German–Ottoman alliance

It was created as part of a joint effort to strengthen and modernize the weak Ottoman military and to provide Germany with safe passage into the neighbouring British colonies.

Talat Pasha, the Minister of Interior, wrote in his memoirs: "Turkey needed to join one of the country groups so that it could organize its domestic administration, strengthen and maintain its commerce and industry, expand its railroads, in short, to survive and to preserve its existence.

Already, at the beginning of the Turco-Italian War in Northern Africa, Grand Vizier Sait Halim Pasha had expressed need for an alliance, and asked Ottoman ambassadors to find out whether the European capitals would be interested.

It was impossible to form an alliance with the French, as France's main ally was Russia, the long-time enemy of the Ottoman Empire dating back to the War of 1828.

Germany had harboured imperial ambitions since 1890, which had not borne fruit, and by 1909, it became clear that Germans would not prevail in the Anglo-German naval arms race.

[4] As soon as the railway was proposed, it became a point of tension between Germany and the UK, since the latter considered southern Persia their sphere of influence, where German power shouldn't have been projected.

The Orient Express had run directly to Constantinople since 1889, and prior to the First World War, the Sultan had consented to a plan to extend it through Anatolia to Baghdad under German auspices.

That would strengthen the Ottoman Empire's link with the industrialized Europe and give Germany easier access to its African colonies and to trade markets in British India.

However, following German reverses at the First Battle of the Marne in September, and with Russian successes against Austria-Hungary, Germany began to regard the Ottoman Empire as a useful ally.