Ottoman entry into World War I

The Ottoman Empire's entry into World War I began when two recently purchased ships of its navy, which were still crewed by German sailors and commanded by their German admiral, carried out the Black Sea Raid, a surprise attack against Russian ports, on 29 October 1914. Russia replied by declaring war on 1 November 1914.[a] Russia's allies, Britain and France, declared war on the Ottoman Empire on 5 November 1914. The reasons for the Ottoman action were not immediately clear.[2] The Ottoman government had declared neutrality in the recently started war, and negotiations with both sides were underway.

The decision would ultimately lead to the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Ottoman citizens, the Armenian genocide, the dissolution of the empire, and the abolition of the Islamic Caliphate.[3][4][5]

  1. ^ "World War I: Declarations of War from Around the Globe". Law Library of Congress. 2017. Retrieved 29 July 2024.
  2. ^ Ali Balci, et al. "War Decision and Neoclassical Realism: The Entry of the Ottoman Empire into the First World War." War in History (2018), doi:10.1177/0968344518789707
  3. ^ Ordered to Die: A History of the Ottoman Army in the First World War, by Huseyin (FRW) Kivrikoglu, Edward J. Erickson Page 211.
  4. ^ "Military Casualties-World War-Estimated", Statistics Branch, GS, War Department, 25 February 1924; cited in World War I: People, Politics, and Power, published by Britannica Educational Publishing (2010) Page 219
  5. ^ Totten, Samuel, Paul Robert Bartrop, Steven L. Jacobs (eds.) Dictionary of Genocide. Greenwood Publishing Group, 2008, p. 19. ISBN 978-0-313-34642-2.


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