Scan barcode
charles__'s review against another edition
2.0
Political, and diplomatic history of Imperial Germany’s and the Ottoman Empire’s efforts to exploit pan-Islamism into a jihad strategy against the Entente during WWI.
Ottoman Fourth Army heads for Suez Canal. Military operations that leveraged German discipline, training and organization, with Turkish tenacity were many times successful. Arab regular and irregular troops were almost always a liability.
My dead tree, format, soft back was a moderate 460-pages which included footnotes, bibliography, an index, maps and photographs. It had a US 2010 copyright.
Sean McMeekin is an American historian of early 20th century European history concentrating on the origins of the First World War, and the role of Russia and the Ottoman Empire. He is the author of eight (8) non-fiction books on the period before, including and after WWI, and one on WWII. This was the first book I’ve read by the author.
Firstly, this is an advanced/intermediate-level text on WWI. It would be very helpful for a reader to have a firm background in early-20th Century Military and Diplomatic history and WWI to appreciate this book. In particular, the stretch of the Drang nach Osten that included the Central Powers in the Middle East, North Africa, and South Asia. In addition, I recommend having a period atlas on-hand to reference the much-changed place names throughout.
I have a keen interest in fin de siècle infrastructure projects. I started this book under the mistaken impression it was about the Berlin–Baghdad railway. Silly me. What does a book’s title have to do with its contents? Instead, I received, what was mostly the description of, what was The New Great Game between Germany and mostly the Entente partners England and Imperial Russia in the Middle east during WWI. I have an interest in WWI and some familiarity with the topic—so I continued reading. Also, there were snippets regarding the Berlin–Baghdad railway in the narrative.
TL;DR Synopsis
McMeekin’s narrative follows a traditional chronological account of Imperial Germany and the Ottoman Empire’s conflict with the Entente on the Ottoman borders. Its primarily a political, and diplomatic history, with brief descriptions of military events.
The author’s approach is very much of the “men and their deeds” school of narrative. The narrative begins in 1898 with Kaiser Wilhelm II’s wresting control of the Empire from Otto von Bismarck and ends with Turkey’s signing the Armistice in late 1918. Note this book severely restricts itself to events within the Ottoman Empire and regions bordering it. With the exception of Germany, the other Central Powers, and Entente powers are only discussed to the extent they affected events in the Middle Eastern theatre.
The majority of the narrative was the German attempt to Set the Middle east aflame through a strategy of revolution and insurgency. By stoking the revolt of the Islamic populations in the Entente’s Middle Eastern, North African, and South Asian colonial possessions they would economically cripple the Entente. Meanwhile, they would keep the Ottoman Empire in the war with a minimum of direct military support. A parallel narrative was the political upheaval and revolution that occurred simultaneously within the Ottoman Empire, later Turkey, The sick man of Europe. The Empire attempted to maintain territorial integrity, while reforming enough to fend-off further Western depredations. Not only were the Germans and Turks struggling with their opponents of the Entente, but likewise they were struggling with each other and amongst themselves. Note that includes the Ottoman’s contending with insurgent populations within their borders.
The war was militarily lost by the Central powers in the Middle eastern theater. Germany eventually saw the failure of its attempt at a pan-Islamic revolution. This was due to false, Western assumptions of Islam and the diversity of the Middle eastern population. The Ottoman’s became as much a burden as the Austro-Hungarians to their war effort. The Turks saw the failure to maintain territorial integrity against the military resources of the Entente. The events of the war effected Middle eastern territories and populations of the ex-Ottoman Empire. The Entente’s dismemberment of that Empire and the formation of the new, imperfect states of the Middle east along with the Central Powers WWI strategies created the modern issues with those states today.
The Review
Frankly, this book was not the rail history I anticipated. I wanted to read a narrative history of the planning and construction of the Berlin to Baghdad railroad during the early 1900’s. Only a very small part of this strategic piece of infrastructure appeared in the book. What the book contained was a lengthy narrative of the fraught relationship between Imperial Germany and the Ottoman Empire Central Powers, and the German strategy to foment insurrection in their opponent Entente powers colonial possession on the borders of the Ottoman Empire. The book was very detailed. It introduced me to political, diplomatic and societal areas of the conflict I was unfamiliar with. However, I also found the content to be uneven. It felt like McMeekin didn’t end the book he started writing. The writing started very much in the new style with the author covering the Berlin to Baghdad railroad rail history with an interesting compare and contrast to its modern Turkish remnants. Then it jumps to the politics of developing German influence in the Ottoman Empire. Followed by the Young Turk’s revolutions which ended the Ottoman Caliphate. Followed by a lengthy description of the individual German insurgent actions throughout the Middle east. Sprinkled throughout are significant military actions in the Middle eastern theater. However, in order, the author’s historical focus was:
1. Political
2. Diplomatic
3. Islamic Insurgency
4. Military
5. Rail History
Generally, the sequence was in chronological, although it was not completely hinged on well-known key events in the conflict. For example, the pursuit of Goeben and Breslau, the Gallipoli campaign , the Collapse of Tsarist Russia, etc.. were covered, but significant naval actions and Turkish military actions in the Balkans were not. Those mentioned events were just pauses the action in-between discussion of the early 20th century, Middle eastern politics of ethnicity and religion, internal German politics, internal Turkish politics and German/Turkish politics. Few chapters described the Materialschlacht, the massive use of weapons and munitions (a word not used by the author) and how the lack of a rail network effected the Turks military fortunes.
In the end, the Turkish army, which had been fighting continuously on both its European and Asian borders since before the War was buried beneath the weight of the Entente's superior military capability. The evolving and devolving relationship between Germany and Turkey during the course of the war was well covered. The book’s narrative deeply delves into the description for the German strategy to create revolutions and insurgencies in Entente colonial possessions through a pan-Islamic jihad. That would have crippled the Entente’s Western Front by severing their overseas supply chain.
The effect of reading this book is that of a good, albeit uneven lecture course for a student who already had the right background.
McMeekin is a good writer. The narrative was clear and factual. It was also written in American English. The book was professionally edited. I found no mistakes in the text. The general tenor of the book was measured and generally academic.
I found McMeekin’s footnotes to be particularly good. However, I found peculiar his repeated references to [a:John Buchan|3073|John Buchan|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1551287596p2/3073.jpg]’s [b:Greenmantle|161000|Greenmantle (Richard Hannay #2)|John Buchan|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1314968556l/161000._SY75_.jpg|688233]. That was a 1916 published wartime popular thriller involving uprisings in the Muslim world that included historical, geographical and then current tech references.
I was disappointed with the organization of the book. I was left with the impression that McMeekin changed direction more than once in the process of writing it? In addition, there were stylistic changes in the book as it progressed. For example, in the beginning when Rail History was the emphasis, the narrative contained the author’s anecdotes on Turkish rail travel. These disappeared as the emphasis of the narrative changed.
Use of maps was OK. Maps were located throughout the book. I prefer maps to be interleaved with the narrative. That’s where they provide immediate context. As always, I would have preferred more period maps. Following the narrative along with modern maps was difficult. Place names in the Middle east in Turkish and Arabic have mostly changed in the past 100-years. Use of tables and charts was non-existent. A picture is worth a thousand words. . The photographs provided was OK. Not all the principals in a very ‘historical figure’ oriented narrative were shown, while well-known figure who appeared only briefly were. For example, a picture of Oskar von Niedermayer (German Orientalist scholar and spy) should have occupied the space used for Otto von Bismarck.
The narrative was largely Imperial German and Turkish-centric. Turkish related narrative was in minority to the German. The Ottoman narrative was mostly Turkish, despite the Empire being multiethnic. The Empire was composed of: Turks, Greeks, Armenians, Arabs, Berbers, Kurds, Jews, Levant Christians, etc.. However, the Turks and their Islamic brethren dominated positions of authority. Christians and Jews had inferior legal status. Most of the Ottoman Arabic narrative appeared to be from British sources. I suspect this was due to the availability of German, British and sometimes Turkish archives vs. those of the post-war Middle eastern successor states?
I felt it was a problem with the book, that Germany and Turkey were the two, albeit the more important of the Central Powers in the narrative. There were very occasional references to Austro-Hungarian historical figures. There was almost no discussion of Bulgaria. It made the book feel very uneven. For example, it was the Austro-Hungarian and Bulgarian allies along with the Germans that, crushed Serbia and opened-up the munitions supply chain from Germany to Constantinople supplying the Turks. Neither do I recall the mention of Ottoman IV Army participation of the Romanian campaign. (There’s no mention of it in the index either.)
Through the political history, it was clear the Germans and the Turks were uneasy allies. However, the political history was well done. Most folks picking up this book, will already be familiar with the German politics of the war. There have been a lot books written on them. This book was valuable because, I received missing insight into the Ottoman politics. The organizational problems of the Ottoman Empire were large. They were larger than Germany’s other weak ally the Austro-Hungarian empire. The Young Turks military coup on the cusp of the war that dissolved the Caliphate did not greatly improve the situation.
The enemy of my enemy, is my friend. is a Chinese saying, not Middle eastern. The Germans and the Turks were unlikely allies. Only a very few German diplomats and Orientalist scholars had an understanding of the Turkish and in an extended fashion Middle eastern culture. The German goal was to open a Southern front to relieve the pressure on the primary Western front. In particular, the Ottomans could relieve the pressure on the Austro-Hungarians by engaging the Tsarist Russians, a hereditary enemy. This was to involve the minimum of direct military support, while providing training and armaments. The Turks sought to guarantee their territorial integrity and regain lost territories, like Egypt. The Empire had been picked apart by the West for almost a century through supported insurgencies and direct annexations. Humiliating conditions were imposed on the empire, such as extraterritoriality for non-diplomats. The Germans guaranteed Ottoman territorial integrity, should they win the war. As the German involvement with the Turks grew, as the war progressed, there was a lot of culture shock to both sides. By the end of the war German officers were being lynched in remote areas of the theater.
A major component of the German strategy in the South was to Set the Middle east aflame through a strategy of revolution and insurgency. The plan was to inspire, fund and arm revolts of the Islamic populations in the Christian Entente’s Middle Eastern, North African, and South Asian colonial possessions. This would divert Entente resources from the Western front, and likely cripple their global supply chains. This strategy was the child of Max von Oppenheim with avid support from the Kaiser. This strategy fell afoul of German organizational disfunction, and a mistaken understanding of global pan-Islamism. This section of the book contained lengthy anecdotal descriptions of the German agent provocateurs adventures. Many of them I’d read before, although from the British perspective. The Armenian genocide was also covered. In addition, there was a lengthy Epilog on antisemitism in the modern Middle east being a product of the WWI.
The military history was mixed. Major Ottoman actions were adequately covered, but only on for the Asian part of the empire and Constantinople. There was no description of Ottoman European actions. There was very little mention of Ottoman naval actions, other than brief mention of the Goben and Breslau at the beginning of the war. Of interest was the success in of the combination of German training, planning, and organization with Turkish troops. Operations, like Gallipoli and the siege of Kut Al Amara where Germans were in high-level command and Turks were trained and armed with German weapons resulted in victories against British first-line naval and army units.
Finally, the rail history of the eponymous Berlin to Baghdad railway started-out promisingly, but dwindled too almost nothing as the book got long. Before and during WWI, railroads were strategic systems. They allowed for quick mobilization of armies, along with movement of troops and war materials. Unlike in European countries, the Ottoman Empire had no rail network, in the European sense. Transportation through most of the Empire once away from Constantinople was frankly medieval. In wartime, the Mediterranean, Black Sea, Red Sea and Persian Gulf were completely in control of the Entente preventing mass movement of men and material. Extending the rudimentary rail network east from Constantinople to Bagdad in Mesopotamia and on through to Basra on the Persian Gulf, and south into Palestine and the holy cities of Mecca and Medina was a strategic necessity. The railroad would allow for troop and material movement within the Empire, the flow of war material from the European allies and raw materials to the European allies. Politics, geography, funding and the exigencies of the war all contributed to the minimum planned rail net not being completed until almost the end of the war.
Summary
Political foolishness by the weak Ottomans drew them to the Germans into a conflict with the militarily superior Entente. As the Central Power’s were drawn into a long war, the Ottoman’s became another burden on the Germans as they consumed more men, material and treasure without substantial benefit. The pan-Islamic jihad strategy was a failure. The initial victories of the war petered-out into a string of defeats, in what had always been a sideshow for the Germans, albeit an increasingly costly one. The alliance soured as the Germans withdrew to concentrate on the Western front. The dependent Turks with their ethnically diverse population were eventually swept along with Germany’s surrender. McMeekin also makes the point that WWI contributed to endemic, toxic ethnic and religious strife in the region. The imperfect, successor states Entente carved from the Middle eastern Ottoman territories and results of the Russian Civil War are still problems.
I wanted this book to contain more rail history and military history, of which the author did only an OK job. The German efforts at insurgency somehow felt out-of-place, and consumed too many pages, while contributing too little for me. However, the political and diplomatic parts of the read may be valuable for an interested and prepared student of WWI. Germany and the western front of WWI traditionally get the most popular attention. This book’s most important contribution was in describing the war in the Middle east, but not just in military terms. WWI in the Middle east was not a sideshow for millions of folks. This book was a good adjunct to a study of WWI for a part of the world that is under represented in the literature.
Interested readers may want to read On Secret Service East of Constantinople: The Plot to Bring Down the British Empire by [a:Peter Hopkirk|79989|Peter Hopkirk|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1561963701p2/79989.jpg] and The Fall of the Ottomans: The Great War in the Middle East by [a:Eugene Rogan|868570|Eugene Rogan|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1390493749p2/868570.jpg] (my reviews) before this.
Ottoman Fourth Army heads for Suez Canal. Military operations that leveraged German discipline, training and organization, with Turkish tenacity were many times successful. Arab regular and irregular troops were almost always a liability.
My dead tree, format, soft back was a moderate 460-pages which included footnotes, bibliography, an index, maps and photographs. It had a US 2010 copyright.
Sean McMeekin is an American historian of early 20th century European history concentrating on the origins of the First World War, and the role of Russia and the Ottoman Empire. He is the author of eight (8) non-fiction books on the period before, including and after WWI, and one on WWII. This was the first book I’ve read by the author.
Firstly, this is an advanced/intermediate-level text on WWI. It would be very helpful for a reader to have a firm background in early-20th Century Military and Diplomatic history and WWI to appreciate this book. In particular, the stretch of the Drang nach Osten that included the Central Powers in the Middle East, North Africa, and South Asia. In addition, I recommend having a period atlas on-hand to reference the much-changed place names throughout.
I have a keen interest in fin de siècle infrastructure projects. I started this book under the mistaken impression it was about the Berlin–Baghdad railway. Silly me. What does a book’s title have to do with its contents? Instead, I received, what was mostly the description of, what was The New Great Game between Germany and mostly the Entente partners England and Imperial Russia in the Middle east during WWI. I have an interest in WWI and some familiarity with the topic—so I continued reading. Also, there were snippets regarding the Berlin–Baghdad railway in the narrative.
TL;DR Synopsis
McMeekin’s narrative follows a traditional chronological account of Imperial Germany and the Ottoman Empire’s conflict with the Entente on the Ottoman borders. Its primarily a political, and diplomatic history, with brief descriptions of military events.
The author’s approach is very much of the “men and their deeds” school of narrative. The narrative begins in 1898 with Kaiser Wilhelm II’s wresting control of the Empire from Otto von Bismarck and ends with Turkey’s signing the Armistice in late 1918. Note this book severely restricts itself to events within the Ottoman Empire and regions bordering it. With the exception of Germany, the other Central Powers, and Entente powers are only discussed to the extent they affected events in the Middle Eastern theatre.
The majority of the narrative was the German attempt to Set the Middle east aflame through a strategy of revolution and insurgency. By stoking the revolt of the Islamic populations in the Entente’s Middle Eastern, North African, and South Asian colonial possessions they would economically cripple the Entente. Meanwhile, they would keep the Ottoman Empire in the war with a minimum of direct military support. A parallel narrative was the political upheaval and revolution that occurred simultaneously within the Ottoman Empire, later Turkey, The sick man of Europe. The Empire attempted to maintain territorial integrity, while reforming enough to fend-off further Western depredations. Not only were the Germans and Turks struggling with their opponents of the Entente, but likewise they were struggling with each other and amongst themselves. Note that includes the Ottoman’s contending with insurgent populations within their borders.
The war was militarily lost by the Central powers in the Middle eastern theater. Germany eventually saw the failure of its attempt at a pan-Islamic revolution. This was due to false, Western assumptions of Islam and the diversity of the Middle eastern population. The Ottoman’s became as much a burden as the Austro-Hungarians to their war effort. The Turks saw the failure to maintain territorial integrity against the military resources of the Entente. The events of the war effected Middle eastern territories and populations of the ex-Ottoman Empire. The Entente’s dismemberment of that Empire and the formation of the new, imperfect states of the Middle east along with the Central Powers WWI strategies created the modern issues with those states today.
The Review
Frankly, this book was not the rail history I anticipated. I wanted to read a narrative history of the planning and construction of the Berlin to Baghdad railroad during the early 1900’s. Only a very small part of this strategic piece of infrastructure appeared in the book. What the book contained was a lengthy narrative of the fraught relationship between Imperial Germany and the Ottoman Empire Central Powers, and the German strategy to foment insurrection in their opponent Entente powers colonial possession on the borders of the Ottoman Empire. The book was very detailed. It introduced me to political, diplomatic and societal areas of the conflict I was unfamiliar with. However, I also found the content to be uneven. It felt like McMeekin didn’t end the book he started writing. The writing started very much in the new style with the author covering the Berlin to Baghdad railroad rail history with an interesting compare and contrast to its modern Turkish remnants. Then it jumps to the politics of developing German influence in the Ottoman Empire. Followed by the Young Turk’s revolutions which ended the Ottoman Caliphate. Followed by a lengthy description of the individual German insurgent actions throughout the Middle east. Sprinkled throughout are significant military actions in the Middle eastern theater. However, in order, the author’s historical focus was:
1. Political
2. Diplomatic
3. Islamic Insurgency
4. Military
5. Rail History
Generally, the sequence was in chronological, although it was not completely hinged on well-known key events in the conflict. For example, the pursuit of Goeben and Breslau, the Gallipoli campaign , the Collapse of Tsarist Russia, etc.. were covered, but significant naval actions and Turkish military actions in the Balkans were not. Those mentioned events were just pauses the action in-between discussion of the early 20th century, Middle eastern politics of ethnicity and religion, internal German politics, internal Turkish politics and German/Turkish politics. Few chapters described the Materialschlacht, the massive use of weapons and munitions (a word not used by the author) and how the lack of a rail network effected the Turks military fortunes.
In the end, the Turkish army, which had been fighting continuously on both its European and Asian borders since before the War was buried beneath the weight of the Entente's superior military capability. The evolving and devolving relationship between Germany and Turkey during the course of the war was well covered. The book’s narrative deeply delves into the description for the German strategy to create revolutions and insurgencies in Entente colonial possessions through a pan-Islamic jihad. That would have crippled the Entente’s Western Front by severing their overseas supply chain.
The effect of reading this book is that of a good, albeit uneven lecture course for a student who already had the right background.
McMeekin is a good writer. The narrative was clear and factual. It was also written in American English. The book was professionally edited. I found no mistakes in the text. The general tenor of the book was measured and generally academic.
I found McMeekin’s footnotes to be particularly good. However, I found peculiar his repeated references to [a:John Buchan|3073|John Buchan|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1551287596p2/3073.jpg]’s [b:Greenmantle|161000|Greenmantle (Richard Hannay #2)|John Buchan|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1314968556l/161000._SY75_.jpg|688233]. That was a 1916 published wartime popular thriller involving uprisings in the Muslim world that included historical, geographical and then current tech references.
I was disappointed with the organization of the book. I was left with the impression that McMeekin changed direction more than once in the process of writing it? In addition, there were stylistic changes in the book as it progressed. For example, in the beginning when Rail History was the emphasis, the narrative contained the author’s anecdotes on Turkish rail travel. These disappeared as the emphasis of the narrative changed.
Use of maps was OK. Maps were located throughout the book. I prefer maps to be interleaved with the narrative. That’s where they provide immediate context. As always, I would have preferred more period maps. Following the narrative along with modern maps was difficult. Place names in the Middle east in Turkish and Arabic have mostly changed in the past 100-years. Use of tables and charts was non-existent. A picture is worth a thousand words. . The photographs provided was OK. Not all the principals in a very ‘historical figure’ oriented narrative were shown, while well-known figure who appeared only briefly were. For example, a picture of Oskar von Niedermayer (German Orientalist scholar and spy) should have occupied the space used for Otto von Bismarck.
The narrative was largely Imperial German and Turkish-centric. Turkish related narrative was in minority to the German. The Ottoman narrative was mostly Turkish, despite the Empire being multiethnic. The Empire was composed of: Turks, Greeks, Armenians, Arabs, Berbers, Kurds, Jews, Levant Christians, etc.. However, the Turks and their Islamic brethren dominated positions of authority. Christians and Jews had inferior legal status. Most of the Ottoman Arabic narrative appeared to be from British sources. I suspect this was due to the availability of German, British and sometimes Turkish archives vs. those of the post-war Middle eastern successor states?
I felt it was a problem with the book, that Germany and Turkey were the two, albeit the more important of the Central Powers in the narrative. There were very occasional references to Austro-Hungarian historical figures. There was almost no discussion of Bulgaria. It made the book feel very uneven. For example, it was the Austro-Hungarian and Bulgarian allies along with the Germans that, crushed Serbia and opened-up the munitions supply chain from Germany to Constantinople supplying the Turks. Neither do I recall the mention of Ottoman IV Army participation of the Romanian campaign. (There’s no mention of it in the index either.)
Through the political history, it was clear the Germans and the Turks were uneasy allies. However, the political history was well done. Most folks picking up this book, will already be familiar with the German politics of the war. There have been a lot books written on them. This book was valuable because, I received missing insight into the Ottoman politics. The organizational problems of the Ottoman Empire were large. They were larger than Germany’s other weak ally the Austro-Hungarian empire. The Young Turks military coup on the cusp of the war that dissolved the Caliphate did not greatly improve the situation.
The enemy of my enemy, is my friend. is a Chinese saying, not Middle eastern. The Germans and the Turks were unlikely allies. Only a very few German diplomats and Orientalist scholars had an understanding of the Turkish and in an extended fashion Middle eastern culture. The German goal was to open a Southern front to relieve the pressure on the primary Western front. In particular, the Ottomans could relieve the pressure on the Austro-Hungarians by engaging the Tsarist Russians, a hereditary enemy. This was to involve the minimum of direct military support, while providing training and armaments. The Turks sought to guarantee their territorial integrity and regain lost territories, like Egypt. The Empire had been picked apart by the West for almost a century through supported insurgencies and direct annexations. Humiliating conditions were imposed on the empire, such as extraterritoriality for non-diplomats. The Germans guaranteed Ottoman territorial integrity, should they win the war. As the German involvement with the Turks grew, as the war progressed, there was a lot of culture shock to both sides. By the end of the war German officers were being lynched in remote areas of the theater.
A major component of the German strategy in the South was to Set the Middle east aflame through a strategy of revolution and insurgency. The plan was to inspire, fund and arm revolts of the Islamic populations in the Christian Entente’s Middle Eastern, North African, and South Asian colonial possessions. This would divert Entente resources from the Western front, and likely cripple their global supply chains. This strategy was the child of Max von Oppenheim with avid support from the Kaiser. This strategy fell afoul of German organizational disfunction, and a mistaken understanding of global pan-Islamism. This section of the book contained lengthy anecdotal descriptions of the German agent provocateurs adventures. Many of them I’d read before, although from the British perspective. The Armenian genocide was also covered. In addition, there was a lengthy Epilog on antisemitism in the modern Middle east being a product of the WWI.
The military history was mixed. Major Ottoman actions were adequately covered, but only on for the Asian part of the empire and Constantinople. There was no description of Ottoman European actions. There was very little mention of Ottoman naval actions, other than brief mention of the Goben and Breslau at the beginning of the war. Of interest was the success in of the combination of German training, planning, and organization with Turkish troops. Operations, like Gallipoli and the siege of Kut Al Amara where Germans were in high-level command and Turks were trained and armed with German weapons resulted in victories against British first-line naval and army units.
Finally, the rail history of the eponymous Berlin to Baghdad railway started-out promisingly, but dwindled too almost nothing as the book got long. Before and during WWI, railroads were strategic systems. They allowed for quick mobilization of armies, along with movement of troops and war materials. Unlike in European countries, the Ottoman Empire had no rail network, in the European sense. Transportation through most of the Empire once away from Constantinople was frankly medieval. In wartime, the Mediterranean, Black Sea, Red Sea and Persian Gulf were completely in control of the Entente preventing mass movement of men and material. Extending the rudimentary rail network east from Constantinople to Bagdad in Mesopotamia and on through to Basra on the Persian Gulf, and south into Palestine and the holy cities of Mecca and Medina was a strategic necessity. The railroad would allow for troop and material movement within the Empire, the flow of war material from the European allies and raw materials to the European allies. Politics, geography, funding and the exigencies of the war all contributed to the minimum planned rail net not being completed until almost the end of the war.
Summary
Political foolishness by the weak Ottomans drew them to the Germans into a conflict with the militarily superior Entente. As the Central Power’s were drawn into a long war, the Ottoman’s became another burden on the Germans as they consumed more men, material and treasure without substantial benefit. The pan-Islamic jihad strategy was a failure. The initial victories of the war petered-out into a string of defeats, in what had always been a sideshow for the Germans, albeit an increasingly costly one. The alliance soured as the Germans withdrew to concentrate on the Western front. The dependent Turks with their ethnically diverse population were eventually swept along with Germany’s surrender. McMeekin also makes the point that WWI contributed to endemic, toxic ethnic and religious strife in the region. The imperfect, successor states Entente carved from the Middle eastern Ottoman territories and results of the Russian Civil War are still problems.
I wanted this book to contain more rail history and military history, of which the author did only an OK job. The German efforts at insurgency somehow felt out-of-place, and consumed too many pages, while contributing too little for me. However, the political and diplomatic parts of the read may be valuable for an interested and prepared student of WWI. Germany and the western front of WWI traditionally get the most popular attention. This book’s most important contribution was in describing the war in the Middle east, but not just in military terms. WWI in the Middle east was not a sideshow for millions of folks. This book was a good adjunct to a study of WWI for a part of the world that is under represented in the literature.
Interested readers may want to read On Secret Service East of Constantinople: The Plot to Bring Down the British Empire by [a:Peter Hopkirk|79989|Peter Hopkirk|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1561963701p2/79989.jpg] and The Fall of the Ottomans: The Great War in the Middle East by [a:Eugene Rogan|868570|Eugene Rogan|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1390493749p2/868570.jpg] (my reviews) before this.
kaydondino's review against another edition
5.0
Ever feel like most of the geo-political, social and scientific situations that arise today are a product of Germany just messing everything up constantly? Do you find yourself giving Angela Merkel the side eye whenever you see her on tv because yup are pretty sure the Germans are up to something nefarious? Do you not know very much about WWI because you are American and Texas ensures your history textbooks are full of nothing substantial? Is the only thing you know about the Ottoman Empire is that they put the final nail in the coffin that was Rome (RIP Byzantines)?
If any of those apply to you, you might find this book of interest. Sure, it begins and ends with a railroad but it's really about how Germany, prior to and during WWI, pretty much created what we think of as modern day Jihad.
Basically, Germany was jealous of everybody else's colonial empires and the fact that the current political climate wouldn't let them build a railroad to their Ottoman friends. A bunch of Germans thought, "hey, what if we just convinced all these Muslims to kill Russians, English and French Christians? Then we could build our railroad and laugh at the rest of England and Russia."
Sensible Germans: "uh, I'm not sure if you are aware of this, but lots of Germans and Austrians are Christian or Jewish. How will we stop this from blowing back onto us?"
Crazy Germans: "bro, that won't happen. Here, help me print some propaganda about how it is the duty of every Muslim to kill people we don't like."
Spoiler alert: this great uprising pretty much didn't happen and the ottomans and Germany lost WWI and the ottomans lost their empire. But, it does have significant long range effects both on the region and the world.
If any of those apply to you, you might find this book of interest. Sure, it begins and ends with a railroad but it's really about how Germany, prior to and during WWI, pretty much created what we think of as modern day Jihad.
Basically, Germany was jealous of everybody else's colonial empires and the fact that the current political climate wouldn't let them build a railroad to their Ottoman friends. A bunch of Germans thought, "hey, what if we just convinced all these Muslims to kill Russians, English and French Christians? Then we could build our railroad and laugh at the rest of England and Russia."
Sensible Germans: "uh, I'm not sure if you are aware of this, but lots of Germans and Austrians are Christian or Jewish. How will we stop this from blowing back onto us?"
Crazy Germans: "bro, that won't happen. Here, help me print some propaganda about how it is the duty of every Muslim to kill people we don't like."
Spoiler alert: this great uprising pretty much didn't happen and the ottomans and Germany lost WWI and the ottomans lost their empire. But, it does have significant long range effects both on the region and the world.
goliathonline's review against another edition
3.0
An interesting look at an underconsidered aspect to World War I: Germany's plans to foment a "pan-Islamic jihad" against British, French, and Russian forces throughout the greater Middle East, Central Asia, and the Caucuses. The attempt mostly turned into farce, with the various German agents discovered, failing, or otherwise undercut by the Young Turks in charge of the Sublime Porte. The narrative is framed by way of the Berlin-Baghdad Railway, an attempt to build train lines as far as Baghdad in Mesopotamia and down to the Sinai (another spur, the Hejaz Railway, ran from Damascus to Medina). But the nascent Turco-German alliance was perpetually undercut by infighting between Germans and Turks (relating mostly to the one-sided costs incurred by Berlin), Turkish-Arab discord, and the failure to complete the railway, meaning that German plans to supply Ottoman forces attacking Suez and into British India via Persia and Afghanistan never came to fruition.
World War I in the Middle East typically focuses on Lawrence's exploits and the British expeditions in and around the Persian Gulf, but this was a fascinating look at some of the other belligerents involved. The late war collapse of the Imperial Russian armies invading Turkey from the Caucuses and the subsequent race for Baku and its oilfields was particularly novel, as too was the imminent collapse of any genuine feelings between Kaiser and Sultan (or Grand Vizier, truthfully). One can see some of the seeds of the current relationship between Berlin and Ankara today.
McMeekin's politics are somewhat in evidence given the source of the back blurbs - Christopher Hitchens, Max Hastings, the Wall Street Journal, and Niall Ferguson. While most of the book manages to avoid some of the likeliest pitfalls of such a worldview, the epilogue devolves a little bit into a meditation on the innate nature of German anti-semitism following the war, and the "Nazi-Muslim" connection (less conspiratorial than that title implies, and yet...). His depiction of the Bolshevik revolution, too, is more or less what you might expect, though he awards full credit to Trotsky where it is due. Otherwise, though, McMeekin's writing is fairly even-handed and treats most of the Arab, Turkish, Persian, and Muslim supporting cast with all due respect.
This is a fairly good starting point for understanding the origins of German grand strategy, the truly global nature of World War I, and the seeds of Weimar foreign policy.
World War I in the Middle East typically focuses on Lawrence's exploits and the British expeditions in and around the Persian Gulf, but this was a fascinating look at some of the other belligerents involved. The late war collapse of the Imperial Russian armies invading Turkey from the Caucuses and the subsequent race for Baku and its oilfields was particularly novel, as too was the imminent collapse of any genuine feelings between Kaiser and Sultan (or Grand Vizier, truthfully). One can see some of the seeds of the current relationship between Berlin and Ankara today.
McMeekin's politics are somewhat in evidence given the source of the back blurbs - Christopher Hitchens, Max Hastings, the Wall Street Journal, and Niall Ferguson. While most of the book manages to avoid some of the likeliest pitfalls of such a worldview, the epilogue devolves a little bit into a meditation on the innate nature of German anti-semitism following the war, and the "Nazi-Muslim" connection (less conspiratorial than that title implies, and yet...). His depiction of the Bolshevik revolution, too, is more or less what you might expect, though he awards full credit to Trotsky where it is due. Otherwise, though, McMeekin's writing is fairly even-handed and treats most of the Arab, Turkish, Persian, and Muslim supporting cast with all due respect.
This is a fairly good starting point for understanding the origins of German grand strategy, the truly global nature of World War I, and the seeds of Weimar foreign policy.
pearl35's review against another edition
3.0
From the early days of Deutschland uber Allah, someone finally went to both German and Ottoman sources to reconstruct the links forged between German industry (backed by the Kaiser) and the nascent Young Turk movement to cultivate the future leaders of Turkey as allies--a move that led the Ottoman into WWI and set in motion far-reaching Middle Eastern consequences (as well as put a statue of Bad Cousin Willy in front of the Istanbul train station, German in Turkish classrooms and BMW cabs on the streets of Ankara today).
chyde's review against another edition
5.0
This book was extremely accessible and informative. I learned so much. I can't recommend this book enough to people who are interested in WWI and the middle east. It was fascinating to find out about Germany's 'jihad' in Turkey, the Suez Canal, etc. The only problem I had with the book is that occasionally I'd get confused because there are so, so many people involved. That's obviously not the author's fault though.
Anyway, I definitely recommend this book!
Anyway, I definitely recommend this book!