What would have happened to the Ottomans if they'd won the First World War?

Assuming that the POD was the Germans somehow succeeding with the March spring offensive with an armistice reached in the Autumn of 1918 what would that have meant for the Ottoman Empire?

Presuming that the war in the Middle East followed a broadly historical course into the Autumn the War ends with the Ottomans moving soldiers through the Caucasus, while the Arabs control Damascus.

Would the Ottoman Empire have tried to retake the Middle East or refocused on pan-Turanian campaigns?

Would the Sultanate have survived long term?
 
I am curious about Ottoman resources, Enver Pasha wanted Central Asia, could the Ottomans have invaded the region? Would they have a hope of maintaining a trans-Caspian empire?
 
I am curious about Ottoman resources, Enver Pasha wanted Central Asia, could the Ottomans have invaded the region? Would they have a hope of maintaining a trans-Caspian empire?

Unlikely given that they have no Caspian coastline, never mind a way of crossing the Caspian Sea. Trying overland would not go down well with Iran. As for the Ottoman fate after winning WW I, if they hold on until oil is found they can get a lot of money and revitalize themselves. There will also be infrastructural improvements, such as Germany completing the Berlin-Baghdad Railway and possibly extending it to Basra. That should improve the army's mobility and the economy.
 
Unlikely given that they have no Caspian coastline, never mind a way of crossing the Caspian Sea. Trying overland would not go down well with Iran. As for the Ottoman fate after winning WW I, if they hold on until oil is found they can get a lot of money and revitalize themselves. There will also be infrastructural improvements, such as Germany completing the Berlin-Baghdad Railway and possibly extending it to Basra. That should improve the army's mobility and the economy.

The British had thoroughly kicked Ottoman ass in the middle east, kicking them out of Palestine and most of Sirya and Mesopotamia. Unless traded for concessions elsewhere, the Ottomans wouldn't have any oil (other than maybe Baku if they can hold it) or Baghdad to complete a railway to.

That said, I have severe doubts that any peace favorable to Germany is even possible at this late a point, even if they take Amiens. The Entente has such a large (and growing) superiority it's not even funny.
 
2 options: Either the Ottomans collapse anyway because the Brits beat them before the Germans beat France, in which case the Middle East is still divided without interference from the GPs save perhaps Germany, or the Ottomans survive intact. In this case they basically become Germany's Saudi Arabia; the German government would likely feel very uncomfortable supporting the Ottos, esp. after the Armenian Genocide comes to light, but on the other hand, "But Mien Kaiser, look at all that oil!"
 
They would get some concessions like the agean sea islands and crete from greece, plus a status quo peace with the british empire means that the brits would have to leave occupied ottoman territory, so they would get cyprus and kiuwait back (but not egypt), apart from that they could get a puppet state in azerbaijan, but not supremacy over the arab states, because they just didn't had the power to retake hedjaz by 1918
 
They would get some concessions like the agean sea islands and crete from greece, plus a status quo peace with the british empire means that the brits would have to leave occupied ottoman territory, so they would get cyprus and kiuwait back (but not egypt), apart from that they could get a puppet state in azerbaijan, but not supremacy over the arab states, because they just didn't had the power to retake hedjaz by 1918

They can forget a status quo peace with the British, London need to extract whatever concession they can from the CP due to internal reason and as the Ottoman (or Germany) don't have any mean to back up any menace agaisnt them...so the Porte can wave goodbye to that territory
 
They can forget a status quo peace with the British, London need to extract whatever concession they can from the CP due to internal reason and as the Ottoman (or Germany) don't have any mean to back up any menace agaisnt them...so the Porte can wave goodbye to that territory

The british empire cannot invade europa if France, italy and greece falls, the central powers would just send their armies to counter their landings so there is no other way to end the war without a status quo ante bellum with the british

Edit: Plus, it have been a four year war without any gain and all their allies but portugal had surrendered, a white peace is the best case possible for both sides
 
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The british empire cannot invade europa if France, italy and greece falls, the central powers would just send their armies to counter their landings so there is no other way to end the war without a status quo ante bellum with the british

The problem is the contrary is also true; the CP or better Germany is not in a great shape, the blockade is still in effect and the internal situation in Germany, A-H and the Ottoman Empire is explosive, continuing the offensive is hardly doable, expecially in this scenario where there is not only the BE but also the USA to fight.
Germany can't surely invade the UK or take back her colonies and military support for the Ottoman will be costly and logistical challenging
The new territory in the east will need to be pacified...and rob them of any food to sustain the German population will not make it easy.

Not counting that in the scenario of a succesfull Spring offensive, the people usually forget that at the same time, the A-H army tried this on Italy resulting on them being beaten and basically ceasing to exist as a serious menace.
Sure many will say that still having German support and seeing the war not lost will still make the soldiers fight but the general supply situation of the Hapsburg army was horrible and their offensive in middle 1918 was basically an hail Mary to knock Italy out.
Basically, if Germany succeed in France, the Entente can win on Italy, probably not enough to knocking out A-H but enough to make her retreat from the occupied territory with enough loss to weaken her further.
While this don't make the military situation of the Entente look excessively rosy, also mean that's not totally beaten and negotiation to end the war will not very onesided.

Plus is not that Bulgaria is in a great shape either and another push it can make it crumble before any kind of help can arrive. Basically so late in the war and the premise of the OP, total victory or even a status quo peace (sorry what you describe is not a status quo peace as Cyprus and Kuwait were owned by the UK in all but name and everybody knows it) is out of the question.
Something will be gain and other will be lost...and as the A-H Empire wait a couple of years and the place will be ridden by various revolutionary and people very angry for the sacrifice made and all the blood and treasure spent.
 

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Assuming that the POD was the Germans somehow succeeding with the March spring offensive with an armistice reached in the Autumn of 1918 what would that have meant for the Ottoman Empire?

Presuming that the war in the Middle East followed a broadly historical course into the Autumn the War ends with the Ottomans moving soldiers through the Caucasus, while the Arabs control Damascus.

Would the Ottoman Empire have tried to retake the Middle East or refocused on pan-Turanian campaigns?

Would the Sultanate have survived long term?
I don't think you could count a CP victory in 1918 a victory for the Ottomans. They'd be largely reduced to their core Turkish territories with the Levant north of Gaza and Iraq north of Baghdad left attached, perhaps with Russian territory in the Caucasus added.

That would mean the Armenians are screwed, the Sultanate reduced to a puppet of Enver Pasha and a military dictatorship in charge, and a general militarization of society to hold on to what remains and keep the British off their backs given their gains in the Middle East. At that point the Ottomans are going to be focused on a pan-Turkic empire, as they would have lost their position as the Islamic Sultanate as Arabia with Mecca and Medina having been broken off. Britain though would be pretty weak if the Germans managed to break France in Spring 1918, so they would be hard pressed to maintain their Levant and Mesopotamian holdings. Likely the Ottomans would be supporting the resistance of the Iraqis and make the situation even harder for the Brits than it was IOTL:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mandatory_Iraq
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iraqi_revolt_against_the_British

A lot depends on what aid they could expect from the Germans after the war, which would be hard to say given the problems in Central Europe and with the Brest-Litovsk annexations...plus of course the German-Ottoman problems in the Caucasus and whatever happens with the Bolsheviks in Russia. Clearly not having the post-WW1 invasion by several powers of Turkey would be a very good thing:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turkish_War_of_Independence
 
You can prevent the breakup of the Ottoman empire, but it would be very hard to make it emerge from WW1 in a strong position, even with an overall CP victory.

The Ottoman Empire itself is in a dire situation: Their technology is still woefully out of date and they have a small, inefficient economy but most dire is that the empire itself is collapsing due to internal factors, as the Turks simply are becoming unable to enforce their rule over the conquered minorities in the Mideast and Southern Europe. In 1914 the Ottoman Empire has long since ceased to be a true Great Power (it had been known as the "Sick Man of Europe" for a century now). Britain quite successfully exploited these divisions in WW1 to defeat the Ottomans in their territories outside of the Turkish homeland using by-in large indigenous peoples to wreak havoc on Ottoman forces (Famously those organized by TE Lawrence). Furthermore, Germany really isn't in a position to send much support to the Ottomans, seeing as they had to fight a war on two fronts as well as bail out the Austro-Hungarians. Even if they win in France projecting a significant force to the Mideast would be difficult and risky, especially because they couldn't use the sea-lanes in the Mediterranean because of the risk of intervention by the Royal Navy. Furthermore, I doubt the Germans would be willing to risk their troops and their gains in Europe to go and fight for the Ottomans. Likely after France fell in this TL, Germany and Britain would come to peace terms in which Germany would trade releasing France (minus territorial concessions, war reparations, etc.) in exchange for the UK returning some of the territories they conquered (the key ones being German colonies), potentially including some of the land they took from the Ottomans in the Mid-east, but I doubt the Germans would make securing Ottoman borders the keystone of their peace negotiations: They would probably want to stop the Ottoman Empire from being dismembered as it was in OTL to act as a bulwark against Russia but I doubt they were interested in extending Ottoman power beyond how it served that narrow German interest, so I could see them being more amenable to negotiating away some Ottoman territories outside of Europe to the UK in return for getting their own overseas territories back, as well as probably some French and dutch colonies.

In short to get an Ottoman Empire ending WW1 in a strong position the Ottomans need to soundly defeat the British in the middle-east not rely on the Germans winning their victory for them at the peace table.
 
A Couple of Things to Consider

If the Germans were successful on the Western Front in Spring 1918, why would the Armistice be delayed until the Fall? It took about 6 weeks from the initial contacts in late September 1918 for the Armistice to be finalized for 11 November. I'd expect a similar timeframe. The CP would want an Armistice to be signed before the Americans can make their presence felt. In your timeline, does the French Army break, does Paris fall, is the BEF split off from the French?

Brest-Litovsk had been signed and the Bolsheveiks were out of the war; the Romanians had signed an Armistice, so the Eastern Front was relatively quiet even though the Germans kept about a million troops in the occupied areas.

The A-H had defeated the Italians at Caporretto in Fall 1917 and were well into Italy; the French/Brits were bottled up in Salonika. So A-H, although weakened is actually in pretty good shape, territory-wise.

Only the Ottomans of the CP had suffered serious loss of territory, the Arabian Peninsula, Palestine/Transjordan and Southern Mesopotamia. A lot depends on the terms of any peace treaty, however, I doubt the Ottomans getting back to 'status quo ante' is probably not going to happen. I'd imagine that the OE would keep Anatolia, Syria, northern Mesopotamia, and the new territories in the Caucasus.

If they could get back the oil fields in Basra that would be helpful but I doubt the British would be willing to give them back. For the OE to survive, it would have to find a way to neutralize the nationalities issue, reform its government and make economic progress. The Mosul oil fields could help refinancing a reconstruction/economic development effort, if not squandered away.
The camel in the tent is reforming the government. It's really, really hard to see the Sultanate reforming itself. Ataturk had to overthrow the Sultanate to institute reforms. I think that is the only answer.
 
The british empire cannot invade europa if France, italy and greece falls, the central powers would just send their armies to counter their landings so there is no other way to end the war without a status quo ante bellum with the british

Edit: Plus, it have been a four year war without any gain and all their allies but portugal had surrendered, a white peace is the best case possible for both sides

I think it was a morale issue on both sides at that point, if the Germans had obtained a real knockout blow then I think Entente morale would have simply collapsed, they were exhausted at that point.

But it wouldn't be a total victory, and would probably be less decisive than the Entente historically won.

If the Germans were successful on the Western Front in Spring 1918, why would the Armistice be delayed until the Fall? It took about 6 weeks from the initial contacts in late September 1918 for the Armistice to be finalized for 11 November. I'd expect a similar timeframe. The CP would want an Armistice to be signed before the Americans can make their presence felt. In your timeline, does the French Army break, does Paris fall, is the BEF split off from the French?

Brest-Litovsk had been signed and the Bolsheveiks were out of the war; the Romanians had signed an Armistice, so the Eastern Front was relatively quiet even though the Germans kept about a million troops in the occupied areas.

The A-H had defeated the Italians at Caporretto in Fall 1917 and were well into Italy; the French/Brits were bottled up in Salonika. So A-H, although weakened is actually in pretty good shape, territory-wise.

Only the Ottomans of the CP had suffered serious loss of territory, the Arabian Peninsula, Palestine/Transjordan and Southern Mesopotamia. A lot depends on the terms of any peace treaty, however, I doubt the Ottomans getting back to 'status quo ante' is probably not going to happen. I'd imagine that the OE would keep Anatolia, Syria, northern Mesopotamia, and the new territories in the Caucasus.

If they could get back the oil fields in Basra that would be helpful but I doubt the British would be willing to give them back. For the OE to survive, it would have to find a way to neutralize the nationalities issue, reform its government and make economic progress. The Mosul oil fields could help refinancing a reconstruction/economic development effort, if not squandered away.
The camel in the tent is reforming the government. It's really, really hard to see the Sultanate reforming itself. Ataturk had to overthrow the Sultanate to institute reforms. I think that is the only answer.
A little off topic, but I thought even with a successful March Spring offensive it would take time to win the war, Germany would have to besiege Paris, which I expect would take months, and so on.

May be better if the POD was the US stays neutral of course to keep the AEF from rendering that impossible.

I feel that Britain would fight on for a bit anyway, given that they don't have any real threat to their homeland so they could afford to keep it going for a little while before war exhaustion forces them to make peace.

Your last point is one of the most interesting for me, would the Sultanate survive the war? What would happen with Kemal?

I am very intrigued by the post war political situation.
 
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Unlikely given that they have no Caspian coastline, never mind a way of crossing the Caspian Sea. Trying overland would not go down well with Iran. As for the Ottoman fate after winning WW I, if they hold on until oil is found they can get a lot of money and revitalize themselves. There will also be infrastructural improvements, such as Germany completing the Berlin-Baghdad Railway and possibly extending it to Basra. That should improve the army's mobility and the economy.

They had won the Battle of Baku, so I would presume they could send ships through the Caspian.

I do not know if the Caspian had any sort of shipping capacity or port facilities at the time though.

I think their plan was to link up with Turkish nationalists in Central Asia. Winning support from the Basmachi movement.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basmachi_movement


I don't know if they could have held the territory though, let alone how the Russian Civil War would have gone.
 
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I don't think you could count a CP victory in 1918 a victory for the Ottomans. They'd be largely reduced to their core Turkish territories with the Levant north of Gaza and Iraq north of Baghdad left attached, perhaps with Russian territory in the Caucasus added.

That would mean the Armenians are screwed, the Sultanate reduced to a puppet of Enver Pasha and a military dictatorship in charge, and a general militarization of society to hold on to what remains and keep the British off their backs given their gains in the Middle East. At that point the Ottomans are going to be focused on a pan-Turkic empire, as they would have lost their position as the Islamic Sultanate as Arabia with Mecca and Medina having been broken off. Britain though would be pretty weak if the Germans managed to break France in Spring 1918, so they would be hard pressed to maintain their Levant and Mesopotamian holdings. Likely the Ottomans would be supporting the resistance of the Iraqis and make the situation even harder for the Brits than it was IOTL:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mandatory_Iraq
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iraqi_revolt_against_the_British

A lot depends on what aid they could expect from the Germans after the war, which would be hard to say given the problems in Central Europe and with the Brest-Litovsk annexations...plus of course the German-Ottoman problems in the Caucasus and whatever happens with the Bolsheviks in Russia. Clearly not having the post-WW1 invasion by several powers of Turkey would be a very good thing:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turkish_War_of_Independence

Given British weakness I was thinking it may make more sense for a de facto status quo antebellum peace for the British (with areas such as Egypt and Cyprus formally detached from the Ottoman Empire so Britain has something to show for the War)

While they would seek to support the Arabs in establishing a client state, rather than attempting to govern (much) additional Middle Eastern territory directly. Perhaps they'd hold onto Basra, but I would think Baghdad would be left to the Arabs.

I presume, if anyone has reason to think differently let me know.
 
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