Ottoman Entry Into WWI

I've begun my next course, this one on World War I. Only five discussion posts in this class, but a longer research agenda is coming soon.

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Of the countries participating in World War I, perhaps no country was undergoing quite as extensive a shift in national identity at the time as the Ottoman Empire. For hundreds of years a multi-national, multi-religious (although Muslim majority) empire run by a Turkish elite, a series of wars beginning in the early 18th century had taken their toll on the empire's territorial integrity. These losses were most precipitous in North Africa and the Balkans, so that by 1912, the empire's European holdings consisted only of parts of Albania, Bulgaria, and Serbia and the Greek areas of Thrace, Macedonia, and Epirus -- and these territories were all lost by 1913. As a result of this contraction in territory, the Young Turks, in theory a modernizing party with ecumenical interests that had seized power in a 1908 revolution, turned to Turkish nationalism as a way of galvanizing the population around the national idea as a way of preventing further losses.[1] From the standpoint of Clausewitz's "trinity" of government -- government, military, and popular "passions"[2] -- the Young Turks'  nationalist campaign can be understood as a linchpin in the Ottomans' decision to enter World War I and the side it chose.

Regarding government, the Young Turks as the ruling party saw its primary goal as the prevention of further territorial loss from the empire. However, it was not only wars that threatened the empire. The population of Anatolia -- now viewed by the Young Turks as the launching ground for a larger pan-Turanian movement -- was ethnically and religiously divided, particularly in the eastern provinces. There, in addition to Arabs and Kurds, who were Muslims, there were large populations of Christians, mostly Armenian, who were a focus of resentment exploited by the Young Turks to unify ethnic Turks.  Subjected to periodic massacres by previous governments, most recently in 1909, the Armenians sought international protection, which came in the form of a quasi-protectorate created in the six provinces in which Armenians constituted a majority, the security of which was guaranteed by Russia and France, the latter of whom held a large proportion of the empire's debt.[3] While theoretically intolerable to nationalists like the Young Turks, the leadership had no option but to accept the "solution" imposed in February 1914 but knew a war would free its hand to alter the demographic situation through radical social engineering. This desire dictated, to no small extent, the Ottomans'  decision to side with Germany and Austria-Hungary in the war.[4]

However, military concerns were also important. Here, in addition to the aforementioned unwelcome influence of Russia in the eastern provinces, there was already Russian expansion into the Caucasus, including Georgia, Azerbaijan, and eastern Armenia, that threatened the eastern border directly. In addition, given the Orthodox  and Slavic causes that led Russia to enter the war on Serbia's side, Russian intervention in the Balkans could directly threaten the imperial capital of Constantinople, which was still the most important city in Orthodox Christianity despite annexation by the Ottomans in the 15th century. This interest on Russia's part was not merely religious; control of Constantinople meant control of the Dardanelles and, by extension, control over the entire Black Sea. Thus, Russia and the Ottomans both had economic motives underlying the military incentives that they saw as essential to their war goals. Thus, by allying with Russia's enemies, the Ottomans hoped to maintain control of its remaining territory and perhaps extend its influence in the Caucasus.[5]

The most complicated piece of Clausewitz's formulation is the "passion"  component. By 1914, the Ottoman population was extraordinarily war-weary. To this extent, therefore, the Ottoman people were certainly not clamoring for war when it broke out.  As a result, it was necessary for the Ottoman leadership to deploy two strategies to motivate the population. First, it was necessary, with German prodding, for the caliphate to declare that the war against the Entente was a jihad, and thus a religious obligation for all Muslims. Although this call motivated some, the response to this call was generally anemic; it also decidedly lacked an effect on non-Muslim populations in the empire, who were still fairly numerous.[6] Therefore, the second strategy of identifying internal enemies -- particularly in the form of the Armenians to also extended to non-Turks generally at certain points -- as fifth columns participating in the empire's collapse. This was an effective strategy in so far as these populations also existed on the other side of the empire's borders with Russia and Persia. Of course, it also resulted in murderous violence against the Armenian population, who, in keeping with the political motivations for war, were expelled en masse from their homes toward the Syrian desert and subjected to massacres along the way.

In conclusion, while political and military considerations are easy to identify for the Ottoman Empire in its choices at the beginning of World War I, the issue of popular enthusiasm was decidedly lacking. Unlike other participants in the war, rather than a primary goal of expanding its territory, the empire sought to prevent even further losses and to reverse what it considered to be foreign encroachment on its sovereignty. However, like the other participants, nationalism was a key component in the attempts to prevent such losses. The extent to which this nationalism was embraced by the population varied over time, although it eventually became the national ideology of the modern Turkish republic. Nevertheless, it did not save the empire from complete disintegration.

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     [1] Donald Bloxham, The Great Game of Genocide: Imperialism, Nationalism, and the Destruction of the Ottoman Armenians (New York: Oxford UP, 2005), 4.
     [2] Michael Howard, The First World War: A Very Short Introduction (New York, Oxford UP, 2007), 1.
     [3] Notably, entering the war on the side of Germany and Austria-Hungary afforded the Ottoman Empire the opportunity to renege on repaying this debt.
     [4] Eugene L. Rogan, The Fall of the Ottomans: The Great War in the Middle East (New York: Basic Books, 2015), chapter 3, page 5, EPUB.
     [5] Ibid, chapter 2, page 5.
     [6] Ibid, chapter 5, page 42.