Otto Liman von Sanders
Dr. phil. h. c. Otto Liman von Sanders | |
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Ottoman Army | |
Years of service | 1874–1918 |
Rank | General of the Cavalry (Germany) Field Marshal (Ottoman Empire) |
Unit |
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Commands held |
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Battles/wars | World War I
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Awards | Pour le Mérite with Oak Leaves |
Spouse(s) |
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Otto Viktor Karl Liman von Sanders (German:
Early life and career
Otto Liman was born in Stolp (now Słupsk, Poland) in the Province of Pomerania in the Kingdom of Prussia. He was the son of Carl Leonhard Liman and his wife Emma née Michaelis. Carl Liman was a prosperous businessman, who purchased the lordship of the manor (Rittergut) of Schwessin (now Świeszyno, Poland). Although divergent details of Carl Liman's paternal ancestry are recorded, it is generally agreed that his father and Otto's grandfather was born to a Jewish family by the name of Liepmann and was later baptised a Christian.[3]
After gaining his diploma (
On 16 June 1913, on the occasion of the 25th Jubilee of Kaiser
German Military Mission to the Ottoman Empire and World War I
In 1913, like several other Prussian generals before him (such as Moltke and Goltz), Liman was appointed to head a German military mission to the Ottoman Empire.[1] For nearly eighty years, the Ottomans had been trying to modernize their army along European lines. Liman von Sanders would be the last German to attempt this task.[2]
On 30 July 1914, two days after the outbreak of the war in Europe, the Ottoman leaders agreed to form an alliance with Germany against Russia, although it did not require them to undertake military action, and on 31 October 1914, the Ottoman Empire officially entered the war on the side of the Central Powers. Britain and France declared war on it on 5 November, and the Ottomans declared a jihad (holy war) later that month, but the call for jihad failed as many of the Arab nationalists formed an alliance with the British (which led to the Arab Revolt).
Gallipoli
The first proposal to attack the Ottoman Empire was made in November 1914 by the French Minister of Justice
Liman had little time to organize the defences, but he had two things in his favour. First, the
From April to November 1915 (when the decision to evacuate was made), Liman had to fight off numerous attacks against his defensive positions. The British tried another landing at
Early in 1915, the previous head of the German military mission to the Ottoman Empire,
Sinai and Palestine
In 1918, the last year of the war, Liman von Sanders took over command of the Ottoman army during the Sinai and Palestine Campaign, replacing the German General Erich von Falkenhayn who had been defeated by British General Allenby at the end of 1917.
Liman was hampered by the significant decline in power of the Ottoman army. His forces were unable to do anything more than occupy defensive positions and wait for the British attack. The attack was a long time in coming, but when General Allenby finally unleashed his army, the entire Ottoman army was destroyed in a week of fighting (see the Battle of Megiddo). In the rout, Liman was nearly taken prisoner by British soldiers.
Alleged war crimes
After one group of 300 Armenians were deported from Smyrna, Liman von Sanders blocked additional deportations by threatening to use military force to obstruct them. However, this action was not motivated by humanitarianism, but by his insistence to avoid chaos in a war zone.[7]
Liman von Sanders has been accused of perpetrating war crimes in his dealings with the Greek civilian population of Aivali, by proposing to the Ottoman authorities their deportation "for the security of the army"[8] (the deportation did occur in 1917 and led to the death of many[8]), or by directly ordering, as an autocratic military dictator, the mass deportation of Greeks and Armenians.[9] British Admiral Sir Somerset Gough-Calthorpe accused him of being behind the deportation of 35,000 Greeks from Aivali "under horrible conditions", as part of the deportation and partial assassination of 300,000 Ottoman Greeks under his complete authority, and that the 1915 expulsion of 1.5 million Armenians and 450,000 Greeks was overseen by von Sanders.[10] Von Sanders was also accused of "deliberately" cutting a trench system through the British war cemeteries at Gallipoli[9] and of the maltreatment of British prisoners of war.[10]
British authorities arrested him in 1919 on war crime charges, concretely for sanctioning massacres of Greeks and Armenians, kept him for half a year on Malta with the Malta exiles, but then released him.[8][11]
Later life
After being released, Liman returned home and retired from the German army later that year.[8] After former Ottoman Grand Vizier Talaat Pasha was assassinated by Armenian revolutionary Soghomon Tehlirian in Berlin in March 1921, Liman was called upon to testify as an expert witness at Tehlirian's trial. Tehlirian was ultimately acquitted.[12]
In 1927 he published Fünf Jahre Türkei (tr. Five Years in Turkey), a book he had written in captivity in Malta about his experiences before and during the war.[13]
Liman von Sanders died in Munich on 22 August 1929, at the age of seventy-four.[1]
See also
- Hans Freiherr von Wangenheim(1859–1915), diplomat for Imperial Germany accused of complicity in the Armenian genocide
- Bund der Asienkämpfer (1918-1938), social welfare organisation for German World War I veterans who had served in the Near East and the Balkans
- Erich Prigge (1878–1955), adjutant to Marshal von Sanders (1914–19) and military memoirist
References
- ^ The New York Times. Associated Press. 25 August 1929. Retrieved 2010-07-04.
Field Marshal Otto Liman von Sanders, who directed operations against the British in Gallipoli during the World War, died on Thursday in Munich at the age of 74. ...
- ^ S2CID 154099517.
- ^ W. Rost, "Die Nachkommen des Wolff Nathan Liepmann. Ein Beitrag zur Liman-Forschung", Genealogie. Deutsche Zeitschrift für Familienkunde 29.2 (1980), pp. 44-51; F. Menges, "Liman von Sanders, Otto" in: Neue Deutsche Biographie 14 (1985), pp. 563–565; J. Jacobson, Jüdische Trauungen in Berlin 1759 - 1813 (Walter de Gruyter: Berlin 1968), p. 286.
- ^ a b C. Mühlmann, "Liman von Sanders", Deutsches Biographisches Jahrbuch XI (Stuttgart/Berlin 1932), pp. 180-89
- ^ P. Rance, The Struggle for the Dardanelles. The Memoirs of a German Staff Officer in Ottoman Service (Pen & Sword 2017), pp. 13, 40.
- ^ "Diriliş - Çanakkale 1915", Turgut Özakman, 2008, pp 230-250
- S2CID 72220367.
Liman van Sanders, the German general in charge of the military security of that zone, threatened the Ittihadist governor of the province with the use of military force to block the deportation of the rest of that city's Armenian population after one contingent was already deported; as the German Foreign Of®ce in Berlin supported the stance of the German general, the Turkish governor felt constrained to oblige
- ^ a b c d "Otto Liman von Sanders (1855-1929)". Greek Genocide Resource Center. Retrieved 21 May 2020.
- ^ ISBN 9780520289567. Retrieved 21 May 2020.
- ^ ISBN 978-1-7867-3123-4. Retrieved 21 May 2020.
- ^ "First Hun Held for Atrocities". The Evening Independent. Florida. 15 March 1919. Retrieved 21 May 2020.
He is known to have sanctioned Turkish atrocities, including massacres of Greeks and Armenians.
- ^ "Official Trial of Soghomon Tehlirian". Cilicia. German Government. Retrieved 20 February 2021.
- ^ Liman von Sanders, Otto Viktor Karl (1927). Five years in Turkey. United States Naval Institute..
Further reading
- Kerner, Robert J. (1927). "The Mission of Liman von Sanders. I. Its Origin". The Slavonic Review. 6 (16): 12–27. JSTOR 4202133.
- Kerner, Robert J. (1927). "The Mission of Liman von Sanders. II. The Crisis". The Slavonic Review. 6 (17): 344–363. JSTOR 4202174.
- Kerner, Robert J. (1928). "The Mission of Liman Von Sanders. (III)". The Slavonic and East European Review. 6 (18): 543–560. JSTOR 4202208.
- Kerner, Robert J. (1928). "The Mission of Liman von Sanders. (IV)". The Slavonic and East European Review. 7 (19): 90–112. JSTOR 4202243.
- Mulligan, William (July 2006). "'We Can't be more Russian than the Russians': British Policy During the Liman von Sanders Crisis, 1913–1914". Diplomacy & Statecraft. 17 (2): 261–282. S2CID 154327109.
- Travers, Tim (October 2001). "Liman von Sanders, the capture of Lieutenant Palmer, and Ottoman anticipation of the allied landings at Gallipoli on 25 April 1915". The Journal of Military History. 65 (4): 965–979. ProQuest 195631453.
- Trumpener, Ulrich (1966). "Liman von Sanders and the German-Ottoman Alliance". Journal of Contemporary History. 1 (4): 179–192. S2CID 154099517.
External links
- World War One.com Short biography. January 2006.
- "Liman von Sanders, Otto Viktor Karl". Hessische Biografie. 6 June 2014. Retrieved 17 July 2016.
- Newspaper clippings about Otto Liman von Sanders in the 20th Century Press Archives of the ZBW