Assessing the role of Turkey in British Foreign Policy, 1908-1914 Simon Richard Tate Submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Department of History, University of East Anglia April 2020 This copy of the thesis has been supplied on condition that anyone who consults it is understood to recognise that its copyright rests with the author and that use of any information derived therefrom must be in accordance with current UK Copyright Law. In addition, any quotation or extract must include full attribution. Abstract The future of the Ottoman Empire was an important issue in international politics during the early years of the Twentieth Century. As more and more of its territory was chipped away, the events caused by this this process of disintegration became central to Great Power relations in the period before the First World War. These developments were particularly significant from the British perspective, not only because the Young Turk revolution of 1908 seemed to promise a brighter future for Anglo-Turkish relations, but because the British interest in maintaining the Ottoman Empire for as long as possible, for fear of what came next, directly conflicted with the more aggressive designs of Russia, one of the two Powers with which Britain had recently become aligned. Much of the literature on Anglo-Turkish relations of the period has tended to argue that a ‘golden opportunity’ existed for Britain to improve her relations with the Ottoman Empire following the coming to power of the ‘Young Turks’, who were, both at the time and in more recent scholarship, asserted to have possessed Anglophile tendencies. In the literature on Britain’s Great Power relations of the period more widely, meanwhile, a discernible trend has emerged suggesting that Sir Edward Grey, the British Foreign Minister, was wedded to a policy of ententes, which blinded him to the wider realities of Great Power relations. In understanding how historical events took place, it is important to view events through the eyes of those experiencing them. Through means of an analytical narrative, this work will reconstruct contemporary worldviews and decision-making processes within the British Foreign Office to examine these two conclusions critically, and demonstrate both that Grey was not fixated on a policy of ententes and that a ‘golden opportunity’ was no more than illusion. 2 Richard Higgins, 1926-2017 3 Table of Contents Introduction .................................................................................................................. 7 Approaches ............................................................................................................................ 9 A ‘Golden Opportunity’? ...................................................................................................... 14 A Policy of Ententes? ............................................................................................................ 24 1. The Eastern Department: A Sketch ........................................................................... 30 2. The Revolution ........................................................................................................ 49 2.1. The Revolution .............................................................................................................. 49 2.1.a Events of the Revolution .............................................................................................................. 52 2.1.b British Views of the Revolution .................................................................................................... 54 2.2. Perceptions of the Young Turks ..................................................................................... 67 2.2.a Equality ......................................................................................................................................... 69 2.2.b Turkish Views of Britain. ............................................................................................................... 76 2.2.c British Impressions of the Young Turks ........................................................................................ 80 2.2.d Causes of the Outbreak ................................................................................................................ 85 2.2.e. Islam ............................................................................................................................................ 87 2.2.f. Views of the administration ......................................................................................................... 89 2.2.g Turkish Finance after the Revolution ........................................................................................... 91 2.2.h External Experts ........................................................................................................................... 93 2.3. The Young Turk Revolution ............................................................................................ 97 2.3.a. Did a ‘Golden Opportunity’ exist? ............................................................................................... 99 3. The Bosnian Crisis: the ‘Golden Opportunity’ meets reality .................................... 102 3.1 Early Rumblings ............................................................................................................ 103 3.1.a The Geshov incident ................................................................................................................... 103 3.1.b The Railway Incident .................................................................................................................. 109 3.2. The Crisis Begins .......................................................................................................... 114 3.2.a Military Posturing Between Turkey and Bulgaria ....................................................................... 117 3.2.b The Straits: Early Negotiations between Russia and Turkey ...................................................... 119 3.2.c. A Balkan Alliance ....................................................................................................................... 121 3.2.d Suggestions for a Conference ..................................................................................................... 124 3.2.e Direct Negotiations with Austria ................................................................................................ 133 3.2.f. Negotiations for a Financial Compensation Package for Turkey from Bulgaria ......................... 140 3.2.g Russian Funding for a Financial Solution .................................................................................... 150 3.3 Bosnian Annexation ..................................................................................................... 155 4. The Counter-Revolution of 1909 ............................................................................ 159 4.1. Views of CUP Government in the light of the Bosnian Crisis ......................................... 159 4.2. Divergences of view between Lowther and London ..................................................... 162 4.3. The Counter Revolution of April 1909 .......................................................................... 165 4.3.a. A divergence in policy ................................................................................................................ 168 4.3.b. A march on Constantinople ....................................................................................................... 171 4.3.c. A period of reflection ................................................................................................................. 173 4.4. A Constantinople Coup ................................................................................................ 177 5. The Railway, and other Commercial Questions ...................................................... 180 5.a. From Berlin to Baghdad ............................................................................................... 180 4 5.b. 1910 Loan Question ..................................................................................................... 182 5.1. Strategy and Commerce .............................................................................................. 189 5.1.a. The Railway: A threat to Britain ................................................................................................ 189 5.1.b. ‘In what other way are we to secure any conditions?’ The Customs Lever ............................. 191 5.1.c. A German Offer ......................................................................................................................... 194 5.1.d. The German Surrender from Baghdad Onward ........................................................................ 202 5.1.e. The British Position Renegotiated ............................................................................................. 206 5.2. Mesopotamian Oil ....................................................................................................... 211 5.2.a. Amalgamation ........................................................................................................................... 216 5.3. Shipbuilding ................................................................................................................ 219 5.4. Finance, Railways and Oil ...........................................................................................