Ottoman Society at War, 1914-1918

FAIN: FA-55615-11

Mustafa Aksakal
American University (Washington, DC 20016-8200)

Famine, disease, horrific bloodletting and genocide swept across the Middle East like a tidal wave during the years of the First World War. Suffering among the civilian population exceeded that of any other belligerent, while mortality rates of "Little Mehmet," the common soldier, were almost double those of his German allies and surpassed only by those of the Serbian army. Little Mehmet's experience has never been told, and such histories of the war as we have slice the Ottoman story topically, chronologically, or geographically, and frequently all three ways. No book has taken a holistic approach to the Ottoman wartime experience. My project recognizes the interconnection of these narratives. It will explore the totality of war in the eastern Mediterranean.