Turkey breaks off relations with Belgium

On 6 November 1914, the day after Britain and France declared war on Turkey, diplomatic relations between the Ottoman Empire and Belgium were broken off. Belgium, almost entirely occupied by the Germans, with its government moved to Le Havre, was losing yet another diplomatic post in a state allied with Germany.

The Belgian legation in Constantinople was headed by Baron Guillaume. As early as September he wrote to his government that the German ambassador was “all-powerful” in Constantinople and that Ottoman ministers quite often met for consultations at his house. He described how the Germans were trying to push the Turks into a rash step that would provoke war with the Entente. He also announced that if he received his passports, he would entrust the care of Belgians living in Turkey to the ambassador of the neutral United States.

And so it happened. Baron Guillaume and the legation secretary left Constantinople a few days after relations were broken off. On 12 November the American ambassador, Henry Morgenthau, had the Belgian legation building sealed. This happened at a time when the Turkish police were searching the missions of the Entente states for hidden wireless stations.

The breaking off of relations did not mean war. The two states were far apart and neither could pose a real threat to the other. According to a list compiled at the beginning of 1918, this was one of a dozen or so cases in this war in which the breaking off of diplomatic relations did not lead to a formal state of war.