ABSTRACT
During the years 1898 to 1918, France made a vigorous attempt to strengthen her influence in the Ottoman Empire. Her expansionism, which involved a thorough exploitation of the imbalance of power between the two states, was primarily a response to the impact of German Weltpolitik on the Near East. For much of the period, French governments were convinced that a far-reaching ambition lay behind Germany’s growing activity in the Ottoman Empire, and their reaction was intensified by a broader Franco-German rivalry in which the chief arena, prior to 1914, was the Mediterranean and, thereafter, western Europe.
