Unionist Failure to Stay out of the War in October-November 1914

AHMAD, Feroz

Unionist Failure to Stay out of the War in October-November 1914

Feroz AHMAD (Department of Political Science and International Relations, Yeditepe University,)

Perceptions: Journal of International Affairs

9 3

Yıl: 2015 Cilt: 20 Sayı: 2-3 Sayfa Aralığı: 23 - 38 Metin Dili: İngilizce İndeks Tarihi: 29-07-2022

Unionist Failure to Stay out of the War in October-November 1914

Öz:

The Committee of Union and Progress hoped for a short war and had no intention of becoming a belligerent. But Britain’s decision to confiscate two battle ships being built for İstanbul and the arrival of two German war ships in the Marmara on 10 August, weakened their position. Still, the Unionists were determined to stay out of the war even though they had handed over the army and the navy to Berlin. The crucial problem was that the Ottomans were bankrupt. The Unionists were divided between the war faction and peaceniks. The war faction, led by Enver and Cemal Pashas, agreed to permit the Ottoman navy, commanded by Admiral Souchon, to sail into the Black Sea and attack only Russian ships. Souchon, however, who took his orders from Berlin, attacked Russian ports. The Entente Powers then declared war on İstanbul and she could no longer stay out of the World War

Anahtar Kelime:

Konular: Uluslararası İlişkiler

Belge Türü: Makale Makale Türü: Araştırma Makalesi Erişim Türü: Erişime Açık

1 On The Unionists’ attempts to form an alliance with Britain see Feroz Ahmad, “Great Britain’s relations with the Young Turks, 1908-1914”, Middle Eastern Studies, Vol. 2, No. 4 ( July 1966), pp. 302-29; for the French, see Bruce Fulton, “France and the End of the Ottoman Empire” in Marian Kent (ed.), The Great Powers and the End of the Ottoman Empire, London, George Allen and Unwin, 1984, p. 161.
2 Fritz Fischer, Germany’s Aims in the First World War, New York, Norton, 1967, p. 84.
3 Ibid., pp. 121-124.
4 Ahmed Emin [Yalman], Turkey in the World War, New Haven, Yale University Press, l930, p. 72.
5 Winston Churchill, The World Crisis 1911-1918, 193. Four Square Book, London,1962 ed. 314; Field Marshal Lord Carver, The National Army Museum Book of the Turkish Front 1914-18, London, Pan Books, 2004, p. 5. According to Cavid the decision was not discussed until 2 August. See Mehmet Cavid, “Meşrutiyet devrine ait Cavit Beyin Hatıraları”, Tanin, 16 October 1944; see also the press of 28 July 1914. An imperial decree (irade) announced mobilization and declared martial law throughout the empire following mobilization. Yusuf Hikmet Bayur, Türk İnkılabı Tarihi, Vol. 3/i, Ankara, Türk Tarih Kurumu, 1953, p. 63.
6 Halil Mentese, Eski Meclisi Mebusan Reisi Halil Menteşe’nin Haritaları’ Cumhuriyet, 10 November 1946, published in İstanbul in 1986 as Halil Menteşe’nin Anıları, Hürriyet Vakfı Yayınları.
7 Cavid, “Hatıralar”, Tanin, 16 July 1944.
8 Harry N. Howard, The Partition of Turkey: A Diplomatic History 1913-1923, New York, Howard Fertig, 1966, p. 97 quoting Giers’s dispatch to Sazanov. Captain B.H. Liddle Hart, The Real War 1914-1918, Boston and Toronto, Little, Brown: n.d. (originally published by London, Faber&Faber, 1930), 144. Russia “preferred isolation to the sacrifice of her dream of annexation, and did not even report the offer to her allies”. Hew Strachan, The First World War, Vol. 1: ‘To Arms’, Oxford and New York, Oxford University Press, 2001, p. 672. The Entente’s reply came on the 18th.
9 Giers to Sazonov, Howard, Partition, pp. 97-98, n. 84 & 86.
10 Strachan, World War, p. 671.
11 Ahmed Emin, Turkey, p. 72.
12 Dan van der Vat, The Ship that Changed the World: the escape of the Goeben to the Dardanelles in 1914, Bethesda, Maryland 1986, Adler & Adler, pp. 114 and 116.
13 Cavid, “Hatıralar”, Tanin, 18 October 1944.
14 Ibid. Leon, George B. Leon, Greece and the Great Powers 1914-1917, Thessaloniki, Institute for Balkan Studies, 1974, pp. 34-35.
15 Cavid, “Hatıralar, Tanin, 19 October 1944.
16 Tanin, 17 August 1914; 19 Aug 1914. Talat and Halil arrived in Bucharest in order to discuss the question of the Aegean island with Greek delegates. “Notes from Roumania”, Bucharest, August 20, The Near East, September 11, 1914, p. 624. Tanin, 2 September 1914. Howard, Partition, p. 91, n. 44. Talat and Halil were visiting the two capitals (Tasvir-i Efkar, 18 August, l914 published pictures of the two men; see also Yunus Nadi interview with Talat, “Rumanya’nin Vaziyeti Hakkinda Mulakat”, Tasvir-i Efkar, 20 August 1914.
17 Cavid, “Hatıralar”, Tanin, 20 October 1944.
18 Ibid.
19 Ibid., 21 October 1944.
20 Howard, Partition, 101, n. 101. See Strachan, World War, p. 672 21 Cavid, “Hatıralar”, Tanin, 23 October 1944; Howard, Partition, p. 103 citing diplomatic
documents of Britain and Russia; Joseph Heller, ‘Sir Louis Mallet and the Ottoman Empire: the Road to war’. Middle Eastern Studies, Vol. 12, No. 1 ( January 1976), p. 138.
22 Howard, Partition, p. 103.
23 Cavid, “Hatıralar”, Tanin, 27 October, 1944.
24 Constantinople Letter , The Near East, 2 October 1914, p. 703.
25 Cavid, “Hatıralar”, Tanin, 31 October 1944.
26 Strachan, World War, p. 700.
27 On the question of the capitulations see Feroz Ahmad, “Ottoman Perceptions of the Capitulations 1800-1914”, Journal of Islamic Studies, Vol. 11, No.1 ( January 2000), pp. 1-20; and Howard, Partition, pp. 103 and 102ff. On Falkenhayn see Mustafa Aksakal, The Ottoman Road to War in 1914: The Ottoman Empire and the First World War, New York, Cambridge University Press, 2008, p. 149.
28 Churchill, World Crisis, p. 320; Charles V Reed. “The British naval mission in Constantinople: 1908-1914”. Unpublished MPhil thesis, Oxford University, 1990, p. 62; Bayur, Türk İnkılabı, iii/1, p. 87; Martin Gilbert, Winston S. Churchill, Vol. 3. 1914-1916, The Challenge of War, Boston, Houghton Mifflin, 1971, pp. 207-208.
29 Ibid.
30 Gilbert, Churchill, p. 208.
31 Pallavicini to Berchtold, 15 and 17 September, 1914, Frank G. Weber, Eagles on the Crescent – Germany, Austria, and the Diplomacy of the Turkish Alliance, 1914-1918, Cornell University Press, Ithaca and London, 1970, p. 74.
32 Cavid, “Hatıralar”, Tanin, 8 November, l944; Weber, Eagles, 78-9; in fact on 14 September the Kaiser ordered Souchon to attack the Russians in the Black Sea.
33 Aksakal, Ottoman Road to War, p. 151 n. 108 and 156.
34 Strachan, World War, 676; Cavid, “Hatıralar”, Tanin, 12 November l944.
35 Strachan, Ibid., p. 676, citing Ulrich Trumpener, Germany and the Ottoman Empire 1914- 1918, Princeton, New Jersey, Princeton University Press, 1968, pp. 48-49 and 51.
36 Howard, Partition, pp. 109-110. Cavid, “Hatıralar”, Tanin, 15-16 November 1944.
37 Morgenthau to Secretary of State, tel, Constantinople, 24 October l914, FRUS 1914, Supplement, 120-21.
38 Dan van der Vat, Ship, pp. 188-189; Strachan, World War, pp. 677-678; Martin Gilbert, The First World War: A Complete History, New York, Henry Holt, 1994 , pp. 104ff.
39 Howard, Partition, p. 110; See Bodger, “Russia and the End of the Ottoman Empire”, in Marian Kent (ed.), The Great Powers and the End of the Ottoman Empire, George Allen and Unwin, London, 1984, pp. 88ff where he discusses the weakness of Russia’s naval position.
40 Tanin and Tasviri Efkar, 29 and 30 November 1914 and The Orient, Vol. 5, No. 44-49, 14 December 1914, p. 431.
41 W. Bruce Lincoln, Passage Through Armageddon: the Russians in War and Revolution 1914-1918, New York, Simon & Schuster, 1986. pp. 167-168.
42 Cavid, “Hatıralar”, Tanin, 1-3 March 1945.

APA	AHMAD F (2015). Unionist Failure to Stay out of the War in October-November 1914. , 23 - 38.
Chicago	AHMAD Feroz Unionist Failure to Stay out of the War in October-November 1914. (2015): 23 - 38.
MLA	AHMAD Feroz Unionist Failure to Stay out of the War in October-November 1914. , 2015, ss.23 - 38.
AMA	AHMAD F Unionist Failure to Stay out of the War in October-November 1914. . 2015; 23 - 38.
Vancouver	AHMAD F Unionist Failure to Stay out of the War in October-November 1914. . 2015; 23 - 38.
IEEE	AHMAD F "Unionist Failure to Stay out of the War in October-November 1914." , ss.23 - 38, 2015.
ISNAD	AHMAD, Feroz. "Unionist Failure to Stay out of the War in October-November 1914". (2015), 23-38.

APA	AHMAD F (2015). Unionist Failure to Stay out of the War in October-November 1914. Perceptions: Journal of International Affairs, 20(2-3), 23 - 38.
Chicago	AHMAD Feroz Unionist Failure to Stay out of the War in October-November 1914. Perceptions: Journal of International Affairs 20, no.2-3 (2015): 23 - 38.
MLA	AHMAD Feroz Unionist Failure to Stay out of the War in October-November 1914. Perceptions: Journal of International Affairs, vol.20, no.2-3, 2015, ss.23 - 38.
AMA	AHMAD F Unionist Failure to Stay out of the War in October-November 1914. Perceptions: Journal of International Affairs. 2015; 20(2-3): 23 - 38.
Vancouver	AHMAD F Unionist Failure to Stay out of the War in October-November 1914. Perceptions: Journal of International Affairs. 2015; 20(2-3): 23 - 38.
IEEE	AHMAD F "Unionist Failure to Stay out of the War in October-November 1914." Perceptions: Journal of International Affairs, 20, ss.23 - 38, 2015.
ISNAD	AHMAD, Feroz. "Unionist Failure to Stay out of the War in October-November 1914". Perceptions: Journal of International Affairs 20/2-3 (2015), 23-38.