Imperial Concerns at the Heart of the British-Ottoman Rupture, 1914

Abstract

How does “historic friendship” turn sour? How does a former protector become a “cruel enemy”? This was the situation in which the British Empire found itself during World War I as they fought against the Ottoman Empire, a power with which they had enjoyed almost uninterrupted friendship since the sixteenth century. During that time, Britain had been the Ottoman Empire’s principal defender against foreign incursions that threatened their territorial integrity, as seen in conflicts such as the Crimean War and the Second Egyptian-Ottoman War (1839-41). In 1914, when relations between the two empires seemed to be stronger than they had been in decades, the Ottoman Empire forsook their friendship with Great Britain and entered the Great War on the side of the Central Powers. Yet this did not occur at the outset of the conflict; the British declaration of war on the Ottoman Empire occurred on November 5th, three months after the ratification of the German-Ottoman Alliance and the outbreak of the war in Europe. These three months saw the failure of the British Foreign Office to maintain Ottoman neutrality despite repeated efforts to do so. This resulted in the declaration of war (along with the rest of the Triple Entente) on the Ottoman Empire following their naval attack on Russia.