Place In the Sun: What If Italy Joined the Central Powers? (1.0)

[SultanArda]

Well, i guess it would be an utter mixture of the 1912 Election, 1914 elections and the 1908 elections. To say the least an utter shitshow. The 1908 election was very democratic, even more so than Britain, France and the US in many regards (women of certain age and standing were allowed to vote, unlike places like those where women weren't allowed to vote, but the women vote was repealed in 1913 by Enver Pasha). So, we have the Armenian Genocide, and the CUP holding onto power by the skin of their teeth. Problem here is that even before ww1, and during it, many of the CUP's wealthy backers, left the CUP, and started to support its opposition parties. The Ottoman Socialist Party* had an underground revival due to Yesik Reval Pasha defecting to them, and bringing his massive wealth to the Socialist Party. The Arabs who had voted for the CUP in 1914 were also becoming restless as they hated the CUP's Turkification policies, and so they had started to support the Liberal Entente and the Ottoman Democratic Party, with the 1914 By-elections in Hejaz being won by the Liberal Union otl. The Baghdad By-elections in 1914 were won by the Ottoman Democratic Party as well. The Ottoman Greek, Pontic Greek and Armenian population heavily supported either the Liberal Entente or the Socialist Party as well.

Thus i think, the CUP will win the largest amount of seats in parliament, but the opposition parties will have enough seats to come together in a coalition government. Of course, whether or not they are capable of coming into a coalition is up to you the author.

* The Ottoman Socialist Party advocated for monarchism, and the only tenant of socialism they followed was controlled economics, but not in the traditional sense. They supported guided and controlled market economics. Basically modern prc chinese economics.

I am thinking like you but I think CUP wouldn’t go quiet. CUP’s absolute authority came when they raided Sublime Porte and forced Kamil Pasha to resign.
Also, CUP, has one advantage, they won the war (I know Ottoman performance was abysmal except Gallipoli Campaign OTL but Germany won so Ottomans won as well ITTL). I think they would propagandize it, a lot.
That is my thoughts.

 

[ByzantineMan]

I am thinking like you but I think CUP wouldn’t go quiet. CUP’s absolute authority came when they raided Sublime Porte and forced Kamil Pasha to resign.
Also, CUP, has one advantage, they won the war (I know Ottoman performance was abysmal except Gallipoli Campaign OTL but Germany won so Ottomans won as well ITTL). I think they would propagandize it, a lot.
That is my thoughts.

CUP would absolutely swing winning WW1 into gains in government, but given Ottoman performance it would only be temporary maybe

 

[SultanArda]

CUP would absolutely swing winning WW1 into gains in government, but given Ottoman performance it would only be temporary maybe

Well, they could use it until elections is won by them and after that, they could simply leave it and even try to make forget the disasters such as Sarıkamıs.

 

[Sarthak]

I am thinking like you but I think CUP wouldn’t go quiet. CUP’s absolute authority came when they raided Sublime Porte and forced Kamil Pasha to resign.
Also, CUP, has one advantage, they won the war (I know Ottoman performance was abysmal except Gallipoli Campaign OTL but Germany won so Ottomans won as well ITTL). I think they would propagandize it, a lot.
That is my thoughts.

CUP would absolutely swing winning WW1 into gains in government, but given Ottoman performance it would only be temporary maybe

Well, they could use it until elections is won by them and after that, they could simply leave it and even try to make forget the disasters such as Sarıkamıs.

The CUP i doubt would go easily. However that is only true for Tallat and Enver Pasha. In 1912, Aristidi Pasha received a letter from the CUP stating that they would respect the election and remain in opposition if necessary in the spirit of bipartisanism. If Talaat and Enver can be thrown out, then the CUP would begrudgingly accept opposition role. Also propaganda has little value in the oe. the educated knew that the CUP were crooks, and the uneducated could not read the propaganda leaflets.

 

[SultanArda]

The CUP i doubt would go easily. However that is only true for Tallat and Enver Pasha. In 1912, Aristidi Pasha received a letter from the CUP stating that they would respect the election and remain in opposition if necessary in the spirit of bipartisanism. If Talaat and Enver can be thrown out, then the CUP would begrudgingly accept opposition role. Also propaganda has little value in the oe. the educated knew that the CUP were crooks, and the uneducated could not read the propaganda leaflets.

I forgot the fact educated didn’t like CUP and most simple citizens simply cared about their daily life.

 

[Kaiser Wilhelm the Tenth]

Chapter 37: The Postwar Ottoman Empire
​

"All day long, without respite nor peace, the fighting continues. Greek against Turk, Turk against Briton... by the time it is over there will be no Cyprus left to annex!"
-Excerpt from the diary of a Greek-Cypriot woman, summer 1916

"The Ottoman Empire gained something most valuable at Dresden and Konigsberg. Dreams of annexing or of puppetising Georgia, Azerbaijan, and Egypt were shown up as just dreams, and all they had to show on a map was Kuwait traded for Qatar. Yet, this represented an essential gain for the state, for it gave the Pasha regime a few years of quiet with which to rebuild the empire, something more valuable, far more valuable, than anything on a map..."
- Robert FitzGerald, The Great War for Civilisation, 1998.

The Ottoman Empire had not performed especially well in the Great War. An invasion of Siani in 1915 had flopped, and Ottoman troops sent the rest of the war on the defensive in Palestine, while Russian troops had gained a bridgehead in the Caucasus and never lost it. As on the Western and Italian fronts, 1915 passed in stalemate. Britain had repulsed the enemy attack into Sinai but was in no position to push towards the Holy Land, while neither side landed a knockout blow in Mesopotamia. Fortunately for the empire, anticipated rivals such as Italy, Bulgaria, and Greece either joined the Central Powers or remained neutral. The empire’s heartland was too large and remote for the Entente to strike at it, giving the Ottomans a secure territorial and resource base from which to continue the war. (1)

The Ottoman Empire’s moment came in the first months of 1916 when British general Sir Charles Townshend, seeking to break the deadlock and gain glory for himself, crafted a plan for a “lightning strike” against Baghdad. When Townshend set off in autumn 1915, his greatest foe was not the Turks but logistics. Unable to keep his men supplied in the desert, he clung to the Tigris River. Increasingly aware of his vulnerability, Townshend retreated to the hamlet of Kut al-Amara in December, but a German-led Ottoman army soon encircled him. 1916 opened with a bitterly cold January as the thermometer plunged, but while the Ottomans feasted on rations brought down from Baghdad, the British starved. His men dropping like flies, Townshend stepped into captivity on 29 April 1916, dooming attempts to capture Ottoman Mesopotamia. Pasha had not been idle during the months of siege, following his triumph by attacking southeast with men from the 90,000-strong strategic reserve. Lacklustre Iraqi logistics meant it took approximately a month to move a trainload of soldiers from Constantinople to Baghdad. (3) Despite this, some 30,000 Turks had been transferred to the Tigris by the first of May. Slowly, the Ottoman Empire pushed its way southeast. Britain’s men had courage but not numbers, and with France’s situation going from bad to worse on the Continent, there was little prospect of reinforcement. London signed an armistice with Germany on 13 June, but fighting in Mesopotamia went on for another month until the Ottoman Empire snatched Kuwait in late August, thus winning decisively in the Mesopotamian theatre.

While Turkish troops marched resolutely to Kuwait, Cyprus exploded into ethnic violence. The British regime had favoured ethnic Greeks- eighty percent of the island’s population- who returned with loyalty to London. Turkish Cypriots had always chafed under Britain and felt threatened by their Greek neighbours, causing them to look to Constantinople for protection. When Britain had abandoned all pretense and formally annexed Cyprus at the start of the Great War, Turkish Cypriots expected mass violence from the Greeks. It pleasantly surprised them when this did not occur; Britain had no desire to see ethnic violence rip up one of its colonies at a cost of imperial money and lives, and so tenuous peace prevailed.

This quiet ended in the spring of 1916.

Despite not having performed brilliantly, the Ottoman Empire had picked the winning side and was clearly going to profit from that. War Minister Enver Pasha and his cronies coveted Cyprus; besides containing thousands of his fellow Turks, its strategic location would provide useful naval bases. Pasha slipped agents provocateurs onto the island in early May, with the goal of setting off as much violence as possible.

An explosion rocked the Famagusta Gate on 13 May, killing seventeen and destroying medieval fortifications in the blink of an eye. The Venetians had built the gate to defend the capital, Nicosia, in the sixteenth century and remained a popular landmark. Nicosia’s British fire brigade was on the scene within minutes and spent the rest of the day fighting the blaze, while the police did their utmost to track the perpetrator down. Unfortunately, they failed; any potential witnesses had died in the explosion and the culprit- an Ottoman agent- had entered Cyprus from neutral Greece, covering his tracks very well.

The Famagusta Gate bombing was just the start. Ottoman agents conducted various acts of terrorism throughout the summer, not even pausing when London signed a ceasefire with Constantinople. Maintaining plausible deniability was extremely important to the Pasha troika- this ran roughshod over the Geneva Convention and could’ve been fatal to their joint career if discovered. Turkey thus minimised its contacts with agents on the island, letting them do as they pleased. The lack of central direction resulted in a haphazard campaign. More often than not, British troops or Greek civilians were the victims, but the terrorists weren’t above killing ethnic Turks just to cover their tracks. Sir John Eugene Clauson, governor-general of Cyprus, was in a maddening position. He knew that Constantinople was behind the violence in his colony but couldn’t prove a thing without hard evidence, and the bloody terrorists were covering their tracks too well! Sir Clauson took matters into his own hands, doing something reprehensible and stupid for the sake of his job. Soldiers spent the first week of August 1916 arresting Turkish Cypriots en masse. Sir Clauson reasoned that even though this would harm innocent life, it would ensure the capture of the terrorists. British soldiers arrested Turkish males over sixteen for the crime of speaking their native language, wearing a fez, or being seen in a mosque. Too many Greek Cypriots happily turned on their neighbours, betraying them to the British or worse, committing atrocities of their own; young Turkish men retaliated by formed armed gangs and slipped out to the countryside, or staged retaliatory attacks against Greek Orthodox churches. This only confirmed Britain’s fears that the Turks on the island were in league with Constantinople and served as an impetus for more internments. Thousands of innocents were crammed into unsanitary internment camps across the island, with dozens of deaths from disease or violence a day. This violated international law, but Britain had boots on the ground while Constantinople didn’t. Some refugees managed to slip away to Constantinople by fishing-boat, but British troops guarded the harbours to prevent agents provocateurs from entering or criminals fleeing.

Cyprus was a moral disaster by the time of the Dresden Conference.

A German political cartoon satirising hopes for peace on Cyprus.

The Entente and Central Powers made peace at Dresden in October 1916. Regime loyalist Halil Mentese represented the Ottoman Empire, accompanied by a small army of translators and servants. Mentese and Enver Pasha had discussed Ottoman goals at length, and the respective nations had informed their ambassadors in Constantinople of those goals. Mentese remained quietly at the back for the first two days while Germany presented France with the bill. The first order of business on 17 October was Kuwait. Ottoman troops occupied the colony and had been flooding in since the cease-fire. Mentese requested Britain recognise Constantinople’s suzerainty over the colony, and to permit the Ottomans to re-establish their protectorate over Qatar. Mentese’s audacity raised more than a few British eyebrows, with Sir Edward Grey pointing out that the UK could launch a counteroffensive in the Middle East. That was bluff; to retake Kuwait by force would’ve meant restarting the war, and a raised eyebrow from Kaiser Wilhelm silenced Grey. Backpedalling, he offered the Ottomans Kuwait in exchange for reciprocal concessions elsewhere, but the UK wouldn’t be leaving Qatar. Halil Mentese ignored the bit about “reciprocal concessions elsewhere” and behaved as though Britain had given him Kuwait on a platter.

Moving on to bloody Cyprus, Mentese spoke of the “ethnic cruelties” perpetrated against innocent Turks, accusing both Britain and Greece of ethnic cleansing. This was flatly untrue- Britain’s policies were racist but not intended to eradicate Turkish Cypriots, while neutral Greece had nothing to do with the events on the island. Mentese then made what he described as a “humanitarian gesture.” Great Powers had, directly and indirectly, spilled too much Cypriots blood; why not let the people determine their own future in a plebiscite? Grey retorted that it was a bit rich of the Ottomans to criticise Great Powers spilling blood while massacring their Armenians. Mentese denied that he knew what Grey was talking about, but his fury gave him away. Dusk was approaching and so everybody adjourned for the day. Several British and Ottoman interpreters got into bitter arguments that night, with the British yelling “what about Armenia” and their Turkish counterparts yelling “what about Ireland?” More substantially, an aide asked Grey over a gin and tonic if he really wanted years of ethnic strife on Cyprus- the Foreign Minister stroked his chin and said nothing. Grey accepted the plebiscite idea the next day, and it was written into Article 34 of the Treaty of Dresden on 20 October. A Plebiscite Commission was established, but there was some debate about who was to lead it. Britain proposed Henry Morgenthau, American ambassador to Constantinople, but Constantinople rejected him because of his unabashed criticism of the Armenian Genocide. Abraham I Elkus, a prominent American Jewish diplomat, was accepted because of his faith; since Christian-Muslim divisions were a major historical factor in the Cypriot divide, both sides assumed a Jewish man would be ‘neutral’. Commission officials trickled into Cyprus through the last weeks of 1916 to prepare for a vote on 25 December; both British and Ottoman troops accompanied them to keep order.

Halil Mentese kept mum when making peace with Russia at Konigsberg two weeks later. While Ottoman control of Kuwait and the violence on Cyprus gave them a bargaining chip against Britain, the Russians held all the cards against them. Russian troops had overrun much of Ottoman Armenia, exposing the massacres committed by Turkish troops, and held a chunk of Anatolia; not a single Ottoman boot stood on Russian soil. They abandoned dreams of shifting the border north or of establishing puppet states in the Caucasus as Mentese procured only two concessions; forgiveness of all Ottoman debt to Russia and the evacuation of all occupied Ottoman territory by New Year’s Day 1917. Many Armenians, knowing what the return of Ottoman power would mean, abandoned their homes and possessions on a long march to the Russian border. Russian troops, bitter over having lost the war when they had defeated the Turks in battle, often refused to permit Armenian refugees to tag along; civilians were a drain on resources.

These Armenians would soon meet a bitter fate.

Christmas Day 1916 opened with the Cyprus plebiscite. Predicted mass violence hadn’t materialised, largely because both sides believed they’d get what they wanted. Unbeknownst to anyone, Enver Pasha had a plan to ensure he got what he wanted. Citing the brutal ethnic violence, he called on Turkish Cypriots to “join for their own safety”; ie, move to a specific geographic location within Cyprus. Making such a direct appeal to the Turkish Cypriot population was one reason Constantinople had wanted boots on the island to ‘supervise’ the plebiscite. Many were all too happy to get away from their British and Greek foes, and thousands travelled to the north-east of the island. Every Cypriot over eighteen- women included- was eligible to vote, and when the commission unveiled the results on New Year’s Day 1917, they revealed something surprising. Out of three choices- remaining under the British Crown, incorporation into Greece, or incorporation into the Ottoman Empire, maintaining the status quo prevailed with 49% of the vote; becoming part of Greece received 34%, thus leaving 17% voting to join the Ottoman Empire. What was interesting was that the 17% was located almost uniformly in the northeastern tip of the island- if Cyprus didn’t join the Ottoman Empire it faced the danger of an ethnically Turkish insurgency in one geographic area. Constantinople now stepped in with another ‘humanitarian’ gesture. It would be unjust, they said, to leave a fifth of Cyprus’ population under a hostile regime. Given that the vote had been divided on rough geographical lines, why not partition the island? Turkish Cypriots in the north-east could become part of the Ottoman Empire, while Britain and the Greek Cypriots could rule the rest? By this point, though, everyone had had enough. Britain had offered to let the people decide- they emphasised that they hadn’t had to do this- and they’d had chosen British rule. Sir Edward Grey informed Constantinople that he would hear no more talk on the matter. Cyprus was and would remain British, and since Britain had boots on the ground, they were the ones able to set the agenda. The island would be a sticking point in Anglo-Turkish relations for years to come, and a shared interest in the well-being of Greek Cypriots- plus a natural desire to contain Turkey- would draw London and Athens closer together despite the latter’s courting of Germany. Once it became clear, the Ottomans would never gain Cyprus, the Pashas recalled their agents on the island, and 1917 saw ethnic violence decline immensely.

Constantinople’s scheme to steal Cyprus had failed, and all those deaths had been for nothing.

Turkey had gained few concessions at Dresden, but it had acquired something more badly needed: breathing space. Russian and British ability to menace the frontiers had greatly decreased while Italy, Bulgaria, and Greece all treated the empire with more respect than before. However, the Ottoman Empire faced one issue which the war had exacerbated: debt. Prior to the war, European loans had been one of the few things keeping the empire going, and the bill would come due on those eventually. As mentioned above, the Ottomans had had their debt to the Entente cancelled at Dresden but were still on the hook for payments to Germany, Danubia, Italy and Holland, totalling some five billion- to say nothing of the immediate expenditure on the war, some 2.6 billion liras, and the Ottoman Empire’s prewar deficit. Inflation had gone through the roof while living standards plummeted, and a year of peace had done nothing to help.

The Ottoman Empire was looking at total financial collapse going into 1918.

Talaat Pasha was finance minister as well as prime minister. Since his head would roll if the imperial economy didn’t soon recover, he spent the winter of 1917-1918 crusading for a national bank. If the Finance Ministry could assume a greater degree of centralised control over the economy, that would help them keep expenditure down and give him a better idea of what he had to work with. Writing to the Sultan, he pointed out that the economic programme adopted in 1911 had promised a national bank by 1915, and that enough time had gone by without one. Mehmed VI was sympathetic to the idea, but pointed out that the Ottoman Public Debt Administration would need to give its consent. Talaat was a good Turk and so the mere mention of that organisation was enough to make him mutter obscenities. The Ottoman Public Debt Administration (OPDA) was a consortium established to manage Constantinople’s debt to the world, and every Turkish patriot worth his salt was convinced that it was a ploy to exploit the empire; they were not entirely wrong. Nonetheless, Talaat Pasha was going to have to go through the OPDA to establish his central bank. Sir Adam Block, prewar president of the OPDA, was invited to Constantinople on 13 February 1918, where he met with the Pasha troika. This wasn’t an official session of the OPDA and Sir Block could offer only his personal opinions, but what he said was encouraging. Sir Block would be willing to approve and assist with an Ottoman central bank in exchange for more economic rights within the empire. Talaat Pasha had mixed feelings on this; on the one hand, his country needed financial reform but economic concessions to a country they’d just defeated in war was a bitter pill. Talaat proposed a formal session of OPDA to discuss the matter; Sir Adam Block agreed.

The Ottoman Public Debt Administration’s governing council convened in Constantinople on 1 April 1918. The post-revolutionary French regime, disliked by all parties, hadn’t been invited. Britain, Germany, Danubia, the Netherlands, and Italy were all represented, and their interests varied. Danubia, weakened from its Hungarian ordeal, was in no position to make demands, while the Netherlands and Italy couldn’t have cared less about whether or not the Ottomans had a central bank. Sir Adam Block wanted economic concessions in the former colony of Kuwait in exchange for supporting the measure, while Germany’s interests were more balanced; they wanted a stable and healthy Ottoman Empire from which they could procure oil and bypass the Suez Canal. Talaat Pasha explained his proposal for carrying through with the central bank as detailed in the 1911 programme and received approval from the delegates. Talaat wished he hadn’t had to get permission from foreign powers to run his own internal affairs but was grateful nonetheless, and he eagerly sent word to the Finance Ministry to proceed with plans for the bank. The National Bank of the Ottoman Empire would be inaugurated on 1 January 1919, with a handsome central building in Constantinople blocking traffic through to the present day.

Talaat Pasha was determined to follow up on this victory by slashing his country’s debt to the OPDA nations. Constantinople needed to deflate the currency and improve living standards, but they couldn’t do that if they owed Europe (less Britain and France) five billion liras. The German representative was acutely aware of this and wanted to strike a deal which would reduce Constantinople’s debt while gaining something for Berlin. He proposed that a German-led consortium (though other nations could of course buy shares) be formed to drill the empire’s oilfields, especially the newfound ones in Kuwait, and that the Ottoman Empire lease Germany a naval base in Kuwait. The former would both enrich Germany and extend their control over Turkey’s greatest source of revenue, while the latter would let them bypass the British Suez Canal. Talaat replied that negotiations over a Kuwaiti naval base were outside the scope of OPDA, but agreed to discuss the matter elsewhere and offered tentative agreement for now. In exchange for these concessions, Germany would waive its credit against Constantinople, leaving only Italy, Holland, and Danubia. Under pressure from Berlin, the remaining three agreed to let the Ottomans refinance their debt at an interest rate of three percent to be paid over ten years. Turkey had more lean times ahead, but by 1928 it would hopefully be free of foreign debt.

Germany had done the Ottoman Empire a good turn, but not without a cost; they were serious about the oil consortium and Kuwaiti naval base. Enver Pasha travelled to Berlin that summer to discuss the latter with Chancellor Ernst von Heydebrand. Von Heydebrand proposed that Germany lease the port of Doha for ninety-nine years, to be paid for by forgiving all Ottoman debt. This was too much for Enver Pasha; Kuwait was now sovereign Ottoman territory and Germany had no right to impose itself there. The man-in-the-street, the sultan, and the regime loyalists who really ran things would all be angered if Enver made such a concession. He could all too easily see the other Pashas ejecting him as yet another stooge of foreign interests, killing his political career. Compromise was the order of the day. Enver proposed that in exchange for forgiving Ottoman debt, Germany could lease Doha for nine years, after which the port would revert to Ottoman sovereignty. However, the Kaiserliche Marine would enjoy basing rights at Doha until 2008 at a cost of a hundred thousand marks per year adjusted for inflation. Both sides were satisfied and moved on to the second order of business, the proposed European consortium to develop Ottoman oilfields. Enver made it clear that the empire’s natural resources were exclusively its property; while the Europeans might be invited in, they would only do business at Constantinople’s pleasure. Von Heydebrand replied that Enver had agreed to establish the consortium, and that if he backed out now Germany would force the Ottomans to pay back their loans. As with the Kuwaiti naval base, compromise prevailed. A new organisation was established with headquarters in Berlin and Constantinople, named the Ottoman Petrol Exportation Consortium (OPEC) The Ottoman and German governments would start with a 50% stake, but foreign governments and even private companies could all buy in. Enver would later remark that he would never have consented to this had it not been for the empire’s debt crisis and criticised the Germans for making Turkey “prostitute” its resources, but considering that the Pasha troika collectively invested two million dollars in OPEC, he couldn’t have been too broken up. In the end, the deal proved surprisingly profitable for Constantinople. Danubia and the Netherlands acquired small stakes in the company while many individuals in both Europe and America did likewise. While they would’ve liked to have sold all of their oil independently, OPEC served as a useful means for Germany to support the development of the Ottoman oil industry and was a significant source of revenue for the Turkish government in the 1920s- to say nothing of the wealth it brought private Turks.

Seeds had been sown for an Ottoman economic revival, even though living standards would remain low and inflation high until well into the 1920s. The Pasha triumvirate now faced a new struggle, one more challenging than running the war or saving the economy and on a matter far closer to their hearts: themselves. Their Committee of Union and Progress had lied and committed fraud to gain power, and the three men understandably feared the empire’s limited electorate rejecting their clique. With elections slated for October 1919, the Three Pashas had two years to devise a winning strategy. Gangs roamed Constantinople’s streets harassing anybody opposed to the ruling triumvirate, while the Ottoman electorate was told over and over again that the C.U.P. had won the war and the opposition was weak as water at best and outright treasonous at worst. Their efforts were given a boost when Sultan Mehmed V died on 31 July 1918. Mehmed had never been friendly to the Pasha clique, but his successor Mehmed VI was more interested in culture than politics and would never have become emperor had his older brother not committed suicide.The Pashas looked forward to vindication at the ballot box in October 1919…

Enver Pasha wasn’t on the ballot in 1919; as War Minister his was an unelected post while the same held true for Navy Minister Djemal Pasha. Talaat Pasha held the post of Prime Minister as well as Finance Minister and hoped that even if things went wrong and he lost the first post, he could still keep the second. As befitting a strongman, Talaat had Committee of Union and Progress thugs turn up the heat in Constantinople as October 1919 came round. Gangs of out-of-work young men were given a hot lunch and dinner in exchange for causing a ruckus. Prominent opponents of the regime found their personal safety at risk in the run-up to the election, and many opted to decamp to the countryside for a few days. The Pashas turned their propaganda up to eleven, rhetorically asking who won the war and fixed the economy. When 22 October rolled around, the troika had every expectation of being reelected.

They had to pull some strings to make it so.

From top to bottom: War Minister Enver Pasha, Prime Minister and Finance Minister Talaat Pasha, Naval Minister Djemal Pasha

The Pasha dictatorship was not set in stone, and the C.U.P had many foes. The Pasha regime had suppressed Liberal Union, the Ottoman Democratic Party, and the Ottoman Socialist Party, forcing them to operate under CUP “management”. Nonetheless, the minority parties enjoyed genuine support. Enver, Talaat, and Djemal weren’t universally popular, with many non-Turks alienated by their ethnic nationalism, while many others blamed them for the poor economic conditions. Previous leading figures within the CUP- including one Mustafa Kemal- had withdrawn their support.

Genuine opposition forced the Committee for Union and Progress to do what all good strongmen do: cheat.

One day before the election, Socialist leader Yesik Reval Pasha, who had defected from the CUP, was arrested on grounds of “serious financial fraud”. Papers across the empire ballyhooed made sure the Ottoman electorate woke up on Election Day with the news that one of the principal opposition leaders was a criminal. While many recognised this as nonsense, the empire’s more gullible subjects fell for it, and it provided a fine opportunity for regime officials to ‘investigate’ the Socialist Party. This ‘investigation’ lasted until the end of the month, and to the regime’s delight it revealed that someone had edited thousands of ballots marked for the CUP to show a Socialist vote. The Pashas delightedly fixed these ballots before driving the Ottoman Socialist Party back underground. Yesik Reval Pasha was sentenced to five years’ imprisonment while the state confiscated his fortune. While Liberal Union and the Democratic Party weren’t so specifically targeted, local vote-counters- all good Pasha men, of course- had no qualms about ‘correcting’ ballots so they went for the CUP. The last days of October saw widespread protests against fraud; these were especially concentrated in the pro-Liberal Union Arabic regions of the empire; police quashed them with the centre’s approval.

Finally, at lunchtime on 1 November, Talaat Pasha announced his re-election as Prime Minister, The Committee for Union and Progress held some seventy-four seats; the rest were split between the various opposition parties. Sultan Mehmed VI was none too pleased at the fraud but lacked the power to challenge Talaat, making him one in a long list of Turkish sultans overpowered by dynamic courtiers.

The Pasha triumvirate would rule the Ottoman Empire in the 1920s with a harsh fist, but would do all in their power to drive it into modernity…

Comments?

(1) The strains caused by having Italy in the Central Powers preclude Gallipoli
(2) Those who were at Gallipoli IOTL
(3) From Wikipedia: “The total time to get from Constantinople to Baghdad during the war was 22 days. The total distance was 2,020 kilometres (1,260 mi)”
(4) He wouldn’t have known just how bad it was.

 

[Boneheaded_Bookkeeper]

Good update even if you're a little on the nose with the whole OPEC thing

I can see what you mean about the Ottomans having a...I should I put this...unlikable government. I'm guessing their many abuses of justice will eventually catch up to them at an decidedly inconvenient time in the future?

 

[Kaiser Wilhelm the Tenth]

Good update even if you're a little on the nose with the whole OPEC thing

I can see what you mean about the Ottomans having a...I should I put this...unlikable government. I'm guessing their many abuses of justice will eventually catch up to them at an decidedly inconvenient time in the future?

I was trying to think of a good name and then the OPEC acronym hit me... couldn't resist...

Yes, the crony-like nature of the Pasha regime will continue; in some respects they'll be similar to OTL Recep Tayyip Erdouan's current regime or even Fascist Italy. This kind of rule from the top is sort of okay for now because the Pashas more or less know what they're doing, but it sets a precedent that a less competent strongman might grab the reins (or, God forbid, one of them dies and the other two have at it!) which will cause plenty of issues down the line...

 

[Jaenera Targaryen]

Well, at the very least the Pasha Troika are genuine in their desire to see the Ottoman Empire prosper and modernize. This puts them a lot above certain late-20th Century strongmen, who could care less as their countries buckled and burned so long as they could get as much money out of it as they could.

And if there's a silver lining to the iron fist of the Ottomans resting over the Middle East, it's that Middle Eastern politics ITTL won't be - at least up to a point - a festering sore like IRL.

 

[Kaiser Wilhelm the Tenth]

Well, at the very least the Pasha Troika are genuine in their desire to see the Ottoman Empire prosper and modernize. This puts them a lot above certain late-20th Century strongmen, who could care less as their countries buckled and burned so long as they could as much money out of it as they could.

And if there's a silver lining to the iron fist of the Ottomans resting over the Middle East, it's that Middle Eastern politics ITTL won't be - at least up to a point - a festering sore like in RL.

Avoiding both of those- an incompetent, Mobutu-style tinpot regime in the MIddle East and the flustercuck of modern Middle Eastern politics- was something I'd hoped to lay the groundwork for. The Pashas aren't democratic men and they're ruthless, but they are at least approaching competent.

 

[Jaenera Targaryen]

Avoiding both of those- an incompetent, Mobutu-style tinpot regime in the MIddle East and the flustercuck of modern Middle Eastern politics- was something I'd hoped to lay the groundwork for. The Pashas aren't democratic men and they're ruthless, but they are at least approaching competent.

Considering how much of a mess the Ottoman Empire was - 'Sick Man of Europe' really was just a poetic statement of fact - it really does need a strongman (or strongmen, rather) to drag it kicking and screaming into the 20th Century.

 

[Kaiser Wilhelm the Tenth]

Considering how much of a mess the Ottoman Empire was - 'Sick Man of Europe' really was a poetic statement of fact - it really does need a strongman (or strongmen, rather) to drag it kicking and screaming into the 20th Century.

Agreed. The unpleasant Pasha regime has brought just enough breathing room that such a thing is now possible.

 

[Jaenera Targaryen]

Agreed. The unpleasant Pasha regime has brought just enough breathing room that such a thing is now possible.

Do the Ottomans have nuclear weapons in the 21st Century?

 

[Kaiser Wilhelm the Tenth]

Do the Ottomans have nuclear weapons in the 21st Century?

That would be telling!

 

[BurningMan45]

Talking about strongmen and festering geopolitical sores, I really hope to see what Warlord China has to offer in this TL.

 

[Kaiser Wilhelm the Tenth]

Talking about strongmen and festering geopolitical sores, I really hope to see what Warlord China has to offer in this TL.

That depends on what I do with Russia- Stalin will do what he did IOTL, but the White Russian authoritarian of your choice will do something different and Trotsky will choose another path. Butterflies galore need to be calculated. That said, no Equality Clause means no May IV Movement which might lead to some interesting butterflies...

 

[Sarthak]

Tallat and Djemal despite their massive faults and complicity in the Armenian genocide were administratively competent. Enver was......not. calling him incompetent would be a grave injustice to many incompetents out there.

 

[Jaenera Targaryen]

Talking about strongmen and festering geopolitical sores, I really hope to see what Warlord China has to offer in this TL.

Well, we do know Japan has Qingdao, and with the USA having been neutral in the war, there's little the USA can do even if the Chinese come complaining and asking them to bully the Japanese into returning Qingdao. Not when every other Great Power is determined to keep their colonies, and letting the USA set a precedent about returning concessions and such would be unacceptable to them. Everyone else would just say the Chinese will get Qingdao back after 99 years anyway, so they can just patiently wait for it.

Between Qingdao, Ryojun, and their economic control over Southern Manchuria, the Japanese would probably stoke the fires between the warlords to keep China weak. And if the Russian Civil War breaks out, I wouldn't be surprised if the Japanese just take over Russia's stakes in Northern Manchuria as well.

 

[Kaiser Wilhelm the Tenth]

Tallat and Djemal despite their massive faults and complicity in the Armenian genocide were administratively competent. Enver was......not. calling him incompetent would be a grave injustice to many incompetents out there.

2/3's not bad, right?

Well, we do know Japan has Qingdao, and with the USA having been neutral in the war, there's little the USA can do even if the Chinese come complaining and asking them to bully the Japanese into returning Qingdao. Not when every other Great Power is determined to keep their colonies, and letting the USA set a precedent about returning concessions and such would be unacceptable to them. Everyone else would just say the Chinese will get Qingdao back after 99 years anyway, so they can just patiently wait for it.

Between Qingdao, Ryojun, and their economic control over Southern Manchuria, the Japanese would probably stoke the fires between the warlords to keep China weak. And if the Russian Civil War breaks out, I wouldn't be surprised if the Japanese just take over Russia's stakes in Northern Manchuria as well.

All very good points- and yes, we will see Japan exploiting the RCW for their own benefit in Siberia and Manchuria.

 

[Jaenera Targaryen]

Can I assume that even post-revolutionary France will be keeping its colonies?