-
The Ottoman Empire, the so-called “Sick Man of Europe,” entered the cataclysm of the First World War on the side of Germany after signing a secret treaty on August 2nd 1914. This was not the simple act of a German puppet, but a desperate, calculated gamble by a proud empire caught in the crosshairs of European rivalries. For decades, the great powers had circled the dwindling Ottoman Empire, pondering the “Eastern Question”—what to do with its territories once it inevitably collapsed. The Empire had been dealt a series of staggering blows: humiliating defeats in the Balkan Wars of 1912-13 stripped…