World War I sounded the death knell of empires. The last Sultan Mehmet VI Vahdettin thought he could salvage the Ottoman state in something like its old form. But Vahdettin and his ministers could not succeed because the victorious Allies had decided on the final partition of the Ottoman state. This book deals with this topic.
The story of Ataturk ascension to power is also that of the founding of the modern Turkish state.
