Huh.Actually, the Shogun and his government kept up to date with foreign developments. He just didn't want to implement any of them.
But wouldn't the Ottomans be able to do that better, as they where literally in Europe?
Huh.Actually, the Shogun and his government kept up to date with foreign developments. He just didn't want to implement any of them.
The Japanese did well against the Russian because they were not in Europe! Supporting a war effort 8000km away down a single track rail line that was uneconomic to bring back empty trucks is not a winning hand.Huh.
But wouldn't the Ottomans be able to do that better, as they where literally in Europe?
Arent European countries good at beating up countries super far from them? Russia itself even beat up China multiple times while expanding east.The Japanese did well against the Russian because they were not in Europe! Supporting a war effort 8000km away down a single track rail line that was uneconomic to bring back empty trucks is not a winning hand.
Why does the middle east have a lot more illiteracy than Europe? Even Turkey is less literate than the Balkan countries.
There is something I cannot fathom. Like, I've heard all the reasons the middle east isnt very developed now. But still, the Ottoman empire was literally part of the European socio cultural space where innovations and ideas spread rapidly. Yet they staged behind literally everyone.
Contrast Japan, which was far away and super isolated but still managed to modernize and then beat a European country in a war. Japan was not part of the European region and did not get news of all the latest shit that was happening, but still did super well.
This seems impossible
Reality is sometimes stranger than fiction!
But I believe it comes down to cultural specifics: Japanese culture supported and even wanted modernization,while Ottoman did not.
Well, the heartland of the Ottoman Empire was in the Balkans. It's not a surprise that the Asian portions of the empire had lower literacy. Even in a much more equitable society like that of the modern US, the educated people cluster in the most developed parts of the country because that's where the work for them is.
heartland of Ottoman empire was in Anatolia not in the Balkans!
Please give/list your source?
I have read before that the people of the Balkans were referred to a state sheep at times, as the Ottomans had no desire to convert them when they could instead charge them extra taxes and take their children as slaves. If perhaps there had been more of a Muslim population in the region there would have been a greater chance to... I want to say make a more unified state, keeping the Ottomans to the Balkans and Anatolia as they originally were, but then that might mean they didn't have the trade wealth from spices further south or the grain of Egypt. To be in the Global North they would need a non-slave based economy and military. Not excluding Turks from being Jannisaries might help. Or potentially having Turks and other groups move to Ukraine, which had been so depopulated by the Crimean Tartars on their slave raids.Sorry but no, the Balkans was the heartland of the Empire. Anatolia was just where most turkish peasants lived, aka military recruitment areas. The Balkans was the economic, political, and industrial core of the Ottoman state. Salonika and Istanbul being the two most important cities in the empire, and the vast majority of tax revenues coming from the Balkans as well.
On vacation but if you really want sources ill update tomorrow
Step 1, institute local rulership in European areas, promise autonomy in 5 years and independence 5 years after that. Try to give more political and religious freedoms while trying to get the states there dependent on you and getting as much money out as possible.
Autonomy and independence leads to collapse as OTL shows. Losing the Balkans will inevitably lead to the adoption of Turkish Nationalism as a return to Abdul Hamids Islamism isn't going sit well with the military which had already adopted pro-constitutionalist tendencies.
2. Set up Albania, Bosnia and Macedonia as independent to serve as a bone of contention between Austria, Italy, Bulgaria and newly created states. Anger between them is not anger directed at yourself.
Bosnia is already lost, Macedonia would be eaten by the Balkan powers as soon as the Turks leave (surrendering large turkish populations in the process), and Albania will be the center of a likely conflict between Italy and Austria, something europe wants to prevent.
3. Meanwhile start trying to bind the rest of the empire trough religion. Turks, Kurds, Arabs and others don't share much except it. Constantly point out to the fate of various independent muslim countries that ended up as colonies. Fear and faith. See above, an Ottoman Sultan who has willingly given up muslim subject to european subjugation is going to lose support. Arabs had already begun to question the Caliph in response to losing the arab province of Libya. Losing the Balkans without a fight will cause the dissolution of everything but Anatolia.
Snip
Huh.
But wouldn't the Ottomans be able to do that better, as they where literally in Europe?
The CUP started small. So getting Mehmed Talaat Pasha and a few other OTL key figures out of the way will steer the anti-Hamidian conspiracies to different direction. If the assassination attempt of 1905 succeeds, the Haliskar Zabitan movement is thus in a position to take control of the state, but especially the Army and purge it, while also keeping it henceforth out from politics, unlike OTL. This type of arrangement stabilized things for Hapsburgs, and would help the Ottomans as well.
Now, with a figurehead HALİFE from the eldest son of Abdülhamid II serving as a legal pretext of a Kemalist Turkey-style reformist parliamentarism "with a military backstop", the Ottoman regime has a chance to retain enough loyalty among the provincial middle classes to avoid the worst revolts. This is critical, because democratic facade and internal stability take away pretexts for foreign interference.
The actual governing could be taken care by a OTL-model restored parliament with two-stage balloting, in which every tax-paying male Ottoman citizen above the age twenty-five was entitled to vote in a primary election to select secondary voters. Secondary voters, each elected by 500 to 750 primary voters, then voted to determine the member(s) of the Chamber in the numbers specified for a particular electoral district, the sancak, without special quota arrangements for the religious or sectarian communities. Each voter votes as an Ottoman citizen for deputies representing not a particular community, but all Ottomans. Without coups, this voting system will steer the system towards wider parties, once again mimicking the Hapsburg example.
This is all just window dressing, though - the key goal here is to survive until the oil revenue comes available. Paradoxically increased Great Power interference to Ottoman affairs in Macedonia combined with Ottoman parliamentarism would most likely butterfly away the Italo-Ottoman War and the Balkan War, giving the state enough time for military reforms that would enable the Ottomans to remain intact and utilize their new-found wealth to modernize later on. So suck it up, allow the Powers to built the Baghdad Railway as joint project like very nearly happened in OTL, while reforming the military and stabilizing the internal situation.
I generally agree with you outside the first part. While the central committee of "CUP" was small, but the party itself was the largest political organization in the country. They had a widespread network throughout Europe and the party consisted of an array of factions apart from Taalats brand.
Im not sure which movement you are talking about, but i assume it's the liberal entente. If you wanted to find a more scattered and fractured political alliance it would be difficult. The only defining theory was being opposed to the CUP. I'd suggest a Unionist CUP led by the Cavit Bey Faction (pro-british) being the most optimal sistuation. The main issue being reconciling Shevket Pasha and Cavid Bey's relationship.
Why was the Balkans the heartland? Aren't the western Levant and Mesopotamia also densely populated?Well, the heartland of the Ottoman Empire was in the Balkans. It's not a surprise that the Asian portions of the empire had lower literacy. Even in a much more equitable society like that of the modern US, the educated people cluster in the most developed parts of the country because that's where the work for them is.
1) Japan was highly developed
2) Japan had a dense and (relatively) well educated population
Would there be a way to integrate Ottoman Muslims into the general European intelligentsia?Also the Ottomans wasn’t really integrated into the European intelligentsia, some Ottoman citizens was, but these also happened to be second class citizens.
Would there be a way to integrate Ottoman Muslims into the general European intelligentsia?
The fact that the Western view to the Ottoman intelligentsia was prejudiced and generally disinterested does not mean that people like Said Nursî, Muḥammad 'Abduh, 'Abd al-Rahman al-Kawakibi, Nigâr Hanım, Muhammad Rashid Rida and many others did not exist, or that they did not contribute "cultural output."Also the Ottomans wasn’t really integrated into the European intelligentsia, some Ottoman citizens was, but these also happened to be second class citizens. Try to compare the cultural output from the Ottomans and Russians in 18-19th century which are widely known in the West today. The Russians produced work of literature still admired today, they was famous for their ballets. The Ottomans...
No,I am talking about Haliskar Zabitan, the Saviour Officers: