The World at War - The Ottoman Empire Enters The Stage I THE GREAT WAR Week 15

Three months of war have devastated Europe, and with conflict recently spreading to colonial

territory in Africa and the Far East it grew ever larger. It would grow many times larger

this week though, and open up huge new theaters of battle, as the Ottoman Empire entered the

war.

I’m Indy Neidell; welcome to the Great War.

Last week we saw the Belgians flood the fields of Northern Flanders to stop the Germans,

further south on the Ypres salient the battle raged on and on with the Germans readying

a new offensive, while the French began to move up to help the British. In the East,

the Russians were driving back the Germans in the north and the Austrians in the south,

while the Russian ports on the black sea had just been bombed- seemingly by the Ottoman

Empire.

On November 1st, Russia declared war on the Ottoman Empire. Now, the thing about Turkey

is that it was seen as backward and pretty easy pickings for the Europeans who had a

new found love of Middle Eastern oil. This was an error.

Enver Pasha, the Turkish Minister of War, now practiced a French Revolutionary model

of nationalism: a new language, a new interpretation of history, and a wholly national future.

He was willing to make large sacrifices and use almost any means to achieve his goals,

and Pasha actually tricked his government into going to war.

Last week, two German battleships were in Turkish waters, and Pasha got the crews to

wear fezzes, pretend to be Turks, and bombard the Russian ports on the Black Sea, hoping

the Russians would declare war on Turkey. This worked and three empires were now fighting

against Russia, but if you look at them- the German Empire, the Austro-Hungarian Empire,

and the Ottoman Empire, and their respective war agitators Helmuth von Moltke, Conrad von

Hötzendorf, and Pasha, nothing worked out the way they had dreamed and millions of their

countrymen died as a direct result of their actions.

The first actions taken against the Turks happened immediately. The Russians sent troops

into eastern Turkey in what would become the Bergmann Offensive, and on November 3rd the

British and French bombed the Dardanelles, though neither Britain nor France would declare

war on the Ottomans for another couple of days.

One country with an historic grievance against the Ottoman Empire was Serbia, only independent

since 1878, and she declared war on the Turks November 2nd.

Now, Serbia was at the center of the beginning of the whole war back in July, though we haven’t

heard much from her since she managed to drive the Austrian army from her land in September,

but Austria-Hungary was about to try again. On November 6th, General Oskar Potiorek launched

an offensive on three fronts with 500,000 troops against half that number of Serbs.

Potiorek had failed disastrously earlier in the war, mainly through conceit and incompetence,

and the confidence of his troops was low in spite of their numerical advantage, but off

they went.

It’s really no surprise that the Austrian army was demoralized when you see what was