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This dissertation aims to examine the socio-economic and cultural dimensions of the home-front experience of the Ottoman people during World War I. It explores the new realities that the war created in the form of mass conscription, a state-controlledeconomy, government requisitioning of grain and possessions, widespread shortages, forcible deportations and voluntary displacements, death, and grief. Using archival andnon-archival sources, this dissertation also focuses on how Ottomans wrestled with these wartime realities.World War I required the most comprehensive mobilization of men and resources in the history of the Ottoman Empire. In order to wage a war of unprecedented scope effectively, the Ottoman government assumed new powers, undertook new responsibilities, and expanded its authority in many areas. Civilian and military authorities constantly experimented with new policies in order to meet the endless needs of the war and extended the state’s capacity to intervene in the distant corners of the empire to extract people and resources to a degree not seen before. Victory in the warbecame increasingly dependent on the successful integration of the armies in the field and the home-front population, a process that inescapably led to the erosion of the distinction between the military and civilian realms.This process had profound implications for Ottoman society. Each policy formulated for this purpose brought about further intervention by the state in the daily lives of ordinary Ottomans with disastrous consequences. Ottomans, regardless of age,gender, and ethno-religious affiliation, had to cope with deprivation, bereavement, and hardships of all kinds. The unprecedented expansion of the state, however, inevitablycreated new sites of interaction between the state and society, transforming existing modes of interaction.In tandem with deteriorating social conditions, the increasing encroachment of the state apparatus into the Ottoman people’s lives strained the legitimacy of the Ottoman state, intensified the pressure on the government and the military command, andundermined the mobilization effort. This loss of legitimacy in turn posed a sharp challenge to the state’s authority and its capacity to maintain social and cultural integration. |
