If WWI broke out in Abdul Hamid's time, would he join it?

Abdul Hamid would have chosen to enter WWI if it started on his watch?

  • yes

    Votes: 6 28.6%
  • no

    Votes: 15 71.4%

  • Total voters
    21

raharris1973

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If WWI started between 1882 and 1908 (or later if Abdul Hamid stayed in power) would he have declared for a side, assuming nobody attacked the Ottomans first?


why or why not?
 
If WWI started between 1882 and 1908 (or later if Abdul Hamid stayed in power) would he have declared for a side, assuming nobody attacked the Ottomans first?


why or why not?

Abdul Hamid did his best to keep the Ottomans out of wars. Him remaing on the throne has butterflies, like the Italian-Turkish War, Balkan Wars. Odds are he would use the British against the Italians like he did with the Russians and British overal.

Let say that the Ottomans don't fight both wars due to his foreign policies. There is also no Balkan Wars. And there would be a different WWI.
 

raharris1973

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Abdul Hamid did his best to keep the Ottomans out of wars. Him remaing on the throne has butterflies, like the Italian-Turkish War, Balkan Wars. Odds are he would use the British against the Italians like he did with the Russians and British overal.

Let say that the Ottomans don't fight both wars due to his foreign policies. There is also no Balkan Wars. And there would be a different WWI.

WWI was a war of choice for the Ottomans, but the previous two were not.

Staying out of the Italian War and Balkan War is a tougher problem because the Italians cornered the Ottomans. And the Balkan League just up and decided to do a surprise attack. So is Abdul Hamid going to avoid this by swallowing any ultimatum the Italians send them with a smile? Or by somehow manipulating Europeans to oppose Italian ambition?
 
WWI was a war of choice for the Ottomans, but the previous two were not.

Staying out of the Italian War and Balkan War is a tougher problem because the Italians cornered the Ottomans. And the Balkan League just up and decided to do a surprise attack. So is Abdul Hamid going to avoid this by swallowing any ultimatum the Italians send them with a smile? Or by somehow manipulating Europeans to oppose Italian ambition?

If Abdul Hamid isen't overthrown, you avoid the geopolitical and internal chaos that came from the rapid transition of governments, half-implimented reforms and counter-reforms, ect. which lead to A) Italy feeling like there was an opening to issue the ultimatium and that the Ottoman state was otherewise too disorganized/taken up by unrest in the Balkans to resist B) Create the impression among the rest of the states of Europe that Turkey was either collapsing or rallying , meaning they were less willing at the moment to intervene directly on its behalf since any payoff would be uncertain and less than the continuation of a plient "captive" state, particularly over what many pereceived as a mere sandbox, and C) The Balkan League felt confident enough to launch said attack due to the inability of the Ottomans to respond to the Italians and to exploit the lack of the Ottoman military's ability to resist in the Balkans/ political and ethnic violence in the area . Avoid the Italo-Turkish war and the Balkan Wars, at least as they occured IOTL, don't occur
 

raharris1973

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It's not quite the WW1 with your POD. It might be a world war with France and Germany against each other.

What I like about your response is that of course the exact chain leading to OTL is World War One is broken, but it does not take a lot of imagination to posit that some other grand coalition war will not happen.
 
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