"Mound of spring: An early developing Israel in a late developing world TL"

This is a reboot for an earlier attempt at a three track TL (shards of a dark mirror). I'm rebooting it because the running several TLs in parrallel turned out to be both too much effort on my part and probably too confusing to the readers. Also, I've determined that an Earlier POD would be more plausible and that some of the WWI and post WWI developments I envisaged were less likely than I originally thought.

The basic premise ITTL is an earlier establishment of the state of Israel in the aftermath of WWI, rather than WWII. And a WWI which does not totally overturn European society or the European balance of power. But the broader premise is: What if world history actually proceeded as Herzl and other pre-WWI Zionists imagined it would?

They assumed that European Antisemitism would remain and increase- but never in their worst nightmares concieived of the totality of the holocaust, let alone that it would originate in Germany rather than Russia or Poland.

They did not conceive that the regime which would replace the Tsar would simultaneously end formal anti-Semitism- while severing contact between Soviet Jews and the rest of the Jewish world, deny Jews the right to leave the country, and embark on a program of forcible secularization and assimilation to which Soviet Jews would prove highly vulnerable while eventually introducing a new and equally virulent form of anti-semitism.

They were dimly aware of the nationalism developing in India and Egypt- but massively underestimated the future impact and did not consider the Arabs of the Ottoman empire to be a "nation" with the potential for self-organization and organized opposition to the Zionist project.

Certainly, non of them foresaw the demographic explosion the Middle East would undergo post WWI and the extent to which Jews, decimated by the Holocaust and Red assimilation would be a minority in the Middle East.

In short OTL Zionism was prepared for things continuing as they were or evolvingslowly. They were well prepared for Tsar Nicholas or even Roman Dmwoski in Europe and for Bedouin tribes and the occasional "Mad Mullah" in the Middle East but were completely unprepared for Stalin and Hitler in Europe or Pan-Arabism and political Islam in the ME.

OTL, various Zionist streams were forced to come to grips with "the Arab question" , practically, ideologically and morally pretty much from the get go. TTL, The objective imperatives driving their adjustment to the existence of another people in the ME are rather different. They are still going to run into a reality which does not conform to "Alteneuland"- but the resulting collision will play out somewhat differently.

So, without further ado- "Mound of spring: An early developing Israel in a late developing world TL"
 
Last edited:
Post #1: foothold

People

Lord Cromer- the De facto ruler of Egypt from the beginning of the British protectorate to 1908.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evelyn_Baring,_1st_Earl_of_Cromer

Alferd Mitchell Innes: Egyptian deputy minister of finance from 1898-1908
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfred_Mitchell-Innes


Events

El Arish scheme- a British proposal to for Zionist settlement in the Northern Sinai.
http://www.historyandtheheadlines.a...d=1281444&currentSection=1271019&productid=16

Kishinev Pogrom- One of the worst Pogroms in early 20th century Russia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kishinev_pogrom


OTLs North Sinai irrigation projects
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_...ern_Egypt#The_North_Sinai_Development_Project

http://iwtc.info/2005_pdf/13-5.pdf



February 1903
"Now look old chap." Proclaims Alfred Mitchell-Innes, "You can't possibly present the report as it currently stands" (1).

Leopold Kessler is obviously confused. "what do you mean?" I was sent to discover whether El-Arish is suitable for colonization. I discovered the soil was adequate for cultivation- provided additional water was brought there. What more is there to discover? I've already spent three months surveying the area."

Alfred sighs. "And where will the water come from? Who shall pay for it's transport? What about infrastructure improvements needed to connect El-Arish with the Canal? What are the long term returns projected from those expenses for the government iof Egypt? Do you anticipate any friction with Egyptian nationalists in El-Arish? Perhaps another area of settlement, closer to the Canal, can be found?"

Leopald stutters. "Well.. I guess we all assumed that The Egyptian government would see the long term commercial, not to mention military, advantages in a flourishing colony on the border with the Ottoman empire and…"

"And pay the Bill? You do see, do you not, that as currently presented, your report simply calls upon the Government of Egypt to make a difficult decision, which all governments are loath to do, and enter into financial obligations, which all governments are utterly horrified of doing?"

Leopald glumly nods. "Well sir, what would you recommend?"

"Give the government an incentive to approve of the program! Make a factual, detailed study, of the hydrological requirements, financing, and so forth. For instance…"

AN hour later a thoughtful Leopald leaves the office. He has much work ahead of him.

May 18, 1903
"There is in Russia, as in Germany and Austria, a feeling against certain of the Jews. The reason for this unfriendly attitude is found in the fact that the Jews will not work in the field or engage in agriculture. They prefer to be money lenders."

Statement of Russian ambassador to the United states regarding the Kishinev Pogrom.

May 30th 1903
Lord Cromer scans the report briefly. He was of two minds about the whole El-Arish scheme when he approved of the fact finding mission. He, was, in fact, half hoping, that they would find the land unsuitable for agriculture. That would take the whole issue off the table.

However, not only have the Jews found the land suitable for cultivation, they had also expanded their mission to survey the Northern Suez Canal and added a financial projection for both the costs and projected return of irrigation and colonization of the region. They have also included a breakdown of the current use of Nile water and have shown conclusively that the current wasteful outflow of the Nile through the Damietta arm would be more than sufficient to irrigate the entirety of both proposed zones of colonization (2) and offered to make a considerable investement on very favorable terms in Egyptian irrigation and transportation infrastructure- if, that is, he approved the scheme.

Try as he might, the conservative Lord Cromer could not see why he should not approve the scheme. The additional investment in Egypt would go a considerable way towards improving the state of it's finances, favorably reflecting on his own position in London (3). And as far as the national interest went, If Britain might eventually be forced to Leave Egypt, the presence of a large Jewish colony bordering the Suez Canal would offer both an excuse and a means towards retaining British presence.

As for Egyptian reactions to the scheme… Well, it was not as if there were many Egyptians actually living East of the Canal (4) And the sweetwater canal was alreadt transporting the outflow of the Damietta channel of the Nile to Suez. How much controversy could it cause if it were extended further eastwards? (5)

And there was the matter of Kishinev, of course (6). However cold and heartless others might accuse him of being and however unsympathetic to Zionist aims he might be there is no question that the atrocities of the Tsar render Jewish life in Russia impossible. If he might, in some small way, offer some of them refuge and they are prepared to pay their own way… then is he not obligated to do so? After all, it's not as if they were trying to gain entry into England (7).

His decision cystalized, Cromer stamps the report with his seal of approval.


(1) This is the POD. OTL, the Zionist fact finding mission acted hastily and avoided making an in-depth commitment to the El-Arish plan. They were simply too amauterish about the whole thing- they had an offer, they checked out it's feasibility- and reported back as soon as they made an initial assessment of the situation. TTL, instead of submitting their report directly to Cromer they deal with the undersecretary of finance first- and get some sound advice on politicking.
(2) Factually true… in 1902. But Egypt's population in 1902 is only eight million. It will grow tenfold in the next century. The big demographic leap only starts in 1923 or so though.
(3) Balancing the Egyptian Budget is the formal reason Britian is in Egypt in the first place.
(4) About 20,000 people, 90% of which are Bedouin.
(5) A lot. But not right away.
(6) OTL the report was submitted and he made his decision before Kishinev occurred.
(7) And therein lies the heart of hypocrisy in pre WWII pro Zionist Europeans. Few of them wanted to see more Jews in their own countries- or, if they were not averse to the idea, did not dare raise it to their gentile colleagues.
 
Last edited:
Interesting.

So, will this also go down the really creepy road of JDOME?

More realistic, less creepy. Or maybe more realistic and much more creepy. The basic idea is that if you shove 8-11 million people into a really small sandbox prior to the green revolution, global free trade, the development of a knowledge based economy, etc and do all this in the era of the great depression and an global marketplace broken into tradeblocks then they either:

a. Tear themselves apart in bread riots.
b. Organize into a totalitarian society in order to avoid tearing themselves apart.
c. Become a dystopian sweatshop.
d. find some really odd ways to export surplus labor for basic necessities.
e. enact population control and child rearing policies which make Mao's programme look very liberal and easy going.
f. invade other people's sandbox's or become hand-me-down colonialists- and found a moral-political doctrine to justify it.
g. make a social-technological breakthrough which allows them to support a much larger population and/or become "benign" colonialists in marginal territories.

Or possibly several or all of the above.

And yes, Ayn Rand/Maayan Nevo/ Alisa Rosenbaum will play a significant role in the development of a moral-political philosophy which rationalizes (or possibly opposes) whatever objectively necessary policy becomes dominant.


How far are you planning on taking this?

Good start.

Please finish it...

at least until 1948. Have the main events and themes plotted out in a chart.
And I resent the insinuation that just because I started 5 (or seven) timelines and abandoned them just as things were getting interesting I will do the same for this one:p

Worst case, I'll ditch the narrative and go into descriptive mode.
 
Post #2: A refuge in the storm

People
Theoder Herzl, founder (or at least organizer) of Modern Zionism
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theodor_Herzl
Menachem Usishkin- De facto leader of the Russian Zionist opposition to the Uganda plan Herzl advocated, later leader of the British mandate Jewish agency.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Menachem_Ussishkin

Events/things
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Old_New_Land
Herzl’s vision of “the new society”, how Colonization of Palestine was to be organized.
Among other things he envisioned:
a. The “new society” being organized on the basis of a voluntary cooperative corporation which anyone might join- provided he (or she!) enlists for two years of national service.
b. A clash between a reactionary previously anti-zionist Rabbi wishing to close the “new society” to non Jews and the protagonist of the story, who insists on keeping it open for all. The Protagonist wins of course.
c. The local Arabs being well pleased with the colonization as it increased the values of their own lands and greatly improved their quality of life and eagerly clamoring to join the “new society”as equal, albeit, outnumbered members.
d. The Ottoman government permitting the colonization in return for a share in the profits of the “new society”- which never aspires to statehood or an end to tribute payments to the Ottomans.
e. An organized and bloodless departure of Jews from Europe and an immediate End to Anti-Semitism once Jewish existence is “normalized” in a new land.

Reality is a bitch, ain’t it?

Russo Japanese war
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russo-Japanese_War
Russian revolution of 1905
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revolution_of_1905
1903-1906 pogroms in Russia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-Jewish_pogroms_in_the_Russian_Empire#1903.E2.80.931906
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Odessa_pogrom
http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/judaica/ejud_0002_0016_0_15895.html
1904 “pogrom” in… Ireland. Possibly copycatting the Pogroms in Russia a catholic priest in Limerick enacted a boycott accompanied by violent attacks against recent Russian Jewish arrivals, forcing the 150 strong Jewish community to flee.
http://www.ibtimes.com/limerick-1904-anti-jewish-pogrom-ireland-1091444
http://www.limerickcity.ie/media/Media,3959,en.pdf

East Quantara/Tel-Aviv/Mound of Spring (1), May 1904
The ceremony laying down the corner stone of the new settlement was solemn and silent. Usihkin, eyes red, Steps up to the Podium, papers clutched in hand.
“I will speak today, not my own words but the words of another. A man well known to us all- though who, in fact, can know the storms which racked the soul of this most pragmatic of visionaries? Before we could even dream of having a land of our own he not only envisaged the possibility but also lay down the cornerstone of our new society (2), based on social justice, civic equality based on service and responsibility (3) and cooperativist mutualism.
Upon those sturdy foundations we have built our new settlement, by the sweat of our own brows (4). Our work brigades, made of those young men and women whose hearts burn with the desire for freedom and justice, are even now extending the Eastern Sweetwater pipeline north and south, as well as Eastwards to El-Arish. With all being foreplanned and nothing left to chance and selfish base interests, We shall turn the Sinai Green within a decade. And once we do I have no doubt that Palestine shall follow as the Sublime Port shall wish to enjoy the same advantages (5) the Egyptian government has so eagerly embraced (6). Our work today is on the Antechamber to the Hechal (7) – but have no doubt! Once the Antechamber is complete the doors of the Heichal will open up and the dreams of all our prophets, religous and secular shall be realized. A new age shall be ushered in to our long suffering land and to the entire world, to the benefit and gratitude of Jew and Arab, Oriental and Occidental."
Slowly Menachem Usishking folds the paper and looks westwards into the serene Suez Canal. “I only wish that our secular prophet could be with us today to see this first step happen (8). Let the fountainhead be released!”
Behind him, a vast spout of water wells up, as the sluices connecting the Western Sweetwater Canal to the Eastern fountainhead, through the tunnel underlying the Suez Canal , open up.

“The Jews came to Limerick apparently the most miserable tribe imaginable, with want on their faces, and now they have enriched themselves and can boast a very considerable house property in the city. Their rags have been exchanged for silk. … How do the Jews manage to make their money? Some of you may know their methods better than I do, but it is still my duty to expose these methods. They go about as peddlers from door to door, pretending to offer articles at very cheap prices, but in reality charging several times more than in the shops. … They forced themselves and their goods upon the people and the people are blind to their tricks.
They came to our land to fasten themselves like leeches and to draw our blood when they have been forced away from other countries.
Nowadays they dare not kidnap and slay Christian children, but they will not hesitate to expose them to a longer and even more cruel martyrdom, by taking their clothes off their backs and the bite out of their mouths”
Father Creagh, limerick, 1904.

“Ireland is, at present, being drained of its Gaelic population by emigration and Jewish colonists are trooping in to fill up the places of emigrants, and to turn Ireland into a filthy Ghetto.”
“the Limerick leader”, municipal newspaper 1904.

“I remember the problem of the Jews in Limerick. Father Creagh in his courageous way declared war on the Jews. ... The Jews at that time, who are gone now, were extortionists; he had the backing of everybody in the City of Limerick. … He had set the match to light the fire against the Jewish extortionists. Had he not, then all of Ireland would have become no more than a gigantic British plantation with the native Gaels relegated to serfdom under Canaanite wardens and overlords, our women made their whores and our children raised in accordance with their vile faith"
Stephen Coughlan, mayor of Limerick, 1970 (9).

“For a decade we have watched as the Jews have stolen our jobs with their evil tricks, have driven us out of business with their nefarious practices, and made Port Said and Ismaila into mere annexes of Tel Aviv and Bat-Yam. They have stolen even the waters of the sacred Nile which flow within the blood of every Egyptian (10). And today, as our rightful Khedive returns, with the support of the leader of the faithful and his hosts, Each follower of Mohammad, each true son of the Nile, must have only three cries on his lips:
Egypt for the Egyptians! Death to the Infidels! Death to the Jews!”
Unkown Demagouge, Port Said Riots, November 1914.

(1) East Bank of the Suez Canal. A far better place for colonization than El-Arish. Easier to transport water there, closer to trade routes, etc.
(2) AKA, the “final society”
(3) Altneuland written by Herzl, tied citizenship to a two year national service (but not military service) open to women as well as men.
(4) and a few Egyptian coolies. Ideology is all good and well but Egyptians work MUCH better in this climate than Yeshiva Bocher's fresh off the boat from Odessa.
(5) Not. Going. To. Happen
(6) That is, was bribed and had it’s arm twisted to reluctantly agree to.
(7) Great hall. Also an allusion to the afterlife and to the temple.
(8) Herzel dies two months earlier due to the rigors of the rip to Egypt. OTOH, his final years were much nicer without the Uganda controversy tearing the Zionist movement apart.
(9) All OTL, Including the date. Except for the last sentence. Bear in mind who is saying it though.
(10) That they aren’t actually USING all the water in 1914 doesn’t mean they want other people to be using it.
 
Last edited:
Post #3: Reality bites





Yedapedia (1) entry:
Second Aliyah, the

The period of Jewish immigration to the British protectorate of the Sinai and Ottoman Syria between 1904-1914. Spurred on by the Harbinger Pogroms of 1903-1907 and the instability of the Russian empire during the 1905 revolution, nearly 400,000 Russian Jews (2), immigrated to North Sinai (120,000), the East canal zone (80,000), and the West Canal Zone (40,000) and Ottoman Syria (40,000). An additional 70,000 initially landed in Port Said but subsequently made their way into Egypt proper, primarily Alexandria and Damietta, following their release from the New society labor brigades. The commonly cited reasons for the "Flesh pot diasporah" (see attached tag) is that the economic and agricultural infrastructure in the Sinai proper was not yet sufficiently developed to make full use of their labor. Commonly cited as a counterpoint to this cowardly development is the organized infiltration of nearly 40,000 Maapilim into the ottoman empire during the same time frame.

Nearly half of the initial immigrants were young men seeking to evade being drafted into the Russian army (3). This, and the fact that nearly 600,000 Jews (4) immigrated during the same time span to the United states and other Western hemisphere nations prior to the passage of the "Zionist Liberia" act (5) in the U.S and has caused some of the "New York school" historians to question the genuineness of the commitment of the Jewish people to the land of Canaan.

These claims are easily countered by the huge subscription of Russian Jews to the Zionist movement, numbering over 1 million by 1914 in comparision to a mere 30,000 Bundists and under 2,000 Social democrats and Social revolutionaries (6)

Yedapedia entries:
Bar-Giora guards, Ha-Militzia (part of the Jewish legion series)


The predecessors to the jewish legion the Bar-Giora guards and Ha-Militzia are viewed as two seprate phases in the evolution of a Jewish fighting force. The inception of the Bar-Giora guards association was based on the realization that the Egyptian government and the British authorities in Cairo viewed Bedouin raids on Jewish settlements in the Northern Sinai as an issue which the Zionist movement must solve through their own devices and resources (7).


800px-Ha-shomer.jpg
Early Militzia members in Bedouin dress

The initial phase, headed by Israel Shochat, cleaved to the Havlaga policy which focused on passive defense of existing settlements and avoided retaliation or even aggressive fire towards Bedouin raiders. The reorganization of the Bar-Giora guards
Into a semi-regular Militizai force and the more proactive policy subsequently pursued from 1909 onwards is commonly associated with the immigration of Joseph Trumpeldor (8).

El-Arish, March 1909.

Mat is a subdialect of Russian devoted exclusively to profanities, many of them dealing with the subjects mother (9). Good, middle-upper class Jews certainly are not supposed to use it. It really isn't proper. Israel Shochat reminds himself of that fact… again. He takes a deep breath and tries again.

"Passive defense is simply not working. If we fire warning shots then the raiders simply try again in another sector, sometimes in the same night! If we shoot to kill it starts a cycle of blood feauds which only ends with more damage, not to mention the blood price which damages us more than the initial thefts themselves."

Usishkin sighs. He's heard this all before.

"we might consider voluntarily increasing the compensation rents again…"

"Compensation rent! You know as well as I do that the Bedouin barely herded the coastal plain before we started irrigating it! (10) and what their herds eat from the stubble of our fields (11) more than makes up for what they lost!"

"But if we can alleviate their poverty by these transfers and thereby reduce the incentive to carry out such raids (12)…"

"Except this accomplishes the exact opposite! Every time you pay them they simply learn that they can gain more but launching and threatening raids! No, enough is enough. I've talked to the other commanders- we think it is time to launch retaliatory raids of our own and make them pay for

"Retaliate? Against who? You do not know, not for certain, which tribes the raiders are coming from and you don't know which people in each band are carrying out the attacks! And even if you did know, how would you identify them in the heat of battle? The only thing you will accomplish is to kill many innocents and widen the start a blood feud which will never end! (13)"

"Innocent? How can you call them innocent? Do you really believe that there is a single man in any encampment who does not know who is raiding our settlements? That there is a single man who does not share in the loot they take? (14)?"

"And what will the British say if we start doing the same thing? Do you forget we live here on their sufferance?"

The third man coughs. He is new to El-Arish and has not yet even completed his three years mandatory service to the new society. But his experience has sufficiently impressed the directors committee to make him commander in all but name of the Jewish millita.

Placing his stump on the table Joseph Trumpeldor leans forward.

"You are both correct. And you are both wrong. Neither of your solutions will work to end the problem. Indeed, none of them even addresses the real problem. You have grown used to thinking like the Bedouin sheikhs, of considering the issue from the perspective of raid and counter raid in an endless self reinforcing cycle.

But the Bedouin will always win if we persist in dealing with them as they deal with us. Our men, and women, work from dawn to dusk on tending our fields, building new roads, working in the new manufactories. Every man we subtract from productive labor is a net loss to us- that is why we are so eager to end the raids, so that we can turn our swords back to plowshares. But the Bedouin men are mostly idle- What little work is required to watch their herds can be done by their women and children (15). All that their grown men do, all they are required to do, is to guard them… and raid their neighbors.

Our numbers are now nearly 80,000 strong. The millita numbers 10,000, larger than their entire population. Men women and children. And yet, they have more free man hours to engage in raids than we do to guard against them or engage in counter raids. We cannot engage in a long campaign of attrition- we must, instead, swiftly deprive them of the very means required to carry out attacks against us…"

When he is done explaining his plan Ussishkin is silent for a time at it's audacity.

"And the Egyptians? The British?"

"Have no concern for the Bedouin. If we deal with them swiftly and decisively, then they will look the other way."

El-Arish Wadi, April 1909.

They struck at dawn. The few men guarding the herds were shot before they could warn the camp. The camp was still roused, of course, by the bleating of the herds, the discharge of the firearms. Sheikh Fatih El-Tarabani led the cursing warriors of his tribe out himself to recover the herds… directly into the ambush.

Nursing his wounds amidst the wailing remmanants of his camp he is still not certain who had carried out the raid. The Sawarka would never dare to launch such an ambitious raid. And the Azamah, his main adversaries, are to the south whereas the raiders had fled to the north.

Two days later Mustafa, left behind to be captured at the site of the ambush returns on the back of a decrepit ass, andsolves the mystery. "It was the Yehud. They are the ones who have taken our herds… and they will only return them, most of them, if we fully comply with their conditions"

Yedapedia entry, Bedou wars

A series of conflicts, lasting between 1909-1910 which effectively ended the nomadism and political autonomy of the Northern Sinai tribes. With Causalities estimated at 120 Jews and 700 Bedouin, it was far bloodier than any single tribal war carried out in the Sinai to date but decisively ended the period of raids and intertribal warfare previously experienced by the North Sinai residents. It furthermore opened up the coal mines of the Northeastern Sinai to exploitation and led to the incorporation of over 7,000 Bedouin into the Jewish settlements and their eventual assimilation, or re-assimilation, into the Jewish nation.

The central and southern Sinai would remain largely autonomous until the 1920s campaign, or the second bedou wars….

Yedapedia entries:
Bar-Giora guards, Ha-Militzia (part of the Jewish legion series)


From a military point of view the effect of the Bedouin defeat and later incorporation into the Sinai Yishuv was to gradually transform the Militizia into a force capable of waging effective desert warfare. This capability was to be well demonstrated in the aftermath of the Ottoman raid on the Suez Canal in 1914.

It would not be until the period of tension sparked by Ottoman defeat in the Turkish Italian war and the Balkan wars, however, that the Jewish Militzia would begin to transform itself into a modern fighting force. As the maximalists, led by Zeev Zhabotinsky, were bluntly informed by Trumpeldor that even absent the British veto, the Jewish forces were utterly inadequate to join the Balkan states in attacking the Ottoman Empire in the south, the directing comittee of the new society raised the security budget of Zionist settlement cooperative considerably, authorizing the purchase of light artillery and machine guns, as well as directing the emphasis of national service away from the labour brigades and towards the armed services.

(1) Yeda is Hebrew for knowledge. Yeah, Silicon Waddi rocks TTL even more than OTL... but the environment they are operating in is somewhat different.
(2) Compared to 50,000 OTL. And yes, this means that the Yemenite immigration is barely a blip on the screen. We'll be even more marginalized, albeit more integrated than OTL. Damn.
(3) Which was institutionally designed to brutalize and assimilate Jewish draftees under truly hellish conditions.
(4) Compared to 1.5 million OTL. Just as many people want to leave but they have an additional place to go to and the doors of the Goldena medina close earlier. Altogether, that means an extra 0.5 million Jews in the Russian empire in 1914.
(5) Instead of a quota system which offends every white minority (Irish, Italian etc) there is a bounty and transportation costs for every Jew who immigrates to the Sinai or Palestine rather than the U.S and some federal funding into investement in infrastructure of the Sinai autonomous zone. That, and unofficial steps which primarily consist of delaying and/or rejecting Jewish arrivals on Ellis Island for health reasons sends the message loud and clear. The American way- throw money at "the problem" till it goes away. Ellis Island becomes a waystop for many Jews fleeing Russia- until the consul in Russia is instructed to offer the same benefits to ANY Jew validated as being a genuine immigrant to Palestine/Sinai.
(6) OTL, 300,000 Zionists compared to the same number of Bundists and socialists. And no, there is no distinction TTL between Bolsheviks and Mensheviks.
(7) In contrast to OTL, where the British forbade Jews from forming their own self defense organizations until 1936 and confiscated weapons, arrested and exiled Jews involved and self defense (let alone retaliation)- but also maintained a supposadely impartial police force with both Jews and Arabs which aimed at containing violent incidents. The Bedouin of the Sinai, however, are not viewed as citizens or even subjects. Hence, the British and Egyptians do not view themselves as being responsible to or for them.
(8) Which occurs two years earlier and to the Sinai rather than the Ottoman empire.
(9) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mat_(Russian_profanity). The article really doesn't do Mat justice. You need to listen to a Red faced Russian screaming exclusively in Mat for twenty minutes straight to really get it.
(10) Rainfall in the Sinai is primarily in the interior mountains. Hence those are the traditional grazing grounds of the Bedouin. Of course, the argument I'm describing is precisely one that is taking place between current Egyptian colonists of the Northern Sinai and the Bedouin. What it basically amounts to is that the Bedouin are poor and can afford to send underemployed men to raid and extract danegeld from sedentary people who are wealthy enough to pay it. The extent to which the Bedouin actually lost grazing land due to conversion of sandy wastes to irrigated fields is less relevant than the fact that the cost of launching the raids and suffering retaliation is low whereas the tribute (development aid, compensation, danegeld it doesn't really matter what you call it) they can extract by threatening to launch the raids is high.
(11) Good fertilization practice.
(12) That doesn't really work. Danegeld rarely does.
(13) Yup, that wouldn't work either. Not unless retaliation is so ruthless and so widespread and so pervasive that the Bedouin not directly participating in the raids are prepared to violently confront and police the raiders.
(14) Nope. Not one. But reporting them to the outsiders is treason to the tribal code. And applying coercive force to make them stop? When your sister in law is married to one and when you depend on the other to help guard your herds from the neighboring clan?
(15) Or that is the way it works today in Jordan, Israel and the Sinai. I've never actually seen a adult Bedouin man driving a sheep herd. Camel and horse raising yes. But sheep and goats? Or tending the few fields they have? That's mostly women's and children's work. Of course that might be because the men work in the cities nowadays. Maybe in 1909 the men still spend dusk to dawn looking over the herds… but my impression is that this pattern of male peacetime underemployment is common for herding and tranhumanist societies- that's what makes them so dangerous to their neighbors. The men can always be formed into a raiding party or a massive Mongol horde without disrupting economic productivity much.

800px-Ha-shomer.jpg
 
Last edited:
Post #4: The new society


OTL Memes/inspiration

a modern critique of Herzl's new society
http://jewishbusinessnews.com/2013/03/10/on-society-and-economics-in-herzls-altneuland/

Hydraulic monopoly state- The concept that river valley based polities adopt a centralized and despotic organization- because water regulation both requires it and grants a monopoly of power on whoever controls the water.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydraulic_empire

Fordism- An economy and society regulated by the ideals of mass production and guided by a benevolent capitalist (state or private) seeking long term profit
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fordism

Selection: The process by which new immigrants to OTL mandatory Palestine Israel were selected for mental and physical (and prior to 1948 ideological) fitness. Usually refers to the delay in allowing older and less fit Morrocan Jews to immigrate- but it was in fact a methodology practiced on European Jews as well prior to independence.
http://www.haaretz.com/weekend/.premium-1.548014

1970s review of child rearing practices in the Kinnutz
http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/11241.The_Children_of_the_Dream

Histadrut: the massive "union of unions"/ labor party control mechanism which pretty much ran the Israeli economy until the 1990s
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Histadrut

Jewish agency: formed under the aeigis of British mandatory authorities it morphed, after considerable tug of war between local and international leadership into the de-facto government of Jews in mandartory Palestine.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish_agency


There is a tendency in today's academic circles, particularly, the "New York school" to view the "final society" of the Canaanite commonwealth as a monolithic, preplanned product of the individual vision of Theodor Hertzl. In fact, his original and rather vague vision, underwent several permutations under the pressure of both objective circumstances and the divergent socialist and religious orientation of many of the grass-roots Zionist organizations of Eastern Europe (1).

However, given the absolute monopoly on water and land allocation granted to the Sinai colonization new society by the Egyptian government, and the objective need to organize labor and resources to reclaim land in the barren north Sinai, guard the settlements and import necessities during the period of initial settlement, it proved necessary for the divergent board members to adopt a consensual ideology and modus operandi (2).

Almost by default the adopted template of the new society became that outlined in Hertzl's "Altneuland"… though interpretation and practice of the incompletely defined principles varied widely in practice. One principle was clear- new immigrants would not be expected to fend for themselves or form their own organizations (3). Rather, each new immigrant was effectively drafted for a period of three years, during which time he, or she, would be expected to perform exactly the labor assigned to them by the Board of directors.

Even during this early phase the board of directors instituted the notorious "selection" process. Due to the limited resources of the new colony, and the economic poverty and young age of the majority of the immigrants, new would be immigrants were filtered through a variety of objectively determined physical and mental tests in order to select those judged most fit to contribute to its success (4). While those selection processes would be greatly relaxed in the late 1920s and even more so in the 1930s the accompanying conditions imposed upon new immigrants became considerably more onerous.

With their term of service complete most immigrants became stakeholders and citizens of the New Society as a whole as well as local collectives which provided permanent, if collective, housing, collective child care and rearing fascilities and usually long term employment in the industrial or agricultural activities of the collectives. Those who performed exceptionally well during their period of national service received a variety of perks, including larger quarters, subsidized higher education, higher paying managerial positions in the collective economy and child-rearing benefits enabling them to form earlier and larger families. Most critically, they recieved "active" citizenship, that is, the right to be elected into local and regional offices (5).

Those found wanting during their term of service were granted residency, but not citizenship or membership in the agricultural-industrial cooperatives(6). Some of these reapplied for another term of service in the hope of being accepted as full citizens. Others drifted into becoming hired laborers in the cooperatives, returned to Europe or drifted westward and became part of the cosmopolitan foreign community of Egypt proper.

These "failures", however, at no point formed more than 10-15% of the Sinai's Jewish population, just as the "officer" caste never formed more than 10% of the citizen body. By simultaneously ejecting those who benifitted least from the social-economic organization from the political process of the New Society and co-opting into it's elite, managerial level those who were most capable, popular and politically motivated, the new society alleviated much of the friction such a high control structure would normally result in.

Not all citizens, of course, were satisfied with the benevolent patronism of the new society, or the ubiquiouts intrusion into their personal lives (6). In addition to those rejected by the New Society there were those who rejected the New Society. But with the New Society holding an effective water monopoly, and with an underdeveloped private sector in which they could find employment the dissidents had little choice but to compete for acceptance- or else seek a home elsewhere.

The system would, however, face twin challenges at roughly the same time in the 1930s.

The first, overlooked by hertzl, was the challenge posed by the second generation of "active" citizens, primarily descended from East European and Middle Eastern immigrants to the dominant position of the primarily Western European and American Jewish financiers in the new society board of directors- some of whom had never immigrated, or carried out a pro-forma "national service" in non strenuous managerial capacities.

The second, foreseen by Hertzl, though certainly not in the form it took place in practice, was the controversy over inclusion of Non-Jews in the New society cooperatives. An eerie precedent to the solution adopted can be seen in theforcible integration of the North Sinai Bedouin to the New society in the aftermath of the first Bedou war…

Egalitarianism Vs Elitism And centralism Vs collective neo-feudalism in the Canaanite commonwealth. Aldous Huxley 1959.

(1) OTL, the fact that there was no central control of the organization of new imigrants into Ottoman and mandatory Palestine meant that there was no unification of ideologies or factions under a single Umbrella organization. Each carried out it's own agenda.
(2) Which is what happened OTL. A new immigrant could always seek employment in an existing settlement, or organize with like minded people under the patronship of one party or another to purchase and cultivate new land. That simply is not possible in the Sinai reclamation project.
(3) OTL, though each Zionist organization had it's own quota and criteria for selection as did the anti-zionist Aguda. TTL, an "objective" standard is adopted by the umbrella board of directors.
(4) Consider this toi be analogous to being a "party member" in China or oceania.
(5) This is similliar to the Kibbutz probationary period
(6) In OTL early Kibbutzim having a child, or getting married was a collective decision which could be vetoed by the group. It's not quite as bad as that here- but OTOH there really is no real option to leave the Sinai collectives and still remain part of the Sinai Yishuv.
 
Last edited:
Post #4: in war's dark shadow

OTL People

Zeev Zabotinski: founder and leader of the revisionist (non/anti socialist, romantic, maximalist national aims, less accomadating to British pressure, based on the Polish Middle class) section of the Zionist movement.

The three Pashas: the triumvirate which dominates the Ottoman empire following the 1913 coup
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_Pashas

Mustafa Kemal:
A busy beaver, he played a critical role in the Italian-Turkish war, and both Balkan wars and gained in the process a very good military reputation… and a strong political rivalry with Enver Pasha, the dominant personality in the ruling triumvirate of the Ottoman empire following the 1913 coup.


OTL Events:

Balkan wars: Bulgaria, Greece, Serbia and Montenegro team up on the Ottoman empire… and defeat it. Bulgaria then turns on it's former allies and, with Ottoman and Romanian intervention, is soundly spanked.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Balkan_Wars

1913 coup-a faction of the CUP (young turks) reassert and consolidate control of the Ottoman empire following failure in the first Balkan wars.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coup_of_1913

Saudi conquest of Hassa province: Following the Ottoman defeat in the Balkan wars Ibn Saud smells weakness and invades the empire's Persian gulf (and not yet oil producing) provinces, destroying the Ottoman garrison.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conquest_of_al-Hasa_(1913)

Saudi Rashidi war: The conflict which dominates central Arabia between… well depending on how you date it the war either starts in 1824 or 1903. It ends definitively in 1923. The Saudis have more internal vitality, the Rashidis more Ottoman backing. In 1913 the Saudis are winning.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saudi–Rashidi_War

Memes
Iron wall- Revisionist belief that attempts at winning Arab acceptance of Jewish immigration were futile and that immigration must either stop or proceed under protection of military force.
http://www.jabotinsky.org/multimedia/upl_doc/doc_191207_49117.pdf

Saloniki front, Ottoman Macedonia, November 1912

Vladimir Zabotinski surveys his men grimly.

They are a moltely bunch, He must admit. Some, of course, consist of his partisans from the Sinai, members in good standing of the Militzia and veterans of the Bedou wars. These form the hard core of the unit, and most of his officers and NCOs. Most however, are dropouts who failed to be accepted as full citizens into the New Society. For them, this adventure offers an escape, a chance at proving themselves… and his patronage in being accepted to the collectives dominated by his own faction.

His insistence that the New Society react to the growing persecution of the Yishuv in Palestine by convincing the Italians to expand their war against the Ottomans to Palestine had been rebuffed (1). So too was his call to join the Balkan allies in their assault on the sick man of Europe.

Some had insisted that Jewish return to Zion should only be achieved peacefully, not at the point of a gun (2). Others had spoken of the unwillingness of the British empire to break-up the Ottoman empire and of the need to consider the overall aims of the great powers.

Well, the young nations of the Balkans were showing no such concern! They had taken their destiny into their own hands, rejuvenating their national spirit, breaking off the habit of servitude. Surely, if this path led Hellas to greatness, it was equally appropriate to Judea?

If nothing else his volunteer battalion would serve to grant him and the nascent Jewish national army valuable experience in real warfare. He has seen enough to know that the experience gained against the bedou would be of little use in an all out war.

But more importantly, once the war is over, it would gain him greater influence in the Militzia and the New Society directorate. Even the most moderate Theodorans are dismayed by the new limitations on Jewish land purchases in Ottoman Syria and the increasingly ruthless attempts to expel those Jews who had entered illegally or overstayed their three month tourist visas (3)

Hertzl had claimed that once the Sinai project became a proven success, Ottoman authorities would enthusiastically endorse a New-Society charter for Southern Syria as well. In spite of Bedouin trouble, and rumblings from the Egyptian Khedive about limiting water allotments for the Nile diversion scheme the Sinai project has proven to be an incredible success. With crop exports equal to nearly 10% of the Egyptian total, the completion of the double tracked Rafah-Port Said railway with a branch to the now profitable North Sinai Coal deposits, the massive improvement to the El-Arish and Bat Yam port facilities, placing Port Said and Jaffe in their shadow it would seem as if the Sublime Porte would have every reason to take advantage of the Capital and technical no-how at the disposal of the new society.

Instead, it appeared that the Ottomans were increasingly hostile to the Zionist enterprise, withdrawing their proposal for settlement in southern Messopotamia (4), legistlating a blanket moratorium on all land sales to Jews in Southern Syria, and devoting considerable resources to expelling "illegals". There was even some evidence that Djemal pasha was arming and subsidising the Negev and South Sinai tribes to resume raids on the North Sinai settlements.

The socialists… Ussishkin, Katzenelson, even Trumpeldor just didn't get it. Even those who had gradually come around to give up on Hertzel's vision of peaceful cooperation with the Ottoman authorities thought that the problem was caused BY the Ottoman authorities. That they feared that the economic success, cultural brilliance and democracy (5) would lead their own subjects to increase their expectations from the government (6). The more militant among them called for "worker's solidarity" with the Arab protelatarist against the Turkish oppressor.

Rubbish.

That line might have some appeal for a few Christian Arabs (7). But the majority of the Arab peasants were loyal to the Sultan. Even those who wished the Turks gone had no desire to see Jewish immigrants come to outnumber them, however much their lives might be improved in the process. Indeed, it was appeals from local Arab deputies which had led the Ottoman Majlis to outlaw further land sales to Jews in the first place! (8)

No people, Arabs included, wish to become a minority in their own land. None would accept Jewish immigration. Individuals aside, none would trade prosperity for power. The only way to secure the homeland for Jewish immigration was by gaining the necessary power to seize and hold it. Only behind a steel wall of bayonets could the Jewish national home be built (9).

And this battalion, on this foreign battlefield, would be the beginning of that power. If the New Society was not prepared today to seize it's destiny, either in strength of will or strength of spirit, then he must make sure that they will be ready when the time comes.

Unconsciously adopting a pose he had seen Venizelos use when speaking to his troops he addresses his men. Now there is a marvelous orator and politician (10)!

"Today, we will liberate our brothers in Saloniki from the Ottoman oppressor!(11). But tomorrow, tomorrow we will take Jerusalem!"

Nearly a third of his green troops die or are wounded in the diversionary and raid on the Ottoman lines. Zhabotinsky, however, is not.

Istanbul, August 1913.

Mustafa Kemal is a man of intense passions and icy demeanor. As he enters Topkapi palace he must struggle to maintain that demeanor. The past two years have been hard on the Ottoman empire. The loss of Libya to the Italians, of Albania, Macedonia, Crete and Thrace, even his birthtown of Saloniki to the upstart Balkan states, The Idisirid and Yemeni uprisings in Arabia- it seemed that the Ottoman empire was once again falling into headlong retreat, one from which there was no recovery.

Well, he had given the state a victory, however small. Edirne was once more in Ottoman hands. Perhaps now, that Turkey in Europe and Turkey in Africa were gone, Turkey in Asia might turn inwards, put it's house in order and develop it's strength?

He silenty gnashes his teeth against his cheeks. No. Not, at least while the elaborate masquerade of what passes for Ottoman politics continues. He has his… issues with the three Pashas. But there is no doubt they have seized power, no doubt that they aim at reform. Why then do they persist in maintaining the old forms, of keeping the Caliph around as an alternate soure of legitimacy?

Two hours later, fuming, he receives his answer. The masquerade allows them to evade responsibility for decisions and avoid retaliation for unreasonable commands. It seems, he was informed by the Sultan, that an unimportant Arabian chieftain named Ibn Saud has seized an equally unimportant province in the Persian Gulf. One that contains perhaps 50,000 men- if one counts the goats that is (12). He is tasked with recovering it, as soon as summer is over of course (13), a minor, unimportant task… and one that will keep him away from Istanbul just as the all important task of reorganizing the Army is taking place!

He could hardly protest of course. Not with the British steadily pushing their influence on the empire's southern frontiers. Kuwait, the Idrisids, Yemen have all come under their influence. And in the Sinai they have settled a tribe of Russian jews which continually seek to infiltrate Southern Syria! No, giving ground in the Gulf would be just too much. And he, surely, is the man to solidify ottoman control of Arabia (14).

The sultan has full confidence in his ability to carry out the task in due time. Perhaps inthree or four years? Really, there is no hurry so long as the job is done well. After all, it is not as if many troops can be spared to aid him. He will just have to rely on Rashidis and other local levies to supplement his regulars. (15)

Riyadh, April 1914

"What should we do with them Effendi?"

Mustefa Kemal savors the Rashidi's question as he surveys the long line of bound Ikwahan warriors which had kept him away from Istanbul for the past Six months.

"Do with them, Abdul Aziz? Kill them. Kill them all. There is no place in the empire for dangerous fanatics who distort the Koran for their own ends".

Enver Pasha had thought to see him fail, or at least keep him in exile for several years. Well, he had shown him, hasn't he? Let him try to keep him from his rightful place in the army now!

El-Arish, Tarabani agricultural cooperative, October 1914

Sheikh Fatih El-Tarabani crushed his prayer beads between his fingers as he consideres his guest… his youngest son. Ismail was never a patient boy and he has not grown up to be a patient man. Finishing his meal of rice and lamb with angry, defiant gestures, he does not wait for the coffee, sweets and exchange of news regarding the families of the clan before his impatience gets the better of him.

"Will the Yehud not suspect, father, seeing me here?"

"No. I often mediate transactions between the cooperative and the Southern tribes. They sell us their wool and surplus kine and we provide them with grains, fruits, vegetables and goods from as far as Cairo. They find it more comfortable to deal with me and all profit"

"So they find you a useful lapdog"

The air between the two quivers with tension- but Sheikh Fatih El-Tarabani did not gain and maintain his position after years of defeat and humiliation without self-control.

"We find each other useful, yes. Your sister, Aziza. Do you know she has just given birth? To a son, praise Allah."

"And will he grow up to be a man, a warrior? Or a fallah skulking in the shadows of the Yehud?"

"Adam will grow up to be both. His father, Issac, will see to it."

"Issac? You let her marry one of them? Have you forgotten your honor, our traditions?"

"How do you think the Trabani came to be? Was your own mother not an Azama? How do you think I acquired her and Why do you imagine they took you in as they did when... when we fell? We fought. We lost. Possibly, had you and your young hotheads not persisted in launching your raids in spite of my warnings there would have been no war. The Yehud never desired our flocks, our hill pastures. But we fought and we lost. They held our flocks. How many of us would have survived the summer without them if I had tried to continue the fight, or lead our people to the south?"

"And so you live with them. You allowed them to scatter our people amongst villages where we will always be a second class minority! Abeeds!"

"We have an equal share in the harvest. And Adam will know how to make these harvests. He will go to their schools, serve in their, in our, Militzia… amd I have no doubt that he will win Ezrahut activit and will, in time, follow me as chairman of the cooperative"

"Chairman? Who are you fooling? Don't you think I know who gives the orders here?"

"I am listened to"

"Listened to? How would you like to be Sheikh, a true Sheikh again, with the Yehud not only listening to you but rather obeying you commands- or being expelled from our lands, leaving their wealth for us to enjoy?"

"And what power do you have that will make them surrender or leave? Gather the tribes, all the tribes, Tarabani, Azamah, Sarwak… and still they outnumber us ten to one! Their Militzia has better training, better weapons than they ever did five years ago? How can we hope to defeat them?"

"Are you blind, father? Have you not seen the trains carrying the Yehud from Syria pass by? Djemal Pasha has expelled them from his domain, expelled them all (16)! "

"And so? He may do in his domain as he wills. But unless he marches across the border…"

Ismail licks his lips

"But father… he does. And he will know who is his friend and who is his foe."

The flickering lights of the lantern grows dim as Ismail leans forward

"Which are you?"


(1) Now that would be an interesting development, wouldn't it? A carving up of the Ottoman empire BEFORE WWI. Or possibly a carve-up which precipitates WWI. I decided it was too unlikely. Italy was unprepared for the war- it had a hard enough time in Tripoli! Even if the Balkan states join in I can't see them landing a force in Asia.
(2) Call this the theodoran faction- loyal to the original ideals of Herzl.
(3) The primary method by which Jews avoided Ottoman immigration restrictions. It didn't work with the British since they had much more efficient (and less bribable) border control. A certain irony here, given OTLs Israel's problems with illegal immigrants…
(4) OTL proposal. And a very interesting POD in and of itself.
(5) Democracy is not going to mean quite the same thing TTL as ours. Universal manhood sufferage, one man one vote, only came into style after WWI OTL. Even in Britian less than 50% of the male population had the franchise. The New Society effectively limits it to 80%-90% of the Jewish male population and around 50% of the female population. Which is considered very progressive… in 1911. So progressive that there is little to no incentive to change the system.
(6) OTLs Labor Zionism explanation for why the "Corrupt Oligarchs" and "Military Dictators" ruling the neighboring Arab states were so hostile to us- the moment peace were declared and ordinary Arabs could freely witness the "Zionist miracle" they would demand the same from their rulers. There is enough logic and truth in the claim to have kept it going until the early 1990s. Which does not mean it isn't BS of course.
(7) OTL, Arab members of the Communist party, mostly Christians, collaborated with the Yishuv during the 1948 war. Of course, once Stalin made an about turn and denounced Zionism they switched coure in mid-stride.
(8) OTL.
(9) Isn't it a bummer when guys like this are actually right? Unfortunately, in this as in many other issues Zhabotinsky was correct- just as he was utterly mistaken concerning the best means to achieve his aims and "overoptimistic" concerning the side effects of his policies.
(10) Not much of a general though.
(11) Most, of course, prefer the Ottomans to the Greeks. And with good reason.
(12) You really can't understate the importance of the Arab side of the Persian Gulf prior to the late 1930s. But there is Prestige involved, and the Gulf is the gateway to Messopotamia and Mosul.
(13) You do NOT campaign in Arabia in the Summer.
(14) The Zionist settlement in the Sinai is making the Ottomans more jittery about losing influence in the periphery of the empire to British puppets.
(15) One reason the Ottomans never established complete control over Arabia is that good, politically connected generals, avoided it like the plague. And mediocore, unconnected generals lacked either the talent or the resources to finish the Job. Mustafa Kemal though… he's in a league of his own. And the 1913 Ottoman army has enough of a technical edge and logistical support to do what the 1860s Ottoman army could not- if they care to make the effort.
(16) OTL, the second Aliyah jews were expelled from Palestine/South Syria as well. TTL Djemal is rather more thorough about it.
 
Last edited:
Forgotten map

1904__AR.JPG

This is a map of the Arabian peninsula prior to WWI. Note the chaos. It's not just Hashemis and Saudis,two competing Rashidi clans, Idrisids and Yemenis are all vying for power and the British protectorates in the southeast are a lot more messed up than they look on most maps (not that the Asir-Hejaz border drawn here is accurate for 1913- The Idrisids are nearly at mecca)

1904__AR.JPG
 
Last edited:
Synopsis of events up to WWI

The POD is that The Zionist survey committee sent by the British to investigate El-Arish in the Northern Sinai in 1903 offers a much strong endorsement of the site. The Zionist movement also offers a financial commitment to develop the Sweet water Canal expansion and supporting Egyptian infrastructure as well as a detailed hydrological study showing that expanding the Sweet water Canal east of the Suez would not diminish the underutilized agricultural capacity of the Nile delta.

That, combined with the timing of the delayed report (following the Kishinev pogrom), leads Lord Cromer, de facto British viceroy in Egypt, to support the project, rather than withdrawing his support as OTL.

The Sinai settlement project is entrusted, as per Theoder herzl's "New Old land" into the hands of a cooperative corporation funded by a combination of popular subscriptions to "new society bonds" and Jewish, and a few non Jewish financiers- of which the Rothschild's are most prominent. This corporation/cooperative also takes a stronger role in settlement within Ottoman Southern Syria/Palestine.

A number of societal divergances are immediately apparent in comparision to OTLs Zionist movement:
1. Male Immigration requires a commitment to serve under quasi-military conditions in the New Society labor brigades. Membership in the New Society requires approval by superiors and peers at the end of the service term. Female immigration requires the same or sponsorship by a New Society citizen. So rather than a universal sufferage, you have a society which regularly excludes 10-15% of it's men from citizenship, as well as excluding large numbers of women from citizenship- particularly those from traditional or religious backgrounds who are opposed to women leaving the patriarchial home. By the standards of the time this is very progressive- but it also leaves little room for later progress towards universal, unconditional sufferage.

2. Political participation is more local and less national. Furthermore, only those receiving high assessments during their service period (or those volunteering for additional service) receive "active" citizenship and can participate, even locally. The "board of directors" keeps control over the New Society macro enterprise well into the 1930s.

3. "Selection" for new immigrants is based primarily on "objective" physical fitness, psychological stability, education and proto-IQ tests. OTL the post WWI, pre WWII criteria were primarily membership in the correct youth/political organization, with each Zionist (and the anti-zionist Aguda) were allotted a quota by the WZO and the British.

4. A greater "break from the past" and cultural homogeneity in the emerging New Society. The Melting pot here is an industrial grade furnace. OTL Israel was a coalition of many ideological, religious and ethnic tribes which is only now coalenscing into a single society (except for the Ultra Orthodox. And the Settlers. And the…).

5. 0 power or representation for anti-zionist Ultra-Orthodox. Bye bye Aguda.

6. A founding ideology which is more pro-business and less socialist… but in practice is an extremely centralized state capitalism on the macro level and cooperative socialism, albeit less eglatarian than OTL's Kibbutz (differential pay based on position and quotas), on the micro level.

7. Employment of Egyptian laborers in constructing the North Sinai infrastructure and invitation and inclusion of a few (especially but not exclusively Copts) in the New Society. OTL, the young Russian immigrants of the Second Aliyah were outraged by being passed over for employment on the established First Aliyah settlements in favor of Arab laborers who were better suited for the climate, less argumentative, and more experienced in agricultural labor. The resulting political-labor struggle solidified the concept of "Jewish labor" in Zionist terminology and inadvertently prevented any possibility of making the Zionist enterprise a joint Arab-Jewish project. Attacks by Arab laborers on Jewish employers put the final nail in the coffin.

TTL the fact that everyone is an employee/stakeholder in the New Society corporation means that there is less anxiety by Jewish proles about the inclusion of Arab labor in the project. No/Little native Egyptian population in the Sinai means that no attacks occur (save by Bedouin) for the initial decade of settlement.


By 1914, 390,000 more Jews have arrived in the Middle East than OTL. Their distribution in the Palestine-Egypt area is as follows:

North Sinai/El Arish: 150,000 Jews+ 10,000 Egyptians (almost All New Society citizens , equally split between Copts and Muslims)+ 7,000 semi-forcibly settled and allied Bedouin.
South-central Sinai: about 12,000 Nomadic and semi-Nomadic Bedouin.
Eastern Canal (new cities constructed by Zionists): 100,000 Jews+ 5,000 Egyptians (about half New Society members, the rest are simply drawn to the economy)+ 5,000 Greeks, Maltese, etc.
Western Canal (Pre-existing cities of Port Said, Ismaila, Kantara): 50,000 Jews (some of whom are non-citizens)+ 30,000 foreigners (Maltese, Cypriots, etc)+ 30,000 Egyptians (about 40% Copts).
Egypt proper: 45,000 "native" Jews, 40,000 "new" Jews (mostly "fleshpot" droputs from "New Society), 750,000 Foreigners (Europeans, maltese, Greeks, Indians…). Oh. And also eight Million Egyptians (10-20% Copts depending on who's counting).
Ottoman Palestine: 25,000 Old Yishuv Jews, 100,000 New Yishuv Jews, 500,000 Arab (and Turkish) Muslims, 50,000 Arab Christians and maybe 15,000 Druze.


Insofar as relations with the Arabs are concerned the *Zionists remain blithely oblivious to the growing, if still largely subliminated, outrage of the Wider Muslim neighborhood. They also remain unaware of the limitations of power. Sinai is an isolated Island whose economy is sustained by the diversion of the Nile Eastward and actual contact with the "Arabs" is rare. Most contact is either with the Westernized Canal dwellers (who are mostly Copts and Greek/Maltese/Italian) or with the "savage" Bedouin. With the former, it is mutually beneficial business as usual.

With the latter matters had grown increasingly… unpleasant. But with the moral backing of both the British and the Egyptian government civilization has triumphed over savagery!

The Jewish Militizia, rather than shedding innocent blood in retaliatory raids has maintained "purity of arms". In a well planned and carefully coordinated sweep across the Northern Sinai they had captured most of the herds (and incidentially slain hundreds of Bedouin attempting to guard or recover the herds) of the North Sinai Bedouin and presented them with an unltimatum: settle in designated, mixed Bedouin-Jewish settlements, which will be supported and subisidised by the New Society, or accept a compensation package and move elsewhere. Most of the North Sinai Bedouin have wisely chosen to accept the benefits of civilization and have given up their arms and nomadic way of life. Of course, a few of the Northern tribes have withdrawn to kin in the southern Sinai and the Ottoman Negev and try to continue to launch raids on the Jewish settlements… but with a wide cordon-sanitaire around the Northern coast, as well as some aerical reconnisiance most of these raids are intercepted by the Militizia, now augmented by Bedouin turncoats. It's only a minor annoyance, civilians are almost never killed, and the skirmishes become the equivalent of Rudyard R.Kipling's stories about the Northwest frontier for a generation of Jewish children.

Still, the majority of the North Sinai Bedouin have settled in nicely. They are sending their children to the newly established schools, a few are intermarrying with the Jews, and their material quality of life has greatly increased. Surely, this is proof that Zionism is morally correct and beneficial to both Arab and Jew!

Unfortunately, the Palestinian Arabs, the Ottomans and even the Egyptians don't seem to recognize these benefits. The Palestinian/South Syrian Arabs are horrified at the Idea of the Jews turning Syria into a second Sinai (1) and press the Ottomans to pass a blanket moratorium on all further Jewish immigration and land purchases (2). Under the pressure of Arab rebellion and Italian and Balkan invasion the Ottomans find it hard to enforce the ban but as 1914 and Ottoman recovery dawn they go at it with a vengeance (3). With official presence thin on the ground, angry Arabs are increasingly taking matters into their own hands, launching raids on their Jewish neighbors. Unlike their Sinai Kin, the Palestinian Jews cannot organize a military force openly and their weapons and militarily active members are subject to arbitrary Ottoman seizure. Accordingly, they avoid any retaliatory raids and stick to passive defense (4). They still have some international protection, which prevents the ottomans from massacring or expelling them wholesale. What develops in South Syria/Palestine by 1914 is a pattern where Arab raiders are met by passive defense, followed by Ottoman arrest of both Jewish defenders and Arab raiders. Sometimes the Jewish defenders are "shot while resisting arrest". The Arab raiders are usually released "for lack of evidence" or else "escape". International outrage sometimes compels the Ottomans to release Jewish prisoners or act more energetically against Arab raiders. It becomes increasingly clear, however, that Djemal Pasha is not only turning a blind eye to Arab attacks but encouraging Ottoman officers on furlough to direct the raiders- and is even arming and encouraging the south Sinai and Negev tribes to attack the Northern Sinai.

Increasingly, as European tensions increase, The Ottomans ignore international pressure. When WWI breaks out, Djemal Pasha ends the whole sorry affair by expelling every last one of the New Yishuv Jews (5). Most travel by railway to El Arish, where their horror stories lead to the New Society to mobilize the Militizia prior to the Ottoman declaration of war. It also strengthens the Millitant faction of Vladimir zhabotinsky which declares that the only way to enable Jewish settlement of Eretz yisrael is by military conquest- with or without British support.

Disquieting tones are increasingly being heard in Egypt as well. While the Jewish presence has been a financial boon to the Khedive, he is an Egyptian nationalist above all and is shocked at the speed and success of the Jewish settlement. He never imagined that so many Jews would come so quickly- or that they would gain such a prominent position in the commerce of his realm. From a useful, easily managed cash cow they are rapidly becoming a threat. Discreetly, he begins encouraging elements in Egyptian society to direct their protests at the Jewish presence.

They require little encouragement. The lowest and largest layer of Egyptian society, the fallahs, are not adversely affected by the Sinai settlements- indeed, the Jewish presence has stimulated the retail trade and, thanks to the construction of new mills and manufactaries on the Canal cities, has raised Cotton and Sugar process while lowering the price of textiles, common household goods and agricultural implements. The traders and craftmen of Egypt's urban centers however find themselves exposed to greater competition, whereas the nationally minded Egyptians, hithero uninterested in the Sinai are increasingly concerned with the takeover of land they are now convinced they would have been able to reclaim themselves in due time, not to mention the de-facto severance of the Suez Canal from Egypt,

In addition to a number of ugly incidents with Jewish traders in the Delta, the Egyptian government has raised the water rent for the Sinai settlements unilaterally and is refusing to increase the Sinai water quota to allow for further immigration and cultivation. Cutting off water supplies, while threatened in the WAFD press is not, as yet, a serious concern- as the same canal supplies the Suez and the Sinai the British authorities would never allow it. But the threat is hanging over the Sinai settlements like a shadow.

In the wider world the Sinai settlement has caused few ripples as yet. Three, however, are significant.

The triumvirate running the Otoman empire following the Balkan wars is jittery at the presence of actual and potential British puppets on their borders. When the Saudis invade Hassa province they decide to lance the boil, as well as rid themselves of Mustafa Kemal, at the first opportunity. Somewhat to their surprise the Saudis are destroyed in short order and Rashidi rule is restored to the Nejd.

Khalil Bey, sent to end the Idrisid threat in Asir and crush the Imam of Yemen once and for all is somewhat less successful. He does, however, ensure that the Hashemi rulers of the Hejaz are replaced by a more loyal clan. (5)

In the United States the backlash from the arrival of hundreds of thousands of Jewish refugees from the Russian pogroms of 1904-1907 results in an attempt by legistlators to limit Jewish immigration. Unlike OTL they do not meet united Jewish and liberal opposition. The amendment to the anarchist exclusion act of 1903 (6), effectively permits immigration officials to exclude, based soley on their personal judgement, any would be immigrants from the Russian empire or Romania (7) "until such time as congress judges anarchist threats posed by the current uphevals in the region to be at end" (8). The accompanying "Jewish Liberia act" supported by both Jews and evangelicals, authorizes the federal budget to pay for the transportation and settlement of any individual who wishes to partake in the revival of Sinai and the Palestine and who is found desirable by the Sinai colonization society (9)

Zhabotinsky's volunteer "Maccabe legion" participates in the Balkan wars on the Greek side. This has no real military implications but does result in diplomatic contacts between the Greek government and the Jewish nation in the making which will have certain repercussions later on. It also gets the Jews of Saloniki slightly better treatment- just as it results in persecution of the Jews of Istanbul and Izmir.

And so, the world lurches towards WWI, as OTL. The factors leading the Ottoman empire to intervene are similliar to OTL, and no butterfly diverts the Breslau and the Goiben from their course.

There are a few differences however:
a. Ottoman Force distribution. OTL, by December 1914, the Ottomans had eight divisions based in Syria (3 Aleppo, 1 Hama, 1 Damascus, 1 Haifa, 2 on Sinai border) 2 in Messopotamia (almost all around Bhagdad), 4 in Western Arabia, 13 on the Russian border, 2 in Izmir and 11 in the straits, Constantinopole and Turkey in Europe. TTL, The Aleppo reserve is depleted by two divisions which are split between a newly formed Basra-East Arabia command and reinforcements for Khalil Pasha's forces in Yemen. 1 additional division is sent to Djemal Pasha as reinforcements from the Russian frontier and is used to bolster the Sinai expeditionary force, as is the Hama Division.
b. Mustafa Kemal is in command in Basra and has considerably more forces at his command than OTLs Ottoman commander did. He is also considerably more energetic. In the period of Neutrality preceding Ottoman entry into the war he occupies Kuwait and deposes the Emir, sending him to exile in Istanbul.
c. Unlike OTL, a railway exists across the Sinai, connecting to the Jaffe-Jerusalem railway. The Northern Sinai is also abundantly watered and provisioned.
d. The Jewish Militzia in the Sinai, bolstered by refugees from Ottoman Palestine, is capable of mobilizing the equivalent of three infantry divisions and two camalry brigades (10). They are Artillary light though well supplied with machine guns and aerial reconnaiscence. Partially subsidized by the British, who also pay the salaries of the British officers who make up about a third of the commissioned officers of the mobilized force. The British generally consider them to be inferior to "White" divisions but superior to all but the best of the Indian and Nepali troops. Djemal Pasha largely discounts them. Their actual quality is dependent on whether they will have the time to make up their deficiencies in heavy equipment, complete the shift of their doctrine from chasing Bedouin raiders to engaging in total industrial warfare, and integrate more experienced British officers.
e. Increased industrialization of the Suez Canal has also resulted in a New Society financed and managed munitions factory and armory. It is not sufficient to supply the entire Militzia, let alone the Anglo-Egyptian army with munitions- but it can be expanded.
f. The New Society has developed an intelligence service of sorts called SHAI focusing on Ottoman Palestine. while badly disrupted by the expulsion of the Yishuv from the Ottoman empire, holdouts, contacts with Bedouin tribes, and just plain common sense means that the Ottoman attack is not going to blindside the New Society. While the British authorities in Egypt proper view the SHAI's reports with some skeptism ("Hysterical Yids trying to drag us into diverting troops to take Jerusalem from the Wogs instead of properly conserving them to play cricket in Alexandria" covers the attitude) they have made contingency plans and shifted forces Eastward (11)
g. Accordingly, the historic raid on the Suez Canal looks somewhat different. The historical "diversion" in the North is an all out assault on El-Arish intended to draw the British army away from the Canal and/or destroy the Jewish settlement, while the raid along the central route of the Sinai is a wide enveloping movement intended to interdict traffic on the Suez Canal at Ismaila, capture the "fountainhead" at Ismailah transporting the waters of the sweetwater Canal eastward, and hopefully spark an Egyptian uprising.

MapSinaiWWI.jpg

And so, it begins.




(1) OTL, they only became politically organized after the Balfour declaration. Attacks on Jews prior to that occurred but they were mostly brigandage or xenophobia based, not "political".
(2) OTL, but more due to local pressure TTL.
(3) OTL they were relatively laid back about it until WWI.
(4) Equivalent to OTL Havlaga between 1920-1936.
(5) OTL, Djemal planned to eliminate the Hashemis after the war Abduallah was seen talking too many wrong people. TTL, they act soonser.
(6) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immigration_Act_of_1903
(7) So a smaller Polish community than OTL, as well as a smaller Jewish community.
(8) In practice not very different from the 1917 law. It resulted in a great many Jews and not a few Poles and Italians being classified as Imbeciles (imbeciles! Us!), ill, crooked spined, etc, etc. Of course this was just a formalization of an earlier practice- which killed, for example, the Galveston plan.
(9) Isn't hypocrisy wonderful? The word Jew is not explicitly mentioned even once in either act.
(10) A slightly lower proportion of the population than Israel managed to mobilize historically in 1948. While the population is younger, more male, and has British backing to organize it also has less experience in warfare. The Bedou wars were shorter and less intensive than the 1936 Arab uprising and there is no equivalent to OTLs Jewish brigade during WWII.
(11) The British had some 70,000 troops in Egypt OTL but only 25,000 of them were actually stationed on the Canal. TTL it's more like 40,000, with forward forces deployed at the passes protecting the central and southern approach to the canal.

MapSinaiWWI.jpg
 
Ottoman plans in the Sinai

zionist sinai.jpg

Thin Blue circles stand for Jewish areas of settlement, centered on East Ismaila/Tel-Aviv, Pelusium/Bat-Yam, Kanta/Herzeliah, El-Arish/Holon.

Blue line stands for the major Jewish Militzia concentration of forces. Red line stands for British main forces, west of the Canal. Green dotted arrows stand for the Northern Ottoman diversion against El-Arish. Green Solid arrows stand for the flanking thrust along the central Sinai of the Ottoman-bedouin force. Bear in mind that Tel-Aviv is the sole exit of the Sweet water canal Eastwards. Cut that off and it's game over for Anglo-Jewish forces (and civilians) East of the Canal.

Black line stands for the expanded rail network built by the New Society, black circle stands for the Coal mining region (connected by a trunk line) of the Al Maghara mountains.

zionist sinai.jpg
 
post #6: The black Christmas of the Ottoman empire.

The decision of the Sublime Porte to enter into the great war was undertaken in haste, and brought about by events over which they had little control. Nor was the decision unaminous- of the three Pashas, Djemal had strongly opposed entry, claiming instead that the Ottoman empire should instead best utilize the opportunity to rid itself of Zionists, Rebellious Arabs and resettle troublesome Christian minorities in the interior of the empire where it would not be possible for them to be used by it's avaricious neighbors (1).

Enver Pasha, and the independent actions of a few German naval officers forced his hand, however. Once committed to war Djemal Pasha threw himself into the war with a converts zeal. By December 1914 two Ottoman divisions were pounding the Zionist defensive lines in the El-Arish Wadi with artillery, and frontal assaults of the sort European armies were swiftly becoming disenchanted with had begun against the prepared Zionist trenches.

The purpose of this force was not so much to capture El-Arish, though Djemal clearly expected this to be accomplished in short order, but to draw the regular British forces defending the Canal Eastward to rescue the beleaguered forces of a people for which Djemal had naught but contempt.

Paradoxially, it was the utter failure of the Ottoman forces to breech the Zionist lines (2) which led him to become convinced that the British had already reinforced the El-Arish line, leaving the Canal denuded.

In fact, while the Regular Indian and British army units had repositioned themselves East of the Canal, John Maxwell, the British field commander, had rejected out of hand Zionist pleas to defend the El-Arish line, making clear that his concern was with the safety of the Suez Canal alone. While agreeing to protect Bat-Yam, herzeliah, and, of course, Tel-Aviv, his insistence that the Holon settlements in El-Arish be evacuated led to a schism in Zionist leadership. An arrest order for Joseph Trumpeldor had nearly been drawn when Militzia Aerial reconnaiscence (3) revealed the advance of Southern wing of the Ottoman expedition encamped of the Gafgafa oasis. Following a heated conference in Tel-Aviv unity of command was achieved. The Militizia Third and second reserve brigades based in Bat-Yam/Pelusium, was directed, to join a battalion of Gurkha mountaineers, and the Mhagraba miners Battalion to outflank and surround the Ottoman forces by rapid rail movement to the Mhagraba mountains followed by a forced dawn to dusk march through the passages charted and blasted by the New Society Coal Company. The regular British forces would meet the Ottoman Southern wing head one. The El-Arish defenders, commanded by Joseph Trumpeldor, would, in an implicit bargain, receive the immediate support of three artillery companies to provide them with an edge against the invading Ottoman forces as well as naval support to unhinge the Ottoman right flank.

The result of this eleventh hour coordination was an Ottoman disaster second only to the destruction of the Ottoman Third army at Sarikamish (4). But where, in Sarikamish, the Ottomans might plead the intervention of unexpected weather, Typhus plague and the bloodthirsty Armenian (5), in the Sinai the Ottomans simply rept the bitter harvest of bad generalship and non-existent intelligence faced with first rate, if improvised command and intelligence (6).

Once the Southern expeditionary force surrendered, the combined Anglo-Jewish forces counterattacked the demoralized soldiers of the fourth army. Their rearward supply lines and right flank bombarded by the British navy, deserted by many of their Bedouin and Rashidi auxilaries and attacked on their left flank by the Zionist camalry, they very nearly broke, with few Ottoman units withdrawing in good order to Gaza. All in all, 35,000 Ottoman soldiers as well as nearly all of their artillery and machine guns, were lost to this ill thought offensive.

While Djemal Pasha was able to halt the Ottoman rout at Ashkelon, and even threaten a flank counterattack from his base in Beer Sheva, this was accomplished only by stripping his rear lines in Adana, Aleppo, Damascus and Acre of reserves. This development was to greatly affect the deliberations of the war council concerning the proper utilization of our naval supremacy and the rapidly growing reserve of Australian, Indian and New Zealand soldiery in Alexandria.

I take some modest pride in playing a role in the momentous decisions regarding the dispositions of these forces, which, many wiser men than I acknowledge, paved the way towards victory in the great war…

Winston Churchill, The Great war.

(1) They were doing just that with the Greeks prior to WWI. About a third of them died in the process. Most deaths occurred during the war however and it's unclear whether the pre-WWI effort was intended to murder them or whether it was a genuine resettlement plan.
(2) They lack the weight of numbers or artillery and are attacking a line that has been fortified well in advance and is covered by a doubletracked rail line in the rear and a parallel light rail line.. The fact that frontal assaults require a hell of a material advantage to work in this war hasn't had a chance to sink in to the Ottomans (or the other combatants) yet.
(3) OTL, the British had almost none which is one reason the Ottomans blidsided them. TTL, the Militizia keeps a wing of scout planes to track Bedouin encampments and raiding parties.
(4) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Sarikamish. Think about huge masses of Ottomans, many of them Arabs from the snowless Mashriq huddled in freezing piles all over tens of miles of steep mountainside and gorge. Then multiply this a hundreds fold intil you reach 90,000 corpsicles. It was really that terrible.
(5) Attitudes towards Armenians will be somewhat different TTL for reasons that will become clear in due time.
(6) You can't really see Churchhill giving the Tsar first place, can you?
 
Last edited:
No, I can't...:D.

This is so Churchill.

Will you look at pop culture, technology, etc.

I'd like to see this taken to the present day, if possible...

Good updates.
 
Last edited:
Post #7: Where Kitchener has his way with you.


By January 1915 two developments had occurred which would determine the course of the things to come. The Anglo-Jewish pursuit of the retreating Ottoman forces had stalled at the Gates of Gaza, where Djemal Pasha, by stripping his garrisons in Northern Syria and calling upon his Rashdi vassals to threaten the Anglo-Jewish flank, had stabilized the front. German engineers were meanwhile engaged in laying down inland tracks to parallel the Jaffe-Port Said railway (1) as well as reapairing the tracks damaged by coastal bombardment.

Jews from around the world (2) rallied to make good, and better, of the losses suffered by the newly named Jewish Legion, and unexpected support arrived from Greece where those Hellenes who remembered the aid given to them in their hour of need made good of their debt (3). Nonetheless, It was clear that the position of the Ottoman empire would only improve as Teutonic efficiency overlay Oriental slackness (4).

The arrival and formation of the ANZAC corps (5) offered a chance to break the deadlock. Rather than send them into a frontal assault against the Ottoman lines, I proposed that it would be best to put our naval supremacy to use by landing them to the rear of the Ottoman lines and have them seize the port of Jaffe (6).

While a number of unexpected difficulties did develop in the landing (7), naval artillery support, Australasian pluck and the loyalty of the Jewish Legion, carried the day. By March, outflanked Ottomans, were forced to pull back, splitting their forces between the Jerusalem-Hebron front, unsupplied by rail, and the rail supplied but manpower poor Tulkarem front.

Jaffe landing.JPG
The situation following the Jaffe landings and Ottoman retreat to Jerusalem. Blue-WHite striped circles are Jewish settlments destroyed by the Ottomans, Blue circles are Anglo-jewish forces, black line is the route of the Jaffe- Port Siad railway.

Defeated but unbroken The Ottoman forces defiantly fortified the approaches to Jerusalem, using the threat to Haram El Sharif to rally the Arab Mashriq to their cause and further drained their North Syrian reserves of troops in order to hold back those whom they called crusaders from Al-Quds.

Zionist opinion, to which I was ever sympathetic, and the yearning of all of Christendom called for an all out effort for the liberation of Jerusalem. Certainly such an Easter gift could not but cheer the valorous nation of Richard the lion heart and steel it's resolve for the great struggle to come.

But sentiment in a statesman must ever be balanced by reason. As lord Kitchener pointed out, the Ottoman presence in Jerusalem lacked rail support while our own forces enjoyed a splendid rail connection to Egypt as well as a second-class port in Jaffe. Jerusalem, then might be the grindstone against which the Ottoman forces might be ground to dust under circumstances most favorable to us (8). By forcing the Ottomans to shift forces and supplies to the defense of Jerusalem, their ability to defend their long and vulnerable coasts from amphibious invasion would be weakened, just as a determined assault upon the redoubtable Mustafa Kemal in Basra might accomplish the same.

It was the target of the amphibious landing which would prove to be of considerable dispute. Once it became clear that the Straits could not be forced with naval power alone, or at least not without the loss of certain old ships which the admirality was reluctant to risk (9), it would have seemed that a landing at Gallipoli would have offered the best place to employ our amphibious capability. Certainly, success there would end Ottoman involvement in the war in one fell swoop as it was difficult to believe the CUP would be able to maintain control of a capital placed under naval artillery. Even if the CUP maintained control, the entirety of the Ottoman munitions and armory manufactories would have been placed under naval artillery, rendering any future resistance most difficult.

However, the Ottoman forces were concentrated in the straits and close to their supplies whereas our own forces would be forced to land on rocky beaches overlooked by high plateaus. Furthermore, such an effort would be entirely divorced from our successful land campaign and would have amounted to placing all our eggs in one basket. Rather than reinforcing each other, our efforts in Palestine, Messopotamia and Gallipoli would have detracted from one another. Dr Chaim Weizmann, by means not perhaps entirely orthodox and yet excusable given the great excitement which had gripped the heart of many by the advance on Jerusalem, conveyed the proposals of the Zionist New Society for a continued series of small landings on the coast of Phonecia to seize the ports of Acre, Tyre and Sidon in coordination with a northwards land advance. But this, while perhaps offering prospects for local success, would have done nothing to knock the Ottoman empire out of the war.

In the event I turned towards support for the Iskendrun option proposed by Lord Kitchener. The reorganized and reinforced ANZAC corps would land in Iskendrun, and then march north, guarded by Naval artillery, to sever the Berlin Baghdad railway (10). Left without reinforcements or munitions from Constantinopole, the Ottoman forces in the Mashriq would wither on the vine. With the treat of the loss of the Mashriq, including Mecca and Medina as well as Jerusalem at stake, the Sublime Porte might be induced to ask for terms. This landing would be preceded and accompanied by an all out assault by the Palestine expeditionary corps on Jerusalem, the Indian army and South Persia rifles in Messopotamia, and a Russian advance towards Van and Trebizond.

Winston Churchhill, the Great war

(1) OTL this was only built following the British conquest of Palestine. The Ottomans had started building a parallel, narrow track line from Lod toBeer Sheva in the prior to WWI. TTL, Jewish capital constructs the coastal railway around 1911 and, absent economic need, the inland track gets off to a later start.
(2) Churchill, remember?
(3) This is mostly political manuvering by Venizelos aimed at shaming the King into intervening in the war. Simmiliar to the Greek volunteers fighting with Serbia, but fewer and with more Saloniki Jews.
(4) Actually mostly British Jews who would rather fight the Ottomans than wait to be sent into the French meat grinder once. But growing numbers of Greeks, Bulgars, Romanians, and Americans as well. Also, as OTL, Russian-Jewish citizens who are NOT prepared to be drafted into the Czar's army.
(5) They were originally supposed to go to France. But after the Canadian corps got savaged by the Germans the British government decided that it would be better not to strain relations with the dominions by sending their men into the Western front Meat grinder without training. Accordingly, they kept the ANZAC corps in Egypt for three months(!!!) while they train and try to figure out what to do with them. And then they sent them to Gallipoli. Which was not a meat grinder at all of course. With no training in amphibious operations. Only 50% casualties. TTL, the British find something for them to do closer to Egypt.
(6) Which, unlike OTL, has been improved in the 1910s rather than the 1920s. It's still not a deep water port, though.
(7) That's Winstonian for colossal clusterfuck. Amphibious landing with semi-green troops? Fortunately it's Vs a weak enemy.
(8) An Ottoman Verdun. And the fact that much of the fighting and dying will be done by Jewish auxiliris is an added bonus.
(9) No one sends barbs like Churchhill.
(10) Topography would favor a landing in Western CIlicia at Incel or at the head of the Gulf in Incerli Over Iskendrun followed by a march on Adana. I'm assuming this was not proposed because Port sfascilities were insufficiently developed.

Jaffe landing.JPG
 
Last edited:
Will you look at pop culture, technology, etc.

I'd like to see this taken to the present day, if possible...

Good updates.


Good timeline. Nice amount of details and footnotes.

Thanks :)

I'll give a few teasers regarding world culture etc, but the main effects of the POD only come into play after WWI*. Pushing the TL to the present day may be difficult but I'll make an effort to bring it to the 1970s at least.
 
What no Gallipoli? Sir, you have undermined the course of Australasian nationalism!

Part of the general Idea (Early Israel in late world).... No Gallipoli means that disapointment with the high and mighty lords in London will not be so great post WWI. Independent Australian national sentiment will therefore be somewhat delayed though not aolihed- there are long term trends at work, after all (Generational drift, changing economic pattern, relative British decline, growth of native industry, clash over relations with Japan, etc).

That's assuming the Iskendrun option isn't a bloodbath mind you. My take is that given the changes that have occurred so far, a landing in Iskendrun will likely be successful in that it establishes a bridgehead and even takes the port without too many casulties but that advancing northwards into Cilicia and severing the B-B railway may prove dicier than London is expecting.
 
Top