After traveling to Turkey in 2019, where I spent most of my time in Istanbul, I’ve fell for the city and thus began a love affair with its history, of which I know very little about. This is the first step in that journey of understanding Turkish history, so that when I revisit Turkey and the region, I will have a deeper understanding of it. Isn’t that after all, why we read?
I’ve picked the fall of the Ottoman Empire as it blends well with modern history, just after World War I. The book focuses on the years bracketing the first great war and the who’s who during that period. Based on newly discovered documents from the archive.
For the first time reader of World War I, which I was, this book throws you straight to the the deep end. To prepare for this, I digested some quick YouTube videos on this period of history so that I have some background of who owns and claims what before World War I. To me, World War I was a giant head fuck, and I’d be surprised if I can pull an average bloke from down the street and ask him wtf happened in the first World War. Or better yet — how did it even start?
You have to peel layers of history for that (but really, some Serbians killed an Austrian in Bosnia and EVERYBODY went apeshit). In the middle of it all, the decaying Ottoman Empire has been prolonging its existence by its sheer volume and inertia, but was challenged by its Balkan neighbours, the entente powers and factions is Arabia. I salute the novice reader who can keep up with the chain of events which leads to the creation of the modern Turkish state. Have a whiteboard or notebook handy, draw diagrams. Underline, revisit.
Some of the stories from this war is fascinating — Souchon who sneaked past the allied patrols to bring the german dreadnoughts to Constantinople, the Russian capture of Eastern Antalya, the unmything of T.E. Lawrence, the great fire of Smyrna and the plain badassery of Mustafa Kemal. These incidents and characters have left marks in the region to this day.
In the midst of all this, the greatest victim of this period were the Armenians whose losses were almost inestimable (from 600,000 to 1.5million). World War I, at times, became a war fought in religious and ethnic lines. There were many others who fell victim to terrible politics from decisions made by politicians thousands of miles away — I think of the ANZACs languishing in Gallipoli. Churchill reared his ugly bulldog head quite a few times in this book, and his decisions played key roles in the outcome of the war.
Appreciate the details in this book, but take away the high level understanding of the events. World War I was unnecessarily complicated, and at times comedic. In the midst of all this, the Ottomans played a central role in deciding the outcome of the war — the region was a vast theatre where men won or lost soil, sand and blood. But even more interesting are the players without whose decisions the outcome of the war would be different.
