A Starving Empire on the Brink
In the winter of 1917, the once-mighty Ottoman Empire stood at the edge of collapse. The capital Constantinople faced catastrophic food shortages, with daily bread rations reduced from an already meager 180 grams to just half that amount. The situation appeared so dire that German general Wilhelm Groener would later lament: “In the Ukrainian capital, they expect milk and honey to flow freely, while here we cannot even obtain a piece of bread.” The empire’s predicament stemmed from years of war, blockade, and the relentless pressure from Allied forces on multiple fronts.
The Russian Black Sea Fleet’s revolutionary sailors had been conducting regular raids along the Turkish coast, frightening away coal ships from Zonguldak that were vital for keeping Constantinople warm. The Ottoman war machine was grinding to a halt, with soldiers at the front reportedly “half-starved or completely starved, and in rags.” The empire’s German allies, themselves stretched thin, had warned they could no longer supply coal to their faltering partner. Just when complete collapse seemed inevitable, an unexpected savior emerged from the north – Vladimir Lenin and his Bolshevik revolution.
Lenin’s Unexpected Lifeline
The Bolshevik seizure of power in November 1917 proved fortuitous for the Ottomans. Russia’s ceasefire request first reached the Ottoman Third Army on December 3, 1917, and within two weeks, Lenin’s peace decree had halted all hostilities. This sudden development allowed the resumption of coal shipments to Constantinople and enabled grain transports from Ukraine to cross the Black Sea unimpeded. The capital’s residents, who had braced for a winter of starvation and freezing temperatures, found unexpected relief.
This reopening of Black Sea routes also defused a growing crisis in German-Ottoman relations. Just before the Russian armistice, German commander Erich Ludendorff had warned that Germany would cease coal shipments to Turkey, compounding the empire’s food shortages with energy insecurity. German prestige in Constantinople had already suffered after the fall of Baghdad in March 1917, with rumors circulating that German officers had abandoned their Ottoman allies before the city’s surrender. The arrival of former German Chief of Staff Erich von Falkenhayn to command the new “Yildirim” Army Group did little to restore confidence, especially after his subsequent humiliation at Jerusalem’s surrender to General Allenby.
The Geopolitical Windfall
For the Ottoman leadership, Lenin’s revolution represented more than just temporary relief – it offered a miraculous reversal of fortunes. Just months earlier, the empire had faced the grim prospect of a final Russian push toward Constantinople while British and French forces stood ready to pick apart its remaining territories. Now, with the Russian army disintegrating, Grand Vizier Talat Pasha declared that Lenin’s revolution had “opened the gates to the realization of Turkey’s eastern empire.”
Ottoman newspapers like Sabah began discussing the immediate recovery of eastern Anatolia and Transcaucasian territories. At the Brest-Litovsk peace negotiations, Ottoman diplomats would demand not just the restoration of 1914 borders but the return of Kars, Ardahan, and Batum – three provinces lost to Russia in the 1877-78 war. Some even eyed Baku, Russia’s oil capital and gateway to the Caspian and Central Asia, though this would put them in competition with their German allies who also coveted the region’s petroleum resources.
The Brest-Litovsk Farce and Its Consequences
The peace negotiations at Brest-Litovsk took on an almost surreal quality. The Bolshevik delegation included not just seasoned revolutionaries like Adolf Joffe and Lev Kamenev, but also an assortment of cultural figures and even a peasant named Roman Stashkov, plucked from the streets of Petrograd to represent the rural proletariat. Stashkov’s uncouth behavior at the negotiating table – stuffing food into his mouth with both hands and requesting the strongest available alcohol – underscored the bizarre nature of the proceedings.
Beneath the surface, tensions ran high. Austria-Hungary, in even more desperate straits than the Ottomans, shocked everyone when Count Ottokar Czernin offered to relinquish all territorial gains if the Allies would join negotiations. This provoked outrage among German hardliners who saw it as betraying soldiers’ sacrifices. The Ottoman position, articulated by Foreign Minister Ahmed Nesimi, remained clear: Russia must evacuate all occupied Ottoman territories before Turkey would consider concessions.
The Race for the Caucasus
As negotiations dragged on, the Ottoman military moved swiftly to reclaim lost territories. The reconstituted Third Army under Vehib Pasha took Trabzon on February 24, 1918, despite suffering heavy casualties. In the Erzincan-Erzurum sector, Musa Kâzım Karabekir Pasha’s First Caucasian Army captured Mamahatun and then Erzincan, with Erzurum falling on March 12. By April 25, Ottoman forces had retaken Kars, completing the recovery of territories lost four decades earlier.
Meanwhile, the Transcaucasian Commissariat – a fragile coalition of Georgian Mensheviks, Armenian Dashnaks, and Azerbaijani Tatars – declared independence on April 22 as the Transcaucasian Democratic Federative Republic. This short-lived entity quickly fractured along ethnic lines, with Georgians seeking German protection, Armenians establishing a republic centered on Yerevan, and Azerbaijanis looking to the Ottomans for support against Bolshevik and Armenian forces in Baku.
The Baku Oil Prize
The ultimate prize in the Caucasus was Baku, Russia’s oil capital. Ottoman forces under Nuri Pasha (Enver Pasha’s half-brother) advanced toward the city throughout summer 1918, while the Germans maneuvered to secure the region’s petroleum resources for themselves. The resulting tension nearly led to open conflict between the nominal allies, with German and Ottoman troops clashing near Vorontsovka on June 10, 1918 – the first direct fighting between the two powers in the war.
Despite German opposition, Nuri’s Islamic Army of about 10,000 men pressed forward, terrifying Baku’s Armenian population who called for British assistance. On September 15, after intense artillery bombardment, Ottoman forces captured the city, leading to brutal reprisals against the Armenian population in retaliation for earlier massacres of Muslims. At least 9,000-10,000 Armenians were killed, with 50,000-60,000 others fleeing across the Caspian with the retreating British force under General Dunsterville.
Pyrrhic Victories and Collapse
The Ottoman Empire’s dramatic resurgence in 1918 proved short-lived. While Enver Pasha celebrated the capture of Baku, the empire’s overextended forces could not maintain their positions in the Caucasus while also defending against British advances in Palestine and Mesopotamia. Similarly, Germany’s vast eastern conquests – including Ukraine – became a quagmire that diverted crucial resources from the Western Front at the war’s decisive moment.
By autumn 1918, both Central Powers were exhausted. The Ottoman victory at Baku came too late to alter the course of the war, and within months, the empire would sign an armistice at Mudros, marking the beginning of its dissolution. Yet the remarkable reprieve provided by Lenin’s revolution – which allowed the Ottomans to recover territories and avoid complete collapse in winter 1917-18 – remains one of history’s great unexpected geopolitical consequences. For a few brief months, it seemed the sick man of Europe might recover, until the larger tides of war and revolution swept away both the Ottoman and German empires.