AHC: Ottoman Empire keeps Balkans but loses Middle East

[Incognito]

Throughout the 19th century Ottoman Empire lost almost all of its territory in Europe. However, it hung onto Arab lands in Middle East until the final dissolution of the empire.

Your challenge is to reverse this: with as late a POD as possible (preferably one after January 1, 1800) have the Ottomans loose their possessions in Arabia and Middle East by the 20th century but manage to retain its territories in the Balkans.

[Elfwine]

Tricky, given that the Empire has much stronger ties to its eastern lands than the nationalistic, different religion, Europe-favored Balkans.

[Henriksson]

Originally Posted by Elfwine

Tricky, given that the Empire has much stronger ties to its eastern lands than the nationalistic, different religion, Europe-favored Balkans.

I think quite a few areas in the Balkans were majority Muslim under the Ottomans, actually.

[Falecius]

An incredibly succesful Muhammad Ali could strip the OE of most of its Arab lands. However, I think most of Anatolia swould remain in Turkish hands anyway (you give the easternmost parts to Russia or to some independent Kurdish or Armenian state, but it's not very straightforward).
The problem is that such a scenario would encourage the Balkan people to rebel too.

[Falecius]

Originally Posted by Henriksson

I think quite a few areas in the Balkans were majority Muslim under the Ottomans, actually.

Yes, but the region overall had a Christian majority. Muslims were relatively numerous (and still form noticeable minorities in many areas, and the local majority in most of Albania and Kosovo and parts of Bosnia) but did not have a solid bloc of continuously inhabited territory, except in Albania.

[Incognito]

Originally Posted by Elfwine

Tricky, given that the Empire has much stronger ties to its eastern lands than the nationalistic, different religion, Europe-favored Balkans.

Would there be any way to create "Ottoman nationalism"? You know, make people of the Balkans view themselves as "ottomans" first and Bulgars/Albanians/Romanians/Serbs/Greeks/whatnot second?

[eliphas8]

Originally Posted by Henriksson

I think quite a few areas in the Balkans were majority Muslim under the Ottomans, actually.

Bulgaria and Ottoman Greece where about half Muslim at this point OTL, I remember AHP posted an ethnoreligious map of the Balkans which had Muslims as plurality across the Balkan territory.

[Elfwine]

Originally Posted by Falecius

Yes, but the region overall had a Christian majority. Muslims were relatively numerous (and still form noticeable minorities in many areas, and the local majority in most of Albania and Kosovo and parts of Bosnia) but did not have a solid bloc of continuously inhabited territory, except in Albania.

This.

If memory serves from a map AHP posted a while back - there are quite a few areas that are a third or so Muslim, but not Muslim majority.

Edit: Which eliphas beat me to mentioning.

Originally Posted by Incognito

Would there be any way to create "Ottoman nationalism"? You know, make people of the Balkans view themselves as "ottomans" first and Bulgars/Albanians/Romanians/Serbs/Greeks/whatnot second?

Given the results of that in the Muslim half of the Empire OTL? Probably not.

Not definitely not, but probably not.

[BlondieBC]

You need a Muslim majority in the Balkans combined with something ripping away Arabia. You could have a Christian alliance to strip away "Christian lands" and the Holy Land. So say about the time of the Crimean war, have Russia, France and England attack the Ottoman instead. Russia take away Greater Armenia and Ethnic cleanses. Brits take Palestine and Southern Iraq and to do the same. France get Lebanon and Syria. Arabia is cutoff by default and we end up with a lot more Muslims in the Balkans.

[Super Cicero]

Originally Posted by BlondieBC

You need a Muslim majority in the Balkans combined with something ripping away Arabia. You could have a Christian alliance to strip away "Christian lands" and the Holy Land. So say about the time of the Crimean war, have Russia, France and England attack the Ottoman instead. Russia take away Greater Armenia and Ethnic cleanses. Brits take Palestine and Southern Iraq and to do the same. France get Lebanon and Syria. Arabia is cutoff by default and we end up with a lot more Muslims in the Balkans.

In this sort of scenario though, would Britain really get Palestine? It got it in WW1 because it was British troops which took Jerusalem, but if it was more of a case of - the Ottoman Empire is collectively defeated by the Christian alliance in the 1850s with it being forced to give up most of its Middle Eastern territories despite still being in control of them at the end of the war (like how in Nov 1918 Germany was still in control of many of its territories which were taken away at Versailles) - then surely France or Russia would be more likely to get Palestine, since these were the two powers in charge of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre (as the protectors of Roman Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy).

[Cuāuhtemōc]

Here's the map that Eliphas was mentioning.

[Elfwine]

Lots of Muslims, but not enough concentration of them to make a "Muslim Balkans".

[Falecius]

By the way, Muslims are to be counted against Christians, both put together.
I mean, Muslims are "plurality" only if you count Serbs, Bulgarians and Greeks separately, but then, you should count Turks, Pomaks, Bosniaks and Albanians separately as well. If you lump Orthodox Christians together, they would probably be majority, albeit the margin is little (i suppose there is not enough of Catholics and Jews to really matter, though some areas had a Jewish plurality). Of course, this map cuts out the two major Christian concentrations in Southern Greece and Northern Serbia.

[Westphalian]

A rather simplistic and very ASB-ish PoD would have the Ottoman dynasty banish the ulama and the dervish orders and convert to Orthodox christianity, from then on ruling with the support of the phanariots and the Balkan peoples. The devshirme is still practized, but the chosen boys no longer have to convert, creating a christian jannissary corps.

[BlondieBC]

Originally Posted by Super Cicero

In this sort of scenario though, would Britain really get Palestine? It got it in WW1 because it was British troops which took Jerusalem, but if it was more of a case of - the Ottoman Empire is collectively defeated by the Christian alliance in the 1850s with it being forced to give up most of its Middle Eastern territories despite still being in control of them at the end of the war (like how in Nov 1918 Germany was still in control of many of its territories which were taken away at Versailles) - then surely France or Russia would be more likely to get Palestine, since these were the two powers in charge of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre (as the protectors of Roman Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy).

Well, Russia wanted to change it role in the guardianship of holy sites, and this partially lead to the Crimean War. I was imaging a world where the three Christian powers reached an agreement to take chunks out of the Ottoman empire as a part of this agreement. You can just as easily flip the areas occupied by France and the UK or you could have some type of joint colony between the two or even all three powers. I was trying to back into the two things I think you need for the Ottomans to keep the Balkans and lose Arabia - ethnic cleansing of Muslims to increase the Muslim population in the Balkans and having European powers detach Arabia. The Arabs are too weak to do this on their own under most POD's. So a new crusade seemed the easiest way to do these two items.

I guess you could also do it with a Sunni Arab power somehow taking Palestine and Syria and expelling Shia and Alawites into modern Turkey. Or maybe the Egyptians could take Palestine and cutoff the Arabia, but you would need a second POD to get more Muslims in the Balkans. When I looked at ethnic issues in Europe and the middle East from 1890 to 1950, I saw a pattern where it is easy to keep an area if you are 55%+ of the population, but your normally lose it if you are under 25% even if the outside events break your way. The Muslim population in all of the Ottoman Balkan area was probably 1/4 to 1/3, so the Ottomans had a real challenge.

I guess another way would be to butterfly away the rise of Greater Prussia(Germany) and keep the Austrian focused on the Germanic areas. If we add in a second POD where the British/French help detach the Greek majority areas (Modern Greece and Smyrna) from the Ottomans and Ethnic cleanse, you can also get the needed population ratios. The question here is more do you consider the Balkans less Greece close enough to the desired objective listed. In many ways the Ottomans had the same issues the Austrians had - It is hard to run an empire in an age of nationalism and nation states.

[Elfwine]

And the areas they had the least trouble with that are the very areas this challenge is trying to remove from the empire.

Also, how are the Western powers handling this ethnic cleansing? That's an easier task to give them than for them to carry out - especially Britain.

Moral concerns being dismissed even.

[BlondieBC]

Originally Posted by Elfwine

And the areas they had the least trouble with that are the very areas this challenge is trying to remove from the empire.

Also, how are the Western powers handling this ethnic cleansing? That's an easier task to give them than for them to carry out - especially Britain.

Moral concerns being dismissed even.

Well, Russia did plenty in areas it conquered, basically at a tip of a bayonet. Progrom against Muslims was the basic mechanism. They either left or died, and it is an overlapping time period, so it does not seem such a stretch to me. All nationalities did ethnic cleansing in the Balkans. We have the example of the Armenian Genocide. We have the example of the Turkish/Greek population exchange. So for example, Russia conquers all of Armenia use similar tactics. We then move most of the Kurds and Turks to Antolia and the Balkans if we assume France/UK simply prevent Muslim refugees from entering Syria and Palestine. If we assume the Ottomans respond to the Russians by expelling Greeks and other Christians, we can then have France/UK respond by expelling Muslims in Syria/Palestine.

Ethnic cleansing often starts small and then grow in size as other nationalities retaliate. Take the Balkans. Muslims were massacred in Greece as soon as parts of Greece gained independence, and the pattern continued at a low level as Greece gained land. And the Greeks flat out killed entire villages too. Then the Balkan wars heat up shortly before WW1. About one million Muslims are expelled in a couple of years. Then we have the Armenian expulsion turning into the Armenian Genocide in WW1. Then we have the Greek/Turkish expulsions of the 1920's. You can use the same pattern, in fact a good POD for the war starting would be Ottomans expelling/massacring Christians in the holy land.

Or if you want expulsions without mass killings. Nasser expelled 200K+ Greeks in Egypt. Indians were expelled when Kenya gained independence. Germans out of Poland in the interwar years. Magyarization of the A-H empire involved encouraging people to leave. There are a whole menu of ways various despot and democratically elected governments have expelled unwanted nationalities over the years. Anything from higher tax rates and lack of civil rights to leave today or you will be shot to just shooting them to industrial scale death camps. Evil runs deep through human nature.

[Elfwine]

Originally Posted by BlondieBC

Well, Russia did plenty in areas it conquered, basically at a tip of a bayonet. Progrom against Muslims was the basic mechanism. They either left or died, and it is an overlapping time period, so it does not seem such a stretch to me. All nationalities did ethnic cleansing in the Balkans. We have the example of the Armenian Genocide. We have the example of the Turkish/Greek population exchange. So for example, Russia conquers all of Armenia use similar tactics. We then move most of the Kurds and Turks to Antolia and the Balkans if we assume France/UK simply prevent Muslim refugees from entering Syria and Palestine. If we assume the Ottomans respond to the Russians by expelling Greeks and other Christians, we can then have France/UK respond by expelling Muslims in Syria/Palestine.

And those areas were a lot closer to where the state had the power to do that than Palestine is from France.

And cleansing within your own borders is the same thing (as in, a lot easier to do).

France/UK are not really in a position to stop Muslim refugees or to expel large numbers of Muslims unless they want a considerable amount of fighting - and I can't see why they'd do that just to fulfill some bizarre objective. This isn't a matter of Serbia for Serbians or anything to them, after all.

Ethnic cleansing often starts small and then grow in size as other nationalities retaliate. Take the Balkans. Muslims were massacred in Greece as soon as parts of Greece gained independence, and the pattern continued at a low level as Greece gained land. And the Greeks flat out killed entire villages too. Then the Balkan wars heat up shortly before WW1. About one million Muslims are expelled in a couple of years. Then we have the Armenian expulsion turning into the Armenian Genocide in WW1. Then we have the Greek/Turkish expulsions of the 1920's. You can use the same pattern, in fact a good POD for the war starting would be Ottomans expelling/massacring Christians in the holy land.

Which they would do . . . why again?!

Or if you want expulsions without mass killings. Nasser expelled 200K+ Greeks in Egypt. Indians were expelled when Kenya gained independence. Germans out of Poland in the interwar years. Magyarization of the A-H empire involved encouraging people to leave. There are a whole menu of ways various despot and democratically elected governments have expelled unwanted nationalities over the years. Anything from higher tax rates and lack of civil rights to leave today or you will be shot to just shooting them to industrial scale death camps. Evil runs deep through human nature.

Evil running deep does not mean that the ability to act on it is strong.

If the British or French try something like this, expect rebellions. And why are the British and French going to deliberately provoke a rebellion?

[htgriffin]

Short version: Mehmed Ali of Egypt keeps the Levant and Hejaz. The government at Istanbul focuses all efforts on keeping enough of the Balkan Christians sweet for them to run off actual troublemakers without intervention from the Great Powers.

[Dementor]

Originally Posted by Elfwine

Lots of Muslims, but not enough concentration of them to make a "Muslim Balkans".

Not to mention that the map is very dubious and the only actual figures AHP gave before being banned contradict his claims about the Muslim population of the region.

About one million Muslims are expelled in a couple of years.

These numbers are not compatible with the actual ethnic composition of the region.