Perhaps, but they won't have the military fervour the Japans had after the Meiji restorations. Bengalis will mostly stick to trading, and will attempt to dominate trade in South Asia. Here's hoping us Bengalis actually build dams and dikes for Eastern Bengal.
A Destiny Realized: A Timeline of Afsharid Iran and Beyond
- Thread starter Nassirisimo
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- iran islam persia persia wank
That makes sense. Though here's hoping they don't develop a superiority complex.
Uhh yeah about that, we Bengalis kinda do have one. Not against other people, but other types of Bengalis. For example, I'm Slyheti, we make fun of the other Bengali dialects and regions.
Wait your really Bengali!? Wow.
Anyway when it comes to dialects, can they be categorized as analogues to English American Dialects?
Well in a way. For example, it's like Spanish. Every dialect of Bengali might have different words that have the same meaning, or a different way of saying it. We all mostly understand each and can communicate. Like I can't really understand Proper Bengali all that well, as well as Chittagongi. Similarly, a lot of other Bengali dialect speakers don't understand us Slyhetis easily when we speak.
Hey Nasser, how about this for modern-day Iran:
109,550,000 people
HDI of 0.910
Nominal GDP of $5.439 trillion ($49,656 per capita)
109,550,000 people
HDI of 0.910
Nominal GDP of $5.439 trillion ($49,656 per capita)
Not so well, though some of the ingredients are there. Iran had easily accessible coal reserves, though exploitation was sporadic and minimal even when it took place in OTL. Production of coal ITTL is nearly all for domestic purposes, and can be estimated in the thousands of tonnes a year, a far cry from pre-Industrial England's production which was over a million tonnes even at the start of the 1700s. Iran's exports were relatively uncompetitive even in the 17th and 18th centuries when compared to those of India, and were part of the cause of Iran's economic woes in the period. Overall Iran at the 1840s in the timeline is very firmly pre-industrial, with the main manufacturing being that of textiles and especially carpets. These are largely done either as household units or in guilds.
Very substantial changes. In OTL, a number of Islamic societies around the world were actually significantly less literate in the 19th century than they had been centuries previously, at least if some studies are to be believed. The Ottoman Empire of TTL is better educated than its OTL counterpart, but Iran's relatively high level of literacy will certainly have a great impact on its politics and societies as well as its intellectual development.
Bengali exports really were world-beating in the 18th century, and Indian Textiles as a whole were most probably the world's most competitive before mechanisation came into the picture. Bengal's government might not be the most efficient, but there is always room for reform, and the private enterprise of the Bengali people may still count for a lot.
That is if Iran manages to handle its interactions with European powers well. Luckily she is much further away from Europe than the Ottoman Empire, so she definitely has the time to reform as well as the resources, something she definitely lacked in OTL.
Perhaps not Japan at this point, but it is entirely possible that with the right set of circumstances, Bengal could be as far ahead as Malaysia in terms of development. Further PODs could easily have Bengal doing even better (in drafts for a discontinued TL, I'd even had the industrial revolution starting there).
One could always think of what could have been had Japan not wasted nearly two decades on a military build up that left tens of millions across Asia dead, its reputation in tatters and its cities as ashes. But I digress, a trade-focused path of modernisation is not a bad one, and Bengal has a lot of agricultural potential especially.
To some extent, everyone has a superiority complex. People from the next village over will always find a reason to look down at their neighbours (though the 18th century Theologian Yusuf al-Bahrani comes from the village next to my own family's, so we really have nothing over some neighbours).
To be honest, I'm not quite sure what the Iran of TTL will look like in 2019/2020/whenever it is I'll finish this timeline. At the moment, I've got up to the 1900s/1910s worked out for Iran very roughly, but the world could be a charred, irradiated wasteland by 2019 for all I have it planned out. It most probably won't, but you never know.
For what it's worth, the OTL modern population of the area the Afsharid Empire encompasses is around 273 million, give or take a few.
The Second Great Turkish War - 1845 to 1849
The Second Great Turkish War
The actual causes of the Second Great Turkish War were numerous. Primarily it was the rivalry between the Ottomans and the Russians that had intensified conflict, and the Ottoman victory in the previous war between the two had only whetted the Russian appetite for revenge. For many in Russia, it was felt that so long as millions of Orthodox Christians lived under the rule of the Sultan there was “unfinished business” between the two. The Russians also desired to seize the strategic Crimea Peninsula for good. While the Ottomans were definitely less expansionist in terms of their goals, they wanted to see Russian ambitions curbed, as well as their alleged support for Christian intellectuals from the Balkans who were beginning to call for a full separation of peoples such as the Greeks and Serbs from the Ottoman state. And although the peace party in Constantinople was stronger than that in Moscow, they were not enough to stop the Sultan from accepting an open show of submission from the Khan of Crimea on his ascension to the throne. It was well known by all in both capitals that such an event would be a casus belli for war. As the Ottoman Minister for War explained “If there is to be a reckoning between ourselves and Muscovy for the Black Sea and the Balkans, the present would be the best time to have such a confrontation while the international situation is more favourable for us”.
The Russians protested the action in both Constantinople and other European capitals. As Russian diplomats argued, what the Ottomans and Crimeans had violated treaties recognising Crimean neutrality. After the Ottomans had rebuffed Russian requests to affirm the neutrality of the Crimean Peninsula, the Russians announced a mobilization and declared war on the 23rd of April 1845. The Ottomans met this with their own mobilization a few days later, and their own pre-war plan was sprung into action. A relatively small number of troops would be despatched to the Crimea to avoid its ports from falling into Russian hands, while the majority of the army would move into Moldavia to block any attempted Russian advance into the Crimea. For their own part, the Russians intended to take the Crimea first before gaining naval supremacy in the Black Sea and enabling a southward advance down the coast toward Constantinople itself. It was certainly a bold plan, and in terms of its extent it was not one anticipated by the Ottomans, who were expecting a war in the Danubian Principalities and the Crimea only.
Initially the Russian offensives went well. The forces of the Crimean Khan were no match for their newly reformed forces, who more or less annihilated his armies at the battles of Ermeni, Bakhchysarai and Kerich. Within a month, Russian forces had seized most of the Peninsula, trapping a joint Ottoman-Crimean force at Aqyar, the main Ottoman naval base on the Peninsula [1]. However they were not to have an easy victory as the Ottoman General in charge of the defence, Djemal Pasha, proved to be far more capable than anticipated by his Russian counterparts. He had re-enforced the defences of the city with a system of trenches and redoubts. After a few costly attempts to break the defences, the Russians settled in for a siege, a difficult prospect as the Ottoman garrison remained supplied by sea. With their initial plans seeming to flounder, the Russians began to mobilize more troops though as both they and the Ottoman General Staff realised, it would be months before these troops would be available.
And so the Ottoman forces in Moldavia struck first, launching attacks on Russian forces in Bessarabia. Although initially successful, the Ottomans were severely defeated at the Battle of Beltsy, which saw the Ottoman forces lose almost 10,000 dead and wounded, following which they withdrew back across the Prut River. From this point on the Ottomans would adopt a defensive posture, holding the line in Moldavia and at Aqyar until the Russians would once again attempt their own offensives.
The Russian general staff initially wanted to break the defences of Aqyar, but feeling that the Ottoman forces in the Danubian provinces were weaker, the Russians sent forces across the Prut River, pushing back two separate Ottoman armies and capturing the town of Iasi in the July of 1846. However subsequent attempts to push Ottoman forces out of Moldavia entirely floundered after the indecisive Battle of Vaslui, in which both forces fought each other to exhaustion, leaving the field empty. As 1846 came to an end, Russia’s ambitious plans seem to have been shattered. Although performing better than in their last conflict with the Ottomans, the Russians had not been able to break the Ottoman forces, and were faced with a war on two fronts. Both the Russians and the Ottomans were rapidly heading toward bankruptcy, and as the year came to an end the Ottomans took their first foreign loan from a consortium of London Firms. The general expectation was that the war would soon come to an end, with the Russians squeezing some small concessions from the Ottomans which would leave the strategic situation much as it was before.
For the Russians, this was unacceptable. Instead, the Tsar made an offer to the Austrian Archduke. If only he would move his troops towards the borders of the Ottoman Empire, threatening to invade, then the Russians would accept an Austrian sphere of influence covering both Ottoman Bosnia and Serbia. The prospect of a sphere of influence over the rest of the Eastern Balkans was attractive, but Archduke Franz thought better. The Austrian Army had been recently reformed, and his Chief of Staff thought it more than a match for the Ottomans. As war plans drew up for an invasion of the Ottoman Empire in 1846 suggested, “With one kick of the rotten door, we could push further and faster than our predecessors had managed, and possibly bring the whole of the Balkans under our own control”. For Archduke Franz, who wanted to regain the imperial title that his father had lost, the prospect of turning Austria into a “Balkanmacht” offered the basis on which to declare a new Empire. He gave his assent to declare war on the Ottoman Empire on the 23rd of April 1847, to “restore order” in provinces which were suffering from increasing unrest after years of war.
Russian troops in Moldavia
The Austrian army, faced with only token resistance by Ottoman troops who were outnumbered and outgunned, made rapid progress. Five Austrian Corps lunged into Bosnia, with another four attacking Serbia. Within two months, Ottoman forces had been cleared from the two provinces and resistance from the population was lessened once it became apparent that for the most part, the property and lives of the Muslim populace was to be protected. The one exception was human property, as the Austrian army promulgated an abolition of Serfdom in all the areas under their occupation in the August of 1847. Although their advance was halted by command of the general staff as logistical issues mounted, the Austrian intervention had changed the nature of the war. Whereas the Ottomans could have conceivably held their own against Russia, the prospect of facing two European powers was a dangerous one, and the Ottoman General Staff were forced to improvise an impromptu plan as how best to hold off their new enemy as well as Russia.
A retreat from Aqyar was initially considered, but ultimately the Sultan’s general staff decided that denying Russia a free hand in the Black Sea was too important. Instead, the Ottomans took the drastic step of evacuating the Danubian principalities, instead hoping to defend the regions of Rumelia closer to Constantinople and reducing the territory they needed to defend. To both the Russians and Austrians, this appeared to be a collapse of Ottoman military power, and the Russians quickly occupied the two Danubian Principalities, placing two pro-Russian noblemen on the thrones of Moldavia and Wallachia. Even France, which had maintained a puppet government in the Ionian Islands for some years, intervened in the conflict on the pretext of preventing a general anarchy in Greece. French troops occupied Athens in the summer of 1848 and proclaimed a Greek Republic, governed by many exiled Greek intellectuals who had made their home on the French-influenced Ionian Islands.
By the end of 1848 much of the Ottoman Empire in Europe was now under occupation by the three European powers, all of whom were on the brink of hostilities with each other regarding the spoils of the conflict. At long last, the British decided to intervene in the conflict too, but rather than sending troops to aid the beleaguered Ottomans they instead proposed a conference to settle the “Balkan Question” that had emerged in the wake of the Ottoman Empire’s losses. There was a general sense of agreement that no one power would be able to take the place of the Ottoman Empire in the Balkans, and in countries such as Russian the desire to balance potential gains from the problems that would be caused by further war. After all, the Ottomans still had hundreds of thousands of men in the field, even if they were generally on the run.
In the end, the Treaty of Budapest was to be an effective compromise document. Ottoman Power in the Balkans was not destroyed entirely, but was severely reduced to a core area that was now around half-Muslim. The Russians were confirmed in their domination of Moldavia and Wallachia, the Austrians in their annexation of Bosnia and Serbia, and the French in their “Greek Republic”. Furthermore, both Bulgarian and Albanian States were created to serve as a buffers within the Balkans. Perhaps most interestingly, the Crimea was to be maintained as an independent state, but as a neutral state enforced by the British alongside the Russians and Ottomans, all of whom were to maintain token forces on the Peninsula to ensure the compliance of the other.
For Russia, this treaty was a disappointment despite the gains made. Her dream of a Black Sea empire was not to be, and her chance at domination in the Balkans had been seized by the Austrian Archduke, who had now declared himself the Kaiser of the Austrian Empire in the May of 1849. Indeed the Austrians were perhaps the biggest winners from the conflict. With minimal losses she had gained great amounts of land and prestige, and were now taken seriously once again following their previous defeats at the hands of the French. Although the populations that they had inherited would prove problematic in the future, there seemed to be a great amount of positive gains from the treaty. The same was true of France, which had turned her small island dependency to a nation of a few million, which France hoped could be moulded into a suitable model for the other smaller nations of Europe in the future. For the Ottomans however, it was a disaster, albeit not a total one. Her pretensions of being a great European power were finally shattered, her treasury was emptied and she had lost some of her most productive provinces. The intervention of Christian powers had produced a great deal of resentment amongst the Muslim population of the Empire, and began to give rise to violent anti-Western ideologies.
[1] Aqyar is on the site of OTL’s Sevastopol.
* * * * * *
Author's Notes - First of all, I'd like to thank everyone who has nominated this timeline for the Turtledove. It really is much appreciated!
For now it can be said that the Ottoman Empire no longer maintains great power status, at least as far as Europe is concerned. Perhaps just as important as its collapse however, is the effect that the war will have on relations between Russia and Austria, which have now become decidedly frosty. It's worth noting that the Ottomans still maintain a significant chunk of Rumelia, similar in size if not quite composition to the Ottoman Empire after 1878 in our own timeline. The Balkan states of TTL however are puppets of larger powers rather than independent states, and they may well be the site of proxy wars in the future.
The effect of such a severe defeat is likely to be felt elsewhere in the world as well, though we will see more of that later. Nor are the other Ottomans or indeed other Muslims going to ignore the fact that other European powers were happy to join the Russians in carving up a Muslim nation.
I was hoping Iran would get in on invading the Ottomans, aw. Fantastic work, though @Nassirisimo .
If Austria-Hungary could fight it's enemies like they fought their own people, they'd conquer the world.
Well with Serbia actually become part of Austrian Empire.. It may become problem for them in the future. Not to mention much of serb revolutionary will be against them.
Also what is the status of Bulgaria and Albania in this tl. Do they become fully independent or some sort of protectorate to the Ottoman. Also do they have foreign monarch pressed upon them?
Well it is disaster for the Ottoman but on other hand it will also force them to really develop their Middle Eastern province earlier than otl. Also the Army is still intact at least unlike otl 1878. But with Egypt remain in their hand they do still have some fallback for this disaster.
Personally I like for the Ottoman in this tl to become more of Middle Eastern states with Syrian and Egyptian start to fill important post in government.
Also what is the status of Bulgaria and Albania in this tl. Do they become fully independent or some sort of protectorate to the Ottoman. Also do they have foreign monarch pressed upon them?
Well it is disaster for the Ottoman but on other hand it will also force them to really develop their Middle Eastern province earlier than otl. Also the Army is still intact at least unlike otl 1878. But with Egypt remain in their hand they do still have some fallback for this disaster.
Personally I like for the Ottoman in this tl to become more of Middle Eastern states with Syrian and Egyptian start to fill important post in government.
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It's ironic how Britiains fears of a Habsburg Russian alliance of OTL, playing out in TTL.
While things look bad on paper, they’re much better than it would appear. The Ottoman armies were not swept away by the Europeans, rather they withdrew in good order and were never properly defeated. The Ottomans still have a lot of teeth, and it would behoove the Europeans to remember that they only won due to overwhelming numbers.
Why would the Iranians invade? A strong Ottoman Empire keeps the Russians from being able to concentrate on Iran, and vice versa. The detente between the two was built on this realization. To attack the Ottomans would only weaken the Iranian strategic position.
Why would the Iranians invade? A strong Ottoman Empire keeps the Russians from being able to concentrate on Iran, and vice versa. The detente between the two was built on this realization. To attack the Ottomans would only weaken the Iranian strategic position.
Perhaps an immediate and violent fall is preferable to a slow, inexorable decline. Though given how IIRC the Ottoman Empire has been aggressively reforming herself along the years, might a crushing defeat despite the reforms instead rile up reactionary forces?
This is interesting though. Given what we've read about the Islamic world so far (Abd al-Qadir's victory, a Sunni Iran, Naderist state building...) is this the beginning of a strong pan-Islamic movement? Perhaps similar and stronger to OTL's pan-Asianism?
O hai dere
Okay, seriously though? The fact that Rumelia is now a contested spot between Austria and Russia will mean a lot of the new states are going to be nothing more than puppet-chess pieces, serving the greater game of thrones. I can see some states adopting new titles just to get closer to their imperial patrons or crafting a new identity based on neighboring opposition, which will probably not end the ethnic tensions for a long while. I can see the Bulgarian monarchs (if they are a monarchy) styling themselves Emperor or Tsar to reclaim historical precedence, which will either delight Russia or rankle it, depending on who's on top there.
Besides that, I am assuming the newly-formed "Greek Republic" doesn't have Salonika, Greek/Slavic Macedonia, or Mount Athos?
EDIT: here's something interesting. The last Tsar of Bulgaria is still alive today, and he even became an elected prime minister!
Russians versus Japanese? Either way, you know that's going to be decisive.
One can't say what will happen in the future, but for the time being it looks like both major Muslim powers have their hands full, what with those encroaching Europeans and all.
I mean at the end of the day, they did have to ask for Russian assistance to destroy the Hungarians in 1849. That being said though, I do wonder what AH could have done in some wars without the enormous language barrier and such.
Bulgaria is for all intents and purposes independent, though the coastline remains in Ottoman hands. Albania is independent and serves as a buffer between the French-backed Greeks and the Austrians, though the monarch has of course been picked from one of the lesser European lines. All being said, the loss of the Balkans will increase the importance of the Middle East to the Empire, especially Egypt.
Indeed it's a huge blow for the Ottomans, but they still have a lot to fall back on, though their best bet is to find a European patron to secure themselves from further foreign aggression. Britain seems to be a natural partner for the Ottomans going forward.
Luckily for Britain, it can easily project power into the Mediterranean to prop up the Ottomans in the future and... oops.
I suppose one of the main things to keep in mind is that the Austrians and Russians are unlikely to come together again to defeat the Empire now that they realise it is more or less a spent force in Europe. Indeed it is far more likely that they will fall out over the division of the spoils.
Although the Ottoman Empire is too far gone to return to the situation prior to its reforms, it is likely that those advocating a return to an imagined past (perhaps people not an ideological world away from the defunct Wahhabi movement) will gain at least some influence in the wake of the Ottoman defeat, though the statesmen of the Ottoman Empire are competent and the army intact and relatively loyal.
Elements of pan-Islamist thought have been around for centuries prior to this, indeed OTL's Nader hinted at a pan-Islamic alliance between the Ottomans, Persians and Mughals which is ironic considering his two main targets, though in this way he really did parallel Timur. But I digress, as immense pressure from European nations begins to be felt from Yogyakarta to Fez, intellectuals and politicians from various Islamic countries are likely to see the banding together of Muslim nations as a natural tactic.
Luckily the Ottomans retain a stronger buffer for their most productive area around the Aegean, and the state is still more powerful than its OTL equivalent despite the reduced territory compared to the Ottoman Empire of the 1840s in OTL.
The new Greece holds Thessaly but not Salonika, Macedonia or Mount Athos which, as you can probably guess, will most probably lead to irredentism in the future. If the Greeks couldn't take on the Ottomans 1 v 1 in OTL, they really don't have a chance in TTL.
O hai dere
Okay, seriously though? The fact that Rumelia is now a contested spot between Austria and Russia will mean a lot of the new states are going to be nothing more than puppet-chess pieces, serving the greater game of thrones. I can see some states adopting new titles just to get closer to their imperial patrons or crafting a new identity based on neighboring opposition, which will probably not end the ethnic tensions for a long while. I can see the Bulgarian monarchs (if they are a monarchy) styling themselves Emperor or Tsar to reclaim historical precedence, which will either delight Russia or rankle it, depending on who's on top there.
Besides that, I am assuming the newly-formed "Greek Republic" doesn't have Salonika, Greek/Slavic Macedonia, or Mount Athos?
EDIT: here's something interesting. The last Tsar of Bulgaria is still alive today, and he even became an elected prime minister!
Even Greece and Bulgaria combined don't have the chance that the Balkan League did in OTL, which means that a further reduction of Ottoman Power will need the intervention of one of the great powers, but for now Bulgaria acts as a buffer between Austrian, Russian and French spheres of influence in the Balkans.
An important consideration. In OTL, the vast majority of Austro-Hungarian subjects were Catholic, and although there are millions more Catholic Germans in the empire in TTL (much of the Duchy of Bavaria is in Austria), the millions of Orthodox Slavs aren't going to help matters of cohesion much when nationalism really gets started in the Balkans, which it is very much on the fast track for.