Middle Eastern theatre of World War I began to push the Russians back. The Russians were successful along the southern shoulders of the offensive, where Armenian volunteers were effective and took Karaköse and Doğubeyazıt. By the end of November, the Russians held a salient into Ottoman territory along the Erzurum-Sarikamish axis. Sheikh Mubarak Al-Sabah, the ruler of Kuwait, sent a force to Umm Qasr, Safwan, Bubiyan, and Basra to expel Ottoman forces from the area. In exchange the British government recognised Kuwait as an "independent government under British protection." There is no report on the exact size and nature of Mubarak’s attack, though Ottoman forces did retreat
Transformation of the Ottoman Empire in particular suffered from heavy competition, and its commercial presence declined significantly, particularly after 1645, when the Ottomans and Venetians went to war over Crete. The English were by far the most successful European merchants in the empire during the seventeenth century, and they benefited from friendly relations between the two states. The Ottomans exported raw silk and imported cheap woolen cloth, as well as tin necessary for the production of military armaments. While in 1550 the Ottoman Empire was a patrimonial state in which all power was held exclusively by the sultan, by 1700 it had experienced a political