My MOTF entry!
[IMAGE]
I thought that the Germans had a different name for Lodz.
My MOTF entry!
[IMAGE]
I thought that the Germans had a different name for Lodz.
Map of Azeroth from World of Warcraft after the Cataclysm.
Huh, I wonder if I'll ever see a Warcraft map game now.Map of Azeroth from World of Warcraft after the Cataclysm.
Excellent work. A beautiful map.
Map of Azeroth from World of Warcraft after the Cataclysm.
Map of Azeroth from World of Warcraft after the Cataclysm.
Now is it just me or does Thousand Needles resemble something.... inappropriate? But all jesting aside the map is remarkable.
You're my favorite person today.
Thanks to everyone. There is still a lot of work to be done.Huh, I wonder if I'll ever see a Warcraft map game now. Great job by the way.
Given that Northrend barely fits on the map, I do not think that I can put Pandaria in there without serious damage to map itself. And even if I could do it, I would not try - I hate pandas.Wow - no pun intended! Do you think you could whip up a version with Pandaria, or is there not enough room?
I'm sorry if it's been answered in-tl, but how and why is Finland independent?A possible future scenario in my Timeline: A Hundred Years of Peace in 1500 AD.
From A History of Modern Arabia, by Abdullah bin Muhammad Faroukh, New York Press, 2011.
The British involvement in Arabia had long focussed on the reduction of Ottoman Power in the area in favour of their own puppets, protectorates and otherwise influenced states. This was, to a large extent, achieved with Stockholm. The two middle sons of King Hussein I of Hedjaz, Princes Abdullah and Faisal had been instituted as Amirs of Mesopotamia and Syria respectively, after much bartering with the French in the latter case, and while Faisal due to his position was recognised in London as treating with France more than with Britain, it was seen that given the familial ties with the British backed regimes in Baghdad and Mecca that he would at least not be actively antagonistic towards the British crown. Crown Prince Ali, meanwhile, had been installed as Amir of Palestine, a position that would give him a solid grounding in diplomatic juggling due to the many conflicting interests in the Sandjak which included a sizable Jewish minority that Zionists across Europe and America, not to mention the Anti-Semitic who sought the expulsion of that people from their lands, were eagerly attempting to increase with funding for the establishment of Jewish settlements in Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, Haifa and other locations. While Ali did institute a yearly cap on the number of Jewish immigrants that prevented the trickle from becoming a flood[1], he still had to recognise that the main source of funding for the modernisation and growth of Jerusalem at this point was the Zionist’s settlements that had grown up to the west. Tact was used to try and create compromises that would allow the Jews visiting the Western Wall and the population of the neighbouring Moroccan Quarter from ruffling each-other’s feathers, while non Jews, including Arab Christians, Muslims and Palestinians, were encouraged to create their own neighbourhoods in West Jerusalem to create a more ‘varied’ city while reducing the ability of extreme Zionist nationalists to claim that Jerusalem had become a ‘Jewish City’. Equally, foreign tourist and pilgrimage groups began to increase as peace brought a new interest in Antiquarian studies and greater freedom of movement. Early British concerns over whether it was wise to allow the heir to a throne they wanted control over to get diplomatic training were allieved when Lawrence, appointed soon after the war as British Resident in the Hashemite realms (a position that allowed him to act as an adjunct to the diplomats within the each state while not being tied to permanent residence in either one) pointed out that the King of Hedjaz would need to tread lightly around the situation in Syria and his relations with the Muslim world just as much as the British would, and certainly it would be advisable to have someone willing to recognise the futility of King Hussein’s dream of a united Arab Kingdom which, though pushed from public view by the successes for his house at Stockholm was still his eventual goal.
The immediate post-war situation, lasting from 1919 to 1923, saw the British experiment with several different diplomatic viewpoints with respect to gaining complete dominance over the Arabian Peninsula, based on the existing British colonies and protectorates in Aden, Oman, Nejd and the Gulf. Hopes of a simple ‘Peninsular Ideal’ had been dashed by the failure of the British backed House of Saud, who at the time ruled the Amirate of Nejd and Hasa, to conquer and neutralise the Ottoman backed Rashidi Sultanate of Jabal Shammar[2] in the years following 1916. At the same time, the growing backing of the Hashemites began to relegate the Saudis to a secondary place of importance in British strategic thinking. Stockholm saw the ‘Arab Circle’ created, where the Rashidis were surrounded by British friendly states, though the Amirates of Upper and Lower Asir and the Qasimi King of Mutawakelite Yemen remained outside the British sphere. Syria too represented a weak link. The Saudis were biding their time and gathering their strength for new attacks at this point, while the British started currying favour with the Idrisids of Lower Asir, offering both power over Upper Asir and protection from Yemeni claims to their southern territories. This was strengthened by deals between Hedjaz and Lower Asir to delineate their mutual border. In 1921, however, Ibn Saud declared himself ‘Sultan of Nejd’ and sought greater independence from Britain. London stayed silent, refusing to endorse the title but at the same time wary of losing what had been a valuable ally, even if it had proved lacklustre in the last few years.[3] 1921 also saw the death of Amir Muhammad bin Ali al-Idrisi and the succession of his son Ali. The next two years of weak leadership would be tough for Asir and saw a decline in her prospects with respect to Nejd and Yemen.
The rising prospects of the House of Saud would, however, take a turn for the worse in late 1921 during the latest attempt to conquer the Rashidis. With their forces flagging and the Saudi army taking the capital of Ha’il and laying siege to Al Jawf and positions on the caravan routes towards the Wadi as Sirhan, the Rashidis appealed to the French[4] for protection as they once had the Ottomans in similar circumstances. Paris at first supplied only a small quantity of arms through a private merchant who could be sacrificed to appease the British afterwards if necessary, but as the Rashidis continued to hold out into early 1922, managing even to retake Ha'il in a stealth attack during the summer, this blossomed into a full support agreement in return for a protectorate over the Amirate. London, recognising a fait accompli when presented with one, firmly but politely requested that ibn Saud stop his attack ‘in light of the new diplomatic situation’. Ibn Saud reluctantly agreed, though he resented the British for, in his view, stealing his victory, and for the pointed addressal as ‘Amir of Nejd and Hasa’ showing their opinion for his self declared Sultanate at last. The British-Nejd relationship cooled, and Ibn Saud began preparations for a new attack in between low scale raiding of the British-Ottoman (in practice British-Mesopotamian) protectorate of Kuwait, border probing that was both deniable and indeed denied by Riyadh.
1923 saw a new Amir of Asir as Ali bin Muhammad hand the reins of power to his uncle Hassan bin Ali, a distinctly plain character, though one with more ability than the nephew. French support was finally stabilising the turbulent family politics of the House of Rashid by allowing the ruling Amir, Abdullah bin Sa’ud bin ‘Abd al-Aziz[5] to pay off the less troublesome members of his family and force the more troublesome into exile in Anatolia where several would have fatal ‘accidents’. Already the first of the 4 Amirs since 1906 to have ruled for more than a year, his now strengthened rule would make him the most successful in a generation, halting the decline of the Rashidis relative to the Saudis. It was the Saudis that would make the biggest change however. In late 1923, Ibn Saud launched an attack on the Kingdom of Hedjaz, long his greatest rival for power in Arabia, and began a campaign to conquer the state with the capture of Taif, a moderately important town Southeast of Mecca. London was horrified. While under different circumstances, even a few years earlier, this would have been tolerated, it was now believed that should they fail to protect the Kingdom of their father, the sons of Hussein would take a more anti-British stance. There was not much Abdullah could be expected to do, given his greater reliance on the British, but both the Crown Prince in Palestine and especially Amir Faisal in Syria could easily shift from a pro-British and friendly stance to ones more neutral, or even outright antagonistic, ruining the entire British diplomatic and strategic position in the former Ottoman Empire.
Immediately a battalion of Indian Muslim troops was transferred to Mecca, and given the order simply to ‘defend the Holy cities of Mecca and Media from attack’. Hussein was tasked with the actual defeat of the Saudi forces, but the message was sent that Britain would not stand passively by and watch the Kingdom fall, while the defence of the holy cities without an offence against fellow Muslims was useful propaganda in the Empire itself, though the Wahhabist following of the Saudis would later be used to justify any offensive moves required. As the Hedjazis fought the Saudis in the area surrounding Taif, the Rashidis now used their new strength, with French and tacit British approval, to attack Najd itself, the young Amir riding into battle to prove his mettle to those who were still wary of supporting him. The lightening campaign saw the region of al-Qasim, taken by the Saudi’s during the troubled years of 1906/07, retaken for the Rashidis. Saudi troops now began to withdraw from the Hejaz towards Riyadh to defend the capital if required, and the Hyenas that had been circling, waiting for a sign of the direction of the war, pounced. A joint Mesopotamian-British force began marching into al-Hasa, officially claiming that the region should be part of Mesopotamia due to the previous Ottoman ownership, but quickly showing that a simple land grab and creation of a new British protectorate were more on the cards. Asir strengthened her control over Upper Asir, still requiring most of their strength to defend the southern reaches around Hodeida from Yemen, who at that point were securing territory surrounding Najran.
The battles soon moved from Hedjaz to Najd, and then to the gates of Riyadh itself, before Ibn Saud finally surrendered to the joint Hashemite-Rashidi-British-French force in September of 1924. The Rashidis had their occupation of Qasim recognised, the Asiri and Yemeni gains were likewise confirmed as were the British protectorates over both[6] in a classic case of divide and rule, Saudi settlers and nomads were expelled from the lands east of the Anglo-Ottoman Blue Line, the territory of which was now to be divided between the various British protectorates in the area, now including the new Amirate of Hasa, stripped from the Saudis by the British and as a final indignity the new Amir was King Hussein’s last son, Prince Zeid. The French protectorate over the Rashidis was again confirmed, while the Saudis lost British support and were neutralised, a fact that would see the Rashidis once again capture Riyadh and extinguish the Third Saudi State, with Abdullah bin Mut’ib[7], a particularly troublesome relation, installed as a new French backed Amir of Nejd in 1927. The remaining undefined borders in the region were further delineated, and the British diplomatic situation now shifted to the ‘double crescent’, the two interlocking arcs of the protectorates of Kuwait, the Trucial States, Oman, Aden, Yemen and Asir, and the Hashemite Quintet of friendly, allied and influenced states in Hedjaz, Palestine, Syria, Mesopotamia and Hasa. Fought in many ways as a sideshow to the events in Russia and Europe at the time, this would shape the future of the peninsular for years to come.
[1] Among other things 1917 saw no Balfour declaration due to the stronger hand of the Arabs vis a vis the situation in Syria and Mesopotamia
[2] The author is a tad presumptuous here. Jabal Shammar would remain an Amirate until the Peace with the Saudis in ’24 when, as part of their victory, they raised themselves to the sultanate.
[3] This is essentially OTL, with some small differences with regards to Asir mainly focussing on greater efforts by Britain to delineate the boundary with Hedjaz. The same dynamics are present up to this point after all.
[4] Syria actually has a border with the interior of Arabia TTL.
[5] Not assassinated in 1920 due to butterflies.
[6] Don’t expect Yemen to last while the King still hopes for a greater Yemen...
[7] Surrendered to the Saudis IOTL.