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The Great Powers were carrying on their competition in world politics also in the Middle East subsystem. The geographic and strategic situation and the economic potential of the Ottoman Empire had attracted to it the attention of the states which were influential in world politics. The Ottoman Empire, which had 1,700,000 km^2 of land in 1914 was important not only on account of its economic potential, but also because of its growing geostrategic location, commanding land and sea routes which connected the continents of Europe, Asia and Africa. It was because of this that both Peter the Great and Napoleon said 'Whoever rules Istanbul rules the world.' The Ottoman Empire indeed that a special strategic importance because it controlled the main routes between Europe and Asia, controlled the Black Sea and the Mediterranean through the Bosphorus and the Dardanelles, and could threaten the Suez Canal through Syria and the routes to India through Iraq. On account of its strategic importance, the Ottoman Empire always attracted the interest of the Great Powers and constituted the point of conflict in the Eastern Question.
It would be useful to study the interests of each state vis-a-vis the Ottoman Empire. If we begin with the Austro-Hungarian Empire, the dilemma in the policy of Vienna for Ottoman Empire is very clear. Austria wanted to control the Balkans and to go as far as Salonica. It encouraged the nations in this area to revolts against the Ottomans. Its goal was to act as their protector and bring them under its influence without letting Russia gain control over them. However, the Austro-Hungarian Empire prepared its own downfall too as a multinational empire by encouraging nationalism in that part of Europe under Ottoman control. Serbia separated from the Ottoman lands, but the First World War broke out before Austria could take over. The Serbian who fired the bullet that initiated this war not only killed the Austrian Archduke, but he also opened the gap which ushered in the collapse of the Austrian Empire. Like the Ottomans, the Habsburgs were also the rulers of a declining empire. Internal ethnic problems and Russia were threatening both empires. It is noteworthy that Austria insisted on the partitioning of the Ottoman Empire in spite of the similarities between the two empires. However, Metternich had realized in 1815 that both states were beset with the same kind of problems and tried to preserve the status quo in the Balkans. However, an inferiority complex, which resulted from being a declining empire with was still included in the Great Powers only by virtue of protocol, led Austria to try to dissociate itself from the Ottoman Empire. Perhaps it was this complex which led Austria to assume a police function in the Balkans. Austria even tried to raise its prestige by using various opportunities in world politics to leave the Ottoman Empire in embarrassing situations. In 1909, it invaded Bosnia-Herzegovina which was legally still under Ottoman rule. It evinced quite an uncompromising attitude in 1913 while the Great Powers were negotiating with the Ottomans certain regulations in favor of Armenians in the Eastern provinces. It ignored completely some attempts by the Sublime Porte to abolish the capitulations. In its relations with the Ottomans during the 19th and 20th centuries, Austria always regarded itself as a member of the Western civilization and as one of the Great Powers of the Concert of Europe. It did not support the Ottoman Empire in protecting the balance of power in the Balkans. However, history forced it to share the same fate with the Ottoman Empire from which it carefully tried to dissociate itself.
only a stepping stonly companies were involved in trade between Europe and the Ottoman lands, its bankers bought most of the shares of the Suez Canal during its construction. Furthermore, the French had given loans to the Ottomans by buying government bonds and had gained control over the Public Debts Commission. Between 1899 and 1903, France used all its might to join in the transportation investments of the Ottoman Empire, especially the Berlin-Bagdad railroad, even at the cost of sharing the project with Germany. However, when these efforts came to nothing, it began to obstruct the construction of the Bagdad railroad, and instead tried to obtain other railroad privileges. From the strategic viewpoint, France won a firm place for itself in North Africa and acquired three important naval bases in the Mediterranean by invading Algiers in 1830, Tunis in 1881 and Morocco in 1904.
The administrators who shaped the Russian government's policy for the Middle East dreamed of freeing their Orthodox brothers in the Balkans and in Syria from the so-called claw of the Ottomans and of establishing a large 'Russian-Orthodox Empire' in the Mediterranean basin. They used the seventh article of the 1774 Kucuk Kaynarca Treaty they had signed with the Ottomans to justify this right. Pan-Slavists were trying to obtain the right of free passage through the Straights, but they were very insistent about this right not being given to the battleships of the other states. St. Petersburg was claiming that its demands concerned the Straits were based on real concerns: if the British fleet or the fleet of any other European state could pass through the Dardanelles, the southern coasts of Russia could be bombarded very easily. Furthermore, the health of the Tsarist Russia's economic life depended upon its commercial fleet being able to pass through the Straits. To give an example, half of Russia's exports and 80% of its grains exports in the late 1880's reached the European markets through the Straits. Russia was uncomfortable about the fact that at the cost of its own economic independence, Germany had obtained some privileges from the Ottoman Empire, especially the Berlin-Bagdad railroad. It was opposed legally to the spreading of these investments to Eastern Anatolia which it regarded as its own area of influence. It preferred to have this area remain backward so that it would not serve as an invasion route to its country. It came to an agreement with the sultan to build a railroad in this area in order to keep this area underdeveloped; Russia was not really thinking of making any investment in this area. What is more, its limited economic potential did not permit it to export capital. It had allocated all of its resources to building battleships in order to be able to keep the Black Sea under its control.
The interest of the British in the Middle East was a natural outcome of their having invaded India. Keeping all routes - land and maritime - to India under her control in order to be able to deter all possible attacks on its Indian colonies had been adopted by the government of Great Britain as one of its fundamental foreign policy principles. Because the territory of the Ottomans was a bridge for Europe to Asia, London needed to protect the Turks against Russian aggression. It was because of this that Whitehall sided with the Sublime Porte in Berlin during the 1878 Congress and kept at a minimum the land gains of Russia at the expense of the Ottomans. Also, it should not be forgotten that the British pursue the same policy around the turn of the century too, cooperating with and supporting the Ottomans against Napoleon in 1789, against Kavalali Mehmet Ali Pasha in 1830, and against the Russians in 1853.
Although preceeding governments had regarded Turkey as a strong buffer against Russia, the Salisbury cabinet which came to power in 1877 began to think that the Ottoman Empire was living its final days. Salisbury had observed with alarm how the Russians advanced to the vicinity of Istanbul in the West and to Erzurum in the East during the 1877-1878 Russo-Ottoman War, and was consequently doubtful that the Ottomans would be able to withstand another Russian attack in spite of his positive attitude towards the Ottomans at the Berlin Congress. It had also become difficult for England to help the Ottoman State in the case of a crisis. It was especially difficult for the British to help if the Russians launched an attack in Eastern Anatolia. Salisbury was saying, 'We are a fish; our fleet cannot be expected to climb the Mount Ararat.' In the past, England had tried to restrict the Russians by giving the impression that it would send its fleet to Istanbul in the case of a Russian threat. The Russians had thought of using the same weapon: they planned that their warships would either pass through the Bosphorus and bombard Istanbul or they would launch a landing at Kilyos before the British fleet would have time to reach Istanbul. When these rumors were also heard in London, the British began to wonder whether or not the forces on the two sides of the Bosphorus would be able to halt the Russians. If they were incapable of halting the Russians, the Ottomans were finished; in which case a policy of drawing closer to the Russians instead of futilely supporting the Ottomans would be more logical. The British employed the Hungarian Turcologist Prof. Arminius Vambery, a friend of Abdulhamid II, to gather intelligence on the defense of the Straits. Vambery was also trying to resolve the crisis over Egypt which had risen upon the invasion of Egypt by the British in 1882. Vambery's efforts came to nothing in spite of the sultan's tendency to soften. It had become very clear (in 1895) that England, which had preferred to resolve the Egyptian problem through military action by using as a pretext a border skirmish in Akaba (1906) instead of the diplomatic channels, would not oppose the conquest of Istanbul by the Russians as long as Egypt was secure for herself. England signed treaties of non-agression with the French in 1902 and with the Russians in 1907 and gave up its traditional policy of friendship and support towards the Ottoman Empire at the turn of the 20th century.
The most important cause for England to form an alliance with Russia and adopt the strategy of partitioning Turkey was the fact that these two countries were afraid of Wilhelm II's Germnay becoming more and more powerful and establishing a greater influence that the other states over the Ottoman Empire. As a matter of fact, the policy of the Second German Empire vis-a-vis the Middle East was shaped by enough aspirations to justify England's fears. Although Bismarck had said 'The whole of the Ottoman Empire is not worth the bones of a single Pomeranian soldier,' the Ottoman lands had a strategic importance in the framework of Wilhelm II's concept of Weltpolitik . Wilhelm II, who was dreaming of a large world empire stretching from the Baltic Sea to the Persian Gulf, was enchanted by the prospect of the advantages of Germany's opening to the Middle East, of its reaching Mesopotamia through the Balkans. The Middle East was not only a stepping stone or a passage to the riches of the Far East and Asia, but was at the same time a veritable Promis Land which held the door to the fertile Anatolian plateau and the Mesopotamian plains, and to the resources for raw materials and markets for the recently industrialized German economy. Berlin's policy 'to reopen the East' (Drang nach Osten) had been supported even before the establishment of the German League by pan-Germanist nationalists such as Lagarde, List, and Roche. The great Moltke had also emphasized the same view. The policy of converting Turkey into a German colony was in fact determined when German bankers and businessmen obtained in spring 1899 the necessary concession from the Sublime Porte for the construction of a railroad between the coast of the Sea of Marmara and the Persian Gulf. The Berlin-Bagdad railroad created for Germany a rich package of interests ranging from mineral exploitation rights, use of oil fields, and construction of irrigation facitlies to some additional commercial privileges.