The Berlin-Baghdad Express: The Ottoman Empire and Germany's Bid for World Power (review)

In surveying the "political and humanitarian wreckage of the modern Middle East," Sean McMeekin proposes to recapture "the colossal and almost totally forgotten role of imperial Germany in the drama" (341). He achieves that goal and much more in this thoroughly researched and vigorously written book. The spirit of Fritz Fischer hovers over this ambitious study, but McMeekin places the Ottoman Empire squarely at the center of the narrative. He analyzes the complex German maneuvers aimed at bringing the Ottoman Empire into alignment with Kaiser Wilhelm's dream of extending German hegemony from Berlin to India. He argues as well that imperial Germany attempted to enlist the Ottoman Empire—in particular the alleged spiritual authority of the Turkish Caliphate—for a global strategy of "Turco-German" jihad, aimed at destroying the British Empire. What makes the book most interesting is its account of the collision between Turkish realities and German fantasies.

McMeekin's monograph is a welcome counterpoint to the familiar entente narrative of the Great War in the Middle East. Imperial Germany had its own cast of would-be T. E. Lawrences, most notably Max von Oppenheim. Oppenheim and a host of budding covert operations specialists hatched plans to mobilize Islamic recruits for a jihad against Great Britain and Russia throughout the region. Much of the book's appeal lies in the colorful stories of these various German agents operating in Mesopotamia, Afghanistan, Persia, and Libya. A significant portion of the narrative is dedicated to exploring these blundering covert initiatives and accounting for their failure. Ultimately, McMeekin concludes, "for all the inspiring holy war rhetoric, Muslim solidarity was a phantom on a serious battlefield" (177).

Running through McMeekin's narrative is the story of that "half-mad imperial enterprise," namely, the Berlin-to-Baghdad railway. From the perspective of Berlin, the railway was a way to bypass the Suez Canal; in a strategic sense, it was meant to offset British naval power with German industrial technology. Undercapitalized and fraught with engineering and political difficulties, the railway was a strategic failure. Military historians will find the account of the Turkish attacks on the Suez Canal and the description of Franco-British attempts to gain control of the Straits—including the Anzac landings at Gallipoli—particularly useful.

Military history written from the Turkish perspective comes as a welcome contribution to the literature on the Great War. That said, McMeekin ascribes the Armenian massacres to Russian attempts to foment a Christian uprising against the Ottomans, and concludes that Russia simply stood aside and watched: "The beleaguered Armenians of Eastern Turkey fell on the sword of Russian imperial ambition" (245). He portrays Turkish operations as an utter failure, interrupted only by the great national victory at Gallipoli. It is curious that he does not compare in greater depth the strategic impact of Middle Eastern operations on both world wars: Martin Kitchen and John Keegan have pointed out the strategic benefits that the Wehrmacht reaped from tying down British military resources in Egypt through the Afrika Korps. The same argument could be usefully applied to the Great War.

Sean McMeekin's study gives the historian of the First World much to consider. More controversial is the neoconservative tone of the epilogue, which links German fantasies of fomenting jihad with radical Islamic activity today. This book is nevertheless an enjoyable read, as well as a provocative contribution to the historiography of World War I.