Action in Palestine

At the apex of the Ottoman military structure was the Ministry of War (Harbiye) which had been established in 1826 after the suppression of the Janissaries. Within the ministry, there were offices for procurement, combat arms, peacetime military affairs, mobilization, and for promotions. Often staff coordination between these offices was poor or nonexistent. From January 3, 1914, through October 4, 1918, Enver Paşa served as the minister of war (Harbiye Nazin). Izzet Paşa filled this position from October 14, 1918 until November 11, 1918. The titular commander in chief of the Ottoman military forces was the sultan. However, the minister of war fulfilled this role as well by commanding all forces under the office of acting commander in chief (Baskomutanlik Vekaleti). The ministry did not, however, directly control the actual operations of the army, a general staff performed this function.

The Ottoman General Staff, hereafter referred to as the Turkish General Staff, was closely modeled on the Prussian General Staff The General Staff fulfilled the classic staff duties then in use by all major European powers and was staffed by Kurmay Subay or General Staff officers. Carefully selected officers were highly trained in staff procedures at the War Academy in Constantinople. After completion of the War Academy, graduates were advanced in grade over their nongraduate contemporaries and immediately assigned to key billets. Almost all of the wartime Turkish corps and division commanders and chiefs of staff were trained General Staff officers. Reflecting the Prussian model, the most influential position within the Turkish General Staff was that of the chief of the General Staff. The staff itself was composed of various divisions, which specialized in a variety of military fields. The most powerful staff division was the First Division, or the Operations Division. There was also an Intelligence Division, and like the Germans the Turks had separate divisions for Railroads and Communications, and a variety of additional staff divisions to administer and supply the army. To help the chief of the General Staff, or to run the staff in the absence of the chief, there were two assistant chiefs of staff.

After January 1913, Enver Paşa served concurrently as minister of war and as the acting commanding general of the Turkish Army. He also served as the chief of the Turkish General Staff (Erkani Harbiyei Umumiye Reisleri) from January 3, 1914, through October 4, 1918. Ahmet Izzet Paşa briefly held this post from October 4 through November 3, 1918, as did Cevat Paşa from November 3 through December 24, 1918. In August 1914, Enver Paşa was heavily engaged in the Ottoman diplomatic maneuvering which brought Turkey into the First World War. Based on what historians know of Enver Paşa’s actions in the summer of 1914, probably the office receiving the least attention under Enver’s competing portfolios was that of the chief of the Turkish General Staff. Fortunately for the Turks, in the spring of 1914, Liman von Sanders reassigned a highly trained German General Staff officer named Colonel Friedrich Bronsart von Schellendorf from a German Military Mission tactical assignment to the position of first assistant chief of staff of the Turkish General Staff. In the virtual absence of Enver Paşa, Bronsart von Schellendorf began immediate preparation of mobilization and war plans. The second assistant chief of staff was Turkish Colonel Hafiz Hakki Bey. Although they were both trained General Staff officers, as will be seen, there were intellectual divergences between these two men.

The active regular army force of thirty-six infantry divisions was divided up among the corps of four numbered armies. Turkish army corps had three infantry divisions, an artillery regiment, and a cavalry regiment. Turkish infantry divisions had three infantry regiments and an artillery regiment. All of these forces were mobile and were capable of sustained combat operations. Reserve forces were distributed throughout the empire and constituted a reserve manpower and small unit pool, which would be used to augment and to bring the regular forces up to their wartime strength. There were four fortress area commands: the western border city of Adrianople, the Dardanelles, the Bosphorus, and the eastern border city of Erzurum. A fifth fortress area was established at (Çatalca during the First Balkan War to protect Constantinople, and although it was maintained in readiness it was inactive for most of the war. The fortresses were built of permanent concrete forts and entrenchments, except for Çatalca which was mostly built of earthworks and trenches.

Among the remainder of Ottoman military strength were the Light Reserve Cavalry Regiments. These units were the successors to the irregular Hamidiye cavalry formations, which were disestablished on August 17, 1910. These new regiments were formed into seven cavalry brigades and three independent regiments and comprised mainly of Kurds, some rural Turks, and an occasional Armenian. Conventional-style military discipline had always been a problem with these irregular units and the Turkish General Staff was determined to end this with the establishment of the new reserve formations. After 1912, these brigades and regiments were consolidated into four reserve cavalry divisions placed in wartime under the control of the Third Army.

An important addition to the wartime strength of the army was the paramilitary Jandarma. Formed after the disastrous Russo-Turkish War of 1878 under a French training mission, the Jandarma was a powerful force. Its mission was primarily internal security and preservation of the borders. It was deployed throughout the empire. Every vilayet had a mobile Jandarma battalion, many large cities had mobile Jandarma regiments, and there were substantial numbers of static local battalions as well. The mobile regiments contained 2,371 officers, 39,268 men, and 75,395 animals, but total Jandarma strength including staffs, border guards, and support personnel greatly exceeded several hundred thousand men. Under mobilization, control of this substantial force transferred from the Ministry of the Interior to the Ministry of War.

The army was closely modeled on the German Army and included a large number of officer and noncommissioned leadership academies, branch training schools (including artillery, cavalry, infantry, signal, and engineer), technical centers, and regimental recruit depots. Basic training for soldiers was particularly severe and employed draconian discipline. Turkish soldiers spent the first half of their service undergoing training as individual soldiers and then spent the last half in unit training. Resources were scarce, soldiers typically were issued a single uniform and expended an annual total of only twenty to thirty rounds of rifle ammunition. Company and battalion-level training exercises were conducted throughout the year and the army conducted annual large-scale field maneuvers every October. Reserve infantry divisions were usually called to the colors to participate in these maneuvers and military attaches from the embassies in Constantinople were normally invited to observe these exercises. Frequently, however, western observers criticized the Turks because the maneuvers tended to be scripted and over controlled rather than using a free play methodology, which seriously tested commanders and units. The last full-scale maneuver of this type occurred in 1910 in Thrace near Lüleburgaz. The exercise pitted the First Army against the Second Army and lasted twelve days. The scenario had been planned in May and pitted the “Eastern Army” against the “Western Army” in October 1910.

In terms of military doctrine, the Turks tended to copy the techniques of their German teachers. Doctrinal march tables, frontages for attack and defense, tactics, and staff procedures were patterned on contemporary German methods. After the turn of the century, the great Ottoman fortress cities of Adrianople and Erzurum reflected German thinking on fortifications as well, as redoubts were moved father out and the forts became mutually supporting.

The strengths of the Turkish Army were primarily at the extreme ends of its rank structure. At its highest echelons, its highly trained General Staff officers were aggressive and well trained. At the bottom end, its rank and file were tough and capable of great feats of endurance, and were famous throughout Europe for their tenacity. However, it was in the middle ranks that the Turkish Army was the weakest. Unlike the British or the Germans, the Turks had no long-service corps of professional noncommissioned officers (sergeants), and there was no tradition of such service in the Ottoman forces. In peacetime, this made the effective and rapid training of recruits difficult. In combat, as junior officers were killed, this lack of professional depth meant that there were no leaders to step up and assume leadership responsibilities. This particularly hurt the Turkish Army when engaged in the highly attritional battles that characterized the First World War.