Could the ottoman empire have survived and avoided the armenian geoncide?

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.

If they pass a metric button of reforms and exploit the oil found in Kuwait and Iraq, both of which would be in their domain, then yeah, they could rise from the ashes. I don't think they'd take all fo Arabia (they might just settle for having their allies, the Rishidis control Arabian land that isn't Yemen or Oman and they may possibly let Hedjaz live as kind a vassal or part of the Empire, kinda like how Scotland is with the UK) and the oil there should be enough to help fund their climb back.

My guess would be the Young Turk movement not get too much into power. Basically a constitutional monarchy where they could put in their reforms, but perhaps Aremnia is its own section along woth possibly Kurdistan. I suppos apply the US of Greater Austria idea to the Ottomans.
 

BlondieBC

Banned
The straits aren't closed until September 27 to merchant ships. So the blockade doesn't have to happen The Ottomans have choices- they just made bad ones

The straights were a part of the defensive mobilization, and are unrelated to German or Russian or Armenian actions. Once the straights are closed, Russia or the UK will eventually declare war on the Ottomans.

It is also interesting to look at the British troops that took Basra. Look at when they received their orders to attack Basra. Look at when they left their port in India.
 
I think a prewar PoD is honestly best for this. Something with the Young Turks getting screwed around with? Maybe an alternate first decade of the 20th century with earlier Young Turk Revolution that seeks the backing of Armenians and other ethnic minorities alongside reformist nationalists(in a "well this is a good way to say shove it to any who try to attack us"?

EDIT: But really a PoD in the 19th century could be good for both.
 
I respectfully disagree.

Many people who participate in genocide are otherwise very 'normal' people. It's absolutely a what the fuck . . . moment. This was true with the genocide in Rwanda, Cambodia in the '70s, and Nazi Germany.

If we look at things like bystanders who don't easily and comfortably speak up, then we might be starting to find about ways to prevent genocide. I mean, I view it like first aid. If people just have the skills, it gets the odds much more in our favor. In the Nazi Holocaust, the persons who were righteous gentiles and took risks to protect Jewish persons often acted for reasons hard to explain even to themselves, just like the people who passively went along.
Normality is not a factor, nor should it be presented as some kind of acquittal: an edict was authored, signed, and executed. An edict that resulted in death and destruction, in the near-complete eradication of an entire culture.
 
The Armenian Genocide is largely over in mid 1915. It was not clear who would win WW1 until the USA entered the war.
It was a direct result of Enver Pasha's horrible handling of the Caucasus Campaign, however. Ultimate victory or defeat aside, it happened at that particular time as Enver Pasha needed a scapegoat to cover for his incompetence and the Ottoman army's poor performance against the Russians. Avoid a Turkish entrance into the war or have them be better prepared and led (actually have boots and modern equipment, not have a self-dubbed military genius lead 90,000 men to disaster) and the genocide doesn't happen at that point (or perhaps ever, depending on the circumstances afterwards). Since the latter is far harder to achieve, just having the Ottomans sit the war out would be the quickest answer to OP.
 
Normality is not a factor, nor should it be presented as some kind of acquittal: an edict was authored, signed, and executed. An edict that resulted in death and destruction, in the near-complete eradication of an entire culture.

You might need to look over this:
The point is in that while an edict was completed out, it's just a matter of figuring out what is the problem on dealing with this.

But yeah, there still needs to be accountability.
 
It was a direct result of Enver Pasha's horrible handling of the Caucasus Campaign, however. Ultimate victory or defeat aside, it happened at that particular time as Enver Pasha needed a scapegoat to cover for his incompetence and the Ottoman army's poor performance against the Russians. Avoid a Turkish entrance into the war or have them be better prepared and led (actually have boots and modern equipment, not have a self-dubbed military genius lead 90,000 men to disaster) and the genocide doesn't happen at that point (or perhaps ever, depending on the circumstances afterwards). Since the latter is far harder to achieve, just having the Ottomans sit the war out would be the quickest answer to OP.

The ultimate problem I see in the Ottomans sitting out the war is that on some level, the War was about them. Or rather, on their former territory. Russia was eyeing it for its own and Austria-Hungary did not want the Ottomans to collapse (neither did Germany.)
 
Normality is not a factor, nor should it be presented as some kind of acquittal: an edict was authored, signed, and executed. An edict that resulted in death and destruction, in the near-complete eradication of an entire culture.
All the same, I still like the first aid model.

(1) Just in a half-assed, casual way, if people know just a little about CPR & AED, for example know that child CPR is often different than adult CPR, these citizens are then less likely to buy into poor justifications for killing (in part because it goes against the mental work they've already put in towards keeping people alive!), and

(2) The analogy of having just a few basic skills. For example, I personally believe there is scapegoating towards illegal immigrants here in my United States for the issue of the slow erosion of middle-class jobs. And then, if I have just the basic skill of saying "I'm not going to blame these people" in an easy, matter-of-fact manner, it does change things. It increases the chance of brief, constructive conversations (which generally, must be brief!), hopefully sets a positive example, etc.
 
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You might need to look over this:
The point is in that while an edict was completed out, it's just a matter of figuring out what is the problem on dealing with this.

But yeah, there still needs to be accountability.
Yes, point well taken. Adolf Eichmann was not a frothing villain, but rather a boring bureaucrat. He conformed to the system he found himself in. In philosopher Hannah Arendt's phrase, "the banality of evil."

The hard part is that the people who get admitted to medical and law school are typically the people who conform to school, or at least the people who learn how to game and work the system, and not waste a lot of mental energy on tangents and questioning the system.

And in general, the people who get promoted within a hierarchy are the people who conform to that hierarchy.
 
I disagree that preventing WW1 will necessarily prevent the Armenian Genocide. The actual causes of the genocide are much deeper. You can change how the genocide is conducted and the scale (arguably changing whether it is a genocide or an ethnic cleansing, but I don't think that distinction matters for this discussion) but unless you find a way to prevent Turkish nationalism and the Ottoman state seeing religious minorities as dissident you aren't going to change the fundamental cause.

By itself, no. The genocide of 1915 had been preceded by a large number of similar events. The Hamidian massacres of 1894-6 for example. The question becomes though, with an Entente victory can the Ottomans play Russia and Britain off against each other to get away with it again? The answer is a rather decided no. Without Austria and Germany to worry about, the Russians would be dominant in the area. Britain could do litle to help even if she wished and if the Turks are slaughtering people with genocidal fury, its doubtful they would want to help
 
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