The Young Turk Period, 1908-1918 - PSI424

310 The Rise of Modern Turkey, 1808-1975
bureaucracy by Abdulhamit. The use of Turkish as the primary language of business
in the foreign and minority commercial establishments and schools was encouraged.
With the religious schools and courts coming under governmental control,
Turkish rather than Arabic predominated.
As it was developed during the CUP period and came to be applied under the
Republic, Turkish nationalism was mainly a constructive rather than a destructive
force, seeking to convince its adherents to build their society and nation by their
own efforts, aiming only to eliminate those elements of discrimination that kept
them from doing so, and inviting all those ethnic groups that were not Turkish to
accept the new nationality and to join in the struggle to build a new nation in
place of the declining empire. This was not to be, however. As the Turks were
beginning to seek their own national identity, the bases of Islamic unity in the
empire were torn apart, and the Arab national movement developed to the extent
that it facilitated the disintegration of the empire soon after the war began.
The Ottoman Empire Enters the War
Ottoman involvement in World War I, and on the side of the Central Powers,
certainly was not inevitable. Despite the newly emerging patriotic fervor, most
members of the cabinet and the CUP and many Turkish people realized that the
empire was hardly in a state to support any major military effort so soon after the
series of wars that had decimated its population and finances as well as its armed
forces. Although Germany had been building up the army, it did not really expect
the Porte to be able to make a significant military contribution even if it did decide
to join the Central Powers. Modernization had only begun. Besides, most members
of the CUP and the mass of the public still felt closer to Britain and France than
to Germany. German autocracy and militarism appealed only to Enver and those
officers who had received some training in Germany, but they hardly dominated
Ottoman politics at the time, and whatever influence they had seemed to be
countered fully by that of Cemal and the navy, which favored the Triple Entente,
or even better, neutrality.
Behind the scenes, however, Enver was skillfully paving the way for an alliance
with Germany. His argument was simple. If war came, Russia would most certainly
attempt to extend its gains at Ottoman expense, particularly in the east, where it
continued to foment Armenian terrorism and agitation. With Russia on the Entente
side it would be difficult to secure protection from England and France. On the
other hand, Germany had no territorial ambitions in the Middle East; its own
strategic interests required limitation of further Russian expansion. While its
Austrian ally long had coveted Ottoman territory, its acquisition of Bosnia and
Herzegovina had increased its minority problems to such an extent that it hardly
would be anxious to add further Slavic territories to its domains. Cemal actually
made some approaches to the Entente early in 1914 to counter Enver's efforts, but
Britain and France brusquely rejected the offer. Germany, on the other hand, alone
among the major powers, seemed willing to join the Ottomans in open alliance.
Since there remained so much popular opposition to an attachment with Germany,
however, the negotiations were conducted secretly with only the grand vezir and
foreign minister, Sait Halim, and Enver initially involved. The actual alliance
treaty was signed only on August 2, 1914, after the war had already begun in
Europe. It provided for Ottoman intervention in support of the Central Powers only
if Germany's assistance to Austria in the Serbian crisis (Austria had declared war