What if British-ottoman alliance concluded in 1911?

raharris1973

Gone Fishin'
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According to David Fromkin's "a peace to end all peace" the Young Turks proposed an alliance with Britain in 1911 and Churchill favored it but the Cabinet as a whole did not.

What if the cabinet supported it? Does this deter the Italian TurkishWars and then Balkan Wars?

Whether it does or not, how does I alter relations within the Triple Entente, the Triple Alliance, and between the two power blocs through the following 5 to 10 years?
 

kernals12

Banned
According to David Fromkin's "a peace to end all peace" the Young Turks proposed an alliance with Britain in 1911 and Churchill favored it but the Cabinet as a whole did not.

What if the cabinet supported it? Does this deter the Italian TurkishWars and then Balkan Wars?

Whether it does or not, how does I alter relations within the Triple Entente, the Triple Alliance, and between the two power blocs through the following 5 to 10 years?
If the Ottomans choose to support the Entente, then it's very good news for the Russians who now have access to the straits of Bosporous.
 
According to David Fromkin's "a peace to end all peace" the Young Turks proposed an alliance with Britain in 1911 and Churchill favored it but the Cabinet as a whole did not.

What if the cabinet supported it? Does this deter the Italian TurkishWars and then Balkan Wars?

Whether it does or not, how does I alter relations within the Triple Entente, the Triple Alliance, and between the two power blocs through the following 5 to 10 years?

Well, first off Italy isen't going to dare touch Triopolitania; though they'd still be looking for "compensation" for the settlement in Morocco and a source of colonial prestige beyond their meager holdings in East Africa, everybody knows they aren't really in the Great Powers club and woulden't have a prayer of conducting a successful occupation if the Royal Navy stands in their way (and, even if they did, there's the fact that the Ottomans will be allowed to send troops through Egypt to contest any landing, even if the British don't send any of their own) Considering that, the Ottoman military won't get thrown into its historical state of disorganization which allowed the Balkan Wars to be so successful, so I doubt they'll even break out (at this moment), which would allow the new government under the CUP to stabilize its new rule and implement their liberal constitutional reforms to the Empire.

However, this drives a BIG wedge between Britain and Russia, who's ambitions on the Bosporus would be effectively scuttled and who's client states in the Balkans have been blocked off from further expansion. Given that Anglo-Russian and Anglo-French relations have only just recently warmed up, I think the most likely result is a breakdown of the fragile Triple Entente back into a Franco-Russian alliance, while Britain rises as a "Third Pole" after abandoning its splended isolationism by reaching the conclusion that both Germany and Russia's rising industrial power pose a threat to her hegemony. This hypothetical pole would consist of the UK, Japan, the Ottomans (Who's domains would include much of the Balkans and Triopolitania, as well as de juro co-ownership of Egypt and Cyprus with the Brits), and Portugal as allies alongside the semi-independent Domains, and would work to limit the growth of both the Double Entente and Triple Alliance to prevent one from overtaking the other (Since, so long as they're at eachother's throats they can't take the steps needed to land a decisive blow on British hegemony), with the Ottomans benefiting from London's investment capital, while the Balkans increasingly gravitate towards their Russian patrons. As for the Triple Alliance, I imagine Italy will still have its beef with Austria but seek colonial expansion instead in a second bite at Ethiopia in an effort to create a more contigious and profitable Horn colony... a move Germany would likely back as it would help secure their own main colonial holding in German East Africa by placing a pincer around the British.

A great deal depends on if Germany can effectively broker a deal between Vienna and Rome that will allow her to hold Central Europe together and weather or not the thaw that was coming from the tapering off of the naval race between them and Britain can be continued even in the face of their commerical-industrial rivalry. Since France is very quickly going to realize that Morocco/West Africa will never be her "India", and with Ethiopia getting swallowed the potential colonial pickings are getting slim, there's a very real risk of growing Entente-Anglosphere tensions over "foolish things in the Balkans", or French attempts to seize influence in East Asia. If, however, Italy and Austria-Hungary have a falling out or the other "Sick Man of Europe"/that prison of nations on the Danube shows sufficent signs of weakness you may very well see the Balkan states, backed by a Rome recently re-aligned with France, turning their expansionist sentiments north and triggering a major Entente-Alliance war in which Britain will try to broker a balanced, Kingmaker peace after its rivals have bleed a little.
 

BlondieBC

Banned
According to David Fromkin's "a peace to end all peace" the Young Turks proposed an alliance with Britain in 1911 and Churchill favored it but the Cabinet as a whole did not.

What if the cabinet supported it? Does this deter the Italian TurkishWars and then Balkan Wars?

Whether it does or not, how does I alter relations within the Triple Entente, the Triple Alliance, and between the two power blocs through the following 5 to 10 years?

Pushes Italy firmly back into the Triple Alliance. Triple Alliance will be strong enough to defeat Double Entente in war. France's ties to Russia will be even stronger than OTL. WW1 is butterflied away. Then about 5 years into future, no one knows what will happen. Just too many variables to say. I would tend to see a world where the rivalry plays in to the colonial fields. China looks like a real friction point.
 
No one wanted to be shackled to a corpse. An Ottoman alliance would be a liability. The French, British and Germans cooperated in Turkey as they were united against the Russians gaining economic leverage over Turkish financial affairs (the 3 had refused Russian entry to Ottoman Public Debt Administration as the Russians only wanted leverage). The British had refreshed their plans and intelligence to take the Dardanelles in 1906 during the Akaba Crisis. The British attitude at the time was to support a Naval Mission but nothing more. If anything, the Misson identified how far the Turks had to go to be a viable ally.

To restore the Ottoman Navy, the British were invited to send a Naval Mission to Istanbul. Admiral Douglas Gamble arrived in January 1909 to organized the fleet, reduce the number of officers and send some young naval officers to Britain for training. As a part of his reform program, the first maneuver of the active fleet took place in the Sea of Marmara on May 27, 1909 followed by a major maneuver held in the Mediterranean Sea in September the same year. Gamble had a series of clashes with various Ottoman ministers regarding the organization of the fleet and finances. He was insisting that all decision in these matters should be left to himself and he was opposed to battleships for the Turkish navy. Following serious disagreements he resigned on January 26, 1910.

Gamble was followed by Admiral Hugh Pigot Williams (May 1910-February 1911), who went ahead with maneuvers in the Sea of Marmara. However the Sublime Porte was increasingly growing uneasy about the fact that the work of modernizing and enlarging the fleet was laying in the hands of foreigners. Consequently, the Ministry of Navy decided to “appoint an independent and fully authorized Turkish officer who will take over the command of the fleet in case of war” and on January 2, 1911, Col. Tahir Bey was appointed the Vice Commander of the Navy. Admiral Williams, who was in London at the time, resigned in protest. Gamble had also objected to Battleships being included in the naval program but his replacement in August 1912, Admiral Limpus, favored Battleships of a similar type to the ones Austria was building.

A Turcophile, Limpus felt that from a moral standpoint Britain was `bound to help a sorely stricken nation to regain health and reasonable prosperity', yet when foreign assistance was given Turkish officials were suspicious that external advisers had ulterior motives; there existed considerable doubt over whether the Great Powers were actually trying to help Turkey, or let it collapse. Britain, Germany and France, Limpus warned, would gain nothing from this.

It is interesting to note that Limpus was backed by Churchill and they had known each other from their Boer War days. On the other hand, the Greek mission's head, Mark Kerr, was a close personal friend of the 1st Sea Lord, Louis Battenburg. Churchill disliked Kerr while Battenburg disliked the Turks.

Admiral Limpus was assisted by 6 junior officers from the RN, each a specialist in their own branch and 60 petty officers and ratings. They were subject to Ottoman Navy discipline, such as it was, and yet were regarded as a cut or two above their Turkish brother officers and were given inflated ranks, a RN lieutenant becoming a Corvette Captain and the courtesy title 'Bey' after his name. They wore elaborate Turkish rig with outsized epaulettes and gold distinction lace and aiguilettes of gold cord and the traditional fez at all times.

The Minister of Navy, Cemal Paşa (Djemal Pasha), wrote in his memoirs: “It is a moral obligation for me to stress once again that Admiral Limpus, his officers and all of the British engineers and officers, who worked to rehabilitate the shipyards of the Golden Horn, have decently fulfilled their duties."
 
According to Fromkin, the offer came after the Italian attack on Libya. Its hard to imagine that Britain would agree to go to war with Italy after it had started, so what exactly was the offer? Besides Italy, the only ones who might attack the Ottomans would be Russia or the Balkan states. The Ottomans couldn't possibly have expected the British to throw away the Entente with Russia, so the real targets had to be the Balkan states. The British would be of little use against Serbia or Bulgaria but of great value against Greece. In the Balkan Wars, Greece provided 200,000 men and the Greek Navy prevented the bringing up of troops from Syria. An Ottoman victory in the Balkan Wars butterflies away a lot down there

Churchill is insane if he thinks that the Ottomans are worth more than Italy, as apparently he did. While Ottoman neutrality would open up the straits and freeing up the Russian Caucasian front, Italian belligerence would mean:

1) the Mediterranean becoming a no mans land. Nothing could pass through

2) the blocking of French reinforcements from Algeria.

3) the Italians relieving the German 7th army

In short, Italy on the side of the CP means a German victory very quickly


Austria and France competed for the worst possible Italian policy. It was neck and neck running but in the end the Austrians would win.

The Russians liked the idea of an Ottoman alliance. They had no problem offering the Turks protection against Greece and Bulgaria- they wanted the straits for themselves. The Bulgarians are at odds with Romania and Serbia both of whom the Russians were courting to check the Austrians

@Dorknought When did the Russians try to join the Ottoman debt commission? I know that when Hanatoux tried to get them to join in the 1890's, they were appalled at the idea. The only Turkish debt the Russians had was the indemnity from the 1877 war. They would write parts of it off whenever they needed a favor Didn't know when they changed their minds
 
According to Fromkin, the offer came after the Italian attack on Libya. Its hard to imagine that Britain would agree to go to war with Italy after it had started, so what exactly was the offer? Besides Italy, the only ones who might attack the Ottomans would be Russia or the Balkan states. The Ottomans couldn't possibly have expected the British to throw away the Entente with Russia, so the real targets had to be the Balkan states. The British would be of little use against Serbia or Bulgaria but of great value against Greece. In the Balkan Wars, Greece provided 200,000 men and the Greek Navy prevented the bringing up of troops from Syria. An Ottoman victory in the Balkan Wars butterflies away a lot down there

Churchill is insane if he thinks that the Ottomans are worth more than Italy, as apparently he did. While Ottoman neutrality would open up the straits and freeing up the Russian Caucasian front, Italian belligerence would mean:

1) the Mediterranean becoming a no mans land. Nothing could pass through

2) the blocking of French reinforcements from Algeria.


3) the Italians relieving the German 7th army

In short, Italy on the side of the CP means a German victory very quickly


Austria and France competed for the worst possible Italian policy. It was neck and neck running but in the end the Austrians would win.

The Russians liked the idea of an Ottoman alliance. They had no problem offering the Turks protection against Greece and Bulgaria- they wanted the straits for themselves. The Bulgarians are at odds with Romania and Serbia both of whom the Russians were courting to check the Austrians

@Dorknought When did the Russians try to join the Ottoman debt commission? I know that when Hanatoux tried to get them to join in the 1890's, they were appalled at the idea. The only Turkish debt the Russians had was the indemnity from the 1877 war. They would write parts of it off whenever they needed a favor Didn't know when they changed their minds

> Implying Britain or France won't send more ships to the Medditeranean. That in combination with the Black Sea Navy which is free to move trough the straits.

Italy joining Central Powers doesn't make it any better but the amount of troops spendt in the Caucasus, Middle East and Gallipolli will go elsewhere. Ofcourse Russia will be in bigger problem now...

But I guess the oil reserves in Iraq will make it up for London.
 
No one wanted to be shackled to a corpse. An Ottoman alliance would be a liability. The French, British and Germans cooperated in Turkey as they were united against the Russians gaining economic leverage over Turkish financial affairs (the 3 had refused Russian entry to Ottoman Public Debt Administration as the Russians only wanted leverage). The British had refreshed their plans and intelligence to take the Dardanelles in 1906 during the Akaba Crisis. The British attitude at the time was to support a Naval Mission but nothing more. If anything, the Misson identified how far the Turks had to go to be a viable ally.

To restore the Ottoman Navy, the British were invited to send a Naval Mission to Istanbul. Admiral Douglas Gamble arrived in January 1909 to organized the fleet, reduce the number of officers and send some young naval officers to Britain for training. As a part of his reform program, the first maneuver of the active fleet took place in the Sea of Marmara on May 27, 1909 followed by a major maneuver held in the Mediterranean Sea in September the same year. Gamble had a series of clashes with various Ottoman ministers regarding the organization of the fleet and finances. He was insisting that all decision in these matters should be left to himself and he was opposed to battleships for the Turkish navy. Following serious disagreements he resigned on January 26, 1910.

Gamble was followed by Admiral Hugh Pigot Williams (May 1910-February 1911), who went ahead with maneuvers in the Sea of Marmara. However the Sublime Porte was increasingly growing uneasy about the fact that the work of modernizing and enlarging the fleet was laying in the hands of foreigners. Consequently, the Ministry of Navy decided to “appoint an independent and fully authorized Turkish officer who will take over the command of the fleet in case of war” and on January 2, 1911, Col. Tahir Bey was appointed the Vice Commander of the Navy. Admiral Williams, who was in London at the time, resigned in protest. Gamble had also objected to Battleships being included in the naval program but his replacement in August 1912, Admiral Limpus, favored Battleships of a similar type to the ones Austria was building.

A Turcophile, Limpus felt that from a moral standpoint Britain was `bound to help a sorely stricken nation to regain health and reasonable prosperity', yet when foreign assistance was given Turkish officials were suspicious that external advisers had ulterior motives; there existed considerable doubt over whether the Great Powers were actually trying to help Turkey, or let it collapse. Britain, Germany and France, Limpus warned, would gain nothing from this.

It is interesting to note that Limpus was backed by Churchill and they had known each other from their Boer War days. On the other hand, the Greek mission's head, Mark Kerr, was a close personal friend of the 1st Sea Lord, Louis Battenburg. Churchill disliked Kerr while Battenburg disliked the Turks.

Admiral Limpus was assisted by 6 junior officers from the RN, each a specialist in their own branch and 60 petty officers and ratings. They were subject to Ottoman Navy discipline, such as it was, and yet were regarded as a cut or two above their Turkish brother officers and were given inflated ranks, a RN lieutenant becoming a Corvette Captain and the courtesy title 'Bey' after his name. They wore elaborate Turkish rig with outsized epaulettes and gold distinction lace and aiguilettes of gold cord and the traditional fez at all times.

The Minister of Navy, Cemal Paşa (Djemal Pasha), wrote in his memoirs: “It is a moral obligation for me to stress once again that Admiral Limpus, his officers and all of the British engineers and officers, who worked to rehabilitate the shipyards of the Golden Horn, have decently fulfilled their duties."

A shackled corps who still did a pretty good job in comparison to... AH or Italy.

I wished we could go back in time and tell this to Germany before allying AH.
 
According to David Fromkin's "a peace to end all peace" the Young Turks proposed an alliance with Britain in 1911 and Churchill favored it but the Cabinet as a whole did not.

What if the cabinet supported it? Does this deter the Italian TurkishWars and then Balkan Wars?

Whether it does or not, how does I alter relations within the Triple Entente, the Triple Alliance, and between the two power blocs through the following 5 to 10 years?

Tough choice... but for this to happen, the RN needs to promote it. Al Haasa and Iraq have enough oil to be used by the RN. Effectively all of the Mid-East oil will be held by pro-British factions.

Otherwise the government will still not go for it.
 
A shackled corps who still did a pretty good job in comparison to... AH or Italy.

I wished we could go back in time and tell this to Germany before allying AH.
Well, The Germans did have to prop up the Ottoman economy and supply its armies to the tune of 4.5B marks. Turkish prices went up 18 fold from 1914 before collapse in Oct 1918.
 
@Dorknought When did the Russians try to join the Ottoman debt commission? I know that when Hanatoux tried to get them to join in the 1890's, they were appalled at the idea. The only Turkish debt the Russians had was the indemnity from the 1877 war. They would write parts of it off whenever they needed a favor Didn't know when they changed their minds

1913/14 or so as Germany, France and Britain settled their differences over investment and spheres of influence in Turkey. Turkish debt had wound down during the late 1800's but post 1909 had climbed again. The Russians wanted a piece of the action because they could see that the other powers were gaining considerable influence in Turkey.

The Liman von Sanders affair in late 1913 had also caused Russia great concern. When France gave the Turks loans to purchase Dreadnoughts, the Russians had expressed their displeasure to their French allies about the loan for Osman. The French reply was that it was a private bank and that the Turks could obtain loans from Germany; would the Russians rather Germany have more influence with the Porte? Russia had also objected to the British Naval Missions between 1910 and 1914, the Brits said the same as the French 'would you rather a German Naval mission?'.

Russian planning had been driven by fears of Austro-German Black Sea naval support of Turkey. In 1909 the Russian plan envisaged blocking the Bosphorus with 3 barrages of 2,300 mines. In 1911, following the Turkish order for Reşadiye, the Russian Duma authorised 3 Dreadnoughts, 9 DD and 6 Submarines for the Black Sea Fleet. With the acquisition of Osman and order of Fatih, the Duma authorised a further battleship, 4 cruisers, 8 Destroyers and 6 submarines in 1914. By Feb 1914, the agreed plan was to land 30,000 men at Istanbul between M+5 and M+10 of a general European War.With the Turko-Greek tensions peaking, the Russian Ambassador was warning Sazanov that Russia should be prepared to launch 'immediate counter measures' to seize the Straits if a 3rd Balkan War broke out.

The Turks also approached the Russians in 1913 for an alliance but were turned down.

Italy wouldn't side against GB, without the Italian coastal trade, industry would shut through lack of coal and the people would starve.
 

raharris1973

Gone Fishin'
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A question for you all- was it not liberal governments in power in 1911? We're the Ottomans still anathema to British Liberals in 1911? Or had that disdain gone away with the young Turk revolt? Or even earlier, with the death of Gladstone?
 
A question for you all- was it not liberal governments in power in 1911? We're the Ottomans still anathema to British Liberals in 1911? Or had that disdain gone away with the young Turk revolt? Or even earlier, with the death of Gladstone?
I gather it mas more a case of the British Embassy in Turkey letting down the Foreign Office between 1908 and 1914. Fitzmaurice, the chief dragoman is singled out and also Lowther, the Ambassador for his anti-semitism.
 

raharris1973

Gone Fishin'
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If the offer came only after the attack on Libya, the Ottomans could not and probably were not expecting British rolling back Italy. Certainly Churchill would not have favored it if that is what it involved. So it seems to me that Aphrodite is correct it was intended to protect against Greece. Therefore if Italy still gets Libya and Dodecanese and it is only Balkan states who are frustrated, Italy has no special reason to be angry or to fight on the side of the CP.
 
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