From the Sultan to Atatürk: Turkey

World War I sounded the death knell of empires. The forces of disintegration affected several empires simultaneously. To that extent they were impersonal. But prudent statesmen could delay the death of empires, rulers such as Emperor Franz Josef II of Austria—Hungary and the Ottoman Sultan Abdü'lhamid II. Adventurous rulers — Kaiser Wilhelm of Germany and Enver Pasha in the Ottoman Empire — hastened it. Enver's decision to enter the war on the side of Germany destroyed the Ottoman state. It...