The presence, as of 1882, of German instructors in the Ottoman army had consequences which transcended the diplomatic calculations, both German and Ottoman, which had prompted their appointment. At least some of the instructors, and most notably Colmar Freiherr von der Goltz, the “Father of the Turkish Army”, viewed their Turkish hosts, and their own role in the Ottoman Empire, through a prism of ‘militaristic’ notions foreign to conventional diplomatic discourse of the period: a social Darwinist belief in existential competition between nations, rather than cabinets; war as the test of fitness for survival; and military success as a reflection of the moral qualities embedded in a nation of which the army was merely an expression. In Goltz’s case, a marked admiration for the ‘warlike’ moral qualities of the Turks persuaded him that the ‘Sick Man of Europe’ might yet have a considerable future in western Asia and North Africa, and, from 1899, would lead him to advocate a military alliance between Germany and the Ottoman Empire, to be directed against the British Empire. This belief in an Asiatic revival, encompassing, besides the Turks, the ‘Yellow Race’ of the Japanese and the Chinese, was complemented by anti-modernism and cultural pessimism about Germany and the West in general. Based upon Goltz’s extensive publications and surviving correspondence, together with similar materials from other personalities, the paper will seek to explore the moral qualities which Goltz identified as ‘warlike’, with specific reference to the Turks. It will examine the place of the concepts of ‘race’ and ‘nation’ in his thought, and how he applied to them to the Ottoman Empire, a non-national state. It will ask why he believed that an Ottoman Empire stripped of its European provinces would be better placed to expand in Africa and western Asia. It will further ask how far his views on war, army and nation, and also his positive image of the Turks, were representative of established thinking within Germany, and among other German officers with Ottoman experience, and how far these views may have influenced official German policy towards the Ottoman Empire. Finally, it will ask to what extent Goltz’s ideas may have been internalised by his Turkish military pupils and admirers.