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Map tour · 1911–1922 · 10 stops · 4 min read
From Tripoli to the abolition of the sultanate: 1911–1922
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29 September 1911
Italy declared war on 29 September 1911; the city of Tripoli fell on 9 October and Benghazi on 21 October. With land and sea routes closed, no regular army could be sent to the province. Volunteer officers who slipped in through Egypt and Tunisia organised the local people and the Senussi, and the resistance kept the Italians pinned to the coast for a long time. The map shows the state's last large extent, from the Balkans to Yemen.
October – November 1912
Bulgaria, Serbia, Greece and Montenegro had formed an alliance; war began on 8 October 1912. The government hurried peace with Italy: under the treaty signed on 18 October at Ouchy in Switzerland, Tripoli and Benghazi were in effect given up. The Balkan front collapsed within weeks: the Eastern Army fell back to Çatalca, the Western Army was beaten at Kumanovo and Salonica was surrendered to the Greeks. Rhodes and the Dodecanese were under Italian occupation as well.
March – May 1913
After a ceasefire, fighting resumed on 3 February 1913. The Greeks took Ioannina on 6 March, the Bulgarians took Edirne on 26 March despite Mehmed Şükrü Pasha's defence, and the Montenegrins took Shkodër on 23 April. The Treaty of London of 30 May 1913 made the Midye–Enez line the border. The map shows the situation at the end of the year: Edirne stays green because it was retaken the same year.
July – September 1913
This time the Balkan allies went to war with each other. Bulgaria, fighting four states at once, left Edirne almost undefended, and the city was retaken without a fight in July 1913. The Treaty of Constantinople, signed on 29 September 1913, recognised this border. Most of Rumelia, however, had been lost after more than five centuries.
27 October – 2 November 1914
Under the German admiral Souchon, the Ottoman fleet sailed into the Black Sea on 27 October 1914, sank Russian ships and shelled the ports of Sevastopol and Novorossiysk. Russia declared war on 2 November; by this fait accompli the state entered the First World War on the side of Germany and Austria-Hungary. The British occupied Basra on 23 November.
18 March 1915 – 9 January 1916
British and French fleets tried to force the Dardanelles on 18 March 1915; under fire from the shore batteries and the mines laid in Karanlık Liman by the minelayer Nusret, they suffered heavy losses and turned back. On 25 April troops landed at Seddülbahir (Cape Helles) and Arıburnu (Anzac). After months of fighting on land the Allies withdrew from Anafartalar and Arıburnu on the night of 19–20 December and from Seddülbahir on 8–9 January 1916. The straits had not been passed.
1916 – 1917
In Iraq the Sixth Army, after a five-month siege, forced the British troops at Kut to surrender in April 1916. But on 27 June 1916 Sharif Hussein of Mecca rose in revolt, and the uprising spread from the Hejaz to Palestine and Syria. The British took Baghdad on 11 March 1917, and General Allenby's army entered Jerusalem on 9 December 1917.
30 October 1918
The Syrian front collapsed; Damascus was evacuated on 1 October 1918. After four days of talks aboard the battleship Agamemnon in Mudros harbour on Lemnos, the Ottoman delegation signed the armistice on 30 October 1918. The terms dictated by Admiral Calthorpe all but dismantled the Ottoman defence. Syria, Palestine, Iraq and Yemen were gone; in the east, Kars, Ardahan and Batumi, regained that year under the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, were given up again.
23 April – 30 October 1920
Istanbul was formally occupied on 16 March 1920. On 23 April 1920 the Grand National Assembly met in Ankara and declared itself the sole representative of the nation. The Treaty of Sèvres, signed by the Istanbul government on 10 August 1920, contained harsh terms that carved up Anatolia; Ankara refused to recognise it, and it never came into force. In the east, Kâzım Karabekir Pasha entered Kars on 30 October 1920.
1 – 17 November 1922
On 1 November 1922 the assembly in Ankara abolished the sultanate; the Istanbul government was deemed to have ceased to exist from 16 March 1920, the day the city was occupied. The last sultan, Mehmed VI Vahdeddin, left Istanbul on the morning of 17 November 1922 aboard the British battleship Malaya. The sultanate that had lasted since 1299 was over; on 29 October 1923 the Republic of Turkey was proclaimed.
The texts are based on the TDV Encyclopedia of Islam articles below. Borders are drawn from the atlas's regional data and are approximate; see the Method page.