Summer Revival (Ottoman Empire 1902-1910)
When it came down to it, the Ottoman Empire was undoubtedly one of the nations which had the best conquests/investment ratios of the Great War. The Sublime Porte didn’t even have to declare war: all it had to do was to wait for the Omani and Persian rule to collapse under the strain of war and economic exhaustion before marching forwards. Mesopotamia was retaken and once again the Ottomans had access to the Persian Gulf.
The celebrations at Istanbul and in the major cities were particularly long and sonorous. From the old walls to the mosques on the Asiatic side of the Bosphorus, the wealthy and the poor celebrated this turn of events. For the first time in living memory, the Empire had not seen its borders shrunk further inwards, but extended them. And since the expedition to reoccupy Mesopotamia was led by a scion of the House of Osman, it did not take long for a Sultan to return to the top.
More than four hundred years after the fall of Constantinople, a Sultan called Mehmed was once again living in Topkapi Palace and was acclaimed by cheering crowds. The Mesopotamian Mosque was planned by several of the best Imperial architects in 1904 and its construction would last only five years before every visitor could admire its green dome and its four minarets.
This reassertion was costly for many powerful families of Istanbul and Izmir. For several decades, Great Viziers had been content to abandon foreign ventures and tighten their grip on the Ottoman society they thought they could trust. This long work was brutally broken and Mehmed began to give land grants to new officers who had climbed up in the ranks. Many of these new settlements were in Mesopotamia, but the possessions seized from several Viziers were also included in the lot.
By 1905, the Ottoman Empire had a population of eighteen million, and optimism was definitely everywhere. Many great public works were ordered in the capital and elsewhere to repair what earthquakes and neglect had done to mosques and great monuments of the past. Architects and artisans had the opportunity to prove they had nothing to be ashamed when compared to masters of the past. Between Europe and Asia, the Ottoman Empire assimilated many of the rising tendencies now spreading out from the Great Powers and made them its own. Reforms were made in language and education.
But all was definitely not well in the Ottoman Empire. While it had returned Bagdad and Mesopotamia to the fold, these were poor and destitute lands they were now forced to administer. The east required more investment in infrastructure, education and military oversight than ever. The Persians had stagnated and done little to make the once prosperous valley attractive; it was the Ottomans’ dubious privilege to correct this scandalous behaviour.
Naturally, these efforts cost a lot of money. The same was true of the pet projects of Sultan Mehmed and his main advisors. But to acquire this money was more and more a problem. With the Suez Canal a gateway to India, Batavia and China, no longer the Europeans needed to buy from the Empire. The Muslim scientists, healers, innovators and mathematicians who had once been the leading experts in their fields were now badly lagging behind the universities of Paris, London, Vienna and Copenhagen. Porcelain and mosaic were now produced at will west of Budapest. The demand for the famed Ottoman carpets could not compensate for the devouring needs of the Ottoman aristocracy in luxury products coming from the French Empire.
It was little surprise, as a result, that Istanbul was heavily indebted to the Bourbon state and other foreign investors. The tax system was described in three words: unfair, discriminatory and inefficient. Reforms succeeded to other reforms, but the problems remained. The Ottoman administration was incredibly corrupt even by the most permissive standards, and every exchange, law and arrangement required copious amounts of graft to work.
The military, in the meantime, required more funds and new weapons. Weapons the Ottoman industry was constantly unable to deliver in large quantities. There were centres of Industry in Europe and Asia, but they were all dispersed between the Bosphorus and the Anatolian region. Most battleships and specialised machinery were imported, often with the foreign engineers in the next wagons. The Empire needed brand-new trains, railroads and vehicles, and the Orient Express was not enough to hide the flaws of the modern European state.
There were some attempts – and military coups – to introduce a Parliament and some elections, but they went to nought and by 1910 Sultan Mehmed had restored the Ottoman regime to its absolutist state. It was not pleasing for the minorities like the Kurds and the Armenians, and to say the least the Ottoman army was forced to recruit more young men, not less.
The biggest threat, unfortunately, was external, not internal. From the moment the Great War ended, the general opinion in the streets was to recognise the French were no longer the more threatening opponent in the theatre. To be sure, King Louis XVIII had extended his rule on every continent, but Paris had not sent armies in their direction and not once had a French bishop declared in public it was imperative to bring back the cross to the city which had once upon a time been called the Second Rome.
This was not the case with Russia. The new Patriarch approved by Tsarina Anastasia was known to be a particularly anti-Muslim spokesperson and the size of the Russian armies in Transylvania had not decreased contrary to what had been promised in several Congresses. The last conquests of the carnivorous bear were ultimately a massive encirclement from the north and the east. It was threatening on a map, and it was little better in reality. New fortresses and artillery batteries were ordered, but when looking at the dome of Hagia Sophia, the inhabitants of Istanbul wondered how long the summer was going to last...
Note: you have two tries to guess where I went on holidays and the first doesn't count.