This 'Armenia' and 'Trebizond' are Turkish majority. Combining Sivas with the Erzurum and Van Vilayet's gives a Turkish majority population of over 60%. Trebizond had a population that was 65% Turkish/Kurdish with the rest Pontic Greek and Armenian. This is laying down foundations for an ethnic cluster **** of epic proportions.
For Want of a Word – Stolypin endures
- Thread starter Stenkarazin
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This is great for Italy, as the Adriatic has turned into an italian lake. Control of the Otranto Strait was crucial for italian security.
But what happened with south Albania/ northern Epirus? I think in OTL there was an unofficial agreement between Italy and Greece, that if Valona became italian and Albania an italian protectorate, Greece would receive northern Epirus as compensation.
Yup, as mentioned above, this will become a problem. After the Genocide, few Armenians remain. Likewise, I think that a large percentage of the turkish population has fled west as in OTL during the russian advances. The remaining Turks have appropriated the properties of their armenian neighbours and in some cases have taken armenian children and women.
If anything, the Armenian survivors of the genocide that remained in French-controlled Syria, will return to their homes. According to Sykes, in December 1918 it was estimated that there were 80,000 Armenian deportees in Aleppo and Damascus vilayets. Some 4,000–5,000 children of both sexes had been sold to Arabs— bedouin, villagers, and townspeople— “along the road” between the two towns.
When the survivors of the ganocide return to their homes and find them occupied and find some of their children enslaved, then what? I think we may see a wave of muhacir expulsions of the turkish and kurdish population, as it took place in the Caucasus during the 19th century. The recent genocide and its still visible results don't help.
In any case, there would be a lot of empty land in Anatolia and the Armenian Highlands. If the Stolypinists want to alleviate the demographic problem of the rural population, we may see a large settlement of Russians in Anatolia. The surviving Armenians will be way to few to repopulate the land.
I am not sure what the demographic impact will be in the Pontus region, as it was not as depopulated as the Six Vilayets.
The only Aegean islands in turkish hands would have been Imbros and Tenedos, the others were already either greek or italian. If additional compensation is needed for Greece, it can be found either in the Balikesir or Aidin sanjaks.
South Albania / Northern Epirus: I forgot about it. Makes sense to give it to Greece, especially if they are to be denied Gallipoli. I edit the terms accordingly.
Armenia/Pontus: I hear your concerns. It's not gonna be pleasant. We can expect violent mass reprisals against the Turks who haven't fled to Central Anatolia + substantial population exchange + colonization. The next Stolypinian government is going to love your idea about settling Russian peasants in the Armenian highlands.
Aegean: I was under the impression that there were still small islets off the coast to Asia Minor to grab. Re Balikesir and Aidin: as mentioned further in the update, the Greeks are going to get some of it (I didn't mention them by name).
There is difference between being happy that the great massacre is ended, to justly being pround of the achievement or of the effort of the single or the military unit and frankly if i had lived through the event i will party as hell to indicate that the war is over or i will proudly show my medals...and having the social will and strenght to repeat the event less than a generation later.
Even in OTL there were not such great stomach for that as the Irish and Turk war of independence showed and in general the troops wanted to go back to their civilian life and be demobilizated and i don't take in consideration the monetary cost of such endevour; the communist had took power thanks (among other things) to the promise to end the war.
Sure there are way 'around' this like a revolution that bring a civil war, ethnical strife or terms that basically gut your nation and bring a desperate attempt to change it (if the condition are right) still this are more geard towards internal event and the more probable general attitude of everybody will be that unless we are talking about colonial police action or limited operation, foreign military adventure are not at the order of the day for sometime.
Sure, the continent in general is in better shape than OTL due to the earlier end of the war and no February Revolution with following RCW and this will mean that all the little fight/war that plagued est europe in the immediate aftermath of WWI will not happen, as the political life will be somewhat less bloody without the spectre of the communist revolution looming over the world (for the USA it mean no Red Scare...probably); still the situation in general is not that better and a lot of problem has not be resolved just put under the rug for the moment and ready to explode later
Well it's a way to see history, not a good one but still a way...plus the Ottoman Empire want to have a word with the gentleman
Re: Italy, well after all the outcome has not been bad, honestly the important part was to avoid the OTL diplomatic quagmire and humiliation like the italian delegation leaving and later returning...especially due to the fact that during Italy absence, the rest of the delegate decided pretty important things like the division of the German colonial empire and the distribution of German coal (let's say that in OTl things were not be favorable to Italy in that point).
Regarding colonies, well the idea is that if Italy don't get one she will see her present holding enlarged (basically what given in OTL, but unlike being ceded at different point of the 20's and 30's just obtained at the peace conference)
you mean that?
Venizelos–Tittoni agreement - Wikipedia
Well the entire political landscape is different and Sonnino will not give up anything willingly, sure there were provision in the London Treaty regarding a division of Albania between Montenegro, Serbia and Greece with Italy taking Valona/Vlore and make the rest a protectorate...but once the official treaty has been basically made null and void, Rome will insist as compensation to have Albania as protectorate with the 1913 border
Very interesting tl and I look forward to seeing where you take this. As others have said the Ottoman elements of this treaty leave diplomatic minefields all over the place which is going to be "interesting" in the medium term after everyone has got their breath back. Of course unless Russia shits the bed the balance of the power in the region is going to be considerably different from OTL. Not only do the Russians have allies, unlike the USSR, they are also going to be significantly more populous (a lot of people died during the civil war) and while they might be proportionally less industrialised by the 40's without Stalin's Five Year Plans they will still have more industrial capacity than OTL just because they are so much larger and more populous.
Improvement of the relations does not necessarily mean that two sides instantaneously “falling in love” as was the case between Hitler and Stalin (“I felt myself as among the old Party comrades“, etc.) - even in that case there was a long preliminary process of improving relations with Weimar Republic. The whole thing can start slowly with gradually growing economic ties and later proceed to something more serious without violation of the existing treaties.
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I wonder how the history of authoritarianism will be, if Mussolini doesn't get to rise to power, since fascism had an enormous influence on Nazism and other forms of authoritarianism.
An Anatolia that is not only diverse, but now will hold a large Russian population is really interesting. But how will alt-Turkey evovle, and what will Ataturk being doing.
Hitler/Stalin was the ultimate act of realpolitik, and Stalin himself knew that such a deal was not sustainable. His miscalculation was the time it took for German to severely defeat France.
The Hollernzollerns and the Romanovs, by contrast, don't really pose an existential threat to one another. It is possible for both royal families to co-exist with one another.
The point was that improvement of the relations and resulting political realignment can be a gradual process that starts with the reasonably modest steps and does not raise too many hackles. Getting contribution in “technology” can be one of such steps and selling Russian agricultural products to Germany - another.
Very interesting. Couple questions:
1. How Russia is expected to maintain its tiny piece of land on the Dardanelles in the case of “unpleasantries”? It is surrounded by Greece and supply by the Sea of Marmara is going to be unreliable. An subquestion is what Russia is going to win by having it if it controls Bosphorus? After all, her goal is not to let enemies into the Black Sea, not to expand into the Med.
2. Don’t you think that in that schema if things Greece steps on too many toes? Of course, the British backing is an important factor but it is not a guarantee of anything.
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Well, the highlands are really bad for agriculture, with few exceptions such as the Erzurum valley. However, they are basically empty land and such land is difficult to come by. It took a genocide and the gradual invasion of a foreign power to empty the land. However, outside of the Highlands, in Anatolia and Sivas there is somewhat decent land for wheat cultivation.
Quite possibly. But as I see it, the southern mountains are of limited value to Italy and can be used as a bargaining chip to get concessions or support elsewhere. What is important is control of the Otranto Strait with Valona and its bay (Sazan included). Now I am pretty sure that the mistress of the seas, a certain Albion, is reluctant to see other naval powers controlling strategic choke points. Fiume and Trieste will control almost all the austrian trade and a significant part of the czech and hungarian trade. By turning the Adriatic into an italian lake, Rome gets valuable economic influence over the former AH states. It makes certain sense for the rest of the Great Powers not to give a big hinterland for Valona to Italy.
In OTL, even without an italian Valona, the Powers were very close to give south Albania/northern Epirus to Greece. Now they just have much more incentive.
It is not what Venizelos wants... It is what the Great Powers allow Venizelos to claim. Moreover, from what I get, is that it would have been difficult for the Italians to simply seize Valona, as it was part of an already established state- a state established as a compromise between the Powers. It is not the same with Fiume, spolia from the rotting corpse of the AH. If a unilateral action in Valona is unlikely, the fate of Albania will have to be the product of negotiations between Italy and the big ones. As always, it has to be the end result of compromises, as Italy doesn't have enough leverage over the other Naval Powers.
And Russia starts without an industrial base and infrastructure destroyed by the Civil War. Even without 5 Year Plans, I think the 1940 equivalent will have much more industrial capacity.
If I may point to something that perplexes me, is the fate of Thrace. Turkey has kept the Catalca Forts around Constantinople. That makes the city indefensible and a hostage to Turkey. I think at the very least, Russia will keep everything up to the Catalca Line. The Russians may prefer a weak turkish presense in Thrace instead of a greek one, but I doubt they would value it over the security of Constantinople. If they get the Catalca line, then turkish Thrace becomes unsustainable - only if Greece doesn't get any part of the region at all and is thrown back to the Evros/ Maritza river, a potential turkish Thrace might be sustainable.
Likewise, a turkish Thrace without Constantinople or Gallipoli is of no value to Turkey. While they can threaten the russian Constantinople, the turkish part of Thrace cannot be defended against Greece and is basically a hostage. Neither Turkey would want to give such a hostage, and Greece would prefer to get the turkish Thrace as it had much much more Greeks compared to other places. Britain on the other hand, would be afraid that Turkey will become a russian satelite, and would prefer the region to become greek.
Lastly, in all diplomatic conversations in OTL, the fate of the thracian plain was a zero sum game: either the Greeks or the Turks would get it. In this timeline, the question would be that either the Russians, Greeks or Turks would get to keep the whole thracian plain.
Overall and respectfully, I am under the impression that this arrangement is not optimal for almost everybody involved.
Legitimate questions.
1/ Kudashev, embodying pragmatism, would have rather had only the Dardanelles and Gallipoli - and Constantinople being turned in a "free city". But.... taking into account the pressure of domestic policies, Trepov wanted absolutely to get Constantinople. Just imagine the ammunition he would have given to Sazonov and Grand-duke Nikolay (and the liberals) if he had returned without Tsargrad. It may not be important for the average muzhik, and many Russian diplomats actually knew since at least 1900 that it was quite worthless, but in terms of short-sighted politics in the rarefied air of the Court, presenting Constantinople "at the feet of His Majesty" is a huge win.
Obtaining both the Dardanelles and Tsargrad led the Russian negotiators to acquiesce to an uncomfortable situation around these possessions. For instance letting Greece grabbing half of Eastern Thracia and thus surrounding the Dardanelles.
2/ Yes, I thought about that after drawing this map. I think it can be explained this way: in their eagerness to not let Russia get Gallipoli, the British pushed Greece's claims as hard as they could. Which led Russia (and France) to offer Greece more land in Asia minor in order to divert them from Gallipoli. But I concede that this no certainty, and that Greek's gains in Asia Minor could be somewhat reduced. For instance the Cannakkale/Andremit coast facing Gallipoli could remain in the hands of the Sultan.
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>a red cockrel in the hint of dawn.
Personally a self deluded brown hen with bloody claws sounds more likely. Consider the extraordinarily limited nature of elected reds in bourgeois state crises. It has never been the Mensheviks, Socialists or Parliamentarians, the agrarian line Party leader. But the Petrograd Plant, the KAPD, the FAI or the Budapest steel youth who made the dawn red.
You’re much more likely to get a march from Marseilles by an ex red petitsbourgeois who’d identify brown in our twentieth to restore order.
Personally a self deluded brown hen with bloody claws sounds more likely. Consider the extraordinarily limited nature of elected reds in bourgeois state crises. It has never been the Mensheviks, Socialists or Parliamentarians, the agrarian line Party leader. But the Petrograd Plant, the KAPD, the FAI or the Budapest steel youth who made the dawn red.
You’re much more likely to get a march from Marseilles by an ex red petitsbourgeois who’d identify brown in our twentieth to restore order.
Good points.
Catalca Line: I draw it quick at work without really checking, but of course Russia's hold extends to it.
East Thracia: Thank you for your feed-back. I think you understand where it comes from: the reluctance of the Russian negotiators to see their Thracian holdings be completely enclaved in Greek territory. Also the idea that the Ottoman State would be beholden to Russia if only because it would need their permission to cross from Asia to what's left of Eastern Thracia. It seems to me that what Turkey wants is irrelevant in the context of the Peace Conference. The idea of a truncated Turkish Thracia being unsustainable would not bother Kudashev and Trepov.
But what you're saying about Greece preferring much more to get the whole of Thracia rather that more Asiatic territories is important.
In light of this, I need to rethink the stipulations of the Treaty regarding the Straits. What about this ? Greece could obtain the whole of Eastern Thracia, but then Russia would extend its holdings to the coast between the Peninsula and Constantinople, and Turkey would get to keep the coast in front othe Dardanelles.
It's also important to remember that the Treaty of Sevres in OTL didn't hold because the powers that had been granted spheres of influence didn't want to pay the price in blood to actually enforce that. Now the Russians probably can make their gains in eastern Anatolia stick but I really can't see the Italian actually making their chunk of Anatolia a viable colony and as for Greek Asia Minor the only way they are holding that is if a.) someone else takes large chunks out of the Turks so they face minimal resistance or b.) they get serious outside backing.
A Turkish Smyrna is a really hard sell for the Greeks it was a heavily Greek city with a heavily Greek hinterland. On Wilsonian principles they have a much better claim to it than to Eastern Thrace.
Of course, I am only talking about the Canakkale coast, in front of the Gallipoli Peninsula.
It seems that "by default" vacuum everywhere is going to be filled primarily by the ethnic Russians
but there are plenty Armenians in the Russian Empire, most of them living just across the pre-war border. IMO, they would be the first and most obvious candidates by the whole number of reasons: 1st, this is Armenia, 2nd, they are close, 3rd, they don't have too much land and would welcome an opportunity, 4th, climate and landscape in the Armenian Russia is not too different from these new territories and they developed agriculture suitable for these conditions, 5th, from the administrative point of view their loyalty to the empire is not in doubt (and if they have an autonomy, they are almost doomed to be even more loyal, especially with the Turks on the other side of a border). The Russians/Ukrainians (or perhaps a newly created Cossack Host) can fill the "gaps" in the areas you mentioned as suitable for wheat cultivation. But, anyway, the area is not big enough to be important from "Stolypinian" point of view: continued push into Southern Siberia and Far East and some migration to the Galicia and even Congress Poland (if wwi and the following "unpleasantries" result in a noticeable loss of the local population or if the post-war land reform results in elimination of the big estates in Galicia) are more practical both in the terms of the scale and in an absence of need to teach the Russian peasants to live in the mountains.
I think this is indeed the most plausible senario, where both sides don't get everything they want. but they still serve their core interests.
After all, Venizelos in OTL didn't even bother raising a half-hearted superficial claim on the asiatic shore of the Dardanelles. He only wanted the railroad to Bandirma in this particular region of Anatolia (and Smyrna and parts south of it).
I think that in contrast to OTL, the Ottoman Empire is completely broken. This is major. In OTL they surrendered only when their link to Germany was cut off with the bulgarian capitulation.
Italy has faced somewhat less carnage in TTL, so they can pacify their chunk. They will face only irregulars after all. So, short term they can certainly keep their colony. Long-term it is difficult without a change in demographics. A potential policy that helps in maintaining the colony is land reclamation in the malarial coastal regions along with expelling the current peasants towards the interior and forming small italian agricultural communities in fertile enclaves along the coast. Or perhaps, have an agreement with Greece to expel the greek minority (in return for e.g. recognizing greek claims in northern Epirus) and settling the former greek villages (most of them on the coast after all) with Italians. A generation later, Italian Anatolia may develop to an algerian-style decolonization conflict that will result in partition of the region. That is the best plausible senario I can see for Italy to keep a small part of Anatolia until this day.
The Greeks came close to winning even with a formitable turkish national army in the field and limited to none external help. Now, they will have no problem at all to pacify their chunk. Long-term survival of the expanded Smyrna Zone is based on the mutual exchange of population. As there are no butterflies to avoid it (you would need a different ottoman policies back in 1914), I think they will have no problem holding the place.
Motivation regarding Constantinople is obvious (and I already remarked on more than 50% chance of stupidity winning) but my main question is about the Dardanelles. Of course, as far as the demagoguery goes, if fits the narrative "we got the Straits!" (plural). But with Constantinople and Bosporus in the Russian hands who would pay attention to the Dardanelles? Especially in the arrangement when Russian holding there controls nothing. Well, unless Russia is ready to build a second Port Artur there and keep the strait under the Russian guns with even more guns facing the land side (
). The Russian warships can't get through the Dardanelles in the case of war (if Greece on the other side) and don't have any realistic reason for doing so and the enemy can't pass through Bosporus (which is much easier to defend even with Constantinople included). OTOH, it is rather difficult to imagine Greece going to war with Russian Empire, especially if its neighbors are going to use any opportunity to take a piece from the over-extended Greece. This would be one of the rare opportunities (I can recall only War of the 2nd Coalition) when Russia and the Ottomans/Turkey had been on the same side.You mean the Ottomans offering "come and try to get it"? Unless the Brits are ready to go to war for the Greece' benefit, this can be quite interesting scenario, which is similar to the war of 1919-22 but with the Ottomans being in a better position because Russian Empire can offer considerably more than Bolshevik Russia circa 1921 even if it is not getting directly involved in the fighting: " In 1920 alone, Bolshevik Russia supplied the Kemalists with 6,000 rifles, over 5 million rifle cartridges, and 17,600 shells as well as 200.6 kg (442.2 lb) of gold bullion. In the subsequent two years the amount of aid increased." In OTL there were British, French and Italian troops in the Straits zone but in your TL there are none (anyway, the French and Italian troops left when the Turks advanced and the Brits refuse to take any actions against the Turks). BTW, is there still Ottoman Empire or Kemalist Turkey?
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