The Ottoman Road to War in 1914: The Ottoman Empire and the First World War (Cambridge Military Histories)
Cambridge University Press
Edition: Illustrated, 12/11/2008
EAN 9780521880602, ISBN10: 0521880602
Hardcover, 232 pages, 23.5 x 15.9 x 1.9 cm
Language: English
Originally published in English
Why did the Ottoman Empire enter the First World War in late October 1914, months after the war's devastations had become clear? Were its leaders 'simple-minded,' 'below-average' individuals, as the doyen of Turkish diplomatic history has argued? Or, as others have claimed, did the Ottomans enter the war because War Minister Enver Pasha, dictating Ottoman decisions, was in thrall to the Germans and to his own expansionist dreams? Based on previously untapped Ottoman and European sources, Mustafa Aksakal's dramatic study challenges this consensus. It demonstrates that responsibility went far beyond Enver, that the road to war was paved by the demands of a politically interested public, and that the Ottoman leadership sought the German alliance as the only way out of a web of international threats and domestic insecurities, opting for an escape whose catastrophic consequences for the empire and seismic impact on the Middle East are felt even today.
Introduction
pursuing sovereignty in the age of imperialism
1. The intellectual and emotional climate after the Balkan wars
2. 1914
war with Greece?
3. The Ottomans within the international order
4. The Great War as great opportunity
the Ottoman July crisis
5. Tug of war
Penelope's game
6. Salvation through war?
Conclusion
the decision for war remembered.
Review of the hardback: 'Overall, this work is an impressive and very valuable contribution to our understanding of the relationship between Germany and the Ottoman Empire, as well as their respective foreign policies, on the eve of the First World War.' H-Net