Preface
This volume originated some years ago in informal discussions among the three Australian
contributors on European activities in the Ottoman Empire. Each of these contributors was
engaged in university teaching and research in his or her particular Power’s interests in the
Ottoman Empire. It seemed a useful idea to consider an even wider co-operative venture
in a formal publication bringing together specialists on the interests and activities of all the
European Great Powers in the Ottoman Empire. This book is the end product of that idea.
Such activities by the European Great Powers have often been considered to be the cause
of the Ottoman Empire’s collapse after the First World War. It seemed desirable, therefore,
to examine this belief in the context of a comparative, factual study, the product of precise
research based on the widest range of archival and other sources. In such a way an informed
and balanced answer could be attempted. The book aims primarily at the specialist reader,
whether researcher or undergraduate. It is, none the less, hoped that it might be interesting
and valuable to a wider readership.
In order to produce a work of original research that would provide authoritative and up-
to-date interpretations of the subject fairly tight limits of time-scale were needed to give
the work a manageable size and integrated form. The book follows a clear overall theme.
At the same time the individuality of the separate chapters has been preserved, through
each contributor pursuing an individual theme based on the particular national concerns of
his or her Great Power. Cross-referencing helps the reader make comparisons among the
chapters as he proceeds, and each chapter attempts to draw a conclusion on the relative
responsibility of that Power for the fall of the Ottoman Empire.
In putting together the individual conclusions a consensus does emerge. The spreading
of the exact proportions of responsibility will, however, inevitably involve some weighing
up by the reader. It would appear clear, nevertheless, that responsibility must be shared,
both among the Great Powers and between them and the Ottoman Empire itself. The
vicious circle postulated in the first chapter seems a valid concept.
One matter that should be mentioned here is that of spelling. As anyone familiar with
this field knows, there are wide variations in the spelling of places and personal names of
this part of the world. The contributors have decided not to standardise these spellings.
Each is writing from the standpoint of his or her particular Great Power and therefore it
seemed appropriate to retain the forms of spelling (or of their anglicisation) normally
occurring in the contemporary documentation of the individual Powers. The first chapter,
on the Ottoman Empire itself, uses spelling acceptable to present-day Turkish scholarship.