The Ottoman road to war in 1914 : the Ottoman Empire and the First World War / Mustafa Aksakal.

Collection type	Library
Author	Aksakal, Mustafa, 1973-;
Call Number	940.356 A313
Document type	Monograph
Year	2008.
Pagination	xv, 216 p. : ill., maps ; 24 cm.
Publisher	Cambridge University Press,
Note	Formerly CIP. Includes bibliographical references (p. 195-207) and index. "Why did the Ottoman Empire enter the First World War in late October 1914, months after the war's devastations had become clear? Were its leaders "simple minded," "below-average" individuals, as the doyen of Turkish diplomatic history has argued? Or, asothers have claimed, did the Ottomans enter the war because War Minister Enver Pasha, dictating Ottoman decisions, was in thrall to the Germans and to his own expansionist dreams?" "Based on previously untapped Ottoman and European sources, Mustafa Aksaka l's study challenges this consensus. It demonstrates that responsibility went far beyond Enver, that the road to war was paved by the demands of a politically interested public, and that the Ottoman leadership sought the German alliance as the only way ou t of a web of international threats and domestic insecurities, opting for an escape whose catastrophic consequences for the empire and seismic impact on the Middle East are felt even today."--BOOK JACKET.
Place made	Cambridge, UK ; New York

Abstract

Pursuing sovereignty in the age of imperialism -- The intellectual and emotional climate after the Balkan Wars -- 1914 : war with Greece? -- The Ottomans within the international order -- The great war as great opportunity : the Ottoman July crisis -- Tug of war : Penelope's game -- Salvation through war? -- Conclusion : the decision for war remembered.