The East’s Eastern Front: The Ottoman–Russian Clash in the Great War and Its Legacies

Abstract

This article provides an overview of the neglected Caucasian front of the First World War and explores its impact on the overall course of the war and its legacy for the Middle East and Eurasia. By unexpectedly prolonging hostilities and leading the Russian empire to overextend itself, the conflict with the Ottoman empire contributed critically to Russia’s revolutionary crisis and collapse and thereby altered decisively the fate of the Middle East and Eurasia. The article places the Ottoman–Russian conflict in the context of the relentless growth of Western European military and economic might from the eighteenth century onward.