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1. Ottoman Campaigns in the First World War

Author:
Edward J. Erickson
Publication Date:
02-2021
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Journal of Military and Strategic Studies
Institution:
Centre for Military, Security and Strategic Studies
Abstract:
Unlike the British or the Americans, the Turks do not officially designate or name military campaigns in their official histories. This article presents the author’s appraisal of which operations might be considered as the Ottoman army’s campaigns in the First World War. The Ottomans fought a large number of operations and battles in the war but an analysis of these in terms of defining them at the operational level is absent from the extant historiography. The article also presents an appraisal of the various offensive and defensive campaigns that the Ottoman army conducted in the First World War as well as identifying a new vocabulary that distinguishes the army’s deliberate campaigns from its campaigns of opportunity and expediency.
Topic:
Military Strategy, Military Affairs, Conflict, and World War I
Political Geography:
Europe, Asia, and Ottoman Empire

2. The Economic Forces of Victory Versus Those of Defeat: An analysis of the Greek Economic and Military Mobilization of the 1909-1923 Period

Author:
Ioannis Salavrakos
Publication Date:
12-2019
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Journal of Military and Strategic Studies
Institution:
Centre for Military, Security and Strategic Studies
Abstract:
The intellectual aspiration of the paper is to highlight the economic forces, which played an immense role in the wars in which Greece participated during the 1909-1923 period. These were four major conflicts: The two Balkan wars of 1912-1913 against the Ottoman Empire and Bulgaria; the First World War (1914-1918) and the Greek-Turkish war of 1919-1922. The tragic period started with Greek victories and ended with the greatest defeat of the modern Greek state. Although these conflicts were different, there is a clear nexus between them. In the Greek as well as the international bibliography, the majority of studies highlight the strategic, tactical, operational, diplomatic, psychological dimensions of the conflicts of the period, as well as, the personal motives of political and military leaders. Under this intellectual framework, the economic forces of the conflict are marginalized by most academics. The final conflict of the period is primarily known as the ‘Campaign of Asia-Minor’ in the Greek bibliography, whereas in the Turkish bibliography it is considered as ‘the Great Patriotic War.’ Thus in this article we aim to demonstrate that the conflicts of the period are connected and also that the Greek defeat of 1922 was the outcome of a chain of miscalculations which the Greek side has made, but above all it was the nexus of limited economic resources, diplomatic errors and wrong tactical decision making in the front. The structure of the article is as follows: The first section highlights the concept of ‘Megali Idea,’ which defined Greek foreign and defence policy during the 1844-1923 period. This section highlights the crucial developments of the 1909-1919 decade just before the war of the 1919-1922 period and demonstrates that the war developments were directly associated with those of the previous decade period. Thesecondsection analyses the strategic and tactical errors by the Greek side during the conflict and associates them with the economic forces. The third section highlights the Turkish tactical, economic and diplomatic advantages and demonstrates how these were associated to economic power. The fourth section provides an analysis based on the options, which the Greek side had but failed to materialize. Conclusions follow. (We point out that all the dates are with the new Gregorian calendar versus the old Julian calendar).
Topic:
Economics, Military Strategy, Military Affairs, Conflict, and Mobilization
Political Geography:
Europe, Turkey, Greece, Balkans, and Ottoman Empire