziz, 40th head of the Ottoman dynasty from 1973 to 1977, and was the mother of the couple's only daughter, Hürrem Sultan.[11]

His second wife was Margareth Fournier, a French woman. They married in 1940 in Paris. She was mother of a son, Şehzade Mehmed Selim, born in 1943. The two divorced in 1945.[13] His third wife was Françeska Franketti. She was an Italian baroness. They were married for seven years. The two together had a daughter named Ayten Sultan,[13] born in the 1940s.[14]

Mehmed Orhan died at the age of eighty-four on 12 March 1994 in Nice, France.[6][15] He was buried two days later on 14 March in the East Side Cemetery in Nice.[15] In 2010, Nice Municipality removed the bones from his grave and placed them into the ossuaire number 3 in the same cemetery, citing the fact that the license to use the burial place was not paid for years and the family couldn't be reached.[16]

Mehemd Orhan had a son and two daughters:

• Fatma Necla Sultan[17] Germann (born Cairo, 14 September 1933 – Zürich, 2010) - with Nafia Hanim,[16] married and had two sons:
  • Sultanzade Mehmed Erol Germann (born 1952);[14]
  • Sultanzade Osman Cem Germann (born 1963);[14]
• Şehzade Mehmed Selim[17] Osmanoğlu (born Paris, 3 October 1943) - with Margareth Fournier, married and had one daughter:[13]
• Şehzade Ali Khan Asaletlu Necabetlu Orhan Efendi ref name=" Osmanoğlu (born Brasil, 10 november 1962) - with Anna Gomes Pereira }}
  • Claris Sultan Osmanoğlu (born 1971);[14]
• Ayten Sultan[17] Osmanoğlu (born 1940s) - with Françeska Franketti;[14]

• Line of succession to the former Ottoman throne

• Bardakçı, Murat (2008). Son Osmanlılar: Osmanlı Hanedanı'nın Sürgün ve Miras Öyküsü. İnkılâp. ISBN 978-9-751-02616-3.