Germany and Turkey WW1

[MarvyGuy]

An attempt to look at relationship between Germany and Turkey at WW!. This is a lot more complex but I think it can be boiled down to the Ottoman Empire wanting to upgrade it's capabilities post Crimean war and Germany seeing a trading partner and a way to subvert the British Empire via routes through the Ottoman Empire. Both Turkey and Germany also found mutual support against Russia.

In 1835 on his promotion as captain, Helmuth von Moltke obtained six months leave to travel in south-Eastern Europe. After a short stay in Constantinople he was requested by the Sultan Mahmud II to help modernize the Ottoman Empire army, and being duly authorized from Berlin he accepted the offer. He remained two years at Constantinople. In 1838 von Moltke was sent as adviser to the Ottoman general commanding the troops in Anatolia, who was to carry on a campaign against. In 1839 the army moved south to fight the Egyptians, but upon the approach of the enemy the general refused to listen to Moltke's advice. Moltke resigned his post of staff officer and took charge of the artillery. In the Battle of Nezib (modern-day Nisibis) on 24 June 1839, the Ottoman army was beaten. With great difficulty Moltke made his way back to the Black Sea, and thence to Constantinople. His patron, Sultan Mahmud II, was dead, so he returned to Berlin where he arrived, broken in health, in December 1839.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helmuth_K ... man_Empire

On 31 July 1914, Tsar Nicholas II ordered the full mobilization of the Russian Army in response to Germany’s obvious preparations for war in the east. Enver Pasha, the Ottoman Minister for War, reacted by ordering the full mobilisation of the Ottoman Army. On 2 August he signed a secret treaty with the German Ambassador. Although this was essentially a defensive military alliance, calling on each party to come to the other’s aid against an attack by Russia, it revealed Enver Pasha’s view as to who was the Ottoman Empire’s most important friend – and who was its most bitter enemy. Since the first German military mission to the Ottoman Army after the Russo-Turkish War of 1877–8, German officers had often been attached to the army in an advisory or training role and some of the best Ottoman officers had attended staff colleges in Germany. Ottoman officers admired the German Army’s professionalism and traditions, and, like many foreign observers at the time, were convinced that it was the best in the world.
http://www.nzhistory.net.nz/war/ottoman ... rs-the-war

An alliance with the Ottoman Empire during WW1 offered two strategic advantages to Germany. An Ottoman army could provide the Germans with additional troops for overseas deployment and the Ottoman Empire’s territory would allow the German army access to land routes into Africa and Central Asia. Eventually, the Ottoman Empire began to view the Germans as the safest choice for an alliance, Germany did not hold a major position in Asia Minor, and it lacked a large Muslim colony that might clash with the interests of the empire.
http://islamandthegreatwar.umwblogs.org ... rmany-bff/

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So just a quick study as I have been interested as to why a Christian European power would align itself with a Muslim Empire. It seems there were many points of interconnection that saw these two powers come together in WW1. I would like to suggest that based on the studies by Nathan that the Young Turks were the Gen Xers of their time.

Also the Russo Turkish war of 1877-1878 was very important to the creation of Christian Slavic states so it needs to be added to the Turkey wiki. It also set the stage for WW1 - Serbia and Slavic independence from Austria-Hungary which the empire was determined to crush which led to the initial alignments of Germany+Austrian Hungary vs Russia and then the 'Axis' against French and Britain via Germany's march through neutral Belgium to attack France which drew the British Empire into the war. WW1 is interesting in that it was the first European conflict where modern defensive technology was initially more advances than assaulting technologies. No one studied the outcomes of the American Civil War (or employed its lessons) so 1914 opened with everyone trying to fight a 19th century conflict with 20th century weaponry (bright uniforms, massed attack against machine guns and field artillery).