The Year 1915 Illustrated/The Intervention of Turkey

FTER patient efforts to reach a peaceful solution, on November 5th England formally declared war on Turkey. Hostilities had broken out a week before that date, the Turkish fleet having bombarded Russian seaports on the Black Sea. As there was reason to believe that this action was taken without the authority of the Turkish Government, our own Foreign Office exhausted all the resources of diplomacy to enable Turkey to prove her good faith. It was known that there had been considerable division of opinion in the Turkish Cabinet on the question of the maintenance of neutrality. The presence of the Goeben and the Breslau in the Dardanelles had undoubtedly much to do with the vacillating policy of the Sultan's Government. The Allies demanded that the vessels should be dismantled. To agree to this would have meant to Turkey a rupture with Germany and the forfeiting of the monetary assistance promised by that country. Germany had already obtained a firm hold on Turkey through the construction of the Baghdad railway and by the help given in the reorganisation of the Ottoman Army. It appears that before the actual rupture with the Allies took place Enver Pasha had encountered strong opposition to his pan-German policy from the Sultan and some of his ministers. It was apparently to nullify this opposition that Enver Pasha contrived the Black Sea raid, for he thus made the neutrality of Turkey a dead letter. A further complication was caused by the action of the Khedive of Egypt, Abbas Hilmi Pasha, who was resident in Constantinople during the negotiations, and demanded the withdrawal of the British forces from Egypt. That the diplomacy of the Allies in no way justified the action of Turkey is shown by the official correspondence published since the outbreak of hostilities.

Although war was not formally declared until November 5th, a bombardment of the Dardanelles forts by a British and French squadron had taken place two days earlier. British destroyers had also sunk a Turkish gunboat off Mitylene, and the forts, barracks and stores had been demolished at Akaba by HMS Minerva. This last-mentioned action frustrated for the time being the threatened attack by the Turkish forces on Egypt.

A Sultan installed in Egypt
Events moved quickly after November 5th. The island of Cyprus was annexed and Egypt was proclaimed a protectorate under the British Crown. The Khedive, Abbas Hilmi Pasha, was deposed and his uncle, Prince Hussein Kamil Pasha, was publicly installed as the new ruler on December 18th with the title of Sultan. The result for Turkey was to embroil her in a conflict in which she had much to lose and nothing to gain. Her military prestige had gone by the board in the Balkan war, and now by siding with Germany she sealed her doom as an independent Power. Any expectation of a Moslem rising in India or Egypt in support of the Ottoman Government disappeared with the publication of the manifesto of Aga Khan, in which he urged that no Islamic interest was imperilled and that the duty of Moslems was to continue loyal to their temporal sovereigns; this view was supported by the Egyptian Prime Minister.

Turkey's campaign against the Allies brought her a succession of disasters. On the Black Sea her Navy was crippled and many transports sunk. The famed Goeben, after a single engagement, returned to the Dardanelles in a sinking condition. On land the plight of the Turkish forces was even worse. On November 8th, the British carried out a successful raid in the Persian Gulf, a week later engaged and defeated the Turkish forces, and followed this up by the occupation of Basra on November 21st and the despatch of an expedition from India which brought about the surrender of the Turkish troops at Kurna on December 9th. Meantime the Russians had effected contact with the main Turkish army in the Caucasus, where they inflicted two crushing defeats in December and January. So complete was the rout on January 6th that the Petrograd authorities questioned the possibility of the Turks being able to renew hostilities in that region. Another attempt in August met with no better success.

A thrilling episode of the naval warfare was the forcing of the passage of the Dardanelles by Lieut. Holbrook in the British submarine HMS B11, and the sinking of the Turkish battleship, Messudiyeh, on December 13th. For this wonderful achievement Lieut. Holbrook received the Victoria Cross.