After regaining Edirne in 1913, however, the Ottomans gave up on the Balkans. One of the Three Pashas said "We are like a man who had been robbed in the woods. He wants only to keep his life and pehraps his shirt; he will give everything else away."
"Negotiable". Russian nationalists certainly see themselves as protectors of Slavs (and Russian diplomacy was anxious to keep this useful status: thus why the Russians opposed the claims of their ally Italy in the Adriatic), and Bulgarians do have very strong sentimental ties to Russia, but Serbia and Russia tend to be Slavic Brother Peoples for as long as it suits their respective foreign policies. In 1914, letting Serbia fall under Austrian domination was a clear threat to Russia at the straits; but the Russians were ultimately pragmatic, and quite willing to let Bulgaria go hang even as they used its pro-Russian political currant to their advantage.
I'll remember that when it comes time to writing out the timeline.
This reminds me of the 1830s, which gives me a thought: why assume the Ottomans are doing this completely of their own accord? A weak Ottoman Empire could easily find itself a Russian dependency.
Hmm...true. How would they come to this given one or more Turk-Russian wars in the 19th century? Common goals/enemies?
The Russians had no particular desire to go annexing Balkan countries, whereas the Ottomans as I said had given up.
Indian Ocean access? Buckets and buckets of oil? Iran is a strategic place.
I just checked wikipedia (not the best source, just a quick one) and they discovered oil back in 1908 in Iran by the British Empire. If the Russians tried that, they'd get the British on their back pretty quickly. That could be a regional goal for both the Russians and the Ottomans - splitting up Middle Eastern oil, and give the British reason to defend it.
Turkey found oil in Iraq in 1927.
That depends on a lot.
But are the Ottomans going to join an alliance which looks pretty handily doomed?
I guess letting the Americans stay out for most of the war could let them gain an inflated sense of their own success, coupled with Allies who make little gains until then using the standard techniques of the time. After American entry into the war, the tide could turn with the influx of industrial output and fresh manpower from overseas.
I'm not sure it's that likely even then. The ragtag remains of the Ottoman Empire's defeated forces still got it back in the Turkish War of Independence.
Hmm...perhaps making 'The Battle of Constantinople' a big fight between the Russians/Turks and the Americans/British on the other side, using their naval forces and marines to storm the city and occupy it, then expelling the Turks could do it in the short term. If the Greeks were to hold it, I could hypothesize they would need to have American/British forces there for years afterwards to keep the Turks from trying to retake it, lest they force the hand of the British Empire or the Americans into attacking them. I don't see Americans at this point in time doing something of this magnitude - they were still isolationist in tendency, so after the war, I would think they'd leave the British to the city.