15.5: The Eastern Front and the Ottoman Empire

In contrast to the trench warfare on the Western Front, the Russian, German, and Austrian armies in the east were highly mobile, sometimes crossing hundreds of miles in an attempt to outflank their enemies. In the early years, the Russian army fought effectively, consistently defeating Austrian forces. However, Russia was hampered by its inadequate industrial base and by its lack of rail lines and cars. The Germans were able to outmaneuver the Russians, often surrounding Russian armies one by one and defeating them. In 1916, the Russian had won a major offensive against Austria, but it did not force Austria out of the war. In the aftermath, a lack of support and coordination from the other Russian generals ultimately checked the offensive.

By late 1916, the war had grown increasingly desperate for Russia. The Tsar’s government was teetering and morale was low. The home front was in dire straits, with serious food shortages, and there were inadequate munitions (especially for artillery) making it to the front. Thus, the German armies steadily pushed into Russian territory. Russian forces checked the German advance in the winter of 1916 - 1917, but the war was deeply unpopular on the home front and increasing numbers of soldiers deserted rather than face the Germans. It was in this context of imminent defeat that a popular revolution overthrew the Tsarist state - that revolution is described in the next chapter.

Meanwhile, the Ottoman Empire, long considered the “sick man of Europe” by European politicians, proved a far more resilient enemy than expected. In 1908, well before the war began, a coup of army officers and political leaders known as the Committee of Union and Progress (also referred to as “Young Turks”) had seized control of the Ottoman state and embarked on a rapid program of Western-style reform. With war clouds gathering over Europe in 1914, the Young Turks threw in their lot with Germany, the one European power that had never menaced Ottoman territories and which promised significant territorial gains in the event of a victory.

In 1915, British forces staged a full-scale invasion of Ottoman territory which rapidly turned into an outright disaster. In a poorly-planned assault on the Gallipoli Peninsula near Constantinople, hundreds of thousands of British Imperial troops (including tens of thousands of Australians and New Zealanders recruited to fight for “their” empire) were gunned down by Turkish machine guns. In the months that followed, British forces failed to make headway against the Ottomans.

Figure 7.5.1: An Australian propaganda poster calling for volunteers.

In 1916, British forces focused on capturing the eastern stretch of the Ottoman Empire: Mesopotamia, the site of the earliest civilization in human history (and which became the country of Iraq in 1939). With the support of Arab nationalists, the British steadily progressed westward. By 1917, Ottoman forces were in disarray and the collapse of the Ottoman Empire looked all but certain.

British and French politicians developed plans to divide up the Ottoman territory into protectorates (dubbed “mandates” after the war) under their control. However, the Young Turk leader Mustafa Kemal launched a major military campaign to preserve not Ottoman but Turkish independence.