While much of the focus of World War I centers on the Western and Eastern Fronts where Germany is seen as having played the biggest role of the Central Powers, to the southeast, the Ottoman Empire, controlling half of the Middle East, played a vital role in combating the Entente. For almost the entire duration of the war, the Ottomans fought on the side of Germany and Austria-Hungary.
Joining the Fight
In late July 1914, European countries maneuvered into political positions, signaling the beginning of what would become known as the Great War. On one side was the Entente, a powerful alliance originally consisting of France, Great Britain, and Russia. Opposing them were the Central Powers of Germany, Austria-Hungary, Bulgaria, and the Ottoman Empire.
The Ottomans did not play any part in the developments that led to war and instead operated under the façade of neutrality, negotiating with both sides. At the time, the Ottoman Empire was lagging far behind the European powers in terms of industrialization, and aware of this, the Ottomans sought modernization with the help of Germany. The prospect of being dragged into a major war was not much of an issue, as most believed the conflict would be over by Christmas. On August 2, 1914, the Ottomans entered into an alliance with Germany, offering the Germans two dreadnoughts that the British were building for the Turks. The day before the alliance was signed, however, the British seized the ships, and the Germans never got their payment.
Later that month, two German ships were halted in the Dardanelles, under threat of being fired upon by the British navy. Technically, the Ottoman Empire was still neutral, and the Germans and the Ottomans decided to work their way around the problem by pretending to switch ownership of the vessels. Thus, two German ships, replete with their German crews, came under the control of the Turks.
The Ottomans didn’t immediately declare war. Many in government were reticent about entering the conflict. In concert with German Admiral Wilhelm Souchon, Ottoman War Minister Enver Pasha sought to pull his country into the war by getting the Entente to declare war on the Ottoman Empire.
The Ottoman entry into the conflict came on October 29 as a result of the Black Sea Raid, an attack conceived by Enver Pasha, Wilhelm Souchon, and various members of the German foreign ministry.
The German ships, flying Ottoman flags and with crew dressed as Ottomans, sailed into the Black Sea under the pretext of conducting maneuvers. The initial plan was to provoke Russia into attacking first. Instead, Souchon attacked Russian ports, and despite Ottoman leadership attributing the blame squarely on Souchon, Russia declared war on the Ottomans on November 2. Three days later, Britain and France joined their Russian ally in declaring war.
Enver and Souchon had managed to draw the Ottoman Empire into the First World War.
The Ottomans Go to War
On November 11, Sultan Mehmed V, who only held nominal power in the empire, declared jihad against the Entente. The inadequate rail networks hampered mobilization and logistical efforts. Nevertheless, the Ottomans decided to launch a winter offensive against the Russians in the Caucasus. Enver Pasha traveled to the front to personally oversee the campaign, assuming command of the 3rd Army. He was a well-respected leader and an able officer, but he had little experience leading forces in conventional warfare.
The weather conditions, lack of artillery, and poor logistical support conspired to thwart the Ottoman plans, and after just two weeks, the offensive ground to a halt. The Russians seized the opportunity, launching a counteroffensive and making gains into Ottoman territory, capturing several cities in the process. Of note was the routing of the Ottomans at the Battle of Sarikamish in January 1915. According to Turkish and German sources, the Ottomans lost 60,000 to 78,000 killed, wounded, frostbitten, or captured. This figure was conceivably three times higher than the losses suffered by the Russians. The defeat was a scandal and was blamed on Armenian traitors, a predictable move that was part of a larger effort to isolate and eliminate Armenians from Ottoman society.
Armenians, wary of being targeted, took up arms, adding fuel to the propaganda against them as being disloyal. In the face of Ottoman hatred, many Armenians joined the Russians, provoking further Ottoman reprisals against the Armenian population.
To the south, the Ottoman Empire was under threat from British forces in Egypt, and to the west, an Indian Expeditionary Force (as part of the British Empire) occupied Basra, protecting its oilfields and threatening the Ottomans from Iraq.
The beginning of 1915 augured more disasters for the Turkish forces. To meet the threat on their southwestern flank, the Ottomans planned to invade Egypt. This began with a raid on the Suez Canal, a move the British expected and for which they had prepared sufficient defense.
With the Ottomans having little in the way of logistical abilities and having to cross the Sinai desert to reach their target, the raid was a disaster, and the Ottomans were forced to rethink their strategy. They lost 1,500 killed, wounded, and captured, while the British lost just 32 killed and around 300 wounded. Despite the failure, the Ottomans did succeed in forcing the British to keep significant numbers of troops in Egypt, thus diverting offensive and defensive power away from other theaters of conflict. Nevertheless, to the east, the British were pushing towards Baghdad from Basra.
To add to the worsening situation, conscription resulted in farms and fields being left untended. Crops withered, and the empire faced starvation.
From this point, the situation looked dire for the Ottomans, and it’s no surprise that the British felt confident they would be able to force their enemy out of the war. This confidence, however, was misplaced, and a series of mistakes by the British would turn the tide.
Reversal of Fortune
With the series of disasters befalling the Ottomans, and pressed on multiple fronts, the British decided that they had a real chance to go straight for Constantinople and force the Ottomans to surrender.
The Entente had plans to take the city of İskenderun (now Alexandretta in Turkey) in order to cut Constantinople off from Syria, Palestine, and Egypt. In so doing, the Ottoman Empire would have been split in two. However, disagreements between the French and the British led to the plan being shelved.
In a bid to open the Dardanelles, the Entente decided to attack Ottoman positions defending the strait. A fleet was gathered and sailed into the strait to suppress the Turkish defenses. Sea mines, however, played a devastating role, and the Entente fleet was forced to retreat with heavy casualties.
It was clear that the only way to neutralize Ottoman defenses and open the Dardanelles was via a land operation. To achieve this, the Gallipoli Peninsula would have to be taken. British, French, New Zealand, Australian, and Indian troops were chosen for the landings.
Hopes for a quick victory were dashed by stubborn coastal defense, and when Entente troops did manage to gain a foothold on the peninsula, the fighting devolved into stagnant trench warfare.
Throughout 1915, almost a year of fighting failed to produce any sign of victory for the Entente, and the Gallipoli campaign ended in a complete defeat. Both sides had suffered hundreds of thousands of casualties, but the Ottomans were able to claim victory, significantly boosting national morale.
For the Entente, the silver lining was that the Gallipoli campaign had forced the Ottomans to divert troops from the front against the Russians, and as a result, the Russians were able to make small gains in the Caucasus. Today, the Gallipoli disaster is well remembered and commemorated by Australian and New Zealand (ANZAC) forces, which suffered terrible losses as a result of the ill-conceived plan.
At the end of 1915 and through April 1916, the British advance from Basra was also defeated. Besieged at Kut, the British garrison was forced to surrender.
The Entente Gains the Upper Hand
By mid-1916, tensions had reached boiling point in various areas within the Ottoman Empire. On June 10, 1916, the Great Arab Revolt began, as Arabs in the Hejaz province on the western coast of the Arabian Peninsula took up arms against their Ottoman oppressors, and fought for independence.
These efforts gained widespread British support and created the legend of T.E. Lawrence, better known as Lawrence of Arabia, a British officer who organized the Arabs and helped lead them to victory.
The year 1917 would herald significant challenges for the Entente as revolution in Russia forced the Russians to withdraw from the war in March. Their campaign against the Ottomans had been going well in the Caucasus, and with the withdrawal, significant pressure was taken off the Ottomans in the north.
With the pressure of the Arab Revolt and the renewed British offensive in Mesopotamia, the Ottoman Empire was in a desperate situation. The British took Baghdad in March 1917, and to the west, the British efforts in Palestine were gaining momentum. After several failed offensives, the British finally broke through the Ottoman defenses. Beersheba and Gaza fell after the British renewed their offensive on October 31, 1917. In December 1917, the British took control of Jerusalem.
The War Ends
By 1918, the Central Powers were sliding towards complete defeat. In the Ottoman sphere of influence, the Russians had pulled out, allowing the Turks to regain territory in the north. Conflict, however, continued as the vacuum left by the Russians was filled by Armenian volunteer units and irregular units that had been part of the Russian army. The Central Caspian Dictatorship and several other polities that existed in the wake of the collapse of the Russian Empire, supported by a British and Commonwealth force known as the Dunsterforce, continued to apply pressure in the north.
The British were also fighting to the south. While the Mesopotamian campaign had largely become static due to Britain consolidating its gains and choosing to take a defensive posture, in Palestine, the war continued, and the British slowly pushed northwards.
In September, the Entente launched an offensive in Southeast Europe and, seeing considerable success, forced Bulgaria, a member of the Central Powers, to capitulate. Without the support of its ally, the Ottomans were suddenly faced with the threat of an overland advance on Constantinople.
It was also clear that Germany’s situation in Europe had become unwinnable. On October 30, the Ottomans surrendered, signing the Armistice of Mudros.
Throughout the war, the Ottomans had fought in four major campaigns and had been victorious in only one of them. While Gallipoli had been a major setback for the Entente and a huge victory for the Ottomans, the Ottomans had suffered defeats in Palestine, Mesopotamia, and the Caucasus, and their forces had been pushed back to Anatolia.
Genocide
During and after the First World War, the Ottoman Empire and its successor state, the Republic of Turkey, carried out systematic mass murder of ethnic minorities within its borders. These minorities largely represented Christianity within the Ottoman Empire and Turkey and thus contradicted the idea of a homogeneous state. Chief among the victims were the Armenians, of whom 1.5 million were exterminated. Greeks and Assyrians were also targeted by this same policy.
This genocide was carried out through massacres and forced marches through the desert, with the victims being deprived of food and water. Others died from atrocious conditions and forced labor. Rape and robbery were commonplace.
It is widely acknowledged that the horrific results of the Ottoman efforts constitute one of the first modern genocides in world history, as it was a systematic effort to wipe out certain ethnic groups.
As a result of the extermination, Armenians and other targeted groups fled the country en masse, which resulted in a wide Armenian diaspora around the world.
To this day, Turkey still denies that what happened was a genocide. The official reason for the genocide at the time was that the Armenians were supposedly in league with the Russians, and the Turks feared they would serve as a potential fifth column.
The Cost
By the end of the war, the cost of human lives had been enormous for virtually everybody involved. It is estimated that the Ottomans lost 1.4 million soldiers killed and wounded, while the Entente lost the same number fighting them. Throughout the war, the Ottomans mobilized 3 million men. By the time of the armistice, only 323,000 soldiers were still in service, marking a drastic reduction of what the Ottoman Empire could field.
From a financial perspective, the empire was bankrupt. The war was a death knell for the Ottoman Empire, which was carved up and run as occupied territories under the control of various Allied powers. Many other polities were created out of the remains of the once powerful empire that had existed for six centuries.
Turkish nationalists, however, would fight against the harsh outcomes of the war and manage to establish the independent Republic of Turkey. In 1922, Mustafa Kemal Atatürk abolished the sultanate and put an official end to the Ottoman Empire.
