I know in another thread I took a negative view of the idea that the Ottomans could be a "Superpower", but I thought I'd get this off my chest.
Why do Ottoman timelines often start with "Sultan/Prince X is committed to progress, instead of being confined to the harem", as if the Ottomans already didn't have rulers dedicated to progress.
They didn't lack an impetus for progress, far from it certainly, and did a pretty good job considering their resources.
I'll follow this one with a bit of interest, but that's a bugbear of mine.[/QUOTE
Indeed the Ottomans did a good job but in this tl you have an emepror who is cunning and much smarter than his predeccors. He is a man who follow enlightenment thinking, he has read, jaques, SMith, Voltaire, montesciue, Macchiavellli, and hobbes, he has read art of war and many military textbooks, basically he is one smart dude.
Btw here is the update
Chapter II: The Death of the sultan.
The Sultan of the Ottoman Empire was a man named Abdul Hamid II. However in 1901 Tragedy struck. While on a tour of the Ottoman military in Arabia, an Arabian revolutionary assassinated Abdul. The death of Abdul was a shocking blow to the Empire. Suddenly Mehmet’s father Mehmed became Mehmed the V. Mehmet suddenly found himself as the successor to the Sultanate. Mehmet was overjoyed he was another step closer to his goal. Now after the death of Abdul, Mehmed was suddenly in charge of the Ottoman Empire.
However problems arose, you see Mehmed was extremely stressed out at this point, his father was assassinated he became sultan of a crumbling empire he was in a very bad position. But Mehmed had been suffering of many ailments in his lungs. When doctors gave him a surgery to see what was wrong with his lungs it turned out he had a strange looking tumor. It had infected his lungs and was spreading. The doctors were confused at this abomination and soon had it removed. However terrible consequences waited. The tumor had already spread to other parts of the body and soon by 1906 Mehmed was suffering terribly. He lost weight and was bedridden. He was in no position to rule the empire. So Mehmet was quickly proclaimed at the age of 26 Sultan of the Ottomans after his father stepped down due to this sickness. By 1907 Mehmed had died a horrible death, and after the funeral on December 6th 1907 Mehmet Ziyaad was crowned Sultan of the Ottoman Empire and received the girded sword. Mehmet finally realized his goals he was now the emperor.
January 14th 1907
Dear diary I have finally become emperor of the Ottomans. However I am in a most miserable mood, I have lost my grandpa and my father within a span of a few years. I really am extremely downtrodden, however I must look to the future; I have my goals to realize. (Sob, Sob, Sob) I have only the wonderful works of Jean-Jacques Rousseau to console my broken heart.
Signed Mehmet V.
In the year 1907 Sultan Mehmet was what one would call a very different sultan from his preddecors. He soon went to implementing his reforms. He ordered the scrapping of the Ottoman navy. At first many admirals were shocked but he promised them that they would be in charge of the series of coastal defenses he would built after all why need a navy when it was mostly useless. Soon the Ottomans put up for sale many of their warships, for sale, many countries were eager to buy these ships and so Mehmet made millions selling most of the Ottoman Navy.
With this amount of wealth he turned to his main option build a series of coastal defenses. He soon built a series of artillery pieces and bases that would cover the long Ottoman coastline. He would use the funds from each sea province of the empire to construct their coastal defenses. Due to this each province of his empire at sea built his own coastal defenses. By 1909 a string of coastal defenses were built across the Ottoman empire's seaports in the Med.
Mehmet wanted more money so he soon encouraged businesses to rise. He followed the book Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith and soon encouraged and promoted the establishment of businesses by rich individuals across his empire. Soon many businesses popped up in the med, and with its resources a variety of different industries were created.
Mehmet was no fool he knew that the other Balkan powers, especially Bulgaria and Greece were growing with rapid military advancements. At this time in 1908 Serbian-Bulgarian tensions were growing to an all time high. Mehmet decided he needed to win the loyalty of his European subjects lest they should decide to side with their brethren. So he soon passed a series of laws that allowed the various ethnicities a lot more freedom than what they had. Mehemet then applied an old Byzantine tactic to weaken the Balkan powers. Have your enemies fight each other. Just recently after the Serbian-Bulgarian war many Serbians still had great resent towards Bulgaria he did everything possible to strenuate tensions among the two powers.
Mehmet knew he needed some buffer states in the European region, so he did the next best thing; he created the proctorates of Bosnia and what remained of Ottoman Macedonia. These two proctorates were basically puppets of the Ottomans, but Mehmet had another use for them, to act as buffer states against his enemies, he killed multiple birds with one stone, the Macedonians, and Bosnians had the autonomy they wanted but were in reality de facto controlled by the Ottoman empire.
Mehmet next created the secret police. They were an organization that was created to counter terrorist activity. The chief targets of these secret police were IMRO better known as the Internal Macedonian revolutionary organization and the Arab freedom movement. The Ottomans knew that Austria Hungary had been eying at stabilizing Serbia for a long time. The Austrians had a brilliant secret police, Mehmet hated the Austrians but he also saw the benefit of using his enemies to fulfill his own goals. So he soon granted trade concessions and free reign in Serbia and Bulgaria to the Austrians. Soon in late 1908 special agents from Austria Hungary soon trained the Secret police better known as the CROAT (Counter revolutionary Organization against terrorists) These members soon were sent into the new republic of Macedonia where they reeked havoc on IMRO supporters by spreading lies and false propaganda and blaming many “Incidents of loots and pillaging” As the fault of the IMRO. By 1910 the IMRO was drastically losing ground as they were seen by what remained of Ottoman Macedonia as hooligans and hoodlums. Mehmet established schools and created new churches and mosques in the Ottoman Balkans. This greatly won him the favor of many of the Balkan people under Ottoman rule.
Mehmet soon ordered every Ottoman military officer to read up books on modern warfare and tactics based on European strategies.
Due to these new businesses the British were eager to establish trade with the newly formed Turkish businesses. Many trade agreemebts were created beetween the two powers.
Soon Turkey spread false telegrams and soon spread rumors against the Austrians. Saying the Austrians were planning to take all the Balkans, conquer Italy, and were evil traitors. These greatly created heatead tensions among Britain and Austria hungary. AH had no idea what was occurring for they still thought of the Ottomans as their aquaintence when in reality the Ottomans were ruining AH reputation.
Mehmet was playing a very dangerous game in Europe, he knew war was coming but he was siding with virtually everybody on the continent. In reality he was manipulating the already established powers by increasing the tensions among the euro powers due to the arms race.
Mehmet turned to the Balkans. He soon had German specialists train and modernize as fast as possible the Ottoman army; he also encouraged construction of rails since 1907. Thus by 1911 Mehmet had roads and train tracks. He then quickly moved most of the Ottoman army to the borders of Macedonia, he split it into two fronts, one was to be led by Enver Pasha who would organize the defense against Bulgaria and Serbia, while Mehemet himself oversaw the defense against Greece and Montegno.
He soon created the Proctorate of Arabia under a Saudi king. He had of course chosen a Saudi who supported Ottomans and so created the Procterate of Arabia. Thus with this successful much of the tensions against Ottoman rule dyed down by 1911( Also helped that the CROATS were wreaking havic to discredit the arab movement). He then established the mutual treaty of friendship among the new proctorates in which they would all link each separate economy and trade together. As well as act as military supply bases and etc. The Bulgarians by 1911 were growing incredibly angry that the Ottomans were thwarting their plans.
The Balkan powers created the Balkan league in 1911 to attack the OE and its proctorates because they viewed the OE as a threat, the still consider OE to be a backwards nation. This was to be a fatal mistake.
By 1911 railroads were being built Ottoman industry and manufacturing was soaring. The OE was in the process of creating an army based on the German model. Much of the OE bases in the Balkans were fortified, the Ottomans had within 5 years were headed down a road of success. However it was still much too soon as Mehmet realized the sad fact, that he could not underestimate the Balkan powers.
I n 1913 the Balkan powers invaded ottoman satellites and territories on pretext of claims on these lands. However Mehmet had been anticipating these attacks for a while and was making defenses prepared at a rapid pace since his crowning as sultan. The fate of the Balkans would forever be decided in the war later known as the Balkan war, fought between the OE, Bosnia, and Macedonia against the combined forces of Serbia, Bulgaria, Montegno, and Greece. The war would decide the fate of the Balkans once and for all.