The challenge is to make Qing Dynasty and Ottoman Empire major players in WWII, with PODs as late as 1900...
Is this impossible...?
Is this impossible...?
Problem with the Qing Empire:
Slightly hard to achieve major playerhood with a POD this late - even survival could perhaps be problematic.
Problem with the Ottoman Empire:
Hard to get the OTL WW2, as a result of problems with keeping the Great War reasonably parallell. Now, if we make it simply *a* WW2 - not entirely unreasonable to assume that naming could end up similar -...
The Middle East was a distraction more than anything else in WWI. I don't see how that war would have ended substantially differently than OTL if the Ottomans stayed out of it.
Hundreds of thousands of British, French and Russian troops would have been available for service on the Western and Eastern Fronts, and German efforts to subvert British rule in India would never have gotten off the ground.
I suppose it depends upon how one defines 'major player', agreed.China was a major player in WWII, a Qing Empire that muddles along a few decades longer would play much a similar role.
Russia will be differently. More so as it would be hard for the Ottomans both to block transportation through the Dardanelles and stay out of the war. We've had discussions of Ottoman neutrality before, and as it turns out, the resources expended on the Middle East wasn't everything. For instance, there won't be a Gallipolli, with all that entails.Yes, the Entente powers will win the war, just as they did IOTL. So no real change in outcome. The resources expended on the Middle East front was a drop in the bucket compared with the war in Europe.
Butterflies would immeasurably alter WWI which would mean any WWII would not be recognizable.
But it would still be the Second Great War, and thus World War 2...
Its all in the name
Best Regards
Grey Wolf
Yeah, the WWII didn't necessarily "Axis vs Allies"...
What I want to ask was, could the Ottomans and the Qing Chinese survive after the "Great War", or were they really doomed...?
And probably enter a third Constitutional Era in the early 20s, and become a nice democracy.Don't know about China, but the Ottomans if they'd stayed neutral in WWI could avoid the Arab Rebellion (which, as far as I know, was provoked by the Brits) and thus remain stable and alive after the war (even moreso when they discover oil).
China was a major player in WWII, a Qing Empire that muddles along a few decades longer would play much a similar role.