Osman Reborn; The Survival of Ottoman Democracy [An Ottoman TL set in the 1900s]
- Thread starter Sarthak
- Start date
Well Yemen will certainly going to be a far different place than before.
I guess the Ottomans do kind of have a weakness in the sense you capture the Caliph, given he is both the secular and spiritual leader of the empire, though it well obviously hard.
About the route Islam would in this timeline, the likely answer I would say would say would be a much stronger focus on spreading the word of the lord across the globe, as well loads of Islamic nations in the OTL where having crisis that lasted decades and so their efforts were focused on that. So a quite strong nation leads to more efforts at missionary work, similar to how the Stats evangelical movements and have successfully they spread round the world.
That and the endless legal battles over the pilgrimage to Mecca, something every holder of it has faced.
I guess the Ottomans do kind of have a weakness in the sense you capture the Caliph, given he is both the secular and spiritual leader of the empire, though it well obviously hard.
About the route Islam would in this timeline, the likely answer I would say would say would be a much stronger focus on spreading the word of the lord across the globe, as well loads of Islamic nations in the OTL where having crisis that lasted decades and so their efforts were focused on that. So a quite strong nation leads to more efforts at missionary work, similar to how the Stats evangelical movements and have successfully they spread round the world.
That and the endless legal battles over the pilgrimage to Mecca, something every holder of it has faced.
Hey Sarthaka will the Ottomans undergo territorial expansion of any sort in the future? I know that their main focus is on consolidating their current territories and ensuring the continuity of their state, but is it possible that some aggrandisement of the territorial variety is coming their way (Whether via war and subsequent annexation, or via plebiscite)?
Deleted member 117308
What should they even take? The only thing I can think of are parts of the Caucasus and maybe Egypt, but I don't think they would annex Tunisia or Serbia. Puppet states are something different however.
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They might with Serbia, or cut a deal with Danubia to the same effect. Because the impression I got is that Serbia is going to do something stupid (unlike Bulgaria, who has seen sense in a rather permanent manner) and, the way things are going, keep doing something stupid until they are dealt with in a permanent manner in some way.
I'll admit there is one thing I was hoping to see when Wilson's fall from grace and the defeat of the democratic party was shown in the US. I was hoping to see some repudiation of his racial policy's, his support of Jim Crow, etc... Or maybe it was there and I just missed it. Would feel dumb if I missed it again after looking over it.
Annexing Serbia would create more problems than it'd solve and probably exhaust the Ottomans in the inevitable struggle with partisans. I think though that the Serbs would only try their luck again if they had a great power behind them like say Russia.
Normally I'd agree but what we have seen so far have given me the impression that Serbia is preparing to go full revanchist dumbass, in contrast to Bulgaria and Montenegro. If not a full war, it feels like Serbia is planning to go terrorist jackassery.
I agree with the problems annexation would cause, that's why I'd imagine Ottomans would cut a deal with Danubia.
Chapter 37: The Civil Politics.
Chapter 37: The Civil Politics.
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“On January 3, 1919, Seratti, the leader of the Italian Communists and Socialists announced in front of the Italian All-Socialist Worker’s Congress that the first elections for the Congress would be taking place in February. This came as a surprise for many as the Italian Civil War was still raging in the south with extreme amounts of violence on both sides of the battlefield, and the northern mountain passes in the Italian Alps was filled to the brim with anti-Socialist guerillas. Many believed that Seratii would not call for an election as long as the northern guerillas weren’t dealt with. However Seratii was extremely worried about a French and Austrian intervention as both sides were filling the border up with troops and war material. Seratii therefore, rightly assessed that if he conducted an election, even if it were during a war, he would gain the legitimacy needed to safeguard the newly dubbed Democratic Italian Worker’s Republic or simply the DIWR.
The Italian All-Socialist Worker’s Congress was officially divided into 7 different factions. The first and most powerful of these factions was the Hard Left Faction. These people and politicians believed that the ideal future lay ahead in full Marxism and the total conversion of the country into a proletariat state. They didn’t control the majority of the congress, however still had a major plurality in place. They also publically called out their distaste for democratic methods of governance but they weren’t above taking part in them. The second most powerful faction was the Moderate Left Faction. These politicians believed that the ideal solution was a Marxist state with democratic system of governance as well as keeping local means of produce in the hands of the private owners, though the vast majority of the economy needed to be centrally planned according to them. The final plural faction in the Congress was the Christian Communist Faction. Christians made up a majority in Italy and even many communists were attached to their faiths. They advocated a measure of leftist conservatism and believed that unlike mainstream communism, religion and communism would be able to exist with one another properly. These three factions together formed the Congress’s ‘Big Three’ as most of the power of the congress was situated in the hands of these three factions within the Italian All-Socialist Worker’s Congress.
Then come the second tier factions in the congress. The first and most powerful among the second tier factions was the Right Leftist Faction. This was more of a cultural communist faction and nationalist communist groups, that believed in Italian cultural hegemony and nationalist irredentism alongside political Marxism and centrally planned economics, along with a hint of fiscal conservatism. Below that were the Social Democrats, who were legalized by Seratti to continue their operations. The Social Democrats were the faction who advocated a Nordic style economic model of mixed economics whilst retaining democratic ideals. After the Social Democrats were the Democratic Socialists, who were not that different from the Social Democrats, however the Democratic Socialists believed that the economy needed to be fully socialist whilst believing in a democratic system of governance. Finally the independents were a hodgepodge of other ideologies ranging from capitalism to monarchism to liberalism etc.
The first election of the Democratic Italian Worker’s Republic took place on February 24 and ended on February 27 when the results were announced. The turnout for the elections was particularly low, especially due to the fact that the northern guerillas made a small habit of blowing up polling stations and attacking official members of the government. Nonetheless, due to the public favor that the Italian Congress had received from the Vatican and the Holy See, many Italians were buoyed into coming to vote for the elections.
The elections ended with the Hard Left Faction being reduced from 33% of the congress to 28% but still holding overall plurality of the congress. Meanwhile, the Moderate and Christian Communist factions finished second and third respectively. At first these two factions raised a lot of oppositions against electing a Chairman from the Hard Left faction as they believed that the anti-democratic ideals of the Hard Left faction would undermine the entire election that was held and give carte blanche to the Danubians and French to invade.
It was agreed that a cross factional member, Antonio Gramsci, though a bit on the young side, would be elevated to the position as Chairman of the Congress. As a cross factional member of both the Hard Left Faction and Moderate Faction, he was acceptable for both sides.
Antonio Gramsci.
Just like Seratii had believed the elections managed to partially legitimize the Democratic Italian Worker’s Republic and many moderates and center-leftists in both Paris and Vienna began to attack the militaristic ambitions of their governments, stating that an invasion of a democratically elected government, no matter how low the turnout had been alongside a civil war, was something that their nations could not and would not undertake. Both Paris and Vienna were also buoyed from invasion and intervention, however both the countries vowed that any hint of ‘exporting the revolution’ as the communists called, would be met with military response. No ifs and no buts, Prince Louis, the Minister-President of Danubia and Viviani both stated this in blunt tones to their populace and political enemies.” The Political History of the Democratic Italian Worker’s Republic. The Socialist Democratic Utopia? © 1988.
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“The rebellion of Mulla Abd Allah in Afghanistan against King Amanullah Khan was immediately a giant problem for the British government in India as Pashtuns from across the Durand Line began to aid the government of Afghanistan and the rebels, depending upon their allegiances and preferences. This state of affairs escalated to a great amount on December 27, 1918 when British Sikh border guards in the Durand Line were attacked and killed by Pashto Afghan rebels as they perceived that the British were aiding the Afghan government.
Lord Chelmsford, the Governor-General of the British Raj knew that this state of affairs could not continue and that the situation had turned dangerous as cross border warfare continued to escalate between the two parties in the Afghan conflict. As Afghanistan was still a British protectorate, he had the official right to intervene in Afghan politics. On January 6, 1919, he asked permission from Prime Minister Austen Chamberlain, asking him to give the permission to the British Indian Army to invade Afghanistan and quell the rebellion on Khost and Herat. Chamberlain was reluctant to do this. The Afghans already hated their status of protectorate and vassal, even though Britain meddled in their internal affairs very little. Meddling in their affairs so blatantly would make Afghan goodwill to the British melt down to nothingness. However continued raids, such as the burning of Parachinar in British Pashto Lands forced the British government to make a decision. On January 12, the Commons convened to discuss the current Afghan dilemma and voted in favor of intervening in the Afghan Civil War. Later that day the British cabinet called Lord Chelmsford and gave him carte blanche to invade Afghanistan and quell the rebellion that was being fermented in Khost and Herat.
On January 18, the 7th Sikh Division, the 1st Gurkha Rifles, the 20th Indian Infantry Division and 38th Gloucester Infantry Division were gathered up to form a 70,000 strong invasion force in British Balochistan in Quetta. The troops were placed under the overall command of Sir Arthur Barrett. Barrett was told that he was to aid the Afghan government and stamp down on the cross border conflict, whilst capturing Mullah Abd Khan if it was possible. The 30 aircraft positioned from Bombay would act as his aerial recon units as well as bomber units.
Sir Arthur Barrett
On January 30, after one and a half weeks of military preparation, Barrett decided to take the offensive and the 70,000 Anglo-Indian army entered Afghan territory, immediately encountering tribal resistance. However the tribal resistance of Afghanistan was something that the British had experienced first hand in 1840 and 1878, and they by the third attempt knew how to fight back. Counter-insurgency tactics were immediately deployed. Population control was created by Barrett and every captured city and town or village in Afghan territory was subjected to massive checks from the Anglo-Indian Army and hamlets checks and defenses were created by the Anglo-Indians to make sure that tribal units would not be able to infiltrate the captured villages and towns.
Cordon and Search tactics were applied as well, as multiple areas were cordoned off and premises were searched regularly by the troops against insurgents. Barrett implemented the new doctrine that was being called as Cordon and Kick; Stability and Support Operations. The 30 aerial aircraft aiding the British were also used to pinpoint tribal guerillas and rebels and destroy them with the use of combined arms by the old yet wily general.
Barrett also implemented a strict doctrine of public ethics and diplomacy within the troops and any and all acts of violence against the Afghan population was stamped down by Barrett with frightening ferocity making any ideas of committing a warcrime a dubious one among the troops. These tactics were successful and by the time the British captured Kandahar on February 28 and subjugated Khost, the tribal guerilla warfare against Kabul and New Delhi was virtually destroyed by Barrett. After that diplomatic intrigues followed in Kabul as King Amanullah Khan was unwilling to negotiate properly with the hated Britons.
Finally on March 29, 1919, the Kabul Concord was signed between the Emirate of Afghanistan and the United Kingdom, led by Barrett and Amanullah in which Amanullah agreed to turn back some of his reforms to make sure that the population remained amenable to him and general stability returned. He also reaffirmed the Durand line as the border between Afghanistan and the British Raj and agreed to deploy border guards to stop cross border ethnic flareups and tribal conflicts. The British also withheld the right to make sure that the border was secured.
British Troops in Afghanistan.
Despite this victory of sorts for Amanullah Khan, the perceived image that the British needed to aid him was the death knell for his popularity in the country. He would not be trusted by the population again and as British troops left the Afghan nation one by one, the politicians and nationalists as well as Islamic conservatives began to intrigue with one another against the Afghan King, much to his own detriment.” The Graveyard of Empires: Truth or False? A History of the Invasions of Afghanistan. © 2019.
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“As per the Government of India Act 1918, the Indian portion of the British Empire had the right to hold general elections once every 5 years, and the first of these elections was to take place on February 22, 1919 and end on February 28, 1919. The trio of parties that were taking part in this election were the Indian National Congress, the All India Muslim League and the Nationalist Party led by Motilal Nehru, Mohammad Ali Jinnah and Madan Mohan Malaviya respectively.
Motilal Nehru.
Motilal Nehru had since 1883, earned a name for himself as a popular legal man involved in the legal business in Allahabad. In 1909 he reached the peak of his legal career by attaining the right to appear in the British Privy Council, becoming one of the few Indians to have gained the right to do so. His frequent visits to Europe had angered the Kashmiri Brahmin community as he refused to perform the traditional reformation ceremony that Hindus undertook after crossing the Indian Ocean. He had started on a path of wealthy elites and became involved in the Indian National Congress. In January 3, 1919 upon the endorsement of Mohandas Karmachand Ghandhi, he was elected to become the President of the Indian National Congress, and as such its leader for the upcoming first elections in the British Raj.
Alongside Nehru, the INC ran a platform of secularism during their electoral campaign hoping to gain the Muslim and Buddhist votes of the British Raj. The main platform of the INC during this campaign, and many campaign in the future was to seek Dominion Status for the British Raj within the system of the British Empire, seeking to have a moderate policy so as to not threaten the British who could clamp down on them immediately if they wanted. They also campaigned on a platform of reforming the new electoral law for the Raj General elections to expand suffrage not based on property rights but based on age and citizenship.
On the other side of the spectrum, stood Mohammad Ali Jinnah who led the All India Muslim League. Jinnah endorsed the Two Dominion Theory and he too ran on a platform of making sure that dominion was created within the framework of the British Empire. However he advocated for the creation of two dominions, one Hindu/Buddhist Dominion named Bharat and one Muslim dominion named Pakistan. He also lambasted the special electoral privilege that had been granted to the Hindu electoral regions of the British Raj and made his campaign on creating an equal amount of electoral regional reforms within the system of the new electoral government. Jinnah endorsed a campaign of what we today call secular Islamism, as he advocated for cooperation between the muslim majority and hindu and Buddhist minority of muslim majority provinces and electoral regions in the British Raj, seeking to gain their votes as well. Jinnah failed to do this properly during the 1919 General Elections, however would succeed by the end of his career. Unlike the INC, the All India Muslim League also ran a platform of economics, advocating for neoliberal economic policy to increase productivity in the British Raj to enrich the population whilst at the same time advocating for a greater amount of access to education for all in the Raj.
The third and final party was led by Milaviya was the Nationalist Party. This party took it a step further, and called for the creation of a dominion and within ten years of the establishment of a dominion, the creation of an independent India, whether or not under the British Monarchy or as a republic was left unsaid and was to be discussed in the future. Milaviya was a radical nationalist, and he had alienated a lot of the Muslim and Buddhist population during his campaigns as his speeches and electoral campaign was increasingly only Hindu oriented and Hindu focused, sidelining the other religious minorities of the country.
On February 28, it was declared that the INC had won 209 seats in the Central Legislative Assembly whilst the AIML had won 125 seats in the assembly. The Nationalist Party had won 95 seats in the assembly as well. Independents received a large share of the vote as well, gaining 61 seats. With the aid of the Anglo-Indian community and the Christian population of the British Raj, around 18 seats were gained by European deputies in the British Raj as well. Motilal Nehru, as the leader of the party which held the most seats in the assembly was made the Secretary of the Assembly, a position akin to that of a speaker or chairman of a legislative council.” The British Raj: A History of Colonialism, Brutality, Aid and the Creation of Nations. © 2008.
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“On January 5, 1919, Ahmet Riza announced that the campaign for the 1919 Ottoman Senatorial Elections had officially started. In this endeavor, there was a lot of enthusiasm for the elections that year, as this election would be the first election in the Ottoman Empire that would take place under the Added Mixed Representation System. For this type of elections, each voter would cast two votes, one of a candidate standing within their constituency, and a vote for a party list standing in a wider region made up of multiple constituencies. The constituency vote would then be used to elect a single representative in the voter’s constituency using the traditional first past the post system, the candidate with the most votes would then win. The regional vote would then be used to elect representatives from the party lists to stand in regional seats taking into account how many seats were gained by that party in the constituency vote, using a system of proportional representation, with the number of seats a party receiving being dependent on their total percentage of the vote. It would allow the government to keep the system mostly intact and also increase the proportional representation of the total electorate of the country. The Electoral Commission of the Ottoman Empire had thus divided the Empire into 14 Regions – Anatolia, Constantinople, Syria, Mesopotamia, Najd, Hejaz, Yemen, Albania, Macedonia, Thrace, Epirus, Northern Thessaly and North Africa.
The Committee of Union and Progress was starting to have some problems with the electorate during the electoral campaign for the elections. Their previous inaction towards the Greeks when they took over Cyprus hadn’t been forgiven and neither had it been forgotten, and many of the nationalist populace of the country began to act against the Committee of Union and Progress, costing the CUP precious votes in the upcoming elections. Ahmet Riza’s own image had taken a hit as many perceived that he had done nothing to save Sultan Mehmed VI who had been killed right in front of his own eyes. His actions against the tribes in Yemen had also sparked fear in many of the tribal constituencies of the Senate that he would eradicate the tribal system completely. The opponents of the Committee of Union and Progress would use all of these factors to ensure that they gained ground in the Senate.
a statue of Hasan Prishtina.
The Liberal Union on the hand had an easier time gaining the upper hand in the elections. They had studied the Regional List system in a more appropriate manner than their opponents and Hasan Prishtina intended to use this to his advantage during the elections. Prishtina managed to use the increasing focus on the economy by the government to look into other neglected matters of the state, such as medical services and firefighting services of the country which had been neglected by the government. He was also inspired by the Nordic social welfare system and to the astonishment of many, kept the system as official policy within the party manifesto. He stated that the party would support unconditional welfare systems in the country to make sure that the people of the country could be uplifted and enriched.
The Ottoman Socialist Party on the other hand simply tried to stay where it was and tried to keep their seats in constituencies where that had standing members. The culling of a few constituencies to create the new regional list system had hurt the Socialists the most, and their leader, Huseyin Hilmi recognized the fact that he would have to maintain electoral leadership and not gain more during this election. He too supported a welfare model for the Ottoman Empire, and was interested in increasing secularism in the country, garnering a good amount of sympathy votes from the Christians, Shias, Ibadis and Jews of the country.
The Ottoman Democrats were placing their platform on a basis on opposition to the current protectionist policies of the government on the economy focusing on neoliberal economic policies as well as fiscal conservatism. They also supported the abolishment of the feudal Beyliks in Ottoman Rumelia. Even though their formal power had been greatly diminished after 1908, these Beyliks still held a lot of influence in the regional areas, and were according to the Ottoman Democrats, a threat to Ottoman democracy. The Ottoman Social Democrats were perhaps the most ardent supporters of a Nordic style welfare system in the country and campaigned their entire electoral campaign based on this idea. Ata Atalay, the leader of the Ottoman Social Democrats was also a doctor and held a doctorate making his position a tad bit stronger to the population as he campaigned in favor of it. The Ottoman Armenian Regionalist Party and the Ottoman Public Administration for Decentralization (OPAD) party led by Armen Gar and Rafiq Bey both had wizened up partially and both only campaigned for the elections based on the regional list rather than the constituencies, and managed to successfully run for the lists through their means of canny electoral campaigns. The Poale Zion largely stayed inactive due to the growing fractionalism inside the party between pro-Zionist and anti-Zionist Jews within the party.
By the end of the elections, Huseyin Hilmi had lost his position as Speaker of the Senate in the Ottoman Senate and a contingent vote allowed Hassan Prishtina, the leader of the Liberal Union to gain that seat instead, as the leader of the largest party within the Ottoman Senate. The Liberal Union’s victory in the 1919 Senatorial Elections would set the stage for the Liberal Union’s victory in the 1922 Ottoman general elections.” Ottoman Politics: An Era of Tumult in the 20th Century. © 2016
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“On January 18, the Egyptian Minister of the Interior, Mohamed Tawfik Naseem Pasha unilaterally threatened to end the Jewish settlement in the Sinai region after it was leaked through Zionist press that the Arab population of the Sinai Peninsula were being degraded and being harassed, as well as segregated by the Zionist Congress as they set up a local government there. Naseem Pasha warned the leader of the Egyptian Zionist Government in Sinai (EZGS), Max Isidor Bodenheimer that any further continuation of such segregation methods would see the Egyptian army at their front gates.
Max Isidor Bodenheimer
The Zionist Congress had for the past few years becoming increasingly powerful in Egypt, and the Zionists were now not going to play by the Egyptian rules. Having enough of bowing to Egyptian law and order, on January 24, the Egyptian Zionist Congress in New Tiberias declared the Independent Zionist Republic of the Sinai to be independent and sovereign from the Khedivate of Egypt. This immediately led to the trigger of the 1st Sinai Crisis.
The Khedive of Egypt, despite its many claims had a meager standing army and force that was extremely unlikely be of much use against the small, but efficiently armed and veteran members of the so called Zionist Army in New Tiberias. As a result, Abbas II of Egypt turned his attention to the British and as the British were the legal administrators of Egypt, demanded that the British do something about it, or the Egyptians would ask the Ottomans to invade the Sinai and restore Egyptian rule there. The Zionist lobby in London was however too powerful, and Austen Chamberlain worried that if he intervened in the Sinai overtly against the Zionist congress the rupture in relations and economic property and trade would have been too high for the country to bear, and most certainly lead to conservative and liberal unionist defeat against the Liberals and Labour Party in the next General Elections. There was also the fact that the British army had been dangerously underfunded after the end of the Great War, and the British War Ministry was not enthusiastic about a new war and the Royal Treasury was not enthusiastic about a new drain for the budget. There was the growing amount of economic problems in Britain that made the notion of going to another war whilst committing themselves to action in Afghanistan a possibility that was not going to happen at all. A vote in Parliament made that clear when no side got a majority in the votes that followed. As a result, Chamberlain told Abbas II that he could not intervene in what was purely an internal Egyptian affair for the moment until he could get the government and economy in favor of such an intervention whilst getting the economy ready for an intervention in the sinai, so close the Suez Canal as well, however since the Khedive of Egypt was subservient under the Ottoman Sultan, he could ask the Ottomans to restore order; on the condition that they retreated back to their own boundaries after the conflict.
Such was the measure of 8 years of budding renewal of relationships between the London government and Constantinople Government, that the British would allow the Ottomans to do this. They also committed the amount of British troops that they had, around 6,000 in the Suez Canal to aid the Egyptians and Ottomans in a covert manner. On January 29, the Egyptian and British ambassadors to the Ottoman Empire demanded to speak with the Sultan and the Grand Vizier in a joint session. There they conveyed the sensitive topic, and asked the Ottomans to militarily intervene for the British. Sultan Abdulmejid II agreed to speak out against the Zionists in Sinai, however stated that the Ottomans would not intervene, because Egypt, as it were, was administratively British, and the Ottomans would be overstepping their rights in the region if they did so.
The British had also by this point managed to formulate a proper vote in the parliament, and finally on January 31, the parliament voted to act against the budding Zionist republic in the Sinai. At this point, the British ambassador to the Ottoman Empire, Louis du Pan Mallet, told the Ottomans that the 18th Nicosia Division from Cyprus was being moved to Egypt and that around 60 warplanes in Alexandria would be aiding the 26,000 British and 10,000 Egyptian troops to recapture the Sinai. The British retook their position of a full Ottoman intervention back, however asked that the Ottomans still stay in solidarity with the Anglo-Egyptian position and if possible, send aid to the Anglo-Egyptians, as a two front attack would make the Zionists collapse faster. The Ottomans decided to settle for a massive bombing campaign, using all of the 120 warplanes that the Ottomans had in the Levant and agreed to stay on side with the British and Egyptians.
Ottoman diplomats during the Concordat of Jerusalem.
For the Zionists this was a disaster. They had believed that the Zionist lobby in Britain would have been too powerful to make Britain intervene, as well as the economic factors of the country. However with Britain intervening, the small Zionist Republic of Sinai, led by its incumbent President, Max Isidor Bodenheimer decided to negotiate. Even before conflict could break out, the 1st Sinai Crisis ended on March 14, when Anglo-Ottoman brokered and backed negotiations forced the Egyptians and Zionist Congress to sign the Concordat of Jerusalem. The major points of the Concordat were:-
Ever since March 1917, the Egyptian nation had been subject to around 6 anti-British uprisings and small scale rebellions already, with boycotting of British goods taking place, and British military personnel being attacked and British civilians being segregated. As a result, the Egyptian Khedivate was turning out to be a massive monetary drain on the British Empire. The anticolonial riots and British suppression of them had led to the deaths of around 800 Egyptian civilians, 12 British civilians and 18 British military deaths. On November 1917, the Milner Commission had been dispatched by the British to attempt to resolve the situation. In early 1918, the commission submitted their report to the government, recommending that the protectorate be replaced by a treaty of alliance and military access. The British government had been undecided about giving full independence to Egypt, and the issue was thrown down the road by kicking the proverbial can. However the 1st Sinai Crisis had given the British government impetus to start to actually seek Egyptian independence. They were collaborating with the Ottomans to end the legality of Ottoman suzerainty over Egypt. The Ottomans in practice agreed to Egyptian independence, which had been the situation for the Ottomans ever since 1882, however they were unwilling to let go of the Sultan’s position as overall Suzerain of Egypt, unless recompense could be made to Constantinople, regarding all of the Ottoman offices, civilian employees and legal judicial officers in Egypt working for the Ottoman Empire as a part of the Ottoman Suzerainty over Egypt.
Finally on March 31, the British government agreed to recompense Ottoman property and employees in Egypt in return for Egyptian independence. That day the Agreement of Smyrna was signed between the Ottomans and the British which paved the way for full Egyptian independence on October 28, 1919 later that year.” The Sinai Crisis’s: The Colonization of the Sinai Peninsula © 2013
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“On January 3, 1919, Seratti, the leader of the Italian Communists and Socialists announced in front of the Italian All-Socialist Worker’s Congress that the first elections for the Congress would be taking place in February. This came as a surprise for many as the Italian Civil War was still raging in the south with extreme amounts of violence on both sides of the battlefield, and the northern mountain passes in the Italian Alps was filled to the brim with anti-Socialist guerillas. Many believed that Seratii would not call for an election as long as the northern guerillas weren’t dealt with. However Seratii was extremely worried about a French and Austrian intervention as both sides were filling the border up with troops and war material. Seratii therefore, rightly assessed that if he conducted an election, even if it were during a war, he would gain the legitimacy needed to safeguard the newly dubbed Democratic Italian Worker’s Republic or simply the DIWR.
The Italian All-Socialist Worker’s Congress was officially divided into 7 different factions. The first and most powerful of these factions was the Hard Left Faction. These people and politicians believed that the ideal future lay ahead in full Marxism and the total conversion of the country into a proletariat state. They didn’t control the majority of the congress, however still had a major plurality in place. They also publically called out their distaste for democratic methods of governance but they weren’t above taking part in them. The second most powerful faction was the Moderate Left Faction. These politicians believed that the ideal solution was a Marxist state with democratic system of governance as well as keeping local means of produce in the hands of the private owners, though the vast majority of the economy needed to be centrally planned according to them. The final plural faction in the Congress was the Christian Communist Faction. Christians made up a majority in Italy and even many communists were attached to their faiths. They advocated a measure of leftist conservatism and believed that unlike mainstream communism, religion and communism would be able to exist with one another properly. These three factions together formed the Congress’s ‘Big Three’ as most of the power of the congress was situated in the hands of these three factions within the Italian All-Socialist Worker’s Congress.
Then come the second tier factions in the congress. The first and most powerful among the second tier factions was the Right Leftist Faction. This was more of a cultural communist faction and nationalist communist groups, that believed in Italian cultural hegemony and nationalist irredentism alongside political Marxism and centrally planned economics, along with a hint of fiscal conservatism. Below that were the Social Democrats, who were legalized by Seratti to continue their operations. The Social Democrats were the faction who advocated a Nordic style economic model of mixed economics whilst retaining democratic ideals. After the Social Democrats were the Democratic Socialists, who were not that different from the Social Democrats, however the Democratic Socialists believed that the economy needed to be fully socialist whilst believing in a democratic system of governance. Finally the independents were a hodgepodge of other ideologies ranging from capitalism to monarchism to liberalism etc.
The first election of the Democratic Italian Worker’s Republic took place on February 24 and ended on February 27 when the results were announced. The turnout for the elections was particularly low, especially due to the fact that the northern guerillas made a small habit of blowing up polling stations and attacking official members of the government. Nonetheless, due to the public favor that the Italian Congress had received from the Vatican and the Holy See, many Italians were buoyed into coming to vote for the elections.
The elections ended with the Hard Left Faction being reduced from 33% of the congress to 28% but still holding overall plurality of the congress. Meanwhile, the Moderate and Christian Communist factions finished second and third respectively. At first these two factions raised a lot of oppositions against electing a Chairman from the Hard Left faction as they believed that the anti-democratic ideals of the Hard Left faction would undermine the entire election that was held and give carte blanche to the Danubians and French to invade.
It was agreed that a cross factional member, Antonio Gramsci, though a bit on the young side, would be elevated to the position as Chairman of the Congress. As a cross factional member of both the Hard Left Faction and Moderate Faction, he was acceptable for both sides.
Antonio Gramsci.
Just like Seratii had believed the elections managed to partially legitimize the Democratic Italian Worker’s Republic and many moderates and center-leftists in both Paris and Vienna began to attack the militaristic ambitions of their governments, stating that an invasion of a democratically elected government, no matter how low the turnout had been alongside a civil war, was something that their nations could not and would not undertake. Both Paris and Vienna were also buoyed from invasion and intervention, however both the countries vowed that any hint of ‘exporting the revolution’ as the communists called, would be met with military response. No ifs and no buts, Prince Louis, the Minister-President of Danubia and Viviani both stated this in blunt tones to their populace and political enemies.” The Political History of the Democratic Italian Worker’s Republic. The Socialist Democratic Utopia? © 1988.
***
“The rebellion of Mulla Abd Allah in Afghanistan against King Amanullah Khan was immediately a giant problem for the British government in India as Pashtuns from across the Durand Line began to aid the government of Afghanistan and the rebels, depending upon their allegiances and preferences. This state of affairs escalated to a great amount on December 27, 1918 when British Sikh border guards in the Durand Line were attacked and killed by Pashto Afghan rebels as they perceived that the British were aiding the Afghan government.
Lord Chelmsford, the Governor-General of the British Raj knew that this state of affairs could not continue and that the situation had turned dangerous as cross border warfare continued to escalate between the two parties in the Afghan conflict. As Afghanistan was still a British protectorate, he had the official right to intervene in Afghan politics. On January 6, 1919, he asked permission from Prime Minister Austen Chamberlain, asking him to give the permission to the British Indian Army to invade Afghanistan and quell the rebellion on Khost and Herat. Chamberlain was reluctant to do this. The Afghans already hated their status of protectorate and vassal, even though Britain meddled in their internal affairs very little. Meddling in their affairs so blatantly would make Afghan goodwill to the British melt down to nothingness. However continued raids, such as the burning of Parachinar in British Pashto Lands forced the British government to make a decision. On January 12, the Commons convened to discuss the current Afghan dilemma and voted in favor of intervening in the Afghan Civil War. Later that day the British cabinet called Lord Chelmsford and gave him carte blanche to invade Afghanistan and quell the rebellion that was being fermented in Khost and Herat.
On January 18, the 7th Sikh Division, the 1st Gurkha Rifles, the 20th Indian Infantry Division and 38th Gloucester Infantry Division were gathered up to form a 70,000 strong invasion force in British Balochistan in Quetta. The troops were placed under the overall command of Sir Arthur Barrett. Barrett was told that he was to aid the Afghan government and stamp down on the cross border conflict, whilst capturing Mullah Abd Khan if it was possible. The 30 aircraft positioned from Bombay would act as his aerial recon units as well as bomber units.
Sir Arthur Barrett
On January 30, after one and a half weeks of military preparation, Barrett decided to take the offensive and the 70,000 Anglo-Indian army entered Afghan territory, immediately encountering tribal resistance. However the tribal resistance of Afghanistan was something that the British had experienced first hand in 1840 and 1878, and they by the third attempt knew how to fight back. Counter-insurgency tactics were immediately deployed. Population control was created by Barrett and every captured city and town or village in Afghan territory was subjected to massive checks from the Anglo-Indian Army and hamlets checks and defenses were created by the Anglo-Indians to make sure that tribal units would not be able to infiltrate the captured villages and towns.
Cordon and Search tactics were applied as well, as multiple areas were cordoned off and premises were searched regularly by the troops against insurgents. Barrett implemented the new doctrine that was being called as Cordon and Kick; Stability and Support Operations. The 30 aerial aircraft aiding the British were also used to pinpoint tribal guerillas and rebels and destroy them with the use of combined arms by the old yet wily general.
Barrett also implemented a strict doctrine of public ethics and diplomacy within the troops and any and all acts of violence against the Afghan population was stamped down by Barrett with frightening ferocity making any ideas of committing a warcrime a dubious one among the troops. These tactics were successful and by the time the British captured Kandahar on February 28 and subjugated Khost, the tribal guerilla warfare against Kabul and New Delhi was virtually destroyed by Barrett. After that diplomatic intrigues followed in Kabul as King Amanullah Khan was unwilling to negotiate properly with the hated Britons.
Finally on March 29, 1919, the Kabul Concord was signed between the Emirate of Afghanistan and the United Kingdom, led by Barrett and Amanullah in which Amanullah agreed to turn back some of his reforms to make sure that the population remained amenable to him and general stability returned. He also reaffirmed the Durand line as the border between Afghanistan and the British Raj and agreed to deploy border guards to stop cross border ethnic flareups and tribal conflicts. The British also withheld the right to make sure that the border was secured.
British Troops in Afghanistan.
Despite this victory of sorts for Amanullah Khan, the perceived image that the British needed to aid him was the death knell for his popularity in the country. He would not be trusted by the population again and as British troops left the Afghan nation one by one, the politicians and nationalists as well as Islamic conservatives began to intrigue with one another against the Afghan King, much to his own detriment.” The Graveyard of Empires: Truth or False? A History of the Invasions of Afghanistan. © 2019.
***
“As per the Government of India Act 1918, the Indian portion of the British Empire had the right to hold general elections once every 5 years, and the first of these elections was to take place on February 22, 1919 and end on February 28, 1919. The trio of parties that were taking part in this election were the Indian National Congress, the All India Muslim League and the Nationalist Party led by Motilal Nehru, Mohammad Ali Jinnah and Madan Mohan Malaviya respectively.
Motilal Nehru.
Motilal Nehru had since 1883, earned a name for himself as a popular legal man involved in the legal business in Allahabad. In 1909 he reached the peak of his legal career by attaining the right to appear in the British Privy Council, becoming one of the few Indians to have gained the right to do so. His frequent visits to Europe had angered the Kashmiri Brahmin community as he refused to perform the traditional reformation ceremony that Hindus undertook after crossing the Indian Ocean. He had started on a path of wealthy elites and became involved in the Indian National Congress. In January 3, 1919 upon the endorsement of Mohandas Karmachand Ghandhi, he was elected to become the President of the Indian National Congress, and as such its leader for the upcoming first elections in the British Raj.
Alongside Nehru, the INC ran a platform of secularism during their electoral campaign hoping to gain the Muslim and Buddhist votes of the British Raj. The main platform of the INC during this campaign, and many campaign in the future was to seek Dominion Status for the British Raj within the system of the British Empire, seeking to have a moderate policy so as to not threaten the British who could clamp down on them immediately if they wanted. They also campaigned on a platform of reforming the new electoral law for the Raj General elections to expand suffrage not based on property rights but based on age and citizenship.
On the other side of the spectrum, stood Mohammad Ali Jinnah who led the All India Muslim League. Jinnah endorsed the Two Dominion Theory and he too ran on a platform of making sure that dominion was created within the framework of the British Empire. However he advocated for the creation of two dominions, one Hindu/Buddhist Dominion named Bharat and one Muslim dominion named Pakistan. He also lambasted the special electoral privilege that had been granted to the Hindu electoral regions of the British Raj and made his campaign on creating an equal amount of electoral regional reforms within the system of the new electoral government. Jinnah endorsed a campaign of what we today call secular Islamism, as he advocated for cooperation between the muslim majority and hindu and Buddhist minority of muslim majority provinces and electoral regions in the British Raj, seeking to gain their votes as well. Jinnah failed to do this properly during the 1919 General Elections, however would succeed by the end of his career. Unlike the INC, the All India Muslim League also ran a platform of economics, advocating for neoliberal economic policy to increase productivity in the British Raj to enrich the population whilst at the same time advocating for a greater amount of access to education for all in the Raj.
The third and final party was led by Milaviya was the Nationalist Party. This party took it a step further, and called for the creation of a dominion and within ten years of the establishment of a dominion, the creation of an independent India, whether or not under the British Monarchy or as a republic was left unsaid and was to be discussed in the future. Milaviya was a radical nationalist, and he had alienated a lot of the Muslim and Buddhist population during his campaigns as his speeches and electoral campaign was increasingly only Hindu oriented and Hindu focused, sidelining the other religious minorities of the country.
On February 28, it was declared that the INC had won 209 seats in the Central Legislative Assembly whilst the AIML had won 125 seats in the assembly. The Nationalist Party had won 95 seats in the assembly as well. Independents received a large share of the vote as well, gaining 61 seats. With the aid of the Anglo-Indian community and the Christian population of the British Raj, around 18 seats were gained by European deputies in the British Raj as well. Motilal Nehru, as the leader of the party which held the most seats in the assembly was made the Secretary of the Assembly, a position akin to that of a speaker or chairman of a legislative council.” The British Raj: A History of Colonialism, Brutality, Aid and the Creation of Nations. © 2008.
***
“On January 5, 1919, Ahmet Riza announced that the campaign for the 1919 Ottoman Senatorial Elections had officially started. In this endeavor, there was a lot of enthusiasm for the elections that year, as this election would be the first election in the Ottoman Empire that would take place under the Added Mixed Representation System. For this type of elections, each voter would cast two votes, one of a candidate standing within their constituency, and a vote for a party list standing in a wider region made up of multiple constituencies. The constituency vote would then be used to elect a single representative in the voter’s constituency using the traditional first past the post system, the candidate with the most votes would then win. The regional vote would then be used to elect representatives from the party lists to stand in regional seats taking into account how many seats were gained by that party in the constituency vote, using a system of proportional representation, with the number of seats a party receiving being dependent on their total percentage of the vote. It would allow the government to keep the system mostly intact and also increase the proportional representation of the total electorate of the country. The Electoral Commission of the Ottoman Empire had thus divided the Empire into 14 Regions – Anatolia, Constantinople, Syria, Mesopotamia, Najd, Hejaz, Yemen, Albania, Macedonia, Thrace, Epirus, Northern Thessaly and North Africa.
The Committee of Union and Progress was starting to have some problems with the electorate during the electoral campaign for the elections. Their previous inaction towards the Greeks when they took over Cyprus hadn’t been forgiven and neither had it been forgotten, and many of the nationalist populace of the country began to act against the Committee of Union and Progress, costing the CUP precious votes in the upcoming elections. Ahmet Riza’s own image had taken a hit as many perceived that he had done nothing to save Sultan Mehmed VI who had been killed right in front of his own eyes. His actions against the tribes in Yemen had also sparked fear in many of the tribal constituencies of the Senate that he would eradicate the tribal system completely. The opponents of the Committee of Union and Progress would use all of these factors to ensure that they gained ground in the Senate.
a statue of Hasan Prishtina.
The Liberal Union on the hand had an easier time gaining the upper hand in the elections. They had studied the Regional List system in a more appropriate manner than their opponents and Hasan Prishtina intended to use this to his advantage during the elections. Prishtina managed to use the increasing focus on the economy by the government to look into other neglected matters of the state, such as medical services and firefighting services of the country which had been neglected by the government. He was also inspired by the Nordic social welfare system and to the astonishment of many, kept the system as official policy within the party manifesto. He stated that the party would support unconditional welfare systems in the country to make sure that the people of the country could be uplifted and enriched.
The Ottoman Socialist Party on the other hand simply tried to stay where it was and tried to keep their seats in constituencies where that had standing members. The culling of a few constituencies to create the new regional list system had hurt the Socialists the most, and their leader, Huseyin Hilmi recognized the fact that he would have to maintain electoral leadership and not gain more during this election. He too supported a welfare model for the Ottoman Empire, and was interested in increasing secularism in the country, garnering a good amount of sympathy votes from the Christians, Shias, Ibadis and Jews of the country.
The Ottoman Democrats were placing their platform on a basis on opposition to the current protectionist policies of the government on the economy focusing on neoliberal economic policies as well as fiscal conservatism. They also supported the abolishment of the feudal Beyliks in Ottoman Rumelia. Even though their formal power had been greatly diminished after 1908, these Beyliks still held a lot of influence in the regional areas, and were according to the Ottoman Democrats, a threat to Ottoman democracy. The Ottoman Social Democrats were perhaps the most ardent supporters of a Nordic style welfare system in the country and campaigned their entire electoral campaign based on this idea. Ata Atalay, the leader of the Ottoman Social Democrats was also a doctor and held a doctorate making his position a tad bit stronger to the population as he campaigned in favor of it. The Ottoman Armenian Regionalist Party and the Ottoman Public Administration for Decentralization (OPAD) party led by Armen Gar and Rafiq Bey both had wizened up partially and both only campaigned for the elections based on the regional list rather than the constituencies, and managed to successfully run for the lists through their means of canny electoral campaigns. The Poale Zion largely stayed inactive due to the growing fractionalism inside the party between pro-Zionist and anti-Zionist Jews within the party.
By the end of the elections, Huseyin Hilmi had lost his position as Speaker of the Senate in the Ottoman Senate and a contingent vote allowed Hassan Prishtina, the leader of the Liberal Union to gain that seat instead, as the leader of the largest party within the Ottoman Senate. The Liberal Union’s victory in the 1919 Senatorial Elections would set the stage for the Liberal Union’s victory in the 1922 Ottoman general elections.” Ottoman Politics: An Era of Tumult in the 20th Century. © 2016
***
“On January 18, the Egyptian Minister of the Interior, Mohamed Tawfik Naseem Pasha unilaterally threatened to end the Jewish settlement in the Sinai region after it was leaked through Zionist press that the Arab population of the Sinai Peninsula were being degraded and being harassed, as well as segregated by the Zionist Congress as they set up a local government there. Naseem Pasha warned the leader of the Egyptian Zionist Government in Sinai (EZGS), Max Isidor Bodenheimer that any further continuation of such segregation methods would see the Egyptian army at their front gates.
Max Isidor Bodenheimer
The Zionist Congress had for the past few years becoming increasingly powerful in Egypt, and the Zionists were now not going to play by the Egyptian rules. Having enough of bowing to Egyptian law and order, on January 24, the Egyptian Zionist Congress in New Tiberias declared the Independent Zionist Republic of the Sinai to be independent and sovereign from the Khedivate of Egypt. This immediately led to the trigger of the 1st Sinai Crisis.
The Khedive of Egypt, despite its many claims had a meager standing army and force that was extremely unlikely be of much use against the small, but efficiently armed and veteran members of the so called Zionist Army in New Tiberias. As a result, Abbas II of Egypt turned his attention to the British and as the British were the legal administrators of Egypt, demanded that the British do something about it, or the Egyptians would ask the Ottomans to invade the Sinai and restore Egyptian rule there. The Zionist lobby in London was however too powerful, and Austen Chamberlain worried that if he intervened in the Sinai overtly against the Zionist congress the rupture in relations and economic property and trade would have been too high for the country to bear, and most certainly lead to conservative and liberal unionist defeat against the Liberals and Labour Party in the next General Elections. There was also the fact that the British army had been dangerously underfunded after the end of the Great War, and the British War Ministry was not enthusiastic about a new war and the Royal Treasury was not enthusiastic about a new drain for the budget. There was the growing amount of economic problems in Britain that made the notion of going to another war whilst committing themselves to action in Afghanistan a possibility that was not going to happen at all. A vote in Parliament made that clear when no side got a majority in the votes that followed. As a result, Chamberlain told Abbas II that he could not intervene in what was purely an internal Egyptian affair for the moment until he could get the government and economy in favor of such an intervention whilst getting the economy ready for an intervention in the sinai, so close the Suez Canal as well, however since the Khedive of Egypt was subservient under the Ottoman Sultan, he could ask the Ottomans to restore order; on the condition that they retreated back to their own boundaries after the conflict.
Such was the measure of 8 years of budding renewal of relationships between the London government and Constantinople Government, that the British would allow the Ottomans to do this. They also committed the amount of British troops that they had, around 6,000 in the Suez Canal to aid the Egyptians and Ottomans in a covert manner. On January 29, the Egyptian and British ambassadors to the Ottoman Empire demanded to speak with the Sultan and the Grand Vizier in a joint session. There they conveyed the sensitive topic, and asked the Ottomans to militarily intervene for the British. Sultan Abdulmejid II agreed to speak out against the Zionists in Sinai, however stated that the Ottomans would not intervene, because Egypt, as it were, was administratively British, and the Ottomans would be overstepping their rights in the region if they did so.
The British had also by this point managed to formulate a proper vote in the parliament, and finally on January 31, the parliament voted to act against the budding Zionist republic in the Sinai. At this point, the British ambassador to the Ottoman Empire, Louis du Pan Mallet, told the Ottomans that the 18th Nicosia Division from Cyprus was being moved to Egypt and that around 60 warplanes in Alexandria would be aiding the 26,000 British and 10,000 Egyptian troops to recapture the Sinai. The British retook their position of a full Ottoman intervention back, however asked that the Ottomans still stay in solidarity with the Anglo-Egyptian position and if possible, send aid to the Anglo-Egyptians, as a two front attack would make the Zionists collapse faster. The Ottomans decided to settle for a massive bombing campaign, using all of the 120 warplanes that the Ottomans had in the Levant and agreed to stay on side with the British and Egyptians.
Ottoman diplomats during the Concordat of Jerusalem.
For the Zionists this was a disaster. They had believed that the Zionist lobby in Britain would have been too powerful to make Britain intervene, as well as the economic factors of the country. However with Britain intervening, the small Zionist Republic of Sinai, led by its incumbent President, Max Isidor Bodenheimer decided to negotiate. Even before conflict could break out, the 1st Sinai Crisis ended on March 14, when Anglo-Ottoman brokered and backed negotiations forced the Egyptians and Zionist Congress to sign the Concordat of Jerusalem. The major points of the Concordat were:-
- The Egyptian sovereignty over Sinai to be inalienable.
- The Zionists to have an autonomous amount of power within their Sinai settlements
- The Zionists to create a commission of board members from mainland Egypt, the Ottomans and the British to make sure that the rights of the Arab populace were guaranteed and not alienated.
- The resignation of Bodenheimer from the post of Zionist Representative in Sinai.
Ever since March 1917, the Egyptian nation had been subject to around 6 anti-British uprisings and small scale rebellions already, with boycotting of British goods taking place, and British military personnel being attacked and British civilians being segregated. As a result, the Egyptian Khedivate was turning out to be a massive monetary drain on the British Empire. The anticolonial riots and British suppression of them had led to the deaths of around 800 Egyptian civilians, 12 British civilians and 18 British military deaths. On November 1917, the Milner Commission had been dispatched by the British to attempt to resolve the situation. In early 1918, the commission submitted their report to the government, recommending that the protectorate be replaced by a treaty of alliance and military access. The British government had been undecided about giving full independence to Egypt, and the issue was thrown down the road by kicking the proverbial can. However the 1st Sinai Crisis had given the British government impetus to start to actually seek Egyptian independence. They were collaborating with the Ottomans to end the legality of Ottoman suzerainty over Egypt. The Ottomans in practice agreed to Egyptian independence, which had been the situation for the Ottomans ever since 1882, however they were unwilling to let go of the Sultan’s position as overall Suzerain of Egypt, unless recompense could be made to Constantinople, regarding all of the Ottoman offices, civilian employees and legal judicial officers in Egypt working for the Ottoman Empire as a part of the Ottoman Suzerainty over Egypt.
Finally on March 31, the British government agreed to recompense Ottoman property and employees in Egypt in return for Egyptian independence. That day the Agreement of Smyrna was signed between the Ottomans and the British which paved the way for full Egyptian independence on October 28, 1919 later that year.” The Sinai Crisis’s: The Colonization of the Sinai Peninsula © 2013
***
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While on paper it's the UK whose giving the money in actuality it's the Egyptians themselves. The amount will be specified next chapter.
Two things.
Egypt's independance is a massive geopolitical victory for the Ottomans, with the Egypt no longer a part of the British Empire the Ottomans will be able to establish their own influence in their country and possibly an alliance.
On the flipside the brewing 2nd crisis in Sinai is going to make things excessively complex for the Ottomans since so far they have cultivated an image of being protectors of both Muslims and Jews, should a new conflict break out they will have to choose and since they will almost certainly choose the former it would make the state's relations with the Jews strained to say the least, not to mention a possible spike in anti semitism from Arab muslims.
Egypt is still very much a british puppet even when they go independent. Just like otl 1924 - 1946, when egypt was nominally independent but a British puppet.
the 2nd sinai crisis will make relations sour yes.
the usa and north america will be covered in an upcoming chapter.
CULTURAL UPDATE [1] - Attack of the Dead Men
Attack of the Dead Men
During the September Revolution in 1915, when the Bulgarian Communists tried to set up a communist republic, they weren't above using poison gas against their opponents. Throughout Bulgaria, Royalists took up arms in the name of King Boris III to defeat the Reds temporarily allying themselves with their old Ottoman foe. One such Royalist stronghold was Opaka, in Northcentral Bulgaria. A small fortress manned by 3,000 Royalist militia against an attack by around 10,000 Redshirts. The redshirts unleashed poison gas knowing that the Royalists didn't have any protection against gas attacks. After unleashing the gas they moved in with gas masks to what they presumed to be an easy fight. However much to the horror of many Redshirts, from the mist and gas remnants, they saw the Royalists charging out of the fortress with bayonets and rifles with scarfs over their mouth spitting out blood and parts of their internal organs. The mere sight was so terrifying that the Redshirts abandoned the attack. Ottoman, British and Greek media would later dub the Battle of Opaka the Attack of the Dead Men.
On October 2, 2010, in honor of their sacrifice and duty, King Boris IV of Bulgaria, who is particularly famous in the Balkans for also being a metal rock star, released a song in honor of the Attack of the Dead Men.
Disclaimer: OTL song is obviously Attack of the Dead Men by Sabaton.
During the September Revolution in 1915, when the Bulgarian Communists tried to set up a communist republic, they weren't above using poison gas against their opponents. Throughout Bulgaria, Royalists took up arms in the name of King Boris III to defeat the Reds temporarily allying themselves with their old Ottoman foe. One such Royalist stronghold was Opaka, in Northcentral Bulgaria. A small fortress manned by 3,000 Royalist militia against an attack by around 10,000 Redshirts. The redshirts unleashed poison gas knowing that the Royalists didn't have any protection against gas attacks. After unleashing the gas they moved in with gas masks to what they presumed to be an easy fight. However much to the horror of many Redshirts, from the mist and gas remnants, they saw the Royalists charging out of the fortress with bayonets and rifles with scarfs over their mouth spitting out blood and parts of their internal organs. The mere sight was so terrifying that the Redshirts abandoned the attack. Ottoman, British and Greek media would later dub the Battle of Opaka the Attack of the Dead Men.
On October 2, 2010, in honor of their sacrifice and duty, King Boris IV of Bulgaria, who is particularly famous in the Balkans for also being a metal rock star, released a song in honor of the Attack of the Dead Men.
Turmoil at the front
Blagoev's forces on the hunt
There's thunder in the east
It's an attack of the deceased
They've been facing poison gas
5, 000 charge en masse
Turn the tide of the attack
And force the enemy to turn back
And that's when the dead men are marching again
Opaka then and again
Attack of the dead, hundred men
Facing the lead once again
Hundred men
Charge again
Die again
Opaka then and again
Attack of the dead, hundred men
Facing the lead once again
Hundred men
Charge again
Die again
Two combatants spar
Blagoev against the Tsar
Move-in 6 battalions large
Into a Bulgarian counter-charge
They'll be fighting for their lives
As their enemy revives
Bulgarians won't surrender, no
Striking fear into their foe
And that's when the dead men are marching again…
Disclaimer: OTL song is obviously Attack of the Dead Men by Sabaton.