Birth of Modern Turkey

The Ottoman Military and the March to WWI

 

The guide and mentor to the Ottoman military was Imperial Germany as the military developed its version of the Prussian 'School of Empire' - a set of ideas and practices which in the eyes of the officer corps saw the military as the embodiment of the Ottoman Turkish nation state. The military had intervened decisively in the 1908 Constitutional Revolution and were vital in bringing the Ottoman Empire into World War I on the side of the Central Powers. Based on original Ottoman and German sources. The Birth of Modern Turkey shows how military thinking and policy contributed to the triumph of Ataturk and the founding of the modern Turkish state.