Mustafa Aksakal

A tightly constructed analysis of the Turko-German alliance of 1914 that breaks with the image of Enver Pasha bullying the Young Turks into an alliance with Germany as a means of achieving his own will to power. Instead, Aksakal finds an Ottoman polity that felt betrayed by the existing international system and which was desperately seeking a patron, since Britain had entered into the Entente with Russia and appears to have regarded Constantinople's concerns as being of negligible consideration. This being the case, alliance with Berlin was an imperative, even if the Young Turks were quite realistic about their military capacity and would have preferred friendly neutrality. Considering the course of events up until 1914, this was not an unreasonable, if dangerous course of action; particularly since not taking action had its own dangers.… (more)