Britain and France declare war on Turkey

On 5 November 1914 Great Britain and France declared war on the Ottoman Empire. Russia had done so three days earlier, and at sea the British had already been fighting the Turks for several days. The formal declaration closed a road that had begun a week earlier with the raid by the Turco-German fleet on Russian ports on the Black Sea.

The declaration

The Ottoman government had not responded to the Allied demands that it expel the German military and naval missions, and the Entente ambassadors left Constantinople on 31 October and 1 November. As early as 31 October the Admiralty had ordered its ships to open hostilities against Turkey, and on 3 November British and French warships bombarded the forts at the entrance to the Dardanelles. Only the formalities were missing.

On 5 November the British Foreign Secretary, Edward Grey, informed the United States ambassador in London that a state of war existed between Great Britain and Turkey. That morning the Turkish embassy left London, and the Americans took charge of Ottoman interests in Britain. The next day the declaration and a proclamation by King George V were published in the official London Gazette. On the same day France announced a state of war with Turkey. The Ottoman Empire responded with a formal declaration of war only on 11 November.

The end of an old policy

For Great Britain this was a change of historic significance. For most of the 19th century London had propped up the weakening Ottoman Empire, seeing it as a barrier against Russia on the road to the Mediterranean and to India. The British and French had defended Turkey in the Crimean War, and in 1878, at the Congress of Berlin, Great Britain forced Russia to limit its gains from the war with Turkey. In return for an undertaking to defend the Sultan’s Asian possessions against the Russians, it then took over the administration of Cyprus, which formally still belonged to Turkey.

By the beginning of the 20th century this policy was already crumbling. From 1882 Great Britain had occupied Egypt, formally Ottoman, and in 1907 it reached an understanding with Russia. In 1914 Turkey became Germany’s ally and Russia Britain’s ally, reversing the old balance of forces. On 9 November the Prime Minister, H. H. Asquith, said at London’s Guildhall that it was the Ottoman government, and not the British, that had “rung the death knell” of Ottoman dominion, not only in Europe but in Asia as well. On the same day Grey assured the Russian ambassador that once Germany had been defeated, the fate of Constantinople and the Straits would be settled in accordance with Russia’s interests. For British diplomacy, which for a hundred years had defended the Straits against the Russians, this was a turning point.

France had vast interests of its own in the Ottoman Empire. It was Turkey’s largest creditor, and French capital was building railways and ports there. Paris had also long regarded itself as the protector of Catholics in the Middle East, especially in Syria and Lebanon, and these ambitions would soon return when the empire was divided.

Consequences

War with Turkey opened several new fronts for Great Britain. On 5 November London announced the annexation of Cyprus. Egypt, where martial law had already been introduced, became a British protectorate in December, and its defence, especially of the Suez Canal, became one of Britain’s main tasks in the Middle East. At the head of the Persian Gulf there was already Indian Expeditionary Force “D”, which was to protect British oil interests and take Basra. Thus began the Mesopotamian campaign.

The most important consequence, however, proved to be the Dardanelles. The closure of the Straits cut Russia off from its Western allies, and the idea of forcing them gave no peace to the First Lord of the Admiralty, Winston Churchill. In 1915 it led to the naval attack on the Dardanelles and to the Gallipoli campaign. The war, which for London began with a few salvoes in the Aegean and the Red Sea, ended with the break-up of the Ottoman Empire.