It was also hoped that the Ottoman Empire might provide a base from which to threaten Britain's communications with India via the Suez Canal. With aid and expertise from Germany, Enver and his supporters saw an opportunity to inflict a decisive defeat on Russia and recover the territory and prestige lost during the preceding half century.įrom the German perspective, the Ottoman alliance was intended to distract the Entente powers (Britain, France, and Russia) from the European theater and promote rebellion among their Muslim subjects. Prompted by imperial ambition, awareness of Russian designs on their territory, and the inability of France and Great Britain to provide effective guarantees for their security, a prowar, pro-German cabal within the Ottoman cabinet led by Enver Paşa (1881–1922) signed a secret alliance with imperial Germany on August 2, 1914. War came to the Middle East through Ottoman ambition as much as the imperialism of the great European powers. The war also drew virtually the whole of the Middle East into the imperial embrace of Great Britain and France. It brought the end of the Ottoman Empire and established successor states that are the foundation of the modern Middle East. Viewed from a regional perspective, however, World War I was both a profound human tragedy and an exceedingly important formative episode.
Lawrence (Lawrence of Arabia, 1888–1935) and Mustafa Kemal Atatürk (1881–1938), the Middle East was strategically insignificant with respect to the outcome of World War I (1914–1918). Despite the romance of associations with the Holy Land and iconic figures such as T.
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