Germany
Otto Liman von Sanders
1855–1929 Head of the German military mission to the Ottoman Empire; commander, Fifth Army at Gallipoli, 1915
Otto Liman was born in Stolp in Pomerania and entered the Prussian army in 1874. In 1913 he was sent to Constantinople (Istanbul) to head the German military mission, charged with reorganizing the Ottoman army, and was ennobled that year, taking the name von Sanders from his late first wife's family. On 24 March 1915 he took command of the newly formed Ottoman Fifth Army, which defended the Gallipoli peninsula against the Allied landings of late April. Mustafa Kemal was among his ablest officers. The Allies failed to take the straits and evacuated, and some of the credit for the Ottoman victory is given to Liman's generalship. In 1918 he replaced Falkenhayn in Palestine and narrowly escaped capture. He died in Munich on 22 August 1929.