With the Crescent Above Us 2.0: An Ottoman Timeline
- Thread starter Nassirisimo
- Start date
According to Wikipedia the times pan was 1856–1873, so I guess you're right there. Sad.
I also want to talk something after mention Yaqub Beg.Ottoman not only nominally suzerain of Yettishar Khanate,they also make maximal effort to send material support like advisors.Although Pan-Turkish won't become mainstream ideology ITTL Ottoman,there're still naturelly that Ottoman extend their influence to inner asia.Maybe Nassirisimo thought 1.0 a bit exaggerate,but I think even Enver Pasha fall in Dushanbe,he still can success in Kashgar.
Butterflied as the leader of China perhaps, but Sun Yat-Sen/Sun Zhongshan was born in 1866, quite sometime before the POD so he will probably be getting a mention at some point in the future.
I'm not actually sure if Ridwan is still into AH, but I suppose I should ask him at some point. It would be interesting to see if AHP's take on the POD was ever completed, as it was the inspiration for my own timeline.
So it seems. I'm not a fan of the Taliban's harsh policies, but I do wonder what they could realistically do to stop the economic suffering of Afghanistan's population.
As Tyler pointed out, the Panthay Rebellion ended before the POD, so it definitely happened.
Pan-Turkic ideas will almost certainly be floating around, even if we don't see the establishment of the great space-filling Central Asian Empire. I dread to think of what kind of intercommunal violence would be taking place were the ETIM armed by a great power and the Chinese fighting against what was seen as foreign subversion.
Guangxu's decade - China 1899 to 1907
Lin Manyin; The Fall of the Middle Kingdom - China and the Modern World: Liang Qichao University Press, Guangzhou
Guangxu's Decade - The Boxer Rebellion and its aftermath
Guangxu's Decade - The Boxer Rebellion and its aftermath
The Yihetuan, or “Society of Righteous and Harmonious Fists”, originated in Shangdong province during a time of great difficulty for the province’s inhabitants. Many of the areas in which the Boxer movement first arose had suffered for a long time due to the changing patterns of trade that had come with the increase of European influence within China. Old thoroughfares such as the Grand Canal lost their importance as China’s coastal cities gained increased importance for China’s economy, and this left many of the former areas impoverished. Poor harvests in the late 1890s, which the mostly subsistence cereal farmers of the North China Plain were especially vulnerable to, further exacerbated the problem of economic depression. One European traveller described what he saw in Shangdong province, “Nothing but dirty, mud-dried brick houses falling to decay everywhere, with some remnants of the red paper mottoes pasted up last New Years’ time, fading and filthy, still sticking to the miserable, rotten doorways”. The poverty of these areas left them susceptible to millenarian movements such as the Boxer Movement, which would sweep over the North China Plain at the turn of the century.
The Boxers in many respects resembled the kind of secret societies that had figured in Chinese history for millennia. They engaged in various secret rituals which were supposed to provide magic-based invulnerability to modern weaponry. Most importantly, they saw themselves as defenders of the country against the foreign influences that had brought a great deal of harm such as Christianity. Because of this, churches and missionaries, alongside Chinese Christian converts, were their primary targets initially. Though missionaries were rarely killed, the same could not be said for Chinese converts to Christianity, who were described in terms of being “tainted”. Churches that had been constructed were razed. As reports of depredations against Christians in the countryside of Shangdong began to filter through to the Europeans in Beijing and the treaty ports, the European powers began to pressure the Chinese government to stop the wave of attacks.
Detained men accused of affiliation with the Boxer movement
The Guangxu Emperor was fearful of turning the Boxers against the Qing government, however. Memories of the Taiping rebellion were still relatively fresh, and it was not only the reformist faction of Kang Youwei that was nervous about the effect that actively opposing the Boxers would have. As the Boxer movement grew in popularity, spreading from Shangdong to Henan and Zhili, Kang wondered that if the government was to attempt to suppress the movement, would the result be a repeat of the Taiping but closer to the centre of government in Beijing. He needn’t have worried. In contrast to the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, the Boxers lacked central leadership. Although they drifted around the countryside, and after 1898 especially into Beijing and Tianjin, there was no willingness amongst the Boxers to challenge Qing authority. A common slogan of the Boxers was “Fu Qing Mieyang”, or support the Qing, destroy the foreign. Nevertheless, the growth of the Boxer movement and their increasing violence toward Westerners and Christianity presented an alarming problem for China’s relations with the West. There were fears that if the Boxers were allowed to get out of hand and start killing Westerners in greater numbers, this would result in war between China and some Western powers.
The Guangxu emperor felt as though he could not afford to alienate the Western countries so recently after his defeat at the hands of Japan, and therefore issued an edict in the June of 1899 that the Boxer movement was to be dispersed from the cities of Shandong, Henan and Zhili. For the most part, Qing troops were able to eject Boxers from the cities without much in the way of bloodshed, but within the countryside of Northern China, hostility toward the Qing government surged. Boxers now considered the Qing Emperor to be a puppet of the west, and they claimed that he was intentionally allowing foreigners to poison the minds of the Chinese. The Boxer movement now began its evolution from a loyalist movement into one opposed to the government, but although conservatives within the Qing court attempted to coopt the Boxers to increase their influence, the Guangxu Emperor responded to increasing attacks on Qing authority with an order to repress the Boxer movement. Thus began the slow-burning Boxer Rebellion, an anti-foreign, anti-Qing movement that would challenge Qing authority in the North China Plain for years to come. However, even by 1901, it was clear that this would not be a repeat of the Taiping Rebellion, as the Boxers could not coalesce into a movement capable of challenging Qing authority.
Disaster had been averted, but this proved to be another challenge to the Guangxu Emperor who had only recently launched a coup-de-tat to remove his aunt, the Dowager Empress Cixi, from power. Guangxu was more interested in the reform of society and the economy rather than in military affairs but found himself challenged not only by the Boxers but also by the increasingly powerful regional governors south of the Yangtse, who often ignored imperial edicts and his own orders. Guangxu complained that he was “emperor only in Zhili”, but for now there was little that he could do to avail himself against the overmighty governors of Central and Southern China. Instead, his government focused its efforts on Zhili and the neighbouring provinces which had now been occupied by the loyalist general Zhang Qicheng.[1] Guangxu and his advisors hoped that once regional governors saw the benefits of reform and the seriousness of Guangxu’s attempts to restore the prestige of the Qing dynasty, then they would show more loyalty to the court in Beijing.
As part of the Guangxu Emperor's reforms, thousands of Chinese students were sent abroad to Europe, America and Japan
The 1900s began to see a period of recovery for China after her disastrous defeat in 1895. China’s economy began to grow once again, with a particular focus on the development of mining and industry. Within the treaty ports, both Chinese and foreign-owned enterprises grew in both number and size, and it was in the 1900s when the import of textiles to China finally began to shrink, as factories within China were beginning to expand and satisfy domestic demand. However, the most astonishing example of this economic growth was the spurt of railway building in the empire, which amounted to some 6000 kilometres of new railway track from 1900 to 1905 alone.[2] China’s government hoped that railways would begin to connect a country that was still largely split into different linguistic, cultural, and economic regions. Railway building had not been significant in China before this, and perhaps was the most visible example of the renewed desire to modernize China and bring her into the modern era.
China also saw a wave of educational and bureaucratic reforms as the civil service that had served the emperors underwent revolutionary changes. The most famous of these was the abolition of the old “eight-legged” essays that had controlled entry into the civil service for centuries, though it was not limited to this. China’s leaders looked to Japan, and a lesser extent the Ottoman Empire, for models of how to reform the administrative structure of the country, and by 1910 a considerable amount of progress had been made. Schooling had also seen great expansion within China, as thousands of primary schools had been established across the country, providing formal education for many who had lacked the opportunity beforehand. Several degree-awarding universities were also established along with Western models. The wave of reform that swept over China in the 1900s managed to impress foreign observers, one of whom reported to his government that “the emperor of China, having finally attained the ability to rule without interference, has proven himself to be the most energetic emperor for quite several years”.
Once again it would be China’s foreign situation that would bring disaster. Russia had long been wary of the situation in Manchuria following Japan’s victory over China in 1895. Russia had ambitions of seizing the warm-water Port Arthur on the Liaoning Peninsula for quite some time but had been unable to prevent Japan from taking it due to commitments elsewhere. Japan’s hold on the region solidified during the drawn-out death of Tsar Alexander III, and the accession of the new Tsar Nicholas II. Tsar Nicholas and his advisors saw East Asia as a far more rewarding avenue for expansion than the Balkans, where the rewards that had come from attacking the relatively poor Ottoman Empire had been slim for the great cost in lives and money that had come with attacking it. Siberia and Asia on the other hand had presented great promise for the Russians, and the 1900s saw renewed Russian efforts to populate Siberia and the Far East. Russia had also received permission in 1900 to build her Trans-Siberian Railway to Vladivostok across Manchuria, and to garrison certain sections of the line considered to be vulnerable. Russia had expanded this to cover the whole of the railway over the next few years, but it was not until 1907 after the signing of the “Three Emperor’s Alliance” that Russia felt confident enough to enact her plan to seize the whole of Manchuria.
The pretext for the occupation had been attacks by bandits on the railway line, though this was in all likelihood nothing but a fig leaf to justify the land grab. Kang Youwei appealed to foreign powers not only to protect Chinese sovereignty but also to prevent the expansion of Russian power in the Far East. However, with Russia’s allies backing her up, China had no option but to accept this fait-accompli. This was another huge humiliation for China, one that would destroy Kang Youwei’s power base and banish him from the court in Beijing to the governorship of his native Guangdong. Conservatives in the court accused the emperor of cowardice and called for armed resistance. This would have been folly with only Japan promising any support to China, but Guangxu’s perceived pusillanimity won him no admirers either amongst the Conservatives or with the growing Chinese Nationalist movement. After the Russian occupation of Manchuria in 1907, it appeared as though Guangxu’s attempt to restore the prestige of the Qing dynasty was in tatters, and China was incapable of standing up to challenges to her sovereignty.
[1] – Zhang Qicheng is not a real person, and is the first of the major “new people” who will be affecting the timeline from now on as we move further from the POD.
[2] – This represents a higher number than what was seen in OTL, though still pales compared to places such as Russia, which in OTL was awash in French capital.
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Author's notes - I'm sorry if I've put a bit too much teasing in this part of the update. Still, a look at China as things start to diverge more from OTL. The Boxer Rebellion, although seen in TTL as a problem, caused far less damage to China's position than in OTL. As a result, although things sound bad, the China of 1907 in TTL is considerably better off than our own. There has been no Mutual Defence Pact to weaken imperial authority further in the south of China.
It's interesting how the survival of the Ottoman Empire has altered and diluted imperialist dynamics, though of course in other instances such as with Japan it energised them.. Hopefully China is able to continue it's path of reform and modernisation, though I expect that this present system of piecemeal reform and autonomous governors is unsustainable. The Qing court will probably attempt to enact constitutional reform - they did so IOTL and with a liberaliser at the helm will likely continue even if it is too little too late.
Japan must be feeling rather self-satisfied though, given their total success in the matter of the Liaodong Concession and the indemnity payments. I imagine there was some tension in Russia between those who focused on internal reform and fulfilment of the Pan-Slavic idea as opposed to those who supported a focus on East Asia, one now firmly resolved in favour of the latter camp. They are in a weaker position than OTL Russia had been, and Japan is surely more entrenched in theirs. That said, any delay favours Russia, they will surely be carrying out army reforms, and if the Trans-Siberian Railroad is completed then their position becomes far more secure. It is for precisely that reason that Japan struck early IOTL, though of course one should not overstate the potential of a single railroad to supply whole armies across thousands of kilometres.
Japan must be feeling rather self-satisfied though, given their total success in the matter of the Liaodong Concession and the indemnity payments. I imagine there was some tension in Russia between those who focused on internal reform and fulfilment of the Pan-Slavic idea as opposed to those who supported a focus on East Asia, one now firmly resolved in favour of the latter camp. They are in a weaker position than OTL Russia had been, and Japan is surely more entrenched in theirs. That said, any delay favours Russia, they will surely be carrying out army reforms, and if the Trans-Siberian Railroad is completed then their position becomes far more secure. It is for precisely that reason that Japan struck early IOTL, though of course one should not overstate the potential of a single railroad to supply whole armies across thousands of kilometres.
I suppose the question is whether the Qing Reforms of TTL are merely buying time or if they are a way to construct a viable modern state capable of preserving China. Even Cixi was advancing some constitutional reforms, and this will likewise be true of Guangxu, who now also has the model of the Ottoman Empire to emulate as well as Japan.
Japan does have good reason to be happy, but as always defeating one adversary just leads to being drawn ever closer to the next one. As you point out, Russia is only likely to become stronger with time, and her most recent Balkan War was a success, though not a complete one. When the Trans-Siberian line is mostly complete, the Russians will be in a much stronger position to challenge Japan (whose position she is not entirely happy with), but the outcome of any potential conflict there is up on the air.
Between the Turk and the Briton - Arabia 1870 to 1912
Hamid Khalil; Abode of Islam - Arabia's History from the Prophet to the Present Day: Muscat Publishing House
Subjugation and Division - Arabia in the late 19th Century
Subjugation and Division - Arabia in the late 19th Century
Though the Ottomans had been the dominant power in Arabia since the defeat of the Mamluk Dynasty of Egypt by Selim the Grim back in 1517, the Arabian Peninsula had long been a backwater to the Ottomans despite its religious importance. It was a poor place compared to Rumelia and Anatolia and was ruled indirectly even by the standards of the Ottoman administration. One startling example of Arabia’s lack of importance to the Sultanate was the fact that none of the Ottoman Sultans had even made the Hajj pilgrimage, which was compulsory for all Muslims with the means to do so. When the Saudis had launched their bid for supremacy in Arabia at the turn of the 19th century, the Ottomans outsourced the task of bringing the holy cities of Mecca and Medina back into the fold to their vassal in Egypt, Mehmet Ali Paşa. Even after their Egyptian vassals gave up their lands in Asia, the Ottomans ruled with a relatively light touch in Arabia, ruling mostly through local intermediaries such as the Sharif of Mecca rather than directly integrating the area into their administration.
It was under Sultan Abdülaziz that this started to change. The Ottomans had reestablished their presence in Yemen in the 1840s following a long absence, and their influence only strengthened with the construction of the Suez Canal. Ottoman forces in the area made a concerted effort through the 1860s to capture the Yemeni highlands in the North, which were dominated by the weakened Zaidi Imamate. By 1872 the Ottomans had captured Sana’a, Yemen’s largest city, and the following year Ottoman control was established across the Yemeni highland. This control would prove to be ephemeral, however, and it soon became apparent to Ahmed Muhtar Paşa, the Wāli of the Yemen Vilayet, that the Ottoman presence in the Yemeni highlands existed only at the sufferance of the local tribes, who disliked the Ottoman administrators both for their attempts to impose centralized rule as well as for ideological and religious differences. The attempts of the Ottomans to implement the Tanzimat reforms on a population that was both traditionalist and Zaidi Shi’a often provoked violence from chieftains who were unwilling to cooperate with the Ottomans. Ahmed Muhtar Paşa went as far as to suggest that the highlands be evacuated, and the Ottoman presence limited only to the coast. However, the Ottoman government in Constantinople would continue to insist on continuing the occupation.
The Ottoman presence in the highlands of Yemen was an unwelcome one, often fraught with conflict
Ottoman policy in the rest of Arabia began to change further with the accession of Sultan Abdülhamid. Especially following victory over the Russians in 1877, the Sultan wanted to solidify control over areas that were under nominal control. Furthermore, Arabia’s importance to the pan-Islamic project of Abdülhamid almost necessitated a stronger policy toward the peninsula. However, for the first few decades of his reign, there was not a significant departure from the previously established patterns of Ottoman rule in Arabia. The geographic isolation certainly played a part in this, as did the difficulty of imposing a modernized administration in an area which was both sparsely inhabited and dominated by nomadic peoples. There was also a great cultural divide between the settled “Ottomans”, both Turkish and Arabic speaking, and the “Bedouin” Arabs on the fringes, who were often perceived as little more than savages by the central government in Constantinople and by regional administrators. This divide tended to be repeated when it came to dealing with settled tribal confederations such as the al-Muntafiq in Southern Iraq.
Though these forces could prove to be a local hindrance to the Ottoman state, the challenge presented by the two other major forces within Arabia, Britain and the Saudis was far more existential to the power of the Ottoman Empire in Arabia. The Saudis had declined in power since the first half of the 19th century and since the 1860s had paid tribute to the Ottoman Empire, but the Ottoman government preferred to support the al-Rashidis who ruled the Emirate of Jabal Shammar based in Ha’il, to the north of the Saudi Emirate. Throughout the 1880’s the Rashidis gained ground against the Saudis with the help of the Ottomans, which was rumoured to include military support.[1] By 1889 the Rashidis defeated the last of the forces loyal to the Saudis and occupied their capital of Riyadh. The remains of the Saudi family fled to exile in Kuwait, which promptly received a request from the Ottoman Sultan for custody of the al-Sauds, who were promised a “life under supervision” in Constantinople that would amount to captivity. The Sheikh of Kuwait procrastinated until an implicit threat was delivered by the Wāli of Basra, following which the Saudi family was sent to Constantinople under the guard of the Sultan, where they would remain for generations.
This intervention into the affairs of the Gulf states seemed to mark a new chapter in the relations of the Ottoman State and the small Sheikhdoms and Emirates that inhabited the southern coast of the Gulf. This brought them into conflict with the British, whose influence within the Gulf had been steadily strengthening since the beginning of the 19th century. The British had forced the small emirates of the former “pirate coast” into the Trucial States in the 1850s, and in 1869 had installed Isa ibn Ali al-Khalifa as Bahrain’s Hakim, bringing that state into the orbit of Britain. The Ottomans had not been lax in this area either and had declared sovereignty over Kuwait, al-Ahsa, Qatif and Qatar, during Midhat Pasha’s time ruling the vilayet of Baghdad. Although a rivalry between the Ottomans and the British developed both in the Gulf and in Yemen, both sides were generally unwilling to escalate this rivalry due to the backwater nature of Arabia compared to their imperial concerns elsewhere. However, especially in the 1880s and 1890s, this rivalry contributed to the increasingly cold relations between the Ottoman Empire and Great Britain.
By the end of the 19th century, all the smaller states in the Gulf had become tied to either Great Britain or the Ottoman Empire
The “Kuwait Incident” was probably the most famous of these crises, and it was a direct effect of the Ottoman-sponsored advances within Central Arabia. The Sheikhs of Kuwait had felt threatened both by the Ottoman declaration of sovereignty over the state as well as their demand to hand over the al-Saud family, which Sheikh Abdullah al-Saleh felt custom-bound to protect. Following the death of Abdullah and the rise of Mubarak al-Saleh, the new Sheikh moved quickly to sign a treaty with Great Britain which turned Kuwait into a protectorate of the British.[2] This angered the Ottomans somewhat, who had seen Kuwait as an autonomous part of the Ottoman Empire for decades. Nevertheless, unwilling to worsen relations with the British, the Ottomans nevertheless acquiesced. The division of Arabia between the Ottomans and the British would not be fully confirmed until the aftermath of the Great Balkan War, which left Aden and Southern Yemen, Oman, the Trucial States, Bahrain and Kuwait to the British, and the remainder of Arabia to the Ottomans.
With claims now recognized internationally, the Ottomans could set upon imposing stronger control in Arabia. As well as the continued (and mostly unsuccessful) efforts to suppress the Zaidi Shi’a rebels in Yemen, Abdulhamid saw it as crucial to bring the Holy Cities of Islam, Mecca and Medina, under tighter control from Istanbul. As far back as the 1870s, the construction of a railroad from Damascus to Yemen had been proposed to move troops down to the area easily and solidify Ottoman control in the area. However, the vast distances involved (around 2800 kilometres from Damascus to Sana’a) meant that any such project would be a huge expense for a bankrupt Ottoman State. Hence, the Hedjaz Railway was not revived as a serious project until 1891, when Abdülhamid formally announced the project, providing both a loan from the state bank and encouraging donations from Muslims around the world. By 1893 construction of the Hedjaz Railway began, though the war of 1895 would delay construction, and the first section of the railway from Damascus to Medina would not be completed until 1899.
The project had gained importance as Abdülhamid attempted to emphasize the Islamic character of his rule, following defeat in the Great Balkan War. Binding the Arabs to the empire and to himself was seen by him as a key method in which he could ensure that, unlike the Balkan Christians, the Arabs would be content to stay within the empire. Although he identified Turks as the “base” of the empire, he noted that without its Arab territories, the Ottoman Empire would be “an insignificant state within the Islamic world and without”. Therefore, the project gained importance out of proportion to its scant economic benefits, acting both as a show of the Sultan’s piety in making the Hajj significantly easier, and as a way to secure Ottoman control of its Arabian territories. Because of this, when the railway’s last section to Sana’a was completed in 1910, not only was there enormous fanfare throughout the empire, but the Sultan himself performed the pilgrimage to Mecca himself, the first time in which an Ottoman Sultan had done so.
[1] – Ibrahim Osman was one of those Ottoman soldiers who helped the Rashidis.
[2] – In OTL Mubarak was keen to gain the support of the British due to his perceived illegitimacy, as there were rumours that he had stooped to murder to gain the throne of Kuwait
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Authors notes - Apologies for the lateness of this update! Work has been busier than usual, so I haven't been writing as much as I used to. Hopefully, I can motivate myself to get some updates written more quickly in the future. There's a bit of railway history here, but the Ottoman Railways will likely get a full update at some point in the future as a lot has changed compared to OTL.
Idzni_Hezrin05
Banned
This would be great for the ottoman to integrate arabia. Those sweet delicious oil will benefit ottoman later on. Regarding the british If somehow ottoman and british end up in opposite side in a world war, i wonder which side will be able to utilize arab rebellion to win arabia. Since ITTL Ottoman able to integrate the Arabia, Lawrence of Arabia probably would get executed by a random Bedouin.
Great chapter I think that's a he can bypass the nationalistic tendencies by making Arabic and Turkish official languages of the state also I think that thoughts and supporting spies and loyalists in Egypt maybe even in India can have some unexpected benefits in future finally can he start settling nomad tribes
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With the spirit of 2.0,look it's hardly paint Ottoman colour in Nejd.And after mass territory lost,Oil will become more important resource for Ottoman,Should find some way maximize exploitation right in Arab peninsula.
I guess one of the Emperor is
Meiji
I apologize if this has already been asked, but what is the status of Zionism and Ottoman Jewish communities ITTL?
The Ottomans are still a long way from fully integrating Arabia, as it is more an intention than a reality at this point. Their rule is still characterised by a reliance on local tribal sheikhs. Still, the same is actually true of the British, who did not rule any part of Arabia directly (Aden was attached to British India if my memory serves me right). But still, if the British and Ottomans end up on the opposite side of each other, I think both sides would be able to influence locals to support them.
Making Arabic an official language of the Ottoman Empire was discussed, and Abdulhamid made far more use of Arabs in government than previous Ottoman Sultans had done. Before Abdulhamid's time is over, he may well achieve this.
Abdulhamid is cultivating Pan-Islamism in both Egypt and India, but of course, it remains to be seen what the effects will be. It was somewhat discredited after the failure of the Ottoman Jihad in World War One, which didn't even persuade some Muslims to lay down their arms fighting the empire.
Arabia is a relatively easy place for the Ottomans to expand their influence, as to some extent the Great Powers saw it as the Ottoman's backyard, with only the British challenging the Ottomans for control. Oil will of course be important if the Ottomans hold onto the region, but keep in mind the first oil reserves in Arabia were found in the 1930s in Bahrain, which came just about in the nick of time to save us from devastation at the hands of cultured pearls. There are a lot of things that could happen until then...
Zionism is unlikely to have the same outcome as in OTL, and this may lead to non-Palestinian locations for colonization being more seriously considered by Jews depending on what happens within Europe. The largest Jewish community of the Ottoman Empire, that of Salonika, is now within the new Bulgarian State, but there are still significant groups in Istanbul, Palestine and smaller communities elsewhere. The Jews were seen rather more positively than Christians and were not perceived as disloyal, but they nevertheless suffered from the traditional discrimination that most had usually suffered in the history of many Islamic states. Perhaps when more changes become apparent, I might write an update on them.
Narrative - After the war is over... (1899-1912)
Talar's Journey, 1899
It was chance that had brought Talar so far. After the war had ended, safety was guaranteed for her people in their homeland, or so it seemed. The Great Powers had proclaimed that within five vilayets of the Ottoman Empire, the officials, the police, and even the governor would all be Armenian. Though there seemed to be hope for her people’s future, her village and family had all been destroyed. Armenia endured, but Talar’s home had not.
And yet coming so far had not been in her plan. She bravely made her way to Adana alone, though she was pregnant. To survive as a single mother with no means of support required equal amounts of both charity, provided in abundance, especially by the American missions in the area, and her own determination. Despite the hardship, she survived. But in the back of her mind, she worried for both herself and her baby son Daron. Her memories haunted her. She would wake up at night screaming, and even when awake, her thoughts would drift to that horrible year she spent as the prisoner of that lout. When a Turk smiled, smiled at her, she couldn’t help but tremble. After all, who knew what lurid and cruel thoughts lay behind it. How could she live amongst these animals?
So, when the chance came for her to take herself, her son, and what meagre savings she had to go to Brazil, she took it. Brazil was a far away place that she had scarcely heard of. It was not like America, where one could go and build a life far greater than what one had enjoyed back home. She knew that the weather was always hot, the work hard and that it was very far away. It was precisely this distance from what had hurt her in her homeland that attracted her though.
The journey was a difficult one. On first to Naples, where the ports heaved with the poor and huddled masses of the Mezzogiorno. Many of these were seasonal laborers, who would go to the new world to earn a better living than what they could scratch working on the huge latifundia of Southern Italy. Though she spent only a small time here, she felt as uncomfortable amongst the ramshackle slums of Naples as she had done back home when the Kurds came to demand their “tribute”.
The vast Atlantic Ocean brought some comfort to Talar. Though much of the time was spent cramped in steerage, she sometimes looked across the sea that seemed to be without end. Off to a place that she had barely heard of until a year ago. Her heart fluttered with fear, but with anticipation at what wonders and what opportunities awaited her in this new land.
But when Talar disembarked under the hot tropical sun of Rio De Janeiro, she knew that this new land would hold many challenges for her. To carve out a new life in a place where the language, the people, and even the landscape were totally unfamiliar to her, would not be an easy proposition. But she had survived so far. She survived the destruction of her hometown. She survived being the captive of a brutal man whose breath constantly smelled of garlic. She had given birth to her son without the help of any man. Though the road before her seemed insurmountable, Talar felt the determination deep within her heart. She would not only survive. She would thrive in this new world.
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Constantinople, 1912
Talal and Ahmad chased each other through the door, almost knocking over their mother as she returned overladen with groceries from the market. “Watch where you are going you little brats!” shouted their father. While they were growing both in stature and in strength each passing day, as boys will be boys, it simply made them harder to control.
The father helped his wife with the shopping and asked, “Heard anything interesting while you were out?”
She replied, “Only politics these days. And when they only talk politics, you know things are bad”.
“Did you manage to get me a newspaper?”
She shook her head, “I’m sorry, they had already sold out by the time I went to the newsagents. You know how it is at times like these. Do you think this could be it?”
He patted her on the shoulder in a clumsy attempt to comfort her. “I doubt it. The Sultan has declared neutrality, remember? We won’t be getting involved in anyone else’s conflicts”
“I hope so. I won’t let them take you”
“Oh, don’t worry dear, I’m too old to serve in the trenches again. I think if it would ever come down to it, I could get a nice desk job a long way away from the front lines”.
Tears appeared in his wife’s eyes. He’d always been unsure of how to deal with her when she was upset. “We’ll be safe, I promise you. No matter what happens”
“You liar”. She wasn’t particularly easy to deal with either. But it was more his weakness as a husband than hers as a wife.
But he held his fear deep inside. After all, one can be pulled into a fight that one does not wish to be a part of. And so, he felt that this brewing conflict, one started by a band of hooligan teenagers not much older than his boys, may soon grow to engulf his country too. He wished it did not, as he had made his name and was tired of war. There was a great deal of fear in those days. But even a much keener political mind than Ibrahim Osman or Amel’s would be needed to predict what would occur.
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Gustavo Mesquita; Not Just Beaches and Rainforest! A Guide to Brazil: Happy Traveller Publishing, New York
Armenian food isn’t the first thing that comes to mind when one thinks of Rio De Janeiro, but “Talori Taverna” has been a feature of Rio’s food scene for around a century. Legend has it that the restaurant was founded by a female Armenian refugee in 1927, and when we asked the restaurant owner, he told us that the place had been founded by his great-grandmother, who really had come from Armenia many years ago.
“I think this woman must have had incredible strength, you know, to come to this place and really make something that lasted. We had heard stories in the family, but apparently, she would not talk about what happened before she reached Brazil. I think she had lost her husband or something. But all the recipes we cook, the building, everything comes from her. We try to keep that authentic feel”
Close to Copacabana Beach, the restaurant both stands as a reminder of the early days of the neighbourhood's days, and of the amazing mix of heritages that can be found in Brazil. And of course, one simply cannot miss out on excellent food at such a low price!
Well, at least the Ottomans will try to stay neutral if one happens in the future.
The Rise of Wilhelm II - Germany 1890 to 1907
Timothy Evans; Boldly into the Modern Age - A history of Europe from 1789 to 2000: Oxford University Press
Triumph of the Nationalists - The Rise of Kaiser Wilhelm II in Germany
Triumph of the Nationalists - The Rise of Kaiser Wilhelm II in Germany
Under Kaiser Friedrich, Germany had prevented the formation of a hostile coalition against her, but his faulty strategy of trying to align with the home country of his wife, Great Britain, had not borne fruit either, and thus the country was left relatively isolated. This was not entirely the fault of the Kaiser, however, as Britain’s joint commitment in Egypt alongside France meant that it was France that was the natural continental partner of Britain rather than Germany. Nevertheless, the Kaiser’s perceived weakness in his foreign policy led to unpopularity at home and was one of the contributing factors to his inability to bring meaningful liberal reform to Germany’s political system, which remained much the same as it did in the days of Otto Von Bismarck. Germany’s weakness seemed to be underlined in the Congress of Berlin of 1896, which had seen almost every other Great Power in Europe gain something from the Ottoman Empire, save for Germany.
It should not have been so. When Germany had been unified in 1871, it was one of the foremost Great Powers to be sure, but there was not an enormous gap of economic, demographic, and military power between it and competitors such as France or Austria-Hungary. By almost any measure, Germany was quickly leaving behind France and to some extent, Russia. By 1900, the growth of its economy and industrial strength was becoming evident. Germany’s GDP had overtaken France and Russia and was quickly approaching that of the United Kingdom. Her industrial potential was already twice that of France’s, and her share of the world’s total manufacturing output had reached 13.2% by 1900, second only to Britain and the United States. Her population was expanding swiftly, and even though it was dwarfed by Russia and to a lesser extent, by the United States, Germany’s population was well-educated, and relatively unified in terms of language and culture (tensions between Catholics and Protestants notwithstanding). Even though Germany’s army had been relatively neglected since Friedrich became Kaiser, she still had the second-largest army in Europe.
Kaiser Wilhelm II was determined to take Germany in a far different direction than his father
Because of Germany’s increasingly evident strength, there were many in the country who questioned why the country acted in such a meek fashion internationally, particularly Crown Prince Wilhelm. The prince had kept in correspondence with Bismarck until the latter’s death, who had encouraged him to seek an alliance with the conservative powers of Europe rather than to chase a seemingly impractical alliance with the British. Wilhelm was also influenced by writers such as Mahan and Tirpitz, who argued that a strong navy was key to great power status. These influences ensured that he had a very different worldview than his father, which alongside tensions since childhood, had contributed to the terrible relations between the two. When Friedrich was diagnosed with cancer in 1899, the Crown Prince was rumoured to have reacted with a barely disguised joy, though this may have been simply tittle-tattle by those opposed to him politically. Nevertheless, though 1900 Wilhelm’s influence grew as his father grew weaker, as more politicians began to curry favour with him. Wilhelm himself favoured more conservative and nationalist politicians, and when Friedrich finally succumbed to cancer in February 1901, the new Kaiser Wilhelm II appointed Bernhard von Bülow, a prominent conservative diplomat, as his new Chancellor, signalling the new direction that he intended to take Germany. [1]
Despite the change of Kaiser and Chancellor, German relations with Britain remained cordial initially. When Queen Victoria died later in 1901, Wilhelm personally attended the funeral of his grandmother and made a positive impression both on the new King Edward as well as the British press. These initially good relations began to sour however as Germany’s military and diplomatic policy began to shift. There was a great deal of pressure from nationalist societies within Germany to “act the role of a great power” and to “seek Germany’s rightful place in the sun”, and these were sentiments which were shared by the Kaiser. Wilhelm appointed the famed Colmar von der Goltz as chief of the general staff and Alfred von Tirpitz as the head of Germany’s navy, which at this point was still minuscule compared to any major power save Austria-Hungary. Between the two of them, they would see an expansion of Germany’s army and navy in the early years of Wilhelm’s reign, as both men tried to win Germany supremacy in their respective fields, making them both partners and rivals simultaneously. Von Tirpitz oversaw the development of the “Bismarck”, an all-big-gun battleship designed to leave Britain’s Royal Navy outdated in one stroke. All the building of the Bismarck did however trigger a naval race between the two powers, one in which Germany did not have the resources to properly compete with Britain.
If von Tirpitz’s changes to Germany’s navy were dramatic, then von der Goltz’s changes were revolutionary. Von der Goltz had served for a long time in the Ottoman Empire and keenly followed the Great Balkan War. The main lesson that he had taken away from this, as well as from his own experience in the Franco-Prussian War, was the idea of “the nation at war”. Any future war in Europe, he explained “would not be a clash of governments or monarchs but will be the total mobilization of one nation against the other. In such a conflict, it will be the side who is best able to arm and motivate the people who will see victory”. Through the 1900s, he began to implement his philosophy as military policy. The percentage of youth who were conscripted in the army saw a steady rise, and by 1910 had reached 71%, lower than France but significantly higher than Italy, Austria-Hungary, or Russia. The army also increased its complement of artillery and machine guns, both of which had been observed by von der Goltz to be a key component in a modern offensive, which he still viewed as the only way to win a war in good Clausewitzian fashion.
Germany's new chief of the general staff was a key proponent of using artillery as the decisive factor in modern warfare
But who were these growing military forces to be aimed at? Great Britain was the obvious target for Germany’s new navy, and she had been unthinkingly encouraging Anglophobic sentiment in Germany for decades. Her brusque denial of a German colony in East Africa, and her attack on the South African Boers (and brutality in that war) had encouraged much of the politically minded German public to see Britain chiefly as an imperial rival. The German middle classes were not particularly attracted to liberal politics, but instead to nationalists who called for a policy of confrontation with Britain. The worry that the world had already been partitioned and that Germany had been left behind, dominated the thoughts of publicists, politicians and those who followed them. Germany also felt threatened by Britain’s closeness to France, who still openly desired the return of Alsace-Lorraine, which had been lost in 1871. Following the breakdown of Bismarck’s alliance systems in the 1890s, Wilhelm had begun to warn that Germany could potentially be encircled and was greatly worried at rumours that the Russian Tsar Alexander III was sympathetic to the idea of an alliance with France.
This idea of a Franco-Russian Entente was deeply worrying to Wilhelm, who upon ascension to the throne, and with the advice of his chancellor, pursued closer relations with Russia as well as Austria-Hungary, who was still tied to Germany under the terms of the dual alliance. This fitted into the new idea of “Weltpolitik” in which Germany was to build up the colonial empire that she lacked, and that the Western Powers of Britain and France had. In this period, the very question of national survival had been linked to the possession of a large empire. Germany’s few scattered and scarcely populated territories in Africa and the Pacific did not a real colonial empire make, and so it was felt as though Germany would need to directly compete with both Britain and France. This made an alliance with Russia logical, as Russia had her own colonial rivalry with Britain in Central Asia and the Far East. Decoupling Russia from France would also provide Germany with security on the continent, preventing her from being encircled by a hostile alliance.[2] It was not until 1907 that Austria-Hungary and Russia resolved their concerns about their influence in the Balkans and joined Germany in the “Alliance of Three Emperors”, a more tightly knit iteration of the Dreikaiserbund of Bismarck’s day.
This alliance changed the balance of power in Europe. Firstly, it removed the ambiguity of Russia’s alignment within Europe, leaving Britain and France relatively isolated against an enormously powerful continental bloc made of the two greatest land powers. Secondly, it allowed both Russia and Germany the security on the European continent that they needed to pursue their expansionist policies in the rest of the world. Germany had already taken steps to try and secure her control in her African colonies, most infamously committing genocidal policies in both Cameroon and German Southwest Africa. However, other areas that she had hoped to expand into previously were now shut to her. The old ambition to seize the Philippines was now untenable due to the Japanese-Filipino alliance of 1905 and Zanzibar had been transformed into a protectorate that increasingly functioned as a colony of British India. In Africa, much of the continent was in the process of being divided between the British and the French, for the most part, leaving Mahdist Sudan as the only significant independent state. London and Paris warned Berlin that any expansion into this critical region would be met with hostility, and it was unlikely that Austria-Hungary and Russia would be persuaded to make war on the Western Entente over the sake of Sudan.
Despite this colonial disadvantage, German Nationalists had hope for the future. If there was an event in which the Three Emperor’s Alliance could be activated for a war against Britain and France, they were increasingly confident that they would be able to quickly steamroll the French, leaving the British isolated whilst the Russians marched into the crown jewel of Britain’s Empire, India, and leave Britain’s entire colonial system in disarray. It was this German dream, and British nightmare, that began to push along the desperate British and French efforts to shore up their own system of alliances to counterbalance the Three Emperor’s Alliance.
[1] - Von Bulow gradually came to know the Kaiser through the Kaiser’s friend Philipp Eulenberg from the mid-1880s onward. I think it’s definitely possible that meetings like this would not be butterflied
[2] – This all has huge ramifications beyond just changing some colours on a map. Without the Franco-Russian alliance, there will be far less incentive for the French to invest in Russia, and this shortfall of capital cannot be made good for by Germany at this point.
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Author's notes - First major European power to look at is Germany! Though this is also something of a diplomatic update as well, as some neato alliance systems seem to be forming. Insert a meme with Britain and France as Ralph Wiggum stating "I'm in danger". How those two deal with the changing situation is anyone's guess, except mine I suppose. Quite a few of the things touched on here will be expanded on in further updates, but I'll probably be looking at just wtf happened in the Philippines next time.
Idzni_Hezrin05
Banned
So ironically the liberal government and Willy the second that Bismarck really hated manage to keep becoming allies with Russia? The most blursed timelines.
Either Russia Germany alliance breaks up. Or Entente is getting rolled up unless they are pulling miracles out of their asses.
Germany-Russia is a nightmare duo. The mechanical and industrial Germany and the food basket that is Russia.
The OTL blockade of Bosphorus (during WW1) won't impact Russia the same way in this TL because Russia can simply get the mechanical assistance from Germany.
And the OTL blockade of North Sea can't impact Germany the same way because here they can import food from Russia.
And between the population of these two, entente is going to run out of ammo first before they run out of soldiers to feed into the meat grinder.
The entente can't afford to make mistakes here if they want to compete against this Triple alliance. Though Russian political instability might help. (But I don't know how unstable Russia is). Perhaps trying to get US on their side early on here?
And yeah Great game is coming to the fore again.
Germany-Russia is a nightmare duo. The mechanical and industrial Germany and the food basket that is Russia.
The OTL blockade of Bosphorus (during WW1) won't impact Russia the same way in this TL because Russia can simply get the mechanical assistance from Germany.
And the OTL blockade of North Sea can't impact Germany the same way because here they can import food from Russia.
And between the population of these two, entente is going to run out of ammo first before they run out of soldiers to feed into the meat grinder.
The entente can't afford to make mistakes here if they want to compete against this Triple alliance. Though Russian political instability might help. (But I don't know how unstable Russia is). Perhaps trying to get US on their side early on here?
And yeah Great game is coming to the fore again.
The problem with a Russia-Germany alliance is that it’s so strong it’s hard to see even the most Revanchist French government feeling confident enough to go to war.
I suppose if this timeline hasn’t discovered the Haber process yet, that gives the Entente a serious advantage in materiel. But Germany had the world’s best chemists….
I suppose if this timeline hasn’t discovered the Haber process yet, that gives the Entente a serious advantage in materiel. But Germany had the world’s best chemists….