The Entente sucessfully woos the Ottoman Empire

J.D.Ward

Donor
If Turkey joins the Entente, can Germany persude Greece to join the Central Powers? They can be offered generous rewards (think of OTL Treaty of Sevres) for joining in an anti-Turkish war.
 

MrP

Banned
If Turkey joins the Entente, can Germany persude Greece to join the Central Powers? They can be offered generous rewards (think of OTL Treaty of Sevres) for joining in an anti-Turkish war.

I looked into that in PlC, but the answer's a resounding no. The Greeks would have the Ottoman Navy right next door, and the RN running roughshod over whatever it fancied. It would be a resounding disaster.
 

Cook

Banned
Second, this idea that the Ottoman Empire was some backward, corrupt, fanatically religious place until Ataturk showed up and magically transformed it into a modern secular state is just ridiculous. The empire had been on a secularist and reformist trajectory since the 1830s, and the Young Turk Revolution was the culmination of this trend.

1830 through to the start of the First World War’s generally referred to as the century of decline in most histories.

Turkey was left in 1923 with a fraction of the economic and intellectual resources that the Empire had had in 1911. .

No nation came out of The Great War with anything like what they went in with.

Ataturk's fascist dictatorship

Ataturk was neither a Fascist nor a Communist.
And I think his status as Father of the Nation will continue to stand the test of time.
 
1830 through to the start of the First World War’s generally referred to as the century of decline in most histories.

No, it's not. The earlier period is called the Tanzimat, the later Victorian era is called the Hamidiyan era, and the last period is the Second Constitutional Era. It was not at all a century of decline, but a period of vigorous reform.

No nation came out of The Great War with anything like what they went in with.

True, but no nation was as totally decimated as the Ottoman Empire. Germany lost little scraps of territory, while the Ottomans were stripped of most of their territory and the remainder was utterly laid waste and largely depopulated. No other power even remotely compares. Even the Hapsburg Empire, which dissolved, had no constituent part that was as totally devastated as Turkey. Further, the Ottomans/Turkey were continuously at war for 12 years - no other power had even close to that much time at war.


Ataturk was neither a Fascist nor a Communist.
And I think his status as Father of the Nation will continue to stand the test of time.

Ataturk was certainly not a communist, but he was a fascist dictator. Fortunately for Turkey, a relatively benevolent fascist dictator, but a fascist nonetheless.

-Authoritarian reliance on a leader or elite not constitutionally responsible to an electorate: Check.
-Cult of personality around a charismatic leader: Extremely Check.
-Stringent socioeconomic controls: Check.
-Suppression of opposition through terror and censorship: Check.
-Nationalism and super-patriotism with a sense of historic mission. Check - "Turkishness" exalted and all "alien" influences purged.
-Reaction against the values of Modernism, usually with emotional attacks against both liberalism and communism.
-Glorification of the common folk (Anatolian "Turk" vs. "decadent" Ottomans): Check.

As for his status as father of the nation, it's pure fantasy. Turkey was just the Ottoman state with a different veneer, and younger generations don't have the Ataturk veneration of the old.

I think he was a great man, but ridiculously overrated.
 
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