AH Challenge- Immigration Reforms in the Ottoman Empire

Rudo Halifax

Banned
I want you to come up with a realistic plausibility within the Ottoman government to encourage Europeans to emigrant and convert to sunni islam as a "better alternative", mostly toward the younger generations.

The number of immigrants needs to be up to 10.25 million during 1878 - 1914.

German Empire: 3 million

Austro-Hungarian Empire: 3.7 million
(Mostly Hungarians, Czech, and Serbian)

Kingdom of Italy: 2.5 million

Tsarist Russia: 1.05 million
(Mainly Ukrainians, Russians, Tatars, and Chechens)

Also, what would the effects of having a large ethnic European population starting from the late 19th century to Early 20th century be in the Ottoman? Indeed, where exactly would ethnic Europeans have settled in the Ottoman Empire and how exactly would they have affected the culture of the areas where they settled in? What would be the impact for the economic workforce and society as a whole within at least a half-a-century after 1914?
 

Anarch King of Dipsodes

Rudo Halifax said:
I want you to come up with a realistic plausibility within the Ottoman government to encourage Europeans to emigrant and convert to sunni islam as a "better alternative", mostly toward the younger generations.

The number of immigrants needs to be up to 10.25 million during 1878 - 1914.
Click to expand...

People in Hell want ice water, too.

There is absolutely no reason for Europeans to immigrate to the miserably poor and backwards territory of Ottoman Turkey, nor can the bankrupt and rotten Ottoman Empire provide any incentive for Christian Europeans to convert to Islam.


BTW, a number of Chechens did migrate from Caucasia to the Middle East, fleeing Russian conquest. The British auxiliary force in Trans-Jordan which became the Arab Legion was initially recruited among Chechens there.
 

Falecius

Lampiao said:
It's just surprising, because something like that never happened in history. Unless you're counting on a Jihad or a Crusade.
Click to expand...
There was plenty of European "renegades" who entered Ottoman service (not always willingly ) and converted. This was most common in earlier period during the heyday of North African corsairs (the OE had somewhat more social mobility than most of Western Europe in Early Modern times): a couple of the most prominent Ottoman chief admirals were Christian-born Italians who defected and rose through ranks. However, a trickle of European adventurers and converts kept coming in later times.
 

Lampiao

Falecius said:
There was plenty of European "renegades" who entered Ottoman service (not always willingly ) and converted. This was most common in earlier period during the heyday of North African corsairs (the OE had somewhat more social mobility than most of Western Europe in Early Modern times): a couple of the most prominent Ottoman chief admirals were Christian-born Italians who defected and rose through ranks. However, a trickle of European adventurers and converts kept coming in later times.
Click to expand...

And there were plenty of Irish officers serving in various continental European armies. Does it count as Irish immigration? Well, technically yes. But how many people were involved? It doesn't sound like the usage of the word immigration in a historical sense.
 

Falecius

Lampiao said:
And there were plenty of Irish officers serving in various continental European armies. Does it count as Irish immigration? Well, technically yes. But how many people were involved? It doesn't sound like the usage of the word immigration in a historical sense.
Click to expand...
Well, perhaps not in the way it is commonly used... still, there was a number of Europeans who thought they had better opportunities in the Ottoman Empire than in their native lands and acted accordingly, a number sufficient to mark this a historical phenomenon of note. I'd say it does qualify as immigration, even it mostly involved elites (or unwilling captives, but I don't think we are discussing forced migrations here).
 

Mightyboosh5

during that period OTL there was a concerted effort to remove christians from the empire, i really doubt a million european christians could be accepted, even if they did all convert how much would they be believed?
 

jocay

Banned
The Ottomans IOTL historically welcomed Muslim refugees escaping persecution from the Balkans and the Russian steppes such as the Albanians, Bosniaks and Circassians to name a few. Here's an idea: have the Ottomans wipe the floor with Russia in the 1878 Russo-Turkish War. A decisive victory grants the Turks to retain control over Bosnia and Bulgaria, both potential hot spots for industrialization. There are coal, iron, wood deposits in Bosnia while there's room for light textiles in Bulgaria, etc. Domestic and international capital invested in Turkey finance the construction of factories and railroads but pressure the Ottoman government to liberalize its immigration policy to attract more workers.

Due to a growing mistrust that many in the Ottoman government had for Christian minorities, I don't see the Ottomans attracting a mass migration of European Christians to settle in their lands even if you require an incentive to convert. I see the Ottomans looking to make deals with the colonial powers in Europe and offer to exchange their own unruly minorities with their colonial subjects. For example, offer poor Armenians and Greeks to resettle in French Algeria in exchange for deporting Algerian Berbers and Arabs to Ottoman Rumelia and Anatolia.
 

HistoricalArthropod

Banned
The conversion part is asb, but mass immigration of Christians to the ottoman empire is not totally so. All it requires js the Ottoman empire has much better living standards than its Christian neighbors.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top
Top