Middle Eastern Theatre of World War I - Objectives

Objectives

The Ottoman Empire joined the Central Powers in through the secret Ottoman-German Alliance, which was signed on 2 August 1914. The main objective of the Ottoman Empire in the Caucasus was the recovery of its territories in Eastern Anatolia lost during the Russo-Turkish War, 1877–78, in particular Artvin, Ardahan, Kars, and the port of Batum. Success in this region would force the Russians to divert troops to this front from the Polish and Galician fronts. German advisors with the Ottoman armies naturally supported the campaign for this reason. From an economic perspective, the Ottoman, or rather the German, strategic goal was to cut off Russian access to the hydrocarbon resources around the Caspian Sea.

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 to Afghanistan, to dismantle the Anglo-Russian Entente. Ottoman War Minister Enver Pasha claimed that if Russians could be beaten in the key cities of Persia, it could open the way to Azerbaijan, to Central Asia and to India. If these nations were to be removed from Western influence, Enver envisioned a cooperation between these newly establishing Turkic states. Enver's project conflicted with European interests which played out as struggles between several key imperial powers. The Ottomans also challenged Britain's communications with India and the East via the Suez Canal.

The British feared that the Ottomans might attack and capture the Middle East (and later Caspian) oil fields. Opposed to the Ottomans, 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.

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 (1877–1878), and the port of Batum. In March 1915, when the Russian foreign minister Sergey Sazonov met with British ambassador George Buchanan and French ambassador Maurice Paléologue, he stated that a lasting postwar settlement demanded full Russian possession of the capital city of the Ottoman Empire, Constantinople, the straits of 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 also sought to establish the First Republic of Armenia in the Eastern part of Asia Minor. The Armenian Revolutionary Federation eventually achieved this goal while the Ottoman rule was finally crumbling, with the establishment of the internationally recognized Democratic Republic of Armenia in May 1918. As early as 1915, the Administration for Western Armenia and later Republic of Mountainous Armenia were Armenian-controlled entities, while the Centrocaspian Dictatorship was established with Armenian participation. None of these entities were long lasting.