Army of Islam
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- This article is about the Ottoman military force. For the Palestinian group, see Palestinian Army of Islam.
Army of Islam refers to two military forces. One is a historical force in the Ottoman Empire, and the second is a militant group in present-day Palestine.
In 1918, Enver Pasha, the War Minister for the Ottoman Empire ordered the creation of a new military force. Unlike the rest of the Turkish army which had a very large number of German officers effectively running things, this force was composed entirely of Muslims, many of whom were Turkic-speakers. The purpose of this military force was to conquer new lands for the Ottoman Empire in the southern Caucasus.
The exclusion of German officers from this army was deliberate. By the end of 1917, Enver Pasha concluded that the Germans and the Turks did not have compatible goals now that the Russian Empire had collapsed. This feeling was confirmed by the terms of the treaty of Treaty of Brest-Litowsk which was very favorable to the Germans. This new Army of Islam would answer only to him, not the German government. The Army of Islam numbered between 14,000 and 25,000 men.
The army marched without much opposition through Democratic Republic of Armenia and Azerbaijan Democratic Republic. The British sent a small military force under the command of General Lionel Charles Dunsterville into Baku, which arrived around August 4, 1918. But a month later the British withdrew in the face of the much larger Ottoman army. With the end of the war (based on the armistice of October 30, 1918) and the political fall of Enver Pasha, the Army of Islam soon disintergrated.
[edit] Sources
- Fromkin, David (1989). A Peace to End All Peace, pp. 354-355. Avon Books.
[edit] Notes
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