AHC Enver Pasha Goes to Sinkiang/Xinjiang

After Enver Pasha left the Ottoman Empire, he decided to help the Basmanchi Movement in Russian Turkestan to free, and unite the Turkic, and Muslim population in Russian Central Asia during the Russian Civil war, and lead it to glory (Enver was a Pan Turkist)

But what if instead, he went to Sinkiang, and tried to instead do the same thing there, and establish an empire in Xinjiang under the Muslim leadership? Is this possible? And if so, how would it go? Try to get it to work in any way possible.


Bonus Points if you can get some type of interaction with Enver Pasha, and Roman Von Ungern Sternberg Mongolia.
 
As I explained at https://www.alternatehistory.com/forum/threads/enver-pasha-lives.434010/ Enver was a flop in Soviet Turkestan partly because he thought the Basmachis cared about his pan-Islamist and pan-Turanian ideas. They didn't; they simply had grievances against Soviet policy in Turkestan, and the Soviets could therefore defeat Basmachestvo by a combination of temporary concessions (in connection with the NEP) and repression. Presumably he would make the same mistake in Xinjiang--except that his prospects there would be even worse because in Soviet Turkestan he at least had a major ongoing rebellion to work with. Yang Zengxin's government in Xinjiang was brutal but effective at maintaining power--at least in the early 1920's:

"Yang's main goal in Xinjiang remained the retention and enhancement of his personal power. He thus at first relied heavily upon relatives, his coterie of fellow Yunnanese and a personal army of Chinese Muslims. He appointed a trusted aide, Ma Shaowu, a Hui from Yunnan, as Military Commander at Kucha. He put Ma Fuxing, a commander who had helped him seize power and another Yunnanese Muslim, in charge at Kashgar. However,Yang was also perfectly capable of turning on his allies when necessary, as the banquet executions of Yunnanese officers shows. For example, Ma Fuxing installed himself up as padishah in Kashgar, gathered a harem of Uyghur women, manipulated the local economy to his personal benefit, and hung the amputated limbs of criminals and opponents on the city gates. When by 1924 Ma Fuxing s vicious despotism threatened to destabilise the south,Yang dispatched troops to arrest and execute him in a carefully planned coup.

"Yang Zengxin also recognised that in a region with such complex local and ethnic interests, maintaining centralised control required patronizing and balancing various elites, and allowing them, within limits, to enrich themselves off the territory under their control. Yang gave the Turkic Muslim local headmen (the institutional descendents of the Qing begs), nomad chiefs and the khans of Hami and Turfan latitude to enrich themselves from their populace. Though his writings reveal chauvinistic views about the non-Han peoples of Xinjiang, he did not implement any new sinifying policies or attempt wholesale replacement of local and non-Han leaders with Chinese. Rather, he played groups off against each other, as, for example, when he supported Kazaks against Mongols and the conservative Islamic 'ulama against the jadids [Islamic modernists--DT]." https://books.google.com/books?id=8FVsWq31MtMC&pg=PA182

Ultimately Yang fell victim to factionalism within his own provincial government and was assasssinated in 1928 by soldiers loyal to one of his dissatsified officials. But that was several years in the future and was not the result of a popular rebellion. It wasn't until the 1930's that Xinjiang experienced widespread rebellion and inter-ethnic bloodshed. There were "a number of small uprisings during Yang's [seventeen-year] tenure in both agrarian and pastoral areas, mostly directed at local officials over tax, corvee and other impositions" https://books.google.com/books?id=8FVsWq31MtMC&pg=PA187 but that's different from a large-scale movement like Basmachestvo.
 
Last edited:
As I explained at https://www.alternatehistory.com/forum/threads/enver-pasha-lives.434010/ Enver was a flop in Soviet Turkestan partly because he thought the Basmachis cared about his pan-Islamist and pan-Turanian ideas. They didn't; they simply had grievances against Soviet policy in Turkestan, and the Soviets could therefore defeat Basmachestvo by a combination of temporary concessions (in connection with the NEP) and repression. Presumably he would make the same mistake in Xinjiang--except that his prospects there would be even worse becuase in Soviet Turkestan he at least had a major ongoing rebellion to work with. Yang Zengxin's government in Xinjiang was brutal but effective at maintaining power--at least in the early 1920's:

"Yang's main goal in Xinjiang remained the retention and enhancement of his personal power. He thus at first relied heavily upon relatives, his coterie of fellow Yunnanese and a personal army of Chinese Muslims. He appointed a trusted aide, Ma Shaowu, a Hui from Yunnan, as Military Commander at Kucha. He put Ma Fuxing, a commander who had helped him seize power and another Yunnanese Muslim, in charge at Kashgar. However,Yang was also perfectly capable of turning on his allies when necessary, as the banquet executions of Yunnanese officers shows. For example, Ma Fuxing installed himself up as padishah in Kashgar, gathered a harem of Uyghur women, manipulated the local economy to his personal benefit, and hung the amputated limbs of criminals and opponents on the city gates. When by 1924 Ma Fuxing s vicious despotism threatened to destabilise the south,Yang dispatched troops to arrest and execute him in a carefully planned coup.

"Yang Zengxin also recognised that in a region with such complex local and ethnic interests, maintaining centralised control required patronizing and balancing various elites, and allowing them, within limits, to enrich themselves off the territory under their control. Yang gave the Turkic Muslim local headmen (the institutional descendents of the Qing begs), nomad chiefs and the khans of Hami and Turfan latitude to enrich themselves from their populace. Though his writings reveal chauvinistic views about the non-Han peoples of Xinjiang, he did not implement any new sinifying policies or attempt wholesale replacement of local and non-Han leaders with Chinese. Rather, he played groups off against each other, as, for example, when he supported Kazaks against Mongols and the conservative Islamic 'ulama against the jadids [Islamic modernists--DT]." https://books.google.com/books?id=8FVsWq31MtMC&pg=PA182

Ultimately Yang fell victim to factionalism within his own provincial government and was assasssinated in 1928 by soldiers loyal to one of his dissatsified officials. But that was several years in the futire and was not the result of a popular rebellion. It wasn't until the 1930's that Xinjiang experienced widespread rbellion and inter-ethnic bloodshed. There were "a number of small uprisings during Yang's [seventeen-year tenure in both agrarian and pastoral areas, mostly directed at local officials over tax, corvee and other impositions" https://books.google.com/books?id=8FVsWq31MtMC&pg=PA187 but that's different from a laege-scale movement like Basmachestvo.


So there's no way at all to get Enver Pasha to rule Sinkiang? Not even the slightest hope?
 
Top