The ottoman empire during WWI

Report: The Ottoman Empire during the First World War

Name: Daniel A. Albuja Y.

Code: 00125631

October 24th, 2014

The Ottoman Empire was a large multinational empire that was involved in the affairs of the European Great powers, amongst others, for almost its 600-year history, and, as a result it was not a surprise that in 1914 it was drawn into a conflict that harassed most of the European continent.

It is important to understand that even before the torrid outcomes of the First World War; the Ottoman Empire had already faced a not-small period of decline and was facing serious internal stirs; unlike most of the other great powers the Ottoman Empire entered the First World War with an army and economy that were already taken aback due to three wars in the previous three years, and in spite of these, it remained in control of most of the actual territories of Turkey and the Middle East, allowing it to be capable of putting a million soldiers into the battlefield.

The Ottoman Empire joined the war in favour of the Central Powers of the German Empire and the Austro-Hungarian Empire in 1914. It was faced suddenly with a war in all fronts including: Galicia, the Balkans, Gallipoli, the Caucasus, Iran, Mesopotamia, Sinai/Palestine and Hejaz-Yemen. After terrible four years of war that not only devastated its economy and politics but also the morale of its people the Ottoman Empire retracted form the war on the armistice of October 30th, 1918.

The results of the armistice could be seen in the Treaty of Serves of 1920 in which, even though it was excruciating for the Empire, seeing most of its land being divided by the victors that neighboured it, it did not asked for a verification or revalidation of it. It was the only central power to do so. And maybe because of this it was able to regain some of the territories lost in the post WWI era throughout the Turkish War of Independence of 1919 to 1922.

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