by Hew Strachan
The transformation of the Turkish army between 1913 and 1914, therefore, owed much more to Sevket and to Enver than it did to Liman von Sanders. This was not, in fact, what Sevket had intended. He had planned ‘a German military mission on the grand scale’, thus giving the Germans the real influence which the Hamidian regime had denied them. But his plan ‘to appoint a German general to command a Turkish army corps, and to have German staff and regimental officers in command of every unit comprising it, and in this way form a model army corps’,84 fell foul of the diplomatic crisis generated by the German mission. Liman was appointed inspector-general of the Turkish army. Therefore his orbit was restricted almost immediately on arrival. His main efforts were channelled into improving conditions of service. This suited Enver very well. The new minister of war was as impressed as Sevket by German military methods; the Turkish general staff was reorganized on the German model, with three sections for each of operations, intelligence, and railways; and a German, Bronsart von Schellendorf, was appointed its chief. But Enver was equally determined that the Turkish army should be employed in the Turkish national interest, not in that of Germany. The German military mission had risen to a strength of seventy by the summer of 1914. Its task, however, remained advisory and technical. Germans became chiefs of staff; they did not command.
Furthermore, temperamentally Liman and Enver found themselves at odds. By the end of the war Liman had proved himself an able commander and a sympathetic judge of Turkish troops. But he antagonized many of his colleagues. One of his German subordinates in Turkey, Kress von Kressenstein, described him as ‘self-confident and conceited, temperamental and hot-tempered, mistrustful and sensitive’.85 He had been judged unsuitable for a corps command in Germany. Thus, status was to Liman an important aspect of his Turkish service. But he was then undercut by Enver’s appointment as minister of war. Deprived of the coveted corps by diplomatic pressure, he had to be promoted a general of cavalry in the German army and a marshal in the Turkish army as consolation. This preoccupation with rank and rewards, combined with his prior commitment to Germany’s, rather than Turkey’s needs, provided the basis for a series of clashes with the equally explosive character of Enver.
In sum, the influence of the German military mission was marginalized. Liman played only a minor part in the negotiations leading to the Turkish alliance and then to Turkish intervention. He had no co-ordinating role in German strategy in Turkey. Indeed, the divisions between German departments played a major part in strengthening Enver’s hand; Wangenheim and Liman bypassed each other; Souchon, Admiral Usedom (the officer sent out to improve the Dardanelles’ defences in September), and the military and naval attachés all reported independently to Berlin. Paragraph 3 of the Turko-German treaty of 2 August stated that in the event of war the military mission would be left at Turkey’s disposal, and that relations between the head of the mission and the Turkish war minister would be direct and so established as to have ‘an effective influence on the general conduct of the army’. Bethmann Hollweg interpreted this clause as giving the military mission the supreme Turkish command in all but name. What actually happened was that Liman was appointed to the command of the 1st army in Thrace. The German presence at Turkish GHQ was headed by Bronsart von Schellendorff, as Enver’s chief of staff.
Bronsart was responsible for such war planning as Turkey had achieved by October 1914, and for its mobilization plan. The fact that both were chaotic may be an indictment of Bronsart, or of his ability to stand up to Enver: the winter campaign in the Caucasus in 1914–15 would support such judgements. The Austrian military attaché called him ‘petty, excessively nervous, glory-seeking and an intriguer’.86 But even the most able staff officer would have had difficulty resolving the problems with which Bronsart was confronted. The war plan, which he drew up on 4 July 1914, reflected priorities in Turkish foreign policy: it concentrated on a war with Russia in the area of the Dardanelles and the Bosphorus, and on a possible conflict in the Balkans. Turkey would adopt a defensive posture in the Caucasus and would redeploy the troops in Palestine and Mesopotamia to Anatolia.87 What happened between August and November was that a world war was grafted onto a Balkan war. Turkish plans grew accordingly, but the basic assumption—that the major concentration should be around Constantinople—was not altered.
Moltke’s enthusiasm for the Turkish alliance rested not so much on the aid it could provide in the Balkans as on its ability to distract Russia and Britain. At a meeting on 16 August the representatives of the German military mission discussed with Enver and Hafiz Hakki, the deputy chief of staff, the possibilities for amphibious operations in the Black Sea and for a thrust against the Suez Canal. The orders for the 2nd army in Syria and VIII army corps in Palestine to move to Anatolia were revoked; instead, both were earmarked for the Egyptian offensive, and two divisions from Mesopotamia, also originally destined for Anatolia, were given the task of parrying any British landing in northern Syria. By mid-September the German sailors, Souchon and von Usedom, were dismissive of landings on the Black Sea coast: the Turks would need to defeat the Russian fleet first, but without the ability to blockade the Russian ports they would not be able to force the Russian navy to battle. They, together with Wangenheim, therefore favoured a concentration against the British in Egypt. Liman von Sanders was opposed: if the army protected the straits it would at least guard the navy’s back and so give Souchon the freedom to fight for control of the Black Sea. Enver agreed; on 22 October he accepted that Bulgaria’s failure to ally itself with Turkey meant that considerable forces should remain in Thrace. But at the same time he did not renounce the offensive in Egypt, and moreover he declared his support for operations in the Caucasus.88 His response to German pressure, and his anxiety to assert Turkish worth, led him to produce an inclusive list rather than to establish priorities.
Therefore, the mobilization ordered on 2 August lacked a clear operational focus and was carried out by an army in the throes of reorganization. When the orders went out the full instructions for mobilization under the terms of the 1914 recruitment law were not yet issued. In their peacetime state divisions were formed of six or nine battalions, totalling 5,000 or 6,200 men; many units were in fact under establishment, some companies mustering only twenty soldiers. Those aged 23 to 30, the reservists who were to complete the active corps, and those aged 30 to 38, who were to form corps depots, were ordered to report within three days. Even the disabled were to attend, in order to have their disability registered. Units were then doubled in size. The economic crisis of August, with overseas trade suspended, boosted unemployment and provided a ready reservoir of manpower. But the army could not cope with the influx. The reservists were told to bring food for three days. Thereafter there were insufficient rations for the swollen battalions. The local population, its economic life already shattered by the loss of the adult male population, was plundered for food. The only financial compensation was to the state, which at least received the payments of those able to buy themselves out. The purge in the officer corps had, as result of the consequent acceleration in promotion, created gaps in the junior ranks; the NCOs of the Turkish army were mostly re-enlisted men, peasants, frequently illiterate and lacking in initiative. Thus, old methods of training were mixed up with new. In September the territorials, those aged 38 to 45, were called up; in October they were sent home again. By the end of October full Turkish mobilization was still not implemented, but there was a danger that the strains it imposed would cause its collapse before its completion.89
Enver’s attention, reflecting the original war plan, had been on the assembly of the 1st and 2nd armies (a total of 200,000 men) around Constantinople, and of the 3rd army (120,000 men) around Erzerum, facing the Caucasus. The transport system was sufficient to move 10,000 reservists a day, and therefore the concentration of the whole army would take between four and five months. When Turkey went to war its southern borders, the responsibility of the 4th army in Syria and of four divisions in Iraq, w
ere still not covered. The security of the south was rendered secondary to the needs of the north. Iraq in particular was used as a reserve for the other fronts, three of its four divisions going to reinforce the 4th army in Syria and the 3rd in the Caucasus. And yet, thanks to Indian Expeditionary Force D, the first Turkish soldiers engaged in action were the diminutive garrison at Fao on the Persian Gulf. Furthermore the southern areas, because of their distance from Constantinople, had been those least affected by the German military mission and other reforming agencies; pay was frequently in arrears, and Arab disaffection (albeit at this stage exaggerated) created doubts about the troops’ loyalty.
The fact that Britain and France, as well as Russia, were at war with Turkey transformed the Ottoman empire’s strategic position. Its extended coastline, with its accessibility to naval power, its joint frontier with British-controlled Egypt, and the Government of India’s interests in Mesopotamia meant that the entire perimeter lay under potential threat. The concentration planned in July, in Turkey’s north-western corner, had by November to be balanced with the defensive needs—and the offensive possibilities—at each of its other apexes, in the north-east and the Caucasus, in the south-west and the Suez Canal, and in the south-east and Iraq. The ability to concentrate rapidly, to exploit interior lines in order to be able to transfer troops from one sector to another, would be pivotal to Turkey’s ability to wage war. Turkey had an elaborate telegraph system but no efficient means of internal transportation.
Before the war much of Turkey’s traffic was carried around its perimeter, by sea. But the British had instituted a blockade in the Mediterranean even before the declaration of hostilities, and Russia began to assert its dominance over the Black Sea during the course of 1915. Therefore the difficulties of the land communications, masked before the war, were exposed. Turkish railway construction between 1888 and 1914 showed an impressive rate of growth, from 1,780 kilometres of track to about 5,800, but its density—for 1.76 million square kilometres of territory—remained sadly deficient.90
Furthermore, from the military perspective the situation was even worse than the crude statistics suggested. In May 1914 Major Theodor von Kubel reported that the railways in Iraq and Anatolia required an investment of 100 million marks in order to bring them up to military needs.91 Von Kubel’s recall, as a consequence of the ensuing fracas with the Deutsche Bank’s railway subsidiaries, highlighted the commercial priorities that underpinned even German railway construction. Each nation built according to its own local needs, establishing not an Ottoman network but a juxtaposition of single-track links, of different gauges, without interconnections. The fact that Constantinople, the potential hub of a railway system had there been one, was on the periphery of Turkey confirmed the inappropriateness of the routes for the purposes of national defence. Such military needs as were served by the railways were for the movement of troops from Asia Minor to European Turkey, not for a two-way flow across the Asiatic heartland of the empire.
Thus, of the four major fronts envisaged by Enver in his 22 October memorandum only the Balkan and the Constantinople areas were adequately provided for. Deliberately neglected, in deference to Russian objections on strategic grounds, was eastern Anatolia. The nearest railheads were Ulu Kischla, north of the Taurus Mountains, and Tell Ebiad, east of the Euphrates, 700 and 400 kilometres respectively from Erzurum, itself some distance from the frontier and the putative battle-front.
Syria was better endowed, and superficially seemed to be well adapted for a push towards Egypt. But British and French efforts in the regions had been designed to link the Mediterranean ports to commercial centres inland, and not to provide a north-south connection. Thus Jerusalem was linked to Jaffa, but there was no line south to Beersheba, and that to the north and to the Haifa-Damascus line was begun but not complete. Further east, the line from Damascus through Maan to Medina, the Hejaz railway intended to transport pilgrims to the holy cities, was narrow gauge, and between Tebuk and El Ala had to carry its own water (in addition to the water for the troops in the blockhouses guarding the line), so reducing its capacity.
During the course of the war the lines within Palestine were reorganized, redirected, and extended with comparative speed. But the whole theatre of operations remained isolated from Constantinople by the breaks in the southern Anatolian section of the line in the Taurus and Amanus mountains, northwest of Aleppo. When war was declared 37 kilometres were still to be cut through the Taurus range and twelve tunnels were required: not until January 1917 was a narrow-gauge link effected, and not until September 1918 was this upgraded to a standard gauge. The Amanus link was 97 kilometres long, and was completed early in 1917. Until then all equipment for not only the Syrian but also the Mesopotamian fronts had to be unloaded and reloaded twice, and had to be carried by pack animal or by human labour across the two ranges. Those disqualified on religious or national grounds from military service formed labour and porter battalions, numbering 110,000 men as early as October 1914.92 Each 100-kilometre stretch across the mountain ranges was—by late 1915—allocated 3,500 to 4,000 baggage animals—camels, buffaloes, and horses. But the standard of veterinary care was appalling: sixty to seventy died each day. Furthermore, the retired officers of the Hamidian army, pressed back into service for duties in the rear, proved limited and slothful, leaving their NCOs to manage matters and to sell the camels to the neighbouring Kurds.93
The Taurus and Amanus links were not the only incomplete sections in the celebrated Berlin-Baghdad railway line. A total of 825 kilometres of track was still to be laid in August 1914. The Euphrates bridge near Djerablus was not finished; from Tell Ebiad to Samara, north of Baghdad, only the first 103 kilometres to Ras el Ain had been begun, and by the war’s end the line had been extended 200 kilometres from Tell Ebiad to Nisibin. The 1903 agreement with the Turkish government was increasingly squeezing the Baghdad railway company’s profits as operating costs rose, thus reducing the capital available for further investment. Labour was lost not only through the mobilization of the army but also because the workers were not paid. The war worsened the company’s financial position, as military needs ousted commercial traffic but military goods were only charged one-third the standard rate. In 1914 the company registered a 1.2 million franc loss, and in 1915 1.7 million francs, while the Turkish government netted 8 million francs. In November 1914 the company reckoned that a forced construction programme could complete the Taurus and Amanus sections in April 1916, and the Iraq section in May 1917. But the German government was slow to interpret the line in strategic terms rather than economic. It had to accept that the war was going to be sufficiently long for the imperatives for completion to be military. Not until March 1915 was OHL convinced by the German foreign ministry of the military importance of the line. Then the Turks themselves proved reluctant to support what they saw as the furtherance of German interests. Negotiations with Turkey over the terms of a German government loan to aid construction continued throughout the war without reaching a conclusion. By 1917 the Baghdad railway company was effectively bankrupt, setting its accumulated losses since 1914 at 6 million marks. It was saved in July by the German government, which provided a prepayment of 100 million marks secured in Baghdad railway bonds and most of the company’s shares. The solution, intended as an interim one pending fresh negotiations with the Turks over the revenue arangements, fell foul of the intransigence of the Ottoman government. By the end of the war the German government had diverted a total of 360 million marks towards the line.94
Initially, however, it was not the Turkish section of the Berlin-Baghdad railway line that gave cause for major concern but the European. On 6 August 1914 Enver asked the Germans for half-a-million artillery shells and 200,000 rifles. The Turkish shopping list lengthened as mobilization proceeded: mines, howitzers, trucks, electrical equipment, and even boots, blankets, and uniforms were requested. Progressively more pressing were the demands for German coal. In 1911–12 Turkey produced 700,000 tonnes of coal from
its mines at Eregli; the balance of its needs, 421,000 tonnes, were imported, 88 per cent from Britain.95 In September 1914 British imports ceased. Turkey’s own production in that year reached 651,240 tonnes; in 1915 it fell to 420,317 tonnes, and in 1917 to 146,000. Such coal as there was did not necessarily reach its major consumers—the city of Constantinople and the railways themselves.96 Before the war the coal had been shipped from Sunguldak in the Black Sea to the Bosphorus; from late 1914 the Russians mounted a blockade on the port and bombarded its facilities. The Turks were not able to use the Goeben and the Breslau to break the blockade, principally because if the Goeben was employed as an escort she consumed almost as much coal as the colliers could carry.97 Nonetheless, the blockade was not sustained continuously; the bombardments, for all that there were twenty-five, including an air raid, were not definitive.98 Thus, coastal traffic continued to trickle through at a rate sufficient to deprive of urgency pressure for a railway to link Sunguldak to Turkey’s interior. Opponents of the line argued that coastal traffic would make any line redundant with the advent of peace. Thus, both Turkey’s major sources of fuel, Britain and Eregli, were affected by the outbreak of war.
