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Syk, Andrew - Command in the Indian Expeditionary Force D: Mesopotamia, 1915–16 Keywords: Baghdad | First World War | Indian Army commanders | Indian Expeditionary Force | Mesopotamia ISFWWS-Keywords: India | Middle East | Military organisation of combat | The Ottoman Empire and the Middle East | The French and British Empires | Experience of combat Abstract: The growth of German influence within the Ottoman Empire, after the turn of the century and manifested in construction of the Baghdad Railway, threatened British influence and trade in…

Railways A means of mass transportation of persons and goods, developed in the 19th century, and adapted for military purposes in the second half of the century. The first extensive and operationally effective implementation of plans for the transportation of major bodies of troops by rail occurred in the wars of 1866 and 1870/1871. From that point on, all general staffs included the railways in their operational plans, and created specialized military units for the construction, safeguarding, an…

Macedonia With the outbreak of the First World War, the multinational region of Macedonia became a battlefield of the Great Powers. Germany’s strategic goal of advancing eastwards and maintaining an open route to Turkey led to the establishment of the Balkan Front. For the various peoples living in the Balkans, this simultaneously represented a continuation of the struggle for Macedonia. This struggle resulted from a number of factors: the emergence of nationalisms in the 19th century, the founding of national states, and the all too be…

Ariotti, Kate - Australian Prisoners of the Turks: Negotiating Culture Clash in Captivity ISFWWS-Keywords: Australia | Prisoners of War | The Ottoman Empire and the Middle East | Published memoirs and biographies | Masculinity | Medicine Other Fronts, Other Wars? Joachim Bürgschwentner, Matthias Egger and Gunda Barth-Scalmani , (2014) Publication Editor: Brill, The Netherlands, 2014 e-ISBN: 9789004279513 DOI: 10.1163/9789004279513_008 © 2014 Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands Ariotti, Kate

Hughes, Matthew - Command, Strategy and the Battle for Palestine, 1917 Keywords: British command | Chief of the Imperial General Staff | David Lloyd George | grand strategy | Palestine campaign ISFWWS-Keywords: Middle East | Britain | Politics | The Ottoman Empire and the Middle East Abstract: This chapter examines the interchange between and within British command and grand strategy during the Palestine campaign of 1917, a significant military operation that drew off hundreds of thousands of Entente and Central alliance sold…

Goltz, Baron Colmar von der (August 12, 1843, Bielkenfeld near Labiau [modern Polessk in the Kaliningrad Oblast] – April 19, 1916, Baghdad), Prussian and Ottoman field marshal. After graduating from cadet school, Goltz joined the Fifth East Prussian Infantry Regiment as a lieutenant in 1861. Following active service in the wars of 1866 and 1870–1871, his subsequent career was characterized by extended teaching assignments both at the War School in Potsdam and at the Prussian Military Academy in Berli…

Red Cross The red cross on a white ground signifies neutrality in war, and thus protection. The Ottoman Empire introduced the alternative symbol of the red crescent on a white ground during the Russo-Turkish War of 1877/1878, and also used it during the First World War. The red crescent continues to be used by Muslim states in place of the red cross, in order to avoid using the Christian symbol. The associations that had assumed the voluntary, and most importantly unpaid, task of caring for the wounded in war, as well as preparing for that activity in peacetime, w…

Dardanelles Straits between the Aegean Sea and the Sea of Marmara. After the outbreak of war in Europe, the Young Turk government of the Ottoman Empire had envisioned joining the war on the side of the Central Powers. The arrival of two German warships, the Goeben and the Breslau, at Constantinople on August 10, 1914, reinforced this decision. For Turkey joining the war meant territorial gains at Russia’s expense; in the Caucasus, at British expense; as well as in Egypt. On October 27, the Turkish fleet put to sea against the Russian Black Sea base, thereby triggering war with the Entente. Mean…

Mesopotamia The territory between the Euphrates and the Tigris, which now lies in Iraq, belonged to the Ottoman Empire from the 16th century onward. For the British, the occupation of this barren and remote territory, which was only weakly defended by the Turks, held interesting prospects for a variety of reasons: the exploitation of the region’s oilfields offered promising economic perspectives, while the geographical situation of Mesopotamia at the crossroads of a land route connecting India, s…

Gardner, Nikolas - Morale of the Indian Army in the Mesopotamia Campaign: 1914–17 Keywords: Indian Army | Indian Morale | Kut-Al-Amara | Mesopotamia campaign ISFWWS-Keywords: India | Middle East | Experience of combat | The French and British Empires | Soldiers and Combat | Middle East | The Ottoman Empire and the Middle East | Published memoirs and biographies Abstract: This chapter use the contractual model to explain the morale of Indian soldiers during the Mesopotamia campaign, focusing in particular on the period prior to the surrender of…

Lüdke, Tilman - Strange Fronts, Strange Wars: Germany’s Battle for “Islam” in the Middle East during the First World War, and British Reactions ISFWWS-Keywords: Religion | Politics | Middle East | The Ottoman Empire and the Middle East | Germany | Britain Other Fronts, Other Wars? Joachim Bürgschwentner, Matthias Egger and Gunda Barth-Scalmani , (2014) Publication Editor: Brill, The Netherlands, 2014 e-ISBN: 9789004279513 DOI: 10.1163/9789004279513_019 © 2014 Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands Lüdke, Tilman

Gallipoli A peninsula bordering on the Dardanelles. The military conflict at Gallipoli was a direct consequence of the failed naval operation in the Dardanelles. The British leadership wished to make up for this reverse by conducting a landing operation on the northern Turkish coast. This was remarkable inasmuch as it had always argued in front of the War Council that the great advantage of the Dardanelles operation lay in the fact that it could easily be called off in the event of a failure. It …

Kemal Pasha, Mustafa (March 12, 1881, Salonica [Thessalonika] – November 10, 1938, Istanbul; from 1934 Atatürk), Ottoman general and Turkish politician (state president). After completing training at the Military Academy ( Harbiye Harp Okulu) in 1902, Kemal Pasha was active as a young officer in the resistance against the regime of Sultan Abdul Hamid II. In 1905 he founded a secret military society that later amalgamated with the self-styled patriotic movement of the Young Turks under Enver Pasha. In 1908/1909, he took part in …

Sub-Saharan Africa Africa without the Arab North, and without the settler colonies in the South. Sub-Saharan Africa was both a theater of war and a source for the recruitment of soldiers and laborers during the First World War. The main areas fought over were the German colonies of Togo, Cameroon, and German East Africa, as their capture would enable the wireless stations located there to be destroyed, and their harbors neutralized as bases for the German Navy. When British and French forces occup…

Caucasian Front Between 1914 and 1918 the Ottoman Empire fought on more than half a dozen fronts that were spread out over a vast geographical area, but the Caucasian Front was given high priority in the plans of the Minister of War Enver Pasha – as indicated by the fact that he increased the number of troops in the region at the beginning of the war and placed himself in command of the Ottoman Third Army in eastern Anatolia. Contrary to the original plan, the Third Army received reinforcements fr…

Liman von Sanders, Otto Karl Viktor (February 17, 1855, Schwessin bei Stolp, Pomerania – August 22, 1929, Munich), German general and Ottoman marshal. Liman von Sanders, the son of a merchant and titled landowner, embarked on a military career early in life. He reached prominence when, on December 8, 1913, he was sent to Constantinople as chief of the German military mission, charged with reorganizing the Turkish Army. Owing to strong protests, from Russia in particular, the German Reich eventually dr…

India In August 1914, the Indian subcontinent was the most important pillar of the British Empire. After the start of the First World War India’s importance to the war effort was apparent in the considerable numbers of Indian soldiers employed on the Allied fronts in Europe, Africa, and Asia. By the end of 1918, some 1.5 million Indians had been mobilized for the war. Of these, almost 900,000 belonged to fighting units. More than 60,000 Indian soldiers died in the war and about the same number suffered wounds. It was originally envisaged that only restricted use should be made of I…

Hudson, David - “Having Seen Enough”: Eleanor Franklin Egan and the Journalism of Great War Displacement Keywords: American journalist | Eleanor Franklin Egan | Great War | journalism ISFWWS-Keywords: The United States of America | Legacy | Literature | Women and War | Politics | The Balkans and Eastern Europe | The Ottoman Empire and the Middle East Abstract: The Great War presented American journalist Eleanor Franklin Egan with an unmatched tableau, and by the time of the armistice she had cemented her reputation as one of the foremost inte…

Esenbel, Selçuk - Friends in Opposite Camps or Enemies from Afar: Japanese and Ottoman Turkish Relations in the Great War ISFWWS-Keywords: International Relations during the War | Asia | The Ottoman Empire and the Middle East | Legacy The Decade of the Great War Tosh Minohara , Tze-ki Hon and Evan Dawley , (2014) Publication Editor: Brill, The Netherlands, 2014 e-ISBN: 9789004274273 DOI: 10.1163/9789004274273_014 © 2014 Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands Esenbel, Selçuk

Musaj, Fatmira; Nicholson, Beryl - Women Activists in Albania following Independence and World War I Keywords: Albania | women's organisations | World War I ISFWWS-Keywords: The Balkans and Eastern Europe | Women and War | Society | Politics | Pre-war period | The Ottoman Empire and the Middle East | Greece | General | The United States of America Abstract: Albania declared its independence on 28 November 1912, and a provisional government was formed. Independence was seen by the Qiriazi sisters as creating the opportunity for educated women to con…