The Ottoman Road to War in 1914

By Mustafa Aksakal

Cambridge University Press, 2008

Reviewed by Thomas E. Ward, II, PhD

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This book has the look and feel of a dissertation that converted for publication as a book—illumination of relatively obscure sources, a scholarly approach to those sources, thoroughly documented references, and attention to detail. Just the same, it is surprisingly readable. 

The core question in Aksakal’s book addresses why the Ottoman Empire entered the conflict in World War I on the side of the Central Powers and the Central Powers allied themselves with the Ottomans. His primary effort is to place the Ottoman decision for war in context, examining both the internal and external political landscapes facing the Ottomans, in the process largely debunking the widely accepted perception that Ottoman leadership was either incompetent or mesmerized by German influence.

A fundamental question for those not already intimately familiar with the Great War is why the Turks chose to participate in the first place, and why they chose to align themselves with the Central Powers. The answer is European encroachment: geographic, military, political, and financial encroachment, primarily by Great Britain, France, and Italy.

Aksakal lays out quite clearly the view of the world from the Ottoman perspective. Aggressive, expansionist European powers bent on imperial goals surrounded the Ottoman Empire. The maps provided by the author make the situation abundantly clear—the European powers, especially the Triple Entente members, had been biting off chunks of the Ottoman Empire for years. If the trend continued, partition of the empire was the likely outcome.  

At the same time, the Russians clearly had designs on Armenia, the Bosporus Straits, the Dardanelles, and even Istanbul. The humiliation of the First and Second Balkan Wars, in which the Ottomans lost major European territory to Serbia, Bulgaria, and Romania—all former territories of the Empire as recently as 1878, made the squeeze even more acute. From the Ottoman perspective, it was time to stand firm or be partitioned into pieces of European empires.

The environment was equally complex internally. The author illuminates the internal friction of the Sublime Porte and the populist ground swell prompted largely by the tales of Muslim refugees pouring in from annexed former territories. This examination is both thorough and thoroughly documented but would have benefited immensely from some simple visual aids. The maps that show the losses of the Ottoman Empire in the second half of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century provide excellent aids to situational understanding, but they are the only such illustration in the entire book.

Similar graphic explanations or illustrations of the relationships between ministries of the Sublime Porte would have been helpful, as would diagrams showing both the official relationships between the key personalities (title, office, office hierarchy) and familial relationships if they existed—there were at least nine Pashas in this story. Photographs of the principals would also help readers who find visual enhancements key aids to understanding.

This is a worthwhile book, but it is not an “easy read.” It does an excellent job of illuminating a relatively dim corner of history. In doing so, the book not only shines light on the events leading up to World War I, it provides superb understanding of context in the Balkan region that assists comprehension of events there in the late 20th and early 21st centuries

This review originally appeared in the July-August 2009 issue of Military Review, published by Army University Press