Introduction
There has been increasing research from scholars on World War I. However, more importantly, over the last few decades, more studies have evaluated the role of the Ottoman Empire in World War I. This is right because the impacts of the First World War and the involvement of the Ottoman have significantly shaped Middle East societies to date. For instance, the borders of Turkey, Iraq, Syria, Jordan, and Lebanon were created after the First World War. Turkey experienced the most significant effects, including epidemics, loss of lives, hunger, and battlefield casualties. Anatolia, where the Ottoman army recruited its soldiers, saw a sudden decrease in population, and the war left it an empty country. This study evaluates the late Ottoman Empire and World War I by analyzing how the Ottoman empire lived before the war, how people were recruited to the Ottoman army, its causes to join the war, how it benefitted from the war, and the impact they had on the war. Political and social issues such as security pushed Ottomans to join World War I.
The History of Ottoman before World War I
The Ottoman Empire was one of the strongest and largest world imperial powers. It ruled Northern Africa, Eastern Europe, and the Middle East and had a large army that governed the whole of the Mediterranean Sea. The empire reigned from Constantino, which is currently Istanbul, Turkey (Alloul and Martykánová, 1020). Ottoman Empire had been consistently expanding its territories even before World War I. For instance, in 1683, they did one of their most coveted cities of Vienna in Austria, with a workforce of over 200,000 men. In the 19th century, the Ottoman Empire started to decay, becoming weak (Hanioğlu, 6). By 1850m, the situation had become so desperate that the empire was losing its army, and the Emperor was being called “the sick man of Europe.” Therefore, the Ottomans started looking for alliances to strengthen their leadership within European nations due to the failing economy.
While the empire was falling from the external perspective, it was also ailing internally. The Ottoman Empire was facing an economic decline. Despite being the world’s richest empire in the centuries before, the Ottoman Empire had been overtaken by French, British, and other European powers in trading, and by the 1870s, they had a big public debt that the interests of their loans were half of the empire’s revenues (Hanioğlu, 28). In addition, the empire was facing the problem of Western infiltration, whereby many of the people had been influenced by the west to demand modernization. Some of the students who had studied in western universities had started a revolution that demanded the empire modernize the empire in 1876 (Hanioğlu, 43). Therefore, when the west noticed that the empire was becoming weaker, their interest in the region grew, given that the Ottoman Empire occupied a strategic geographical area in the Mediterranean Sea. However, Great Britain and Germany wanted the Ottoman Empire to continue reigning so that they would act as a barrier between them and Russia.
Therefore to ensure that the Ottoman Empire stayed between them and Russia, European Leaders, especially from Germany, France, and Britain, decided to form alliances with the empire. The leaders were allowed to seek alliances with Europe; however, they showed little interest in forming alliances with France since it was a close ally of Russia. However, Britain had a significant alliance in southern Iraq and Egypt, while Germany provided financial support for constructing the Berlin-Baghdad railway (Alloul and Martykánová, 1028). This created good relations between the empire, Germany, and Britain.
How and Why Ottomans Entered the War
Before World War I began, European nations such as France, Britain, and Germany had been preparing for war by buying many arms that they could use for the war. They had noticed that despite their good intentions with their British and German allies, they had been alienated, and the Russian military was approaching the east. In 1911, Russia captured Tabriz and incited the Kurdish Groups and American nationalists to delimit the Turco-Iranian border (Aksakal, 336). In addition, Tsar Nichola, the Russian ruler, had met with King Gorge V on negotiations based on making Triple Entente a military alliance. Besides this, Russia was reviving the talks on the straights despite turning down Otto’s decision to build a railroad in Ezrum to increase defense in the region. All this implied to the Ottoman Empire was that Russia planned to attack them.
The first reaction was the attempts by the leadership of the Ottoman Empire to create good relationships with Russia. However, their goodwill was rejected by Russia because the Russian Finance minister had been approached by Winston Churchill and come to an agreement that they would not invite the empire to their side. After all, it would significantly make it difficult for them to attract Italy as a more needed ally to them with the Ottoman empire on their side. Additionally, England did not want Turkey to be on its side (Aksakal, 332). On the other side, the Ottomans approached France to form allies with them, but France rejected them because they claimed that it was impossible to save them from the Russian Claws. Therefore due to a lack of allies, the Ottoman Empire representative, Cemal, was disappointed with France and started reconsidering their friendship with Germany (Balci et al., 14). At this moment, they were willing to accept any alliance which would help them out of the current situation with Russia.
Russia, Britain, and France held a secret meeting in Egypt that was aimed at distributing the empire. Russia would take Istanbul and the Northeast Part of Turkey while Britain and France were to divide the remaining parts of the Middle East, and it was formalized through the Sykes-Picot agreement (Balci et al., 18). This desperate situation forced them to take quick action because they feared the isolation they had received from their neighbors and the threat from Russia.
Therefore the Ottoman Empire was pushed by various factors to enter World War I. The first reason was that Russia aimed to invade its territory with other allies like Britain and France. The countries that the empire had long before trusted had turned their backs on him, and therefore, he needed a quick response to defend against the Russian invasion (Aksakal, 340). The other reason was that the empire felt isolated and needed some alliances, especially because they were strategically positioned between countries that had been very active in buying war arms. This made the Emperor know that they were planning t invade his territory, and the only way he could protect it was by looking for alliances to fight by his side. Finally, the Ottoman Empire entered the war for political gain. Although the empire was growing weak, the leaders did not want to show it to their enemies because they knew its threat. Therefore, they had to get involved in the war and show their political stance.
Recruiting soldiers to the Ottoman army
After the Ottoman Empire signed an alliance treaty with Germany, they had to recruit soldiers in their army to help defend them against the Russians. All the male youths between the ages of 20-45 years were eligible for the army (BeşikçI, 105). The recruitment was progressive such that in March every year, the male who turned 20 were recruited into the army as cohorts. They were trained and served on a full-time basis for two years before they were transferred to reserves, where they stayed until they reached 38 years. The reserves were allowed to adopt a civilian life but would be recalled in case of need.
The first constriction law made in May 1914 required that all refugees be recruited into the military for six years. The whole territory was divided into districts, and each had a recruiting branch to ensure that these laws had been upheld. However, the recruitment laws were reviewed three months later, in August 1914, to create a young army that would be more economical and effective. The amendments to the law reduced the exemptions and made it more lenient for non-Muslims who were willing to protect their fatherland. However, their military units could not have more than 10% of non-Muslims (BeşikçI, 107). Additionally, the Ottomans who were not active in the army were required to pay taxes depending on their riches. In the revised laws, refugees did not need to be recruited for war. However, the refugees who had been given Ottoman citizenship had to be recruited into the army for six years, and if there were war, they would only serve for three months.
Ottoman Empire in the First World War
When the war started, Ottoman was offered two naval ships by the Germans, which proved to be very significant in helping them enter the war. On October 29, 1914, the Ottomans entered the war by planning with the Germans to provoke Russia into a war with them (Erickson, 126). The German commander of the two warships attacked Russia’s seacoast, which caused Russia to declare war on Germany and Ottoman Empire on November 2, 1914 (Erickson, 127). Three days later, the French and British too declared war against Ottoman.
At the begging of the war, Ottoman had 210,000 soldiers who had been divided into four armies with different roles and missions. However, they suffered a major challenge in supplying their army because they did not have enough time to prepare their armies. For instance, at the onset of the war, the Ottoman army was equipped with German guns, which were considered less effective compared to the ones used by their competitors (Grüßhaber). This made the army suffer for most of the war. Additionally, the army could not field a strong fighting force that would challenge their enemies.
In the First World War, the Ottomans fought three main battles significant to them. These included the Caucasians, Gallipolli, and Sinai and Palestine campaigns. The Caucasus campaign was fought between the Ottoman and Russia from October 1914 to October 1918 on the southern border of Russia. This battle was made to reclaim the Caucasian land that the Ottoman Empire had lost to Russia during the Russo-Turkish War in 1877. In this war, the attack commenced with 190,000 soldiers, and by the end, the Ottoman army had over 300,000 soldiers fighting (Grüßhaber). This battle ended when Russia withdrew from the war as a result of the Russian Revolution. In this campaign, Ottoman was more affected because they suffered over 300,000 casualties while Russia had only 140,000.
The second battle was the Gallipoli campaign between February 1915 and January 1916. The war was in South Eastern Europe between German, Austria-Hungary, and Ottoman Empire against Britain, Russia, and France. The main aim of this war was to weaken Ottoman and secure waterways to ensure that there was an easy movement of goods from Britain and France to Russia. Ottoman was a strategic player in this battle due to its geographic position. The allied nations (Britain, France, and Russia) carried out the first attack in February 1915 on the capital of Constantinople, which failed. They launched another attack in April 1915 but were defeated by the Ottoman’s fifth army (Özdemir, 180). In December 2015, they left their positions which was a sign of the major defeat of the allied nations.
The third major battle was the Sinai and Palestine Campaign, determining who would control Palestine and Egypt. The allied nations included the British Empire, England, Italy, France, and India. On the other hand, the Ottomans had the support of Austria-Hungary and Germany. Before the battle, the British Empire had already gained control of the Suez Canal and they wanted to restrict it and avoid allied powers from transporting soldiers and supplies to places of war. Ottoman raided the canal in January and February of 1915, led by German soldiers, but they failed (Uyar). However, subsequent battles occurred until 1918, when the British Empire won the battle.
During the war, women were needed in the service, industrial and agricultural sectors. Women were being used to produce uniforms, shoes, equipment, care, and food for the soldiers. Since most men had left their workshops, factories, fields, and offices, women were taken to replace them (Akın, 23). Their contribution to the war was significant because they helped to keep their economy going. When situations were worse, they would hold protests, too, and the government would ease restrictions on male counterparts at war.
The Ottoman army was faced with contagious diseases, which contributed to its downfall too. Due to the increasing merging of soldiers, there were outbreaks of epidemics such as plaque, Cholera, typhoid, and Malaria. These diseases affected the population and the military, which was a big blow to the ottomans. This led to the establishment of the Sihhiye Ministry, which sourced quinine tablets from Germany to distribute to their soldiers (Uyar). However, Malaria was the hardest to prevent due to insufficient quinine, long war years, lack of preventive measures, and lack of population. Over 400,000 had contracted Malaria throughout the war, and 20,000 had died as a result of the disease, which contributed much to the Ottoman’s failure.
Conclusion
Despite the Ottoman Empire being very wealthy and powerful, its involvement in the First World War had more disadvantages than advantages. They lost much of their territories, lost many soldiers, and faced a significant economic downfall which led to the division of the territory. Although Germany supported them as a major ally, they lost more compared to Germany because their reign was brought to a stop. However, they did not have an option either, as the neighboring allies such as Russia, Britain, and France had already planned to divide their territory.
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