Ottoman Empire orders mobilisation

As the great powers mobilised, the Ottoman Empire also began preparing for war. Chronicles of the time state that on 31 July 1914 the government in Constantinople ordered a mobilisation that was to begin on 3 August. According to other sources, the order was formally issued on 1 August and announced publicly a day later. What is certain is that mobilisation got under way on 3 August.

The key figure was the War Minister, Enver Pasha, one of the leaders of the Young Turks who ruled the country. Enver had long advocated an alliance with Germany. At the end of July he proposed one to the German ambassador, and on 2 August a small group of Ottoman leaders signed a secret treaty of alliance with Germany, directed above all against Russia. Most members of the government and the parliament knew nothing of the agreement.

Officially, however, the empire declared so-called armed neutrality. Mobilisation was meant to strengthen its position, but it did not mean immediate entry into the war. The Ottoman army, weakened by defeats in the Balkan Wars, needed time, and part of the elite still hoped that involvement in the conflict could be avoided.

The mood in Constantinople was changing fast, however. At the beginning of August Britain requisitioned two battleships being built in British shipyards to Ottoman order and paid for largely by public subscription. Taken into the Royal Navy as HMS Agincourt and HMS Erin, they provoked a wave of outrage in Turkey. A few days later the German battlecruiser SMS Goeben entered the Dardanelles and was soon formally handed over to the Ottoman navy.

The mobilisation at the turn of July and August was the first step on a road that, at the end of October 1914, led the Ottoman Empire into the war on the side of Germany and Austria-Hungary.