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WW1 .. why did TURKEY come of the fence and ally with Germany
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Message 1.Ìý
Posted by alecalgo (U13782581) on Thursday, 12th November 2009
WW1 question ... Other than the battlecruiser SMS Goeben's big guns threatening the harem of the Topkapi Palace
were there any other reasons why Turkey, so desperately wanting to be a neutral and so very reluctant to come of the fence, had to finally ally herself with Germany ?
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Message 2
Posted by shivfan (U2435266) on Friday, 13th November 2009
I'm not an expert in the World Wars, but my understanding is that the Young Turks, who were running the Ottoman Empire at the time, made a disastrous foreign policy decision, based upon their reading of the political situation....
They felt that the German military capability was the strongest, and they opportunistically allied themselves with the Germans, thinking it would be to their benefit to end up on the winning side. I can't see any other reason for their alliance to the Germans, unless another poster can come up with a better reason.Link to this forum: WW1 .. why did TURKEY come of the fence and ally with Germany
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Message 3
Posted by LairigGhru (U5452625) on Friday, 13th November 2009
The final persuasion/encouragement seems to have been the 'gift' of two German warships on 10 Aug 1914. The 'Goeben' and the 'Breslau' escaped from British pursuers and passed through the Dardanelles, becoming part of Turkey's Black Sea fleet. To the Turks, this offset the loss of two battleships they had had under construction in British shipyards and which were commandeered by the British at the outbreak of war.
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Message 4
Posted by giraffe47 (U4048491) on Friday, 13th November 2009
Shouldn't have joined before Christmas.
Should've known they'd get stuffed. . . .Link to this forum: WW1 .. why did TURKEY come of the fence and ally with Germany
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Message 5
Posted by White Camry (U2321601) on Friday, 13th November 2009
Who stuffed whom at Gallipoli?
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Message 6
Posted by alecalgo (U13782581) on Friday, 13th November 2009
Shouldn't have joined before Christmas.
Should've known they'd get stuffed. . . . Ìý
-------my reply-----------
'Stuffed' they did become ... but how would they have known that a Welshman from Criccieth would be so vindicative as to needlessly engineer the break up of the helpless and harmless Turkish Empire. All to have something to show in the way of spoils (remember the Sykes-Picot agreement ?) to the Brit public for the hopeless life-loosing years in the trenches.
Madly religious in the cranky welsh tin-tab chapel way, it was he who drove it all to it's mad final conclusion - the Last Crusade ... The taking of Jerusalem in Dec 1917. Which of course led to the planned for French/Brit mandate : which of course has led directly to all the Islamic troubles we have to endlessly endure today. If he had remained as a solicitor in Criccieth, doing his rounds of preaching on Sundays, we'd none of us be in the predicament we are in today. The Muslims would still be where they ought to be, in their own comprehensive lands - which of course includes Palestine !
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We folks here, and those in the rest of the world, would be muslim free and not in the position of having to daily face up to a newly fanatical Islam ... Or having to endure the thought of our children, or their children, being inevitably engulfed in nuclear war : a war which will most surely start in the middle east region, with the first nuclear bomb aimed at XXXXXX.
regards
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Message 7
Posted by LongWeekend (U3023428) on Friday, 13th November 2009
The Ottoman Empire had faced encroachment from the Powers throughout the C19th, but by the outbreak of war, the main threat was from Imperial Russia to their North, and the British and French in the Middle East (not to mention Italy in Libya).
The Germans offered support, and the Austro-Hungarians, even if they were the ancient enemy, seemed to be content with the Balkans.
So it was the Last Chance Saloon.
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Message 8
Posted by alecalgo (U13782581) on Friday, 13th November 2009
If he[the canny welsh wizard]had remained as a solicitor in Criccieth, doing his rounds of preaching on Sundays, we'd none of us be in the predicament we are in today. The Muslims would still be where they ought to be, in their own comprehensive lands - which of course includes Palestine !
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We folks here, and those in the rest of the world, would be Muslim free and not in the position of having to daily face up to a newly fanatical Islam ... Ìý
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--o(my reply to my above load of old rubbish)o--
Dear oh dear ... we are all a bit slow tonight aren't we ? - I was fully expected to be shrapnelled to pieces by now.
Anyway, in blissfully pounding away on this stupid computer, I became oblivious to the fact that, sat here as I am in a recent race-riot torn Lancashire town, I am surrounded by the blighters. And they are the ones we get so concerned about - coming as most of them do, primarily from the Pakistan hill tribes. Some of whose ancestors actually fought against us (Kyber pass wars and all that), and then, paradoxically, actually died for us in lots of places, one of which was the Welsh Wizard's Middle East Mesopotamian campaign (remember the KUT battle debacle ?).
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But ... I have a subtle argument that says that most of my blighters would not be here. Ourselves only to blame though, due to the 'consultancy services' of many of the Brit. out-of-works of the ex brit administration in India; kicked out of the place after the Aug 1947 "million-people-in-one-day" killing partition. Their consultancy work consisted of advising the Yorkshire textile manufacturers, in search of cheap cheap labour to put the shits up their regular white workers, that their new night-shifts could be staffed much more cheaply by the unworldly Pakistani hill men. Henceforth, to this day, we suffer from the fact that we were inundated by people to whom we never gave a return ticket : for them to return home once their 'labour contract' had expired.
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The subtle argument ?.... where is it, and what's it got to do with Turkey..? One for another day, that one ... but think on this quick premise.
Turkey today would still be the Caliphate : the centre of Muslim thought and action. Yes, knackered as it was from the Balkan wars, and from internal strife, if it had remained neutral it would have emerged from the debris of WW1 as one of the strongest states of all.
The 'young' Turks would by then have been just that very necessary bit 'older Turks', thus wised-up heads would have realised that the momentary 'staring in to the abyss' had been a one-off, and they could resume their age-old leadership of the Islamic World - the Muezzin call would go out loud and clear, and the followers would flock to the call.
-------so,to itemise-------
(a) Ataturk would have never been - he who made them take the (some-say very stupid) secular path ...
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(b) if they could have managed to stay neutral, and quite probably they would have if first Lord of the Admiralty Churchill (yes him !!), whose hand was tightly gripping our navy actions, had not let slip past him the SMS Goeben and the Breslau - then Turkey could have emerged, considering how knackered and broke the rest of them ALL were, as the formidable power it once was ... so there !
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(c) there would have been no Saudis and all the rest of them - formidable and powerful did I say ? ... Well yes, masters of ALL the oil fields, I think they surely would have been ... and who do you think would have been attracted to all that lot .... well, hopefully, the ancestors of my next door neighbour for one. Oh, and by the way ... there is no Israel mentioned in any of the above, simply because there would have been no way it could have been so artificially brought into existence.
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The only sticking point in my above ... is the matter of would we still have given Egypt it's nominal Independence in 1922 ? Or would we, in the face of Turkey's continued occupation of ALL the middle eastern lands down to the toe of the Arabian peninsular, have maintained our big presence there to protect our VITAL Suez canal. Which job we were doing very well ... until the madcaps decided that something had to be done SOMEWHERE ELSE to satisfy the disillusioned public at home - THERE JUST HAD TO BE SOME SPOILS OF WAR ... and the illusory capture of Jerusalem for Christianity fitted the bill very nicely ... . Go to some of the papers of the times to see how chuffed the Sun type readers etc were by it all.
regards
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Message 9
Posted by Mikestone8 (U13249270) on Friday, 13th November 2009
WW1 question ... Other than the battlecruiser SMS Goeben's big guns threatening the harem of the Topkapi Palace were there any other reasons why Turkey, so desperately wanting to be a neutral and so very reluctant to come of the fence, had to finally ally herself with Germany ?
alec Ìý
It's not at all clear that her leaders were desperate to stay neutral - though in hindsight they would certainly have been wiser to.
As for favouring Germany over the Allies, this made sense as a lot of former Turkish territory had been acquired by Britain and Russia, none by Germany. So they stood to gain far more by a German victory than by an Allied one.Link to this forum: WW1 .. why did TURKEY come of the fence and ally with Germany
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Message 10
Posted by alecalgo (U13782581) on Saturday, 14th November 2009
t's not at all clear that her leaders were desperate to stay neutral - though in hindsight they would certainly have been wiser to.
Ìý
---------my reply-------------
Wikipedia says this "Without informing the other members of the Cabinet, he (Enver Pasha) allowed the two German warships SMS Goeben and SMS Breslau, under the command of German admiral Wilhelm Souchon to enter the Dardanelles to escape British pursuit; the subsequent "donation" of the ships to the neutral Ottomans worked powerfully in Germany's favor, "
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I have seen much the same elsewhere in a few places ... nobody knew what was happening until it had happened ... it was a stitch-up. The same sources say that all the rest of the government and the hierarchy were for waiting it out. The two Balkan wars had done for them. The opinion was that they had to rebuild the army and the nation, and it would take at least a couple of years ... they thought they were far from being ready to talk war never mind make war.
The fact is, Turkey was taken to war by one man, Enver Pasha - a man described as a military buffoon by his german military adviser, von Liman. His decision re the two ships, and the planning of the subsquent 'donation' subterfuge, was actioned by a few of his trusted aides. Does it all remind you of something - it does me... BLAIR, campbell & IRAQ.
regards
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Message 11
Posted by alecalgo (U13782581) on Sunday, 15th November 2009
The fact is, Turkey was taken to war by one man, Enver Pasha - a man described as a military buffoon by his german military adviser, von Liman. His decision re the two ships, and the planning of the subsquent 'donation' subterfuge, was actioned by a few of his trusted aides. Does it all remind you of something - it does me... BLAIR, campbell & IRAQÌý
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Oh dear, got his name wrong .... should be Viktor Karl Liman von Sanders. Looks like his
book "Five years in Turkey" first published in 1927, reprinted in 2000 or so, 329 pages, is still kicking about at a reasonable price - £12 or so. Wonder what he has to say about it all. Enver Pasha spent a lot of time in Germany in his younger years so he probably first encountered von Sanders there. Smitten with how 'organised' the german army was, it was mainly Enver who got the Germans interested in reorganising the Turkish army.
So his subsequent elevation in the Young Turks ... and the marrying into royalty and then elevation to Minister for War ... would make him, as his Wiki photo shows, a formidable figure within the army hierarchy and Turkish society. So, if von Sanders has written a decent and truthful account of all his dealings with Enver; and of all the politics involved and Army machinations and all ... it should be a book worth buying - might get it for christmas.
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Message 12
Posted by Mike Alexander (U1706714) on Monday, 16th November 2009
Madly religious in the cranky welsh tin-tab chapel way, it was he who drove it all to it's mad final conclusion - the Last Crusade ... The taking of Jerusalem in Dec 1917. Ìý
Hang on a minute, talks with zionists began at least ten years before that, with the principal involvement of Balfour rather than Lloyd George. Balfour held discussions with Weizmann in 1905 and again in 1914.
Rather than religious fervour, wasn't it realpolitik that motivated the Declaration? Zionism had the support of the political establishments in Britain, France and the USA - it seemed to be the way the wind was blowing.Link to this forum: WW1 .. why did TURKEY come of the fence and ally with Germany
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Message 13
Posted by lolbeeble (U1662865) on Monday, 16th November 2009
I'm not sure the Caliphate was all that important as an institution given that so many Muslims both within the Ottoman Empire and under the Entente ignored the call for Jihad pronounced in mid November. If anything its importance was overstated by many Europeans with their conception of the irrationality of the oriental mindset.
As far as the Ottoman Empire was concerned, the motivating factor governing the Committee of Union and Progress' foreign policy was who would best assist maintaining the Empire's territorial integrity. I think you have a misplaced assumption that a neutral Ottoman Empire would have been allowed to keep its territories during or after the First World War. The primary reason much of the Empire had not been dismembered already was because it suited the majority of the Great Powers to keep it intact as each was loath to see any other gain an undue advantage. One might argue that the defeat of one power block would thus leave the victors free to partition the Empire as they desired. The evidence certainly was there to suggest that when the interests of the Entente Powers were challenged by moves towards greater national sovereignty they would not hesitate to nip this in the bud. The Anglo-Russian partition of Iran in 1907 would have been uppermost in the minds of the Ottoman government. Despite not wanting to let parts of the Ottoman territory fall into each others hands the Powers were more than willing to stand aside and let minor nations nibble away at the Ottoman Empire given their apparent tolerance of the actions of Italy, Greece, Serbia and Bulgaria.
The fact is the divisions outlined in the Sykes-Picot agreement and the later Treaty of Sevres merely reflected the long term ambitions of the Entente powers. France had coveted Syria and the Levant as far back as the Crimean War and they had made numerous investments in the region such as the construction of infrastructure like railways. It would not be too much of a stretch to imagine the French occupying this territory using an excuse of protecting their investments as a precursor to annexation. Likewise the British controlled Turkish Petroleum Company had received concessions to prospect for oil around Mosul in 1912 and obviously they would need safe passage to the Persian gulf so the oil could be transported. Russia's interest in the Caucasus region was well known.
To blame Ismail Enver solely for the entrance on the side of Germany is also rather simplistic and Britain and Frances' actions or rather lack of them must surely have some bearing on the decision. Fellow CUP members and cabinet ministers Mehmed Talat and Ahmed Djemel had attempted to ally themselves with Britain and France in 1913 after the coup brought them into the government. However the Ottoman performance in their recent wars resulted in their wish for an alliance being brushed aside on the basis that they were more likely to be a liability than an asset. Further the political turbulence that had wracked Turkey since 1908 hardly left many unwilling to deal with people who may well be ousted in some future upheaval .
Nor were the Entente powers willing to satisfy any demands that looked like increasing the sovereignty of the Ottoman government, such as reducing the capitulations allowing foreigners exclusive rights in trade and industry. The rescinding of such deals was part of wider move by the CUP to strengthen the central Ottoman government and reduce direct foreign influence over the Empire's finances, . Perhaps most importantly neither Britain nor France would give any guarantee to prevent further Russian expansion. This not only meant direct land grabs but also the curbing of the nationalist and separatist movements St Petersburg had sponsored that had so often preceded the detaching of various regions of the Ottoman's European Empire.
Even in late Summer and Autumn1914 the British and French requests for neutrality were not accompanied by any benefits. Britain's confiscation of the two Turkish Dreadnought class battleships in August 1914 was hardly conducive to fostering better relations with the Ottomans. The British had also ignored increasingly loud complaints over the use of Turkish sovereign waters of Shatt el Arab. With this in mind it is hardly surprising that when a vote was taken in the CUP council they came out in favour of the German alliance by seventeen votes to ten.
That the resultant mobilisation assisted in strengthening the cabinet's executive power and thus by extension drew more power towards the central government and away from the provinces also served the wider aims of CUP. This also served to strengthen the CUP's influence in the cabinet for that matter.Link to this forum: WW1 .. why did TURKEY come of the fence and ally with Germany
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Message 14
Posted by Nik (U1777139) on Monday, 16th November 2009
I am yet to find a westerner that really understands what has been all that mockery of a story of the "Youngturks" and the "newTurkey replacing the Ottoman Empire" and such...
The dissolution of the Ottoman Empire was imminent already since mid-18th century and it has been only thanx to the fanatical support from Britain, Austria and often France to maintain it and prohibit the renaissance of the area under Russian or - even worse - Greek authority.
There was nation of "Turks" in the sense there is today, not even close, but there were nations close to what are Greeks, Bulgarians or Armenians like there is today). A Turk was just anyone who happened to turn to islam and talk turkish or... Albanian... or Kurdish... (since most of the Ottoman army were Albanians in the west, Kurds in the east). In fact for Ottomans it had been a great offense if you called them "Turks".
Very funnily the very notion of the modern sense of Turkish nation was given to Turks by non-Turks, non-muslims: the Young Turks... we are yet to find any of them who was clearly Turkish... we find overwhelmingly "Ladinos" (ancient Jewish of Spain), mostly Domnes (Ladinos that superficially opted islam - but maintained their own sect) or downright westerner agents. Kemal was a non-Turk, non-muslim donmes and down to the basics he did not even care. He had been an agent.
The big game with the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire was NEVER what would happen to the 10 million muslims in Minor Asia but to the 7 million christians of Minor Asia. The former were literate at a rate of 2% and did not know what happened 2 miles of their villages... the latter had clear ideas of how to move on with their lives bringing full scale development in the area, having suceeded (Greeks and Armenians) to throw off any western competition that enterred in late 19th century in Minor Asia. Their fate was sealed. Everything that happened was organised so that they get exterminated. They simply did not fit the western plans for the Middle East.
The natural evolution of the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire would be a strong Greek state in the west controlling all of hte Aegean and the access to the Black sea, having one of the largest commercial fleets in the world (they had it already) and soon a not-at-all-small military fleet in the area while in the east there would be a highly co-operative Armenian state making the link with the Middle East. In the worst scenario for westerners these two could merge in a Byzantine revival dominating the area and bypassing any muslim-turkish-speaking state of around 10 million (back then) muslims in the center of Anatolia,having a bit of coastline only in the south out of which it would not make a lot, largely regressive, left on its own.
Talking about back then with today's terms is nonsense. You have to see what the westerners faced back then and why the British once more run not to attack the Ottoman Empire but to save it once again causing dircetly (and celebrating and praising even till today in the name of Kemal) the massacre of 3 million people.Link to this forum: WW1 .. why did TURKEY come of the fence and ally with Germany
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Message 15
Posted by alecalgo (U13782581) on Tuesday, 17th November 2009
Alec said : Madly religious in the cranky welsh tin-tab chapel way, it was he who drove it all to it's mad final conclusion - the Last Crusade ... The taking of Jerusalem in Dec 1917.]Ìý
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15 nov 09Mike said in reply to my above :-
Hang on a minute, talks with Zionists began at least ten years before that, with the principal involvement of Balfour rather than Lloyd George. Balfour held discussions with Weizmann in 1905 and again in 1914. Rather than religious fervour, wasn't it realpolitik that motivated the Declaration? Zionism had the support of the political establishments in Britain, France and the USA - it seemed to be the way the wind was blowing.
Ìý
------------my reply---------------
Hi Mike,
I said "The taking of Jerusalem in Dec 1917 ... the last Crusade" I did not say anything at all about Zionism or the Balfour declaration. Don't mix the two up. Two separate entities entirely - although yes, the Zionist influx could not have happened without the taking of Palestine. Though, to give credit, nobody could have envisaged, that it would lead to the present unthought of, but now seemingly inevitable, 'time-bomb situation.' That being, among other catastrophes, the rumoured clandestine planning necessary for building the Third Temple atop the original wailing wall foundations - after, of course, the blood-letting clearance of the Temple Mount, on which stands the golden domed Muslim Bayt al Maqdas, known as the Dome of the Rock, and next to it the silver domed Al Aqsa Mosque.
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While we are about it let's just ask ourselves this ... why are the Turks never credited with leaving Jerusalem totally intact ? They could have razed the place to the ground, in fighting to the very last stick and stone, which they often did. If they had done that ... what then ? Ok, yes ... it's their next most sacred place too ... but the question is worth posing, is it not ?
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No Mike ... what I was referring to with 'mad final conclusion' was the outburst of euphoria accompanying the 'stroll in through the main gate' that comprised the taking of Jerusalem. A 'battle' which was thought by us Brits to be a pinnacle achievement in the greedy and glorious implementing of the Sykes-Picot agreement. Which, in simpler words, was merely one rampant Empire grabbing territory from another failing one.
To be fair, to those of a more thoughtful and religious outlook, the taking of Jerusalem, and Damascus, were seen as not only very important milestones in the Middle East campaigns, but as the culmination of the largely frustrated historical endeavours of the Crusaders. Hopefully, final and lasting epitaphs to the near 2000 year battle to regain the birthplace of Christianity.
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By the reading of it all ... they were in a minority though, those thinking that the conquests rose well above mere grubby territory grabbing. Hard to justify all the high flown righteous stuff when London was in ecstasy, hailing the victories, as 'Final Crusades' and spoils of war : moreover proof that victories could at least be attained SOMEWHERE. Triumphs that were, in reality, but trophies to put in the cabinet labeled Brit/French GREED.
All to the plan as laid out in the Sykes-Picot agreement : which detailed the french/brit share out of territories. Russia having opted out, due to an agreement at the start of the war in which she agreed that Britain and France could share the Middle East out between themselves - as long as Russia got what she wanted in the Turkish northern territories.
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What came later Mike ... the recriminations about the 'incitement' and 'purpose' of the Arab revolt; the implementation of the Balfour agreement; the Zionist influx; the revelations re Weizmann's circle and the Rothschild's overall influence on things; the much less than satisfactory Versailles treaties edicts; the general Arab disappointment at being encouraged to revolt - and then not being given the promised reward of control of the lands they had helped rid the Turks from ; yes, all that lot came later.
At the 'walk-in' taking of Jerusalem there was just the general feeling of elation of at last returning the jewel of the crown to Christendom - hence the trumpeting of it in the London papers as the Last Crusade ... nicely timed to take their minds away from never ending horrible death in the Flanders trenches.
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Ah ! at last, we have achieved the stepping stone to Zionism ! ... is that what you thing was foremost in the conquering minds ? No ... these were very secondary thoughts, not many like that would be doing the rounds in Allenby's or most other army or government circles.
The paying of personal debts, came later when Lloyd George had to face up to the aftermath of war and the huge debts incurred. Merely the invention by chemist professor Weizmann of an industrial method to make acetone, to overcome the big deficit in shell making, could have been the difference between winning and losing the war - we will never know. In the end it did come about - the Jews could make their home in Palestine and not in such as Uganda ... which was a proposal certainly mooted strongly in your 'pre-war discussions' See The Uganda Proposal.
[At the Sixth Zionist Congress at Basel on August 26, 1903, Herzl proposed the British Uganda Program as a temporary refuge for Jews in Russia in immediate danger. By a vote of 295-178 it was decided to send an expedition ("investigatory commission") to examine the territory proposed. ] Interesting ... eh?!
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And sure Mike, you are right .... from the 1880's onwards, due to the pogroms in Russia etc, 'Zionism' had been on the discussion lists of many governments ... as had suffragettes, trade unions, strikes .... army reorganisations ... on and on the list goes ... what a lot governments had to deal with in those days ... no ? For sure the jewish lobby had to be listened to (as it certainly is now) ... and it was : particularly the american one, in order to keep the USA on side. But, although the Balfour Agreement was only signed a month before Jerusalem was taken, it was still, at the time, only a side issue in the war leaders' minds ... and, even then, don't forget that the said treaty had the luck of the devil to make it through all the Versaille settlements at the end of the war - but, as I say elsewhere, BIG WAR DEBTS had to be repaid ... very painful for a country so greedy to add to Empire !
Continued below ...Link to this forum: WW1 .. why did TURKEY come of the fence and ally with Germany
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Message 16
Posted by alecalgo (U13782581) on Tuesday, 17th November 2009
Continued from above ....
--------------o(The Entente Cordiale ... or a story of SHEER GREED)o------------------
See the map of the intended carve-up of the Middle East on the Â鶹ԼÅÄ or the excellent Wiki one ....
In fairly quick time though, the greedy French and Brits came unstuck when the League of Nations and its Mandates, developed during the post-war period, sort of stymied their enjoyment of their dubiously acquired prizes. The pair of empire builders had never given a thought to the problems of coping with all the responsibilities they were almost immediately saddled with. Not to mention the twists and turns the Brits would have to make to 'rationalise' further double dealing and reneging on treaty promises given to the Arabs, who had fought alongside them to secure the hard won prize.
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=====(so, just how did they think they could get away with it ?)=====
On Nov 5th 1914 the Triple Entente reciprocated to Turkey's siding with Germany and declared war on Turkey. Within days, one of the three, Russia, began panicking - not only was Turkey shelling it's ships and installations in the Black Sea, Russia's allies were shelling (at the insistence of first Lord of the Admiralty Churchill ..yr man again !! In fact he was one of the first to posit plans for breaking up the Turkish Empire) the Turkish forts off the Dardanelles and the Sea of Marmara.
For some reason the Russians thought this action was uncalled for ... the Dardanelles straits were going to be theirs, by right, or so they had planned. Was this a prelude to a full scale Brit/French attack on Constantinople ? If they took the capital city would they ever relinquish it ? If all that came to pass ... then where would their own long held hope be of taking Constantinople for themselves ? Which feat, longed for over centuries, would ensure their once and for all control of both the Dardanelles/Sea of Marmara etc access to the Black sea. And, of course, control over the northern areas (or countries) adjacent to their borders and which Turkey still held sway over.
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To quote from David Fromkin's book : "In all haste, the Russians pleaded with their allies to let the Tsarist Empire have the prize - and, with Russian blessings and support, to take anything at all they wanted for themselves elsewhere in the Ottoman domains"
That let the Brit/French war-dogs of the leash. The "I MUST have this bit ... you can have that bit" Sykes-Picot agreement. The words there more Picot's than Kitchener's less able man Sykes. A plan for the ravishing and a dismantling of the Turkish Empire : Churchill & Lloyd George were all for it ; Asquith and Foreign secretary Grey were dead against - but they were overruled as the 'cabinet vote' was taken account of in those more halcyon & democratic days ...
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Fromkin again : - "In a little less than a 100 days, Asquith's government had completely reversed the policy of more than a hundred years, and now sought to destroy the great buffer empire that in times past British governments had risked and waged wars to safeguard"
Meaning to say that, with the Crimean War only 60 years gone, and with her only recently casting covetous looks towards India, the greatest Jewel in our Empire, it was obvious to most diplomats and politicos that Russia was to be trusted far far less than Turkey.
However, there was so much French/Brit argy-bargy about who was having what, that the agreement was not ratified until Jan 3 1916. Knowing now what ultimately happened, it's apt to quote the words Shakespeare has Henry V saying to the Constable of France 'The man that once did sell the lion's skin while the beast lived, was killed with hunting him' .... we now see that the Brits & French had similarly over-reached themselves ... and a similar fate, in a manner of speaking, did befall them !
regards
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Message 17
Posted by alecalgo (U13782581) on Tuesday, 17th November 2009
Message 13 posted by lolbeeble (U1662865) 17/11/2009
I'm not sure the Caliphate was all that important as an institution given that so many Muslims both within the Ottoman Empire and under the Entente ignored the call for Jihad pronounced in mid November. If anything its importance was overstated by many Europeans with their conception of the irrationality of the oriental mindset.Ìý
Of course it was ignored ! .... did they even know what the word stood for any more ? They had not exactly been Jihading all over the place for centuries had they ? Be a different ball game now though, wouldn't it ? That is the point I was trying to make in my earlier post ... that the present Muslim revival, although fragmented (but conjoined like never before by technology and the internet), is trying to find 'Top-Man' unifying leadership somewhere ...anywhere ... even turning as they did to madcaps like Bin Laden.
If my afore mentioned 'keep Turkey intact but impotent' Brit. mindset had prevailed past WW1, the Caliphate would still be intact. Ok ..there'd still have been the Young Turks Mr Nikalaos, but would not they have mellow & matured while waiting to see how the war panned out ?! There'd have been no Galipoli (Turkey would have allowed Russia to use the straits) and hence no Ataturk and his secularist republic with it's 'modernisations' etc. So no concomitant Armenian massacres/genocide ; nor the Smyrniot massacres in the interland, which occurred as retribution for the stupid Lloyd George inspired, well abetted, Greek invasions.
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Turkey would be still be there, probably still the 'sick man of europe,' .... NO WRONG THAT ... as said elsewhere, as a neutral she'd have emerged at the end of WW1 the strongest of them all, at least for a time anyway.
She'd still be there providing moderate leadership to the worlds's Muslims : leadership which would quell and hold dormant the Sunni/Shia schism. Leadership based on the ages old Ottoman interpretation of the Quran and Islamic religious toleration. As of old, if Jew or Christian be prepared to pay that wee bit extra in taxes for the 'privilege' of not being Muslim ?... well then, you'll be well ok here lad, in our Muslim lands .... now yous all have a good day in Jerusalem, d'y hear ?! That kind of thing ..? the populist approach, just like in the good old days ... well before the Young Turks and their no doubt transitory madness ... eh Mr Nikolaos ?
Best of all .... there'd be no Saudi Wahabism tentacling it's way around the world - Turkey would still, of course, be in charge of the Holy places of Mecca & Medina .... and, of course, the OIL !! Now there's a thought .... ? the
would be in the detail there, would it not ..?
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I think you have a misplaced assumption that a neutral Ottoman Empire would have been allowed to keep its territories during or after the First World War.Ìý
I see a big fat lad watching his hitherto bullying oppressors fight themselves to a standstill in the playground. They all end up immovably knackered, bloody and injured. Our lad ruminates a moment and then goes over to the one he deems to be still the strongest and most likely to resume his bullying ways ... and lifts him to his feet with kind words and half carries him to see the school nurse .... clever lad our lad ! Soon the lesser mortals in the playground, once disdainful of him, start to be much more respectful ... well, for a while at least ... naturally all good things come to an end sooner rather than later
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The primary reason much of the Empire had not been dismembered already was because it suited the majority of the Great Powers to keep it intact as each was loath to see any other gain an undue advantage. One might argue that the defeat of one power block would thus leave the victors free to partition the Empire as they desiredÌý
I take you back to Fromkin's point (in my message 15) that for a 100 years or so Brit policy had been one of sustaining the Turkish Empire intact as a buffer zone .... so, in my book, it was not a 'balancing act' that 'just happened' to suit them all.
Rather, as the overweening superpower with global naval might ... it was such that the other '4 SP's' respected the Brit maintained status quo. Not so much because it 'suited them,' but because Britain had amply demonstrated that it could dominate, by naval force alone, and with armies if need be, the geographical areas around Turkey and it's possessions.
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Despite not wanting to let parts of the Ottoman territory fall into each others hands the Powers were more than willing to stand aside and let minor nations nibble away at the Ottoman Empire given their apparent tolerance of the actions of Italy, Greece, Serbia and Bulgaria.Ìý
Good point ... although the 5 main powers could not jump up to fight their corner each and every time those naughty junior miscreants had their little 'nibbling' battles could they ? ... even the Big Powers, us with Egypt for example, had a little nibble from time to time.
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The fact is the divisions outlined in the Sykes-Picot agreement and the later Treaty of Sevres merely reflected the long term ambitions of the Entente powers. France had coveted Syria and the Levant as far back as the Crimean War and they had made numerous investments in the region such as the construction of infrastructure like railways. It would not be too much of a stretch to imagine the French occupying this territory using an excuse of protecting their investments as a precursor to annexation. Likewise the British controlled Turkish Petroleum Company had received concessions to prospect for oil around Mosul in 1912 and obviously they would need safe passage to the Persian gulf so the oil could be transported. Russia's interest in the Caucasus region was well known.Ìý
France coveted Syria ... mainly for historical reasons,it's in their blood. Deeply engrained in the french breast, alongside the facts of the revolution, are the facts of the Crusades. That they were the lads (well, Norman lads if you want to be pedantic) that did 90% of the 'real' soldiering and shouldered the brunt of it all. Merde ! ... they even had had, for a short while, a couple of rulers, Baldwins 1&2 of Jerusalem. I have no doubt every french schoolkid can still rattle off by name every one of their one-time crusader castles in Syria.
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To blame Ismail Enver solely for the entrance on the side of Germany is also rather simplistic and Britain and Frances' actions or rather lack of them must surely have some bearing on the decision.Ìý
Absolutely correct ... there's a can of worms in there somewhere .... it's the teasing of them out to make better sense than I did, that's work for someone .... you perhaps lolbeeble ? ... you've done a brill job here so far !
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Fellow CUP members and cabinet ministers Mehmed Talat and Ahmed Djemel had attempted to ally themselves with Britain and France in 1913 after the coup brought them into the government. However the Ottoman performance in their recent wars resulted in their wish for an alliance being brushed aside on the basis that they were more likely to be a liability than an asset. Further the political turbulence that had wracked Turkey since 1908 hardly left many unwilling to deal with people who may well be ousted in some future upheavalÌý
10 out of 10 for that one .... so the silly beggars should have moved heaven and earth to remain neutral, and watch from the side lines for the baton to be dropped - and then not run away with it, but to kindly give it back - to the victor ! In simpler terms, there'd surely have been pickings for Turkey, in what promised at the time to be a fight to the death.
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Nor were the Entente powers willing to satisfy any demands that looked like increasing the sovereignty of the Ottoman government, such as reducing the capitulations allowing foreigners exclusive rights in trade and industry. The rescinding of such deals was part of wider move by the CUP to strengthen the central Ottoman government and reduce direct foreign influence over the Empire's finances, . Perhaps most importantly neither Britain nor France would give any guarantee to prevent further Russian expansion. This not only meant direct land grabs but also the curbing of the nationalist and separatist movements St Petersburg had sponsored that had so often preceded the detaching of various regions of the Ottoman's European Empire.Ìý
Tell you what lolbeeble, you sure do know your stuff .... is this your 'thing' that you make your living at ?
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Even in late Summer and Autumn1914 the British and French requests for neutrality were not accompanied by any benefits. Britain's confiscation of the two Turkish Dreadnought class battleships in August 1914 was hardly conducive to fostering better relations with the Ottomans.Ìý
Got me there lolbeeble, a perfect counter-punch ... much of the rest here, above & below spoken about, transpires only between politicos etc; but the 'stealing' of the two paid-for ships would raise public hackles up no end. Politicos love to have public opinion putting wind in their sails and some of your 17 votes for siding with Germany would be due to that boost. Anyway, it gave work to the lads on Tyneside and I bet they split their sides laughing at the turn of events.
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The British had also ignored increasingly loud complaints over the use of Turkish sovereign waters of Shatt el Arab. With this in mind it is hardly surprising that when a vote was taken in the CUP council they came out in favour of the German alliance by seventeen votes to ten. That the resultant mobilisation assisted in strengthening the cabinet's executive power and thus by extension drew more power towards the central government and away from the provinces also served the wider aims of CUP. This also served to strengthen the CUP's influence in the cabinet for that matterÌý
You are a mine of information lolbeeble ... tell me, what's your reading list on all this ? I'll put a list up tomorrow or so, and you tell me what you recommend on it .... that's if you don't mind ?
thanks for your reply .... it's brill and very informative.
alec
PS ... the moderator is going to be chastising me for submitting posts that are too longLink to this forum: WW1 .. why did TURKEY come of the fence and ally with Germany
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Message 18
Posted by alecalgo (U13782581) on Wednesday, 18th November 2009
Ref. Message 14
Posted by E_Nikolaos_E (U1777139)
Hello friend Nikolaos .... My first language is english. A long time ago I used to be able to write spanish fairly well; similarly, I could write passable french. But that was a long time ago. Now ... I cheat ! ... made possible since Google came on the scene. Nowadays, if I have to write in either language, which is very rare, I first write it out in English and then Google-translate it. THEN ... when I see all the bits that don't make sense in french or spanish, I alter the text to what I think it should be .... at least the Googling gives me a start by providing me with all the nouns etc so that I don't have to look them up in the dictionary. But the Google Translator is VERY far from perfect - quite often the translation, grammatically, is a load of old rubbish - and people often POST stuff like that, thinking it is a proper translation.
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Now ... I think english is your second language. And I think you may be using the 'google translator' and then, perhaps, trying to alter it here and there to make it make better sense - without always succeeding. Truth is friend niky, I can't understand your post ! I know you have been posting on this board for a long time now - so I can only assume that others DO understand what you are on about ?
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Talking about back then with today's terms is nonsense. You have to see what the westerners faced back then and why the British once more run not to attack the Ottoman Empire but to save it once again causing dircetly (and celebrating and praising even till today in the name of Kemal) the massacre of 3 million people.Ìý
Talking about back then with today's terms is nonsense.Ìý
I think you are saying we cannot talk about imaginary scenarios, such as 'if Turkey had stayed neutral ?' ... with the aim of then conjuring up further linking scenarios ... such as 'if Turkey had stayed neutral, the middle east would now be a totally different place'. That, friend niky, is called posing a compound 'what-if' question. Common sense logic tells us that we can do mind-exercises like that now and again. It gets us 'thinking outside the box' as they say in modern parlance.
You have to see what the westerners faced back then and why the British once more run not to attack the Ottoman Empire but to save it once again causing dircetly (and celebrating and praising even till today in the name of Kemal) the massacre of 3 million people.Ìý
I think you are saying there, that we british not only 'saved Turkey once again,' but actively encouraged the massacre of 3 million people ...? Well, if that is what you ARE saying in your muddled text, then your grip on historical reality is ? well, not too good, to be polite about it
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Anyway ... can you give us your version of the facts on the 3 million slaughtered. I have just been to , what do you think - has Wikipedia got it about right.
The Turkish army entered Smyrna on September 9 1922 : what are your figures for the subsequent slaughters there (supposedly 50,000 Christians for a start)... and then give us your figures for those Smyrniots marched into the deserts never to be seen again - which and what are your sources for your figures ?
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We had our own sort of 'genocide' in and around 1845/49 ... when we let approximately one million Irish people starve to death due to the potato crop continually failing - the potato was the Irish families one and only item of food. He had to work on the english landlords farms, to produce meat and cereals - none of which went on the Irishman's plate because it was all exported to England. The English people let the Irish people starve to death - the 'it's nothing to do with us mate' attitude that we english so often have, with regard to what they have done in the world. Go and have a look at it at , then come back and tell us what you think about it
regards's advocate.
alecLink to this forum: WW1 .. why did TURKEY come of the fence and ally with Germany
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Message 19
Posted by Idamante (U1894562) on Wednesday, 18th November 2009
Nikolaos + Ottoman empire = red rag to a bull
The natural evolution of the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire would be a strong Greek state in the west controlling all of hte Aegean and the access to the Black sea, having one of the largest commercial fleets in the world.Ìý
yeah but you tried invading Turkey and lost - get over it, already
Very funnily the very notion of the modern sense of Turkish nation was given to Turks by non-Turks, non-muslims: the Young Turks... we are yet to find any of them who was clearly Turkish... we find overwhelmingly "Ladinos" (ancient Jewish of Spain), mostly Domnes (Ladinos that superficially opted islam - but maintained their own sect) or downright westerner agents. Kemal was a non-Turk, non-muslim donmes and down to the basics he did not even care. He had been an agent.Ìý
Unlike the Greeks who were of course all descended from Achilles and Hercules, what a shame they had to import their royal family from Germany LOLLink to this forum: WW1 .. why did TURKEY come of the fence and ally with Germany
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Message 20
Posted by Mikestone8 (U13249270) on Wednesday, 18th November 2009
Unlike the Greeks who were of course all descended from Achilles and Hercules, what a shame they had to import their royal family from Germany LOL Ìý
Immediately from Denmark, iirc, but most of these royal houses are basically Krauts if you go back far enough.
As for the Greeks, I understand most of them are descended from Slav migrants who overran the peninsula in the 7th Century, and were converted to Orthodoxy when the Byzantines reconquered the area. These days, the average Turk is about as likely to be descended from Achilles as is the average Greek.Link to this forum: WW1 .. why did TURKEY come of the fence and ally with Germany
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Message 21
Posted by Allan D (U1791739) on Thursday, 19th November 2009
It should also be remembered that Germany, in accordance with its war policy, had deliberately sought an alignment with the Ottoman empire since the 1890s. Germany had financed the building of the Turkish railway system extending into Mesopotamia (modern Iraq), the main purpose of which was the speedy movement of troops, proposing an extension to Berlin. The Turkish Army was German-trained with German officers and Liman von Sanders as its C-in-C.
An Ottoman alliance not only held advantages for Germany in opening up a southern front against Russia (the only Allied Power attacked by all 3 Central Powers) and providing a distraction for British and French naval strength in the Mediterranean but more particularly for the Turks since it opened the prospect of easy gains of territory from the Russians and a chance to recover Egypt from the British, along with the Suez Canal, at a time when both powers would have their focus and main strength elsewhere. This probably accounted for the 3-month delay before the Porte entered hostilities to ensure that the Allied Powers were fully engaged in European conflict.Link to this forum: WW1 .. why did TURKEY come of the fence and ally with Germany
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Message 22
Posted by Mikestone8 (U13249270) on Thursday, 19th November 2009
An Ottoman alliance not only held advantages for Germany in opening up a southern front against Russia (the only Allied Power attacked by all 3 Central Powers) and providing a distraction for British and French naval strength in the Mediterranean but more particularly for the Turks since it opened the prospect of easy gains of territory from the Russians and a chance to recover Egypt from the British, along with the Suez Canal, at a time when both powers would have their focus and main strength elsewhere. This probably accounted for the 3-month delay before the Porte entered hostilities to ensure that the Allied Powers were fully engaged in European conflict. Ìý
In short, the Turks did it for the same reason that most things get done, because "it seemed like a good idea at the time".Link to this forum: WW1 .. why did TURKEY come of the fence and ally with Germany
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Message 23
Posted by Nik (U1777139) on Thursday, 19th November 2009
Idamante, if you do not know, make a bit of research first. 100 years no muslim would speak of any Turkish identity - that thing was unknown - unlike christians that even in the most dark ours of the Ottoman Empire had distinct consciousnesses (eg. Greeks and Bulgarians never had similar conscioussnesses as "orthodox" so that when Greeks rebelled as "Romans" (i.e. Byzantines), Bulgarians (and others, like Romanians!), remained pathetically neutral, simply because they did not share the same conscioussness. However muslim people had 1 concisoussness and that was being "fidel". Not turkish... this is a young-turk thingie and the question remains. Why so many turkish nationalists were of clearly no-turkish (whatever that was) origins? And why the vast majority of them were Donmes (a community with strong ties int he western world...)? These things are not accidental.
As for Achiles and the Slavs, Mikestone8 yes... you think Greeks are Slavs... that is the well known theory developed by the British/Austrian imposed Bavarian family in the mid19th century. A country in famine and near-civil war tolerated them being imposed as a royal family but never really accepted them. They were hated. Bavarians facing the hate of locals and being considered as "foreigners" tried to de-legitimise locals (just like any modern Albano-FYROMians or Turk) and considered them a mix of Slavs and Albanians.
The theory was even "pseudo-scientifically" summarised by Falmerayer (and others). However, even in the 19th century it was not very difficult to debunk these downright offensive since venomously false pseudo-theories for the very simple reaon that it happens that the whole "Slavic descend" in the Balkans is very well monitored in history and we even have their numbers (numbering nor more than 200,000 within a Greek European population of about 5 million at the time), thus a bit lower than 5%. The Arvanites (presented falsely - and quite racistically - as Albanians when themselves always declared being Greek), were a group of merely 80,000 people of mixed Albanian-Greek (and Albanians were actually southern Toska orthodox Albanians, already an earlier mix of the first Albanian populations that descended being invited by the Epirot despotes in what is today central and southern Albania - technically the northern parts of the greek land of Epirus)
It is fantastic in an age of anti-racism and free-movement and and... to attack venomously Greeks for being bstrds on the basis of 200,000 Slavs and 80,000 Albanians who together did not even form the 5% of the local population and one wonders if Greeks should apologise for not marrying their sisters and cousins so as to have the full right to call Achiles their grandfather... amazing!
Anyway, what is very funny is that there is an endless sad group of people going back to that debunked Falmerayers' theory trying to find something valid in it coming in complete constrast with the basic of scientific facts:
if you ever had any doubts Mr Mike why don't you ask your personal doctor of what is exactly "Mediterranean anaemia" and whether your kids are prone to it. You will get the answer of how one gets that thingie. Ask him also whether Slavs or Albanians or Turks suffer from it and if he tells you no, this is an illness found mainly in Greece, South Italy etc. call him a liar cos apparently it cannot be true since Greeks are mainly Slavs and Albanians and Turks.
Biology does not lie Mike, you do.Link to this forum: WW1 .. why did TURKEY come of the fence and ally with Germany
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Message 24
Posted by Nik (U1777139) on Thursday, 19th November 2009
Correction: It is fantastic in an age of anti-racism and free-movement and and... to attack venomously Greeks for being bstrds on the basis of 200,000 Slavs and 80,000 EVEN IF CONSIDERED AS Albanians who together did not even form the 5% of the local population and one wonders if Greeks should apologise for not marrying their sisters and cousins so as to have the full right to call Achiles their grandfather... amazing!
Link to this forum: WW1 .. why did TURKEY come of the fence and ally with Germany
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Message 25
Posted by hotmousemat (U2388917) on Saturday, 21st November 2009
E_Nikolaos_E
100 years no muslim would speak of any Turkish identity - that thing was unknown - unlike christians that even in the most dark ours of the Ottoman Empire had distinct consciousnesses (eg. Greeks and Bulgarians never had similar conscioussnesses as "orthodox" so that when Greeks rebelled as "Romans" (i.e. Byzantines)...Ìý
It is perfectly acceptable usage when talking about the actions of a state: Turkey, to call its population 'Turkish'. People are quite capable of understanding that individuals will also define themselves in other ways, depending on context.
For example; 'Greek' could be about ethnicity - but it could also simply mean 'Orthodox Christian'.
...we even have their numbers (numbering nor more than 200,000 within a Greek European population of about 5 million at the time), thus a bit lower than 5%. The Arvanites (presented falsely - and quite racistically - as Albanians when themselves always declared being Greek), were a group of merely 80,000 people of mixed Albanian-Greek (and Albanians were actually southern Toska orthodox Albanians, already an earlier mix of the first Albanian populations..Ìý
This obsession with origins does your cause no good! Ancient ancestry does not define character and should not define political rights, so who cares?
We do not have remotely accurate information as to the make-up of such communities, because such information was manipulated as ammunition in nationalistic struggles - and still is.
If you go to the museums in countries like Bulgaria, they do exactly the same thing. They seperate 'true Bulgaians' from everyone else and explain that these 'true Bulgarians' have always lived in Bulgaria (although sometimes wickedly oppressed) and that they haven't really mixed with other people and that all the cultural treasures of Bulgaria are distinctly Bulgarian. Then you look in the showcase and see a clearly Greek pot.
It is all horribly immature. And destructive.Link to this forum: WW1 .. why did TURKEY come of the fence and ally with Germany
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Message 26
Posted by alecalgo (U13782581) on Sunday, 22nd November 2009
Message 20 - posted by Mikestone8 (U13249270)
[ Unlike the Greeks who were of course all descended from Achilles and Hercules, what a shame they had to import their royal family from Germany LOL]
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Immediately from Denmark, iirc, but most of these royal houses are basically Krauts if you go back far enough.
As for the Greeks, I understand most of them are descended from Slav migrants who overran the peninsula in the 7th Century, and were converted to Orthodoxy when the Byzantines reconquered the area. These days, the average Turk is about as likely to be descended from Achilles as is the average Greek. Ìý
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And what a weird interbred self-satisfied self-interested and smug lot they were and still are - that's why I am a republican at heart ... that's why France always seems to be ahead of us in most anything these days. All the death and destruction of WW1, when at bottom of it all lay merely the personal animosities and one-upmanships within Victoria's spread-out brood. Good for trade though ....
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In the summer of 1921, King Constantine 1 ## landed in Smyrna (now Izmir) to take over, as he thought, leadership of the headlong madcap LGeorge backed Greek invasion of the Turkish interior. Their initial successes went to their heads, especially when they got as far as the approaches to the Nationalist's new capital of Ankara ... but it was there, when pondering 'exactly what to do next', that the tide turned and gradually their inevitable doom closed about them. When things were going well the King was to be seen at the front urging things along. As soon as things started to go wrong though, he got the hell out of it pronto ... No doubt it was then, when the now abject Greek multitudes, left stranded and surrounded by vengeful Turks in the vastness of Anatolia, that they'd take a last look at his blond hair and bright blue eyes, and think "most definitely he is not one of us."
## ... His father was George 1 of Greece, born in Denmark, the second son of the Danish King Christian. George was the first King of Greece, ruling for 50 years ... until his assassination in 1913 in a parade to celebrate victory over the Turks.
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Was Constantine 1 the last European King to lead his troops into battle ? Possibly...? but not as gallantly as our George II (again of Krautish extraction, who, at the Battle of Dettingen 1743 "led his troops into battle, sword in hand, with remarkable courage". This was the last time a British king fought in person.
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Yet ... to think that but months earlier Constantine had had visions of not only expelling the Turks from Turkey and 'reestablishing' the Greeks in their 'natural and historic homelands', but also of being a second 'Constantine' reestablishing the Christian Byzantine Empire at Constantinople. He could have done it too ! Easily .. as the City was already in the hands of his sponsors, the Allies (Nov 13 1918 to Sept 23, 1923).
However, the Allied occupation was going nowhere and the Brits at home, now becoming tired of L.George's greek fantasies, were starting to wonder how to extricate themselves. Though wavering they still for a while believed his vision; if the Greeks would only get a move on and quickly impose themselves on the Turks ... then they'd back that outcome. A typical Brit 180 degree about turn : one they were still ready to label, as LG had already done, 'the long overdue banishment back into Asia of the Turks, a backward and primitive race.'
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The vision was not to be realised : the Greeks had stupidly over-reached themselves in advancing ever-further into Anatolia to achieve what had become a mirage - the one last and utterly overwhelming defeat of Kemal's cannily retreating forces. As Churchill, no longer backing LG's greek policy, said, "every defeat suffered by the Turks, that does not end in complete disaster for them, is a victory for them."
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NOTE .... Constantine was pro-german during the 1914/18 war ... british gunboats in 1917 shelled his palace to try and get him to side with the allies - but he would not, preferring exile. Pro Brit Venizelos, the charismatic greek leader, much admired by LG, then returned to lead the Greek WW1 war effort, with LG's promises of Turkish territory the reward. After the WW1 war, unaccountably losing an election, Venizelos was dumped, so leaving the way open for Constantine's return and his eager taking up the greek sword to reclaim, and more, the promised spoils in Turkish lands.
So .. it was a near run thing that the short-while-ago enemy of the Brits, was not then hailed by the Brits as the long awaited new Christian Emperor of Byzantium. What a turn up for the books that would have been ... no?
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Meanwhile, back home in Greece, the disastrous war news precipitated a coup and a series of war trials headed by a certain Pangolas - so Constantine not unnaturally went into exile again, dying a year later. Thus avoiding the fate of his younger Brother Prince Andrew (father of our Prince Phillip), who had, again paradoxically, been much more involved in the day-to-day war effort at the front than had Constantine. However, Andrew, condemned to death, was reprieved by Pangalos when a Brit warship showed up and anchored in the port (ordered there by our George V). It is said that Pangalos himself drove the suddenly pardoned Andrew and entourage to the waiting boat ... and, so the tale goes, our very own dearly beloved 18 month old Prince Phillip made the rushed and unplanned journey in the car (and ship ?) in an 'orange box.'
Cheers
alec's advocate
PS ... see < L G's sponsored 1919-1922 greek invasion of Turkey
< the URL says it all
< brit/allied occupation of Constantinople (12 nov 1918 to Sept 23 1923 ....so nearly 5 years !!) .... I never thought we were there that long - and all the while our one-time ally, France, there alongside us, turning against us and secretly supplying arms to Kemal's lot - all because they did not get what they wanted out of the MANDATE !Link to this forum: WW1 .. why did TURKEY come of the fence and ally with Germany
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Message 27
Posted by Nik (U1777139) on Tuesday, 24th November 2009
Re26:
What you say is what British and Turkish historians have tried to pass in history in order to explain the genocide they have organised.
It amazes me that you present the Greek campaign in Minor Asia as something that the Greeks wished, organised and perpetrated. It amazes me even more when you refer for example to Greek kings as if they were any Greek. No they were Germans from similar families like the Germanobritish family that plays the role of the royal family of Britain. And they largely played the game of British (no matter whatever side they pretended to take).
This campaign was NOT a Greek decision and NEVER represented Greek interests. It goes without saying that with a majority of Greeks in Konstantinople and Smyrna and in general in Eastern Thrace, Aegean and Black Sea coastline of Minor Asia, Greeks considered that sooner or later these lands would come one way or another to the responsibility of the Greek state. Today you view it as expansionism, but back then it was no such thing, it was a noble cause, it was a liberation procedure. There was absolutely no reason for Athens or Thessaloniki to be liberated and Konstantinople or Smyrna to remain under muslim occupation while being 2 flagship cities in Greek history carrying actually the best that Greeks had to present at the time. As for the word "occupation", it is precisely used since Ottomans never made any effort to make themselves ressemble anything else than occupation, and that is something they admitted themselves. Moreover in the 1900-1919 period Ottomans had commited numerous attrocities, having already started the first part of the genocide by killing in 1915 in specially designed as death-camps concentration "work" camps some 120,000 Greek men (17 to 30 years old), exterminating a whole generation of young men, erasing whole cities as early as 1912 (like Phocea) with terrible slaughters (in Phocea, as mentioned by the French archaiological team present, almost nobody survived from babies to 80 years old women) or of course the slaughter of some 350,000 Greeks in the Black sea... all that along with the slaughter of 1,5 million Armenians (the rest of the Greeks they would clear in the following years until 1922).
Greeks thus had both a historic, a national as well as a moral duty to intervene to end all that misery called "muslim occupation of western Minor Asia". End of story.
However, I repeat that clearly the campaign of 1919 was NOT Greek, NOT designed by Greeks, NOT wished by Greeks. Note that even the WWI implication of Greece was NOT wanted by Greeks that had just got out of a long series of troubles and 2 Balcan wars.
Following the end of the 1st WW, the idea of Greeks was first to stabilise the situation in north Greece and organise the Greek admininistration that did not have the time to do so since the 1912 liberation. On top of that, there was interest in obtaining north Epirus a historic Greek land that was given to Albania for the sole reason that Italy wanted so being so anxius not to see Greece rising again. Greeks were puzzled that despite their contribution they were not satisfied in these simple demands, so when British called them in to come and "establish order" in Eastern Thrace and Minor Asia (Smyrna) in spite of jumping enthousiastically they became curious to know why.
There is no doubt that this was the target of Greeks. However circumstances were strange. British and other allies were not ready to give Greeks even simple things, they were ready even to bombard them for not "behaving", so how on earth they were able to give them present (baksisi to use the Ottoman word!) half of Minor Asia? There Venizelos, of the philo-british party, struggled to convince the Greeks that they had to follow the British orders and send as much as possible army in Minor Asia to assist the British plan in order to ask then in exchange the control of these territories. And Venizelos, prime minister at the time that is what he does.
The problem was not sending the army to fight for this just cause, the problem was the context: it was sent as an ally of British. But British had other plans, totally different to... giving Greeks their fatherland. It is not a secret that British diplomacy was traditionally against the expansion of Greeks and standardly pro-Ottoman, pro-Turkish no matter if phenomenally they were on the other side of the war front: if we count how many times they saved the Ottoman Empire from the Russians we will have to use too much space... the Ottoman Empire simply would not exist since well before 1800.
However, once the Greek army was sent there, the point was to establish control. And control was established rationally. Given their non-resistance muslims would be respected and well accepted under Greek authority and soldiers commiting crimes would be punished under death - and there were given some death sentences on some occasions (a thing not heard even among European armies of those times, let alone the turkish ones that would shoot soldiers if they refused to commmit crimes!!!)! Despite of what mud is thrown on the Greek army, there was not much violence against muslims apart sporadic clashes, usually between local Greeks that wanted vendetta-revenge for some past injustice from the part of muslims. The proof is that such minor clashes happened in specific locations and not in all region while even as late as when the Turkish army finally enterred Smyrna they found all the local muslims intact, and initially claimed that they would similarly respect christian populations but had of course other things in mind... if Greeks had done any massacres, there shouldn't be any muslims in the western-most city of Minor Asia, 1+1=2, pure logic!!!
So, the idea was to remain in the region around Smyrna and to establish control over the whole of the Aegean coastline to make the link with Eastern Thrace and finally enter Konstantinople. However, we said that this was NOT a Greek campaign but a British one. There were also French and Italians intermingling there, and them despite being all allies were openly on the side of muslims (British were simply pretending, to keep the apparences). So where is the catch?
Well, before going for the catch we have to say that the Greek army wih all the WWI crap that the British sold, was at the time quite a sober military force even for European standards, they could simply expand their control over the coastline, they could just just consolidate control over Eastern Thrace and that is all folks, end of story; the secret in that would be the utilisation of the big Greek navy. Turks had a shattered army and a non-existing navy, thus they were inherently unable to hold any more coastal regions, a fact well known to British and allies.
So here comes the catch: the Greek army could only operate near coastal lines for 2 reasons.
1) First of all it was the coastal regions that had the 95% of the 3 million Greeks of Minor Asia. It was the coastal regions where Greeks were the majority among the local population. And it was the coastal regions that were the historic Greek lands. Thus any moral basis for the Greeks would be to fight for the coastal regions.
2) Tactically the Greeks had a presentable military force with lots of experience (10 years in war already) and a proven record that surpassed that of the British and French in the area in terms of weaponry BUT it was an army that had no organisation in terms of supply lines. Tactically Greeks could maintain military presence through heavy utilisation of their navy, going anywhere inland they simply had not any means of supporting a large army. They had no trucks, no canned food, no system of provision as they had never fought any war far from home. The furthest they had fought was Macedonia and Macedonia was the Greek heartland!
Did not yet get the catch? Ok... said clearly: It was obvious to ANY Greek military officer that any involvement in Minor Asia would have to be step by step and concentrate on the coastline, that was clear even to those few that really thought that a revival of the Byzantine Empire could be feasible (far from being the general idea back then, the idea was merely to liberate Greek populations and their territories, not to reach the Armenians and the Assochaldeans in Mesopotamia!!!). However the British ask (=order) the Greeks to move inland. They even asked for more than the 120,000 soldiers they have (for what? to destory as many soldiers as possible?). The justification was that 1) Greeks had to secure the greater area of Minor Asia from the terrorist turkish guerillas and that 2) they would maximise their territorial gains. Venizelos was promised such so he was declaring to Greeks to follow the British plan so that "a second and equally if not more rich "Greece" would be added to the "existing" one". So did the Greeks buy all that? NO.
NO NO NO NO. There were elections. Greeks not trusting the British and being curious about all that plan about Greek military presence in deeper Minor Asia in clearly non-Greek territories made them wary. They were also war-torn, more than 10 years in war, some soldiers in Minor Asia had fought all their adulthood. So Greeks vote overwhelmingly for the party of Gounaris and against Venizelos because the first had promised to "bring our men back". Absolute proof of what the Greek nation wanted.
So Greeks react, the British start getting their distances but at the same time they apply even more pressure to Gounaris and hiss governement, especially via the royal family (i repeat: not Greeks!). And in a move that has not yet been explained in history, the fiercely anti-campaign governement of Gounaris decides to move on with the British plan at 100% and order the march of the army inside Minor Asia, as deep as possible.
What was the British plan? Simple. There was absolutely no objective: Inner Minor Asia had nothing geostrategic for Greeks. There was no point of reference. Even the conquest of Anchara would not mean anything since muslims did not relate themselves to it, they would continue to fight even more to the point of creating a holy war issue. Back then we talk about muslims not turks and muslims lived all along from Minor Asia to Pakistan... (do not forget that 2 years later the celebrations of the slaughter of christians in Minor Asia included the "revolted" and were held as far as in Indonesia...). Also there were no Greek populations (apart the occasional Kappadocian remnants, turkish-with-a-bit-of-greek speaking christian populations of largely local and thus not really Greek origins, Greeks would relate to them as much as to Armenians or Assurians). Even financially, the inner Minor Asia did not present any interest to the Greeks, a maritime nation. The only other place with a healthy Greek population was Pontos, the Black sea coast but that could be reached only by the Black sea, thus with navy.
So, no objective, other than march... And it was not only that: the British to ensure the incapacity of the Greek army, they forbid the use of the Greek navy, the refuged access to Dardanelia, they refused to the Greek army to approach Konstantinople, they refused to the Greek army expanding control to Minor Asia, they controlled access of the Greek navy in the port of Smyrna to control the inflow of men and supplies, and they even refused control of areas of even merely a tactical interest: the Greek army was only supposed to march and for that reason they were supplied only with extra ammo (that they had a lot). The only thing that was "allowed" by the British (it was a "friendly advice) was to avoid fighting guerillas by massive bombing of sites including villages since the Greek army of 120,000 was extremely small and lacked the basics in terms of supply chain to be able to do any better: normally for such a feature a minimum of 600,000 men, cars and trucks etc. As the 90% of turkish guerillas were centered in villages, they were often bombed on site thus inflamming the hatred of muslims against Greeks: in fact most "Greek attrocities" are done to these bombing rather than the "turkish-style slaughterhouse", something that Turks and in general muslims loved to perform but something that Greeks culturally were inherently unable to perform. It was of course a tactic "adviced" by the British on purpose so that the hatred of Turkish reached its maximum, as events will also prove later.
So the Greek army marches on with practically having established absolutely no control of Minor Asian coast (Smyrna was left undefended!), with no effective control over Eastern Thrace, with practically no navy reaching Minor Asia and with no ability to control any geostrategic position.
But "the catch" does not end there. Amazingly they fared better than the British had hoped, while Kemal and his Turks already amply supplied no only by Bolsheviks (?! first Russians to aid Turkey, no wonder they were not Russians themselves) but also by Italians and French (British allies, thus indirectly allies of Greeks (!), sitting just next to the British in the area!!!!) they were really much slower to organise really their army. So for some amazing reason AGAIN NOT EXPLAIN YET the Greek army stops just outside Anchara. They say it stopped due to turkish resistance. Had it been that it would stop for 1 week and then move to plan B, plan C but no it was not that. The Greek army stopped and just sat around. It sat not for 1 month, 2 months, even 6 months. It sat there for 1 year. The treason was obvious. Military officers were quitting, the army was in a state of unrest, the conditions deteriorated, provisions hardly coculd reach on horses and donkeys from the western coast (more than 400km away, thus a 20 days trip in that mountainous region!) and they reached a state where there were not even shoes to wear. So many officers had quit that there had to be called in officers in retirement since... before the Balkan wars (officers trained in Napoleontian tradition!!!!). At the same time Kemal was preparing cooly his army and when the time came, he hit. Naturally with his 450,000 strong army (including all guerillas) he would not have a problem over a deteriorated 120,000 strong... however suprisingly he could not encircle them all, while the majority was caught in the attack and perished, large chunks of the army led by generals like Pangkalos and Plastiras were retreating in full order and Turkish were blatantly failing to do anything.
And here is the final catch. Plastiras, Pangkalos and others wanted to organise the defense in strategic points : the British now accuse Greeks of "imperialism" and threat them with war. Greeks wanted to pass on the other side of the Dardanelia and organise defense. British fearing that the Turkish who did not have any navy would fail, they threat Greeks with war and move their small forces they had there to occupy strategic points just in case. And when Pagkalos re-organises the Greek army in Evros river (current borders) at an impressive number of 120,000 soldiers sworn to get revenge for the Smyrna massacre and the genocide of Greeks in Minor Asia as well as the internal treason of all those Greeks that took contracts with the British (the worst class was that based in London...), ready to march to an unprotected Konstantinople and at least limit the Turks to the Asian side, the British again intervene and threat Greece not with total war but with total annihilation...
Unknown facts to you maybe. It is these "small" details that count most. Better read first before talking about any supposed "Greeks' responsibility in Minor Asia". I know that British (as well as French and Italians) will fanatically refuse their implication in the genocide of Greeks and in general christians of Minor Asia, but we cannot change history, this is too huge to erase. People that read, they are aware.
You are not coming from a powerless nation to understand, so that you can show all this attitude, downright offensive to the people that died in that genocide. Ask others who come from powerless natiopns and who know very well that their role in such events is that of a marrionette, not even that of an actor directed by the film director.Link to this forum: WW1 .. why did TURKEY come of the fence and ally with Germany
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Message 28
Posted by alecalgo (U13782581) on Tuesday, 24th November 2009
RE 27 ...In the 2800 word, ridiculously long message 27, Nicolaos said :-
Unknown facts to you maybe. It is these "small" details that count most. Better read first before talking about any supposed "Greeks' responsibility in Minor Asia".Ìý
Just 4 points :-
(1) - You say 'better read' ...!! Well go on then ! .... Tell us what we should be reading; and, while you are at it, give us YOUR reading list.
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(2) - NOBODY can really take you seriously, until YOU tell us what books about it all you have been reading, which fire you up to make such astoundingly empty and conflicting rants.
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(3) - Just tell us which, of the commonly accepted source books, are telling LIES; and which, of the common source books, are telling the TRUTH. Then, and only then .... can we start to try and disentangle your extreme confabulations.
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(4) - Most of this stuff, at this late date, can only be top-down generalisations on already well-chewed-over archived and published historical data. Wikipedia do as good a job of 'top-skimming' as any public information service I have seen ... so, instead of going ranting off at the mouth, why did you not quote us some of the Wiki statements I gave you and say what was wrong with them ... it surely should not take you 2800 words !?
cheers
alec's advocate
PS ... less ranting and more sources please !Link to this forum: WW1 .. why did TURKEY come of the fence and ally with Germany
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Message 29
Posted by lolbeeble (U1662865) on Tuesday, 24th November 2009
Alecalgo, I'm not sure that you can make such a direct link between issues that affect modern geopolitics and the collapse of the Ottoman Empire. Burkhardt may well have suggested that all history is really commentary on the present but really you would probably be better off watching Gillo Pontecorvo's The battle of Algiers than desperately searching for a moment in history when modern geopolitical problems could have been averted. Of course if you are interested in the actual history of the region leading up the outbreak of war then I have dug out some interesting titles.
John Patrick Balfour's rather pro Ottoman accounts of the Ottoman Empire and Kemal Attaturk are useful as primers. For the period after the Treaty of Karlowitz there is Donald Quataert's The Ottoman Empire 1700-1922. Chapter six of Huw Strachan's The First World war – To Arms gives a good outline of the political maneuvering as well as providing a narrative of the pursuit of the Goeben and Breslau. Ulrich Trumpener's Turkey's Entry into World War One: An assessment of Responsibilities was published in the 1962 edition of the Journal of Modern Studies. He also wrote the chapter covering the West Asian fronts in The Oxford Illustrated History of the First World War edited by Huw Strachan. There is also The Birth of Modern Turkey by Handan Nazir Akmeze that details the reformist movements of the late Ottoman Empire. For the relationship between the Ottoman Empire and the Central Powers you could try The Eagle on the Crescent by Frank Weber. Otherwise it might be an idea to look up material on the Ottoman Public Debt Administration, the Mirtschteg reforms in Macedonian as well as the formation of British Petroleum.
As it stands I said it suited the majority rather than all of great powers to keep the Empire largely in tact so as to avoid the kind of scramble for territory. When push came to shove most powers valued the status quo over any change simply because the outcome of any potential war was seen as far too hard to predict and loss of international prestige and influence was usually seen as more costly than gains made at Ottoman expense. It ought to be mentioned that the greatest predator was Russia but they were checked by the other great powers such as the 1856 treaty of Paris, the 1878 treaty of Berlin or a decade later the cooperation of Britain, Austria-Hungary and Italy to prevent any potential occupation of Constantinople and the Dardanelles.
Britain and France had significant investments in Ottoman territory and after the European administered Ottoman Public Debt Administration was established, keeping the Empire largely intact best guarenteed returns for their Bond holders. Austria Hngary saw annexation of Balkan territory would leave German speakers as an even smaller minority in the Empire whereas supporting the creation of nation states would acknowledge the primacy of ethnic nationalism over Imperial supra-national administration. This would set a disturbing precedent for the possible dismemberment of her own Empire with its increasingly restless ethnic groups. Germany would later seek to keep the Ottoman Empire intact to further her own economic ambitions with the construction of the Berlin-Baghdad railway.
I would suggest that the British were far from confident in their ability to dominate the coastal seaways of the Persian Gulf in the early years of the twentieth century. Indeed they were seriously worried that the increasing reliability of overland railway transportation would eclipse the military and economic superiority provided by control of the seas. To that extent the British regarded Ottoman involvement with the other European powers as deeply suspect and thus were alarmed when the Ottoman's entered negotiations with the Russians and then the Germans to extend railways as far as Basrah and Kuwait. This potentially affected the level of traffic through the Suez canal and therefore seriously threatened the commercial viability of Britain's maritime and financial industries. Not only that but when the Ottomans and Germans came to an agreement over railway construction as far as Kuwait in 1912 the British could envisage troops from central Europe descending on Southern Mesopotamia. Perhaps of greater significance were the clauses giving the Germans mineral rights over land within a twenty mile radius of their railway, something that would override the agreement the British had signed with Sheikh Mubarak al Sabah giving them primacy over oil exploration in the south of Mesopotamia. As a result the British entered into the short lived Anglo Ottoman Convention of 1913.
The British seizure of Egypt was ostensibly to guarantee the administrative rights of the British and French in the wake of the debts incurred in the construction of the Suez canal. It was also intended to enforce the authority of the Sublime Porte against a nationalist revolution and Constantinople would retain nominal suzerainty over Cairo until 1914. A permanent military presence was certainly not the British cabinet's initial intention although it gradually became a key feature of Imperial policy. However it did lead indirectly to greater cooperation between France and Russia who figured the British were conspiring with the Central Powers that in turn provoked the Central Powers' fears of encirclement.Link to this forum: WW1 .. why did TURKEY come of the fence and ally with Germany
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Message 30
Posted by lolbeeble (U1662865) on Tuesday, 24th November 2009
I do not believe the Ottoman's would have regarded neutrality as leading to stronger international position. To begin with they would have had to decide what shape neutrality would take by either restricting all shipping in and out of the Black Sea or allowing unfettered access. Either position could be construed as favouring one side over the other. Certainly allowing Russia to be supplied through the Black Sea would risk the Ottomans actually facing a strengthened Russia in the event of an Entente victory which was by no means in their best interests.
While the general length of the conflict came to benefit those states that remained neutral as capital was transferred from the belligerents to neutrals in exchange for scarce material resources such a long conflict was by no means obvious at the outbreak of hostilities. The prevailing attitude among both sides was that this would be a fairly brief war. However any benefit to the Ottoman purse would have been minimal given the stranglehold exerted by foreign nationals over trade and fiscal policy. As has already been mentioned the British and French attitude to Ottoman finances was incompatible with those of the Ottoman reformists. The tax free status enjoyed by various foreign nationals alongside their preferred status in business meant they had an overwhelming commercial advantage which they fully exploited. Foreign powers had consistently blocked any reform of the Capitulations.
Furthermore their domination of the Ottoman Public debt Administration and its rights to oversee the collection of specific taxes and duties meant that in some cases those who contributed nothing to the exchequer were charged with collection of its revenues. It is unlikely that the Foreign powers would have permitted an evening of the playing field if the Ottoman Empire had remained neutral as their benefits would have taken on even greater importance in the need to finance the conflict. It is conceivable that all an increase in the volume of trade would entail would be an even greater level of extraction from the Ottoman Empire. It was the outbreak of war that allowed the Ottoman Empire to break free of the capitulations because the main beneficiaries were now their enemies. Of course the Germans protested but it only took threats to stop paying the loans owed to German creditors in order for them to accept the situation.
It seems doubtful that British and French interests could ever be truly reconciled with those of the Ottoman reformists. Whereas the central government's impotence and a greater fostering of regional autonomy may well have suited the two major creditors it is unlikely that the Young Turks would ever have become accommodated to such a position. The whole basis of the push to reform Ottoman institutions was to create a strong centralised government with special emphasis on building up the economy so as to provide the necessary economic stability to strengthen the military in order to restore the Empire's international status. Although the British and French agreed that strengthened economy was desirable this was in order to maximise the revenues that could be drawn off to repay the Ottoman debts. Military spending would draw finances away from servicing their debts and even weaken the economy of the Ottoman Empire by increasing their expenditure.
If one looks at the British reaction to the political movements in her sphere of interest one can see that although they may occasionally favour reformists when it suited their interests, time and again they came to associate moderate rule with the conservative religious groups. Secular nationalist ideologies in places like Egypt, Persia and the Indian sub continent were often perceived as threatening British Imperial interests as much as radicalised theocratically inspired anti imperialist groups such as the Mahdi army. This appears to be a view that was shared by Abdul Hamid II during his period of absolute rule given his sponsoring of the Wahhabis in Arabia as a counterweight to the secular reformist opposition.Link to this forum: WW1 .. why did TURKEY come of the fence and ally with Germany
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Message 31
Posted by lolbeeble (U1662865) on Tuesday, 24th November 2009
There do appear to be a number of misconceptions in your assessment of the Ottoman Empire's government in 1914. While there may still have been considerable extortion of non Muslim communities in the provinces of the Ottoman Empire, the jizya tax in place of military service had been abolished in 1856. Furthermore the massacres of non Muslim populations that supported separation from the Ottoman Empire were not isolated to 1915. There had been Bulgarian massacres in 1876, Armenian massacres in 1897 as well as violent retaliation against Greek communities in Asia Minor during and after the Balkan Wars in response to the perceived disloyalty these groups had shown towards the Ottoman Empire during wartime.
Your attitude to French interests in the Eastern Mediterranean are remarkably simplistic. Claiming French interests in Syria were the natural result of their crusading zeal some seven hundred years earlier ignores far too much in the way of intervening history and perpetuates a notion of clash of civilisations that does not hold water. Far more pertinent were the capitulations that guaranteed the French special privileges in the Empire, especially those going back to the early seventeenth century. It was these that provided the basis for the French assumption that they were the guardians of Catholics in the Ottoman Empire. The relationship between the French monarchy and the Ottoman Sultan started out as a means of limiting the power of the Hapsburgs in Central Europe rather than from French interests in the Levant. Moreover the French quiesced to the Kemalist movement not because they did failed to get what they wanted out of the dismemberment but rather because they felt it would preserve their traditional rights in Turkish administered Southern Anatolia. However the resultant Turkish Republic had no intention of maintaining the vestiges of the capitulations as can be seen in the Treaty of Lausanne. By this stage the French had occupied Syria in accordance with the Treaty of San Remo although without Mosul.Link to this forum: WW1 .. why did TURKEY come of the fence and ally with Germany
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Message 32
Posted by lolbeeble (U1662865) on Tuesday, 24th November 2009
Allan, it might seem that the three month delay between the negotiation of the secret treaty with Germany and the Ottoman Empire's official entry into the war was a strategic move in order to strike their rials while they were otherwise diverted but it would be more accurate to point out that it was a case of political and logistical considerations meaning that they could not act any earlier.
The Ottoman cabinet were far from united in their desire to join the war and those who wanted to remain neutral were fully aware that the modernisation drive instigated in the wake of the 1913 coup was far from complete. During August and September there was concerns over how the other Black Sea nations would react to an Ottoman declaration of war on Russia given the weakness of their forces in Thrace. This resulted in diplomatic missions to Bulgaria and Romania with the express intention of receiving guarantees of neutrality. This turned out to be something of a disappointment as both were unwilling to make such a commitment. The Ottoman cabinet were therefore unwilling to commit themselves for fear that they would be left exposed to attacks from these powers.
In fact despite initiating their mobilisation in August the Ottoman army was a long way from being ready. They were bedeviled by chronic shortages in everything from uniforms and rifles to artillery and shells. The mobilisation centres were also far from the regions where they intended to strike at the interests of the Entente and the lack of an integrated railway system meant that they could not be easily moved to the front. Indeed even the hawks in the cabinet believed that the army needed at least six months to mobilise and so would be in no position to join as an active participant until early 1915 and constantly had to justify their lack of belligerence to the Germans. According to Talat's post war memoirs, the Goeben and Breslaus' bombardment of Russia's Black Sea coast came as a surprise to the Ottoman cabinet and they were thus forced to join the war in order to legitimise the actions of what were supposed to be their vessels. Even if one considers that the statement appears to be intended to shift blame away from the CUP and the reformists given the statements about German culpability for the outbreak of the war in the treaty of Versailles, it was the only area where the Ottomans were militarily prepared.
There is also an issue as to whether the German coaxing of the Ottoman Empire was primarily a military consideration. Certainly the German High Command seemed to oscillate between wild enthusiasm and then outright contempt for the Ottoman military and that was just 1914. Perhaps more tellingly the pattern of their investment in Ottoman affairs suggests a path that would nowadays be referred to as neo-colonialism. Germany's late entry into the rush for global territory meant that she did not have as large a market for exports as some of the other European Industrial powers and as such they sought to cultivate markets in non colonised countries. The Ottoman Empire became a major purchaser of German armaments and invested heavily in Anatolia. Likewise the agreements to construct parts of the Berlin Baghdad railway seem to be designed as much to exploit resources in the areas around the railway line rather than to facilitate the rapid deployment of troops that characterised German domestic railway construction. Even as late as 1915 the German authorities were arguing about whether their interests in the railway was military or just economic.Link to this forum: WW1 .. why did TURKEY come of the fence and ally with Germany
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Message 33
Posted by lolbeeble (U1662865) on Tuesday, 24th November 2009
Nick, it is becoming somewhat predictable that whenever the issue of Greece's neighbours in the Balkans is raised you attempt to belittle their nationalist ideologies by highlighting their recent inception. Truth be told, national consciousness has a very limited history, usually less than two hundred years, wherever one chooses to look in the Balkans and that includes the Greek version.
Leaving that aside I am not sure your figures for relative levels of literacy of the particular religious and ethnic groups within the Ottoman Empire at the start of the twentieth century are reliable. While it is true the business class was dominated by the non Muslim groups there had been an extensive drive to improve the overall level of education in the Empire as part of the Tanzimat reform movement in an attempt to restore the fortunes of the Empire. Education was seen as crucial to this process, thus there had been moves to make primary and secondary education universal from 1846 onwards. The curriculum of the Greek, Armenian and International schools may have been more modern than their Muslim counterparts but as it stands the move towards a greater level of literacy is apparent. By 1914 there were around thirty six thousand schools in the Ottoman Empire and only one in nine were operated by the non Muslim groups in the Empire. In turn these schools fed the the various technical colleges devoted to military disciplines and the civil service. Their graduates were the backbone of the various dissenters and constitutionalists under the personal rule of Abdul Hamid II.
It strikes me that the predominance of individuals from Turkish Macedonia within the CUP and the reformist movement in general might have something to do with the fact the region was subject to the highest degree of foreign intervention in the years leading up to the Constitutional restoration. On the one hand there was the introduction of modern capitalisation under the stewardship of the British and French dominated Ottoman Public debt Authority. There was also the role taken by Russia and Austria Hungary in overseeing the implementation of Greater autonomy for the region as a means of protecting the Christian population. Such altruism masked the respective ambitions of both Empires as they attempted to assert themselves in the area.
Macedonia was therefore the area where where the weakness and limitations of the Ottoman Empire's central control and subjugation to international pressure were most visibly exposed. It is unsurprising that this should provide the most fertile seedbed for those young radicals in favour of greater centralisation and restoring the internal autonomy of the Empire.Link to this forum: WW1 .. why did TURKEY come of the fence and ally with Germany
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Message 34
Posted by alecalgo (U13782581) on Wednesday, 25th November 2009
IN message 29 - lolbeeble said :- Alecalgo, I'm not sure that you can make such a direct link between issues that affect modern geopolitics and the collapse of the Ottoman Empire.Ìý
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What are you on about ? are your referring to my 4 point reply to Nicolaso ? can you be more specific ? why can you not follow accepted practice and "quote" us the item you are referring to ... then, and only then, will we know to what you are referring !
cheers
alec's advocate
PS ... the rest of your amazing and long spiel ...extending over 4 ? messages ... appears to be a brilliant effort (tho' I have not had time to read and digest it all), and many thanks for the references ... tho' as a retired ex manual worker type and not yr Oxford professor or such, I think I will set my sights on acquiring the more standard, more readily available Fromkin style stuff; anyway, thanks again !Link to this forum: WW1 .. why did TURKEY come of the fence and ally with Germany
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Message 35
Posted by alecalgo (U13782581) on Wednesday, 25th November 2009
In message 31 lolbeeble said :- There do appear to be a number of misconceptions in your assessment of the Ottoman Empire's government in 1914.Ìý
Ok lolbeeble, ok .... be a good chap will you, and lead us to them ... using that old fashioned but effective method of attaching Quotes ! .... quote the piece or item you are referring to ... PLEASE !
Your attitude to French interests in the Eastern Mediterranean are remarkably simplistic. Claiming French interests in Syria were the natural result of their crusading zeal some seven hundred years earlier ignores far too much in the way of intervening history and perpetuates a notion of clash of civilisations that does not hold water. Far more pertinent were the capitulations that guaranteed the French special privileges in the Empire, etc etc Ìý
I assume that it's my following text you are referring to ... my light hearted top-down generalisation about what we brits always assume the french in the street at the time felt; mainly, it has to be said, due to their slanted schooling ....
France coveted Syria ... mainly for historical reasons, it's in their blood. Deeply engrained in the french breast, alongside the facts of the revolution, are the facts of the Crusades. That they were the lads (well, Norman lads if you want to be pedantic) that did 90% of the 'real' soldiering and shouldered the brunt of it all. Merde ! ... they even had had, for a short while, a couple of rulers, Baldwins 1&2 of Jerusalem. I have no doubt every french schoolkid can still rattle of by name every one of their one-time crusader castles in Syria. Ìý
No, lolbeeble, you are correct; there's quite properly nothing in it about the political, financial and military issues then currently alive and well in French Government circles - get real lolbeeble ! However, your more objective analysis is welcome - cannon fodder for another day ..eh?
But ... do you really think, lolbeeble, that I should have pedantically attached all that stuff of yours (some of which I knew ... some I didn't ..thank you to the tail end of my piece, to make it ever so properly correct ? No sir, no boring pedant be I ! (however, don't let me put you off ... keep your informative stuff coming
cheers
alec's advocateLink to this forum: WW1 .. why did TURKEY come of the fence and ally with Germany
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Message 36
Posted by PaulRyckier (U1753522) on Wednesday, 25th November 2009
Re: Message 29,30,31,32,33.
lol,
thank you very much for this series of interesting and toughtfull messages about that particular period of Turkish history.
My interest in modern Turkish history was first sparked by seeing, and I mentioned it on these boards too, a two tome German documentary about the Bagdad railway on the French/German ARTE : "Die Bagdadbahn" (Le Chemin de fer de Bagdad) 3 January 2007. Not that I hadn't read about it but now I started some historical research (and with Nik on these boards I was nearly obliged to do reserach to know about what he was speaking).
In the documentary cames also the "manipulations" of a lady asked by the British: a female Lawrence of Arabia: Gertrude Bell:
Another spark was the reading during holidays of an historical novel about Abdul Hamid II:
"Le dernier sultan" (The last sultan) by Michèle De Grèce. I just found out that the author was related to nearly every royal european family, especially of Greece (Nikolaos!).
I learned a lot from my research and it all coincides with what you say, only that you put it here on such a coherent and understandable way.
Thanks again and with the highest esteem,
Paul.Link to this forum: WW1 .. why did TURKEY come of the fence and ally with Germany
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Message 37
Posted by PaulRyckier (U1753522) on Wednesday, 25th November 2009
Re: Message 35.
Alecalgo,
"I assume that it's my following text you are referring to ... my light hearted top-down generalisation about what we brits always assume the french in the street at the time felt; mainly, it has to be said, due to their slanted schooling ....
France coveted Syria ... mainly for historical reasons, it's in their blood. Deeply engrained in the french breast, alongside the facts of the revolution, are the facts of the Crusades. That they were the lads (well, Norman lads if you want to be pedantic) that did 90% of the 'real' soldiering and shouldered the brunt of it all. Merde ! ... they even had had, for a short while, a couple of rulers, Baldwins 1&2 of Jerusalem. I have no doubt every french schoolkid can still rattle of by name every one of their one-time crusader castles in Syria"
Are you Matt coincidentally? No it can't be... Matt was American from British descent...
Alecalgo, referring to Matt is about an American contributor very well known by the "oldies" of these boards....
Cheers, Paul.
PS: And those two Baldwins were Counts of Flanders and Haynaut.Link to this forum: WW1 .. why did TURKEY come of the fence and ally with Germany
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Message 38
Posted by PaulRyckier (U1753522) on Wednesday, 25th November 2009
Re: Message 18.
alecalgo,
"Now ... I think english is your second language. And I think you may be using the 'google translator' and then, perhaps, trying to alter it here and there to make it make better sense - without always succeeding. Truth is friend niky, I can't understand your post ! I know you have been posting on this board for a long time now - so I can only assume that others DO understand what you are on about"
My Greek friend, Nikolaos, went to a British university and everybody here is understanding him, only that his messages are a bit "tendentious", but again everybody is used to it...and his French I have seen on a French messageboard is better than mine, me a Belgian, who haven't French as my mother language...but as I understand he is living for some years in France...
Cheers, Paul.Link to this forum: WW1 .. why did TURKEY come of the fence and ally with Germany
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Message 39
Posted by alecalgo (U13782581) on Thursday, 26th November 2009
My Greek friend, Nikolaos, went to a British university and everybody here is understanding him, only that his messages are a bit "tendentious", but again everybody is used to it...and his French I have seen on a French messageboard is better than mine, me a Belgian, who haven't French as my mother language...but as I understand he is living for some years in France...Cheers, Paul.Ìý
And me an ex manual worker type crossing swords with him !! ... I always thought that one MAJOR thing Uni training endowed a person with was the ability to sumarise, and provide a detailed argument...? ah well, it takes all sorts, I suppose ?
cheers
alec's advocateLink to this forum: WW1 .. why did TURKEY come of the fence and ally with Germany
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Message 40
Posted by Nik (U1777139) on Thursday, 26th November 2009
haha alecalgo...no no no far from that. I am into down to earth engineering, I did not study any history, philosophy or literature university and that is obvious in my style of writing. History is just a passion. And I have worked in pretty much manual-style work environments (e.g. shipyards etc.) with some of the most well-spoken people who were of no particular formal education. At the end, in our times the university is not much of a help in terms of teaching students to summarise their thoughts, not as it used to be in the past.
And it is obvious that I write extremely fast (I type faster than speech) to achieve such a long text in my spare time (and do not imagine I have all day!). All that because I love to write what I think, I am not interested in summarising and being overly careful. A negative point but let it be if you can stand it.
Sometimes I do mistakes and I will tbe first to admit. I do also kill the language. Paul can verify this, I do kill the French language too, I make no distinctions in that, even the Greek one.Link to this forum: WW1 .. why did TURKEY come of the fence and ally with Germany
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Message 41
Posted by alecalgo (U13782581) on Sunday, 29th November 2009
Well yes, the question is a tautology : Turkey did take sides in the war ('bounced' into it would be a better description) - her hoped for neutrality was not to be. The war-weakened (Balkans 1&2) nation's hopes were snuffed out by the devious subterfuges of german lover Enver : his small clique of 'young turks' backing him in his first fait accompli, the secret alliance with Germany Aug 4th 1914 signed in Berlin. Then we have his 'understanding' with German Admiral Souchon that he should somehow precipitate a war in the Black sea ; which event occurred Oct 29th 1914, by the unintended method of shelling Russia's shore installations; then, when we take into account his other underhand devious double-dealings done, we can see how Enver finally led a reluctant Turkey to side with the Germans.
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Soon the bulk of Constantinople's Turks were wishing they had listened to wiser councils. With the war hardly declared, and war effort organisation even less under way, Enver, Minister for War, with much bravado straightaway donned his other hat - that of National Hero & the nations about-to-be heroic General in Chief.
He left Constantinople on 6 dec 1914 to take personal command, 21 dec, of the Ottoman 3rd army, to plan and lead the fight against the Russians in the Caucasus. The huge German victories over the Russians, at Tannenberg and elsewhere, had convinced him that the war could soon be over and that he would have to now move fast if he was not to be cheated out of the heroic victories and hence territories and spoils of war that were his natural due.
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Soon, totally beaten (at Sarikamesh) and losing some 85% of his 100,000 men army, he slunk back to Constantinople in early Jan 1915; for while keeping a lower profile as befitting someone slightly less in stature than the National Hero/Leader figure he had so recently set out to become. (see :- ).
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Worse was to come. Jealous of Enver, who had begun to overshadow the other young turks, the next highest ranker among them, Djemal Pasha, Mininster of Marine (a marine that hardly existed took the field as commander of the Ottoman Fourth Army, based in Syrian and Palestine. His avowed intention : make HIMSELF the national hero figure by taking the Suez Canal from the Brits. 15 Jan 1915 he began his march to Egypt, to mount a 'surprise' attack on the canal. Result : utter failure, loss of 2000 troops and a backtracking retreat into Syria. Turkish Generalship had become a joke. Djemal should have stuck to organising his rowing boats in the laying of mines at the entrance to the Golden Horn.
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Constantinople : Brit Warships were knocking on the Dardanelles door, and Turko/German opinion was united in that the Brits would, if they were prepared to sacrifice some ships, easily open it and then arrive and without much ado take over the city. So a state of panic existed and Government & citizens were actively engaged in preparations to leave the city and decamp into the depths of Anatolia.
See American Ambassador Morgenthau's Diary extracts of the total panic in Constantinople at :- < > See chapters XVI & XVII and particularly XVIII "THE ALLIED ARMADA SAILS AWAY, THOUGH ON THE BRINK OF VICTORY"
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Note the paragraphs near the bottom in XVIII, where Morgenthau notes, on his inspection of the fortified positions, that the Turks & Germans's despondency is due to almost being out of armour-piercing ship destroying shells, mines and most everything other thing offensive#. Surely it could not have been Morgenthau who supplied this secret intelligence to Churchill and Fisher ?... They got, so it is said, this gemstone piece of information via an intercepted cable from the Kaiser to his ambassador in Turkey : so that C&Fisher reading it were in an ecstasy of expectation, already anticipating the following day's sure-to-follow action : one that never did happen ! The day of expectancy being March 19th, when, instead of a second day of violent ship to shore naval action, leading to a shoe-in victory, stand-in Admiral de Robeck got extremely cold feet. ##
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# ... see Footnote one below ... for the salient extract about the lack of ammo.
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##..... one possibly explaining factor, though one that does not let de Robeck off the hook, is that Churchill's first cable to de Robeck was not as explicit or direct and to the point as it should have been (so giving him time to think of a way out - which General Ian Hamilton unfortunately supplied ... see AT THE NARROWS OF FORTUNE ... way way below Seemingly Churchill & Fisher were dead scared of revealing the person in the Turkish ranks who was the linkman supplying the vital intelligence info. Handed to them by a Captain Hall of the Brit intelligence agency, they did not even tell any other cabinet members of it's existence.
These vital reports, that the Germans were sending despondent cables to the Kaiser telling him of the lack of ammunition, were the key to success or failure - but it would now seem that Churchill and Fisher did not use them to their best advantage.
"Without more armour piercing shells and mines, and we are down to the last few, the defence of the Dardanelles narrows is a lost cause", the Germans in Cnople were cabling the Kaiser. For some reason, never explained, this stark and battle-winning fact, known solely by Churchill&Fisher, was not straightforwardly and instantly revealed to de Robeck for him to draw the conclusions expected of him ... well, that is my understanding of the reading of it anyway.
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Anyway ... De Robeck, with General Hamilton aboard, had gotten wind of the fact that army backup was in the offing, so from then on it was all "yes please sir ... let them have a go, sir ... and we can shell the beaches, gun emplacements and the forts in preparation for the landings" ... yes, he was mightily worried for his career and 'waiting for the army' was adecidedly better career-saving option.
Mind you, perhaps more to be blamed his hitherto chief, Admiral Carden, who had had a REAL attack of cold feet. Yet another one, hitherto full of bravado and bluster; indeed the very one who, having been on the spot for ages and au fait with the geography etc etc ... who had, when Churchill asked his opinion, so surprised the Admiralty et al by saying yes, the Dardanelles straits CAN be taken, just as long as they are not 'rushed'.
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But there he now was, when he should have been directing the attack he said could be successful, lying prone and out of it in the ship's sick bay. His 'attack of nerves', far from getting the court-marshall and execution at dawn that many 'equally affected' in the western trenches got, he had persuaded the fleet medical officer to 'sick-bay' him for at least 4 weeks on account of his troublesome 'indigestion' - hence de Robeck's appointment by Churchill as stand-in Admiral.
So .. no resumption of attack on the 19th - the fleet would not after all battle bravely through the narrows; losing, of course, a few more ships of the mighty Allied armada in the process, and then calmly sail the sea of Marmora to range themselves in front of Constantinople ... and then invest and take the helpless unprotected and (morgenthau) unprotesting city. Then to calmly hand it over to the Russians in accordance with the already agreed Entente plan - that France and the UK could, by relinquishing Cnople, then have free rein to do what they wanted in the more southerly Middle Eastern parts of the Turkish Empire.
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That was the irony of the situation. That Russia, suddenly shit-scared and screaming for Brit/French help, after dramatic defeats at Tannenberg, which resulted in the almost complete destruction of the Russian Second Army, and in a series of follow-up battles destroyed the majority of the First Army as well, had panicked when faced with Enver's assaults - before finding out that Envers methods were totally inept. They had called anxiously for a Brit/France diversion - the Armada at the mouth of the Dardanelles was it. But, having so easily wiped the floor with Enver, they were now both upbeat and yet PANICKING all over AGAIN .. at the realisation that their long sought goal of Cnople could be snatched, forever, from their grasp - hence their DEMAND that they should be recompensed with Cnople, upon receipt of which they'd give us 'leeway' in the rest of the Turkish Empire.
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Russia never did get Cnople .. but we two, Britain & France, DID get our agreed leeway - in the form of the greedy land-grabbing (or so we saw it at the time) Sykes-Picot agreement !
cheers
alecalgo's advocate
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FOOTNOTE ONE (extract from morgenthau chap XVIII)
Let us suppose that the Allies had returned, say on the morning of the nineteenth, what would have happened? The one overwhelming fact is that the fortifications were very short of ammunition. They had almost reached the limit of their resisting power when the British fleet passed out on the afternoon of the 18th. I had secured permission for Mr. George A. Schreiner, the well-known American correspondent of the Associated Press, to visit the Dardanelles on this occasion. On the night of the 18th, this correspondent discussed the situation with General Mertens, who was the chief technical officer at the straits. General Mertens admitted that the outlook was very discouraging !or the defense.
"We expect that the British will come back early tomorrow morning," he said, " and if they do, we may be able to hold out for a few hours."
General Mertens did not declare in so many words that the ammunition was practically exhausted, but Mr. Schreiner discovered that such was the case. The fact was that Fort Hamidié, the most powerful defense on the Asiatic side, had just seventeen armour-piercing shells left, while at Kilid-ul-Bahr, which was the main defense on the European side, there were precisely ten.
"I should advise you to get up at six o'clock tomorrow morning," said General Mertens, "and take to the Anatolian hills. That's what we are going to do."
The troops at all the fortifications had their orders to man the guns until the last shell had been fired and then to abandon the forts.
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(THE FROMKIN ACCOUNT)
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AT THE NARROWS OF FORTUNE
======================
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London was dealing quickly with the political consequences of the impending victory at the Dardanelles but, at the scene of the battle, the fleet moved slowly. The weather kept the warships from bringing their full fire power to bear. As the days went by, the Turkish troops along the shore began to regain their confidence, and learned to harass the British minesweepers by firing on them with howitzers and small mobile guns. On march 13 Churchill received a cable from Carden saying that mine-sweeping was not proceeding satisfactorily due to what Carden claimed was heavy Turkish fire, although no British casualties had been suffered. This, noted Churchill, 'makes me squirm' ; "I do not understand why mine-sweeping should be interfered with by fire which causes no casualties. Two or three hundred casualties would be a small price to pay for sweeping up as far as the Narrows"
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Part of the problem, and it was one of the defects in Admiral Carden's original plan, was that the minesweepers were manned by civilian employees, who were not willing to operate under fire; but the major problem was that Admiral Carden was losing his nerve. Churchill had cabled him on 13 march reporting that "We have information that the Turkish Forts are short of ammunition and that the German officers have made despondent reports," to which Carden replied that he would launch the main attack into the straits on or about 17 march, depending on the weather; but the Admiral worried, and could neither eat nor sleep. He had lost no ships and reported that he had suffered no casualties, but the strain of anxiety proved too much for him and suddenly his nerves broke.
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On the eve of the main battle for the straits, Admiral Carden told his seconds-in-command that he could no longer go on. He summoned a fleet physician, who examined him and certified that he was suffering from indigestion and that he should be placed on the sick list ....
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for three or four weeks. On 16 March Carden cabled Churchill "Much regret obliged to go on the sick list. Decision of Medical Officer follows"
Churchill promptly appointed John de Robeck, the second-in-command to take his place. De Robeck, according to his cabled report to the Admiralty, then commenced the main attack at 10-45 on the morning of 18 march.
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The day began to go badly when a French battleship mysteriously exploded and disappeared just before 2pm. Two hours later two British battleships struck mines. A vessel sent to rescue one of them, the Irresistible, also struck a mine; and it and the Irresistible both sank. Then a French warship damaged by gunfire was beached. De Robeck reported to the Admiralty, however, that the rest of his ships would be ready to recommence action in three or four days.
At the Admiralty in London, there was elation, for Naval Intelligence had discovered that when the action recommenced, the enemy would collapse. On the afternoon of 19 March, the director of intelligence brought Churchill & Fisher an intercepted & decoded message from the German Kaiser; they grasped its significance immediately. Churchill cried out in excitement "they've come to the end of their ammunitiion," as indeed they had.
Fisher waved the message over his head and shouted, "By God, I'll go through tomorrow" and then repeated "Tomorrow ! .. We shall probably lose six ships, but I'm going through." Churchill & Fisher did not tell the Cabinet, for fear of compromising their intelligence sources, nor did they tell de Robeck; they merely cabled him that it was important not to give the impression that operations were suspended.
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Unknown to Churchill & Fisher, at Maurice Hankey's suggestion, the Director of Naval Intelligence, Captain Hall, had initiated negotiations with Talaat Bey, the young Turk leader, aimed at inducing the Ottoman Empire to leave the war in return for a large payment of money. The British and Turkish negotiators met at a seaport in European Turkey on 15 march. The talks failed because the British government felt unable to give assurances that the Ottoman Empire could retain Cnople - so deeply were the British now committed to satisfying Russia's ambitions. Captain Hall had not yet learned of the collapse of the talks when, on the night of 19 march, he told Churchill of the plan to offer four million pounds to Turkey if she would leave the war.
Churchill was aghast & Fisher was furious. At their insistence, Hall cabled his emissaries to withdraw the offer. Hall late recalled that Fisher started up from his chair and shouted "Four million ? No, no. I tell you I'm going through tomorrow."
----------p152------------
All that stood between the British-led Allied fleet and Cnople were a few submerged mines, and Ottoman supplies of these were so depleted that the Turks were driven to catch and re-use the mines that the Russians were using against them (they were simply floating them down through the Bosporus hoping to demoralise Turkish shipping .. .alec).
Morale in Constantinople disintegrated. Amidst rumours and panic, the evacuation of the city commenced. The state archives and the gold reserves of the banks were sent to safety, Special trains were prepared for the Sultan and for the foreign diplomatic colony. The well-to-do sent wives and families ahead to the interior of the country. Tallat, the Minister of the Interior, requisitioned a powerful Mercedes for his personal use, and equipped it with extra petrol tanks for a long drive to a distant place of refuge. Placards denouncing the government began to appear in the streets of the city. The Greek & Armenian communities were expected by the authorities to welcome the Allies, but now the police began to arrest suspects within the Turkish speaking community as well.
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Meanwhile, those members of the Enver-Talaat faction who had supported it to the bitter end gathered up petrol and prepared to burn down the city when the Allies arrived, and wired St Sophia and the other great monuments with dynamite. The Goeben made ready to escape to the Black Sea.
Enver bravely planned to remain and defend the city, but his military dispositions were so incompetent that, as liman von Sanders later recalled, any Turkish attempt at opposing an Allied landing in Constantinople had been rendered impossible.
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London rejoiced and Constantinople despaired, but in the straits of the Dardanelles, the mood of the British command was bleak. The casualties and losses from mines on 18th March had left Admiral de Robeck despondent. He feared for his career. According to one report, when evening came on the 18th and de Robeck surveyed the results of the day's battle, he said "I suppose I am done for"
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De Robeck was unnerved because he did not know what had caused his losses. In fact his ships had run into a single line of mines running parallel to the shore rather that across the straits. They had been placed there the night before and had escaped notice by British aerial observers. It was a one-time fluke.
Fate now appeared in the charming person of General Sir Ian Hamiliton, whom Kitchener had sent out in advance of the forth-coming troops. Hamilton was to be their commander, with orders to
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let the navy win the campaign and then to disembark and take possession of the shore. If the navy failed to win through on it's own, Hamilton's alternative orders were to invade the European shore of the straits, capture the Narrows, and let the navy through.
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Once Admiral de Robeck realised that he had an alternative to going back into battle, that in London it was regarded as acceptable for him to turn over the responsibility to Hamilton and the army, if he chose to do so, he saw no reason to run further risks. Whoever said it first, de Robeck and Hamilton agreed that the navy should wait until the army could come into action. Hamilton already had cabled his views to Kitchener, who on 18th March showed the cable to the Prime Minister; the cable persuaded Asquith that "The Admiralty had been over sanguine as to what they could do by ships alone." De Robeck cabled Churchill, after meeting with Ian Hamilton on 22 March, that "having met General Hamilton ... and heard his proposals, I now consider" that the army has to enter the campaign.
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On the morning of 23 March the War Group met at the Admiralty to discuss de Robeck's decision. Churchill was appalled and shocked, but the First Sea Lord, Admiral Fisher, took the view that the decision of the man on the spot had to be accepted, like it or not; and in this view he was supported by Admiral of the Fleet Sir Arthur Wilson and Admiral Sir Henry Jackson. Churchill violently disagreed, and took the matter back to the Cabinet . He had drafted a strong cable to de Robeck which he brought along for the Cabinet's approval, and which in no uncertain terms ordered the admiral to renew the attack. At the Cabinet meeting Churchill received support from both Prime Minister Asquith and from Kitchener, who drafted an appropriately strong cable to Sir Ian Hamilton.
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Returning to the Admiralty that afternoon, Churchill found that Fisher, Wilson and Jackson remained adamantly opposed to his sending the cabled order to de Robeck. As a civilian minister attempting to overrule the First Sea Lord and his fellow admirals on a naval matter, Churchill felt obliged to return to Asquith and ask for the Prime Minister's consent. Asquith, however, refused to give it. His personal view was that the attack should be resumed, but he would not order it over the opposition of the Sea Lords at the Admiralty.
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Knowing as he did that the ammunition crisis in Turkey meant that the road to Constantinople was open, Churchill fought back against the decision to let the navy abandon the campaign. Since he could not give de Robeck orders to resume the attack, he attempted to get him to do so through persuasion. He sent a cable in which he attempted to reason with the admiral and to show him why a resumption of the naval attack was important. He spoke again with the
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Prime Minister who again expressed his 'hope' that the attack would resume soon. It was to no avail. Only a few hundred casualties had been suffered, but the Admiralty's Dardanelles campaign was over.
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After the battle of 18 March, the battle that so alarmed de Robeck that he decided to turn his ships around and steam away, the Ottoman commanders concluded that their cause was lost. While Admiral de Robeck, aboard ship, was giving his orders to give up the fight, on shore the Turkish defending forces, unaware of de Robeck's decision, received the order to fire their remaining rounds of ammunition and then abandon their coastal positions, If de Robeck, who had led his fleet in battle for only one day, had plunged back into battle for a second day, he would have seen the enemy melt away. In a few hours his minesweepers, working without interruption or opposition, could have cleared a path through the Narrows; and once the lines of mines surrounding the Narrows had gone, there were no more to be laid. The fleet would have steamed into Constantinople without opposition.
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For Winston Churchill, who was only hours away from victory, the nearness of it - the knowledge that he was almost there, that it was within his grasp - was to become the torment of a lifetime. It was more than a personal triumph that had slipped through his fingers. It was also his last chance to save the world in which he had grown up : to win the war while the familiar, traditional Europe still survived (see note below).
It was also the lost last chance for Britain, France and Russia to impose their designs on the Middle East with ease. Though they would continue to pursue their nineteenth-century goals in the region, thereafter they would do so in the uncongenial environment of the twentieth century.
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The Ottoman Empire, which had been sentenced to death, had received an unexpected last-minute reprieve. Its leaders rushed to make use of the time that Britain had allowed them before the new trial of arms began.
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NOTE .. Historians still debate the question of whether victory in the Ottoman war in 1915 would have led to a rapid (overall) Allied victory (by enrolling the Balkan states to the Allied cause and then 'going-in through the 'more easily-opened' Austro-Hungary back door) in the German war. The 'Easterners', led by LGeorge, never doubted that it would have done so.Link to this forum: WW1 .. why did TURKEY come of the fence and ally with Germany
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Message 42
Posted by alecalgo (U13782581) on Monday, 30th November 2009
re Message 37 - posted by PaulRyckier ... asking if I were 'Matt' an american poster who used to frequent the hist board ..Ìý
No Sir, I be me I be ! English and proud of it ... funnily enough I'd even rather be a Frenchman, or a Belgian
than an American. Just been reading an article in the paper about the American Rifle Association ... and how they are worried about declining gun ownership. So they have brought out kiddies gun parks where the kids can all practice with their dad's guns, and the original Colt 45's.
Then there are the 'fastest' draw competitions, where the kids can practice how fast they can get their guns out of the holster and hit the bullseye - a nine year old boy has the record at less than half a second. These new 'kiddies' gun club/firing ranges also stock, of course, all the super lightweight rifles and hand guns etc ... made to "nicely fit the little hands of your son" ... and especially colourfully decorated for your little daughter's nice collection ....
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In the same paper is the account of the young man who walked into the coffee bar and shot dead the four policemen ... I ask you, what a country ?!
regards
alec's advocateLink to this forum: WW1 .. why did TURKEY come of the fence and ally with Germany
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Message 43
Posted by White Camry (U2321601) on Tuesday, 1st December 2009
alecalgo,
Just been reading an article in the paper about the American Rifle Association ... and how they are worried about declining gun ownership. So they have brought out kiddies gun parks where the kids can all practice with their dad's guns, and the original Colt 45's. Ìý
Sounds more like the National Rifle Association.Link to this forum: WW1 .. why did TURKEY come of the fence and ally with Germany
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Message 44
Posted by Nik (U1777139) on Tuesday, 1st December 2009
Alcalego... you have to search among details to find out the ones that tell the truth.
There are 2 basic details:
1) Great Britain (as well as other western powers) had fought for the last 150 years for retaining an already failed Ottoman Empire since 1750 (without their continuous support it would had failed well before the 1800). In 1827-28 the British & French enterred as-if to help the with their navies but in fact it was to contain the Greek revolution to south Greece and to press the Russians NOT to dissolve the Ottoman Empire for ever when their army was only 45km of an unprotected Konstantinople and the Sultan had already packed his affairs (some said, already out of the city travelling eastwards...).
2) There was no case of dismembering the whole Ottoman Empire, especially when that would empower new wannabe-players like the Greeks in the west and the Armenians in the east. The only thing that western europeans wanted was full control of the Middle East and to ensure that no new big player appears in the Eastern Meditteranean. It was clear to them that the muslim turks would had never been such one thus they were 10 times more preferrable. However, an Ottoman Empire restricted in Minor Asia, without the Arab muslim world of Middle East and North Africa could had never been Ottoman Empire, thus it had to become something else: Turkey. It is not accidental that young-turks were mostly western agents and their propaganda enjoyed investors from the west not from the east which let us wondring what kind of base could a hypothetically "muslim" & "turks" have in the west? Not surprisignly the vast majority of them were neither "muslims" nor "turks" despite talking about muslim-turk nationalism, proving the fact that they were western agents.
... and going to the details:
3) In the battle of Kallipoli there were used ANZAC forces by itslef suspicious as the British used them only as "meat" in those places they did not care or even did not want to gain a diret victory but to play a game. They were sent there and they waited 1 month (ONE MONTH not one day or one week). Waiting even 1 day coumd be catastrophic even in an archaic war... here we talk about the 1st WW and the British kept their army just out of Kallipoli for 1 month, obviously waiting for Kemal to assemble his own and send it down. There is a slaughter, Kemal takes victory thanks to the unwillingness of the British to win the battle, he becomes the main figure replacing everyone behind him, Ottomans and youn-turks alike.
4) Next thing that Kemal does is to go briefly to the Russian front were he is bashed badly (since Russians did not wait for him 1 month or something) and then he goes down to Middle East were the only thing he does is to retrieve the by far superior Ottoman army compared to the Arab camel-riders and get them up in Minor Asia saying that Turks are Turks and Arabs are Arabs and better live not together
(well yes.... Arabs have some bad thing called oil and it is bad for the environment...).
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It cannot be more obvious than that. Kemal gave practically without battle the whole of the oil containing Middle east.
No wonder that westerners, especially British (and thus now indirectly Americans) view almost like their own hero this Nazi leader who proclaimed an ideology that was directly responsible for the genocide of 7 million people (3 million people slaughtered on place and other 4 expelled under worst conditions) and who was himself directly responsible as organiser of the massacre of Smyrna that could see the slaughter of more than 300,000 people in a span of 3 days.
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Going back to our initial question, the Ottomans were led to leave their traditional allies British and ally with Germans for the very simple reason that the British eyed then their Middle Eastern territories. By nature, you cannot easily ally with someone that wants openly lands from your state.Link to this forum: WW1 .. why did TURKEY come of the fence and ally with Germany
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Message 45
Posted by alecalgo (U13782581) on Tuesday, 1st December 2009
In msg 43 whitecamry said :-
Sounds more like the National Rifle Association.Ìý
Correct ! "It will be an old-fashioned wrestling match for the hearts and minds of our children" said the NRA spokesman as they launched their campaign to 'invest' in America's youth.
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The article writer noted that "Over the last 30 years, the percentage of American households that have guns in the home has tailed off trom a high of 54% in 1977 to 34.5% in 2006"
that IS a national disaster don't you think ?!! The fact that the Taliban are getting the upperhand over them (and us rather pales into insignificance.
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The BIG and heavy looking 1875 Samuel Colt 45, though, sure does look incongruous in the hands of the nine year old .... but if that's what it takes to get the national pride back, then the gun toting public's numbers will have to be increased, come what may - even if it means giving them to babes in arms
cheers
alec's advocate Link to this forum: WW1 .. why did TURKEY come of the fence and ally with Germany
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Message 46
Posted by VF (U5759986) on Tuesday, 1st December 2009
To be fair how much of the lack of initial action was Churchills fault.He was convinced that (somehow) that a naval force could "do the job".I believe that Fisher disagreed verhmently Kitchener thought that this wasnt more than a sideshow.He didnt want to commit troops from the hard pressed BEF in France to a campaign that had been described as "cigar butt strategy" (we'll go there!).The mistake was compounded by the RN bombarding the outer forts willy nilly for a fair while before the mission started proper.By the time it was realised that you couldnt "take" a peninsula with a battleships the Turks had time to prepare.
Link to this forum: WW1 .. why did TURKEY come of the fence and ally with Germany
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Message 47
Posted by Nik (U1777139) on Friday, 4th December 2009
Oh... no... I am afraid Churchill was that that naif... Considering this part of the Mediterranean Churchill has made far too many "mistaken" decisions in both the 1st and the 2nd WW to had been really "mistaken" ones. He knew very well what he was doing. In the 2nd WW he sent an ANZAC (once again....) to aid an anyway victorious (and copying excellently against Italians) Greece that had no will of enterring any WW on anyone's side.
And his 55,000 soldiers (as-if) could not stop the 12,000 Germans that drove to Athens (having already failed as a part of a 45,000 strong 50-50% German-Bulgarian army to win over the 7,000 (5,000 soldiers and 2,000...local villagers!) strong Greek army well defended in the Metaxas line that the British considered "unable to hold" (!!!).
The direct/indirect result of Churchills as-if mistaken but in reality very much conscious decisions? Back in the WWI, 1,5 million Greeks and 1,5 million Armenians and around 1 milloin Assyrochaldeans are exterminated, in WWI 1 million Greeks and 1 million Serbians die.
Churchill is just one of those criminal figures in history and his name deserves to be next to those of Stalin, Hitler and Kemal.Link to this forum: WW1 .. why did TURKEY come of the fence and ally with Germany
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Message 48
Posted by petaluma (U10056951) on Friday, 4th December 2009
I would place him well before those listed, at least the whole world knew what to expect from the others. Sadly he's still getting undeserved praise. A pure Butcher of his own Forces. Best Ally the enemy ever had, couldn't have planned it better themselves.
Link to this forum: WW1 .. why did TURKEY come of the fence and ally with Germany
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Message 49
Posted by alecalgo (U13782581) on Saturday, 5th December 2009
In message 48 - petaluma said:-
I would place him well before those listed, at least the whole world knew what to expect from the others. Sadly he's still getting undeserved praise. A pure Butcher of his own Forces. Best Ally the enemy ever had, couldn't have planned it better themselves.
Ìý
The difference being that what the other three did, Kemal in WW1 and after, and Stalin and Hitler in WW2, none of it directly affects us now, nor will it do so in the future.
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In paradoxical contrast, what Churchill, Asquith and Lloyd George did in WW1, has led slowly but surely to the present and increasingly the future Middle East time bomb. A nuclear one: which may not go off in our lifetime but most surely will in the near years to come.
The subterfuge of Enver & his cronies finally hatched out, and a reluctant Turkey was finally dragged into the war. Our three english hero's above, were instantly deflected by greed from the harder Plan A(#) option of hitting Germany through the back door. Instead, salivating instead of properly coordinated their plans, they relaxed a while in the knowledge there could now be a very much easier Plan B(##) : the presumed easy annexation of huge tracts of Turkey's erstwhile Empire.
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(#) .... that of getting a couple or more Balkan states to first unite, then help the allies invade Germany through Hungary and Austria.
(##) .... not only deemed to be much easier, but the Commonwealth troops of all hues were handily available for little money to do most of the fighting - when it's done you just send what's left of them home and replace them with your Governor General and his lads ... well, that's how it worked in those days oh happy happy days
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Churchill (and LG, he the major culprit later on) thought they had it all worked out. They knew there were no glory days to be had fighting Germans in the western trenches. Both of them were always mindful to maintain the Empire regardless of the sufferings at home. This was the golden opportunity for the sought after diversion and pick up the double bonus's to boot. Yes Sir, one that would provide much easier-pickings - the middle east, once the Sykes-Picot 'amicable' share-out agreement was sorted, was seen as the area where said easy-pickings and knighthoods etc were to be had - and they were ... well for a very short while how time flew from then till now !
regards
alec's advocate
Time spent laughing is time spent with the gods.Link to this forum: WW1 .. why did TURKEY come of the fence and ally with Germany
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Message 50
Posted by White Camry (U2321601) on Monday, 7th December 2009
petaluma,
I would place him well before those listed, at least the whole world knew what to expect from the others. Sadly he's still getting undeserved praise. A pure Butcher of his own Forces. Best Ally the enemy ever had, couldn't have planned it better themselves.Ìý
What undeserved praise does he still get?Link to this forum: WW1 .. why did TURKEY come of the fence and ally with Germany
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