Question

1. Who were the Ottomans? 2. Why was the Ottoman Empire called "the Sick Man of Europe?" 3. How were they involved in WWI?

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Answer 1

1. People of the Ottoman Empire, the superpower that lasted from the 14th to 20th century

2. Because it began to crumble

3. They were part of the Central Power

Step-by-step explanation:

1. Ottomans were people of the Ottoman Empire, the state which had control over the Southerneastern Europe, Northeast Africa, and Western Asia from the 1300s to the beginning of the 20th century. Through this period, the Ottomans were the immense military force and superpower that conquered all of the mentioned parts and had a huge cultural impact on them. Their peak of power was around the 17th century.
2. However, at the beginning of the 20th century, they noticeably lost their power and most of their territory. The Ottoman empire has now spread only in Turkey, Syria, Mesopotamia, and Palestine. People labeled it as the “Sick man of Europe”, meaning its power is crumbling and was nowhere near as important in Europe as it was a few centuries ago. People compared the Ottoman empire to the sick, dying men who are terminally ill and at the end of its life, as they realized the state would not last much longer, and it had nothing of its previous glory.
3. As the Ottoman Empire started to lose its power, it became sentimental about its previous glory. Enver Pasa, minister of war at the time, saw World War I as the opportunity to change this; smitten by the early German victories, the Ottoman Empire joined WWI on the side of the Central Powers. They entered the war by attacking Russia by surprise. At the end of the war, they were evidently defeated, and this resulted finally in the dissolution of the empire.