The Ottoman Sultan "Mehmed V" was a decorative sort of man, he had nothing to do with anything.. I mean, a "man of image" who was of no use.. The one actually running the state was the Minister of War, "Ismail Enver Pasha".. who was a member of the "Union and Progress", and Germany had got its hands on him early, so he became a German agent.

The reason the Ottoman Empire entered World War I was a very silly reason. Before that, from 1912 to 1913, the Ottoman Empire had gone into wars with the Balkan states, and it ended with its defeat as usual, and on 28 June 1914, a worthless Serbian youth assassinated the heir to the throne of Austria in Sarajevo.. Austria and Serbia of course fell upon each other.. and Austria sent a long list of demands to Serbia, Serbia accepted some of them and rejected the rest, so Austria declared war on Serbia. Serbia was an ally of Russia.. so Russia went and declared general mobilization in the military districts near Austria.

Austria was an ally of Germany.. so Germany sent Russia an ultimatum to cancel the mobilization decision and demobilize the soldiers, and Russia refused.. so Germany declared war on it, and Austria went in behind it. France went and took Russia's side.. and on 3 August of the same year.. Germany marched on Belgium, and it was a British ally, so Britain declared war on Germany.. and the alliances began to take shape, and the two warring sides to be formed.

The Ottoman Empire was neutral like Italy at that time.. but "Enver Pasha" was a German agent as we said.. Germany decided at some moment to push the Ottoman Empire into the war, in order to occupy the Russian front with an enemy on its borders that would drain it, while it preserved its own sons and fought Russia while Russia was busy, exhausted and weak.

The decision of war is not easy.. and pushing the Ottoman Empire into war is not easy, and if "Enver Pasha" declared war on direct instructions then that was not his right, and Germany might lose its strong man.. so they searched for a solution, and the solution came on a golden platter.

Two German warships.. named "Goeben" and "Breslau".. two cruisers.. a cruiser does not mean it is something smaller than a warship nor an attack boat for example.. it is a fully integrated warship exactly like the huge ships.. only its armor is lighter, and its main gun is lighter, so it ends up weaker in armor.. but faster in movement. The cruiser "Breslau" in fact, unlike "Goeben", was somewhat smaller in size and faster.

France had occupied Algeria as we know, after it had been occupied by the Ottomans, any state that occupied anything in the East.. and you know with your eyes closed that it was during the period of Ottoman rule.. so France was transporting soldiers to and from Algeria with transport ships, so the commander of the Royal Navy at the time "Winston Churchill" ordered the commander of the British Mediterranean fleet to cover France in cooperation with the units of the French fleet, and to protect the transport ships while they carried its soldiers.

The two German cruisers moved under the command of "Konteradmiral Wilhelm Souchon".. with orders to bombard the coasts of French Algeria, and as they approached, another message arrived on 4 August ordering the two cruisers to ignore the previous order, and head immediately to the port of Istanbul.. awaiting further orders.

Being very close to the target, "Wilhelm" ignores the new order, and advances from the Algerian coasts raising the Russian flag as camouflage.. but he encounters two British warships coming in the opposite direction to him.. These two ships informed "Churchill".. that there were German ships raising the Russian flag and playing dumb.. so he ordered them to strike the two cruisers if they attacked the French ships.. but the Cabinet in England told him that this would not do.. and that they would not begin with aggression without a declaration of war.. and accordingly; he cancels the order.. and the German and English ships do not strike each other.. "Wilhelm" likewise, with the appearance of the English, decides to head for Istanbul.. but the English ships begin to follow the two German cruisers with interest.. This story was preserved for us by history under the name "Pursuit of Goeben and Breslau".

The two cruisers were lighter in weight and faster than the English ships.. but they had a problem in the boilers.. luckily for them, the two ships chasing them behind also had a problem in the boilers.. so the German ships pulled ahead.. and on the coasts of Italy they anchor and ask to be supplied with coal.. the fuel the boilers run on.. but Italy was neutral at the time.. so it refuses to supply them with coal.. and asks them to leave the port and territorial waters immediately within 24 hours. And during this period the two ships are forced to buy coal from the German traders in the port, and load it onto the ships by hand.

This conduct is 100% correct if you are neutral.. Italy would do exactly the same with England too when its ships arrive. And the English go back to moving behind the tail of "Goeben", waiting for it to turn west and return to its country.. so when that did not happen.. they kept chasing it and following it in worry.. and it goes and meets a German commercial vessel loaded with coal.. and takes on what it needs from it.. and with these adventures, England's declaration of war on Germany had indeed already happened.. and orders are issued to the English ships to cease observation, and to chase "Goeben" and "Breslau" and sink them.

The German ships head for Turkey, and Germany contacts its man "Enver Pasha" and asks him to allow them to cross the Dardanelles strait.. This move would of course anger Russia because there were agreements between it and the Ottoman Empire preventing these ships from passing through the Dardanelles.. but "Enver Pasha" agrees, and these ships enter, fleeing from the English amid the fog.. and anchor in Turkey.

England sends to Turkey to inquire.. did these two ships enter your territory? So Turkey says "it did not happen".. and with England insisting that they crossed the Dardanelles strait.. "Enver Pasha" raises the Turkish flag on the two German ships.. and brings their crews and their captain and makes them change their clothes for the uniform of the men of the Ottoman fleet.. and announces to everyone in innocence.. that these two cruisers.. the Ottoman Empire bought them from Germany.. and that it has no German forces nor German soldiers.. and it publishes pictures of the crew in Ottoman clothes along with the news in the newspapers.. and he is forced to silence everyone in doubt.. although the presence of a strong cruiser like "Goeben" in the Sea of Marmara was an extreme danger.. but they decided to believe the Ottoman Empire.. in the story of buying the two cruisers.

Russia and France sense worry.. and their diplomatic efforts become active, to keep the Ottoman Empire neutral in this war.. but "Enver Pasha" had already agreed with the Germans.. and on 3 August, the Ottoman Empire issues a firman called "Seferberlik" or the "General Call-Up of 1914".. a declaration of general mobilization.. This time there is no Egypt to get forces from.. no Algeria.. but there is the Arabian Peninsula.

The Turks write on Arabic Wikipedia and in their books and their references other than Turkish, that "Seferberlik" means "the general call-up for war".. but this is also falsification as is their habit.. "Seferberlik" means "mass deportation".. you can translate it on Google "Seferberlik".

This call-up you can consider an Ottoman massacre for the thousandth time.. after the massacre of "Selim" in Cairo and Algeria, and the massacres of the Armenians and Albanians etc., but this time against the people of the Arabian Peninsula.. the people of Iraq called it "the days of injustice and perdition".. and the people of the Hejaz called it "the crime of Seferberlik".

With this story "Enver Pasha" achieved 3 purposes.. closing the door on the shortage of his soldiers and workers, and at the same time closing the door on the "Hejaz Revolution" that was imminent against Ottoman rule.. so the Ottoman soldiers fell upon Iraq, and went to seize young men by force to join the army, and to kill whoever opposed among the fathers and mothers, and they shipped these young men by force and on foot to the Ottoman Empire, so most of them died of exhaustion, hunger and cold.

Then the Ottoman soldiers fell upon the land of the Hejaz, and entered "Medina", and went to gather young men by force likewise, then they ordered all the residents to evacuate the city under threat of arms, and the Ottomans entered the houses, and dragged out the elderly women by force and threw most of them into the streets under the command of "Fakhri Pasha".. and they imprisoned the young women and girls, and whoever defended the honor of his house among the men, they killed him on the spot.. Sheikh "Ibrahim bin Abdul Qadir bin al-Afandi Omar al-Bari al-Hashimi al-Madani" was an eyewitness, and wrote that:

"Fakhri Pasha the Ottoman, governor of Medina, asked Sheikh Abdul Qadir al-Bari (the father of Sheikh Ibrahim) to leave the city with his family consisting of his two sons Sheikh Ibrahim and his wife and his children and grandchildren and Sheikh Abdul Aziz al-Bari who had not yet married.

And the journey was extremely harsh upon them, and they did not know its end nor were they safe from its destination, then World War I erupted which shook Medina violently and tore apart its people".. and "Enver Pasha" became close to the port of Yanbu.. and able to attack any English forces in the Red Sea during the war.

And the men and women were shipped to Syria and Palestine and Turkey.. to serve the Ottoman Empire.. and Medina was emptied of its people, and Turkish soldiers inhabited it, except for a very few women and children, and as happened in Egypt in the days of "Selim", and as happened to the Albanians and Armenians in the days of "Abdulmejid".. the women went to eat the vermin of the earth, and fed on insects and grasses, and boiled soaked clover for the children, to fill their hunger and keep them alive.. and the noble women of the people of Medina whom the Ottoman army detained there worked as paid laborers for the Ottomans, to remove garbage and dust and clean the houses in exchange for a crust of bread.. or any tiny morsel, barely enough to fill their hunger and the hunger of their children.. so that they would not sell their bodies to the Ottoman dogs.

After that the Ottomans suddenly withdraw from the naval treaty with England.. and this angers England severely.. and on 31 October, orders come from Germany to the commander of the two German cruisers anchored on the page of Ottoman territorial waters.. so he moves with the two cruisers while they raised the Ottoman flag, and attacks the Russian ports of Novorossiysk and Feodosia and Odessa and Sevastopol, and bombards them without prior warning and sets fire to the fuel refineries.. so Russia declares war on the Ottoman Empire.. on 2 November.. and England joins it and France behind it after 3 days.. on 5 November, of the same year.

And because the Ottoman Empire knows well which soldiers could make it win the war, as they made it win the war against Russia long ago.. their eyes turned to Egypt.

The Ottomans decided to recover Egypt from the English at any price.. and the Ottoman march towards Sinai began, to advance from it to Cairo and Alexandria, and expel the English, and use the resources of Egypt and its soldiers in the war.

Although we in Egypt could not stand the English, and we kept them living in rebellions and revolutions and resistance and unrest the whole time.. but between us and the House of Osman there was a score to settle, known well by everyone who followed these episodes.. and on 23 January, in the year 1914, in an area between Bir al-Nasf and Qatiya which is 43 kilometers east of Qantara.. a thousand camel corps men clash with the Ottoman army.. with the Egyptian forces.. and this area had no army in it, there were about 300 of the Egyptian police.. under the command of First Lieutenant "Mohamed Anis".. and "Anis" is able with his small force and his limited weapon to defeat the Ottoman army force, and force it to withdraw, so that it comes back before the end of the day to clash with him again with support from the Ottoman cavalry.. but "Mohamed Anis" and his men were not there.. he had been issued an order from his ministry to withdraw on instructions from "Rushdi Pasha" the Prime Minister.. who announced at the time that Egypt was neutral in this war.

And the truth is that "Rushdi's" instructions were at the prompting of England.. which asked him not to exhaust the soldiers in the hot Sinai wars, hot by day cold by night with rugged mountainous terrain.. to wait for the Ottoman forces until they crossed and met him while they were worn out and exhausted.. and England decided that the "Suez Canal" line was the optimal line of confrontation.

And in January 1915 the Ottoman forces arrived at the bank of the Canal.. to begin a new battle.. to cross the Suez Canal.. and occupy the Egyptian lands.

And it seems time has stolen us today.. so we will continue our talk on the subject later.

And there remains for the talk.. the rest.

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- Previous posts in the first comment.

- The first picture is of the Ottoman forced displacement of the people of Medina.

- The second picture is of the pursuit of "Goeben" and "Breslau" from aboard an English battleship.. and the two cruisers appear on the horizon.

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