![]() The initial result was the Dardanelles campaign, which ran from February through December 1915. As Enver Paşa's offensive collapsed in January 1915, Jemal Paşa (1872–1922) led a daring but futile attack across the Sinai Desert against the Suez Canal.įrustrated by the stalemate on the Western Front, the British soon turned to the Middle East in hopes of finding a way to break the deadlock from their rapidly growing base in Egypt. A Russian counteroffensive in early 1915 put the Ottoman forces in Anatolia and the Caucasus on the defensive until 1917. His initial gains were offset by the decimation of his best troops in the fighting at Sarikamish and a retreat to Erzurum in northeastern Turkey. In the Caucasus, Enver Paşa led an ambitious but ultimately disastrous winter offensive against the Russians. Before the end of 1914, however, Ottoman forces retook the initiative on two fronts. They declared a protectorate over Egypt and deployed Indian troops to secure Basra and Kurna, which provided a buffer for the strategically vital Abadan oil refinery at the head of the Persian Gulf. The British seized the initiative in the Middle East in late 1914. Though the sultancaliph quickly proclaimed a jihad (a Muslim holy war) against the Entente powers, it had no significant impact on the course of the war in the Middle East or among the Muslim subjects of Britain, France, and Russia. In the event, the Ottoman Turks made good their alliance with Germany and brought the Middle East into the war on October 29, 1914, when their fleet, led by German Admiral Wilhelm Souchon (1864–1946), attacked Sevastopol, a Black Sea port on the Crimean Peninsula in Ukraine. Though well aware of these dangers, the French and British were unable to maintain their traditional support of the Ottoman Empire against Russia because they needed Russian support against Germany in Europe. It was also hoped that the Ottoman Empire might provide a base from which to threaten Britain's communications with India via the Suez Canal. With aid and expertise from Germany, Enver and his supporters saw an opportunity to inflict a decisive defeat on Russia and recover the territory and prestige lost during the preceding half century.įrom the German perspective, the Ottoman alliance was intended to distract the Entente powers (Britain, France, and Russia) from the European theater and promote rebellion among their Muslim subjects. Prompted by imperial ambition, awareness of Russian designs on their territory, and the inability of France and Great Britain to provide effective guarantees for their security, a prowar, pro-German cabal within the Ottoman cabinet led by Enver Paşa (1881–1922) signed a secret alliance with imperial Germany on August 2, 1914. War came to the Middle East through Ottoman ambition as much as the imperialism of the great European powers. ![]() The war also drew virtually the whole of the Middle East into the imperial embrace of Great Britain and France. It brought the end of the Ottoman Empire and established successor states that are the foundation of the modern Middle East. Viewed from a regional perspective, however, World War I was both a profound human tragedy and an exceedingly important formative episode. Lawrence (Lawrence of Arabia, 1888–1935) and Mustafa Kemal Atatürk (1881–1938), the Middle East was strategically insignificant with respect to the outcome of World War I (1914–1918). Despite the romance of associations with the Holy Land and iconic figures such as T.
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