Historically, the Khedivate of Egypt, under the descendants of Muhammad Ali, were able to turn Egypt from a province of the Ottoman Empire at the start of the 19th century to a "second-tier" great power on the same level as say Italy or Austria-Hungary at the start of the 20th century with Egypt being the center of the Arab world to this day, but what if Egypt didn't successfully modernize and fell to European imperialism? What PODs might be needed to prevent the Egyptians from modernizing? What would the impact of a failed Egyptian modernization be?
DBWI: Egypt doesn't modernize in the 19th Century
- Thread starter Whiteshore
- Start date
I guess the best way would be to have Thiers back down during the Oriental Crisis; the rest of Europe wasn't going to go to war with France over Egypt(especially Britain, already embroiled in the Opium War) so Muhammad Ali was able to take Ottoman Arabia. The Ottomans were carved up by the Russians and Austrians a decade later.
As for a failed Egyptian modernization, I guess you could see more of the Middle East under colonialism? To be fair the British did have some stuff, but they lost it in the Great War to Egypt. I'd also presume that no modernization means Russia doesn't get Tsargrad; that would have had some huge divergences, severely limiting Russian power projection. They did end up, of course, allying with Egypt to get transit through the Suez canal, and of course Russian support was key in preventing Britain from seizing Suez.
As for a failed Egyptian modernization, I guess you could see more of the Middle East under colonialism? To be fair the British did have some stuff, but they lost it in the Great War to Egypt. I'd also presume that no modernization means Russia doesn't get Tsargrad; that would have had some huge divergences, severely limiting Russian power projection. They did end up, of course, allying with Egypt to get transit through the Suez canal, and of course Russian support was key in preventing Britain from seizing Suez.
