Fall of the sultanate. The Great War and the end of the Ottoman Empire 1908-1922

338 Pages·2016·2.3 MB·English

by  Gingeras

THE GREATER WAR
1912–1923
General Editor
robert gerwarth

Fall of the Sultanate
The Great War and the End of the
Ottoman Empire, 1908–1922
RYAN GINGERAS
1
3
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© Ryan Gingeras 2016
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First Edition published in 2016
Impression: 1
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Library of Congress Control Number: 2015948956
ISBN 978–0–19–967607–1
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For Dot Fitzpatrick, forever missed

Acknowledgments
I first want to thank Robert Gerwarth for his support and confidence in having me
take up this project. It was a tremendous honor and joy from start to finish and for
that I am truly grateful. I want to thank Robert Faber and Cathryn Steele for their
patience as I brought the manuscript in for a landing. My colleagues at the Naval
Postgraduate School, particularly chair Mohammed Hafez, were, as always, highly
supportive in seeing me get through the writing of this book. I would like to
extend my gratitude to the archivists and librarians in Palo Alto, Silver Spring,
London, Berlin, and Vienna who helped me collect the material that helped build
this project. I especially want to thank Patrick Fiska of the University of Vienna
for all of his help in collecting and corresponding with the Haus-, Hof-, und
Staatsarchiv. Most of all, I want to thank my family. Mariana, Amaya, and Sebastian,
as ever, provided me the strength, joy, and focus that made the writing of this book
possible. Thank you.

Table of Contents
List of Figures xi
List of Maps xiii
Introduction 1
1. Revolution 11
Crisis and Reform as Politics in the Contemporary Ottoman Empire 14
Founding the Young Turk Movement 28
The 31 March Incident and the New Political Precedents of
Ottoman Politics 34
To Rule and Govern: The Challenges and Structures of Prewar
Unionist Administration 38
2. Collapse on the Margins 53
The Signposts for Catastrophe: The Balkans, Libya, and Yemen 56
War over Libya 70
War over the Balkans 79
Catastrophe’s Aftermath: Politics and Society after the Balkan Wars 90
3. Great War 101
Taking the Nation to War: Internal and External Politics 103
A New Nation Forged in War: Mobilization and National Politics 110
The Fighting Begins: From the Caucasus to the Sinai 116
Gallipoli: The Great Victory 121
A Pyrrhic Struggle in Iraq 127
Taking Stock of War in 1916 130
4. Deportation 135
Setting the Scene for Disaster: Anatolia in the Modern Era 140
Unionist Anatolia: Conditions for Disaster 151
Ottoman Settlement Politics and the Road to Mass Exile 159
The Great Disaster Commences, November 1914–April 1915 165
An Empire Remade by Exile 170
Life after Exile: International and Local Implications of the Deportations 180
5. Empire Divided 185
Becoming the Arab Lands: Arab Politics and Society in the
Nineteenth Century 189
Arabs and Young Turks: Arab Politics and Society under the CUP 201
War in the Arab Lands: The Travails of the Early War Years 207