The Middle-Eastern theatre of World War I saw action between 29 October 1914 and 30 October 1918.

The
combatants were, on one side, the Ottoman Empire (including Kurds and some Arab tribes), with some assistance
from the other Central Powers; and on the other side, the British (with the help of Jews, Greeks, Assyrians and the
majority of the Arabs), the Russians (with the help of Armenians) and the French from among the Allies of World
War I. There were five main campaigns: the Sinai and Palestine Campaign, the Mesopotamian Campaign,
the Caucasus Campaign, the Persian Campaign, and the Gallipoli Campaign. There were also several minor
campaigns: the Senussi Campaign, Arab Campaign, and South Arabia Campaign.
Both sides used local asymmetrical forces in the region. On the Allied side were Arabs who participated in the Arab
Revolt and the Armenian militia who participated in the Armenian Resistance during the Armenian Genocide; along
with Armenian volunteer units, the Armenian militia formed the Armenian Corps of the First Republic of Armenia in
1918. In addition, the Assyrians joined the Allies following the Assyrian genocide, instigating the Assyrian war of
independence.[15] The Turkish Ottomans had the support of Kurds (until 1915), Turcomans, Circassians, Chechens
and a number of Iranian, Arab and Berber groups.[not verified in body][dubious discuss] The theatre covered the largest territory of
all theatres in the war.
Russian participation in the theatre ended as a result of the Armistice of Erzincan (5 December 1917), after which
the revolutionary Russian government withdrew from the war under the terms of the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk (3
March 1918). The Armenians attended the Trabzon Peace Conference (14 March 1918) which resulted in the Treaty
of Batum on 4 June 1918. The Ottomans accepted the Armistice of Mudros with the Allies on 30 October 1918, and
signed the Treaty of Svres on 10 August 1920 and later the Treaty of Lausanne on 24 July 1923.
The Ottoman Empire joined the Central Powers through the secret Ottoman-German Alliance,[16] which was signed
on 2 August 1914. The main objective of the Ottoman Empire in the Caucasus was the recovery of its territories that
had been lost during the Russo-Turkish War, 187778, in particular Artvin, Ardahan, Kars, and the port of Batum.
Success in this region would force the Russians to divert troops from the Polish and Galician fronts.[17]
German advisors with the Ottoman armies supported the campaign for this reason. From an economic perspective,
the Ottoman, or rather German, strategic goal was to cut off Russian access to the hydrocarbon resources around
the Caspian Sea.[18]
Germany established an Intelligence Bureau for the East on the eve of World War I. The bureau was involved in
intelligence-gathering and subversive missions to Persia and Egypt,[19] and to Afghanistan,[citation needed] to dismantle
the Anglo-Russian Entente.[20] Ottoman War Minister Enver Pasha claimed that if the Russians could be beaten in
the key cities of Persia, it could open the way to Azerbaijan, as well as the rest of the Middle East and the
Caucasus.
If these nations were to be removed from Western influence, Enver envisioned a cooperation between these newly
established Turkic states. Enver's project conflicted with European interests which played out as struggles
between several key imperial powers. The Ottomans also threatened Britain's communications with India and the
East via the Suez Canal. The Germans hoped to seize the Canal for the Central Powers, or at least to deny the
Allies use of the vital shipping route.
The British feared that the Ottomans might attack and capture the Middle East (and later Caspian) oil fields.[18] The
British Royal Navy depended upon oil from the petroleum deposits in southern Persia, to which the British-
controlled Anglo-Persian Oil Company had exclusive access.[18]
Oxford historian (and Conservative MP) J.A.R. Marriott summarizes the British debates on strategy for the Near
East and Balkan theatre:
The War in that theatre presents many problems and suggests many questions. Whether by a timely display
of force the Turk could have been kept true to his ancient connexion with Great Britain and France; whether
by more sagacious diplomacy the hostility of Bulgaria could have been averted, and the co-operation of
Greece secured; whether by the military intervention of the Entente Powers the cruel blow could have been
warded off from Serbia and Montenegro; whether the Dardanelles expedition was faulty only in execution or
unsound in conception; whether Romania came into tardily, or moved too soon, and in the wrong direction.
The Russians viewed the Caucasus Front as secondary to the Eastern Front. They feared a campaign into the
Caucasus aimed at retaking Kars which had been taken from the Ottoman Empire during the Russo-Turkish War
(18771878), and the port of Batum.[22]
In March 1915, when the Russian foreign minister Sergey Sazonov met with British ambassador George
Buchanan and French ambassador Maurice Palologue, he stated that a lasting postwar settlement demanded full
Russian possession of the capital city of the Ottoman Empire, Constantinople, the straits of
the Bosphorus and Dardanelles, the Sea of Marmara, southern Thrace up to the Enos-Midia line as well as parts of
the Black Sea coast of Anatolia between the Bosphorus, the Sakarya River and an undetermined point near the Bay
of Izmit. The Russian Imperial government planned to replace the Muslim population of Northern Anatolia and
Istanbul with more reliable Cossack settlers
The Armenian national liberation movement sought to establish an Armenian state within the Armenian Highlands.
The Armenian Revolutionary Federation achieved this goal later in the war, with the establishment of the
internationally recognized First Republic of Armenia in May 1918. As early as 1915, the Administration for Western
Armenia and later Republic of Mountainous Armeniawere Armenian-controlled entities, while the Centrocaspian
Dictatorship was established with Armenian participation. None of these entities were long lasting.
The Caucasus Campaign comprised armed conflicts between the Ottoman Empire and the allies, the forces of the
latter including Azerbaijan, Armenia, Central Caspian Dictatorship, and the UK as part of the Middle Eastern theatre,
or alternatively named, as part of the Caucasus Campaign during World War I. The Caucasus Campaign extended
from the Caucasus to eastern Asia Minor, reaching as far as Trabzon, Bitlis, Mush and Van. The warfare on land
was accompanied by actions undertaken by the Russian Navy in the Black Sea region of the Ottoman Empire.
On 23 February 1917, the Russian advance was halted following the Russian Revolution, and later the
disintegrated Russian Caucasus Army was replaced by the forces of the newly established Armenian state, which
comprised the previous Armenian volunteer units and the Armenian irregular units. During 1918 the region also saw
the establishment of the Central Caspian Dictatorship, the Republic of Mountainous Armenia, and an Allied force
named Dunsterforce which was composed of elite troops drawn from the Mesopotamian and Western Fronts.
The Ottoman Empire and German Empire fought each other at Batumi after the arrival of the German Caucasus
Expedition whose prime aim was to secure oil supplies. On 3 March 1918, the conflict between the Ottoman Empire
and Russia ended with the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, and on 4 June 1918, the Ottoman Empire signed the Treaty of
Batum with Armenia. However, the armed conflicts extended as the Ottoman Empire continued to engage with the
Central Caspian Dictatorship, Republic of Mountainous Armenia, and British Empire forces from Dunsterforce until
the Armistice of Mudros was signed on 30 October 1918.
Over 90,000 Ottoman troops were sent to the Eastern European Front in 1916, to participate in operations in
Romania in the Balkans Campaign. The Central Powers asked for these units to support their operations against the
Russian army. Later, it was concluded that the deployment was a mistake, as these forces would have been better
placed remaining to protect Ottoman territory against the massive Erzerum Offensive that the Russian army had
begun.
The relocation of troops to the Eastern European Front was initiated by Enver. It was originally rejected by the
German Chief of Staff, Erich von Falkenhayn, but his successor, Paul von Hindenburg, agreed to it, albeit with
reservations. The decision was reached after the Brusilov Offensive, as the Central Powers were running short of
men on the Eastern Front.
In the deployment, Enver sent the XV Army Corps to Galicia, the VI Army Corps to Romania, and the XX Army
Corps and 177th Infantry Regiment to Macedonia in early 1916. The VI Corps took part in the collapse of the
Romanian army in the Romanian Campaign, and were particularly valued for their ability to continue a high rate of
advance in harsh winter conditions. The XV Corps was known to fight very well against the Russians in
Galicia,[23] often inflicting on the Russians several times the casualties they took
After the Young Turk Revolution and the establishment of the Second Constitutional Era (Turkish: kinci Mertiyet
Devri) on 3 July 1908, a major military reform started. Army headquarters were modernised. The Ottoman Empire
was engaged in the Turco-Italian War and Balkan Wars, which forced more restructuring of the army, only a few
years before the First World War.
From the outset, the Ottoman Army faced a host of problems in assembling itself. First of all, the size of the Ottoman
Army was severely limited by division within the empire: non-Muslims were exempt from the military draft, and
reliable ethnic Turks only made up 12 million of the empire's already relatively small population of 22 million, with
the other 10 million being minorities of varying loyalty and military use. The empire was also very poor compared to
the other powers in GDP, infrastructure, and industrial capacity. As a point of comparison the empire only had 5,759
km of railway, while France had 51,000 km of railway for a fifth of the land area. Ottoman coal production was
negligible (826,000 tons in 1914 compared to 40,000,000 tons for France and 292,000,000 tons for Britain), while
steel production was borderline non-existent.[25] There was only one cannon and small arms foundry in the empire, a
single shell and bullet factory, and a single gunpowder factory, all of which were located in the Constantinople
suburbs. The Ottoman economy was almost entirely agricultural, relying on products such as wool, cotton, and
hides.
During this period, the Empire divided its forces into armies. Each army headquarters consisted of a Chief of Staff,
an operations section, intelligence section, logistics section and a personnel section. As a long established tradition
in the Ottoman military, supply, medical and veterinary services were included in these armies. Before the war, the
Turkish General Staff estimated that 1,000,000 men could be mobilized at one time and that 500,000 of these were
available as mobile field armies, with the rest serving in garrisons, coastal defenses, and in servicing lines of
communication and transportation.[27]Approximately 900 field guns were available for the mobile army, which was
280 below war establishment, though supplies of howitzers were generally sufficient. There were an additional 900
pieces of fixed or semifixed set-up in coastal and fortress garrisons across Adrianople, Erzurum, the Bosphorous,
the Dardanelles, and the Catalca. Ammunition was low; there were only about 588 shells available per
gun.[28] Additionally, the army estimated it needed several thousand more machine guns to fill its establishment; rifles
were generally efficient at 1.5 million in stock, the army still needed another 200,000.
In 1914, before the Empire entered the war, the four armies divided their forces into corps and divisions such that
each division had three infantry regiments and an artillery regiment. The main units were: First Army with fifteen
divisions; Second Army with 4 divisions plus an independent infantry division with three infantry regiments and an
artillery brigade; Third Army with nine divisions, four independent infantry regiments and four independent cavalry
regiments (tribal units); and the Fourth Army with four divisions.
By 1918, the original armies had been so badly reduced that the Empire was forced to establish new unit definitions
which incorporated these armies. These were the Eastern Army Group and Yildirim Army Group. However, although
the number of armies was increasing over the four years of the war, the Empire's resources of manpower and
supplies were declining, so that the Army Groups in 1918 were smaller than the armies of 1914. The Ottoman Army
was still partially effective until the end of the war.
Most military equipment was manufactured in Germany or Austria, and maintained by German and Austrian
engineers. Germany also supplied most of the military advisers; a force of specialist troops (the Asia Korps) was
dispatched in 1917, and increased to a fighting force of two regiments in 1918. The German Caucasus
Expedition was established in the formerly RussianTranscaucasia around early 1918 during the Caucasus
Campaign. Its prime aim was to secure oil supplies for Germany and stabilise a nascent pro-German Democratic
Republic of Georgia. The new republic brought the Ottoman Empire and Germany into conflict, with exchanges of
official condemnations between them in the final months of the war.
The Ottoman Empire established a new recruitment law on 12 May 1914. This lowered the conscription age from 20
to 18, and abolished the "redif" or reserve system. Active duty lengths were set at two years for the infantry, three
years for other branches of the Army and five years for the Navy. These measures remained largely theoretical
during the war.
Traditional Ottoman forces depended on volunteers from the Muslim population of the empire. Additionally, several
groups and individuals in the Ottoman society volunteered for active duty during the World War, the major examples
being the "Mevlevi" and the "Kadiri."
There were also units formed by Caucasian and Rumelian Turks, who took part in the battles in Mesopotamia and
Palestine. Among Ottoman forces, volunteers were not only from Turkic groups; there were also smaller numbers of
Arab and Bedouin volunteers who fought in the campaign against the British to capture the Suez Canal, and in
Mesopotamia. Volunteers were considered unreliable by the organised army, due to a lack of training and a
perception of mainly mercenary interests from the Arab and Bedouin volunteers. Heavy fighting also placed
pressure on the Ottoman volunteer system.
Before the war, Russia had the Russian Caucasus Army, but almost half of this was redeployed to the Prussian
front after the defeats at the battles of Tannenberg and the Masurian Lakes, leaving behind just 60,000 troops in this
theatre. In the summer of 1914, Armenian volunteer units were established under the Russian Armed forces. Nearly
20,000 Armenian volunteers expressed their readiness to take up arms against the Ottoman Empire as early as
1914.[29] These volunteer units increased in size during the war, to the extent that Boghos Nubar, in a public letter to
the Paris Peace Conference in 1919, stated that they numbered 150,000.[30]
The Assyrian people of south east Anatolia, northern Mesopotamia and north western Persia also threw in their lot
with the Russians and British, under the leadership of Agha Petros and Malik Khoshaba.[15]
In 1914, there were some British Indian Army units located in the southern parts of Persia. These units had
extensive experience in dealing with dissident tribal forces. The British later established the Mediterranean
Expeditionary Force, British Dardanelles Army, Egyptian Expeditionary Force, and in 1917 they
established Dunsterforce under Lionel Dunsterville, consisting of less than 1,000 Australian, British, Canadian and
New Zealand troops accompanied by armoured cars, to oppose Ottoman and German forces in the Caucasus.
In 1916, an Arab Revolt began in the Hejaz. About 5,000 regular soldiers (mostly former prisoners of war of Arab
origin) served with the forces of the revolt. There were also many irregular tribesmen under the direction of the Emir
Feisal and British advisers. Of the advisers, T.E. Lawrence is the best known.
France sent the French Armenian Legion to this theatre as part of its larger French Foreign Legion. Foreign
Minister Aristide Briand needed to provide troops for French commitment made in the Sykes-Picot Agreement,
which was still secret.[31] Boghos Nubar, the leader of the Armenian national assembly, met with Sir Mark Sykes and
Georges-Picot.
General Edmund Allenby, the commander of the Egyptian Expeditionary Force, extended the original agreement.
The Armenian Legion fought in Palestine and Syria. Many of its volunteers were later released from the Legion to
join their respective national armies.
The Armenian national liberation movement commanded the Armenian Fedayee (Armenian: ) during these
conflicts. These were generally referred to as Armenian militia. In 1917, The Dashnaks established an Armenian
Corps under the command of General Tovmas Nazarbekian which, with the declaration of the First Republic of
Armenia, became the military core of this new Armenian state. Nazarbekian became the first Commander-in-chief.