WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:03.339 Welcome to another deep dive. Hey there. If you 00:00:03.339 --> 00:00:05.759 are tuning in right now, you're probably looking 00:00:05.759 --> 00:00:08.080 for that really thorough aha -filled breakdown 00:00:08.080 --> 00:00:10.660 of a massive subject. Right. You know, you want 00:00:10.660 --> 00:00:12.779 to get completely caught up on a really complex 00:00:12.779 --> 00:00:16.260 topic, but you don't want to feel like buried 00:00:16.260 --> 00:00:19.219 under a mountain of academic jargon. Nobody wants 00:00:19.219 --> 00:00:21.679 that. Exactly. Well, you are in exactly the right 00:00:21.679 --> 00:00:25.379 place. Today, we are taking a single, incredibly 00:00:25.379 --> 00:00:28.339 dense historical text, and we're looking at the 00:00:28.339 --> 00:00:30.899 Middle Eastern theater of World War I. It's a 00:00:30.899 --> 00:00:34.000 massive topic. It really is. Our mission for 00:00:34.000 --> 00:00:36.780 this Deep Dives is to explore what was arguably 00:00:36.780 --> 00:00:40.759 the largest... most complex and honestly most 00:00:40.759 --> 00:00:43.000 world -altering geographical theater of the First 00:00:43.000 --> 00:00:45.100 World War. Yeah, without a doubt. Because when 00:00:45.100 --> 00:00:46.820 we think of World War I, our minds usually just 00:00:46.820 --> 00:00:48.479 go straight to the trenches. The Western Front, 00:00:48.579 --> 00:00:51.179 the mud. The mud, the barbed wire. But the Middle 00:00:51.179 --> 00:00:53.520 East was this incredibly volatile chessboard 00:00:53.520 --> 00:00:58.420 of spies, oil grabs, falling empires, and asymmetrical 00:00:58.420 --> 00:01:00.579 warfare. It was just a completely different kind 00:01:00.579 --> 00:01:03.780 of war fought across this staggering expanse 00:01:03.780 --> 00:01:06.780 of territory. But before we get fully underway, 00:01:07.019 --> 00:01:09.019 it's absolutely vital that we set the stage for 00:01:09.019 --> 00:01:11.000 you regarding the nature of the information we're 00:01:11.000 --> 00:01:12.400 going to be discussing today. Yeah, it's really 00:01:12.400 --> 00:01:14.859 important. The historical text we're unpacking 00:01:14.859 --> 00:01:18.340 covers some profoundly dark politically and historically 00:01:18.340 --> 00:01:20.959 charged subjects. We'll be discussing things 00:01:20.959 --> 00:01:24.579 like brutal imperialism, nationalistic uprisings, 00:01:24.980 --> 00:01:28.099 mass famines and genocides. And we want to be 00:01:28.099 --> 00:01:30.400 incredibly clear with you right up front. As 00:01:30.400 --> 00:01:32.980 we go through this, we are impartially reporting 00:01:32.980 --> 00:01:35.599 the contents of the provided historical text. 00:01:35.739 --> 00:01:39.340 We are not endorsing any specific political viewpoints, 00:01:39.340 --> 00:01:42.439 nor are we taking sides. We are simply acting 00:01:42.439 --> 00:01:45.480 as your guides, conveying the historical record 00:01:45.480 --> 00:01:48.640 exactly as it's documented in the source material 00:01:48.640 --> 00:01:51.480 we're working from today. That is the goal. We're 00:01:51.480 --> 00:01:53.480 here to help you understand what happened according 00:01:53.480 --> 00:01:55.540 to the historical records so you can see how 00:01:55.540 --> 00:01:57.900 it shaped the political landscape that you live 00:01:57.900 --> 00:02:00.900 in today. Okay, let's unpack this. To understand 00:02:00.900 --> 00:02:03.420 this massive conflict, we really first have to 00:02:03.420 --> 00:02:06.500 look at the chessboard and the players. The motives. 00:02:06.840 --> 00:02:09.620 Right. Why were the major global powers fighting 00:02:09.620 --> 00:02:11.580 over this specific region in the first place? 00:02:12.319 --> 00:02:14.900 Let's start with the British. What were their 00:02:14.900 --> 00:02:18.939 primary goals? Well, the British had two massive 00:02:18.939 --> 00:02:21.919 overriding priorities. First off, they were just 00:02:21.919 --> 00:02:24.379 desperate to protect the Suez Canal in Egypt. 00:02:24.780 --> 00:02:26.939 Which was basically their shortcut. It was the 00:02:26.939 --> 00:02:29.719 vital artery of their empire. It was the quickest 00:02:29.719 --> 00:02:32.840 route to India and all their eastern colonies. 00:02:33.000 --> 00:02:34.780 I mean, if they lost the canal, they lost their 00:02:34.780 --> 00:02:37.219 global lifeline. So priority one. Priority two 00:02:37.219 --> 00:02:40.180 was oil. The British Royal Navy had just recently 00:02:40.180 --> 00:02:42.580 transitioned from running on coal to running 00:02:42.580 --> 00:02:45.139 on oil. Oh, wow. Yeah, which meant they were 00:02:45.139 --> 00:02:47.960 suddenly, utterly dependent on petroleum deposits 00:02:47.960 --> 00:02:50.900 in southern Persia. Which they controlled. Exactly. 00:02:51.219 --> 00:02:54.500 They had exclusive access to this oil. through 00:02:54.500 --> 00:02:57.219 the British -controlled Anglo -Persian oil company, 00:02:57.719 --> 00:02:59.919 protecting that pipeline was just entirely non 00:02:59.919 --> 00:03:02.460 -negotiable for their war effort. So on the other 00:03:02.460 --> 00:03:04.199 side of the board, you have the Ottomans and 00:03:04.199 --> 00:03:06.819 their German allies. What were they trying to 00:03:06.819 --> 00:03:10.180 achieve? Were they just playing defense? Not 00:03:10.180 --> 00:03:13.020 at all. Their strategic goals were highly ambitious. 00:03:13.500 --> 00:03:15.599 From an economic perspective, they wanted to 00:03:15.599 --> 00:03:18.060 cut off Russian access to the hydrocarbon resources 00:03:18.060 --> 00:03:21.379 around the Caspian Sea. But there was also this 00:03:21.379 --> 00:03:24.000 massive ideological component driving the Ottoman 00:03:24.000 --> 00:03:27.319 leadership. The Ottoman War Minister Enver Pasha 00:03:27.319 --> 00:03:30.639 had this grand sweeping vision. A pan -Turkic 00:03:30.639 --> 00:03:32.680 state, right? Yes. He dreamed of beating the 00:03:32.680 --> 00:03:35.400 Russians and opening the way to Azerbaijan, the 00:03:35.400 --> 00:03:38.919 Caucasus and beyond. He wanted to unite newly 00:03:38.919 --> 00:03:41.740 established Turkic states entirely away from 00:03:41.740 --> 00:03:44.419 Western influence. The reality of trying to actually 00:03:44.419 --> 00:03:47.219 execute that dream seems staggering when you 00:03:47.219 --> 00:03:48.800 look at the infrastructure they had. I mean, 00:03:48.919 --> 00:03:51.259 reading the source, it's like a true David versus 00:03:51.259 --> 00:03:53.300 Goliath situation when it comes to industrial 00:03:53.300 --> 00:03:56.009 capability. What's fascinating here is just how 00:03:56.009 --> 00:03:58.370 severe that logistical mismatch was. I mean, 00:03:58.430 --> 00:04:00.710 let's look at the hard numbers. The Ottoman Empire 00:04:00.710 --> 00:04:02.930 had a total of five thousand seven hundred and 00:04:02.930 --> 00:04:05.009 fifty nine kilometers of railway to cover that 00:04:05.009 --> 00:04:07.789 whole territory. Right. A massive mountainous 00:04:07.789 --> 00:04:10.750 desert filled territory. To put that in perspective, 00:04:11.530 --> 00:04:13.949 France, which is way smaller. Right. France had 00:04:13.949 --> 00:04:16.350 about a fifth of the land area of the Ottoman 00:04:16.350 --> 00:04:19.670 Empire, but they had fifty one thousand kilometers 00:04:19.670 --> 00:04:21.930 of railway. Wait, hold on. So imagine you're 00:04:21.930 --> 00:04:25.110 trying to move. millions of troops, artillery, 00:04:25.670 --> 00:04:28.750 food, across an empire roughly the size of Western 00:04:28.750 --> 00:04:31.589 Europe, but you only have the railway infrastructure 00:04:31.589 --> 00:04:34.509 of a small modern state like Denmark. Yep. That 00:04:34.509 --> 00:04:36.310 sounds like an absolute logistical nightmare. 00:04:36.470 --> 00:04:38.610 It was a nightmare. And it wasn't just transportation 00:04:38.610 --> 00:04:42.009 either. It was raw materials. Ottoman coal production 00:04:42.009 --> 00:04:46.629 in 1914 was a negligible 826 ,000 tons. And the 00:04:46.629 --> 00:04:50.089 British? Britain was churning out 292 million 00:04:50.089 --> 00:04:53.350 tons. Gee. France was producing 40 million tons. 00:04:53.810 --> 00:04:55.730 And Ottoman steel production was essentially 00:04:55.730 --> 00:04:57.949 nonexistent. How do you even fight a modern war 00:04:57.949 --> 00:05:00.500 without steel and coal? Barely. When you're fighting 00:05:00.500 --> 00:05:02.899 an industrial war, you need industrial manufacturing. 00:05:03.279 --> 00:05:05.980 But the entire Ottoman Empire had exactly one 00:05:05.980 --> 00:05:08.480 cannon and small arms foundry. Just one. One. 00:05:08.579 --> 00:05:10.899 They had a single shell and bullet factory and 00:05:10.899 --> 00:05:13.800 a single gunpowder factory. That is insane. And 00:05:13.800 --> 00:05:15.959 all of them were located right in the suburbs 00:05:15.959 --> 00:05:19.000 of Constantinople. You really have to picture 00:05:19.000 --> 00:05:23.000 this almost entirely agricultural economy. Relying 00:05:23.000 --> 00:05:25.639 on what? Wool and cotton. Wool, cotton, hides. 00:05:26.220 --> 00:05:29.060 And they're trying to mobilize millions of men 00:05:29.060 --> 00:05:32.360 to fight against the greatest industrial superpowers 00:05:32.360 --> 00:05:34.800 the world had ever seen. Which perfectly sets 00:05:34.800 --> 00:05:37.899 up why the war in this theater was fought so 00:05:37.899 --> 00:05:40.220 differently. Because they didn't have endless 00:05:40.220 --> 00:05:42.639 factories churning out artillery shells, they 00:05:42.639 --> 00:05:44.639 had to use every other tool at their disposal. 00:05:44.829 --> 00:05:47.290 Here's where it gets really interesting. The 00:05:47.290 --> 00:05:49.250 unconventional stuff. Yeah, because this wasn't 00:05:49.250 --> 00:05:51.129 just conventional armies marching in straight 00:05:51.129 --> 00:05:54.990 lines. It was a shadow war of subversion, espionage, 00:05:55.089 --> 00:05:57.790 and tribal alliances. How did that actually play 00:05:57.790 --> 00:06:00.069 out on the ground? Well, the major powers realized 00:06:00.069 --> 00:06:02.810 that financing internal rebellions within their 00:06:02.810 --> 00:06:05.470 enemies' territories would force the enemy to 00:06:05.470 --> 00:06:08.430 divert massive resources just to contain the 00:06:08.430 --> 00:06:10.529 threat. It's pretty smart. It was a brilliant, 00:06:10.850 --> 00:06:13.649 albeit chaotic, strategy. For instance, the British 00:06:13.649 --> 00:06:15.670 Foreign Office established an entire division 00:06:15.670 --> 00:06:18.610 known as the Arab Bureau. Their specific goal 00:06:18.610 --> 00:06:21.790 was to conceptualize and finance the Arab revolt 00:06:21.790 --> 00:06:25.350 against the Ottomans. They funneled money, weapons, 00:06:25.709 --> 00:06:28.290 and gold to tribal leaders. This is Lawrence 00:06:28.290 --> 00:06:31.750 of Arabia. Exactly. This is the operation that 00:06:31.750 --> 00:06:35.310 featured the famous T .E. Lawrence working alongside 00:06:35.310 --> 00:06:38.970 Amir Fazl to blow up the very railways the Ottomans 00:06:38.970 --> 00:06:41.430 were so desperately relying on. But the Germans 00:06:41.430 --> 00:06:42.970 were doing something very similar, right? They 00:06:42.970 --> 00:06:45.209 weren't just sitting back watching the British 00:06:45.209 --> 00:06:48.149 stir up rebellions. Far from it. Right before 00:06:48.149 --> 00:06:50.490 the war, Germany established the Intelligence 00:06:50.490 --> 00:06:53.230 Bureau for the East. Their goal was to foment 00:06:53.230 --> 00:06:56.110 subversive and nationalist agitations in British 00:06:56.110 --> 00:06:58.670 India, Persia and Egypt. And they had their own 00:06:58.670 --> 00:07:02.029 guy. They did. They had their own legendary figure 00:07:02.029 --> 00:07:05.029 operating in the Persian Gulf. A German diplomat 00:07:05.029 --> 00:07:07.730 named Wilhelm Vosmus. The guy they called the 00:07:07.730 --> 00:07:09.790 German Lawrence of Arabia. That's the one. What 00:07:09.790 --> 00:07:12.800 made him so effective? Immersion. He was incredibly 00:07:12.800 --> 00:07:14.959 immersed in the local culture. He learned the 00:07:14.959 --> 00:07:17.199 local dialects. He wore traditional clothing. 00:07:17.420 --> 00:07:20.100 And he used German gold to buy the loyalties 00:07:20.100 --> 00:07:22.399 of various Persian tribes, turning them against 00:07:22.399 --> 00:07:25.319 the British. He managed to tie down thousands 00:07:25.319 --> 00:07:28.300 of British and Indian troops who were sent entirely 00:07:28.300 --> 00:07:30.560 just to hunt them down and secure the oil fields. 00:07:30.720 --> 00:07:33.779 He was literally a one man insurgency. And when 00:07:33.779 --> 00:07:35.939 you look at the actual forces fighting in these 00:07:35.939 --> 00:07:38.839 campaigns, the diversity is just mind blowing. 00:07:39.710 --> 00:07:42.350 troops from all over the world converging in 00:07:42.350 --> 00:07:45.069 the desert. You did. The British relied heavily 00:07:45.069 --> 00:07:47.829 on the British Indian Army. Units like the Indian 00:07:47.829 --> 00:07:49.850 sappers and miners were crucial because they 00:07:49.850 --> 00:07:52.930 had extensive experience dealing with dissident 00:07:52.930 --> 00:07:55.329 tribal forces on the frontiers of India. And 00:07:55.329 --> 00:07:57.470 the French bought in forces, too. Yeah. France 00:07:57.470 --> 00:07:59.810 sent the French Armenian Legion, which fought 00:07:59.810 --> 00:08:02.769 fiercely in Palestine and Syria. And local populations 00:08:02.769 --> 00:08:05.790 were drawn in. often lured by massive promises. 00:08:06.189 --> 00:08:08.230 I was really struck by the mention of the Assyrian 00:08:08.230 --> 00:08:10.329 people in the source. Yes. They were promised 00:08:10.329 --> 00:08:12.389 an independent nation by the British and Russians, 00:08:12.430 --> 00:08:14.930 so they joined the Entente powers, the allied 00:08:14.930 --> 00:08:17.689 forces opposing Germany, and the Ottomans. Led 00:08:17.689 --> 00:08:20.670 by figures like Aga Petros. Right. And they became 00:08:20.670 --> 00:08:23.569 known as the Assyrian volunteers, or quote, our 00:08:23.569 --> 00:08:26.089 smallest ally. The Kurdish involvement is another 00:08:26.089 --> 00:08:28.569 perfect example of how unpredictable this theater 00:08:28.569 --> 00:08:31.569 was. Many Kurds belonged to the Ottoman elite 00:08:31.569 --> 00:08:34.090 and fought loyally for the empire. Like the Hamidi, 00:08:34.210 --> 00:08:37.610 right? Exactly. The Hamidi was an elite, mostly 00:08:37.610 --> 00:08:40.610 Kurdish cavalry division that played a significant 00:08:40.610 --> 00:08:43.529 role in the Caucasus and Persian campaigns. But 00:08:43.529 --> 00:08:46.730 at the exact same time... You had other Kurdish 00:08:46.730 --> 00:08:49.110 nationalist factions actively rebelling against 00:08:49.110 --> 00:08:51.470 the Ottomans. Precisely. They were undertaking 00:08:51.470 --> 00:08:54.250 uprisings hoping the Allies would help them create 00:08:54.250 --> 00:08:57.450 an independent nation. That's just a web. A vast 00:08:57.450 --> 00:09:00.750 complex tapestry of ethnicities, religions, and 00:09:00.750 --> 00:09:03.450 tribes. It meant the battle lines weren't just 00:09:03.450 --> 00:09:06.389 drawn on a map in London or Berlin. They were 00:09:06.389 --> 00:09:09.250 constantly shifting based on local allegiances, 00:09:09.710 --> 00:09:12.629 old rivalries, and immediate survival. It really 00:09:12.629 --> 00:09:15.610 makes you realize how volatile every single military 00:09:15.610 --> 00:09:17.990 decision must have been. And unfortunately for 00:09:17.990 --> 00:09:20.230 the troops on the ground, some of those decisions 00:09:20.230 --> 00:09:22.990 resulted in monumental blunders. Massive blighters. 00:09:23.110 --> 00:09:25.830 If we look at the timeline from 1914 to 1916, 00:09:26.009 --> 00:09:28.210 it is essentially a master class in military 00:09:28.210 --> 00:09:30.669 overreach. Walk me through the winter disaster 00:09:30.669 --> 00:09:33.690 of 1914 at the Battle of Syracomish. This is 00:09:33.690 --> 00:09:37.490 a devastating example of ideology just completely 00:09:37.490 --> 00:09:41.399 overriding tactical reality. Ottoman War Minister 00:09:41.399 --> 00:09:44.639 Enver Pasha took personal command and ordered 00:09:44.639 --> 00:09:46.700 an offensive against the Russians in the rugged 00:09:46.700 --> 00:09:48.679 Caucasus Mountains. Even though his generals 00:09:48.679 --> 00:09:51.399 said no. Right. His own seasoned commanders, 00:09:51.659 --> 00:09:54.480 like Hasan Izzet, explicitly warned him not to 00:09:54.480 --> 00:09:57.080 attack. The winter conditions were brutal and 00:09:57.080 --> 00:09:59.659 the supply lines simply didn't exist. But Enver 00:09:59.659 --> 00:10:01.840 Pasha... push forward anyway, and the result 00:10:01.840 --> 00:10:04.840 was just catastrophic. The troops were entirely 00:10:04.840 --> 00:10:07.179 unprepared for the freezing temperatures. We're 00:10:07.179 --> 00:10:09.600 talking about tens of thousands of men freezing 00:10:09.600 --> 00:10:12.480 to death in their camps. It's horrific. An astonishing 00:10:12.480 --> 00:10:16.000 90 % of his third army was lost to the cold battle 00:10:16.000 --> 00:10:19.000 or a desperate chaotic retreat. And while the 00:10:19.000 --> 00:10:21.039 Ottomans were suffering in the Caucasus, the 00:10:21.039 --> 00:10:23.059 Allies were about to make their own colossal 00:10:23.059 --> 00:10:26.250 mistake to the West. In 1915, the British and 00:10:26.250 --> 00:10:28.789 French decided to launch a massive naval assault 00:10:28.789 --> 00:10:31.549 on the Dardanelles. The streets leading to Constantinople. 00:10:32.029 --> 00:10:33.789 Yes. Winston Churchill, who was first Lord of 00:10:33.789 --> 00:10:35.990 the Admiralty at the time, aggressively pushed 00:10:35.990 --> 00:10:38.340 this idea. Why did Churchill think he could just 00:10:38.340 --> 00:10:40.860 sail obsolete battleships straight into the heart 00:10:40.860 --> 00:10:44.159 of an enemy empire? Did they not anticipate any 00:10:44.159 --> 00:10:47.340 resistance? They severely underestimated the 00:10:47.340 --> 00:10:49.980 Ottoman coastal artillery and the ingenuity of 00:10:49.980 --> 00:10:52.940 German mine laying tactics. They basically assumed 00:10:52.940 --> 00:10:55.399 the sheer sight of the mighty British Navy would 00:10:55.399 --> 00:10:57.779 cause the Ottoman defenses to crumble. Well, 00:10:57.879 --> 00:11:01.289 they didn't. No. On March 18th, That naval assault 00:11:01.289 --> 00:11:04.370 turned into a complete catastrophe. As they tried 00:11:04.370 --> 00:11:07.090 to push through the heavily mined straits, the 00:11:07.090 --> 00:11:10.429 French battleship Bouvet struck a mine, exploded 00:11:10.429 --> 00:11:13.809 mysteriously and capsized in minutes, taking 00:11:13.809 --> 00:11:16.529 its entire crew down with it. Unbelievable. And 00:11:16.529 --> 00:11:19.129 soon after, the British ships HMS Irresistible 00:11:19.129 --> 00:11:23.210 and HMS Ocean also struck mines and sank. The 00:11:23.210 --> 00:11:24.929 naval commanders panicked and called off the 00:11:24.929 --> 00:11:27.070 attack. It proved unequivocally that you couldn't 00:11:27.070 --> 00:11:30.070 just sail past the Ottoman defenses. So the naval 00:11:30.070 --> 00:11:32.490 plan fails. What was the allied backup plan? 00:11:32.570 --> 00:11:34.149 They couldn't just pack up and go home, right? 00:11:34.149 --> 00:11:36.750 Right. And that led to an even bloodier blunder. 00:11:36.929 --> 00:11:39.529 Doubly. The amphibious landings at Gallipoli 00:11:39.529 --> 00:11:42.909 in April 1915. Since they couldn't force the 00:11:42.909 --> 00:11:45.490 straits by sea, they decided to land troops on 00:11:45.490 --> 00:11:47.610 the peninsula to take out the forts from behind. 00:11:48.350 --> 00:11:51.509 It turned into months of brutal, grueling trench 00:11:51.509 --> 00:11:54.330 warfare pinned against the cliffs. The casualties 00:11:54.330 --> 00:11:57.070 were horrendous. The Allies suffered roughly 00:11:57.070 --> 00:12:00.730 131 ,000 dead and hundreds of thousands wounded 00:12:00.730 --> 00:12:03.549 before finally withdrawing in defeat. But Calipoli 00:12:03.549 --> 00:12:05.929 is massive historically, isn't it? Oh, absolutely. 00:12:05.970 --> 00:12:08.509 It really forged the national identities of Australia 00:12:08.509 --> 00:12:11.990 and New Zealand, the ANZAC forces. And on the 00:12:11.990 --> 00:12:14.690 Ottoman side, it elevated a lieutenant colonel 00:12:14.690 --> 00:12:17.929 who proved to be a brilliant tactician, Kemal 00:12:17.929 --> 00:12:19.929 Atatürk. We will definitely be talking about 00:12:19.929 --> 00:12:22.149 him more in a few minutes. Right. But the blunders 00:12:22.149 --> 00:12:24.070 certainly weren't limited to the mountains or 00:12:24.070 --> 00:12:27.080 the sea. Down in Mesopotamia, which is modern 00:12:27.080 --> 00:12:30.059 -day Iraq, the British command got overly aggressive. 00:12:30.679 --> 00:12:32.580 General Nixon ordered Major General Townsend 00:12:32.580 --> 00:12:34.860 to advance his troops all the way up the Tigris 00:12:34.860 --> 00:12:37.840 River to Baghdad if possible. Which seems insane 00:12:37.840 --> 00:12:39.440 given how long their supply lines were getting. 00:12:39.700 --> 00:12:42.360 It was. They overextended themselves entirely. 00:12:42.779 --> 00:12:45.399 They fought an inconclusive battle at Zatisifan 00:12:45.399 --> 00:12:48.320 and ended up having to retreat to a town called 00:12:48.320 --> 00:12:51.059 Qut al -Amarra. where they were completely surrounded 00:12:51.059 --> 00:12:54.100 by Ottoman forces. The siege of Kut lasted from 00:12:54.100 --> 00:12:58.110 December 1915 to April 1916. And the conditions 00:12:58.110 --> 00:13:01.789 inside Cook became horrific. Starvation, disease. 00:13:02.250 --> 00:13:04.490 The British tried three separate times to break 00:13:04.490 --> 00:13:07.570 the siege with relief forces, failed every single 00:13:07.570 --> 00:13:10.350 time, and Townsend was eventually forced to surrender 00:13:10.350 --> 00:13:13.509 his entire remaining force. It was an absolute 00:13:13.509 --> 00:13:15.769 humiliation for the British Empire. It was a 00:13:15.769 --> 00:13:18.789 humiliation for the military, sure, but for the 00:13:18.789 --> 00:13:21.169 local civilian populations across this entire 00:13:21.169 --> 00:13:23.590 theater, the shifting front lines weren't just 00:13:23.590 --> 00:13:25.909 humiliating, they were a matter of life and death. 00:13:26.440 --> 00:13:28.559 This brings us to a much darker reality of this 00:13:28.559 --> 00:13:30.580 war. Yes, this is where we really need to shift 00:13:30.580 --> 00:13:32.860 our tone. As we discussed at the start, we're 00:13:32.860 --> 00:13:34.960 looking directly at the historical record provided 00:13:34.960 --> 00:13:37.100 in our source to understand what happened to 00:13:37.100 --> 00:13:39.039 the civilian populations caught in the crossfire. 00:13:39.679 --> 00:13:42.360 The text outlines unimaginable tragedies. In 00:13:42.360 --> 00:13:45.299 May 1915, during the height of the Russian offensive 00:13:45.299 --> 00:13:48.720 in the Caucasus, the Ottoman parliament passed 00:13:48.720 --> 00:13:52.379 the Tessier Law. What did that legislation actually 00:13:52.379 --> 00:13:55.360 do? The Tessier Law was an authorization for 00:13:55.360 --> 00:13:58.559 the mass deportation of populations. The Interior 00:13:58.559 --> 00:14:01.840 Minister, Khaled Pasha, ordered the forced deportation 00:14:01.840 --> 00:14:04.399 of Armenians from regions under Ottoman control. 00:14:04.700 --> 00:14:07.620 And the historical text explicitly details this 00:14:07.620 --> 00:14:10.840 as the Armenian Genocide. Yes. It notes the active 00:14:10.840 --> 00:14:13.279 participation of forces like the Hamidi cavalry 00:14:13.279 --> 00:14:15.860 and the special organization, which was essentially 00:14:15.860 --> 00:14:18.240 an Ottoman state intelligence and special operations 00:14:18.240 --> 00:14:21.080 unit deployed for this exact, dark purpose. And 00:14:21.080 --> 00:14:23.000 the suffering extended to other groups as well. 00:14:23.360 --> 00:14:26.259 The text documents the Assyrian massacres, often 00:14:26.259 --> 00:14:28.580 referred to as the Assyrian Genocide, which sparked 00:14:28.580 --> 00:14:31.399 a subsequent Assyrian War of Independence. And 00:14:31.399 --> 00:14:33.799 over in Persia, the civilian toll was equally 00:14:33.799 --> 00:14:36.419 horrific, wasn't it? It was devastating. The 00:14:36.419 --> 00:14:38.899 text records that an estimated two million Persian 00:14:38.899 --> 00:14:41.360 civilians died from famine. Two million. Yes, 00:14:41.379 --> 00:14:44.480 and this famine was directly exacerbated by the 00:14:44.480 --> 00:14:47.620 constant shifting military occupations of Russian, 00:14:47.820 --> 00:14:51.120 British, and Ottoman forces. They routinely requisitioned 00:14:51.120 --> 00:14:54.039 local food supplies and just destroyed agricultural 00:14:54.039 --> 00:14:56.940 infrastructure. It is a devastating ledger of 00:14:56.940 --> 00:14:59.740 human suffering. And strictly from a military 00:14:59.740 --> 00:15:02.980 perspective, the casualty rates were also uniquely 00:15:02.980 --> 00:15:06.120 horrifying in this theater. This raises an important 00:15:06.120 --> 00:15:08.480 question for you, the listener, to consider. 00:15:08.879 --> 00:15:11.539 Why were the military casualties in the Middle 00:15:11.539 --> 00:15:13.919 East so distinctly different from the Western 00:15:13.919 --> 00:15:16.539 Front? Disease. The answer is the catastrophic 00:15:16.539 --> 00:15:18.919 breakdown of medical infrastructure. We have 00:15:18.919 --> 00:15:21.220 a shocking statistical comparison to illustrate 00:15:21.220 --> 00:15:23.940 this. In France and Flanders on the Western Front, 00:15:24.039 --> 00:15:26.820 there were 1 .3 non -battle casualties, meaning 00:15:26.820 --> 00:15:29.600 sickness, frostbite, things like that, for every 00:15:29.600 --> 00:15:32.620 one battle casualty. Wait, 1 .3 to 1 on the Western 00:15:32.620 --> 00:15:34.720 Front, but what was it in the Middle East? In 00:15:34.720 --> 00:15:36.799 the Mesopotamia and Sinai Palestine campaigns, 00:15:36.940 --> 00:15:39.679 the ratio was an astonishing Are you kidding? 00:15:40.200 --> 00:15:42.740 Ten soldiers hospitalized for disease or environmental 00:15:42.740 --> 00:15:45.480 injury for everyone wounded in actual combat. 00:15:46.059 --> 00:15:48.440 How was that even possible? Were they just not 00:15:48.440 --> 00:15:50.919 treating people? They couldn't. The Ottoman medical 00:15:50.919 --> 00:15:53.039 services had almost completely broken down. There 00:15:53.039 --> 00:15:56.320 was no medicine, no clean water, and no transport 00:15:56.320 --> 00:15:58.960 for the wounded. Afflictions that would normally 00:15:58.960 --> 00:16:01.299 be treated and survived in the British Army on 00:16:01.299 --> 00:16:04.059 the Western Front, like dysentery or typhus, 00:16:04.379 --> 00:16:06.860 became fatal in the Ottoman Army. That's grim. 00:16:07.100 --> 00:16:10.220 More than 3 .5 million Ottoman troops fell sick. 00:16:10.580 --> 00:16:13.100 When you combine military and civilian deaths, 00:16:13.620 --> 00:16:15.659 total Ottoman losses are recorded as as being 00:16:15.659 --> 00:16:19.340 between 25 and 27 % of their entire population. 00:16:19.600 --> 00:16:22.440 That is roughly five million deaths out of a 00:16:22.440 --> 00:16:24.919 population of 21 million. That has to be the 00:16:24.919 --> 00:16:27.080 highest proportion of a population lost by any 00:16:27.080 --> 00:16:29.899 country that took part in World War I. It is. 00:16:29.980 --> 00:16:32.080 The scale of the demographic collapse is almost 00:16:32.080 --> 00:16:34.259 hard to comprehend. So by the time we reach the 00:16:34.259 --> 00:16:37.820 final years of the war, 1917 and 1918, the Ottoman 00:16:37.820 --> 00:16:40.460 Empire was fracturing under this immense internal 00:16:40.460 --> 00:16:43.019 and external pressure. General Allenby takes 00:16:43.019 --> 00:16:45.519 command of the British forces launches a major 00:16:45.519 --> 00:16:47.899 offensive into Palestine. They capture Gaza, 00:16:48.340 --> 00:16:51.039 and then in a massive symbolic victory, Allenby 00:16:51.039 --> 00:16:53.980 captures Jerusalem just before Christmas in 1917. 00:16:54.340 --> 00:16:56.980 And the final blow came in September 1918 with 00:16:56.980 --> 00:17:00.360 the Battle of Megiddo. Allenby, aided immensely 00:17:00.360 --> 00:17:02.559 by the hit -and -run tactics of T .E. Lawrence 00:17:02.559 --> 00:17:04.759 and the Arab fighters tying down Ottoman garrisons 00:17:04.759 --> 00:17:07.460 in the rear, forced the Ottoman troops into a 00:17:07.460 --> 00:17:10.039 full -scale disorganized retreat. Which brought 00:17:10.039 --> 00:17:12.380 an end to it. This ultimate military collapse 00:17:12.380 --> 00:17:14.599 led to the Ottomans accepting the armistice of 00:17:14.599 --> 00:17:17.359 Mudros on October 30th, 1918. The armistice of 00:17:17.359 --> 00:17:19.980 Mudros basically being the formal cessation of 00:17:19.980 --> 00:17:21.759 hostilities that officially broke the military 00:17:21.759 --> 00:17:24.259 back of the empire. Exactly. The fighting stopped. 00:17:24.480 --> 00:17:26.359 But the political maneuvering was really just 00:17:26.359 --> 00:17:28.599 beginning because the victors now had to decide 00:17:28.599 --> 00:17:30.980 what to do with a massive defeated empire. What 00:17:30.980 --> 00:17:32.920 happened to all that territory? If we connect 00:17:32.920 --> 00:17:35.279 this to the bigger picture, the allies hadn't 00:17:35.279 --> 00:17:37.279 just been fighting. They'd been planning for 00:17:37.279 --> 00:17:40.460 the aftermath for years. Right. Secret plans 00:17:40.460 --> 00:17:42.859 by France, Britain and Italy to partition the 00:17:42.859 --> 00:17:44.920 Ottoman Empire actually dated all the way back 00:17:44.920 --> 00:17:48.859 to 1915. Following the armistice, allied troops 00:17:48.859 --> 00:17:52.990 occupied the capital of Istanbul. In 1920, they 00:17:52.990 --> 00:17:55.430 drafted the Treaty of Sevres, which was designed 00:17:55.430 --> 00:17:58.289 to ruthlessly carve up the territory into various 00:17:58.289 --> 00:18:00.710 European spheres of influence. But the treaty 00:18:00.710 --> 00:18:02.680 was never ratifying. because the British had 00:18:02.680 --> 00:18:04.440 essentially abolished the Ottoman Parliament. 00:18:04.619 --> 00:18:07.220 Which sparked massive outrage and led directly 00:18:07.220 --> 00:18:09.500 to the Turkish War of Independence. This is where 00:18:09.500 --> 00:18:11.980 Kemal Ataturk, the hero of Gallipoli we mentioned 00:18:11.980 --> 00:18:14.900 earlier, rises to lead the Turkish national movement. 00:18:15.019 --> 00:18:17.400 Yeah. He rejects the European quarepup entirely. 00:18:17.859 --> 00:18:20.220 They annul the Treaty of Severus, fight fiercely 00:18:20.220 --> 00:18:22.380 to secure their own borders, and eventually force 00:18:22.380 --> 00:18:24.319 the world to recognize them by signing the Treaty 00:18:24.319 --> 00:18:27.400 of Lausanne in 1923. And then, in a move that 00:18:27.400 --> 00:18:30.119 truly marked the end of an era, Atatürk sought 00:18:30.119 --> 00:18:32.859 to modernize and secularize the new Turkish state. 00:18:33.180 --> 00:18:36.240 He officially abolished the centuries -old Ottoman 00:18:36.240 --> 00:18:40.180 Caliphate on March 3rd, 1924, permanently closing 00:18:40.180 --> 00:18:42.579 the book on an empire that had existed since 00:18:42.579 --> 00:18:45.519 the 1300s. So what does this all mean? We have 00:18:45.519 --> 00:18:47.480 covered an incredible amount of ground today. 00:18:47.559 --> 00:18:50.460 We really have. We've seen how a glaring lack 00:18:50.460 --> 00:18:53.200 of railways and coal factories crippled an empire's 00:18:53.200 --> 00:18:56.000 ability to fight a modern war. We've seen how 00:18:56.000 --> 00:18:58.960 spies like Wilhelm Wasmus and T .E. Lawrence, 00:18:59.339 --> 00:19:01.680 along with shifting tribal alliances, turned 00:19:01.680 --> 00:19:04.750 the desert into a shadow war. And we've seen 00:19:04.750 --> 00:19:06.970 how the strokes of a pen for victorious nations 00:19:06.970 --> 00:19:10.869 formally dismantled a 600 -year -old empire amidst 00:19:10.869 --> 00:19:12.829 unimaginable civilian and military suffering. 00:19:12.910 --> 00:19:15.150 He's a profound reminder of how rapidly the global 00:19:15.150 --> 00:19:17.390 order can change and how the gritty logistical 00:19:17.390 --> 00:19:19.049 realities on the ground, like the length of a 00:19:19.049 --> 00:19:21.230 railway line or the availability of medical supplies, 00:19:21.670 --> 00:19:23.789 often dictate the grand visions of politicians. 00:19:24.150 --> 00:19:26.089 As we wrap up this deep dive, we want to leave 00:19:26.089 --> 00:19:29.289 you with one final thought to mull over. Think 00:19:29.289 --> 00:19:31.369 about those secret treaties and the arbitrary 00:19:31.369 --> 00:19:35.109 lines drawn on maps by exhausted European empires 00:19:35.109 --> 00:19:38.470 in the 1920s. The borders. Right. They carved 00:19:38.470 --> 00:19:42.190 up vast, deeply diverse populations of Arabs, 00:19:42.450 --> 00:19:45.190 Kurds, Armenians, and Assyrians entirely without 00:19:45.190 --> 00:19:48.029 their input or consent. Those lines didn't just 00:19:48.029 --> 00:19:51.279 end a war. They lead the very geopolitical fault 00:19:51.279 --> 00:19:54.220 lines that continue to dominate our daily news 00:19:54.220 --> 00:19:56.299 feeds today. That's a great point. When you look 00:19:56.299 --> 00:19:58.539 at the modern Middle East, with all its ongoing 00:19:58.539 --> 00:20:01.180 conflicts, alliances, and complex borders, you 00:20:01.180 --> 00:20:03.440 are quite literally still watching the final 00:20:03.440 --> 00:20:06.099 act of World War I play out in real time. Thank 00:20:06.099 --> 00:20:08.200 you so much for taking the time to explore this 00:20:08.200 --> 00:20:10.519 incredibly complex history with us. We appreciate 00:20:10.519 --> 00:20:12.900 your curiosity and we hope you walk away with 00:20:12.900 --> 00:20:15.299 a richer, more nuanced understanding of how the 00:20:15.299 --> 00:20:17.240 past continues to actively shape the present. 00:20:17.559 --> 00:20:19.700 Keep asking questions, keep digging into the 00:20:19.700 --> 00:20:21.359 sources, and we'll see you on the next deep dive.