Middle Eastern theatre of World War I

Middle Eastern theatre of World War I
Part of World War I
From left to right: The Ottoman Shaykh al-Islām who declared Jihad against the Entente Powers; Burning oil tanks in the port of Novorossiysk after the Ottoman Empire's strike on Russian ports; Fifth Army during the Gallipoli Campaign; Third Army on the Caucasus campaign; The heliograph team of the Ottoman army in the Sinai and Palestine campaign; Ottoman soldiers during the Siege of Kut in Baghdad vilayet.
Date 30 October 1914 – 30 October 1918 (4 years) Location Middle East (Caucasus, Sinai Peninsula, Palestine, Syria, Jordan, Persia, Gallipoli, Arabian Peninsula, Persian Gulf, Mesopotamia) Result Entente victory Turkish War of Independence Fall of the Ottoman Empire Armistice of Mudros Treaty of Brest-Litovsk Treaty of Batum Treaty of Sèvres Foundation of new states in the Middle East Territorial changes Partitioning of the Ottoman Empire
Belligerents
Entente Powers:  United Kingdom Sultanate of Egypt  India  Australia  New Zealand  South Africa  Newfoundland Kuwait Emirate of Nejd and Hasa  Russia (until 1917) Armenian Corps  France Algeria Tunisia West Africa Armenian Legion  Italy (from 1915) Hejaz (from 1916) Armenia (from 1918) Local allies: Assyrian volunteers	Central Powers:  Ottoman Empire  Germany  Austria-Hungary[1][2] Jabal Shammar Azerbaijan (from 1918) Georgia (from 1918)
Commanders and leaders
Julian Byng Archibald Murray Edmund Allenby Ian Hamilton John Nixon Percy Lake Stanley Maude # Lionel Dunsterville T. E. Lawrence I. Vorontsov-Dashkov Grand Duke Nikolai Nikolai Yudenich Nikolai Baratov Henri Gouraud (WIA) Maurice Bailloud Hovhannes Hakhverdyan Tovmas Nazarbekian Andranik Ozanian Hussein bin Ali Faisal bin Hussein Abdulaziz Ibn Saud	Enver Pasha Djemal Pasha Cevat Pasha Vehip Pasha Nuri Pasha Ahmed Izzet Pasha Mustafa Kemal Pasha (WIA)[3] Fevzi Pasha Abdul Kerim Pasha Halil Pasha Nureddin Pasha Mehmet Esat Pasha Fakhri Pasha F. B. von Schellendorf Otto Liman von Sanders Colmar von der Goltz † Erich von Falkenhayn F. K. von Kressenstein Saud bin Abdulaziz Fatali Khan Khoyski Noe Zhordania
Strength
2,550,000[4] 1,000,000[5] Several 100,000's[5] Several 100,000's[5] 30,000 (1916)[6] 50,000+ (1918)[7] 20,000+[8] Total: 4,000,000+	3,059,205[9] 800,000 (peak)[9][10] 323,000 (during Armistice)[11] 6,500 (1916) 20,000 (1918)[9] ~6,000 (1918)[12] 9,000 (1918)[13] Total: 3,100,000
Casualties and losses
Total: 1,250,000 casualties 1,025,800 119,000 47,000 Military dead: 150,000–200,000 Civilian dead: 2,275,000	Total: 1,785,000 casualties[14][15] 1,781,800 3,200[Note 1] Military dead: 325,000–771,000 Civilian dead: 1,200,000–2,500,000[16][17]
2,000,000 Persian civilians dead from famine exacerbated by Russian, British, and Ottoman occupation Total dead: 7,000,000+

The Middle Eastern theatre of World War I saw action between 30 October 1914 and 30 October 1918. The combatants were, on one side, the Ottoman Empire (including the majority of Circassians and Kurdish tribes, some Arabs, and some Iranian peoples), with some assistance from the other Central Powers; and on the other side, the British (with the help of a small number of Jews, Greeks, Assyrians, some Kurdish tribes and Arab states, along with Hindu, Sikh and Muslim colonial troops from India) as well as troops from the British Dominions of Australia, Canada, and New Zealand, the Russians (with the help of Armenians, Assyrians, and occasionally some Kurdish tribes), and the French (with its North African and West African Muslim, Christian and other colonial troops) from among the Allied Powers. There were five main campaigns: the Sinai and Palestine, Mesopotamian, Caucasus, Persian, and Gallipoli campaigns.

Both sides used local asymmetrical forces in the region. On the Allied side were Arabs who participated in the Arab Revolt and the Armenian militia who participated in the Armenian resistance supported by Russia during the War; along with Armenian volunteer units, the Armenian militia formed the Armenian Corps of the First Republic of Armenia in 1918. In addition, the Assyrians joined the Allies and saw action in Southeastern Turkey, northern Mesopotamia (Iraq), northwestern Iran and northeastern Syria following the Assyrian genocide, instigating the Assyrian war of independence.^[18] Turks were persecuted by the invading Russian troops in the east and by Greek troops and Armenian fedayis in the west, east, and south of Anatolia. The theatre covered the largest territory of all theatres in the war.

Russian participation in the theatre ended as a result of the Armistice of Erzincan (5 December 1917), after which the revolutionary Russian government withdrew from the war under the terms of the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk (3 March 1918). The Armenians attended the Trebizond Peace Conference (14 March 1918) which resulted in the Treaty of Batum on 4 June 1918. The Ottomans accepted the Armistice of Mudros with the Allies on 30 October 1918, and signed the Treaty of Sèvres on 10 August 1920 and later the Treaty of Lausanne on 24 July 1923.

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