Peshawar Lancers Redux : Ottoman Empire and Middle East

[Strategos' Risk]

Fortunately, we have appeared to have an influx of Muslims onto this site as of late. Maybe some of them could help in coming up with the Caliphate.

 

[King Gorilla]

I honestly don't see the Ottoman's keeping much territory in Europe proper, even without the comet destroying Constantinople. At the time that the truce was signed, Russian troops were already at the outskirts of Constantinople.

Not only will the Ottomans be reeling from a significant military defeat, they will be suffering the effects of the global nuclear winter, and a revolt of their Arab provinces. They will have their hands full even without trying to restore order to their european provinces.

That being said, the Ottomen's are likely to be the only safe have for the Balkans muslims as both Russians and the HRE enage in massive amounts of ethnic cleansing cum genocide. As far as the orthodox slavs go, if they are lucky they might be able to be resettled by the russians, but I have a feeling they will be undergoing equally hard times.

 

[Valdemar II]

I honestly don't see the Ottoman's keeping much territory in Europe proper, even without the comet destroying Constantinople. At the time that the truce was signed, Russian troops were already at the outskirts of Constantinople.

Not only will the Ottomans be reeling from a significant military defeat, they will be suffering the effects of the global nuclear winter, and a revolt of their Arab provinces. They will have their hands full even without trying to restore order to their european provinces.

That being said, the Ottomen's are likely to be the only safe have for the Balkans muslims as both Russians and the HRE enage in massive amounts of ethnic cleansing cum genocide. As far as the orthodox slavs go, if they are lucky they might be able to be resettled by the russians, but I have a feeling they will be undergoing equally hard times.

Yes and a lot of Balkan Jews and Othodoxs is likely to join them in the exodus to Anatolia, with the Catholic refugee conquers entering Balkan, plus in the start the Russian forces will likely try to set up their state in Thrace (especailly with Chaos in Russia) only to later to be crush by the Catholics will ad to the general chaos.
Likely we will see a whole lot of the mainland population either fleeing or killed. So we may see much of western Anatolia ending up Slavic speaking, through Islam will likely stay dominant. The Greek is relative safe on their Islands but much of the Greek population of north may relocate to the cities of North Africa creating a large new mechant minority in the Caliphat.

 

[Ridwan Asher]

I would doubt about the likelyhood of an immediate Arab revolt. Don't get yourself confused with Lawrencian romanticism. Arab nationalism was confined to the Christian Arabs by this point. And in this TL where Ottomans would face even more troubles in the Balkans, they would try to appeal to the Arabs even more. Wonder if the changing of the national language into Arabic will be really happening ITTL.

About the Balkans, I would like to add that, actually because of the incursion from Central Europeans refugess moving in, there would be even more sense of "we're being invaded" among the Balkans and this will actually make them cling to the Ottomans even more. About whether the Ottomans will be able to meet their expectation though, that's another matter. Bosnia and Serbia are toasts, but I would argue it's quite realistic to maintain Ottoman control in territories south of Skopje. I don't think the Central Europeans would be able to replace Albanians from their mountainous native land, and after things have stabilized Albanians will most likely continue to be a nuisance for the newcomers.

 

[Ridwan Asher]

There is plenty of time for such a thing to occur. Perhaps it goes something like this. Egypt under Isma'il Pasha (is that the right Pasha?) might immediately seize the canal (i.e. refuse to pay debts) and expand into the Levant, but after his death a civil war over power could happen where you get something where you have four powers in the region:

Egypt that controls Egypt (and the Sinai), Sudan, and perhaps a few other areas in Africa to the south.

A Damascus Caliphate that controls the Levant (sans the Sinai), the Hejaz, and many of the Arabian tribes pay tribute if not allegiance to this Caliph.

A OE that has a death grip on Anatolia, parts of the Balkans, and the land between the rivers (Iraq and Kuwait).

Then there is Persia which hasn't changed much but it has more influence than OTL over the tribes on the east coast of the Arabian Peninsula.

How's that?

I doubt there would ever be Damascus Caliphate ITTL. IOTL, Ottomans began to shift their powerbase to Asia right after losing Russo-Ottoman War. ITTL they would be doing that with even more zeal. IIRC even by 1878 Syria was already part of metropole circle. Heck I even suspect there's a realistic chance of the Ottomans actually adopting Arabic as state language ITTL, (they did consider that IOTL).

 

[The Sandman]

I think I'll repost something I'd dropped onto the main Peshawar Lancers Redux thread a little while back.

I'd like to propose a solution to the "where the hell did the Ottoman Empire go?" conundrum: it didn't go anywhere, it just moved its capital to Damascus. Konstantiniyye is still highly important, but after the third or fourth major siege courtesy of the Russians, the Germans, and whoever else is tooling around there it was decided that the functions of the government should be moved somewhere less exposed.

As for why the title of Caliph is used instead of Sultan, that would be because the increase in religiosity following the Fall made the change of title seem prudent.

 

[Ridwan Asher]

I think I'll repost something I'd dropped onto the main Peshawar Lancers Redux thread a little while back.

We will need to further discuss the exact plausibility of this scenario. It does interistingly make them a creature closer as an middle eastern analogue to Angrei Raj.