In August 1914 the German Empire and the Ottoman Empire ratified their alliance, shortly after the breakout of The Great War. Ottoman officials were forced to take this decision partly because of the catastrophic situation the Empire was going through, referred as “The sic man of Europe” by other great powers of the time. However, trying to revert this situation was not the only cause, as they had suffered great territorial losses in the past decades and they had many internal issues. The war was seen by many as an opportunity to step up as a great power again and their involvement was motivated by many specific war aims. It can be argued that this decision ended up backfiring the Ottoman leaders, as their defeat in the War also meant the fall …show more content…
Many wanted to modernize the Empire so it could success in the 20th Century and Armenian and Arab groups were looking to take advantage of the situation aiming to obtain greater autonomy or even independence from the state. These issues concerned the Ottomans and dominated the political agenda until 1914. They “laid the foundations for the Ottoman Great War” (2) Many in the Empire resented the huge territorial losses suffered in the years previous to the war, and saw the war as a great opportunity to restore their influence in the world. Their defeat against Russia in 1878 and the previous Congress of Berlin meant a great loss of land. In his book The Fall of The Ottomans, Eugene Rogan states that “the Ottomans lost two-fifths of the empire’s territory and one-fifth of its population in the Balkans and eastern Anatolia.” Amongst this provinces were Kars, Ardahan, and Batum that could not be reconciled to losing. According to Rogan the los of these provinces was similar to the loss of Alsace-Lorraine by France. In addition to what they lost in the Treaty of Berlin, Britain secured Cyprus as part of their empire and after the Egyptian crisis of 1882 they lost another of