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Prussia - 1791

Arrival of Asmi Ahmet Effendi as Ambassador of the Ottoman Empire in Berlin

Obverse:

Bearded bust left, wearing turban and robes with fur collar.

Legend:

ASMI ACHMED EFFENDI

Size:

31.5 mm.

Reverse:

German inscription in seven lines, ending with date.

Legend:

ZUM / DENKMAL DES / TÜRKISCHEN GESANDTEN / ZU BERLIN / IM FEBRUAR / 1791
(To the / memorial of the / Türkish envoy / to Berlin / in February / 1791)

Vern's Comments:

This example is clearly in brass.

From an eBay listing:

Ahmed Asmi Efendi (also: Asmi Ahmed Efendi, Asmi Said Effend or Asım Said Efendi) was an Ottoman diplomat. He was the second Ottoman envoy to the Kingdom of Prussia. Asmi was probably a brother-in-law of the first Ottoman envoy Ahmed Resmî Efendi and had probably accompanied him to Berlin in 1763/64. During the Russo-Austrian Turkish War he was initially sent to Fes in 1787. There he was supposed to persuade Sultan Mulai Muhammad to close the Strait of Gibraltar in case the Russian Baltic Fleet intended to advance into the Mediterranean (as it had already done in the previous war in 1770). The Moroccan Sultan declared himself unable to do this (and the Russian fleet had actually already sailed to Copenhagen), but due to Sweden's entry into the war in 1788, the Russian fleet was unable to leave the Baltic Sea anyway, whereupon Asmi initially returned to Istanbul in 1788. After the signing of the Prussian-Ottoman military alliance, which had contributed to Austria's exit from the war, Asmi went to Berlin in November 1790 with an official embassy from Istanbul via Bucharest, Budapest, Brno, Breslau, Crossen, Frankfurt, Fürstenwalde and Köpenick, where he arrived in February 1791. He stayed in Berlin until January 1792, when the Prussian King Friedrich Wilhelm II cut off the embassy's daily allowance for cost reasons, without having achieved Prussia's entry into the war on the Ottoman side against Russia as agreed in the alliance treaty. He showed the Prussian military and civil bureaucracy still impressed in his letters and writings. On the occasion of his visit to Berlin in 1791, various bronze and silver commemorative coins and medals were struck.

Arrival of Asmi Ahmet Effendi as Ambassador of the Ottoman Empire in Berlin