Otto Viktor Karl Liman von Sanders (17 February 1855-22 August 1929) was a German general during World War I.
Biography[]
An ethnic Pomeranian Jew, Liman von Sanders was appointed as a military attache to the Ottoman Empire like many other German noblemen in the past. With the outbreak of World War I, Liman von Sanders was made a general in the Ottoman army, which was allied with Germany against Britain, France, and Russia. In 1915 he made the decision to promote Mustafa Kemal to General and the two repelled the ANZAC landings at Gallipoli.
With the dismissal of Erich von Falkenhayn from command of the Yilderim Force (a largely-Turkish army under German leadership) in December 1917, Liman von Sanders took over the German and Turkish forces fighting the British and Arabs in Palestine. He was decisively defeated at the Battle of Megiddo in September 1918 due to the lighting artillery strikes of Edmund Allenby's British army and could not prevent the fall of Damascus on 1 October. Liman von Sanders was arrested in Malta after the war and charged with war crimes, but was later acquitted.