Michael Kadish
The actions that the Ottoman Empire should have taken at the onset of WWI were by no means obvious, nor clear. The Turks had enemies among both the Allied Powers and the Central Powers. The Turks also had military agreements with nations in either the Allied Powers, or the Central Powers. The Turks were not a part of the complex system of alliances that were the causes of the severity and length of the war. The initial conflict of the war, between Austria-Hungary and Serbia consisted of a previous enemy and a country whos only connection to the Ottomans was that had she had been attacked some forty years before by the Turks. However, feeling herself on a bit of a rally following the success in the Second Balkans War, with a sudden influx of patriotism, and trying desperately to shake the notion that she was, as Czar Nicholas I had called her as far back as 1863, "The sick man of Europe," Turkey felt a necessity to play a part in the war. The world knew that the empire was crumbling, entrance was seen by some as the chance to once again get their foothold back in Europe. They felt they had to do something. The only clear part is that the choices taken by the Turks led them to their demise.
In retrospect, it is easy to say that the Ottomans simply picked the wrong side. As would be fully realized only after the war, The First World War was determined before it began, back in 1913, by Turkey's longtime two predominant enemies, Russia and Austria. Russian spies, who had discovered that the Austro-Hungarian Commander General was a pedophile, had been tailing Austria-Hungary's top general, General Redl. After catching him with a five-year-old raven, the Russians blackmailed Redl out of every one of his army's battle plans. 1 The result was that Russia eliminated by means of blackmail, one-third of the Central Powers. When Russia fought Germany, most of the battles had the similar results to Verdun, the infamous battle where over one hundred thousand Russian cavalry charged down the hill towards the Germans, who were waiting with machine guns. When Russia fought Austria-Hungary, the results were almost as lopsided, but in the other direction. Russia never lost a battle to Austria-Hungary in WW I. When Russia pulled out of the war, she handed all of the Austro-Hungarian battle plans to to her the Allies. The Turks, if they were trying to just join a winning side, had very much been wrong with their choice.
The Ottomans, we now know, but they could not have known then, were not of much help in the war. Their fighting was generally defensive fighting. On only one front were they really victorious, and that was the defense of Gelibolu and the Dardanelles against an Anglo-French attack on Istanbul. 2
However, Germany and Austria-Hungary, having seen Italy simply renege on her agreement to be the third Central power, was in need of another force. The view was that the 800,000 Ottoman troops 3 would fill in well. For Austria-Hungary and Germany, the questions were merely numbers and locations, that the Central Powers would not be as surrounded by the enemy, and that with the large Ottoman Empire to their southeast.
However, the Turks did not prove to be a great facility for the Central Powers. The Ottoman Empire provided little assistance in the war. With nearly all of the Turkish military operations being fought in defensive measures, the best that could be said of the Turkish assistance to her side was that she detracted some Allied troops away from the European fronts, allowing Germany and Austria-Hungary to fight smaller armies. However, Turkey did nothing to support her people's newly found patriotism.
This new patriotism was due to the Young Turks who had seized power in 1908. Their position was, for all intents and purposes, to increase the patriotism, or nationalism. This new focus on patriotism caused tensions amongst the Turkish Muslim communities, as the Pan-Turkism view of "equality to all Turks" superceded fundamental notions of Islam. Numerous underground organizations were formed to try to topple the Young Turks, 4 but they proved unnecessary, the Turkish patriotism toppled Turkey.
Some of these organizations actually tried a new approach that did work-indirectly. The Turkish way had been, for quite a while, to eliminate the sultan time after time, while having him replaced with a relative of his that was more sympathetic. In the last five hundred fifty years of the empire, eighteen sultans' reigns were prematurely ended, either by simply being deposed, abdicated, killed, captured, or under mysterious circumstances. 5
The last few had been due to the whether or not the revolutionaries were reformists are fundamentalist Muslims. In 1807 Selim III, a strong reformer, was murdered. Mustafa IV took over, Mustafa being strong on the Muslim Principles. In 1808 Mustafa was assassinated, and Mahmud II took over. He was considered the greatest reformer of Turkey 6 , and insured that the religious would not be able to rebel easily, by killing off the Janissaries. Mahmud's son, Abdulmecid I followed in his father's reforming footsteps in 1839, as did his other son, Abdulaziz, who was next in 1861. The next sultan, Murad V, in 1876, was also liberal, but he barely had time to call himself a sultan, before he was deposed, and his brother Abdul Hamid II gained the throne.
Abdul Hamid II was a strong Muslim, and attempted to revert to the older laws. In 1909, the Young Turks revolted, Abdul Hamid was replaced by his brother, Mehmed V.
7So, this time, revolutionaries had a new approach, secession. Annoyed with the New Turks positions, rebels, specifically in Lebanon and Syria, met with British and French forces, and asked for their assistance in defeating the Turks. Their plan, to go into battle, with British or French support never became a reality. Some fought underground, or in guerilla warfare, but the Turks managed to keep them out of the Allied ranks. In doing this however, the Turks sealed their fate.
The urge to go to join in the approaching war was a strong one. The Ottoman Empire had been in decline since 1699, 8 when the second siege of Austria had failed, but having recently come off of an unusually successful military maneuver in 1913 with the Second Balkans War, 9 the prospect of joining the upcoming war in Europe to strengthen the Pan-Turkism was intriguing. The problem was that there was not a clear choice of which side to join. Both sides had forces that the Turks had wished to fight, and both sides had allies.
Two continuous enemies throughout The Ottoman Empire's history were Russia and Austria. The fact that Austria and Russia themselves did not get along was what kept The Ottoman Empire in existence for as long as she had been.
10Turkey was constantly at war with one of them. During the nineteenth century, Turkey entered a "Russo-Turkish War" four times. These were not minor, technical skirmishes. These four wars, spread out over the course of the century, added to more than nine years of war. 11 With all of the wars that saw Turkey facing off against Russia in the nineteenth century, the total hits a sick six wars spread over sixteen years.
12Austria was not so bad. Actually, with the constant fighting between Turkey and Russia, Austria\Austria-Hungary generally aligned herself with Turkey. During the nineteenth century, they only faced off once, in 1853.
13That does not mean that the relationship between two was friendly. The two had a long-standing, long lasting rivalry. The first time that the Ottomans ever admitted defeat in battle., in 1699, had been to the Austrians. 14 By 1908, six years before WWI, the animosity of the two neighboring countries hadn't ceased. Austria annexed Bosnia-Herzegovina immediately after the chaos of the recent Balkan War, in response to which, the Young Turks created a boycott against Austrian products.
15The two groups also both had countries who had been offering bedside support to The Sick Man of Europe. The Turks would decide to choose Germany. She had been of monstrous assistance in bringing the Ottoman military up closer to European standards. German General Otto Liman von Sanders had been made Inspector General of the Ottoman Army, and throughout the many Balkan Wars, Germany had supported the Turks. 16 In fact, at the beginning of the twentieth century, the only support that the Turks could count on was from Germany. 17 This is what allowed the 1902 agreement for the ninety-nine year concession to build a Berlin-to-Baghdad railroad, and the basic German attempt to develop her strong sphere of influence in Turkey. 18
But, at the same time, England and France were, by the time right up until The War, allies as well. Where General Otto Liman von Sanders had been placed in charge of the Turkish Army, a British Admiral had been given a parallel position for the Turkish Navy. 19 In 1914, there were Turkish orders for two dreadnoughts, and other battle ships, in British ship yards. 20 It was the British construction of the telegraph that allowed the Turks any chance in any of the Balkan Wars, and was what allowed the Turks to conduct military operations on the four distant fronts for as long as they did. 21
France also had been helpful to Turkey. The language throughout Turkish reforms had been French. 22 It was France that helped Turkey win the Crimean War in 1856. 23 It was France who helped run the Sick Man's banks. 24 In 1860, when a European army was needed to be brought in by the sultan to squelch uprisings in Lebanon and Syria, it was the French that comprised more than half of the men, 25 and it was France that had created the protectorate in Tunisia. 26
So, Turkey had friends on both sides of the conflict and they had enemies on both sides, but more importantly, Turkey had no claim in the war.
WWI was the result of a century of Europe trying to avoid another Napoleon. To insure that no emperor would try again to conquer Europe, treaties of alliances were put together, so that no nation would be able to attack another nation with impunity.
In 1914, when a Serb, who may or may not have had the Serb government behind him, killed the Austro-Hungarian Archduke Ferdinand, Austria-Hungary, called forth her allies, Germany and Italy, to attack Serbia. Turkey was not one of Austria-Hungary's allies; Austria-Hungary had just taken part of Turkey's land.
Turkey was not an ally, nor was she out to get at Serbia. Serbia had been a segment of the group that defeated the Turks, in the Balkans, in 1912, but the Turks won back the Balkans in 1913. 27 She had no claims on Serbia.
Neither did Italy. Neither did Britain, France, Russia, or Germany, however. They all felt compelled to fulfill their treaties. However, it was just Mussolini who decided that this was too frivolous a war to include his army in. Granted, this put Germany and Austria-Hungary at a bit of a loss, but if Italy decided to remain neutral, and America was to be neutral, (both in reference to the beginning of the war) then The Ottoman Empire too, had more than enough reasons and excuses not to enter.
Fear of Russia, the reasons many historians site 28 as the cause for the Turkish entrance into the war, is a bit ludicrous. At the time, nobody could have guessed that Russia would be coming away from single battles with their casualty lists containing five digits, nor that these types of losses would lead the Russian people to a successful Bolshevik revolution, but one only needs to look at a map to see Turkey had nothing to fear from the Russians. Looking at the enormous border of, what became the Soviet Union, to Eastern Europe, and the proximity to the two enemy nations of the Central Powers, one had to know that Russia would be too busy to fight the main war to launch an extra offensive against Turkey.
Turkey may have initially planned to try to conquer herself some more land, and the war had seemed to be an easy way to do so. Perhaps. Her initial entry to the war, the naval attack, was an offensive attack. The sultan did announce "a Jihad against the infidels." 29 29 Perhaps it was because they had been victim to such strong counter attacks, but Turkey did not keep up a fa?ade that she was in an offensive war. She never even took the time to declare war on the United States, when she entered the war, nor did the US feel the necessity to do the opposite. 30
It very well could be that Turkey wanted to have another Suleyman II like conquest, but that is slightly unreasonable. They had spent the past two hundred years trying, without much success, to take care of what Suleyman the Magnificent had gotten them. Turkey had just come out of the Second Balkan Wars victorious, but it's very hard to believe that her head had swelled so large as to think that she could now conquer, and support a new empire. By joining either side, Turkey would be assisting an enemy. By joining either side, Turkey would be attacking an ally. Turkey had nothing to do with the initial conflict. They were not under threat of attack. They were in all probability, not attempting to seize land. I am not the only one to point out that Turkey had absolutely no external reason to go to war. Two-thirds of the Young Turk triumvirate wanted to stay neutral from the war. It seemed apparent that Turkey would stay neutral. The day of the attack, before it was in progress, the grand vizier told the British that "Turkey intends to observe strict neutrality." 31
Those were the intentions of Talat Pasha, and Cemal Pasha. That however, left the third member, Enver though, who was in charge of the military. On August 2, 1914, he signed a secret treaty with Germany. 32 This is what caused the yellow crescent on a red flag to be displayed over the battleship that went about attacking Russia on October 12, of that year. 33
But what would possess Enver to do this? They couldn't know how badly entrance to the war would hurt them, but surely Enver could see that this was not going to help his country any. If there wasn't much chance of an external threat, than why go to war? If it was not the external threat, it was probably because of the internal threat.
1908 had seen the New Turks come to power, and with them, the strengthening of Turkish patriotism. For the first time, the urban elite would call themselves "Turks," rather than "Ottomans." 34 The Turks had held a ranking system of those in the empire. The Moslem Turks were given the most rights, followed by non-Moslem-Turks or non-Turkish-Muslims from conquered lands, and lastly the non-Turkish-non-Muslims who came under the empire's rule. 35 Any monotheistic Turk could, or did, serve in the army back from the time of the Jannissaries. 36 These Turks had some privileges, but were not, of course, equal to the Turkish Muslims.
That would change, partially, with the Young Turks. They wanted all Turks to have more or less equal rights, thereby unifying the Turks. (The Armenians were not Turks; thus they horrendous treatment.) The problem was that this unification was unification through assimilation, and this assimilation came at the expense of the Arabs. 37
While the country was strengthening its nationality, at the same time, her more religious Muslims were becoming more and more opposed to the Young Turks' rule. This was nothing new, the history of The Ottoman Empire is filled with uprisings and dethronings, and for her last two hundred years, it had either been the devout crowning a religious king or the secular crowning a more liberal king.
In 1909, the new Young Turk regime stopped a revolt by the religious. The physical rebellion was quelled, but the religious were hardly pacified. As the transition from Arab to Turk continued, many of the Arabs became thoroughly opposed to the Young Turks, as these Arabs saw their positions taken away, and given specifically to non-Arabs, for the sake of this Ottoman affirmative action. With the loss of Libya to Mussolini in 1911, and the losses incurred during the first Balkan War of 1912-3, the angered Arabs had a new complaint. They claimed that due to these losses, the Young Turks had shown themselves incompetent to rule non-Turkish parts of the empire. 38 The Turks had actually been losing land for two hundred years. The only difference now was that it wasn't Arabs who were losing the land.
The inner complaining of the Turkish inabilities didn't stop, or slow, when the Turks won back the lands lost in the Balkan War. They also did not try to overthrow the government; they were too factioned. There were a score of large societies during the time of the Young Turks' reign whose desire was to see that the reign be brought down. 39
None of these groups stood up because none of these groups were strong enough to support a revolution. However, this method was scarier. With the prospect of a large-scale war, the groups were soliciting help from the European powers.
This was a new problem. Although every time the British and French were approached to assist in a revolution they turned it down, the prospect was too scary for the sultan and the government. A multi-sided attack from England and France combined with the inevitable addition of Austria-Hungary or Russia, focused specifically at Turkey, with the assistance of the revolting religious Muslim Turks, would spell certain doom for the Ottoman Empire. ...
By declaring the Jihad against the Allied Forces, the Sultan was not so much trying to attempt an offensive attack, nor was he sitting in fear of the Russians. It was all an attempt to even the score on the internal rebellion. Without a move by the Sultan, The Young Turks' regime would be in a war against the religious groups, who could be getting Anglo-French support, plus whomever the British and the French had signed secret alliances with, which would probably be either the Russians, or the Austro-Hungarians. It turned out to be the Russians.
By attacking the Allied Forces with a Jihad, the idea was that first of all, some of the religious would support the empire, as many of the Ulama would enforce a Holy War. More importantly, the Ottoman Empire gained the full support of two allies. This was a last ditch attempt to quell the opposing factions in Turkey, who ha grown tired of simple revolts.
Had this plan worked without the result being the destruction of the empire, the Sultan would probably have been considered a ruler on par with Mahmud II or even Suleymun II. On paper, the attack was a great plan. Turkey suddenly no longer had to contend with the enemy that had dethroned the sultan so many times before, her own disgruntled minority. Being religious, many of the rebellious would find themselves duty-bound to fight the Jihad.
With the revolt put on hold, the sultan would have been able to, ideally, deal with the rebels' future allies, England and France. These two had, not so long in the past, been intrinsic in the successful Grecian revolt. In Greece, the French and the British had supplied arms. It appeared that now they would actually, physically join in the fights. An attack on them now would, at best, scare off the two powers from supplementing a future revolt, with France and England scared of the awesome Turkish power.
More realistically, the sultan probably anticipated that the Turks would be less willing to later revolt with the assistance of the two red white and blue nations who had just been firing at them. The revolution would be postponed, and the rebels' main strength would be gone.
Seen in this light, the attack of The Ottoman Empire on the Allied Powers, which was to be the undoing of The Ottoman Empire, was not such a stupid move. It was a last ditch attempt to save the crumbling empire. It was an all or nothing gamble, and it lost, but just as easily it could have succeeded. Had it succeeded, it was probably the only way the empire could have survived; the rebellions would have soon defeated it. It was not a stupid move, it was nothing more than a final gamble that failed.
Essays In Ottoman and Turkish History, 1774-1923: The Impact of the West.
Davison, Roderic H., Ed. Austin, Texas: University of Texas Press, 1990. P. 88
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