AHC: Ottoman declaration of Jihad gets more response in 1914

It is largely agreed that the call to Jihad in 1914 in Istanbul did not lead to any sort of widespread response across the Arab world, or more importantly, within the domains of the British and French colonies, and while it did perhaps lead to more motivation on the part of the Ottoman Army's Muslim soldiers, ultimately the jihad was not really received with much enthusiasm.

Is there any way that this could have been changed? POD doesn't have any time limit, but I guess the association of the Ottoman Caliph as a religious authority seemed kind of empty by 1914, and any ways that fact could have changed would be interesting.

And if the call to Jihad is received with more enthusiasm, what effects would this potentially have on the Ottoman theatres of war?
 
It is largely agreed that the call to Jihad in 1914 in Istanbul did not lead to any sort of widespread response across the Arab world, or more importantly, within the domains of the British and French colonies, and while it did perhaps lead to more motivation on the part of the Ottoman Army's Muslim soldiers, ultimately the jihad was not really received with much enthusiasm.

Is there any way that this could have been changed? POD doesn't have any time limit, but I guess the association of the Ottoman Caliph as a religious authority seemed kind of empty by 1914, and any ways that fact could have changed would be interesting.

And if the call to Jihad is received with more enthusiasm, what effects would this potentially have on the Ottoman theatres of war?
Ottoman pan-islamism was well-received in British India and Dutch DEI in the late XIXth-early XXth centuries. The problem that the Ottoman Sultan and Caliph (from Abdulhamid II to Mehmet) never hid the fact that pan-islamism was a much (if not more) geopolitical than truly religious. For the Ottoman Empire, it was a way to show that they still had influence around the world, that they could have a real diplomacy with the tools of a great power. Ulemas in the Middle East knew this and thus grew disillusioned. Plus the CUP in power was very but very well-known for its proclaimed atheism and secularism (or was strongly suspected of it by ulemas) so the muslim world knew that a CUP Ottoman Empire proclaiming djihad was far more for strategic reasons than truly religious ones. All of this lead to the failure of the djihad of 1914 (except in Somalia-Ethiopa with "Mad-Muhammad" and in Lybia perhaps).
So for an effective djihad, you need a POD around 1876 when Abdulhamid decides to have a "real" religious policy when using panislamism thus convincing the ulemas that the Ottoman caliph is the real protector of islam. But this could lead to so many butterflies between 1876 and 1914 that the Ottoman Empire could disappear before 1914. Adbulhamid was widely despised in Europe for being supposedly responsible for christians massacres in the Empire (in fact he wasn't really responsible) OTL. Imagine the ITTL reactions if Abdulhamid is really really pro-islam while all these slaughters happen. Russia would be even more aggressive and perhaps even the UK and France would this time not see the gains of preserving the Empire if pan-islamism is used to create troubles within their colonies. The Balkans War of 1912 could be even more damaging for the Ottoman Empire than OTL.
 
He wasn't? Can you please elaborate? Links or evidence?
Abdulhamid in 1892 knew he wasn't that popular among European governments and he was quite lucid (and competent) when it came to political intrigues. So what the point of slaughtering 200 000 Armenians except for having to deal with the consequences of European morale indignation (even Jean Jaurès worte a speech against the "Christians butcher"!).
The fact is, in 1892, the Armenian minority in Eastern Anatolia was like many minorities in Eastern Europe: it wanted autonomy or at least maintaining the system of millet which garanteed their relative autonomy within the Ottoman Empire while Abdulhamid, following the political model of Russian tsarism and panslavism, wanted to centralise the Ottoman Empire and proceed to a gradual homogenisation of its Empire's population (meaning a progressive tukification at the very least).
So in 1892, Abdulhamid decided to send Kurdish regiments to maintain order against a minority which was beginning to become too autonomous for his taste: it was intended to be a police force which could of course could tacitly be brutal (and even very brutal) but nothing near organized and large pogroms.
The problem was that Kurds lived in Eastern Anatolia like the Armenians and while the Armenians were a relatively wealthy community (by Anatolian standards) with a high level of litteracy, the Kurds were still poor peasants. This plus the Kurdish fear that Armenian autonomy would lead to a Russian annexation of Eastern Anatolia led to the Kurds HATING the Armenians in the late XIXth century (and having a significant role in the Armenian Genocide in 1915 btw).
So the Kurdish regiments, whose recruits were mainly Anatolian peasants, applied the Sultan policy with far too much zeal and things spiraled out of control, leading to the vast massacres of 1892.
Historians now suspect that Abdulhamid never ordered those progroms but preferred to cover the whole mess and said nothing because admitting that he didn't control a portion of his army would have been a considerable embarrassment.
Abdulhamid II was a conservative and authoritarian (autocratic even) monarch like Alexander III, but he wasn't a extremist/militaristic nationalist like Enver or Talaat Pasha.
 
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