Dissolution of the Ottoman Empire

Balkan Wars

The Ottoman army in the Balkans was large and appeared on the surface to be modern. However, this was just a facade as the Ottoman army was largely corrupt, poorly lead, poorly trained, and ineffective.

In 1913 a nationalist uprising broke out in Albania, and on October 8, the Balkan League, consisting of Serbia, Montenegro, Greece and Bulgaria, mounted a joint attack on the Ottoman Empire, starting the First Balkan War. Albania declared independence on November 28, Turkey agreed to a ceasefire on December 2, and its territory losses were finalized in 1913 in the treaties of London and Bucharest. Albania became independent, and the Empire lost almost all of its European territory (Kosovo, Sanjak of Novi Pazar, Macedonia and western Thrace) to the four allies.

The three new Balkan states formed at the end of the 19th century and Montenegro, sought additional territories from the Albania, Macedonia, and Thrace, behind their nationalistic arguments. The incomplete emergence of these nation-states on the fringes of the Ottoman Empire during the nineteenth century set the stage for the Balkan Wars. Initially under the encouragement of Russia, a series of agreements were concluded: between Serbia and Bulgaria in March 1912 and between Greece and Bulgaria in May 1912. Montenegro subsequently concluded agreements between Serbia and Bulgaria respectively in October 1912. The Serbian-Bulgarian agreement specifically called for the partition of Macedonia which resulted in the First Balkan War. The Second Balkan War soon followed.

1913-Before the conflicts, People escaping

1913-Before the conflicts, People escaping
1913-Military Hospital Camp.
1913-Cholera was common among soldiers
1913-Luleburgaz: Pain of the soldiers
1913-Luleburgaz: Pain of the soldiers
1913-Pain of the soldiers

1913-Pain of the soldiers

Relations before World War I

Italy declared war on the Empire on September 29, 1911, demanding the turnover of Tripoli and Cyrenaica. When the empire did not respond, Italian forces took those areas on November 5 of that year (this act was confirmed by an act of the Italian Parliament on February 25, 1912).

World War I

The Ottoman Empire, ruled effectively by the three Pashas, Enver Pasha, Pasha Djemal, and Talat Pasha, sided diplomatically with the Central Powers, in large part because Russia was one of the Allies. They had negotiated a deal with Germany. In exchange for money and future control over Russian territory, the Ottoman Government abandoned a neutral position and sided with Germany.

Entering the War

By allowing the German battlecruisers the Goeben and the Breslau (flying the flag of the Ottoman Empire no less) to shoot at Russian ships in Odessa on October 24 1914, the Ottoman government clearly allied itself with Germany and Austria-Hungary. As a result of this deliberate and unprovoked attack, Britain, France, and Russia all declared war on the Ottoman Empire within the first 5 days of November.

see: Notification of Netrality, CUPs response to England

Military Conflicts

In a final effort to regain some of these lost territories and to challenge British authority over the Suez canal, a triumvirate—the Three Pashas, led by Minister of War Enver Pasha—agreed to join the Central Powers in World War I. The military activities of the period is covered under Middle Eastern theatre of World War I.

The Ottoman Empire had some successes in the beginning years of the war. Also under cover of war, they began large-scale deportations and massacres of Armenians, eliminating the Armenians from Anatolia by the end of the war. The Allies—including the newly formed Australian and New Zealand Army Corps ("ANZACs")—were defeated in the Battle of Gallipoli, Iraq, and the Balkans, while British naval landing attempts were repulsed and some territories were regained. Fighting the Russians in the Caucasus, however, the Ottomans lost ground—and over 100,000 soldiers—in a series of battles. The 1917 Russian revolution gave the Ottomans a chance to regain these areas, but continued British offensives ultimately proved to be too much. The Ottomans were eventually defeated due to key attacks by the British general Edmund Allenby, as well as assistance from the Arab Revolt and the Republic of Armenia.

Sèvres to the End

The Treaty of Sevres was signed by the Ottoman Empire but it was destined never to be ratified. Its terms were admittedly severe, and they were widely criticized as vindictive. The coming years showed that it was also impracticable. Sèvres was the end of the Ottoman Empire.

Turkish revolutionaries refused to accept the Treaty of Sèvres. Under the leadership of Mustafa Kemal, a Turkish national movemet began. The parliament in Istanbul could not function, and at the end British closed the parliament. New elections performed through out Anatolia and with some parliamenters, who escaped from Istanbul, a new government is build in Ankara. The rest of the story is Turkish Independence war.

The Treaty of Lausanne announced the new Turkish State internationally. This new state gave the 'coup de grâce' to the Ottoman state, in 1922, with the overthrow of Sultan Mehmet VI Vahdettin by the new republican assembly of Turkey. The initial peace agreement with the Ottoman Empire was the Armistice of Mudros, followed by the Treaty of Sèvres. The United Kingdom obtained virtually everything it had sought—according to the secret Sykes-Picot Agreement made together with France in 1916, while the war was still going on—from the empire's partition. The other powers of the Triple Entente, however, became entangled in the Turkish War of Independence.

Turkish national movement and Turkish War of Independence are developed against the plans of the Allies. Angered by the Sèvres agreement, Mustafa Kemal—who had been an important force at the 1915 Battle of Gallipoli—raised an army that expelled the Greeks, the Italians, and the French, confronted the Republic of Armenia, and eventually threatened the British as well. On 23 April 1920, these Turkish revolutionaries, under Mustafa Kemal's leadership, formed a parliament (the Büyük Millet Meclisi, or Grand National Assembly) in Ankara, so as to direct the war against the invading forces. In the end, these revolutionaries asserted their right to an independent national existence.

The final blow to the Ottoman Empire came on 1 November 1922—after the expulsion of the invading forces—when the Grand National Assembly abolished the sultanate. The last sultan, Mehmed VI Vahdettin (1918-1922), left the country on 17 November, and the Republic of Turkey was officially declared on 29 October 1923. The title of caliphate—the very last official remnant of the empire—was constitutionally abolished several months later, on 3 March 1924.