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A review by dimitribelgium
The Ottoman Endgame: War, Revolution and the Making of the Modern Middle East, 1908-1923 by Sean McMeekin
4.0
What's a girl like you doing in a place like this ? At first, the fall of the Ottomans seemed an odd subject for the man who gave us [b:The Russian Origins of the First World War|11819948|The Russian Origins of the First World War|Sean McMeekin|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1328044838s/11819948.jpg|16774331] but hereditary enemies entwine their histories and the series of Russo-Turkish wars spanning four centuries tied the fates of the Balkan and the Caucasus to those of the two powers.
The rise of the Young Turks, so often glossed over as a sudden burst of modernism, is set within a context of reforms under the Ottoman sultans, as slow and partial as they may have been. The Great War, in turn, is set firmly within the context of the Tripolitanian and Balkan wars. The overall effect is an adjustment of the 'Sick Man of Europe' view: he made several miraculous recoveries in a decade of warfare.
The 14-18 story as told here has its strengths and weaknesses. On one hand, the Caucasian front gets an amount of attention in proportion to the importance Enver Pasha attached to it, not seldom to the detriment of other theaters. Lawrence of Arabia gets taken down from his mythological pedestal to a level even with the second-rate impact of the Arab revolt on the Ottoman war. On the other hand, there is (still) too much Gallipoli here and events in Mesopotamia unfold a bit too rapid after the infamous siege of Kut.
The post-war chaos takes up 100 pages or a good 20% of the book. It is not enough to do the shifting frontiers justice and the diplomatic games surrounding the treaties of Sèvres and Lausanne aren't spelled out coherently, but it is not 'stumbling through', either. The occupation of Constantinopel by British, French and Italian forces was news to me. The Allied intervention carries (for good reasons) similarities with their undrwhelmed support of the Whites in the Russian civil wars. The main event in McMeekin's version is the Greek invasion and its mutual atrocities, accumulating in the fire of Smyrna after the lines in front of Ankara almost broke.
1911-1923 is a lot of Turkey to fit within 500 pages, but McMeekin is a consummate storyteller.
The following breathless excerpt (p.245) looks back upon 1915:
"And so the British, instead of landing several divisions in scarcely defended Alexandretta to cleave the Ottoman Empire in two, [to] aid their Russian allies [who were] fighting the Ottoman Third Army at Manzikert and [to] save thousands of Armenian refugees, chose to reinforce failure by landing yet another 25.000 troops on Gallipoli, to face the deadly fire of forces entrenched on high ground. After beginning so well at Basra and Suez, 1915 had thoroughly turned sour for Britain in the Ottoman theatre. It was about to get worse."
The rise of the Young Turks, so often glossed over as a sudden burst of modernism, is set within a context of reforms under the Ottoman sultans, as slow and partial as they may have been. The Great War, in turn, is set firmly within the context of the Tripolitanian and Balkan wars. The overall effect is an adjustment of the 'Sick Man of Europe' view: he made several miraculous recoveries in a decade of warfare.
The 14-18 story as told here has its strengths and weaknesses. On one hand, the Caucasian front gets an amount of attention in proportion to the importance Enver Pasha attached to it, not seldom to the detriment of other theaters. Lawrence of Arabia gets taken down from his mythological pedestal to a level even with the second-rate impact of the Arab revolt on the Ottoman war. On the other hand, there is (still) too much Gallipoli here and events in Mesopotamia unfold a bit too rapid after the infamous siege of Kut.
The post-war chaos takes up 100 pages or a good 20% of the book. It is not enough to do the shifting frontiers justice and the diplomatic games surrounding the treaties of Sèvres and Lausanne aren't spelled out coherently, but it is not 'stumbling through', either. The occupation of Constantinopel by British, French and Italian forces was news to me. The Allied intervention carries (for good reasons) similarities with their undrwhelmed support of the Whites in the Russian civil wars. The main event in McMeekin's version is the Greek invasion and its mutual atrocities, accumulating in the fire of Smyrna after the lines in front of Ankara almost broke.
1911-1923 is a lot of Turkey to fit within 500 pages, but McMeekin is a consummate storyteller.
The following breathless excerpt (p.245) looks back upon 1915:
"And so the British, instead of landing several divisions in scarcely defended Alexandretta to cleave the Ottoman Empire in two, [to] aid their Russian allies [who were] fighting the Ottoman Third Army at Manzikert and [to] save thousands of Armenian refugees, chose to reinforce failure by landing yet another 25.000 troops on Gallipoli, to face the deadly fire of forces entrenched on high ground. After beginning so well at Basra and Suez, 1915 had thoroughly turned sour for Britain in the Ottoman theatre. It was about to get worse."