Why did the Ottoman Empire side with the Central Powers instead of the Entente in the Great War?
So I've been doing a bit of reading and it seems that in the years leading up to the war the Ottomans had better trade relations and diplomatic relations with the French and British than what they did with the Germans and Austrians. In matter of fact the Austrians had only recently in the decades earlier annexed Ottoman territories. The wounds were still fresh so to speak. With this in mind why would the Ottomans choose to side with the Central Powers and make war an a superior British force that had the Ottoman empire surrounded with their colonies of that of their allies? Why wouldn't they side with their traditional relations and try reclaim territories in the Balkans?
To me the Ottomans siding with the Central Powers confuses me a bit. It seems like they took the saying "keep your friends close but your enemies closer" to seriously. What was their reasoning behind it?
You're right that Britain and France were the Ottoman Empire's traditional partners, but the relationship was defined by very one sided commercial agreements which were known as the "Capitulations". The British even occupied Egypt outright in the late 19th century and turned it into a protectorate. Additionally the Russian Empire was one of the traditional enemies of the Ottomans and there was a whole series of Russo-Turkish Wars over the course of centuries. The Russians had a pretension that they were the successors of the Byzantine Empire and claimed the peculiar right to be the protector of Orthodox Christians. While the Ottomans lost a lot of territory in the Balkans, it wasn't due to war with Austria. It was with Russia and other Russian supported Orthodox countries like Greece and Bulgaria. The Balkan rivalry was ultimately between Russia and Austria. The Ottomans did fight with Russia as recently as 1878, and also fought a war with Italy in 1911 where they had to give up Libya. (Although Italy was also supposed to be a member of the Central powers, they did covet some of Austrian territory and ended up joining the Allies). Anyway, the outbreak of World War I was ultimately about whether you were with Russia or with Austria. The Russo-Turkish war of 1878 was the conflict which led to the reorganization of the Balkans in the Congress of Berlin and the diminishing of the Ottoman Empire in Europe. That was a fresh wound still. The Ottomans entered the war to fight the Russians in the Caucasus, and it was only later that the British and French opened up a Middle Eastern front.
The short answer is that at the time the Ottomans thought the Central powers were more likely to win and the Ottomans really hated the Russians. The allied power that the Ottomans brushed up against the most was not France or Great Britain, but Russia.