The beginnings of Ottoman-German partnership : diplomatic and military relations between Germany and the Ottoman Empire before the First World War

Abstract

This thesis analyses the course and nature of Ottoman-German diplomatic and military relations before the First World War. It suggests that Germany and the Ottoman Empire acted according to their own political interests since their first interaction at the beginning of the eighteenth century, although their diplomatic relations were mostly cordial. Far from being close collaborative partners before the First World War, the eventual alliance of the two empires during the war was the natural outcome of each empire’s own political and military objectives rather than the outcome of their friendship before the war. The thesis also studies the Baghdad Railroad Project, the Russian threat against Germany as well as the Ottomans, the German military reform missions to the army of the Sultan, and the political situation in the Empire in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.