What If the Ottoman Empire had stayed neutral in World War One?

Across the 1800s, the Ottomans had an important role to play in European politics—not necessarily due to their immense power, but because of the people they ruled over and their geopolitical location.

The huge Russian Empire was feared across Europe, and its ambitious eyes often wandered toward the Ottomans, specifically for control over the Balkans and the city of Istanbul, since it was the Orthodox Christian capital and one of the most important trade routes in Europe. Yet, for most of this period, Britain stood to defend its Turkish ally. When the Khedivate of Egypt almost broke the Ottoman Empire, Britain led an expedition to prevent it. When the Crimean War broke out, Britain helped. When Russia almost captured Istanbul in 1878, Britain threatened war, and Russia had to back down and accept far less than what it had hoped for, resulting in the semi-independence of Bulgaria after 500 years of Ottoman rule.

But despite all of this, change was in the air. In Britain, support for the Ottomans was split. The Conservatives wanted to keep the Ottomans in power as a buffer state between Russia, but the Liberals were more “pro-Greece.” From 1905 to 1922, these Liberals would be in power in Britain.

Thus, the time was perfect to collapse a weakened Ottoman Empire, which had already lost an incredible amount of territory. Britain and France had already promised Libya to Italy, which finally acted on it in war.

Ottoman losses in this war encouraged the Balkan nations of Greece, Bulgaria, Serbia, Montenegro, and a revolting Albania to go to war against the Ottomans in the First Balkan War, driving them from the region.

These wars confirmed to many what was already known: the Ottomans were unfit to act as guarantors of Eastern European stability. Since the British were not keen on defending the Ottomans this time, a new power entered focus—Germany. Germany began positioning itself as the savior of the Ottomans against Entente imperialism, promising the Ottomans victory and greatness and increasing investments in Ottoman infrastructure.

The Young Turk Revolution of 1908, which led to constitutional resistance to Sultan Abdulhamid, deposed him and turned the absolute monarchy into a constitutional one, putting the Committee of Union and Progress in charge. Several factions vied for control over the Ottoman government, such as the Committee of Union and Progress and the Freedom and Accord Party. In 1912, the Freedom Party launched a coup and deposed the Committee of Union and Progress from power, yet their control didn’t last long.

The recently started Balkan Wars brought the Committee of Union and Progress back to power, specifically its more militarist and nationalist wing, which transformed the country from a democracy into a one-party state, repressing the Freedom and Accord Party. Enver Pasha, Talat Pasha, and Cemal Pasha would hold most of the power in the party.

Geopolitically speaking, the Ottomans had many reasons to oppose the Entente. Egypt had been seized by Britain, Libya had been taken by Italy with Entente approval, the collapse of the Balkans was encouraged by Russia, and Russia was openly interested in the Ottoman capital of Istanbul and in gaining Armenia. Even further, the Entente had a certain air of disrespect toward the Turks.

French and British advisors had no intention of learning Turkish, and the lingua franca in the Ottoman Navy was English because the British advisors demanded it. In contrast, German advisors did a lot to learn and adapt to the Turks, especially from the viewpoint of the nationalist and militarist Committee of Union and Progress. Therefore, their alignment toward Germany was not a strange development.

But it gets worse. A lesser-known fact is that the Entente nations had huge control over the Ottoman government through a massive debt program that forced major reforms between 1912 and 1914 in regard to the six eastern Armenian provinces, including Trabzon, to be merged into two “vilayets” under the supervision of European inspectors.

This was yet another massive breach of Ottoman sovereignty, and it seemed like a gradual path from autonomy for Armenians and Georgians to independence, and even expansion—something that had happened only a few decades earlier in the Balkans.

With all of these disadvantages and pressures on the Ottomans, one could say that they were basically forced to join the Central Powers. But interestingly, that is also wrong. Ottoman neutrality in World War One is far from a crazy concept. When the Ottomans joined the war, strikes and protests broke out across the nation.

Despite everything, both the government and the population leaned toward neutrality in the war, if not even a pro-Entente stance. But the Committee of Union and Progress—especially Enver Pasha—forced Ottoman involvement in the conflict.

Before the war, the Ottomans had commissioned battleships in Britain. When World War One broke out, the British seized the ships. But Germany, acting as a savior, gave the Ottomans a battleship they had in the Mediterranean Sea—German crews on the ship, but flying Ottoman flags. This ship raided the Russian coast, causing Russia to declare war on the Ottomans.

For the sake of our alternative scenario, let’s assume the German ship gets intercepted by British vessels and never reaches Russia, causing the Russians never to declare war on the Turks.

We often think of World War One as Germany doing all the heavy lifting in the war, with Bulgaria performing somewhat well but still being a minor power. This way of thinking is wrong, since the Ottomans—despite being the least industrialized and least ready for such a conflict—performed admirably and were crucial to Germany’s chances of winning the war.

While they suffered huge losses to the Russians and British, they defended themselves quite well, even making gains in Georgia, Armenia, and the Azerbaijani lands toward the end of the war. The blockade of their nation left them more isolated economically than Germany, but their agricultural economy held up far better.

Most importantly, the Ottomans were crucial to any German chance of winning the war. They distracted the Russian and British navies and troops, as 4,000,000 Entente forces fought the Ottoman army during the war, while only 20,000 German forces were needed to reinforce their lines. More importantly, they blocked Russian and British supply routes by controlling the Dardanelles and Istanbul, while Germany itself could block Baltic supply routes.

These blockades weakened the Russian Empire so much that it was left to defend itself with an underdeveloped industry and the loss of its eastern territory under the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, eventually collapsing in revolution.

Finally, getting to the main topic of the Ottomans not joining World War I.

Bulgaria, influenced by both the Entente and the Central Powers, was promised small territorial concessions by the Entente to stay neutral, while the Central Powers promised it Balkan hegemony. In our timeline, with the fear of Romania and Greece joining the Entente’s side—and possibly even the Ottomans—Bulgaria would most likely choose the safer option of staying neutral, since otherwise, it would be completely surrounded by Entente forces and collapse.

This leaves Germany and Austria against the world. Austria was actively being pushed back by Russia, which was nowhere near surrendering and significantly stronger in this timeline. Serbia was mostly holding out, while Italy joined the conflict and opened another front. I personally see no way Germany could even hope to secure a victory, and I think even the German leadership would realize this fact by this point.

The Central Powers would sue for peace and surrender, with Romania joining the war and putting even more pressure on them. If they surrendered early, we can imagine a far less radical peace deal being imposed.

However, the Entente would still demand concessions. German colonies would be seized, alongside Alsace-Lorraine going to France, Eupen-Malmedy to Belgium, and Northern Schleswig to Denmark. Austria would fare far worse—Serbia gaining Bosnia and most of Dalmatia, a greater Hungary securing independence, Romania gaining Cernauti, Bohemia gaining independence, and Russia seizing Galicia, either as annexation or as a puppet state. Even though the Central Powers survive more safely than in our timeline, they would still face massive war reparations. This is the scenario we will follow from here.

Whether the Ottomans stayed neutral or joined the Entente in this timeline wouldn’t change much, since Bulgaria remained neutral, and the Entente had surrounded Ottoman territory, leaving no room for expansion—other than perhaps gaining Kuwait and Cyprus as a reward for cooperation. Since the Ottomans didn’t collapse after the war as in our timeline, we wouldn’t see Atatürk’s national movement overthrowing them. There would be no Armenian Genocide narrative either, as the Armenians in Anatolia would never have the chance to sabotage the Ottomans during a war with Russia.

We might also see the abolishment of the Ottoman Administration of Debt, which had been a way for the Entente to control Ottoman politics. The Committee of Union and Progress would be free to implement its political plans without the distraction of war, most of which were not favorable to other nationalities within the Empire. For example, further Turkification beyond the prior multicultural Ottomanism, eliminating Arab and Christian populations even more. During the Balkan Wars, the atrocities committed against Muslim Turks had made the Ottomans deeply xenophobic toward Christians.

Also, the new ruling party in the Ottoman Empire—especially Enver Pasha—had his own vision of “Turan,” the homeland of the Oghuz Turks (the Ottoman branch of Turks), located in Central Asia, specifically Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan. Enver Pasha hoped to unify with the distant Turks of Azerbaijan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, and parts of Kazakhstan. In our timeline, he attempted this plan during the Basmachi Rebellion, when he moved to Central Asia after the loss of World War One and rebelled with the Central Asian Turks against the Soviet regime to establish “Turkestan,” his own “Turanic” state.

Returning to our topic, the Committee of Union and Progress can be compared to the ultra-nationalistic ideologies of Italy or Spain. They wanted to indoctrinate the entire population into a “war” mindset—in their own words, to make the Turks a warlike people. All young Turkish men were encouraged to join paramilitary groups that trained them in physical labor and combat. Within their system, women were relegated to raising as many children for the Turkish race as possible.

The government would later embark on a horrific program of ethnic cleansing. The Turks, having developed paranoia about their many Christian minorities after the Balkan War, devised programs to remove Greeks and Armenians from Anatolia, either by deportation or by other means that I wish not to discuss, aiming to fully “Turkify” Anatolia. The Kurdish population was also seen as a problem but was spared for the sole reason of being Muslim. However, in this timeline, they most likely would have been targeted as well.

The extent of these crimes, if they were to escalate, would make the Ottomans seem like a “Pariah” state. No self-respecting Western nation would want to ally with them after such atrocities. But then again, what self-respecting nation would be left? The Great War had been devastating, and such crimes were seen all over the world in that century.

Thanks for reading…