Defeat and dissolution of the Ottoman Empire (1908–1922)

The period of defeat and dissolution of the Ottoman Empire (1908–1922) began with the Second Constitutional Era with the Young Turk Revolution. It restored the Ottoman constitution of 1876 and brought in multi-party politics with a two stage electoral system (electoral law) under the Ottoman parliament. The constitution offered hope by freeing the empire’s citizens to modernize the state’s institutions and dissolve inter-communal tensions.

Instead, this period became the story of the twilight struggle of the Empire. Ottoman military reforms resulted in the Ottoman Army engaging in the Italo-Turkish War (1911), the Balkan Wars (1912-1913), and the continuous unrest caused by the Ottoman countercoup of 1909, which preceded the 31 March Incident (Restoration, 1909) and 1912 Ottoman coup d'état (Saviours) and the 1913 Ottoman coup d'état) in the Empire up to World War I. The Ottoman entry into World War I in the Middle Eastern theatre ended with the partition of the Ottoman Empire under the terms of the Treaty of Sèvres. This treaty, as designed in the conference of London, gave a nominal land and permitted the title Ottoman Caliphate (compared with Vatican; a sacerdotal-monarchical state ruled by the Catholic Pope), not to be a further threat but just powerful enough to protect Britain from the Khilafat Movement.