Ottoman Empire Joining World War I Essay

What Prompted the Ottoman Empire to Join World War I?

Plan of Investigation

World War I, was a particularly decisive event in the history of the Ottoman Empire, as the decision to join the war, ultimately led to the Empire’s downfall, after more than 600 years of prosperity. The catastrophic implications of the decision, may thus lead one to ponder: What prompted the Ottoman Empire to join World War I in the first place? It is a question for which there is a lack of specificity in contemporary answers, as some claim that it was an imperialistic desire that prompted the Ottomans to join the war, while others believe that the decision was a result of international pressure. This exploration is then, an attempt to delve deeper than the surface,

Therefore, it is unsurprising that the Ottoman Empire adopted a defensive stance following the wars, as the recent manifestation of European (and particularly Slavic) hostility, served to only prove the Empire’s long-held awareness of the European threat. Furthermore, perhaps a more humiliating aspect of the wars was that Ottoman loss had not come at the hands of a great European power, rather, they had lost to a coalition of small Balkan states, and thus the Balkan Wars instilled within the Ottoman Empire as a whole, a sense of vulnerability, violation, and the need to exact revenge. It was with this newly-inspired, radical and nationalist mindset, that the Ottomans initially considered war, as Djemal Pasha, a prominent Ottoman military leader, later confessed in light of World War I: “When I contemplate all that the Russia has done for centuries to bring about our destruction, and all that Britain has done during these last few years, then I consider this new crisis that has emerged to be a