But he says Arab. Which fair play, there were half a million Arabs in Turkey still in 1995 in southeastern Turkey. But 500K in 1995 is something the population had to grow to, given the general population boom around the Arab world since 1914. The population shrinking to a six of it's size is hard to imagine. Now, I'm looking at Syrian demographics online, and maybe migration into Syria has something to do with it, because Syria recorded 35%+ population increases decade after decade from 1930s onwards, with roughly a million to 2 million added per decade (with 2 million added in five years in the 1990s).

I think the Ottomans undergo a population growth spurt as increasing wealth draws down infant mortality, increases life span and health and improves food supply before rising education curbs the growth. The question becomes whether the Ottomans undergo a westernizing and secularization movement as Ataturk imposed upon Turkey or does it hold to another model? And is there an aspect of Arab culture or Islamic belief that will push for a higher birth rate? Many of the non-oil states are barely more than third world nations in most respects and now war torn on top of that. What wealth flowed in gets spent to benefit the few and the rest grind away. How successful will modernizing forces be to bring the Ottomans in line with contemporary Europe where birth rates are low, incomes high, religion wanes and education levels combined with political shifts leave us a socially democratic continent where many nations face zero to negative population growth, contrasted to the USA that tilts more rightward, has higher church attendance and birth rates but also has very high per capita GDP and a giant economy. And to most westerners the question will be how democratic will this Ottoman Empire become? How respectful of individual rights as well as community welfare? I find too few opinions that have the Ottomans survive, let along thrive.
 
Asia would be the most boring front in any realistic Central powers victory. Either we see a status quo ante in the region, or we get something resembling OTL. The only interesting aspect of Germany's Asia/Pacific empire for me is Samoa.I doubt it's likely, but it would be interesting to have the monarch in Samoa one day counted as among the German state monarchs in a surviving Kaiserreich.
 
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I struggle with Wilhelm's bias of the "Yellow Peril", although reading like an old pulp fiction, I think his fears will still shape this Germany's foreign policy. We know he floated an anti-Japanese alliance with TR, he seems to have adored his naval base in China, and I think his pride pushes for Germany to remain flagged in China on her soil. That said I think he loses a lot of his direct power so what he wants may be moot. The more interesting thing might be to have Japan buy it to allow Germany to raise foreign capital, with a neutral UK, Germany is importing more and needs gold or Dollars or other cash. That will nip a German/Japanese split in the bud.

The question is if, given an effectively bipolar rather than monopolar situation among the Imperial powers, Japan is willing to settle for a mere slice of rather than the whole Chinese market/resource/influence pie, just how big of a slice she feels is required, and what minimum level the German and Anglo factions will insist on maintaining and are willing to fight for.
 
That's all very interesting, but I was wondering if you had any idea how important the Arab regions were to the Ottoman economy?

Also, if 3/4ths of the overall population lived in Anatolia and we presume that all 15 million Turks + 2.8 million Armenians and Greeks also lived in Anatolia, that still leaves 3.575 million Arabs as presumed to be living in Anatolia. That strikes me as a very large number of Arabs living in Anatolia.

If you read between the lines, I think the Arab regions didn't play an important part in the Ottoman Economy. Arab GDP is not my focus. Part of the business plan for the Berlin Baghdad railway was that the region could become an important source of wheat that could rival the Ukraine.

Perhaps you'd like : The Fertile Crescent, 1800-1914: A Documentary Economic History, By Charles Issawi.

Population numbers for the Arab regions in 1913 vary considerably +-millions.
 
If you read between the lines, I think the Arab regions didn't play an important part in the Ottoman Economy. Arab GDP is not my focus. Part of the business plan for the Berlin Baghdad railway was that the region could become an important source of wheat that could rival the Ukraine.
Right, so...

The region was not an important part of the Ottoman economy. Their elites were not an important source of officers to the Ottoman military. Turks were assumed to be better at soldiery and more reliable than Arabs, who were sometimes relegated to second-rate units and internal security tasks that the Kurds increasingly filled as WW1 went on.

Well, then...

Am I the only one wondering why the heck they bothered to wrest Iraq and Syria back from the Mamlukes the hundred years or so before World War 1?
 
Right, so...

The region was not an important part of the Ottoman economy. Their elites were not an important source of officers to the Ottoman military. Turks were assumed to be better at soldiery and more reliable than Arabs, who were sometimes relegated to second-rate units and internal security tasks that the Kurds increasingly filled as WW1 went on.

Well, then...

Am I the only one wondering why the heck they bothered to wrest Iraq and Syria back from the Mamlukes the hundred years or so before World War 1?

It's OK, I haven't put much effort into the Arabs and not what was going on 200 years ago. I've mainly looked at the Balkan war period upto the brewing Greco-Turkish clash over the Aegean islands - not really an Arab thing. For what it's worth the CUP leadership were thinking pan-Turkic rather than pan-Islamic so perhaps they'd cut the Arabs loose if Russia collapsed and the 'stans' beckoned. 2 of the 3 Pashas died there.
 
It's OK, I haven't put much effort into the Arabs and not what was going on 200 years ago. I've mainly looked at the Balkan war period upto the brewing Greco-Turkish clash over the Aegean islands - not really an Arab thing. For what it's worth the CUP leadership were thinking pan-Turkic rather than pan-Islamic so perhaps they'd cut the Arabs loose if Russia collapsed and the 'stans' beckoned. 2 of the 3 Pashas died there.
Mm. I'm just imagining a much smaller Ottoman Empire going into WW1. That or the Ottomans actively trying to Turkicize the Levant and Mesopotamia as part of their efforts to make the region more useful.
 
The question is if, given an effectively bipolar rather than monopolar situation among the Imperial powers, Japan is willing to settle for a mere slice of rather than the whole Chinese market/resource/influence pie, just how big of a slice she feels is required, and what minimum level the German and Anglo factions will insist on maintaining and are willing to fight for.

I think the other powers were willing to let her take the Russian railway concession in Manchuria and by default extend her sphere throughout Manchuria but the era of exclusivity was ending, especially at American insistence upon the Open Door. If Japan can allow American deals inside Manchuria as they sought opportunities in the Yangtze, a traditionally British sphere, then things could settle in for Japan. Here I think the British remain the big arbiter in China, sort of how they ruled Shanghai, sort of equal to the USA, separate but superior to the French, leaving the scraps or odd corners to others, imposing order but not really interfering much with the Chinese themselves.

The other hurdle would be the overt absorption into the Empire, I think more than the Treaty ports and extra-territoriality is too far, none of the powers wanted China carved into colonies and vassals, rather just weak and subject to exploitation and beneficial construction deals. If the USSR comes to be then Japan is the bulwark against communism and gets a wide berth, bu she over played her hand too soon, hoping to at once liberate China from the West and subjugate her to itself. I can pencil out a solid sphere in Manchuria for Japan that evolves to a virtual Japanese component, an extension of Japanese Korea that is technically independent but as much a vassal as any Warsaw Pact state was, the Japanese Empire surviving through a no Pacific War era and likely still existing. Here China may indeed end up divided, the ROC holding just the coastal Han core of old, the fringes under other rule, China is still a big place with a big population and economy so the friction zone between her and Japan may be the defining theme in Asia.

Now I would guess the ROC can evolve into a flourishing capitalist free market and democratic state as opposed to vaguely feudal militarist corporatist/command economy and autocratic/oligarchic Japan. A strange warping of roles and twisting of motifs from how we understand either China or Japan today. Here China looks like a giant version of rather open and unrestrained Hong Kong? And Japan looks like a nation stuck in time? Might she then fall to revolution or the ruling structure otherwise collapse itself? Just imagine the USA pursuing China the way she did Japan and China becoming the big yet more peer trading partner with the USA while Japan exports cheaply made industrial products from dirty factories in Manchuria? The cultural impact of this China as opposed to Japan in America might be quite fascinating.
 
Asia would be the most boring front in any realistic Central powers victory. Either we see a status quo ante in the region, or we get something resembling OTL. The only interesting aspect of Germany's Asia/Pacific empire for me is Samoa.I doubt it's likely, but it would be interesting to have the monarch in Samoa one day counted as among the German state monarchs in a surviving Kaiserreich.

That is certainly one possibility, I have one path laid out that leaves Asia virtually unchanged by the war itself, its future looks more wide open but OTL is not wholly missing.

i have yet to truly ponder what Germany might do in the Pacific. In one sketch I have Tsingtao becoming a German Hong Kong and Germany holding on like France or Britain does in the oddest little corners of these Pacific islands. Bucolic might be the backdrop.
 
That is certainly one possibility, I have one path laid out that leaves Asia virtually unchanged by the war itself, its future looks more wide open but OTL is not wholly missing.

i have yet to truly ponder what Germany might do in the Pacific. In one sketch I have Tsingtao becoming a German Hong Kong and Germany holding on like France or Britain does in the oddest little corners of these Pacific islands. Bucolic might be the backdrop.
That's certainly possible. I could also see the Germans writing the place off entirely or attempting to curry favor with the Chinese against the other powers.
 
That's certainly possible. I could also see the Germans writing the place off entirely or attempting to curry favor with the Chinese against the other powers.

That is my "go-to" once Japan takes Tsingtao, after that I think Imperial Germany sees Japan as a dishonorable enemy and China as its best hope to knock them down. It has the side effect of putting the USA and Germany now have a shared enemy in Japan and I think that pulls these two closer. And that is an interesting turn of events to me.
 
Can Germany get any further concessions in China after the war? The central government is weak, and if Germany is generous to Japan in some way, perhaps they can enforce it?
 
Can Germany get any further concessions in China after the war? The central government is weak, and if Germany is generous to Japan in some way, perhaps they can enforce it?
I would think Japan would stop at nothing to block any concessions to be given to Germany, not so much out of sympathy for China, but more to get a bigger piece of the pie themselves. If the Germans want access to Chinese markets, it either needs to scale back the demands and try to rope China into their side with anti-Japanese rhetoric, or they'll have to defer to the Japanese. And that's not counting every other player who would look at German interests there funny (i.e. Britain and the US).

On topic, what happens to the rest of China? Would it go somewhat OTL-ish? How will the cliques be supported by the rival foreign powers?
 
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