by Hew Strachan
Historically, Germany was not a major player in Ottoman affairs. By 1913 the value of its exports to Turkey was still inferior to those of Britain and Austria-Hungary, and the value of its imports to those of Britain, Austria-Hungary, and France. Germany was restricted in Turkey, as elsewhere, by its lack of mobile capital: in 1910 Germany had provided Turkey with the loan which France and Britain had refused, but in 1913 Germany could not lend and the Turks had reverted to the French. On the other hand, the cause of Germany’s lack of liquidity was the pace of its own industrialization, and what was striking—and alarming to those powers alert to German expansionism—was the growth of German imports to Turkey. France dominated the Ottoman public debt, but saw its share of Turkish imports fall from 18 per cent of the total in 1887 to 11 per cent in 1910. Over the same period Germany’s share rose from 6 per cent to 21 per cent, and Austria-Hungary’s from 13 per cent to the same figure; Britain’s fell from 60 per cent to 35 per cent.24 Thus, selective examination suggested a higher German profile in the Turkish economy than did crude aggregates. Two specific areas were of special significance, since their impact was as much strategic as it was economic.
In 1903 the Deutsche Bank secured a ninety-nine-year concession for the construction of the Baghdad railway, together with branch lines in Mesopotamia and Syria. A subsidiary company, the Baghdad-Eisenbahn-Gesellschaft, was formed, and was guaranteed a minimum income on the operating costs: the first 4,500 francs earned on each kilometre of track per annum were to go to the company, sums above 4,500 francs and below 10,000 to the Turkish government, and profits over 10,000 francs were to be split 60:40 between the government and the company. German heavy industry thrived on the export of rolling-stock and steel rails. The grandiloquent title the ‘Berlin-to-Baghdad railway’, and the connotations of German expansionism which it contained, tended to obscure the fact that commercial rather than strategic considerations underpinned German involvement. Indeed, the very fact that the railway did not meet the needs of the Turkish army caused friction between the company and German officers.25 In so far as the railway was used as an adjunct of policy, it became the means for détente, not confrontation. The Germans respected the Russians’ wish that the course of the line should pass through southern Anatolia rather than open up the north-eastern part of Turkey; thus, they deliberately forfeited the opportunity to threaten the Caucasus and so draw Russian troops away from the European front. Britain and Germany agreed to divide the Mesopotamian parts of the line into southern and northern sections. Compromise with France over Syria proved more difficult. But again the German objectives were economic: the financial viability of the line rested in large part on its links with Aleppo and Alexandretta. Germany’s priorities with the Baghdad railway stand comparison with France’s control of the public debt and Britain’s interests in Mesopotamia; over the long term Germany wanted to establish its stake in the event of Turkey’s partition, and the foreign ministry worked closely with the Deutsche Bank, but in the meantime it intended to compete in this, as in other, overseas markets.
The second obvious symbol of the German presence in Turkey was its military mission. It was the reaction of the other powers, and specifically Russia, to the Liman von Sanders affair in early 1914 that set the military mission in an international political context. Liman himself stressed that his task was entirely technical, to help in the training and rebuilding of the Turkish army after the defeats of the Balkan wars.26 Furthermore, the invitation originated with the Turks; it balanced the comparable roles of the French with the Turkish gendarmerie and the British with the Turkish navy. The decision to approach the Germans in 1913, which ran counter to the Young Turks’ own proclivities in foreign policy, was thus a product of the need for equipoise, and also the fruit of history. German advice to the Turkish army began in the 1830s under the elder Moltke; many senior Turkish officers, including Sevket and Ahmed Izzet Pasha (grand vizier and minister of war respectively at the time the invitation was issued), had been attached to the German army in their early careers; and Colmar von der Goltz, who had served in Turkey from 1883 to 1895 and again in 1909–10, enjoyed an intellectual, if not practical, influence in Constantinople that enhanced Germany’s military reputation. Liman van Sanders’s mission therefore represented continuity for an army already influenced by German military practices, and which in its anxiety to restore its fighting capacity as soon as possible could not afford the time lost in a change of style. Germany’s acceptance of the Turkish invitation was defensive more than it was aggressive. At stake was the German army’s amour propre ; a refusal would be tantamount to the acceptance of responsibility for the defeats of the Balkan wars. If Germany did not accept, then the invitation would go to another power. Diplomatically, this would constitute a step back; after all, in 1913 the Turkish army was a—possibly the— major player in Turkish domestic politics.27 But, as important, it would be a mistake for German trade. Krupp had established a hold on the demand for field artillery in south-eastern Europe, and in Turkey specifically, in the 1880s. But French Creusot-made guns were penetrating the Bulgarian, Serbian, and Greek markets, and, it was argued, had performed better in the Balkan wars. The German military mission therefore had a responsibility to foster German arms sales.28 What the mission most definitely was not doing was preparing a Turko-German alliance for war; the agreement reserved Germany’s right to withdraw Liman and his officers in the event of war.
MAP 24. THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE’S RAILWAY COMMUNICATIONS
Therefore, like Britain’s, Germany’s areas of co-operation with the Turks were self-contained; they were not conceived as the bridge to a more formal alliance. The advocates of an alliance, who included the Kaiser in 1905, Colmar von der Goltz in 1909, Moltke in 1911, and Marschall von Bieberstein, the ambassador until 1912, rested their case on military grounds. Turkey’s defeat in the First Balkan War therefore undermined their position. Furthermore, they were not supported by the foreign ministry in Berlin. The latter feared upsetting Britain and France. Britain proved to be the conditioning factor in another context. When in 1909 the Turks responded to Britain’s aversion to providing Dreadnoughts by asking the Germans for them, the foreign ministry was keen to oblige, but Tirpitz refused to disrupt the navy’s domestic building programme.29
In Constantinople itself German policy was fragmented by the competition of overlapping but independent responsibilities. The leading supporters of closer Turko-German relations were Walter von Strempel, the military attaché, and Hans Humann, the son of an archaeologist who had worked at Smyrna and de facto naval attaché from autumn 1913. Both Strempel and, particularly, Humann were on close personal terms with Enver; Strempel recognized the opportunity for political influence provided by the German training of army officers, Enver himself having served in Berlin as Turkish military attaché between 1909 and 1911, and Humann was a protégé of Tirpitz and a mouthpiece for German navalism. But Strempel and Humann were isolated, both in a military and in a diplomatic context. Militarily, Strempel’s reports to Berlin had to compete with those of Liman, whose responsibilities were entirely independent of those of the embassy. The German general staff saw Liman’s task as technical, but Baron von Wangenheim, Germany’s ambassador, saw it as political. Moltke would have been content to dispatch a team of junior but professionally proficient advisers; Wangenheim wanted a figurehead capable of exploiting the Turkish army’s clout in domestic politics for the benefit of Germany’s eastern policy. This did not mean preparation for war. When Liman stressed the strategic needs of the Baghdad railway, Wangenheim countered by emphasizing its economic rationale and its function in great-power détente. Liman huffed and puffed over the salaries and ranks of his officers—both inflated in Turkish eyes—and threatened to resign: Enver did not object. Most importantly, Liman dismissed the Turkish army as being of no military value in the immediate future. Accordingly, in March and again in May 1914 Moltke wrote off Turkey as a potential ally.30 Diplomatically, Strempel and Humann found themselves c
ountered by Wangenheim. The key to Wangenheim’s policy was Germany’s need to find an accommodation with Russia. Thus, Wangenheim had been a prime mover in seeking a settlement of the Liman affair, suggesting compromises in his status unacceptable to the general himself, and so aggravating their poor relations. If a synthesis of German policy towards Turkey before the First World War is possible, its complexion would differ little from that of other powers. Co-operation with Turkey was seen as desirable, but its pursuit should come second to the management of the Triple Alliance and its needs. On this broader stage Turkey, particularly after the defeats of the Balkan wars, threatened to be a liability rather than an asset.31
Not that Turkey in 1914, at least to begin with, was actively seeking a German alliance. The great powers inevitably interpreted the position of Turkey against the background of their alliance networks. This impression was confirmed by Said Halim and Talaat, both of whom reckoned that Turkey needed the protection of one or other of the two blocs. But actual policy was determined by local considerations, by the balance of power in the Aegean and the Balkans, and by Russian ambitions in the area. Turkey had two main aims. First there came the recovery of Chios and Mytilene from the Greeks. Both the French and the British were pro-Greek, but the British were building the Dreadnoughts Turkey needed to counter the Greek navy, and the Kaiser, bound to King Constantine by Hohenzollern blood, was unlikely to support an anti-Greek policy for Germany. Secondly, Turkey wanted to come to terms with Bulgaria. Both powers had an interest in the revision of the Treaty of Bucharest, and Turkey was anxious to stabilize its position on the European side of the straits. Here the policy of the Central Powers was divided: Austria-Hungary was anxious to establish a fresh Balkan League around Bulgaria, but Germany was not. As late as mid-July 1914 Pallavicini, the Habsburg representative in Constantinople, found his advocacy of a new Balkan grouping built around Austria-Hungary, Bulgaria, and Turkey blocked by both Jagow and Wangenheim. Like the Austrians, the Turks had an interest in overthrowing the verdict of the Balkan wars, and some of them, Enver in particular, were prepared to fight to achieve that. What made such a policy thinkable was the fact that Russia, the power with the weakest economic stake in the Ottoman empire and no seat on the Ottoman public debt commission, appeared less of a threat than theretofore. Russia had not a single Dreadnought (although four were under construction) available in the Black Sea. For the time being at least, a weakened Turkey in control of the straits was a better proposition for Russia than their possession by a strong power other than Russia.
Thus, in May 1914 pro-Germanism aroused as divided reactions in Turkey as did pro-Turkism in Germany. German efforts to renegotiate the financial clauses of the 1903 railway agreement, and a conviction that Germany was just as bent on Turkish partition as the other powers, fuelled the pro-Entente lobby. Rejected by Britain, Turkey first turned not to Germany but to Russia and then to France. In May itself Talaat floated the idea of an alliance with the Russians. Sazonov was sufficiently taken by surprise not to seize his opportunity. In July Djemal visited France to attend the naval manoeuvres off Toulon. Distrustful of Germany’s ulterior motives, Djemal argued that France, if allied to Turkey, would restrain Russia. But his timing was unfortunate. Poincaré and Viviani were about to depart for St Petersburg; thus the French could excuse their own support for the Greeks and their sensitivity as to Russian reactions with postponement.32
By late July 1914, therefore, Turkey still had no alliance and had been rejected by each of the Entente powers. The case for a German alliance became proportionately more convincing. Germany’s attraction was its combination of military strength on the continent with its weakness in Asia Minor. Germany had taken no Ottoman territory, as Britain had done in Egypt or Cyprus; Germany was not a Mediterranean or Gulf naval power and therefore could not threaten Turkey’s long coastline, as Britain or France could; Germany had no Muslim colonies to create a clash of interests with Islam. Instead, Germany’s interests were purely commercial; therefore, self-interest would determine German willingness to fight in Turkey’s defence. Put in the context of the great-power alliances, the Turks were invoking the principles of deterrence— of the threat that the partitioning of Turkey by the Entente powers would trigger war with the Triple Alliance—in order to buttress their own integrity. More immediately, a treaty with Germany would become the means to persuade Romania and Bulgaria to ally with Turkey, and so create a fresh Balkan bloc which would isolate Greece.
It was therefore Turkey, not Germany, which initiated the alliance between the two powers, and it did so for reasons largely independent of the July crisis and its impact on European politics. The advocates of the alliance—Turkey’s ambassador in Berlin, Said Halim (the grand vizier), Talaat and Djemal (after their rejections by the Russians and the French respectively), and, above all, Enver—were still in a minority both in the cabinet and in the Committee of Union and Progress. The offer made by Enver on 22 July 1914 was consequently kept secret from the cabinet as a whole.
However, while Turkey’s offer reflected a long-term policy, Germany’s acceptance was determined by short-term considerations. After all, nothing had happened in Asia Minor to make Turkey a more seductive mate. Only four days before the Turkish offer Wangenheim had reported that,
without doubt, Turkey today is still an unsuitable alliance partner. They only want their allies to take on their burdens, without offering the slightest gains in return . . . The policy of the Triple Alliance must be to shape relations so that, if the Turks should after years finally become a major power, the threads will not have been cut.33
The author of the change in German perceptions was the Kaiser himself. Wilhelm’s dynasticism had caused him to favour Greece and to dislike Enver’s radical politics. But by 24 July immediate military imperatives had become more compelling. A Balkan grouping of Turkey, Bulgaria, and Romania linked to the Triple Alliance would transform the prospects for Austria-Hungary and the balance of forces on the eastern front. The alternative, particularly given the Turkish approach to the Russians in May (which was known to the Germans), might be a Turkish-led Balkan grouping on the side of the Entente. Furthermore, Wilhelm’s views were fully in accord with those of his Austro-Hungarian ally. Pallavicini argued that the swift defeat of Serbia would create the opportunity to form—with Turkey’s adherence—a Balkan constellation favourable to the dual monarchy.34
What came back from Berlin was therefore not the same proposal which the Turks had originally offered. Foreign ministry opposition to a long-term alliance persisted. Instead, the German objective, reflecting the dominance enjoyed by the military in decision-making in the last four days of July, was the fulfilment of immediate military needs. It has been argued that Bethmann Hollweg hoped, through the agreement, to frighten Britain towards neutrality.35 But in reality Bethmann’s role was reactive rather than creative. Moltke now saw some relief from his worries with regard to the eastern front, and, putting aside his earlier reservations concerning Turkey’s military capabilities, posited a Turkish attack on Russia. Liman seemed optimistic with regard to Turkey’s military potential, and reckoned that four to five army corps would soon be ready to take the field. Bethmann Hollweg accepted the argument, contenting himself with the thought that the agreement should be limited to the immediate military crisis.
Enver and his colleagues, therefore, found themselves no longer engaged in their primary task of resolving their Balkan problems but of committing themselves to war against Russia. The fact that they were prepared to do so must in retrospect be seen as evidence of their brash foolhardiness. But at the time the arguments for following Germany were not without conviction. The immediate confrontation was that between Austria-Hungary and Serbia; in the calculations of Said Halim there would be a short war which would impel Bulgaria into the Triple Alliance and effect a new balance of power in the Balkans. Serbia and Greece would be squeezed, disgorging the Aegean islands and western Thrace, and Germany’s principal function would be to
guarantee the consequent settlement.36 Thus, a defensive alliance with Germany against Russia did not necessarily betoken involvement in a wider European war, and did provide a guarantee against Turkey’s most long-standing military threat. Secondly, given all the indications that the European powers were bent on the partition of the Ottoman empire, if a wider European war did break out it might trigger a scramble for Turkey. In particular, the straits, the waterway which linked Russia to its allies, could never remain truly neutral. Both sides would see their control as crucial to the war’s outcome. In these circumstances neutrality did not seem a viable option; certainly it had not profited Turkey in the recent past. On 2 August 1914 Germany and Turkey formed an alliance. Austria-Hungary adhered three days later.
The hasty improvisation which had characterized Germany’s acceptance of the Turkish offer continued to determine its dealings with the Ottoman empire in the autumn of 1914. Having secured an ally, Germany’s main need was to make sure that the ally became a belligerent. In particular, the knowledge that only a minority of the Turkish cabinet had negotiated the treaty, and that parliament had been adjourned rather than risk its rejection of the alliance, coupled with the well-established volatility of Turkish politics to suggest that the opportunity to get Turkey into the war on the side of the Central Powers might be fleeting. But Turkey’s military weakness, which had argued against an alliance in May, had not been eradicated by August. Turkey was not ready for war; mobilization would take months; its European frontier was unsecured, and the Dardanelles were inadequately defended. None of these considerations stopped Moltke and, in particular, Conrad from hatching hare-brained schemes for execution by Turkish forces.37 Wangenheim tried to console the intemperate soldiers by arguing for the advantages of Turkey’s benevolent neutrality. The alliance had forestalled the formation of a hostile Balkan league, and by remaining out of the war Turkey minimized its material demands on the Central Powers.38 But the effect of Wangenheim’s approach was to keep alive the division in German policy which had existed before the conclusion of the alliance.