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
Rise of the Ottoman Empire and vassals. When the Ottoman polity first emerged at the end of the thirteenth century under the leadership of Osman I, it had a tribal organization without a complex administrative apparatus. As Ottoman territory expanded its rulers were faced with the challenge of administering an ever-larger population. Early on the Ottomans adopted the Seljuks of Rum as models, and by 1324 were able to produce Persian-language bureaucratic documents in the Seljuk style. The early Ottoman state's expansion was fueled by the military activity of frontier warriors (), of whom the Ottoman ruler was initially merely "primus inter pares". Much of