The Ottoman States Great war commenced in 1911 and with the exception of one unbloodied year, continued until 1923. Adrianapolous
in western Turkey fell to the attacking Serbs, Greeks and Bulgarians and 20,000 Ottoman troops were left on the island of Sarayici to starve.
Bulgaria declared war on its allies over the sharing out of captured territories and Enver Pasha took full advantage of the ensuing chaos and retook Adrianapolous. Greece and Serbia divide what they gained from the Bulgarians who sign a treaty with the Ottomans, whilst arranging an exchange of populations. Pasha expels 300,000 Greeks from the Aegean coast. All is quiet until the assassination of the Austrian Archduke in Sarajevo, June 1914. Turkish Salonika remains in Greek hands and becomes Thessaloniki.
The precedent to war was the prolonged and atrocious holocaust which the world has chosen to forget. In 1821 southern Greek Christians massacred 15,000 Greek
Muslims in Athens. In the Greek Peloponnese thousands of Muslim women and children were slaughtered with thousands of shrines and mosques destroyed.
During the 1820’s 20,000 Muslims were expelled from Serbia during the war between Serbia and Russia.
In 1875, Orthodox Bosnian Serb Christians assassinated Muslims and Ottoman officials.
In 1876, Bulgarian Christians massacred many peasants of Turkish origin.
In 1877, Russia declared war on the Ottoman State, using Cossacks and Bulgarian peasants to massacre the inhabitants. 500,000 starving Muslim refugees sought refuge in Istanbul with the Aya Sofya great church sheltering 4,000 despairing souls.
Montenegro expelled their entire Muslim population. By 1879, one third of all Bosnia-Herzogovina Muslims had either emigrated or been killed.
This was the first recorded ethnic cleansing policy, the Russians wanted to eliminate Muslims and replace them with Slavs.
In 1912, Bulgaria, Serbia, Montenegro and Greece declared war on the Ottoman Empire with the intention of seizing more Ottoman territory. The real enemy of the Ottoman State was Russia, expelling Armenian and other muslims into Ottoman territory as its Empire expanded
During World War I there were many Armenian reluctant conscripts in the Ottoman army all agitating for an Armenian state. Most of the Armenian officers and men of the 3rd Army defected to the Russians. On 2nd May 1915 Enver Pasha sent a fatal telegram to the Ottoman Minister for the Interior directing that all Armenians be removed from behind Ottoman lines. Kurdish irregulars escorted these alleged traitors on forced marches. The number of Armenian deaths in 1915 was estimated at 300,000. This figure has grown 2,000,000 today.
There is no excuse for such savagery. Gelibolu, or Gallipoli, guarding the entrance to the Bosphorus in 1915 was the scene of bitter fighting between French, British and ANZAC forces on the allied side and the German officered Turkish forces defending resolutely the barren peninsula.
A personal account of the fighting describes the Tango (French) Franks (Christians) as easy to fight. Their officers wore red trousers and blue jackets with red epaulettes. They were quickly shot down and the black (negro) Franks (?) ran away. The British Franks attacked in force at 10.00hrs for three days in the full heat of the day. They announced their attack with a light artillery barrage and they were killed in large numbers.
The Alemana (German) Franks (Christians) fought with us Muslim Turks against the other Franks. They spoke to our officers in French, then the worldwide language of civilisation. General Liman von Sanders was often with our Colonel Mustafa Kemal, a brave commander.
WWI took its toll followed by the Greek-Turkish war.Bolshevik Russia occupied Azarbaijan, Armenia and Georgia in return for arming the new Turkey. France and Italy deserted the invading Greek Army. Kemal Ataturk secularised Turkey. It is likely that without Mustafa Kemal the Ottomans would have lost the campaign at Gallipoli. There would have been no Russian Revolution, no Cold War and the Great War may have ended a year sooner.