For Want of a Word – Stolypin endures

[jessicajsscjs]

If you are the Turk leader after the treaty, which side would you try to attack first: Greece or Italy?

I would go with Greece, they are weaker and have more people there, if you let them have peace then they could stay forever.

Italian Cilicia is eventually going to melt with decolonization.

The parts taken by the Russians are beyond repair, unless there's a Barbarossa-style scenario or a civil war in Russia.

 

[alexmilman]

And this is some foreshadowing - love the image. A bloody red cockerel is a pretty good visual metaphor for Fascism. So does this mean that the Empire, having vanquished the liberals, will now fall to revolution from the Right?

AFAIK, “the red cockerel“ means a fire: “to launch a red cockerel” means to put something on fire. Has nothing to do with Fascism or any other political movement but surely means a trouble. 😜

 

[alexmilman]

I can see the tsarist regime abusing the Jewish community. But why expell loyal Greeks? This is tsarist, not stalinist Russia. The same I think goes for the Turks. Russia has more experience dealing with large muslim populations than the rest of Europe combined. The Constantinople Turks are an urban people after all, not raider tribals. I do believe that a major part of the turkish elite would depart, to become the rulling class in the rump turkish state. But a turkish baker would choose to depart? Unlikely. I think for the middle and lower class Turks to be expelled, a new war is needed. Otherwise, I doubt the imperial Russia will get a sudden case of stalinism.


That being said, the population will be certainly reduced, by a small exodus of Jews and Turks. This segment mau be replaced by Russians and gradually increase the russian population as the city's economy flourishes over the decades. But nothing as drastic as suggested. OTL policies and examples do not support this view.

The notion that all of a sudden Constantinople will be treated as east Prussia in 1945 is more than problematic.

Actually, even the Jews are not necessarily being oppressed in that schema: the Pale was created to keep the Jews out of Russia proper so that they do not compete with the Russian businesses. Constantinople is not exactly “Russia proper” so they are staying and are not worse off than, say, in Odessa.

As for the rest, quite agree with your assessments: Russian Empire had millions Muslim subjects and in the worst case scenario Constantinople for a short while may look similar to Baku during Azeri-Armenian clashes in the early XX with the main difference being a strong military presence and readiness to stop any violence by all means necessary.
The Greeks are probably better off than they are or would be in Greece and the same goes for the Turks comparing to those in Turkey so the number of fanatics on both sides is minimal and the Russian presence means both security and business. I suspect that even a big part of the Turkish elite is going to fit into the schema: Russian administration is going to need the educated people with a good knowledge of the local situation and weight in the community.

 

[HIM Dogson]

Nicholas seemed to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. Eager to see how the postwar plays out, particularly in Germany and Russia. Somehow I suspect Wilhelm III won't be an ideal constitutional monarch.

 

[dunHozzie]

I wonder how the butterflies impact the both the interbellum and ww2. Russia needs further modernization, both to be able to fund ww2 and to have the industrial capacity to fight it. Alix needs to go and fast, preferably Nicky too. I'm hoping for a stroke and a regency from Stolypin to survive the great depression. Then hopefully we've got enough time to mine the crap out of the west of Poland so Barbarossa will be delayed. A second clash to me at this points seems to be unavoidable, though its still murky what political system and what the alliances will be.

I'm kinda hoping on an USA - Russian Empire alliance when the regency happens (if it does).

Anyway, very interesting, watched

 

[Stenkarazin]

Actually, this looks much more sensible. Of course, I'm expressing strictly my own opinion and not necessarily one of your (as TL's author) Tsarist government.

On the European side Russia gets a defensible perimeter, Asiatic side should not be a problem (unless Turkey goes suicidal), gone is Galipolli piece which would be, excuse my Polish (and possible problem with windows translator) "więcej śmierdzi niż przyjemności" . Taking into an account a new Russian-Turkish border in Anatolia, the Bosporus area is almost within a spitting distance from "Trebizond" and if needed the military presence can be easily boosted both by land and by the sea. OTOH, the European side is not big enough to warrant a major permanent military presence and overly expensive fortifications. Strategically, situation is ideal for Russia and diplomatically it provides an opportunity for bitching and complaining about being betrayed by the ungrateful allies to boost interests of Greece which hardly contributed anything of substance to the issue (and whatever other PR blahblahblah that is convenient at the specific moment). Bulgaria may be happy to get easy from WWI (thanks to the "Big Slavic Brother") but how long would it take to start bitching about not getting the Eastern Tharce (OTL piece)? Of course, it would take a while and at least Russian friendly neutrality would be required but on your map this piece is rather difficult to defend: a narrow strip between it and the rest of Greece makes it easy to cut off the territory. One more "Balkan War" with no need of a further escalation... So soon enough the area is ready to become a small powder keg again even with Russia not moving a finger (*).

The main purpose of controlling Bosporus is achieved and and propaganda piece, Constantinople is in the Russian hands: Church-sponsored celebrations regarding putting the cross back of St. Sophia (documentaries are made and shown in all Russian cinemas), augmented with the abolishment of the prohibition are doomed to produce a huge enthusiasm (with a following hangover and its curing by drinking more, which is an important part of a process) in the masses and a good boost of the state income if government is not abolishing state monopoly immediately. For the educated classes, there could be the eyewitnesses' accounts gushing over the ceremony and the properly stimulated poets can add their hare: Mayakovski comes to mind as being both talented and not too expensive to buy but there can be some sincere voices as well, perhaps Gumilev, if he survives fighting, and who knows, maybe Block is going to find some mysterious meaning in the event. The lesser figures also would contribute (expenses on them would be minimal). Surely, "Alieshka" Tolstoy is available and willing to write a series of the short stories and then the whole book on the subject (he is slightly more expensive but not prohibitively so and has absolutely no scruples).

Probably some propaganda regarding the not-too-good Greeks has to be initiated but with a careful avoidance of the association with the Russian Greeks: relations with Britain are as always getting sourced (even if neither side can clearly explain over what exactly) and Greece is the British client and is getting too ambitious so perhaps it is time to start balancing it by not allowing to oppress too much the poor Turks. IIRC, in OTL Italy also had some issues with Greece. Are they gone in your TL?

___________
(*) As it was in "Rui Blas": I did not touch Carlos [while he was robbed] just was helping with an advice....

1/ Of course this is OTL speaking, but I cannot stomach those bolchevizan of Mayakovsky and A. Tolstoy. Gumilev fits the bill, though. As hinted in one earlier update, people like Pilnyak, Biely and Blok will go further the path of mysticism and "scythism",... towards "Muscovism". People like Bunin, Nabokov and Khodassievich are going to feel increasingly isolated in the artistic/cultural atmosphere taking hold in the 20's-30's.

2/ Greece-Italy: tensions are sure to re-surface before long.

 

[Sarthak]

Hm this is a question it seems i raised too late but still why not?
In early 1917 Britain raised the issue with Nepal and Russia of sending a Gurkha expeditionary force to Russia to fight in Russia in the eastern front. Nepal agreed, why not they were a British puppet at this time, and started a massive recruitment spree and training spree that would see around 70,000 Gurkha troops in Russia by early 1918 at latest. Of course the october revolution kind of decimated that plan and the 70,000 troops were sent to africa and the western front instead. What happened to them ittl? Gurkha cultural remnants in Russia would be kinda awesome, not gonna lie.

 

[Stenkarazin]

Thanks for the map. Maps always make treaties and similar much clearer than lists of territories.

We seem to have wound up with the classic peace that satisfies nobody. Well, I imagine the British are fairly satisfied - they've got what they came for - Sykes-Picot plus friendly control of the Dardanelles, while staying well clear of the snake-pit of Anatolia.

I said the Turks would be utterly screwed and they have been. They may be too weak to contest it immediately, but the Turkish perspective this is a bayonet-point peace that leaves their state essentially destroyed and millions of Turks under foreign rule. The Ottoman Sultanate is finished, probably even if the Russians or someone try to prop it up as a bulwark against the nationalist hardliners. Following the surrender of Istanbul, the Sultan's prestige will be less than zero, and neither the government nor the army was listening to him anyway. I wouldn't be quite so quick to write off the Turkish army - we've been told TTL that the British pushed the Turks out of Syria/Iraq but not that the 4th, 7th and 8th Armies were destroyed as in OTL 1918, so they may have some cadre to rebuild around. Still, I agree that they're unlikely to be able to take on the Greeks, much less the Russians, without time to rebuild, or a lot of outside help.

In the longer run, Turkish nationalism, revanchism and possibly fundamentalism are going to be and ongoing issue. Anatolia & Thrace still contain a lot more Turks than they do Greeks, Armenians, Russians, Assyrians, Kurds or anyone else. If the Greek or Russians manage to force through "population exchange" based on the current borders, they could very easily setup a large scale "Palestinian" situation, with millions of Turks living in permanent "refugee camps", raising their children on stories of the homelands they were expelled from...

The Greeks have bitten off a lot, maybe more than they can digest. There are a lot of Turks in Thrace, and while Smyrna itself is heavily Greek, the surrounding hinterland mostly isn't - and it's not really possible to hold the city without the hinterland. The Greek economy isn't strong - how long can they afford to stay on a war footing in Anatolia? As long as the Russian back them, they're fine - but is Russian support guaranteed? The Greeks have also taken on the previously Ottoman position of being the buffer between Britain and Russia in the Straits. Which is fine as long as the two don't quarrel and force you to pick a side. If the Greeks fall out with Russia, things could go downhill fast - but being a Russian puppet doesn't appeal either. And there are bound to be some nationalist hotheads who are still claiming Constantinople as the True Greek Capital.

The Russians have got Tsargrad - a large, potentially wealthy city inhabited by two groups of people neither of whom want them there - and a swathe of land in the North-East inhabited mostly by Turks and Armenian ghosts. Unless the Empire falls apart completely, keeping the Turks from conquering them back should be relatively simple - though low-level insurgency is likely to be an ongoing problem in Armenia - but making use of them is something else. Moving in settlers from Russian Armenia looks an obvious play - do they try to Russify the area as well? Ans what do they do with Tsargrad - the great Orthodox Holy City, inhabited by fellow-Orthodox who resent them, and Muslims who hate them outright? Try to make common cause with the Greeks? Encourage the Greeks to emigrate to Greece while styling themselves protectors of the Muslims? Rule the place as a colonial outpost and don't bother trying to build up local support?

The French and Italians have got large "special interest zones", which are mostly dirt-poor, underdeveloped and full of people who hate them. Expect the French to scale back and concentrate on Lebanon/Damascus once the costs and lack of benefits of holding Cilicia become obvious. The Italians might do the same, or some nationalist leader might decide that simply walking away from their conquests is politically unacceptable and throw resources into trying to turn it into a proper colony. Long-term, the best that's going to get them is their own version of the Algerian War, but they can mess up things quite a lot in the short term.


And this is some foreshadowing - love the image. A bloody red cockerel is a pretty good visual metaphor for Fascism. So does this mean that the Empire, having vanquished the liberals, will now fall to revolution from the Right?

Thanks ! Very good observations.

1/ Turkey: there will be a TTL version of the National Turkish Movement and Kemal, pretty similar to OTL (only difference being their start position which is quite precarious). I mean, whatever the odds, Turkish nationalists have to try something. If only they can exploit growing dissensions between erstwhile Allies... Not to say that they can reverse all of Sevres, but they can at least try to reverse some of it. They have to be extremely cautious and wily, but they also have to act fast: once mass population exchanges (or deportations) start, the window to get back some of Anatolia will close.

2/ You're right about Greece, especially since the rift between Royalists and Venizelists is going to come back with a vengeance now that the war is over. Expect a domestic political crisis which will paralyze or disrupt Greece's foreign policy / priorities.

3/ Honestly, these Italian and French zones are as impractical on the long run as they were IOTL.

4/ Russian internal affairs: I am not sure of the particulars yet, but I reckon liberals will have their moment in the sun: sobered up liberals, working together with moderate conservative bureaucrats. But for that to happen, we need some change at the highest echelons.

 

[Stenkarazin]

Hm this is a question it seems i raised too late but still why not?
In early 1917 Britain raised the issue with Nepal and Russia of sending a Gurkha expeditionary force to Russia to fight in Russia in the eastern front. Nepal agreed, why not they were a British puppet at this time, and started a massive recruitment spree and training spree that would see around 70,000 Gurkha troops in Russia by early 1918 at latest. Of course the october revolution kind of decimated that plan and the 70,000 troops were sent to africa and the western front instead. What happened to them ittl? Gurkha cultural remnants in Russia would be kinda awesome, not gonna lie.

That's interesting ! I didn't know that. It would give some ideas to people à la Ignatiev who are still entertaining wild dreams about a Russian invasion of the Sub-continent...

 

[Stenkarazin]

With the return of Constantinople to Orthodox hands would future coronation ceremonies now be held in St Sofia? Also how was Tsargrad chosen as the new name for Constantinople or was that the traditional Russian term for the city?

Interesting question. Constantinople will still be called Constantinople, Tsargrad being more of a cultural Slavic reference which is going to pop up in the press, the political discourse etc.

I don't think that coronations would take place in Hagia Sophia, but of course Russian officials and Romanov are going to be frequent visitors... which will unfortunately cause trouble on the religious side.

 

[Stenkarazin]

That's always an interesting question given how politically loaded it was. What follows is my estimate from cross-checking Karpat, Alexandris and the data of the post war Greek and Turkish censuses, plus Petzopoulos and older sources. Take it with as much of a grain of salt as you'd like but to wear my engineering number crunching hat it fits the observable data better, than blindly following either side. (yes I'm proud of it )

West Thrace: Muslim majority. All sources agree to that. ~185,000 from the Greek 1920 census. ~103,000 of these perhaps a bit more are Muslim.
East Thrace: Greek Majority. ~519,000 people per the Greek 1920 census. ~290,000 Greek, ~187,000 Muslim plus about 42,000 Jews and Armenians. Circa 50,000 Bulgarians there before 1914 had been already exchanged with about as many Muslims by 1914. Karpat puts the total number of Greeks lower at about 224,000 in 1914 and Muslim numbers similarly higher but both the Greek and Turkish censuses of 1927 and 1928 support the figures here.
Smyrna zone: That's a more difficult question. Petzopoulos based on older sources gave a clear Greek majority (about 550,000 Greeks IMS). Karpat a clear Turkish majority. (again from memory about 320,000 Greeks). First number is too high, second too low. As far as I can say there was a much less pronounced Greek plurality, of somewhat more than 450,000 Greeks, a bit fewer Turks and about 108,000 Armenians, Jews and foreign nationals. Geography is pretty crucial here as well. There are large Greek concentrations in Smyrna itself and the coastal areas, Kydonies/Aivali for example is over 90% Greek, the reverse the further inland you go.

If I was a betting man, I'd say the Greeks and Turks will be signing a "voluntary" population exchange in the not too distant future TTL. I just can't see the Greeks in the parts of Anatolia still under Ottoman control feeling very welcome at the moment...

Thanks, very useful.

The thing I am not too clear on is the timeline of such population exchanges: immediately after the Treaty, or on the course of a few years ? It also depends on Kemal & co's endeavours in the immediate aftermath of Sevres.

 

[Stenkarazin]

If you are the Turk leader after the treaty, which side would you try to attack first: Greece or Italy?

I would go with Greece, they are weaker and have more people there, if you let them have peace then they could stay forever.

Italian Cilicia is eventually going to melt with decolonization.

The parts taken by the Russians are beyond repair, unless there's a Barbarossa-style scenario or a civil war in Russia.

I am under the impression that Kemal was a realistic man. Once the Sultan is out of the picture (remember he is in Bursa, not in Constantinople, so it's easier to reach him and depose him), it would indeed make sense to focus military efforts against Greek-held Ionia. If it works, then Italy and France can be persuaded of giving up their zones of influence in Southern Turkey, in exchange for promises of economic concessions, promises that cost nothing to Kemal.

Of course it is a huge gamble since there is always the risk that Russia would move against Kemal from Sinope and Sebasteia, but if it happens in the midst of tensions between Greece and Russia, plus domestic troubles in Russia proper, it might be worth the try.

 

[Thoresby]

The thing I am not too clear on is the timeline of such population exchanges: immediately after the Treaty, or on the course of a few years ? It also depends on Kemal & co's endeavours in the immediate aftermath of Sevres.

Either they have happen peacefully and quickly or they're less population exchanges and more mutual ethnic cleansing, the longer you have people on the wrong side of the new border the more the tit for tat cycle of massacre will take over.

 

[Lascaris]

2/ You're right about Greece, especially since the rift between Royalists and Venizelists is going to come back with a vengeance now that the war is over. Expect a domestic political crisis which will paralyze or disrupt Greece's foreign policy / priorities.

Venizelos losing control of the country was very contingent on the death of Alexander in late 1920, which in itself was pretty low probability. TTL I can see the following main potential changes compared to OTL.

1. The peace treaty has already been signed. By extension elections in Greece are liable to take place correspondingly earlier (the 1915 parliament's period ends in spring 1919, and with a formal peace treaty cannot be extended much). The earlier the election takes place, the better it is for the Venizelists. They avoid the near year between the end of the war and OTL Sevres where Venizelos was mostly absent and his lieutenants did less than stellar domestically, the opposition is way more disorganized, Gounaris and several of his fellows (frex Pesmazoglou) are still in exile in Italy, he did not manage to return to Greece till October 1920. That's assuming they do manage to escape French captivity in December 1918 TTL which is not a given. Then of course you have two very contingent events in the death of Alexander, with Alexander alive raising the return of Constantine puts you on track to a nice cell and he was genuinely popular on his own) and the death of Ion Dragoumis. Both not happening is to the favour of the Venizelists. The Venizelists already solidly control the state apparatus. If they win the election, which IMO they are likely to do TTL this remains unchallenged.

2. As mentioned in 1 the peace treaty has already been signed. Greece has been given direct sovereignty of the Smyrna zone... and the Smyrna zone alone. This puts any military operations into an entirely different light. No Milne line TTL and the Greek army not being allowed to go after Turkish nationalists for nearly a year till summer 1920... no extension beyond the Smyrna zone either. The Greek army can just go fortify the hell out of its now border and the approaches to Smyrna itself while it hunts down any guerillas within. And if the Turkish nationalists attack the new border and it attacks back Bursa is now capital and any war happens against a far weaker nationalist army...

3. Russia is still around. In the not very likely case Constantine is back, the French and British may cut him off... but Nicky will not. Alternatively the compromise solution of accepting George to the throne, if the question is raised always, is likely much more appealing.

4. Italy has been apparently been given her pound of flesh and then some and is much better off in terms of casualties and war exhaustion. If they are trying to turn their part of Anatolia into a direct colony there goes their relationship with the nationalists. France was also given full control of Cilicia TTL...

 

[Lascaris]

Thanks, very useful.

The thing I am not too clear on is the timeline of such population exchanges: immediately after the Treaty, or on the course of a few years ? It also depends on Kemal & co's endeavours in the immediate aftermath of Sevres.

The Greek-Bulgarian treaty was right after Neully. It took a few years to fully enact on the other hand.

 

[Merrick]

How did you come to this argument? The local Greeks in the city were pretty content with turkish muslim rule in OTL and didnt pose any problem at all until their final expulsion after the 1950s. Now that they are ruled by co religionists and have much more business opportunities they will change their whole view in the most radical manner compared to OTL? If anything they will be raising russian flags.

For decades the local Greeks had close ties to the thriving mercantile greek communities of the russian Black Sea ports. Their kin and business partners were pretty happy under tsarist rule.

Dont forget that even the Ww1 greek nationalists didnt raise an objection for russian rule in Constantinople.

Ultimately, the Orthodox community in Constantinople are Greeks, not Russians. They may prefer Russian rule to Ottoman (or worse yet, Bulgarian), but they would prefer Greek rule to either. Pre-Treaty, Greek rule wasn't a practical option, and the Tsar looked the only chance of throwing out the Ottomans, now the Ottomans are gone and they have a rising Greek state right next door. (To compound this, said Greek state will be desperate for Greek immigration to populate their formerly-Muslim lands).

Nationalist-minded Greeks will want to see the Great Idea fulfilled, and Constantinople as the capital of Greece. Less nationalist-minded ones will be less bothered, but as you say they got on fairly well under the Turks, and it won't take many cack-handed interventions by ignorant Russian officials to have them muttering that the Ottomans might have been Muslim conquerors, but at least they understood how the City worked... And of course, in the Sultan's day the City was the capital of a Power, with all that implied for the economy, now it's a colonial outpost with all that implies. Expect a lot of complaints that the Russians are raising taxes in Constantinople and spending them on the other side of the Black Sea.

The Russians have a problem - if they empower their Orthodox brethren, bring the Greeks into government and leave the city's economy n Greek hands, then they get a prosperous, politically-influential Greek community - who will repay them by agitating for union with Greece. If they push for Russification or generally treat the Greeks as another subject people, the Greeks will be asking what they've gain by swapping the Sultan for the Tsar.

 

[Thoresby]

Precisely, Constantinople may be an attractive bauble but it's a practical nightmare for the Russians. The best long term solution for their perspective is the Kaliningrad route, complete population replacement, send the Greeks to Greece, the Armenians to the new Kingdom of Armenia, the Turks to Anatolia and the Jews to New York (or British Palestine) and then fill the city with Russian settlers. You've still got the problem of an isolated enclave but it's an isolated enclave with an economic future as a naval base and transhipment point. It's not as easy for the Tsar as it was for Stalin to just round up a few hundred thousand people and drop them down but this won't be the first time the Russian Empire has done a quasi forced population movement.
From the perspective of everyone else while for public consumption they will feel forced to condemn the barbaric Russians expelling their people from their ancient homes they privately won't be that unhappy. The Greeks have lots of land in need for filling and while the city dwellers of Constantinople won't be taking up plots in the hills around Smyrna they do need to repopulate Adrianople. Any Armenians involved in the government of the Kingdom of Armenia will be delighted to have some settlers to fill the vast amount of empty space they have been left, much better actual Armenians than Russian peasants. The Turks need more refugees like they need a hole in the head but educated, skilled people are going to be needed to make Bursa/Ankara* a real capital. As for the Jews of New York, well they are better off in the land of the free than the land of the Black Hundreds. More broadly British, French and American public opinion will be appalled in isolation but considering what will be going on from Danzig in the Northwest to Jerusalem in the Southeast there are going to be a lot of people moving, forced and unforced and this is just another example.

*I don't think Bursa makes sense in the long run, it's too exposed.

 

[Hertog Jann]

I think @Lascaris explains in a very clear and logic-proof manner the current situation of Greece vis-a-vis Turkey.

I would like to add that in TTL, Greece has more human and material (money including) resources. The Great War ends sooner, so its a net benefit in both men and money. Not to mention that the bulgarian-occupied parts of Greece are reclaimed sooner. Without a Russian Civil War, Greece doesn't send a corps to Odessa and Crimea either.

Once again, we should take into account the complete collapse of the Ottoman Army. We know the broad strokes of the campaign and if we take into account the OTL, we can make certain logical assumptions. For instance:

When Yudenich broke his opponents and reached Sivas and Diyarbakir, there were 2 Ottoman Corps in southern Mesopotamia, with 4 infantry divisions and 1 brigade. Before the February Revolution there were plans for a russian attack towards Mosul to help the British. I don't see why this wouldn't have taken place, if we take into account the huge superiority Yudenich enjoyed in numbers, material and logistics. You got 166,000 Indian and British troops advancing north by extensive use of river steamships and a russian corps advancing south, while the main russian army as per the author's word reached close to Diyarbakir closing the main road. Ottomans don't have steamships nor trains in Mesopotamia. In a bad senario, most of their army is bagged. In the best case senario, they completely lose only what forces they leave as a rearguard and all their artillery. In a semi-decent senario they lose half their divisions and their whole artillery that is moving slowly.

If this is the case for Mesopotamia, then what should we say about the Persian Front? In spring 1917 the ottoman 13th corps with the 2nd, 4th and 6th ifantry divisions is located deep in Persia, in Hamadan. Before the February Revolution, Yudenich was planning to send a corps-sized force against them, while the other previous mentioned corps would advance to Mosul. These 3 ottoman divisions are gonners. The only way to escape destruction would have been to become magically motorized and magically built paved roads from Hamadan, across the Zagros Mountains to Mesopotamia.

That brings us to the Sinai Campaign. The forces there - much smaller without a russian collapse and units from Caucasus- can use the single-track railroad to escape north, while sacrificing a rearguard in Gaza, as they have to march first to the railheads and then move up north one regiment at a time. While they escape complete anihilation and live to fight another day in Aleppo, they have to hold more than 12 months until the end of the war. A much smaller Ottoman Yildirim Group will have to face the same to OTL British field army for a whole year. Attrition is bound to be worse than OTL.

If an OTL Army of X size faced an army of Y size and endured Z casualties over a period, then in an alternate timeline one army is X/2 size while the other remains basically the same Y size, then casulaties wont be Z, but lets say 1,5 Z.

As mentioned before, the ottoman 3rd and 2nd armies are destroyed by Yudenich. Whatever front the Ottomans manage to built in late 1917, will face horrendous casulaties (in addition to the destruction of 1917) in 1918. How else can you hold a front with less troops, greener troops, fewer guns and fewer animals then before, if not by paying in blood? Before ( 1914, 1915, 1916, 1917 campaigning seasons) , you had more manpower, experienced cadre, equipment and still was defeated handily everytime by Yudenich. If you want to stop Yudenich in 1917 -1918 Yudenich from overruning the whole Anatolia, you have to make absolutely horrific sacrifices in lives.

When the summer 1918 and peace arrives, there isn't an ottoman army left in contrast to OTL. Much, much worse human and material losses. Much more land occupied. Hundreds of thousands more turkish refugees. Sivas and Erzurum in OTL were the heartland of the nationalists. Now these provinces host the russian flag. The turkish nation is bled white.

All things considered, I don't think we will see more than irregular activity and not a regular army. Until some years pass and the turkish nation recovers, there can be no proper war against Greece (that can field 300,000 men) or even against the weak italian and french presence. Overall, I do consider the turkish situation completely different to OTL.

 

[alexmilman]

1/ Of course this is OTL speaking, but I cannot stomach those bolchevizan of Mayakovsky and A. Tolstoy. Gumilev fits the bill, though. As hinted in one earlier update, people like Pilnyak, Biely and Blok will go further the path of mysticism and "scythism",... towards "Muscovism". People like Bunin, Nabokov and Khodassievich are going to feel increasingly isolated in the artistic/cultural atmosphere taking hold in the 20's-30's.

2/ Greece-Italy: tensions are sure to re-surface before long.

On #1: The issue is not like or dislike (I detest both and “Aleshka” is used not as a compliment (*)) but usefulness for propaganda purposes: due to the fact that they absolutely lacked any convictions and moral integrity while being quite talented, for a relatively modest compensation each of them would write whatever is required (BTW, I was told that, to avoid the draft, Mayakovsky was writing the hurrah-patriotic verses during WWI) and in the form required, especially in a form suitable for the mass consumption (like “Windows of ROSTA”). Gumilev could not be bought and, besides not being “poet for the masses”, he was not into glorification of the war (from his diaries I could not figure out how he got his two St. George awards). The rest are even less useful for the mass propaganda.

_________
(*) In OTL one of the jokes of A.N. Tolstoy was to “modestly” accept congratulations during performance of “Death of Ivan the Terrible”. After commenting that at the end of performance that person would be shouting “Author, author!” he sighted and added, “yes, it took me a lot of effort to write “Prince Serebryanny””. For the benefit of the Anglophones, both mentioned titles belong to A.K.Tolstoy, a famous writer of the mid-XIX century.

 

[jessicajsscjs]

Will Britain deal different with the Irish ITTL? Maybe they could keep Britain whole?