The Entente Fails to Keep Turkey Neutral, 1914

This chapter analyzes the entente's failed attempts (after the July Crisis of 1914) to prevent the Ottoman Empire from intervening on the side of the Central powers. This case highlights key elements and relationships in the theoretical framework. The entente's goal was to keep a hedging Turkey neutral — it thus sought a low degree of alignment change, an easier thing to achieve. But the entente powers' high alliance constraints proved detrimental. For while the Allies (roughly equal in power and dependence) did agree about the basic goal and method of selective accommodation, they did not agree about Turkey's strategic weight. That lack of consensus impaired their ability to mobilize sufficient reward power. They did not combine the concessions to Turkey and each other that were both possible and, as it turned out, necessary to cement its neutrality. The case thus reveals the impediments to success that arise when highly constrained allies differ about the target's war-tipping potential.