The series of 32 episodes Red River wrote its grand finale winning the best reviews and the hearts of the viewers. Based on the book of the same name by Haris Tsirkinides, her script had references to historical figures and events connected to the genocide of Pontians and Armenians.
One of the historical figures that we saw passing through the episodes and "marking" the shocking last episode, was that of "Mehmet Kartal", who was embodied by the actor Dimitris Drosos.
The role of "Mehmet Kartal" was based on Mehmet Talaat, who was a Turkish politician. Talaat together with Ember and Cemal formed the triumvirate of the Turkish "Union and Progress" committee of the Young Turks after their conquest in 1908, until the Turkish defeat in 1918.
He assumed the duties of Minister of the Interior (1913-1917) and then Grand Vizier (1917-1918), a position he resigned shortly before the capitulation.
He was characterized by his cruelty, as among his other acts, he had taken the lead in planning and executing the displacement of the Greek elements from Thrace and the coasts of Asia Minor and Pontus. He is considered the main instigator and protagonist of the double Genocide of the Greeks and the Armenians during the First World War which were carried out by his own order from the spring of 1914 to 1918.
He fell dead from an Armenian
More specifically, Talaat was born in Edirne in 1874, which was still under the Ottoman Empire, and was the son of a junior Ottoman official. He was initially employed by the telegraph company in Adrianople and in 1893 he was arrested for subversive action. He was released from prison two years later and was appointed general secretary of the Ottoman post office in Thessaloniki, where he was one of the first to join the Young Turks movement in 1908, with the consequence that he was dismissed from his service that same year.
He then became a member of the Committee for Union and Progress (EEP), which was the conspiratorial core of the movement. However, with the start of the war, the Ottoman Empire sided with the central powers at the time's desire, as shown by Minister of Defense Ember Pasha.
Then as Minister of the Interior, Talaat took responsibility for the displacement of minorities, mainly Armenians and Greeks. In 1917 he took over as Grand Vizier (1917-1918), a position from which he resigned on October 14, 1918, shortly before the capitulation.
After the signing of the armistice of Mudros - which was signed in Mudros bay of Lemnos effectively marking the end of the First World War - Talaat together with the other two leaders of the triumvirate, Ember Pasha and Kemal Pasha, fled to Germany. There in 1921, Talaat was assassinated by the Armenian fugitive Teylirian.