Buffers, not Brethren: Young Turk Military Policy in the First World War and the Myth of Panturanism

An article by Michael A. Reynolds in Past & Present arguing that Young Turk military policy in the First World War was driven by buffer-state strategy rather than Pan-Turanism.

This scholarly article by Michael A. Reynolds, published in Past & Present, examines Ottoman/Young Turk wartime policy in the Caucasus, arguing that it was shaped by geostrategic calculations about creating buffer states against Russia rather than by ideological Pan-Turanism, which the author treats largely as a myth. For the collection it provides the historiographical framework for interpreting the political and strategic motives behind the Army of Islam's 1918 campaign in Azerbaijan.