Water Diviner and Ottoman history

[civvver]

I watched the Water Diviner last night. It's about a father from Australia who's three boys go off to fight in Turkey in WWI and don't come home. So he sets off to find them, so he can bring them home alive or dead (to be buried in the later case).

It was a pretty good movie, very slow for the first half, but exciting second half. But I really knew nothing about the context and it got me interested.

I googled Gallipoli and found out a little about how it was a big British campaign to take over a water passageway to Russia. But at the end of the movie, Britain is basically occupying Turkey even though the Turks won that campaign so I didn't really get that. I guess they won the battle, lost the war? And then the greeks came and invaded and there was a bunch more fighting. What war or whatever was that? And why do Turks and Greeks hate each other, is it cus of WWI or does it go back even further?

It was just kind of interesting because Americans don't learn much about WWI here at all, maybe cus our involvement was fairly minor or WWII just overshadows it. And then any theater outside of central Europe is also fairly ignored. Aside from Patton in WWII most American's probably wouldn't even know there was fighting in Africa during those wars.

 

[Cheetah]

Gallipoli was the first step in a campaign to capture the Ottoman capital: Constantinople. Whoever controls it basically controls sea travel between the Mediterranean and the Black Sea, which is rather important if Britain and France were to have easy access to Russia, and vice-versa (they were all allies during the war).

And yes, the Ottomans lost the war, together with their German and Austrian allies, and was occupied by Allied forces.

Following the war, the Ottoman empire was split, with Britain and France drawing up borders and securing their new colonies in the middle east and backstabbing their Arabian allies (and laying the foundation for all the troubles to follow in the next hundred years). You can watch Lawrence of Arabia if you want a really good - and almost accurate - movie about that story.

Greece had been occupied by the Ottomans for hundreds of years (Byzantium was more of a Greek state than a Roman state, if you will remember), so there was a lot of animosity there. Lots of Greeks still lived in Constantinople and what is now the western coast of Turkey. Interestingly enough, the Ottomans had always seen themselves as the rightful inheritors of the Byzantine and Roman Empires, so there were still people in the area self-identifying as actual Romans at this time! The Greek unwillingness to pay taxes apparently also developed during this time, as a non-violent form of resistance - after independence, it was apparently a habit hard to shake.

Anyway, as always, there was lots of politicing and power games and uncertainty and different opinions about how to partition the Ottoman empire, and who should get what and how much. Greece had been promised their ancient Greek areas of Anatolia by the British, as a reward for joining the war. At one point, even letting Constantinople become the Greek capital was considered. But there were lots of interests all around: "The Russians, British, Italians, French, Greeks, Assyrians and Armenians all made claims to Anatolia, based on a collection of wartime promises, military actions, secret agreements, and treaties.", as Wikipedia has it.

But the Turkish Nationalists rebelled when the Sultan accepted the partition of Anatolia itself, and eventually new treaties were made, the Sultanate abolished and the Republic of Turkey was established. During this Turkish War of Independence, British, French and Italian forces didn't participate much, for whatever reason, and Greek forces, which had invaded on the western coast were lots of Greeks lived and wanted to join Greece, might have possibly probably did (this is touchy stuff!) committed atrocities against the Muslim population living there. Eventually the Turkish nationalists got the upper hand and violently purged the area of Greeks (whom they saw as all either invaders or traitors). The end result were lots of dead people and a bunch of Greek refugees, and angry nationalistic feelings on both sides.

With the establishment of the Turkish Republic, Constantinople was officially renamed Istanbul (which is really just a corruption of the Greek phrase eis tan polin "into the city," which is how the local Greek population referred to it) and relations have slowly improved since. The later invasion of Cyprus didn't help much however, and Greece isn't exactly thrilled about inviting Turkey into the EU any time soon...

 

[Kyriakos]

^The expulsion of Constantinople's +200K Greeks in the mid 1950s pogroms did not help much either. Supposedly that population was protected by the treaty of Lausannes.
But our allies helped, as usual, much like they expressed gratitude for Greece fighting Italy in WW2, but not giving us any land occupied by our own army in Albania.
At least Bulgaria got some land for being nazi in ww2, cause to hell with Romania amirite

 

[civvver]

Oh I didn't know the whole middle east was one big empire pre WWI. So carving them up caused all this strife in the middle east huh basically forming Iraq and Syria as British and French lands? And then WWII came and Israel gets re-established.

 

[Cheetah]

Basically. What could have been a progressive, Arabic nationalism turned into oppressed, religiously based fanatics with a hate for Israel and the West, primarily as the colonies won their independence and soon ended up under Western-supported dictatorships.

Of course, there's no telling how it would have turned out otherwise. The Arabs had once wanted to form one, giant Arab state carved out of Ottoman holdings (before they were betrayed by the British and the French). The early Islamic state fractioned almost immediately, and different Muslim states have been opposed to each other ever since, and the internal squabbling from the time indicates that the envisioned state would have fractioned as well. The Saudis (the original ISIL) were already running their Wahabist crazy cults, but I'd assume some of those states would have turned out more democratic and secular however. Not that well ever know.

And as Kyriakos said, the Greeks were kinda left with the short end of the stick as well. Apparently one of the reasons the British encouraged Greece to join the war, was to deny Italy too much of Anatolia... And yeah, I forgot to mention the pogroms from 55.

Multi-faction imperialist wars are the ultimate musical chairs game.

 

[r16]

the Arab Nationalism would never result in a coherent , stable country . Imagining a single entitiy to challenge the hold of European Colonialists from Morocco to Umman ? When it took 3 centuries to bring Ottomans down ? The original game plan was defeating Germany and sharing up the Ottoman territory , while Austria-Hungary would be divided into little countries . Germans stopped Russians , hurt Western Allies far too much . This allowed Kitchener to creat his own Raj , because it appeared the Sirdar of Egypt would never get the big one , being the Viceroy of India . Which combined with Churchill's lust for a big victory .

as for the population transfer , let's always remember those Greeks were wanted in Greece and not left in Anatolia , by Venizelos . After the defeat of 1922 . Those were population transfers where almost one "Muslim" living in Greece was exchanged for like 2 Greeks from Anatolia . Greeks succeeded ethnical cleansing of the "West" of their aims while failing in the "East" . While 1950 affairs were kindly approved by the US and physically carried out by the forerunners of the Congregation and stuff .

as for Romans , it's always lovely to notice the Kurds have still been referring to the Army and stuff as the Soldiers of Rum ... Feeds nicely to the propaganda that aims to to replace the Republic with a State of Muslim Brotherhood . Arabs , Kurds and hardly any Turks .

 

[Oerdin]

Gollipoli was Churchill's big idea to knock the Ottoman Empire out of WW1 when Churchill wad Lord of the Admiralty. He counted it as one of the worst disasters of his life and listed it as three things he regretted on hos death bed. The idea was spund but WW1 technology wasn't good enough to pull off such and ambitious naval landing (for instance there were no specialized landing craft). The Britosh still won the war against the Turks by invading via Egypt and by way of Kuwait and part of the armistice allowed the UK to occupy Constantinople which is why modern Turkey moved its capital inland to Ankara.

Frankly, the UK shpuld have given Constantinople to the Greeks along with most of western Asia minor.

 

[FriendlyFire]

At least Bulgaria got some land for being nazi in ww2, cause to hell with Romania amirite

Maybe Greece and Serbia should NOT have attacked Bulgaria in WW1 and instead stayed allied to fight Turkey. Instead you three had Kebab beaten and then decided to fight each other over the spoils allowing Kebab to retake all its lost territory.

Especially Greece who decided to Genocide the Turks when they were winning
Then the Greek economy collapsed and well we know what happened.

 

[Dachs]

Gollipoli was Churchill's big idea to knock the Ottoman Empire out of WW1 when Churchill wad Lord of the Admiralty. He counted it as one of the worst disasters of his life and listed it as three things he regretted on hos death bed. The idea was spund but WW1 technology wasn't good enough to pull off such and ambitious naval landing (for instance there were no specialized landing craft). The Britosh still won the war against the Turks by invading via Egypt and by way of Kuwait and part of the armistice allowed the UK to occupy Constantinople which is why modern Turkey moved its capital inland to Ankara.

Frankly, the UK shpuld have given Constantinople to the Greeks along with most of western Asia minor.

Churchill liked to take credit for things that weren't really his idea. An attack on the Straits was a very old idea in British naval files. And upgrading the attack from a purely naval "demonstration" to a full amphibious campaign was primarily the decision of Kitchener and the War Office, not Churchill. He certainly backed it and should take some of the blame for its failure, but the ground campaign and its disastrous course were not the Admiralty's fault.

The technology of the First World War was absolutely adequate to amphibious assaults and powers on both sides successfully managed them during the war. Russia successfully landed large infantry forces on the Pontic coast during its grand offensive in Armenia and eastern Anatolia in 1916, and did so with the aid of some remarkably effective watercraft. Germany landed significant infantry forces on Saaremaa during the Battle of Moon Sound in 1917 as part of the Riga campaign. There were others of smaller scale throughout the war. None of these was up to the standards of the big American landings in the Pacific during the Second World War, nor OVERLORD in 1944, but there were no special circumstances that would've permitted such invasions to happen. If the British had tried to make an amphibious landing in northern Germany, the High Seas Fleet would've torn the landers to pieces - and vice versa, for any German attempt to land in Britain (although the latter was never even planned). Other invasions were planned but never got off the drawing board, e.g. a Russian attack on Constantinople to coincide with the Gallipoli invasion.

The problem with the Gallipoli campaign was not merely the fact that it was an amphibious assault, then. The primary problem was that the Imperial command never really decided on what it actually wanted to do, and as a result mission creep eventually made everything ridiculous.

First, the plan was to "demonstrate" at Constantinople and "knock the Ottoman Empire out of the war". This mission was theoretically possible to execute before the Ottomans improved the Straits' fortifications, in that the Royal Navy could potentially have gotten into the Sea of Marmara with a large surface force, but it was probably irrelevant because bombarding Constantinople would almost certainly not have knocked the Ottoman Empire out of the war and the fleet would not be able to stay there for very long.

Then, once the fleet action to clear the Straits failed, the plan was to make amphibious raids to clear the Straits fortifications to allow the fleet to pass. This was a significantly more difficult mission; it was extremely unlikely to work and would require a great deal of luck. It was also in service of a fundamentally poor goal: the mere presence of a fleet off the coast of Constantinople would not, as mentioned earlier, have been likely to force the Ottoman Empire out of the war.

By the summer of 1915, the mission had metamorphosed into a poorly-defined ground campaign to actually capture Constantinople, which was effectively impossible for any Entente expenditure of force that was possible in the region. The first two missions would have been significantly easier and potentially meaningful had Russian forces participated. The Russian Black Sea Fleet command refused to have anything to do with it, however, based on its fear of the Ottoman navy, and the infantry forces designated for the operation languished until the Austro-German offensive at Gorlice-Tarnów forced Russia to redeploy all available reserve infantry to Poland.

I say "poorly defined" because while that objective was at least mostly clear to the diplomats who had promised Constantinople to Russia, it was not particularly clear to most of the subordinate military commanders, who thought primarily of establishing control over the high ground on the Gallipoli peninsula and didn't really consider further operations until they might become possible, which they never did.

At that point, operations on Gallipoli were completely pointless. Hopes to break into the Ottoman positions were groundless and the expenditure in surface assets to support the invasion were totally unsustainable. German submarines were inflicting extremely heavy losses on Entente shipping while British attempts to do that same in the Marmara met with mixed success. Of course, the fighting continued for another six months, with British officials and officers attempting to justify it in any way possible - the withdrawal would be too dangerous, the Greeks might join the war, the loss in prestige would be too disastrous, the invasion was somehow helping Serbia hold out (lol), and a variety of other poor rationalizations.

 

[Dachs]

Maybe Greece and Serbia should NOT have attacked Bulgaria in WW1 and instead stayed allied to fight Turkey. Instead you three had Kebab beaten and then decided to fight each other over the spoils allowing Kebab to retake all its lost territory.

Especially Greece who decided to Genocide the Turks when they were winning
Then the Greek economy collapsed and well we know what happened.

Greece and Serbia didn't attack Bulgaria in the Great War. You're talking about the Second Balkan War, and the Bulgarians kind of started that first (although there's a good argument that Serbia - not Greece - provoked it). And the Ottomans didn't retake "all" their lost territory; all they got back was Edirne and eastern Thrace, while permanently losing Macedonia and Albania.

The Greek invasion of the Ottoman Empire/Republic of Turkey was a separate war and a separate disaster for all involved.

 

[FriendlyFire]

Greece and Serbia didn't attack Bulgaria in the Great War. You're talking about the Second Balkan War, and the Bulgarians kind of started that first (although there's a good argument that Serbia - not Greece - provoked it). And the Ottomans didn't retake "all" their lost territory; all they got back was Edirne and eastern Thrace, while permanently losing Macedonia and Albania.

The Greek invasion of the Ottoman Empire/Republic of Turkey was a separate war and a separate disaster for all involved.

Look its the Balkans its hard to remember the thousands of wars they keep having all the time. The Balkan league could have removed kebab from Europe for good and retaken Constantinople instead of fighting and genocide each other. Kebab clay problem would have been solved.

Also Greece and economic collapse(s) is practically a Civ trait.
Greece gets a short Golden age then straight away an Anarchy age

 

[Dachs]

Look its the Balkans its hard to remember the thousands of wars they keep having all the time. The Balkan league could have removed kebab from Europe for good and retaken Constantinople instead of fighting and genocide each other. Kebab clay problem would have been solved.

Also Greece and economic collapse(s) is practically a Civ trait.
Greece gets a short Golden age then straight away an Anarchy age

It's unlikely that any of the Balkan League states would have been allowed to keep Constantinople after the First Balkan War, since none of the Great Powers wanted them to have it - not even Russia, because the tsarist government was more or less united in demanding Constantinople for itself.

The question is moot, though, because the Bulgarian army was stopped at the Çatalca fortifications and then pushed back by an Ottoman counteroffensive in November and December 1912. When the First Balkan War ended, the Bulgarians had captured Edirne but were not in a position to threaten Constantinople. Inter-allied friction - none of the League states wanted one of the others to get the city - and Great Power pressure ensured that if the Bulgarians wanted Constantinople they would be fighting by themselves, and they couldn't win that fight.

When Serbia and Greece went to war with Bulgaria several months later, the Ottomans were at no risk of being "pushed out of Europe". The Empire did recover Edirne in the war, which probably wouldn't have happened had Serbia and Greece not fought Bulgaria. That's a far cry from...whatever you think was going to happen.

 

[FriendlyFire]

Wheres our resident Bulgarian ?

The Balken league poor co-ordination cost them several victories, plus Serbia began to Genocide Bulgarians almost straight away. I'd imagine that it would not have been possible for Bulgaria to carry out the fight against Turkey by it self and win. While the Ottoman was weakened it still was more then a match for just poor Bulgaria.

But I'd imagine if the Balken league did not have a falling out the Greco-Turkish War would have ended differently.

 

[abradley]

A nearly forgotten bit of WW1 Brit vs Ottoman history is the

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siege_of_Kut
The Siege of Kut Al Amara (7 December 1915 – 29 April 1916), also known as the First Battle of Kut, was the besieging of an 8,000 strong British-Indian garrison in the town of Kut, 100 miles south of Baghdad, by the Ottoman Army. In 1915, its population was around 6,500. Following the surrender of the garrison on 29 April 1916, the survivors of the siege were marched to imprisonment at Aleppo.[1]

Continued.

The Brits made a mess of it and the Indian troops suffered for it.

 

[Kyriakos]

It's unlikely that any of the Balkan League states would have been allowed to keep Constantinople after the First Balkan War, since none of the Great Powers wanted them to have it - not even Russia, because the tsarist government was more or less united in demanding Constantinople for itself.

The question is moot, though, because the Bulgarian army was stopped at the Çatalca fortifications and then pushed back by an Ottoman counteroffensive in November and December 1912. When the First Balkan War ended, the Bulgarians had captured Edirne but were not in a position to threaten Constantinople. Inter-allied friction - none of the League states wanted one of the others to get the city - and Great Power pressure ensured that if the Bulgarians wanted Constantinople they would be fighting by themselves, and they couldn't win that fight.

When Serbia and Greece went to war with Bulgaria several months later, the Ottomans were at no risk of being "pushed out of Europe". The Empire did recover Edirne in the war, which probably wouldn't have happened had Serbia and Greece not fought Bulgaria. That's a far cry from...whatever you think was going to happen.

I can only facepalm from seeing the level of ignorance in the post you responded to. Even confusing balkan wars with ww1, but still keen to say stuff despite having not even basic knowledge on the subject matter. Such a stance perpetuated will bring the discussion to the gutter by itself

 

[Dachs]

A nearly forgotten bit of WW1 Brit vs Ottoman history is the The Brits made a mess of it and the Indian troops suffered for it.

If you think the siege of Kut is virtually unknown, try looking into the Russian victories in Armenia in 1916. Almost no general history even addresses them. There's a good reason for the Turks not to bring them up, because their field army was comprehensively defeated, including a particularly embarrassing counteroffensive led by Mustafa Kemal that the Russians allowed to overextend and summarily crushed with heavy Ottoman loss. By winter of 1916-17, the Russian army in the Caucasus was within striking distance of Ankara.

Then the Revolution happened, and the Russian Caucasus forces suspended offensive operations. By the time of the Bolshevik seizure of power, the Russian military formations there had basically disintegrated, and those that hadn't gone home to Mama were busily fighting each other in the first stages of the Civil War, setting the stage for the three-way race between the Bolsheviks, Ottomans, and British for control of Baku's oil reserves in 1918.

Still, Russia's record against the Ottomans was so good in 1916 - and that of the French and British was so awful - that it was Russia's foreign ministry that became the prime mover behind the negotiations that led to the Sykes-Picot agreement, and it was Russia that ended up getting everything it wanted with virtually no dissent from its Western partners (who squabbled with each other over the division of spoils further south).

 

[abradley]

If you think the siege of Kut is virtually unknown, try looking into the Russian victories in Armenia in 1916. Almost no general history even addresses them. There's a good reason for the Turks not to bring them up, because their field army was comprehensively defeated, including a particularly embarrassing counteroffensive led by Mustafa Kemal that the Russians allowed to overextend and summarily crushed with heavy Ottoman loss. By winter of 1916-17, the Russian army in the Caucasus was within striking distance of Ankara.

Then the Revolution happened, and the Russian Caucasus forces suspended offensive operations. By the time of the Bolshevik seizure of power, the Russian military formations there had basically disintegrated, and those that hadn't gone home to Mama were busily fighting each other in the first stages of the Civil War, setting the stage for the three-way race between the Bolsheviks, Ottomans, and British for control of Baku's oil reserves in 1918.

Still, Russia's record against the Ottomans was so good in 1916 - and that of the French and British was so awful - that it was Russia's foreign ministry that became the prime mover behind the negotiations that led to the Sykes-Picot agreement, and it was Russia that ended up getting everything it wanted with virtually no dissent from its Western partners (who squabbled with each other over the division of spoils further south).

Thank you, good info that I didn't know.

 

[FriendlyFire]

The entire world war 1 was a huge insane slaughter and incompetence, just look at the entire western front if you want incompetence on a grand scale. For the allies this was the main front of war while all the others were secondary fronts and pretty much neglected.

Though the winner of the most insane was the Italians, No one can beat them for their Napoleon style human wave tactics against the Hungarians.
Practically used human bodies to wear down the enemy by making them run out of ammunition.

 

[r16]

A nearly forgotten bit of WW1 Brit vs Ottoman history is the The Brits made a mess of it and the Indian troops suffered for it.

it was strongly remembered this year in Turkey . The New hates the military prowess of Kemal so much that Kut'ül Amare was much brandished as a "Muslim" thing . Turned out the winner commander to overcome Kemal was a better drinker . When he got throat cancer a pipe would be installed in the throat to let him imbibe . When buried they poured a bottle of Rakı to his grave instead of the customary water .

If you think the siege of Kut is virtually unknown, try looking into the Russian victories in Armenia in 1916. Almost no general history even addresses them. There's a good reason for the Turks not to bring them up, because their field army was comprehensively defeated, including a particularly embarrassing counteroffensive led by Mustafa Kemal that the Russians allowed to overextend and summarily crushed with heavy Ottoman loss.

am like totally sure it never happened , because it would be hammered to our brains in the last ten years . They are actually using the loss of Palestine as proof of his nothingness as a commander . Turns out he lost Gazze in 1917 when he was in Germany as an aide to Vahdettin .

or maybe it's totally utterly bad ...

 

[Flying Pig]

The entire world war 1 was a huge insane slaughter and incompetence, just look at the entire western front if you want incompetence on a grand scale. For the allies this was the main front of war while all the others were secondary fronts and pretty much neglected.

Though the winner of the most insane was the Italians, No one can beat them for their Napoleon style human wave tactics against the Hungarians.
Practically used human bodies to wear down the enemy by making them run out of ammunition.

We often talk about incompetence, but it's often difficult to see what (particularly British) military and political leaders could have done to make it better. Yes, you have strikingly obvious examples like the red trousers of the French army, but other much-mentioned examples of 'incompetence' were really just signs of the times. For example, soldiers walked into machine-gun fire because they had to carry huge amounts of equipment, and there was no way of communicating with and controlling them beyond shouting - if everyone tried to run, they would soon be exhausted, scattered, and impossible to direct. It's also a myth that the Allies never realised the ineffectiveness of their early tactics and were quite happy to run human wave assaults throughout the war. Artillery tactics developed almost constantly - including, most importantly, the shift from a barrage before the attack to a 'creeping barrage' which moved forward with the assaulting infantry, eliminating the break between the end of the bombardment and the contact with the assault - and the war also saw the first use of military aircraft, tanks and radio in combat.

On a broader level, many of the undoubted shows of bad leadership - at Gallipoli, for example - happened because of a shortage of capable, experienced people at all ranks. Expanding the military essentially gave everyone a promotion: in the army of 1913, perhaps the top 20% or so of soldiers would have become NCOs, but all of them had to take on a leadership role when that army was expanded to ten times its size. The same was true of officers. The people selected to command in several battles simply wouldn't have been allowed near them in better circumstances, but there weren't enough capable, experienced senior officers available to find a better alternative.