![]() 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 Ottomans also threatened Britain's communications with India and the East via the Suez Canal. Enver's project conflicted with European interests which played out as struggles between several key imperial powers. If these nations were to be removed from Western influence, Enver envisioned a cooperation between these newly established Turkic states. 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. The bureau was involved in intelligence-gathering and subversive missions to Persia and Egypt, and to Afghanistan, to dismantle the Anglo-Russian Entente. ![]() Germany established an Intelligence Bureau for the East on the eve of World War I. 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. German advisors with the Ottoman armies supported the campaign for this reason. Success in this region would force the Russians to divert troops from the Polish and Galician fronts. ![]() 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 (1877–1878), in particular Artvin, Ardahan, Kars, and the port of Batum. The Ottoman Empire joined the Central Powers through the secret German–Ottoman alliance, which was signed on 2 August 1914. The Ottomans accepted the Armistice of Mudros with the Allies on 30 October 1918, and signed the Treaty of Sèvres on 10 August 1920 and later the Treaty of Lausanne on 24 July 1923. The Armenians attended the Trebizond Peace Conference (14 March 1918) which resulted in the Treaty of Batum on 4 June 1918. 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 theatre covered the largest territory of all theatres in the war. In addition, the Assyrians joined the Allies and saw action in Southeastern Turkey, northern Mesopotamia (Iraq), northwestern Iran and northeastern Syria following the Assyrian genocide, instigating the Assyrian war of independence. 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. There were five main campaigns: the Sinai and Palestine, Mesopotamian, Caucasus, Persian, and Gallipoli campaigns.īoth sides used local asymmetrical forces in the region. The combatants were, on one side, the Ottoman Empire (including the majority of Kurdish tribes, a relative majority of Arabs, and some Iranian peoples), with some assistance from the other Central Powers and on the other side, the British (with the help of a small number of Jews, Greeks, Assyrians, some Kurdish tribes and Arab states, along with Hindu, Sikh and Muslim colonial troops from India) as well as troops from the British Dominions of Australia, Canada, and New Zealand, the Russians (with the help of Armenians, Assyrians, and occasionally some Kurdish tribes), and the French (with its North African and West African Muslim, Christian and other colonial troops) from among the Allied Powers. The Middle Eastern theatre of World War I saw action between 30 October 1914 and 30 October 1918.
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