So...should a TL like this exist?WWI caused both of those, so yeah?
Ottomans go to war with Russia due to horrible delusions from horrible leader, horrible planning gets horrible numbers of people killed in the Caucasus Mountains, horrible leader blames horrible defeat on Armenians, culminating in horrible genocide. Ottomans lose war and lose entire empire.
So, easiest way to prevent that is to kill Enver Pasha (because making him competent is too hard). Just have the Armenian who saved him from the Russians not do that and you can probably mitigate the genocide. Killing him before he tried to get buddy-buddy with Germany and keeping the Empire out of the war would probably save it (no Arab Revolution due to British support, no partition due to not being on the losing side) and would actually make it even bigger once Russia falls into Revolution (just seize land then).
TLDR: kill Enver Pasha
WWI caused both of those, so yeah?
Ottomans go to war with Russia due to horrible delusions from horrible leader, horrible planning gets horrible numbers of people killed in the Caucasus Mountains, horrible leader blames horrible defeat on Armenians, culminating in horrible genocide. Ottomans lose war and lose entire empire.
So, easiest way to prevent that is to kill Enver Pasha (because making him competent is too hard). Just have the Armenian who saved him from the Russians not do that and you can probably mitigate the genocide. Killing him before he tried to get buddy-buddy with Germany and keeping the Empire out of the war would probably save it (no Arab Revolution due to British support, no partition due to not being on the losing side) and would actually make it even bigger once Russia falls into Revolution (just seize land then).
TLDR: kill Enver Pasha
The Ottomans out of WWI saves the Turks but it also saves the Romanovs. Without the Turkish blockade and the Caucus front, the Russians should win the war no later than 1916
So we have a post war world with the British, French and Russians the victors. Now there's little chance that this alliance could last with the German threat removed. This helps the Ottomans as they are in a good position to play the Russians off against the British.
Which means the Ottomans need to play out their neighbors into attacking each other, but it will be getting harder as oil is discovered there. So yeah, they must do something with that oil eventually.I agree that with the Ottomans remaining neutral, they'd be still there - at the end of WWI.
Now the really interesting question would be if they can keep the empire together even absent that external pressure. They had been picked at the edges by all comers, and they were creaking along in any case. So, I wonder.
Especially if we assume that with the Russians faring better, WWI is one or two years shorter, then colonial powers like Britain, France, and Italy might be less war-weary, cash-strapped and manpower-depleted; Czarist Russia itself would still be in the game, too.
They can still shut the straits and claim it's to avoid their use militarily. They could actually try to leverage that into aid from the Allies to modernize the empire if they get a shrewd negotiator.
Are the two linked in your opinion?
The Ottomans out of WWI saves the Turks but it also saves the Romanovs. Without the Turkish blockade and the Caucus front, the Russians should win the war no later than 1916
So we have a post war world with the British, French and Russians the victors. Now there's little chance that this alliance could last with the German threat removed. This helps the Ottomans as they are in a good position to play the Russians off against the British.
The Ottomans had completed the Armenian Genocide long before anyone knew who would win or lose WW2.
Turkish blockade happens even with a neutral Ottomans. It was a part of the defensive mobilization plan.
I respectfully disagree.I don't really believe that the term 'avoid' is applicable in this scenario: the Ottomans were the culprits, the perpetrators of a monstrous and horrendous crime. To frame the atrocities as a quaint accident that the primary executioners could have 'avoided' undermines the suffering and trauma suffered by the Armenian people at the hands of Istanbul.