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post 1
Jeff Orseno posted Jun 24, 2024 11:58 AM
Why did the leaders of the Committee of Union and Progress (CUP) ally with the Central Powers?
Why did the Ottoman Empire lose World War I, and what were the peace terms imposed upon it by the Entente Powers?
What replaced the Ottoman Empire?
The Committee of Union and Progress initially watched with distress the comings of the First World War with tribulation as they had been beseeched by an Unrelenting series of crisis. Beginning in 1908 Austria annexed Bosnia, Bulgaria declared independence, Italy occupied Tripolitania, and most of the remaining Balkans was in rebellion or breaking away.[1] As far back as the 1870’s the Ottoman Empire and Imperial Germany had had contacts. Sultan Abdulmejid I, requested and was granted military advisors and trainers from German Chancellor Otto Von Bismark. From that point on regular interaction between the two states occurred in each other’s capitals, with Kaiser Wilhelm II visiting Istanbul and Syria in 1898.[2]
Contacts alone were not the main drivers of an alliance with the Axis powers, one was militarily and the other economic. The Sultans navy had purchased two warships that were being built in British shipyards. Minister of War Winston Churchill seized the two warships with the intention of denying them to the Ottoman State.[3] Secondly and most importantly in my assessment is the facts surrounding the amount of debt and concessions held by primarily Britain and France. The new Young Turk Government who was firmly in power were looking to remove the humiliating economic circumstances that had been hindering the late Ottoman Empire.
Upon the signing of the of the Ottoman/German alliance the Committee of Union and Progress suspended all debt payments along with any economic concessions granted to foreign powers.[4] By this time the Ottoman government was a virtual Triumvirate being run by Enver as War Minister, Talat as Interior Minister, and Jamal as Navy Minister.[5] The war went badly for the Ottomans due to heavy losses and a self-imposed blockade of Istanbul due to the mining of the straits to deny Russia and Britain of access. In the Caucuses the Ottoman offensive of 1914 ended in defeat with heavy casualties leaving Eastern Anatolia open to attack.[6] The reason they lost the First World War was that their side lost. Had Germany prevailed the Ottoman Empire would have possibly acquired large amounts of Russian territory due to the collapse of the Tsarist Government. The Ottoman State lost, and the peace imposed upon it was punitive losing all of their territory outside of the present-day nation of Turkey. The peace also involved initially the guarantee of rights of non-Turkish peoples, the demobilization of the military, and the resumption of debt payments. The triumvirate of leaders fled to Germany and Central Asia and were all hunted down and killed by project nemesis by the Armenians in response to the actions the three took during the war.
After the war a Turkish Nationalist government came to power and with the conclusion of the war with the Greeks and their consolidation of all of Anatolia Kemal Atatürk as he would become known as set up a quasi/fascist state. Many would disagree with my assessment of the state as being fascist however I believe it is fitting and like the state set up by Mussolini in Italy, and Franco in Spain.
In the new republic both Ottomanism and Islamism were jettisoned in favor of the pre-eminence of the “Turks”, and the state was deemed supreme while the voice of the individual or groups was correspondingly diminished.[7] The new government exiled the Royal Family while overhauling aspects of society such as telling time, dress, writing, surnames, and even banning the Fez. The Secular leaning state Atatürk founded still exists today surviving World War II, the Cold War, and a series of military coups and financial crisis’.
[1] Carter Vaughn Findley, The Turks in World History (Oxford (GB) New York: Oxford University Press, 2005), 168.
[2] Caroline Finkel, Osman’s Dream: The Story of the Ottoman Empire 1300 – 1923 (New York: Basic Books, 2007), 1898.
[3] Finkel, 528.
[4] Finkel, 528.
[5] Arthur Goldschmidt and Lawrence Davidson, A Concise History of the Middle East, 8th ed (Boulder, Colo: Westview Press, 2006), 197.
[6] Findley, The Turks in World History, 169.
[7] Finkel, Osman’s Dream, 553.
Bibliography
Findley, Carter Vaughn. The Turks in World History. Oxford (GB) New York: Oxford University Press, 2005.
Finkel, Caroline. Osman’s Dream: The Story of the Ottoman Empire 1300 – 1923. New York: Basic Books, 2007.
Goldschmidt, Arthur, and Lawrence Davidson. A Concise History of the Middle East. 8th ed. Boulder, Colo: Westview Press, 2006.
Post 2
Jason Connelly posted Jun 24, 2024 3:09 PM
When Archduke Franz Ferdinand was assassinated in Sarajevo in 1914, the European imperial powers fell into rank on two opposing sides that would fight for military preeminence and political domination of the international world order. Into this dangerous network of alliances stepped the Ottoman Empire. With the entire world plunged into war, it would appear that the Ottomans had three possible courses to choose from: joining the Central Powers of Germany, Austria- Hungary, and Italy, join the Entente Powers of Britain, France, and Russia, or the course of neutrality, remaining out of the war.
However, recent events leading up to the outbreak of World War I had provided the Ottoman Empire with limited options. The Ottomans had only just come out of the disastrous Balkan Wars of 1912-13, having finally lost all of their Balkan territory and pushed almost entirely out of Europe, leaving the empire weakened militarily, broke financially, and thoroughly humiliated. Ottoman leaders had learned that without a strong alliance with one of the foremost great powers, the Ottoman Empire would be doomed. Sending out to all the powers of Europe, none were interested in an alliance with the Ottomans until the outbreak of world war.(1) Although it might seem strange that the Ottomans would be fighting alongside their ancient Hapsburg rivals, strong economic ties with Germany, and stronger ties of antipathy with Russia and Britian brought the Ottomans into the Central Powers with the an agreement signed by German Kaiser Wilhelm II and Ottoman ministers Enver Pasha and Mehmed Talat Pasha.(2)
Despite the perceived ineptitude of Ottoman prowess, the Ottoman military gave as well as it got for much of the war, successfully fighting on four to five fronts simultaneously.(3) However, the inexperience and grandiosity of Enver Pasha led the Ottomans to over extend their efforts and it is only the coming of the Bolshevik Revolution in 1917 that would forestall military disaster. Attacked on every side, the ruling Ottoman regime began to fear enemies from within. With the mood of Turkish nationalism at its zenith, the CUP Central Committee would embark on a program of ethnic cleansing, deportations, and genocidal purges to remove non-Turkish minority groups, primarily Armenians, from Anatolia.(4) This internal strife combined with the Arab revolt coordinated with the British advance into Palestine saw Ottoman Levantine defenses crumble and the Entente powers threatening Anatolia and Istanbul itself. The Armistice of Mudros was signed October 30, 1918.(5)
Following the signing of the armistice and the end of coordinated fighting, the Ottoman hinterland of Anatolia was largely occupied, while foreign troops swarmed into Istanbul. Most of the CUP Central Committee fled to Germany for asylum and were thus sentenced to death for war crimes in absentia. Former Ottoman territories in the Middle East were carved up and passed out to the Entente victors.(6) Despite the armistice, peace would not last long. In 1919, war hero Mustafa Kemal coordinated defeated and disaffected Ottoman military survivors into the Turkish nationalist movement, launching a war for the independence of a Turkish nation-state. Supplied with Bolshevik weapons and support, the Turkish forces were able to push back the foreign occupation of Anatolia and the Turkish Grand National Assembly formally ended the Ottoman Caliphate and established the modern Turkish Republic with Mustafa Kemal Ataturk as the first Turkish president.(7)
M. Sukru Hanioglu, A Brief History of the Late Ottoman Empire (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2008), 175.
Marc David Baer, The Ottomans: Khans, Caesars, and Caliphs (New York: Basic Books, 2021), 426.
Carter Vaughn Findley, Turkey, Islam, Nationalism, and Modernity: A History 1789-2007 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2010), 207
Renee Worringer, A Short History of the Ottoman Empire (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2021), 323.
Findley, 214-215.
Worringer, 338.
Ibid, 342.
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