In 1882, the Ottoman Foreign Ministry established the Office of Legal Counsel (isti?are odas?) to deal with questions related to international law and international relations. This Hamidian era office outlasted the empire and was reconfigured within the Foreign Ministry of the new Turkish Republic. The Office of Legal Counsel produced with a wide range of legal opinions related to issues covered by both public and private international law, including the law of war. At the same time, professors of the Law Faculty at the Darülfünun produced textbooks and analyses of the law to war and the rules governing “civilized” warfare. In the lead up to the First World War, Ottoman lawyers within and without the Foreign Ministry assessed the war in Libya and the Balkan Wars from this legal perspective. This paper will examine Ottoman legal responses to the Italian invasion and occupation of Libya in 1911-1912, as well as the Balkan Wars of 1912 and 1913. Ottoman lawyers argued that Italy’s invasion of Ottoman territory was illegal and unprovoked. Lawyers focused too on Italy’s conduct of warfare and the use of prohibited weapons of war, such as poisonous and asphyxiating gases. Foreign Ministry legal opinions provided the foundation for the Ottoman diplomatic protest against Italy to Europe – a protest that European powers largely ignored. While Foreign Ministry lawyers issued opinions related to the conduct of warfare during the Balkan Wars, these opinions did not carry the same weight as they had during the pervious conflict in Libya. My paper will attempt to explain a shift in Ottoman legal thinking and argument from Libya to the Balkan Wars. Finally, I will argue that the years just prior to the outbreak of the First World War are critical for understanding Ottoman attitudes towards the law of war at the outset and during the course of World War I.