With the Crescent Above Us 2.0: An Ottoman Timeline

[Nassirisimo]

Fadıl Necmi; The Sublime Ottoman State: A History of the Ottoman Empire: Istanbul University Press

The Crisis of the 1870s​

For all the wrong reasons it seemed, 1873 would be a turning point for the Ottoman Empire. It had been almost a half-century since the destruction of the Janissary Corps and their ossifying influence was broken, and much had changed in the Empire. The Tanzimat statesmen had declared equality between all the religions of the Empire, they had established the beginnings of a modern bureaucracy and built modern schools. They transformed not only the administration of the Ottoman State but its military too, building one of the world’s mightiest navies and ensuring that the army was well-supplied with modern Western arms. The economy was growing and foreign trade booming as Istanbul became a great centre of trade, hosting a community of Europeans in Pera. The reforms had touched even the habits of individuals, with traditional social mores amongst Muslims being increasingly influenced by those of the Europeans who many wished to emulate. French became a prestige language, and it was an Ottoman subject who had commissioned the scandalous L’origine du Monde [1]. Only in Egypt was there an equal effort to integrate the country into the political and cultural fabric of the West.

Yet for all the achievements of the Tanzimat Era there were great adverse effects on the Empire and its people. The old order had been relatively tolerant of regional differences, a key strength in an empire which stretched over three Continents. While sometimes attracting little dissent in the centre, some of the Tanzimat reforms produced great deals of outrage in outlying provinces of the Empire, contributing toward a general sense of disenchantment with the government. The peoples of the provinces remained largely poor, uneducated and to some extent increasingly alienated from the government. Huge amounts of money went not only on administration, defence, and the other necessities of the state, but on building huge palaces such as the Dolmabahçe Palace and the ever-increasing expenses of the court [2]. The provinces saw little return from the taxes that were raised, and the reforms of the Tanzimat had sometimes led to armed uprisings. This perceived misrule contributed not only to an image of backwardness in the West, but also inspired the Yeni Osmanlılar or Young Ottomans, who disagreed with the autocratic manner of Sultan Abdülaziz as well as the Tanzimat statesmen. Others, inspired by Islamic reformists such as al-Afghani, turned away from the Westernization of the Tanzimat and advocated for an end to the capitulations and missionary activity.

With the death of the last significant Tanzimat Statesman Ali Paşa, some of the Young Ottomans returned from exile. However, Sultan Abdülaziz also took the opportunity to wrest back as much power as possible from the Sublime Porte. In this backdrop of political struggle, the Great Eastern Crisis erupted. In 1873 Europe entered a long period of economic depression, coinciding with a famine in Anatolia, both of which increased pressure upon the already greatly indebted treasury. The government responded by increasing taxes to meet its financial obligations, in particularly the cost of its debt which now accounted for almost 8 million TL a year, more than what was spent on the army. Combined with crop failures however, the increased burden of taxation instead pushed the peasants of Herzegovina to revolt, with the rumoured support of both Montenegro and Serbia. Faced by rebellion as well as a deteriorating financial situation, the Ottoman Government defaulted on its debt repayments in the October of 1875. Considering the rebellion as well as the financial difficulties of the empire, it was not until the May of 1876 that a definitive solution to the rebellion that was acceptable to all powers had been worked out, settling tensions in Bosnia and Herzegovina for the time being.

This brought only a short respite before an even greater series of catastrophes struck the empire. Rebellion broke out in parts of Bulgaria, and the already overstretched Ottoman government turned to Başıbozuks, irregular soldiers drawn mainly from the Tatar and Circassian population of the Dobrudja. These Başıbozuks killed not only rebels but thousands of innocent Bulgarian civilians as well. Reports of Bulgarian villages filled with the corpses of their victims filtered back to the West, replacing the previously positive image of the reforming Tanzimat Ottoman with that of the “Terrible Turk”. The famously Turcophobic Liberal Party leader William Gladstone lambasted the Turks as “the one great anti-human specimen of humanity” and used the Bulgarian Massacres another issue on which to attack the generally pro-Turkish Benjamin Disraeli. Public opinion in Britain, the erstwhile ally of the Ottomans, had deteriorated to such a level that it was uncertain whether Britain would be able to intervene should another power threaten the Ottomans, and some indication of this was made to Ottoman diplomats at the Constantinople Conference.

With the internal and external situation rapidly deteriorating, neither Abdülaziz nor his minister Mahmud Nedim Paşa were able to fend off the Young Ottomans, and they were both deposed within a month of each other. Abdülaziz committed suicide (or was possibly murdered) a few days later, and the Young Ottomans now had real influence within the government. Tensions between them and the conservatives soon mounted however, as Hüseyin Avni Paşa disagreed with Midhat Paşa’s drafting of a constitution that would provide for an elected parliament. When Hüseyin Avni was lightly wounded in an attempted assassination attempt, rumours soon began to spread that this had been organized by the Young Ottomans [3]. The threat of political violence, so soon after the death of Abdülaziz was beginning to take its toll on the apparently delicate psyche of the new Sultan Murad. With both the internal and external situations of the Empire desperately requiring firm leadership, Hüseyin Avni and Midhat both agreed that Murad should be replaced by Prince Abdülhamid. Known to be intelligent and ambitious, and reportedly sympathetic to liberal ideas, he remained one of the only figures who could unite the Young Ottomans and conservatives in cabinet.

While Istanbul was in a state of political tumult, the Serbs and Montenegrins had attempted an invasion of the Ottoman Empire, leading to discussions between the Austrians and Russians at Reichstadt to discuss what would happen once the Ottomans were defeated. By August however the Ottomans had defeated the Serbs at Alexinatz and were in a position to invade Serbia itself, which they refrained from for the time being. However, the Serbs attacked once again in September and were once again defeated with relative ease by the Ottomans, whose modern rifles made short work of the unprepared Serbs. Although the Ottomans steered clear of taking Belgrade, they had occupied a good part of the country when a Russian ultimatum forced the Ottomans to back down. The European powers had toyed with various solutions to the Balkan Crisis, from a partition of the Ottoman Empire to an international conference, which was finally settled upon as an acceptable solution by the British Prime Minister Disraeli. The conference was ultimately a failure however, with neither the powers nor the Ottomans finding each other’s proposals adequate.

The diplomatic impasse between the Ottoman Empire and the Great Powers allowed Midhat Paşa to progress with a more unorthodox solution. Midhat’s suggestion that a constitution that guaranteed equal rights for Christian subjects may make the European powers amenable to continued Ottoman rule in areas the Great Powers wanted to give over to the Serbs and Montenegrins did not sway either Hüseyin Avni or Sultan Abdülhamid who preferred to maintain many of the prerogatives of government in the hands of himself and those ministers who he trusted. Instead, an imperial proclamation on vaguely specified reforms was promulgated, making very little impression even on those European statesmen who considered themselves to be sympathetic to the plight of the Empire. With the Ottoman Empire seemingly tottering many of the statesmen of her traditional protectors in France and Britain were now beginning to reconsider the Empire’s role in their foreign policy.

Despite the efforts made to clean up the reputation of the Ottoman Empire in the wake of the Bulgarian massacres, the conference ultimately ended in failure due to the unwillingness of either the Great Powers, Young Ottomans or indeed the Sultan to compromise with the other parties. While it has traditionally been thought that Abdülhamid had wanted to find a working compromise with the Europeans to avoid war, but ultimately lacked the clout to overcome his cabinet [4]. Rumours that he had told Midhat that “The price for your obstinacy will be a sea of Muslim blood” may have been an invention of partisans of the Sultan and indeed many sources suggest that the Sultan was as keen as many in his cabinet to reject the great powers. Nevertheless, the Sultan was highly disappointed in the results of the conference. The British Foreign Minister Lord Derby had warned the Ottomans that without accepting the demands of the powers, the British would be unable to assist the Ottomans should the Russians choose to attack the Empire. The position of the Ottoman Empire was far from enviable, heading toward bankruptcy and completely devoid of allies in the face of renewed Russian aggression. Lord Salisbury, Britain’s representative at the Constantinople Conference bemoaned that “Russia shall be free to take her picking of Ottoman territories, and we shall have to do what we can to secure our own imperial defence” [5]. Bismarck similarly began plans for a great European conference to divide the pickings once the Russians had reached Constantinople. However, as with many of the “Small Wars” of the 19th Century, the outcome of the Russo-Turkish War of 1877 would be unexpected to contemporary observers.

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[1] – That’s a famous painting of a woman’s… you know. And this is completely true, of course. The commissioner (Khalil Bey) lost the painting through excessive gambling as only a good Muslim would.

[2] – The Dolmabahçe Palace cost around 5 million TL, or around 75% of the yearly Ottoman budget when it was built.

[3] – Perhaps it goes without saying, but this is the POD as in the previous timeline. Circassian Hassan was not a Young Ottoman, but rather a courtier of Abdülaziz

[4] – Sources are very conflicting as to Abdülhamid’s role in the rejection of the suggestions of the powers at the Constantinople Conference, as well as the London Protocols. Some have suggested that it was the Young Ottomans in government, others that it was Abdülhamid himself

[5] – In the first version of this, I’d noted that Salisbury was the foreign secretary at the time of the Constantinople Conference. However it was still Lord Derby, who resigned twice in 1878, firstly over the British decision to send ships through the Dardanelles, secondly over the decision to call up reserves

Oh, and it should go without saying that there is a big change here. No Ottoman constitution (this was based on further research I'd done) is going to have big effects on the future).

 

[Nassirisimo]

Ibrahim Osman, Zeynep Osman; Adventures in the East, A Memoir of a Naturalised Mohammedan: Palgrave Macmillan

Brief notes on the papers of Ibrahim Osman

Ibrahim Osman, around 1905 [1]

Ibrahim Osman, my great-grandfather, is a man little remembered by history. In my own studies of politics in the Islamic World around the turn of the century (which I should hopefully have finished my PHD on next year) his name appears but little else besides. Earlier this year however my attention was brought to a few old papers that my grandmother had in her room after she had died. The papers themselves were a bit of a confusing mess, mostly written in English but some of the later parts in Turkish [2]. Amongst the family we had an idea that my great grandfather was born “In the East” and educated in England the truth was much more interesting.

I’ve taken care to censor various offensive words that were unfortunately amongst common usage at the time and whose full inclusion would not add to the text, and have added a few notes here and there to add context to what Ibrahim says but otherwise have left the writings as I have found them.

[1] – Actually a photo of an Arab officer from Damascus, but in the absence of photoshop skills, use your imagination guys!

[2] It’s worth mentioning that Turkish as its referred to here is different than the Turkish of our own world, retaining more of the Persian and Arabic vocabulary that Ottoman Turkish had. Think of it as a continuation of Ottoman Turkish without the reforms of Ataturk it underwent in OTL.

* * * * * *

Journey to the East

The story of how I had come to be in the service of the Sultan of Turkey is a strange one, but I suppose I should not have expected anything different from my upbringing. From the time I was conceived it would seem that the path I would walk on would be a bit more difficult than that of my fellows. This difficulty was in part due to my father or the lack thereof. My mother had always been most evasive on the whereabouts of, or any other details regarding, my father besides explaining he was “from the East, somewhere”, which didn’t quite square up to the boasts that he had once been an Eton boy, but I digress. Due to the race of my father, which I was ignorant of at the time, I had an appearance unlike that of most British boys, who were quick to identify me as a “W*g” or “Half-N****r” and exclude me on the basis of my distinctly Mediterranean appearance. So I suppose you could say that my childhood was a lonely one and by the time I was coming of age had produced in me an inalienable sense that something was lacking in me, some kind of masculinity.

And as an eighteen year old man there was only one thing for it! I had endeavoured to become an officer in the British army. The 1870s had been a relatively quiet time, with only the odd war against African blacks to keep the soldiers sharp, and perhaps that accounts for what happened at the end of the decade and the beginning of the 1880s when the English began experiencing setbacks to an alarming degree. Alas my own career was to take me to a rather quite different place, as a violent disagreement with an officer of the Lancashire fusiliers. I had only disagreed with his insulting manner of addressing me – w*g– but the unsympathetic army authorities discharged me, leaving me disgraced already before my twentieth year of life, and with but a little income with which to support my mother. Perhaps I should have known better than to try and make a name for myself in what was essentially a white section of the army.

I had by that point made the acquaintance of a man who had told me that he was off to the Near East to “show the Russian bear what for”. The newspapers had talked about the growing crisis in the Balkans, and to be honest the stories of the atrocities that the Turks had committed in Bulgaria made one’s heart sink, and even the Prime Minister Disraeli was not able to follow his usual prescription of support for the Turk against the Russian, leaving them open to the machinations of the Russians. The Russians, insofar that I am able to tell, had the ambition of seizing the city of Constantinople, capital of the Turkish Empire, and restoring the Christian rule that had prevailed in the city prior to 1453. No doubt that behind this were great strategic plans, but these have no doubt been covered in more detailed and well-read histories than my own.

Originally my journey to Turkey was to simply be one to see “what all the fuss was about”, so to speak. By the time that I’d arrived in the January of 1877 the oriental city full of indolent, fatalistic Turks that I had expected was not what I saw. There is of course the old city south of the Golden Horn, in which can be found the old Topkapi Palaces and all the mosques that one expects, but north of this in neighbourhoods like Pera one finds a city which is in every way the match of any in Europe, right down to the inhabitants. Besides the expatriate European inhabitants, there are a great many Greeks, Armenians and even Bulgarians which bring the Christian population of the city to almost half the total. The Turks themselves had been most energised by the impending conflict with Russia, and various guides explained to me the situation amongst the Turkish section of town. I must confess that I was rather taken up in the great storm of emotion in the city, both amongst the Turks and the Turkophile English acquaintances I had made, and before long I had decided to renew my military career in a different setting by enrolling in the military academy.

I still remember the day that I enrolled and began my journey as a Turkish officer. The recruiting officer, a man on the older end of middle age with sunken eyes and a drooping moustache had eyed me sceptically when I had initially attempted in my atrocious Turkish to communicate my wish to sign up. With a raised eyebrow he spoke to me in French, which I thank God I understood. “Another European? I suppose we have room for another one of you. What is your nationality?”

“I’m British monsieur”

“Aha, another Englishman? We have had a few of your countrymen join recently” He looked up and down as if to study me, in a way that made me rather quite uncomfortable. “Most of them speak better Turkish than you”

“I am learning. I already know how to write the alphabet and…”

“Do you have any experience? Combat experience I mean?” the man cut me off brusquely.

“I was commissioned as an officer back in England before I was discharged” I had told a little white lie, as although trained I had never received a commission. Realistically, I knew all that there was to know about being an officer or so I thought, and the rather shabby nature of some of the soldiers surrounding me gave me something of an air of confidence.

However when I told him this, the man’s face suddenly seemed to lift. “Turkish can be taught easily enough, and at any rate one in three of our men find writing beyond their limited capacities. Teaching someone the instincts of an officer is harder. I suppose you will be useful…”

“Then I’m accepted?”

The man shrugged. “You’ll have to bring someone from your embassy. Swear that your disbelief in Islam shall not be an impediment to your service, and this kind of thing. But provided that it all goes well, than you will be one of the Sultan’s soldiers. So I would learn some Turkish in the meantime young man. What’s your name?”

“Abraham Haslam sir”

“That’s easy enough to Turkify I suppose. Any objections to being ‘Ibrahim Osman’?”

I hadn’t quite intended to be a Turkish officer when I had been turfed out of the British army, but the prospect did not seem so bad now. An upcoming war against long odds always promises military glory for those willing to fight for even, even if they are foreigners. Besides improving my Turkish which I was to refine from that point until now, I grew to understand the specifically Turkish way of warfare, which admittedly was inferior of the British In many respects but which had its own strength. By the time that war with the Russians actually broke out in the April of 1877, I had been commissioned as an officer in the Turkish army, in part owing to the military education that I had already received in Britain, and I was ready to play my part in the upcoming war.

* * * * * *

Author's Notes - I had strongly considered adding vignettes to the story when I had began writing it, but I feel as though without this element the timeline will be a bit "dry" for lack of a better word. Rather than focusing on a number of POV characters, for the time being we will focus on Abraham Haslam/Ibrahim Osman, for the simple fact that I already have a story planned out for him that will take him to many interesting places.

A good inspiration for Ibrahim's original journey and subsequent enlistment in the Turkish army is William von Herbert's rattling good read "The Defence of Plevna". Herbert had actually fought in Plevna in OTL and wrote an account which was published several decades later, which besides being an interesting window onto Turkish society through the war, is unfortunately laden with anti-Semitism and other forms of bigotry. Interestingly enough though it is far from the most bigoted book I had to read while researching the timeline, and reading though some of the contemporary academic books is certainly an interesting window into how far academia has come along in a century or so.

 

[Nassirisimo]

Henrique Felipe Salazar; The Conduct of War in Europe and Beyond, 1792 to 1912: Yale University Press

The Russo-Turkish War of 1877​

If the Franco-Prussian War had shown the inadequacy of static defence in fixed positions against an opponent capable of complex small-scale unit manoeuvres, then the Russo-Turkish war demonstrated how, combined with modern weaponry, they could be devastating against an opponent reliant on more primitive tactics. In the war it was the Russian War plan that seemed to take the lessons of the Franco-Prussian War to heart. General Nikolai Obruchev had planned a quick strike into Turkish territory, isolating the main Turkish force in the Quadrilateral fortresses of the Dobrudja and driving on toward Istanbul. In comparison, the Turks planned only on an active defence of the Danube and the Balkan Mountain range, with no plan to take the offensive into Russian territory. In the opinion of European military experts, the plan that War Minister Hüseyin Avni Paşa had drawn up was “defeatist”, and was seen as similar to the defensive plan of Napoleon III which had failed so badly. Indeed in the absence of support from her traditional European allies, most observers predicted that the Russian assault would be the last blow to the tottering, bankrupt Ottoman Empire and began to anticipate a partition of the empire.

The Turks had a number of unexpected advantages despite her seemingly precarious position. Her army was already fully mobilised when the Russians had declared war on the 24th of April, leaving her with 165,000 troops available in Bulgaria to a Russian total of 200,000, a dangerous ratio for an attacker in the age of breech loading rifles and guns. The Turkish armies had a measure of experience from fighting rebels in Herzegovina and Bulgaria, as well as in their short war against Serbia. The Turkish forces also possessed better equipment, and the American-made Peabody-Martini rifles outranged the Russian Krenk rifle more than three times. Even the Turkish artillery, which was numerically inferior to that of the Russians, was comprised of breech-loading Krupp guns from Germany, which were superior in quality to the bronze guns of the Russians [1]. The Turkish navy, the world’s third largest at the time, also made coastal operations on the part of the Russians a difficult proposition, and had perhaps dictated the decision of Obruchev to circumvent the Turkish forces in the Dobrudja. It was only in cavalry where the Russians were clearly superior, with well-armed, well trained and well led men as opposed to the inadequate, poorly-horsed cavalry force possessed by the Turks.

The speed of the Russian cavalry lead to great problems for the Turks initially. Before Istanbul was even aware of the declaration of war, Russian cavalry had occupied the Romanian town of Galaţi and her troops were well on the way to Brăila. Once the Turks were fully aware of the situation, her flotilla on the Danube was able to harass Russian forces as they occupied the towns on the Romanian side of the river, though once the Russians were able to bring up their guns, the Turkish fleet was forced to withdraw, as coordination between the flotilla and the army was non-existent, and the navy’s guns lacked the trajectory to counter the Russian guns. The Turks awaited a crossing at the Dobrudja, but even after a week this advance hadn’t come, and the Turks began to recognize that the main Russian crossing would take place somewhere else on the Danube. Another attempt to destroy the Russian railway bridge over the Siret with a Turkish flotilla was abandoned in the face of minimal resistance on the part of the Russians. The Turkish navy, the third largest in the world at the time and one which such high hopes had been placed, had so far demonstrated as little worth as the French navy had been in the Franco-Prussian War.

By July the Russians were moving multiple army corps into Romania, and the quiet situation around the Dobrudja had indicated to the Turkish high command that the main blow would not be toward the quadrilateral forts in the South of the Dobrudja, but would instead land somewhere else along the Danube River. Ignorant of where exactly this blow would come, Turkish commanders were instructed to dig in fight every attempted crossing “to the last man”. Despite the inadequate infrastructure within Romania as well as the various diseases that inflicted the Russians, they were able to deploy 150,000 men into Romania within 30 days of the beginning of the war. To foreign observers with the Russian army, this was an impressive feat though even in the first month thousands of Russians were struck by disease. While the Russians were deploying their forces, the Turks made virtually no attempts to disrupt the movement of the Russian army within Romania, with the exception of an abortive attack on the Russian bridge at Reni. For the journalists and attaches on both sides of the war, the successful Russian deployment and the inactivity of the Turks seemed to point to the direction of the war’s outcome.

The Russian river crossing took place near the small Bulgarian town of Svishtov, where the Turks had just 4000 men to oppose the crossing. The Russians had managed to land their first troops without alerting the Turks, subsequently gaining the cliffs overlooking the river and driving back Turkish skirmishers. Once it had become apparent that this was the main landing of the Russian forces, the Turkish commander Ahmed Namdy Paşa threw every man he had to oppose the Russians on the river bank, and the Turkish forces poured fire onto the Russians as they landed. The determination of the Russian troops enabled them to drive the Turkish forces back with great difficulty, though they themselves had been decimated by the crossing, suffering as many as 4,000 dead and wounded for just 1,200 Turkish casualties [2]. Nevertheless, considering the difficulty that an amphibious operation posed, the fact that the Russians had achieved their goals before Turkish reinforcements from Ruse were able to arrive seemed to improve the situation of the Russians considerably. Having crossed the Danube, the Russians were able to build a pontoon bridge, an action which saw little opposition from the Turkish riverine flotilla.

Although in the few weeks following the crossing the Russians enjoyed a number of successes, with both Skobelev and Gurko leading fast-moving columns to seize strategic towns and passes, the Russian advance was halted at the ancient town of Tarnovo. Entrenched in the hills north of the town, the Turks were shielded from Russian cannonades by their excellent trenches and their elevation, with the flat-trajectory Russian guns making little impact on the Turkish positions. Russian “offensive spirt” was no match for the superior range of the Turkish rifles, whose withering fire often made skirmishing a risky proposition and forced the Russian assaults in July and August to resort to human wave attacks that were all too easily mowed down by Turkish Nizams armed with some of the best rifles available at the time. Unable to emulate the Prussian tactics of 1870 where the French had been hammered out of their “Positions Magnifique” by flanking attacks and the liberal use of artillery batteries, the inferior artillery of the Russians and the relatively poor quality of junior officers and NCOs necessitated frontal attacks. Russian officers in particular suffered disproportionately as their need to lead from the front made them excellent targets for Turkish rifle fire.

After the second unsuccessful assault on the 5th of August 1877, the Russians had in total suffered as many as 20,000 casualties attempting to break the Ottoman defences near the town, as many as the Prussians had lost at the bloody Battle of Gravelotte. These were not numbers that the Russian army could simply shrug off, considering the long supply lines through Romania. Furthermore the Russian fixation on breaking the Turks at Tarnovo and progressing through the Balkan Mountains had done little to prevent the build-up of Turkish forces in the rest of the theatre, as Osman Nuri Paşa built up an army to take the offensive against the Russians in Bulgaria. Outnumbered and in a poor position, Russian Grand Duke Nicholas now began to argue that the Russians were best off pulling back to Romania and awaiting the reinforcements that would enable them to prosecute a campaign more successfully. Although bitterly opposed by Gurko and Skobelev, who remonstrated that it would be a crime to leave the Bulgarian population which had welcomed them to the apparently non-existent mercies of the Turks, the Grand Duke eventually had his way. In the course of the August of 1877, the Russians steadily pulled back their forces from Bulgaria, taking up defensive positions on the left bank of the Danube. The ill-prepared Russians had suffered as many as 38,000 battle casualties in their attempt to push through to the Balkan Mountains.

In Eastern Anatolia the Russians similarly had little success. Initially intended only as a diversionary campaign, setbacks in Europe put additional pressure on Russian commanders in the area to secure a victory to save face. More forces had been deployed to Eastern Anatolia, which weakened Russian forces in the main theatre of the war. The Russians attempted to besiege Kars in August, though were driven away and defeated by Ahmed Muhtar Paşa at the Battle of Kızıl Tepe. The extremely difficult nature of the terrain in Eastern Anatolia and the primitive infrastructure of the area, even when compared to Bulgaria, made major offensive moves such as those in the West a challenging proposition. Another Russian attempt on Kars was beaten off in September, but the onset of winter made any serious movement dangerous. The Russians would be unable to salvage pride by victories in the East, but Ahmed Muhtar Paşa secured the title of “Ghazi” for his defensive victories. In Bulgaria, September brought renewed Russian attempts to cross the Danube near Lom. Once again the power of defensive rifle and artillery fire was demonstrated as the Russians struggled to get to the right bank of the Danube. This time the Turks were far better prepared than they had been at Svishtov, and after three days the Russians were unable to establish a bridgehead on the far side of the Danube.

As far as the Turkish government was concerned, continued war would put a critical strain on the already ruined finances of the empire, and there was no guarantee that a better-prepared Russian offensive would not be able to break the defences on the Danube and the Balkan Mountains. Sultan Abdülhamid and his government had already begun the process of seeking intermediaries for peace in the September of 1877, but the Russians were still confident that a renewed offensive once reinforcements had arrived, possibly in the winter, would be able to break the Turkish armies. It was not until a Royal Navy Squadron passed through the Dardanelles Straits and appeared in the Sea of Marmara, bringing with it the spectre of intervention on the part of the British, that the Russian government became more amenable to the prospect of an armistice [3]. By the 18th of December 1877, both parties had assented to Otto Von Bismarck’s offer to hold a conference to work out an acceptable peace as well as an answer to the “Eastern Question”. With a temporary armistice signed, the guns fell quiet on the Danube as both sides licked their wounds and hoped to achieve at the negotiating table what had not been achieved on the battlefield.

Militarily speaking neither power had been vanquished. The Russians had suffered heavy casualties, and it was only the vast distances involved that prevented the quick reinforcement of the Russian army and a renewed offensive. The failed offensive into Bulgaria had certainly been an embarrassing setback, but not a critical one, and there were still plenty more Russian soldiers ready to fight. Indeed it was the threat of British intervention into the war more than a fear of Turkish capabilities which had persuaded the Russians to accept Bismarck’s offers of mediation. Although the leadership of Grand Duke Nicholas left much to be desired, a number of Russian officers had proven themselves to be intelligent and brave leaders, and both Skobelev and Gurko received heroes’ welcomes when both returned. Despite this both armies had had their backwardness painfully illustrated to the rest of the world. Their offensive capabilities were poor, the poor education of the privates and officers had made small-unit tactics all but impossible. A report of the German general staff noted that the only observations worth making were on the Russian Cavalry and the Turkish defences. However both the Russian and Turkish general staffs were to study the lessons of the war in more details. For the most part however, the key lesson that the war seemed to impart was that there were clear limits to the power of the offensive in an age dominated by firepower, a lesson that some armies would absorb more keenly than others.

As a number of observers of the war recognised, things could have easily turned out differently. Had the Russians invaded Bulgaria with the numbers Obruchev’s plan had originally called for, it is difficult to see how the Turks would have been able to resist such an onslaught, even fully mobilised. The ambition of the Russian plan was such that a successful Russian offensive may well have broken Turkish power in the Balkans permanently and may have even landed Istanbul in Russian hands, fulfilling a long-term Russian ambition. What may have happened afterward is hard to decipher. Perhaps the British would have intervened on the Turkish side, once again taking arms against the Russians to preserve the balance of power in the East. Or perhaps they would have seen the writing on the wall and moved to protect the Suez Canal as the Great Powers carved up the remains of the Ottoman Empire.

[1] – It’s worth noting that Ottoman artillery tended to be badly horsed too, and the training of the crews themselves wasn’t up to scratch, meaning that the Krupp guns weren’t the war winning tools they were in 1870.

[2] – Historically the crossing at Svishtov was an example of Ottoman incompetence. Ahmed Namdy Paşa drew no plans for a defence against an attempted crossing, and combined with excellent Russian leadership meant that the Russians lost less than a 1000 men crossing the Danube.

[3] – Tarnovo hasn’t quite had the Plevna effect on the rest of Europe, but the defensive efforts of the Turks have at least given the political manoeuvre room for Disraeli to take some action.

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Author's Notes - Rather than doing a blow by blow account of the war, I thought what was more effective was a overview that looked more into the reasons why the Ottomans actually had a shot of winning the war (certainly most contemporary accounts suggest they did) and addressing what was the critical Ottoman weakness of OTL's war, namely the lack of unity of command. Of course it goes without saying that the Russians also had an opportunity in OTL to have won the war a lot quicker than they did, and the initial brilliance of Gurko's strike into the Balkan Mountains in particular was impressive.

 

[Nassirisimo]

Fadıl Necmi; The Sublime Ottoman State: A History of the Ottoman Empire: Istanbul University Press

The Internal Situation of the Ottoman Empire during the War of 1877​

Internally the Ottoman Empire had been so weak at the beginning of the war, the impression amongst some observers was that one last push from the Russians “would bring the crumbling edifice down”. This was not merely wishful thinking, as bankruptcy, rebellion and political infighting had characterised the mid-1870s in the empire, contributing to a sense of the empire’s weakness. Although it was the rebellions in Herzegovina and Bulgaria that would receive the most attention from European powers, the revolts in Anatolia which had included many Muslim participants, seemed to be more threatening for an Empire which relied almost entirely on its Muslim population for its military manpower. However far from providing the final blow to the Empire’s internal situation, the “War of ‘93” would become something of a rallying point for the Empire’s Muslim population as they rallied to its defence despite the reversals in the first part of the war, and enthusiastically celebrated its victories in the latter part [1]. The war would prove to be an anomalous example of a short war whose political dividends perhaps outweighed her costs, at least from an Ottoman perspective.

Patriotism and discipline as understood in the European sense were desperately lacking at the onset of war. Although the Bashibazouks were perhaps the most infamous sections of the Ottoman Army for their lack of discipline, this is not to say that the strict hierarchical order was present amongst the rest of the army. European observers spoke incredulously that “The Turkish private, when off duty, does not salute officers on the street… the social standing of the Turkish officer is below that of the French, German and Austrian”. The army lacked the kind of social prestige and respect that its contemporaries elsewhere in Europe had. The Muslim ethnic groups of the empire were perceived as apathetic and indeed, inferior racially to the Christians, who were presumed to be destined to take control of the European part of the empire sooner or later. One contemporary history argued “The Turks have not only been unsuccessful in the past, but as an inferior race they will be constitutionally unfit in future to raise the countries over which they rule to a level with the Aryan nations of Europe and America” [2]. For all the efforts of the Turkish state to reform itself during the prior decades, Europe still considered it to be vulnerable internationally and frail internally.

However when the Russians invaded Romania and crossed the Danube, the Ottoman state did not collapse in the way that many had anticipated. In an elaborate ceremony in which the standard of the prophet, amongst other holy relics, was taken out of storage in the Topkapi Palace, the Sultan Abdülhamid declared himself a Ghazi, or holy warrior for Islam, and the war against Russia a Jihad. Imams at Friday prayers whipped up a specifically Islamic fervour, preaching about the just cause of the Ottoman army which they framed as struggling for Islam itself, and imploring listeners to volunteer to fight. Some went as far as to suggest that defeat could mean the destruction of the Islamic world. With the stakes presented in such apocalyptic terms, it is no wonder that public enthusiasm for the war among the Muslim section of the Ottoman population grew throughout the war, though it did lead to a limited backlash against the Christian population within the Empire, which was increasingly associated with Russia. European consuls in Eastern Anatolia reported of some isolated killings of groups of Armenians, relatively insignificant in number but which troubled the Armenian community greatly.

Sultan Abdülhamid II​

Observers were taken somewhat by surprise at the zeal of the Muslim population, who seemed whipped up in a patriotic fury that had not been seen in previous wars. A correspondent for The Times reported “the fanatic Mohammedan spirit, seemingly long absent within the Turk, seems to have been awakened. Amongst the populace of Istanbul the Muslims seem particularly animated in their hatred of the Russians”. Stories of the unexpected Turkish resistance reached Western Europe, and the Sultan and his government managed to secure a war loan from Britain and France despite the default of 1875, a testament to the strategic importance afforded to the Ottoman Empire by the British in particular, who were still highly suspicious of Russian intentions. The revulsion of the British public following the Bulgarian Massacres was still too powerful a force to allow Disraeli to openly intervene on the part of the Ottomans, yet his association of a strong Ottoman Empire with the security of the Mediterranean and British India still led him toward aiding the Ottomans wherever possible.

The financial situation was also alleviated somewhat through the raising of private contributions from the empire’s civilian population to finance some of the war costs, as well as extraordinary taxes raised by Parliament, alongside a war loan raised in the money markets of London and Paris. Although accused of treachery by some, the largely Christian bankers of Galata in Istanbul also loaned money to the Ottoman government [3]. The appeals of the Sultan to Islamic sentiment in the empire as well as the Ulema generated a genuinely enthusiastic response, something that Abdülhamid would not soon forget. As the Russian forces were halted at Tarnovo, previous criticisms of both the Sultan and the cabinet became far more muted, as there seemed to be less to criticise regarding the conduct of the war. The mumblings in Parliament that the government was not prosecuting the war competently gradually ebbed away through the late summer months of 1877. The increasing popularity of the war amongst the Muslim population of the Empire raised the aura of the Sultan in particular, who was seen as a ruler willing to stand up to non-Islamic powers, although the Sultan had been against the idea of war originally.

Indeed within the cabinet the still-contentious debate surrounding the nature of the Constitution, as well as the direction of the empire as a whole was, for a time, subdued as both the conservatives and Young Ottomans focused first and foremost on the war effort. This had resulted in the formation of something resembling a unified front, as they had done during the deposition of Sultan Abdülaziz. Although this united front would collapse soon after the end of the war, it did prevent conflict within the Ottoman government as it fought for its existence as a power. Later advocates for consensus within Ottoman politics would appeal to the “Spirit of ‘93”, which carried connotations of politicians shelving their rivalries in order to work for the common good. Both Hüseyin Avni Paşa and Midhat Paşa, who served as Minister of War and Grand Vizier respectively during the war, won somewhat undeserved reputations as pragmatic compromisers for their cooperation.

What the Ottoman campaigns had failed to do was to awe the Christians of the empire into ending insurrections as had been hoped. Thousands of Bulgarian volunteers had joined the Russian army in its initial offensives, and the population had been keen to welcome the Russians as liberators in the wake of the Bulgarian Massacres. Similarly there were insurrections on the part of Greeks and Serbs, whose countries remained neutral during the war but whose governments still coveted great amounts of Ottoman territory. Greek partisans operated in Arta and Thessaly, while the Serbs in Bosnia rose up in the hope of forcing their governments to support Russia’s floundering offensive, something the twice-defeated Serbian government refused to do. While Ottoman retaliation was somewhat softer than it had been during the height of the Bulgarian Massacres, the Christian populations remained disdainful of Ottoman rule and remained so even as it was apparent that the Russians would not be able to overcome Ottoman resistance. Armed resistance died down for the most part once an armistice had been signed, but a great deal of resentment and a continued yearning for independence meant that the war had not resolved the situation which had caused it. The war would not solve the question posed by Nationalist Revolutionaries in the Balkans.

By the end of the war, the defensive victory had made the reputations both of the Sultan as well as several of his ministers and generals. The value of Islam as a tool to rally the empire’s population had been demonstrated, and the prestige of the army in particular had been greatly advanced by its victories in the war. It had proved itself capable of defending the empire’s borders against a major threat without much in the way foreign support, with the exception of the war loan negotiated with France and Britain, which was something that it had not properly accomplished since the 18th century. Rather than responding with apathy and inertia, much of the Muslim population of the empire responded with enthusiasm to the war, and with the conclusion of the war regarded what was in actual fact an indecisive stalemate as a great victory. Though the population had been encouraged by the relatively successful outcome of the war, the internal conflicts which had led to it were still largely unresolved.

[1] – The war took place in the year 1293 of the Islamic calendar, hence the name.

[2] – This passage is not an invention of myself. It’s worth keeping in mind that this was before the rise of Japan as a great power, and as such racist theories like this had seemingly little to discredit them.

[3] – It’s worthwhile noting that even after the 1875 default in OTL, the Ottomans were able to draw on the bankers of Galata for additional loans, though these often came at higher interest rates than those raised in London and Paris.

* * * * * *

Author's Notes - The internal situation of the Ottoman Empire in the war was definitely a mixed one, as Bulgarian and (to a lesser extent) Armenian Christians welcomed the Russian invaders, but contemporary accounts attest to a strong patriotism at least amongst the Muslim section of the population in the Empire. The war has produced a temporary sense of unity, though as the war ends and the external enemy recedes, the internal rivalries between various politicians as well as the Sultan's attempts to assert himself will likely lead to bickering at the very least.

 

[Nassirisimo]

Ibrahim Osman, Zeynep Osman; Adventures in the East, A Memoir of a Naturalised Mohammedan: Palgrave Macmillan

Turning Turkish​

As far as first wars go, the War of ’77 was not a bad one to be in, as long as you were on the right side, of course. There was the initial panic as the Russian advance columns stormed their way to the Balkan passes barely a few weeks after they’d crossed the Danube. Then there was the held breath as the Russians attempted to break our fellows positioned at Tarnovo, the relief when their assaults shattered. But the greatest of all emotions felt by both us officers as well as the rank and file was when Osman Paşa, later referred to as “Ghazi” for his efforts, pulled our forces together and threw the Russians back across the Danube. At that moment, it didn’t matter that the Russians may still have had many more men than us, or that the Ottoman government was on the verge of bankruptcy once again. We had taken an army which, by all accounts was to roll over us, and stopped it in its tracks. Although I am not a Turk, I still felt a tremendous amount of pride in that moment, that little in my life has since matched.

Of course, I had done well personally as well. I’d been involved in a number of actions which mostly through no special effort on my own part saw me promoted to the rank of Yüzbaşı, which translates into captain in English. Nevertheless, I still embellished somewhat my stories to my mother back home, while emphasising of course that I was not yet missing any limbs. When I’d finally received a letter back it described how she wished she could see her “brave soldier boy”, and supposed that I looked rather fetching in a Turkish uniform. I must confess that by the end of the war, I had become rather partial to the tasselled fez myself, which made me look quite the oriental alongside my appearance.

I’d also met a number of interesting characters during the war, including Osman Paşa, and a Danish officer named Wilhelm Dinesen who had, like me, managed to persuade the Turks to take him into the Sultan’s service. He was a bit of an odd chap, who always seemed rather too eager to be thrown into dangerous combat situations. Were it not for the fact that he usually came out of these unscathed, I would have thought that he had some kind of death-wish. Despite this he was even more experienced than his thirty-two years of age would suggest. As the war came to a close I had discovered from him that he had not only been a veteran of the Franco-Prussian War, but had even been an officer in the Second Schleswig War of 1864 when he was eighteen years of age. Someone who had fought the Germans so many times and survived was a man who clearly knew his way around a battlefield [1]. Especially when battalions, brigades and divisions became disordered as we pursued the Russians, the instincts of a man like Dinesen were life-saving and I thank my good fortune that I knew him.

Of course with the end of the war, most of the Europeans who had joined the Turkish army would go on their separate ways. Most went back to their home countries, and those who went back to the United Kingdom in particular received a warm welcome, though apparently the British army made little effort to see what they had actually learned from a modern war. I too had considered making my way back to old England, but I hesitated. First it was a week, then a month. I had gone so far as to make my way to a booking office for the journey home before deciding “not today”. To this day I can’t quite account for the feeling which seemed to have me chained to Constantinople, but I suppose it was a strange synthesis of reason and emotion. After all, my limited family aside what was waiting for me back home? An army career had been closed off, and the thought of a clerical job produced a great misery within me. Whereas in Turkey, I was already a proven man.

Or so I thought at any rate. Nearly all of the foreigners in the Turkish army had been released from service at the end of the war, and none of the foreigners that I had met in my service seemed to be all too keen on staying. Dinesen had said something along the lines of “I’ll find another war somewhere to fight in”. Sometime in the summer of 1878 I made the decision to re-enlist in the Ottoman Army, when which I was informed that in the peacetime, any such effort from a foreign non-Muslim would be nigh-impossible unless they were from some kind of foreign military mission, or were Helmuth Von Moltke. There was nothing else for it of course, and it was thus that I began my journey into the Islamic religion.

When I had written to home to inform my family of this my mother, who in all fairness was never the regular Sunday churchgoing type, did not seem to be too concerned in her reply which still took me by surprise. Less surprising was that she had told me that my granpapa had begun to rant that the “mad Mohammedans” had taken his grandson. But to be perfectly candid, I couldn’t have cared less about what those self-righteous grouches thought. If this is what it would take to make a career in the army, then this is what I would do. The chap at the mosque near the room that I rented (who is an Imam, more of a prayer leader than a vicar) explained that before I were to become a Muslim, much in the way of study had to be done. Contrary to popular opinion amongst Europeans in which the fanatical Turk seeks the conversion of all infidels in his country with baited breath, the process to actually become a Muslim needs a level of official verification [2]. I began learning Arabic, which remains the primary religious language for all Muslims even outside of Arabic speaking countries, and as well as becoming able to recite the Islamic prayers, which of course are all in Arabic, began to gain a basic knowledge surrounding the theology of Islam.

Of course as any convert who has gone “full Turk” can attest to, the conversion to Islam is far from a painless process, in a very literal sense. As the Jews do, the Muslims conform to the covenant of Abraham and are circumcised. Amongst native Muslims this usually happens as a youth but adult converts are required to undergo the practice as well. I would prefer not to relive this painful memory, so suffice to say that I was in significant pain for a number of weeks. Around three months or so from the time that I made my decision to convert, I said the Shahada or “the testimony” as it is known in Arabic that confirmed my belief that there was no God except for Allah, and that Mohammed was his final messenger. There is much more to being a Mohammedan than this simple ceremony, but that would all come with time.

In the meanwhile my conversion had certainly expanded my horizons in many more ways than I could have anticipated. When it was heard in the higher ranks that there was a native Englishman who had “gone renegade”, which was more common in the past than it was by the late 19th century, there was certainly a great deal of interest, especially from Anglophile factions in the officer corps. Only a couple of years after I had re-enlisted with the Turkish army, I knew many more of the senior brass than a man of my standing would normally do, an in an environment which was characterised primarily by favouritism, this was a good omen for my future prospects.

[1] – Wilhelm Dinesen was the father of Karen Blixen, and an interesting character in his own right. He fought in the Russo-Turkish War of OTL, but ended up committing suicide at a relatively early age.

[2] – At least this is according to The Well Protected Domains by Selim Deringil. In normal circumstances (i.e. outside of intercommunal conflicts and massacres) at least in the core of the Empire there seems to have been a surprisingly rigorous process for conversions to Islam. Muslim minorities such as Alevis and some non-Muslims such as Yazidis were targeted in particular by the state authorities for conversion, however.

 

[Nassirisimo]

Kevin Mackay; A Diplomatic History of the Long Nineteenth Century: Princeton University Press

The Egyptian Uprising of 1882​

Since Napoleon’s invasion of Egypt in 1798, the province had been detached from the main part of the Ottoman Empire. The withdrawal of the French after Napoleon’s defeat at the hands of the Turks and the British at Acre had not led to a restoration of Ottoman control in the region. Instead, a strongman by the name of Mohammad Ali, an Albanian from Kavala, took control. Although an attempt by Mohammad Ali to become the main power in the Middle East was foiled by a coalition of European nations who intervened to prop up the defeated Ottomans, Egypt remained an autonomous province of the Empire. The 1860s brought the American Civil War, which for Egypt meant higher revenues from the cotton industry. As Egypt grew ever more cotton to feed the hungry mills of Lancashire, the ambitious Egyptian Sultan Ismail used both the profits from cotton as well as European loans to both build Egypt’s infrastructure as well as a number of lavish projects, the most famous of which was the Suez Canal. The Suez Canal soon became vital not just for Egypt but for trade between Europe and Asia, and for Great Britain in particular, but its construction had not been without its costs for Egypt.

Khedive Ismail’s spending had left Egypt with a colossal debt, similar to that of her Ottoman overlords. Although Ismail’s spending had produced economic growth in Egypt, the typical Egyptian fellahin had seen almost none of this, with much of the benefits of this growth going to landlords, foreign merchants, and financiers. Foreign influence became ever stronger in Egypt, and communities of foreigners sprang up in cities such as Cairo and Alexandria. Although Egypt retained strong ties to the Ottoman Empire, the 1860s/70s saw Egypt become something of an “informal colony”. These changes produced enormous tensions within Egypt, with the politics of Egypt largely being split between those who wanted to seek closer ties with Europe, and those who wanted to draw closer to the apparently invigorated Ottoman Empire. Ottoman victory over the Russians in 1877 seemed to show the Empire as a possible protector of Egyptian independence, though in fact, the crisis of the 1870s had left the Empire bankrupt and unwilling to project its influence. The 1870s were a time of crisis for Egypt as well as the Ottoman Empire. Difficult economic conditions forced many Egyptian smallholders to sell their lands, resulting in the consolidation of those lands in the hands of the Turco-Circassian nobility. These larger landholdings tended to be less efficient than those of the now-disposed fellahin, leading to an exacerbation of the economic crisis within Egypt.

The expression of native Egyptian resentment against both the Turco-Circassian ruling elite and the Europeans would ultimately come in the ʻUrabi revolt. Named for Ahmad ʻUrabi, a native Egyptian officer in the army who came to lead the movement in the summer of 1881, the revolt drew its support not only from the army but from other sections of Egyptian society such as the guilds, ulama, and the modern intelligentsia. Much was made of the ʻUrabi revolt’s status as a national awakening by later propaganda, but there does appear to have been a great amount of mobilization of many sections of Egyptian society besides the army. Newspapers became ever more popular, even amongst the illiterate, who often heard them being read publicly. The famous Islamist thinker Sayyid Jamal ad-Din al-Afghani was present in Egypt until 1879, preaching the need for a consultative government (at least once Riyad Pasha, his patron, had been exiled to Europe). Reformist political groups such as “Misr al-Fatah”, or Young Egypt arose and called for reform in Egypt. Amongst all of the groups clamoring for change, it was the Young Officers in the army led by ʻUrabi who would become the biggest threat to the establishment in Egypt would be. Following the reduction of the armed forces in 1879, many Arab officers found themselves displaced by Turco-Circassians.

With the army reduced in size and riven with infighting between its two rival factions, Egyptian society became more disordered. In the autumn of 1881, Europeans began to feel the impact of this unrest. By the summer of 1882, this unrest now threatened to boil over and throw their position in Egypt in jeopardy. The French and British, those European powers who held the most sway in Egypt, had originally distrusted Ottoman involvement in the Egyptian crisis. They had requested an Ottoman mission to find a solution be withdrawn and backed their request with warships. However, as the situation in Egypt further deteriorated it soon became apparent that something would have to be done to prevent an all-out revolution that would threaten the considerable investments of the European powers. Britain wanted the Ottomans to intervene, but the French felt as though such an intervention would affect her position in both Algeria and Tunisia. France instead wanted an Anglo-French expedition, and Prime Minister Léon Gambetta made this clear in his communications with his British counterpart Gladstone [1]. Instead, the British and the French published a joint note, declaring their intent to preserve the Khedive’s authority.

This drew protests from Ottoman Sultan Abdülhamid II, who saw this as an attack on Ottoman sovereignty over Egypt. He still saw Egypt as a wayward province of the Empire, and maybe have desired to increase his own influence. In Egypt itself, the joint note pushed ‘Urabi and his allies over the edge, and the revolutionaries took full control of Egypt, forcing the Khedive to appoint a cabinet of revolutionaries. Egypt was now in the hands of ‘Urabi and his fellow officers. This concerned the Ottoman Sultan and his ministers, who desired to make some show of force to dissuade the revolutionaries. For his part, Abdülhamid himself saw ‘Urabi as an Arab Nationalist determined to establish Egypt as an independent state despite ‘Urabi’s own protestations of his loyalty toward the Sultan. But while the Sultan distrusted ‘Urabi, he also felt as though he could not be seen taking up arms against a man who was standing against Western control. When the revolutionary press in Egypt openly declared that any Ottoman intervention in Egypt would be met with armed resistance, the Ottoman Sultan decided not to send any kind of force to Egypt. As Abdülhamid later noted, “For Muslims to shed the blood of their brothers to secure a colony for the Western powers would have been unforgivable”.

This left the European powers in an awkward position. They would not be able to use the fig-leaf of preserving Ottoman sovereignty if they were to take action against ‘Urabi and the Egyptian revolutionaries. Britain had invited the powers and the Ottomans to an ambassadorial conference in Constantinople to find a solution to the crisis, but the Ottomans refused what they saw as a humiliation. Instead, Britain found herself making a request to send a joint Anglo-Franco-Italian expedition to secure the Suez Canal. Each of the three powers had their own reasons for intervening in Egypt, and a fleet was dispatched to Alexandria. This only inflamed Egyptian nationalist sentiment, and may well have caused the riot of the 5th of June, which left as many as 200 people dead and the European powers outraged. ‘Urabi had tried to restore order but was given an ultimatum by the European powers to withdraw his troops from the city. Ignoring this order, the British, French, and Italian ships bombarded Alexandria, killing even more civilians inside the city, and forcing ‘Urabi to pull his troops back away from the coast. In the city, devoid of any semblance of order, further rioting and looting broke out for three further days, until marines from the three powers disembarked and entered the city.

It is often underestimated just how destructive the bombardment of Alexandria was, despite the ample photo evidence of the event​

These events inflamed public opinion in places such as the Ottoman Empire, but also amongst pacifists and anti-imperialists back home. One pacifist British MP compared the European powers to “men prowling with obviously felonious purposes”, while an Irish Nationalist MP simply wrote a sneering entry in his diary, “Gladstone the anti-Imperialist!” [2]. Initial claims that it was ‘Urabi and the Nationalists who had instigated the violence were viewed with a skeptical eye even by many in the West, though that had not stopped the three powers from pinning the responsibility on ‘Urabi. The embassies of Britain, France, and Italy in Constantinople were the site of protests, though the police made sure that protesters did not get too close to the embassy buildings themselves, lest some diplomatic incident occurred. The full force of Hamidian censorship had not yet been implemented by this point, and many newspapers speculated what the response of the Ottoman Empire should be to this European aggression toward what was still legally an Ottoman province. Abdülhamid still refused to be pulled along with the tide of public opinion however and reiterated that Ottoman soldiers would not be involved in the fighting.

What the events of Alexandria had also meant was that now the three European powers were now at war with the Egyptian revolutionaries. Reinforcements were sent to Alexandria as the Egyptians for their part tried to build up their forces in the town of Kafr al-Dawar. The European waited to build up their strength, allowing the Egyptians to build up their defenses. However, from the 5th to the 8th of August, the forces of the Europeans prized ‘Urabi’s army from their defenses, leaving the defeated Egyptians to flee back in the direction of Cairo. Although the fighting had been fierce and the combined armies had suffered over 700 dead and wounded, whereas Egyptian casualties are unknown, but were likely over 2000. The victory at Kafr al-Dawar was followed by a swift advance toward Cairo, and the allied armies once again defeated ‘Urabi and his army at Toukh. With the Egyptian army in tatters, the allied armies entered Cairo on the 2nd of October 1882. Egypt’s status as an independent nation had been totally shaken to its core, and the attempt to free Egypt of European control had instead seen the armies of three European powers marching down the boulevards of Cairo in a triumphal march.

The Egyptian Nationalists had been crushed but now uncertainty centered around the question of what would be done with Egypt. Although Britain, France, and Italy had worked together against the Nationalists, the relationship between the three powers was by no means harmonious. Britain and France had deep-seated suspicions of one another, and Italy had gone into Egypt largely to try and press her own claim to other nominal Ottoman territories in North Africa. The dual control of Egypt’s finances that was held by Britain and France was strengthened, and the ranks of the Khedive’s government would become ever more dominated by Europeans. In Europe, the intervention would have its own effects. Bismarck had hoped to keep the French isolated from the British but was now faced with the worrying prospect of not only an Entente between the two powers but also with Italy which was drawing close to the two powers. Although as of yet these countries were not linked by any formal alliances, it was no secret that Gambetta desired closer relations with Britain to break France’s diplomatic isolation. The Ottoman Empire too saw herself humiliated in the Egyptian Crisis, as the three European powers had unilaterally invaded what was still nominally a province of the Ottoman Empire. It was at this point that the hopeful feelings that had arisen in the Empire following her victory in 1877 began to subside.

[1] – Another important POD here. In OTL, Gambetta was the French prime minister only for a short time and died very prematurely at the age of 44. His political and personal survival will have its own ramifications for France and the outside world.

[2] – Hopefully the author’s own distaste for Gladstone, the sanctimonious hypocrite, is not too obvious here.

* * * * * *

Author’s notes – In the old timeline, the Ottomans just kind of magicked their way into not only Egypt, but Sudan, Darfur and much of the Sahara. Can I put the unrealistic premise down to youthful folly? The more research I did, the more I realise it was fanciful. In particular F.A.K. Yasamee's study of Abdulhamid's diplomacy and Juan Cole's excellent work on Egypt's Revolution provided excellent vantage points onto the events that occurred in Egypt at the beginning of the 1880s. Hopefully, those of you who were hoping for an Egyptian integration at this point won't be too disappointed.

Needless to say that even if the Ottomans have beaten Russia, they’re very much on the bottom rung of the great power system (think of the demeaning “half a power” label that was sometimes attached to Italy). With the change that the French are now willing to become militarily involved in Egypt, a huge departure from OTL which is going to have effects just as important as the original POD, there is no way the still-vulnerable Ottomans are willing to become entangled in another conflict which could potentially see itself arrayed against 3 great powers.

This is my first time posting something in like, years. So please be nice!

 

[Nassirisimo]

Brian Lewis; Catastrophe - Africa's Path to Subjugation: Routledge

Revolution in Sudan? - The Rise of the Mahdist State​

At the same time the tide of Egyptian nationalism was rising, further south in the Nile Valley discontent was also stirring. Sudan had been ruled from Cairo since its conquest by Mohammed Ali for decades, but as Egypt drew closer to Europe the situation in Sudan had become more unstable. Financial difficulties in Egypt led to tax increases in Sudan, and this alongside efforts to restrict the slave trade on the part of European officials in Egypt’s employ as well as a general disregard for the position of the native Sudanese within the country, led to a growing resentment of the Egyptian regime in Sudan. These forces added to the excitement caused by news flowing into Sudan from other areas of the Muslim world, feeding into a growing millenarianism that had come from the Muslim regions of Western Africa. By 1881 this had all culminated in the declaration of Jihad by a Sufi Sheikh from Omdurman named Muhammad Ahmad.

Muhammad Ahmad came from humble origins. His father was a carpenter from Dongola who had moved his family to Omdurman when Muhammad Ahmad was still a young boy. For many years Muhammad Ahmad had been a follower of the Sufi Sheikh Muhammad al-Sharif. However, the two had fallen out reportedly over Muhammad Ahmad’s increasingly egotistical behavior. Following a number of years in which Muhammad Ahmad had become an increasingly popular sheikh, his own sense of self-importance had grown, culminating in his claim that he was the Mahdi, a figure expected in the Islamic end times to restore justice to the world. For his part, Muhammad Ahmad grew increasingly critical of Muhammad al-Sharif’s behavior, considering his conduct toward women inappropriate to be un-Islamic. The conflict between the two men became more severe, with al-Sharif expelling Muhammad Ahmad from the Sammaniyya order. However, he was taken as a disciple by another Sammaniyya sheikh, succeeding him upon his death in 1880. In his subsequent travels across Sudan, he not only saw first-hand the discontent that had arisen from Egyptian rule in the region but made the connections and spread the influence that would be crucial when he rose the banner of Jihad.

The Mahdi’s rebellion was not a significant one at first. There are varying claims over where it had begun, with perhaps the most popular explanation being that he was outraged by a marriage sanctioned by the Egyptian authorities in al-Obeid [1]. For two years the revolt itself was limited in its scope to the outlying Kordofan region, though as the Mahdi’s popularity grew, he became an increasing concern for Egyptian authorities. 1882 had seen the Egyptian administration in the Sudan evermore distracted by events closer to home, which saw the Egyptian army clash with a coalition of European powers. The Mahdi grew ever stronger, joined by many groups such as the Baqqara nomads, who joined the Mahdi less because of religious fervor than due to considerations of their own political and economic interests. Nevertheless, the Mahdi did not merely wish to turn back the clock to the days of the Funj Sultanate who had ruled Sudan prior to the Egyptian conquest but wanted to create a more centralized state where the power would be firmly in his own hands. Many Sufi orders in Sudan were persecuted by the Mahdi, as they were often his strongest opponents. More often than not, they would refuse to swear allegiance to the Mahdi, even after his defeat of an Egyptian army under the command of William Hicks, a British officer in Egyptian service.

The Mahdi's army in action​

1884 was a turning point in the history of the rebellion. The Mahdi had by now created an impressive army. The Egyptian Khedive in Cairo was increasingly desperate, with Sudan quickly falling out of his grasp. He had made a request to his European backers that they send an army to preserve what was left of his colony in Sudan but led by British Prime Minister Gladstone, his request was denied [2]. By the March of 1884, the Mahdist army had reached Khartoum, the capital of Sudan, and laid siege to it. Almost all the Europeans of the city and many of the Egyptians had already left prior to the arrival of the Mahdists, and the siege lasted for around 4 months before the remnants of the Egyptian garrison were overwhelmed by their besiegers. The fall of Khartoum marked the end of Egypt’s Empire in Sudan, although garrisons remained in a few other parts of the country such as Wadi Halfa. In Egypt itself, this represented a significant blow to the prestige of the already unpopular Khedive Tewfik, and furthermore, it worried those European powers with an interest in Northeast Africa. The British had debated on sending a force to Suakin on the Red Sea Coast to protect shipping in the Red Sea from the Mahdist leader Osman Dinga but ultimately decided against it.

Much of Sudan was now in the hands of the Mahdi, and for the time being, he could build his new state without too much interference from European powers. The Mahdi was not an absolute ruler, however, and much of the power was in the hands of his chief lieutenants who were each known as Khalifa, Abdallahi ibn Muhammad, Ali ibn Muhammad Hilu, and Osman Dinga. The Mahdi had successfully managed to carve out a large state, but it proved to be more difficult to construct an adequate administrative structure than to conquer an area. With Khalifa Abdallahi taking the leading role in developing the administration of the Mahdist state, many Turco-Egyptians who had served in the administration during the time of Egyptian rule now found themselves in similar positions of power. However, the challenges faced by the Mahdist state were grave indeed. International trade was greatly reduced and the 1880s saw an increase in famine throughout Sudan. This famine was exacerbated by the policy of resettlement, which saw nomadic peoples settled into agricultural areas which had been depopulated by the wars. The Mahdi found it expedient to continue his campaign of conquests to alleviate these domestic concerns, leading expeditions into Ethiopia, South Sudan, and even attempting an incursion into Egypt, which was repulsed by an Egyptian army.

By the end of the decade, the Mahdist state had for the most part ended its main period of expansion. By now the core Sudanese lands and the other easy conquests had now all been incorporated into the state, and to some extent, the revolutionary elan which had carried the Mahdi’s army to a number of great victories had come to an end. The Mahdi had originally hoped to carry his purifying message into other parts of the Islamic world, attempts to invade his Muslim neighbors such as Egypt ended in abject failure. Likewise, his campaign against Emin Pasha in Equatoria had ended in failure, as a relief force led by the famed Henry Morton Stanley not only provided much-needed supplies but also found Stanley being appointed the Egyptian governor of Equatoria. This left Ethiopia, which had been involved in a low-intensity border war in Sudan for decades at this point, as the most tempting target for further Mahdist campaigns.

The Ethiopian Emperor Yohannes IV had enjoyed some success in attempting to keep the very decentralized Ethiopian Empire together but was beset by both the Mahdists to his west and Italian colonists in Massawa to the Northeast. The Mahdi led a destructive campaign into Ethiopia, even managing to take and sack the ancient city of Gondar. Considering this incursion, Yohannes judged the Mahdists to be a greater threat than the Italians, attempting to come to an understanding with the latter so that he could focus his limited resources on the former. He had wanted to deal with the internal challenge from the King of Shewa Menelik prior to campaigning against the Mahdists but was dissuaded by members of his clergy. Yohannes managed to gather a larger army than the Mahdists, numbering well over 100,000 infantry and cavalry together, whereas the Mahdists could only field an estimated 85,000 warriors in all. The two armies clashed at the Battle of Gallabat, which would prove to be a turning point in the history of the Mahdist state. Not only would the Ethiopians crush the Mahdist army, inflicting enormous casualties, but they would also manage to kill the Mahdi himself, which crushed the morale of the Mahdist army. Much of it was slaughtered at Gallabat, ending the prospect of any serious incursions into Ethiopia for the foreseeable future. Indeed, the only thing which prevented an Ethiopian counter-invasion of Sudan was the prospect of a Civil War between Yohannes and Menelik [3].

With the Mahdi slain at Gallabat, the Mahdist state now stood at the brink of anarchy. His closest followers, the Khalifas, had all survived though there was disagreement over which path the state should take in the wake of the Mahdi’s death. Already Abdallahi had begun to take the reins of power into his own hands but was opposed by Khalifa Muhammad Sharif. In the end, it was the intervention of Khalifa Ali ibn Muhammad Hilu that prevented the power struggle from turning violent. A rare man without personal ambition, he had mediated between the two, ultimately ensuring that power would be in the hands of Abdallahi. He was not in an enviable position, however, as the Mahdist state faced potentially disastrous challenges. The internal issues which had pushed the Mahdi to embark on a campaign of conquest had not abated, many of the Sufi orders and tribes of Sudan resented the Mahdist state and Abdallahi’s attempts to impose more central control upon them, and the power of various European powers was beginning to increase in the Northeast of Africa. The next few years would prove to be critical to the Mahdist state.

[1] – The marriage was purportedly one between a man and an adolescent boy.
[2] - Without the British expedition, Gordon survives but more significantly, the phrase “Fuzzy-Wuzzy” never enters the English language.
[3] – Of course, Ethiopia will get its own update later on.

* * * * * *

Author's Notes - The Mahdist revolt in Sudan had deep roots, most of which were present by 1877 so it is unlikely that the POD would change things drastically. However, the change comes more from butterflies than anything else. With a different situation in Egypt, there is no Gordon coming to prolong Egyptian resistance in Sudan and make himself a martyr at Khartoum. This will have its own butterflies but the more significant one comes at alternate-Gallabat. This was an enormous battle that wasn't noticed much by Europeans at the time (a few newspaper entries that mention the battle identify an Ethiopian lord as dying, yet he actually died in the 20th century). Menelik's main competition is still alive and kicking and this will ensure changes for Ethiopia at a pivotal time.

 

[Nassirisimo]

Ibrahim Osman, Zeynep Osman; Adventures in the East, A Memoir of a Naturalised Mohammedan: Palgrave Macmillan

Constantinople, 1883​

Curiosity can be a powerful emotion, but it soon wears away. I found that this was especially the case for me in the first years after I joined the army. For certain renegades such as myself were always an object of curiosity but after some time, we had to rely on our talents if we were to make our way in Turkish society. We could indeed make our way, as any study of the career of Omer Pasha can attest, but it also involved a great deal of effort.

By the time of 1883, I had become somewhat impatient for advancement. Still languishing at the rank of captain or Yüzbaşı, I had for some time thought to myself that I needed to perform some great act in order to make my name. But this was not easy in the Turkish army of this time, for in these days it was an army that was fighting a rear-guard action against the tide of history. It could have successes here and there, such as in 1877 but for the most part, it was pushing against a great wave of change from Europe, and I had seen this for myself first-hand. When traveling through the provinces in particular, you found places little changed since the medieval era. The plough represented the height of technology in these areas. Even Turkish cities were largely devoid of the smokestacks and modern industry which by that time had come to dominate Britain.

I was attending a formal dinner for some such civil servant whose name now escapes me in the autumn of 1883. These dinners were beginning to resemble what you would think of when you think of high society in any European country. Men in dinner jackets and sometimes even women in the latest European fashions, depending on how liberal their husbands were of course. It still astonishes me to think that while some Turkish women presented themselves as any European woman would, others hid behind the veil or the wooden screen-windows of the harem.

But I digress. It was at this dinner when it appeared that the opportunity of which I had been hoping for finally presented itself to me. I was introduced to some middling functionary in the foreign service who was describing the plight of some poor benighted Muslims in some outlying corner of the world. I found him to be a rather boring man, like some university professor who now lacked the energy to even lecture properly. He had mentioned that the Sultan himself, wishing to advance the cause of Muslims around the world, wished to enable these far-flung Muslims to defend themselves, as we had done. “The Sultan is also the Caliph, the leader of every Muslim in every corner of the world, from here to Timbuctoo to the furthest Indies. But we have not been able to help them until this point” he explained.

“And he intends to defend the Muslims by making war on the Dutch?” replied I.

“No, we don’t have the strength for that. Oh, but we wish to send some good, pious men to aid these poor men” For all the later talk of a global Muslim brotherhood, I saw just as much of this patronizing paternalism from Turkish or Egyptian Muslims towards their darker coreligionists as I did amongst the Europeans of my time.

I had tired of conversation with this droopy-faced man, and rebuffed him as strongly as I could while maintaining a front of politeness. “Well I hope you will find your good, pious men who do not care a whit about malaria then. Good evening to you”

For much of the night I had not been too interested in this man’s wistful droning, but the more I thought about it, the idea to get away from Turkey and see a bit more of the world was an interesting prospect. At this point, I cared not a whit for the poor situation of these far-away w**s, but any British person had heard that great reputations were made not at home, but in far-away places. A few days and a few meetings later, I found myself boarding a ship in Constantinople bound for the port city of Singapore, the great entrepôt colony of the British in the East Indies.

I didn’t care much for the journey, as we spent most of it journeying through the ocean with not a sight of land, besides the great Suez Canal which now linked Britain’s greatest colony of India with the Mediterranean and Europe. We made a few stops in places such as Port Said and Jeddah to pick up goods, people, and pilgrims. Within 38 days of travel (which I am told was rather fast), we had arrived at our destination. Singapore was a rather interesting place in those days, as I suppose that it always is. Although a British colony, most of the people residing there were Chinese, who stared at you and jabbered in their incomprehensible language, in which every word seems to sound the same. Another thing of note was the heat. It was the 3rd of December when I arrived in Singapore, and the great heat and humidity seemed as bad as any day I had endured in the summertime in England or Turkey.

While I would not go so far as to describe my mission as that of a spy, there was nevertheless a need to disguise the true nature of my mission. For a few days, I was free of any duties or responsibilities, however, so as to best as I could, I prepared for what lay before me. I employed a local Malay porter to instruct me in the local language, which despite its exotic sound is a damned sight easier than Turkish or Arabic. After around a week or so, I had gained some command of the language, which I reasoned would help me far away from this great outpost of civilization.

When it came time to leave Singapore and head for the island of Sumatra, then I began to have misgivings about the whole endeavor. I had mentioned malaria before, and that was a great concern for me. I’d never ventured into the tropics, and I was deathly afraid of some horrible tropical disease at that time. Before we left, we met a few natives of the place that we were going to. I learned that although related, the Malay language is not the language that is spoken there, though fortunately a few of them could speak it. They were strange-looking people, much like the Malays. They were all of them small in stature, with thin, bony bodies. They glared at you when you first met them but share a meal with them and they will be soon chattering away to each other, smiling broadly.

Against these natives, however, I was not alone, alongside me were three other Turkish officers, all a middle rank such as myself, and another functionary from the foreign office. Rifat Ali, his name was. I usually don’t have much in the way of respect for government bureaucrats, who have far too comfortable a life, and far too much to show for it. But there was something about him that was different. He was physically unremarkable, about fifty years of age, a beard that was greying, a darkened complexion. We were on a smaller local boat, the kind that the locals use to sail the coastal waters, making our way up the coast. The sky was grey, as seems to be usual in this part of the world, and the coast filled with a great deal of lush vegetation. I asked Rifat if he had ever been to a place like this, and he answered me “not for a long time. Maybe when I was a young man such as yourself, but it was different back then. Fewer steamships, more natives waiting to throw a spear at you”

“That’s the kind of people we will be helping?”

He shook his head. “Once upon a time, perhaps. But for the past hundred or so years, the Europeans have been strengthening their position here. They used to control a few isolated ports, influence a few sultans, but those days are over”

I nodded my head as he continued. “There used to be a great many pirates in these waters, but between the British and their vassal in Sarawak, they are mostly gone. Though of course in those days, you could not tell the difference between a pirate and a prince”

“I hope that they have some fighting spirit left in them,” said I.

“You will find that they do. Especially these Acehnese. They’re a warrior people, as the Dutch are finding out. They have been trying these past ten years to bring them to heel, but every time the Dutch army turns its back, some Acehnese chuck spears right back at them. We’re going to help them do something more than that”

I had fought a European war already at this point, but even the privations of a Balkan War are nothing compared to what I would find in the jungles. Oh, the Acehnese are certainly great fighters. The Dutch had declared the war finished in 1881, already eight years after they had invaded, but this was an absurd fantasy. A Sultan, Ibrahim Mansur Shah, remained at large and there were several leaders who stood against them.

It was the Ulama, Islamic scholars, who were the backbone of this resistance. We had arrived in Aceh, and after several days trek in a steaming jungle, we came upon a village. It was there that we met the most famous of these resistance leaders, Teungku Cik di Tiro. This village was not a military base of any kind, but deep in the mountains of Aceh it seemed secure enough. As it transpired, this was the native village of Cik di Tiro.

Cik di Tiro was not simply some ignorant village mullah, however. He conversed with us in Arabic, playing the part of a gracious host. We were sat on the floor of his house, eating the local food which was rice and something akin to an Indian curry served on what looked like a banana leaf. I felt it rude to clarify, and we had more important topics to discuss. It was in this way that, for a time, we became part of the Caliph’s secret war in Aceh.

Zainab’s notes;

Recent research has corroborated that Sultan Abdülhamid did indeed send clandestine support for the Acehnese [1]. This raises interesting questions about the Sultan’s pan-Islamic policy. For the most part, scholars have emphasized that this policy was largely a tool to preserve the Sultan’s own domain rather than defending outlying Islamic states, but the fact that Abdülhamid kept his aid to the Acehnese a secret suggests that this mission was carried out not for self-aggrandizement but possibly due to a genuine concern to provide aid for the Acehnese, who had previously requested Ottoman help prior to Abdülhamid’s ascension to the Sultanate.

[1] – Needless to say this didn’t happen in OTL, for the reasons that Zainab notes.

 

[Nassirisimo]

Fadıl Necmi; The Sublime Ottoman State: A History of the Ottoman Empire: Istanbul University Press

The Economy of the Early Hamidian Empire​

Whilst Abdülhamid’s regime began to amass more power in the hands of the Porte, this era saw a loosening of control when it came to the finances of the empire. Here, however, there was considerably less room for maneuver, as the empire’s finances had already been shattered by the default of 1875 and the costs of the subsequent Russo-Turkish War of 1877. The war had been a victory and had gone some way toward restoring the confidence in the Ottoman government that several years of revolts and financial disasters had worn away. It appears originally Abdülhamid hoped to reform the finances of the empire on his own terms, negotiating more favorable repayment terms on existing loans or perhaps refinancing the existing debt with loans on a more favorable basis. Especially after the victory of the liberals in Britain in 1880, this appeared to be a remote prospect, and it became increasingly clear to the Porte that the only option available to them would be for some arrangement that would provide better security for European debt held within the empire.

In 1881 Abdülhamid finally acquiesced and issued the Decree of Muharram, which announced the creation of a private company designed to provide a secure means of repayment for the foreign debt incurred by the Ottoman Empire. Several key revenues within the empire, including but not limited to the tobacco and salt monopolies, taxes on stamps and spirits, tributes from various autonomous areas of the empire, and even the indemnity which the empire had secured from Russia would go not to the Porte but would go directly to the OPDA, or Ottoman Public Debt Administration. This organization has been the subject of no small debate, not only from those opposed to Abdülhamid’s reign but from historians who have long argued over what precisely this meant for the sovereignty of the Ottoman Empire. An important distinction to note was that the OPDA was a private company, not one that was answerable to the governments of those powers from which holders of the debt came. And indeed, the effects on the empire’s economy were sometimes positive. Each of the loans contracted during Abdülhamid’s reign were done so at a lower rate of interest than had been the case from 1855-1875. Abdülhamid’s loans also tended to be more focused on economic development and public works projects than those of his predecessors which had been taken for military funding and palace-building.

However much of the criticism from both nationalists and from subsequent historians remains true. The OPDA ensured that a significant portion of the economic surplus of the empire went to more developed countries rather than being re-invested within the empire, which remained perennially short of capital. During its existence, it controlled between one-fifth to one-third of the government’s revenue, absorbing much of the growth in revenues that occurred during the Hamidian period. A recent study of the Egyptian tobacco industry shed new light on the impact of the Régie, the company that maintained the hated tobacco monopoly for the OPDA, on the establishment of the Egyptian tobacco industry, which saw its first cigarette factories established by businessmen who fled the control of the Régie within the Ottoman Empire itself. The existence of the OPDA also opened Abdülhamid to criticism from liberal and nationalist opponents. It remains hard to ascertain the overall impact that the OPDA had on the Ottoman economy, and whether it was truly crucial in securing what foreign investment the empire was able to attract during this period.

During this period, the wider economy seems to have done well, if not spectacularly. Many of the positive economic trends of the Tanzimat continued into the Hamidian period, and indeed the pace of change increased. The amount of land under cultivation continued to increase, caused both by population growth as well as the settling of previously nomadic peoples both within the Arab provinces of the empire as well as Eastern Anatolia. The spread of railways opened interior areas of the empire and stimulated agricultural production for the market, going some way toward creating a truly national market. It proved to be an important contributor to development in a country where much of the population remained employed as subsistence farmers. While the production of cereal crops increased considerably, this was less marked than the production of cash crops, which saw more significant expansions in the Hamidian era. From 1880 to 1918 the production of cotton increased fourfold, and that of sugar as much as fivefold. For those resources key to modern industry, growth looked even more staggering. Coal production rose thirtyfold from 1875 to 1918, as the Ereğli Coal Basin was developed, and the beginnings of a steel industry were established.

Ottoman coal miners in the Zonguldak coal mine​

Despite these impressive-sounding numbers, it was in these modern areas of the economy that the backwardness of the Ottomans was most profoundly demonstrated. The thirtyfold increase in coal production in absolute numbers only meant an increase from 100,000 tons annually to 3 million, which compared poorly to a total world production in 1912 of 1.3 billion tons, and was far lower than any European Great Power except Italy [1]. Much of the railway building undertaken during the Hamidian building was built with foreign steel, foreign capital, and foreign expertise, and this only started changing toward the end of Abdülhamid’s reign. This illustrated a key deficiency in both industrial production and technical education within the empire. The level of mechanization in manufacturing remained meager, even in industries such as textiles where mechanization was relatively easy. In the age of the second industrial revolution, where crucial industries such as chemicals and electronics joined those established industries such as textiles and steel, the Ottoman economy remained woefully backward, lacking the capital to propel itself into the first industrial revolution, let alone the second. With the kind of human resources available to the Ottoman Empire, this industrial backwardness does not seem surprising. In 1912 the literacy rate of the Empire was still only 26%, far lower than that of any European power save Russia.

It would be a mistake to judge the Ottoman economy solely on its industrial backwardness, however. Contrary to popular belief, the manufacturing sector of the Ottoman Empire did not decline, though it did not see any great growth either. Although most Ottoman subjects continued to work in the agricultural sector, the industrial sector did see some growth. Local industries such as soap production in areas of Syria or textiles in the Çukurova plain continued to thrive, and the Ottoman Empire did see the growth of some export-oriented industries. The production of Oriental carpets, a much-coveted luxury good within Europe, employed over 70,000 people by 1912. The beginnings of a textile industry could be seen in Constantinople and its adjacent regions, though its very small scale must be noted, and by 1912 had perhaps only 300,000 spindles (which compared poorly even to places such as China and India). Most industries remained oriented toward the domestic market, however, which continued to thrive, though this tended to be based on handicraft industries rather than modern industrial production.

Another myth that has dominated common conceptions of the Ottoman economy in this period is the dominance of its Christian inhabitants in industry and commerce. While much of the import and export trade was dominated by Christians, as it had been for much of the empire’s existence, more recent research has shed light on the importance of Muslims in the internal trade of the empire. This internal trade was far more significant for the empire than external trade and was increased as the government expanded the system of roads, railways, and ports that connected the country. The country’s balance of payments continued to be a great cause of concern however, as for much of Abdülhamid’s reign the value of exports was consistently lower than that of imports. Textiles were by far the costliest of the empire’s imports, but great sums were spent on even agricultural products such as sugar and grains. Although the gap was slowly reduced, by 1912 the value of exports in the empire was still around one million Lira less than the value of imports [2].

What kept the economy from further growth and industrial expansion? Government corruption and poor economic policy are less accepted as an explanation as was once the case, and instead, there appear to have been several factors mostly out of the government’s control that retarded economic growth within the empire. The lack of political stability was certainly a handicap on economic growth, particularly in the Balkans and Eastern Anatolia. Some semblance of order had been restored in the Balkans following the cycle of revolts and war that had ravaged the region in the 1870s, and Bulgaria, in particular, saw healthy economic growth, but the existence of paramilitary groups and intercommunal conflict would prevent anything beyond modest growth. In Eastern Anatolia conflict between the nomadic Kurdish population and the sedentary Christian Armenians proved to be a significant problem, and the massacres that the Christian population suffered did much to harm the region, as indeed did retaliatory attacks. The conflict has historically been a major brake on economic development, and this was certainly true of the Ottoman Empire in the first part of the Hamidian period.

Nevertheless, one must avoid too gloomy a picture of the Ottoman economy during the early Hamidian period. The budget, which had mainly been in deficit for much of the reign of his predecessor Abdülaziz, was balanced from 1879 to 1894, and indeed the government sometimes ran a small surplus [3]. The economy was growing slower than that of her European neighbors, but the Ottoman economy was beginning to pull ahead of her Middle Eastern neighbors, particularly Iran and Egypt. Looking at it in isolation, the economy of the early Hamidian Empire could be considered a success story. However, the international circumstances of the time depended on the swift growth of national resources, and this was not something that Abdülhamid’s government achieved during the first part of his reign.

[1] – By this point in OTL, Ottoman coal production was around 900,000 tons, which is pathetic by the standards of even secondary powers. But Italy of course was notably coal-poor
[2] – The exchange rate was 1.1 Ottoman Lira to 1 pound Stirling for this time
[3] – In OTL the budget deficit of the Ottoman Empire during Abdulhamid’s reign, except for the 1877-78 war and the Graeco-Turkish War of 1897, ran a moderate deficit. Since the goal of both Abdülhamid and the great powers in 1881 had been to balance the budget, it seems plausible that this could have been a viable outcome considering TTL’s differences.

* * * * * *

Author's notes - The situation of the economy compared to OTL can be summed up as "somewhat better, not great". To speak of the Ottoman Empire as industrializing would be a near-total falsehood, and it can be safely said that the empire is very much one that supplies raw materials to the industrialized nations. Unlike Egypt, it cannot even do that well and maintains a problematic balance of payments. However, there is cause for hope in the future here. The Ottoman Empire does have the resources necessary for industrialization in the future, and it actually still has a great deal of possible agricultural land. As in OTL however, many of the same challenges remain.

 

[Nassirisimo]

Stefan Stojakovic; Europe's Bloody Borderlands - A History of the Balkans: Routledge

Ottoman Bulgaria after the War of 1877​

Following the victory of the Ottoman army in 1877, many in the Ottoman Empire and beyond expected that tensions Balkans would dampen, at least for the time being. These expectations would prove to be erroneous, however. Certainly in the first few years following the shock of the Russian defeat, nationalist movements had been dealt a blow, but most chose to see this as a temporary setback rather than a permanent change in the situation. In Bulgaria, where an uprising had precipitated the events which led to war in the first place, the secret societies and nationalist movements which had headed the uprisings still plotted against the Ottoman government. Stefan Stambolov, a Bulgarian revolutionary and poet, as well as the new head of the Bulgarian Revolutionary Central Committee, told his followers that “the hour of our liberation will come, perhaps later than we may have hoped, but it will come”. Although in the wake of the catastrophe of 1877 this appeared to be little more than wishful thinking, by the middle of the 1880s the BRCC and other organizations opposed to the continued Ottoman rule in Bulgaria were increasingly active once again.

If the existence of anti-Ottoman agitation in Bulgaria had not changed in the wake of the War of 1877, then its nature did. The Bulgarians had seen some victories prior to 1877, with the most notable one being the creation of a separate Bulgarian Exarchate, which was a significant recognition of the unique position of Bulgarians in the Empire and turned the main antagonist of Bulgarian Nationalism from the Greeks to the Turks. This had turned into an armed uprising in 1876, following the example of peasants in Herzegovina who had revolted against the Ottoman authorities the year before. However, the Turks were able to crush the poorly prepared April Uprising with ease, with the brutal suppression of the rebellion leading to the war of 1877 itself. For the duration of this war, the influence of Bulgarian revolutionaries was minimal, with much of the fighting being done by Russian soldiers. The subsequent failure of the Russian invasion of Bulgaria was sobering to the Bulgarian revolutionaries, who saw that even great power intervention was not sufficient to push the Ottomans out of Bulgaria. Therefore, in the aftermath of the war, the revolutionaries began to explore different ideas about how best to achieve an independent Bulgaria.

By the mid-1880s, a revised national program had been articulated by the BRCC and many of the other revolutionary organizations. This program was expressed in the slogan Svoboda, Zemya, Mir, or Freedom, Land, Peace. The BRCC expressed the view that liberation from the Ottoman Empire would also have to be accompanied by liberal reforms, land redistribution, and efforts to ensure the safety of the countryside, threatened as it was by Muslim and Christian bandits alike. The BRCC had also begun to change its tactics when it came to armed conflict with the Ottoman authorities. Instead of the April Uprising, in which Bulgarian revolutionaries had revolted in the hope that other sympathetic Bulgarians would join them, they would instead aim to build a more substantial movement before any uprising [1]. In the meantime, the BRCC attempted a campaign of assassinations and ambushes against Ottoman officials and troops. Although these activities tended to be limited in the 1880s, by the 1890s the campaign had intensified. Even the Danube Vilayet, which had been considered a “model” province following reforms by Midhat Paşa, became notorious as a dangerous posting for civil servants.

The Ottoman response to this campaign was characteristically clumsy. Sultan Abdülhamid fulminated against the “vermin” who were undermining his government in Bulgaria, but there were few effective options to counter the revolutionaries. The Ottoman Army proved to be ineffectual at counter-insurgency work, often creating more sympathy for the Bulgarian Revolutionaries with their heavy-handed responses to revolutionary activity. The Ottoman secret police saw somewhat more success, at one point almost capturing Stambolov (who subsequently fled to Romania), though even they could only do so much to suppress the revolutionaries, nor did they ever seem to fully comprehend just how much the Bulgarian revolutionary movement grew in the 1880s/90s. Although the Ottomans were able to create some semblance of order within Bulgaria, there was nevertheless the feeling amongst both the Ottomans themselves as well as foreign observers that the hope of turning Bulgaria into a loyal and quiet part of the empire was a futile one. British Prime Minister Lord Salisbury lamented that “the death of the Turkish Empire in Europe was merely postponed by her previous victory…the rot has set in so deeply in all levels of the Turkish administration that we shall one day have to prepare for the day when it collapses under its own weight”. Bulgarians such as Stambolov looked eagerly to this day.

The Independent Balkan States​

The one achievement of Serbia and Romania during the War of 1877 had been the attainment of formal independence. Although both had seen their ties with the Porte weaken for decades prior to the war, this formal separation was nevertheless an important step in the establishment of both nation-states. However, besides this gain, both countries had little to show for their considerable efforts. Serbia had launched two wars against the Ottomans prior to the War of 1877 and had received only two stinging defeats. Wisely she had stayed out of the Russian invasion of Bulgaria, though much of the damage had already been done. For the time being it appeared as though expansion at the cost of the Ottomans was unrealistic in light of their surprisingly good performance in 1877. Despite this, many in Serbia, particularly the Radicals, still saw territorial expansion as both desirable and inevitable to fulfill Serbia’s national destiny.

Serbia was ruled by Prince Milan, an exceptionally unpopular ruler who was infamous for many qualities including his philandering, corruption, and fecklessness. His promotion to king in 1882 changed little about his internal position, which now saw itself challenged by the newly formed Radical Party under Nikola Pašić. The Radicals condemned the ineptness of Milan’s rule and called for reforms within Serbia to strengthen the state and increase the representation of the peasantry (who made up most of Serbia’s population) in Serbian politics. Milan’s unpopularity and weakening position eventually led to him promulgating the constitution of 1888, which established a real parliamentary system for the first time and saw the Radicals sweep to power. Despite the setback, Milan still intended to rule. He was supported by the Austrians, but his position was made difficult by the disregard shown by the Austrians toward Serbia, as well as the natural Russophile tendencies of most Serbs. Dismissing the country as a land of “illiterate pig farmers”, the Austrians imposed high tariffs on Serbian products entering Austria, preventing any impulses toward industrialization in the already backward country, though this Austrian support did sometimes have its advantages. It was Austrian aid that had prevented Serbian financial collapse following the Bontoux affair. Milan’s authoritarianism caused conflict with the Radicals, who wanted to further involve the peasantry in the politics of Serbia, and who also wanted to avoid aligning too closely with the Habsburgs, who ruled millions of Serbian and South Slavic subjects.

If Serbia’s position following the War of 1877 can be described as “difficult”, then Romania was in an even worse position. As a reward for allowing her country to be used as a road for the Russian army to outflank Ottoman fortresses in Dobruja, Romania had southern Bessarabia stripped from her by the great powers to placate Russia in the wake of her defeat. To say that this infuriated Romanians would be something of an understatement. Although Prince Charles of Romania had finally thrown off the shackles of vassal status to the Ottomans, 1877 was seen as a disaster by most Romanians, who saw Russia’s actions as nothing less than a betrayal. In 1881 the Romanians aligned themselves with Austria-Hungary after similar overtures to Germany had been rebuffed, signing a secret alliance with them. However, this was mainly in order to gain some measure of protection, as any hopes of recovering the territory that had been lost to Russia seemed slim in light of official Austro-Russian cooperation in the Dreikaiserbund formed by Bismarck.

Likewise, Greece found herself in an undesirable position. Greece had grand ambitions, seeking to create a state that encompassed all Greeks (millions of whom still lived within the Ottoman Empire) but Greece was devoid of the resources necessary to sustain such an ambitious program of expansion. Greece’s agricultural sector was backward and there was little industry to speak of. She had owed enormous debts to the Western powers since her birth, and indeed by 1891, Greece was bankrupt due to this burden. Only remittances from Greek emigrants in America kept her balance of payments in a satisfactory position. Much more has been written about the state of the Greek economy elsewhere, but to say that her position may have been the worst amongst the Balkan states doesn’t appear to be an overstatement.

This national malaise was felt by those in positions of power. Greece’s dominant political figure of the era was Charilaos Trikoupis, who was prime minister six times between 1875 and 1897, Trikoupis believed that a system of ambitious reforms to transform all aspects of Greece and its society was required to secure what was seen as Greece’s rightful place. His administration aimed to improve Greece’s infrastructure first and foremost, and he encouraged the building of roads and railways to modernize the country. These expenditures did little to help the financial situation of the Greek government however, borrowing even greater sums of money and doubling taxes, both of which were not able to save Greece from bankruptcy. With such a perilous financial situation, it was imprudent for Greece to engage in adventurism, though the consideration of internal politics meant that the Greek government had to pay attention to events within the Ottoman Empire. On the island of Crete, unrest amongst the Greek population of the island had become an important cause for many Greeks following the Cretan revolt of 1866. There had also been the long-standing concept of the “Megali Idea”, or a Greek State which encompassed all Greek people, including those who lived in Anatolia.

[1] - As I understand it, there is some controversy over the thesis that uprisings on the parts of the Christians of the empire committed to uprisings to gain the attention of the foreign powers.

* * * * * *

Author's notes - The most significant effect of the POD so far for the Balkans is that the existing Balkan nations have not been able to seize territories needed in their programs of national "revival". This is especially bad for Greece as in OTL, some of her best territories were in Thessaly. In Bulgaria, things would get interesting. In my previous timeline, the Bulgarians just kind of sat down and shut up, which in retrospect doesn't seem too likely. The direction of the Bulgarian Nationalists after 1877 has taken some inspiration from the IMRO of OTL. So let's see what happens in the future.

 

[Nassirisimo]

Pera​

The wine was unusually good tonight. The best wine in Constantinople is always to be found in the houses of Frenchmen, who are both the best producers of wine, and its most discerning consumers. This was why Ali never refused an invitation to dine in the house of a Frenchman.

But of course, the French by and large did not come to Constantinople for leisure, but for business. Paul Houdin, his host for tonight, had come to the empire to take a management position in the Régie Company, which siphoned off the profits from the empire’s tobacco industry to repay French loans contracted by the late Sultan Abdülaziz. And of course, there was little purpose in inviting a Turk to a European’s fine dinner party without some ulterior motive behind it. But what reason was that to reject an invitation?

Paul greeted Ali with kisses on the cheek “Ah monsieur, I’m so glad you could make it”
“It is my pleasure to meet you”
“The pleasure is all mine. I would like to speak with you later if we have the chance” Paul winked at Ali as he turned away to talk to some other guests.

Later that night, Paul made good on his promise to Ali. Ali was alone on the balcony, smoking a cigarette and admiring the fine view from Paul’s balcony. Overlooking the Bosporus, he could see straight across to the twinkling lights of Uskudar. “If only I could afford a view like this”, thought Ali as he took another drag of his cigarette. He heard Paul’s voice from behind him. “I’m sure your Turkish cigarettes are fine. After all, I do make the things. But let me share something better with you tonight”. Paul handed a cigar to Ali. “This one is made in Cuba, part of the Spanish Empire. It is said that these are the finest cigars in the world. Perhaps you would like to try mon ami”

Ali nodded his head as he took the cigar from Paul’s hand. “Merci”

Paul lit both cigars “I am told that these are harder to get than before. Some rebellion, war, or some other such conflict in Cuba. How am I to know? So let us enjoy this”
“It is a very distinctive taste”
“I hope you mean that as a compliment” Paul smiled. “I wanted to talk to you tonight about tobacco-related matters”.
“Of course, please let us talk”
“Thank you. You see, we are having a problem with Adana. I have looked over the accounts, and would you believe in the past year our revenue is down twenty percent in that port alone? Did people suddenly stop smoking?”
“I very much doubt that”
“As do I. I have my own suspicions, but I can do nothing without proof you see. And any official investigation by the police will be a slow one…”
“So, you would like me to do something?”
“You have the ability, I think. A friend told me so. Nothing too much, I just want to see where the new supply of tobacco is coming from, and if it can be stopped. It would be very kind of you to do a favor for your new, generous friend”
A broad smile appeared on Ali’s face. Well, of course, my ‘new friend’. Let me see what I can do for you”.
The wine was good, as was the cigar, but a bribe was always the most welcome of gifts.

* * * * * *

Yıldız Palace​

A small sip of champagne was all that was needed to soothe the nerves. But how nerve-wracking of activity was watching an opera anyhow? Opera was one of the few real pleasures of Abdülhamid’s life. In his youth, he had appreciated the good cheer that came with copious amounts of alcohol and the company of beautiful females. But as he got older, the cheer was replaced by other emotions, primarily shame.

Abdülhamid was the Caliph, the leader of all Muslims around the world. While the educated elites of the Ottoman Empire enjoyed alcohol as much as their European counterparts, they all knew deep inside them, that it was a sin. But what wasn’t a sin? The sight of the leader of all Muslims, sitting watching European women sing their hearts out on a stage would inspire a sense of disgusted outrage amongst many. But did this matter? One must enjoy the little pleasures of life. Surely God would not begrudge him over such a small sin.

But some pleasures, indeed many pleasures, had to be done alone. He sat in his box alone. Far from the people below him. No one’s back was turned to him, but the Sultan wondered “who is lurking behind my back?”. Being the Sultan is lonely, in times of leisure as well as in times of work. It is a burden that Abdülhamid must carry, however.

* * * * * *

Fatih​

Across the Golden Horn, only a few minutes' walk over the bridge, one left the European world of opera and fine dining and entered a completely different world. The old world, of an Ottoman Empire that enchanted the minds of some, but which the Tanzimat men across the river would rather forget. This was a world not of grand European-style houses and villas, but of narrow, filthy streets and wooden houses. A world where the mosque and the coffee house were still the centers of social life. A world that Mehmed called home.

And he was not ashamed of this. He still preferred coffee to wine, and nargile to cigarettes. When his wife and daughters left the house, they went veiled. His son learned Arabic as well as French. Although Mehmed was not a rich man, he was respected. An officer and a veteran of the War of ’93, he was also a learned scholar, a hafiz [1]. And as such, he was listened to by his friends and those who knew him. Many were not happy at the way that things had turned out in the empire, and Abdullah was not afraid to say as much. He would damn corrupt officials, those educated in the Lycées who had become unbelievers in their manners and in their hearts. Sentiments like these were popular, albeit not printed due to the censorship present in the Ottoman Empire at the time.

But this evening was not one to be sat in the coffee house pontificating about politics. He had an old friend from his army days visiting. And this friend was an object of curiosity. An Englishman, but he did not look like one. Indeed, in his fez and officer’s uniform, he looked rather like a Turk. And he ate like a Turk, spoke like a Turk, and even prayed like a Turk. “Salam Alaykum Ibrahim”, Mehmed said as he embraced his friend.
“It has been too long; dare I see three years since I last saw you!” replied Ibrahim.
“Yes, it will have been three years on the month of Rajab. Please, take a seat”

The two men sat and conversed. Reminiscing about their days in the “happy war” of ’93. Exchanging gossip about their fellow officers.

Mehmed’s daughter Neylan brought in more coffee. She poured it into Ibrahim’s cup, looking into his eyes as she did so. But rather than making eye contact, he glanced in a different direction. “He must prefer boys if he does not wish to look at me,” she thought as she turned away from him and poured coffee into her father’s cup. Englishmen are all a bit queer, after all.

* * * * * *

Author's notes - I just wanted something other than dumping a bunch of exposition today, so instead a quick look into the lives of some familiar and unfamiliar people. There will probably be more narrative the deeper we get into the timeline, particularly after the end of the first "cycle" of updates and the pace will slow down somewhat as we begin to see butterflies effects more parts of the world.

 

[Nassirisimo]

Timothy Evans; Boldly into the Modern Age - A history of Europe from 1789 to 2000: Oxford University Press

Great Power Relations from 1877 to 1894​

Russia’s 1877 defeat in her war against Turkey was the greatest shock that the European system had seen since the Franco-Prussian War. The Crimean system had seemingly broken down when Russia invaded Turkey unopposed by France and Britain but had seen herself humiliated and pushed out of Bulgaria. Russia had been assumed to be among the foremost Great Powers because of her size, but her inability to beat even the Turks now called into question this status. Russia had lost no territory, and the indemnity she had to pay to Turkey was small when compared to her economy and government spending, but nevertheless, the damage to her perception internationally as well as prestige internally was severe. It is debated as to how much the defeat contributed to the strength of internal opposition, though following the war a particularly aggressive revolutionary group known as Narodnaya Volya or “People’s will” had emerged. This group attempted a number of assassination attempts against the Tsar culminating in the 1880 bombing that killed not only Tsar Alexander II but a number of his family too.[1] The new Tsar Alexander III was wounded in the attempt and responded by both ending many of the reforms of his father’s reign and heavily increasing repression within Russia itself.

Russia’s new vulnerability may have been made worse by an alliance proposed by the Ottoman Sultan Abdülhamid which would have bound the Ottomans together with France and Britain in a defensive pact aimed at Russia. Perhaps luckily for the Russians, both the British and French showed little interest in such an alliance, particularly after the 1880 general election which saw the Turcophile Disraeli replaced with the Turcophobic Gladstone. From this point on the outlook of Britain’s policy toward the Ottoman Empire became increasingly negative, as successive Liberal governments saw the empire’s tyranny toward its Christian population as a “stain upon humanity”, and the Conservatives under Salisbury saw the empire more as a potential protectorate as opposed to a partner. Although the French were more receptive to the idea of an alliance due in part to their investments within the empire, Gambetta was unwilling to commit without the support of the British. After his overtures toward an alliance were rebuffed by both powers, Abdülhamid felt betrayed and in his own words, simply explained “The English, above all others, simply cannot be trusted to keep their word”. He began the empire’s drift away from its previously cordial relations with Britain and France, especially after the Egyptian crisis of 1882, but this change would take a long time to be detected by the other powers of Europe.

Russia’s interests in Europe had long been oriented toward the Balkans and the Straits, which she believed would give her security against the “Crimean Alliance” of Britain, France, and the Ottoman Empire. With the possibility of seizing the straits a remote one, for the time being, Russia turned her expansionist energies toward Central Asia and was encouraged in this by Bismarck and the Germans, who wanted Russia to turn her eyes as far away from Europe and potential conflict with Austria-Hungary as possible.[2] Bismarck wanted to foster a sense of monarchical solidarity between Germany, the Russians, and Austria-Hungary, and keeping Russia and Austria from coming to blows in the Balkans made this task far easier for him. Feeling vulnerable to any potential action from the Crimean Alliance and unwilling to risk conflict with Austria-Hungary in the Balkans for the time being, the Russian Ambassador Peter Saburov offered a renewal of the Driekaiserbund to Bismarck in 1881 which both the Germans and the Austrians accepted. This alliance served to protect the most vulnerable flanks of all three powers, isolate the French and give the Russians a free hand in which they could expand in Asia and work to clean the stain on their reputation that the Russo-Turkish war of 1877 had caused.

The Driekaiserbund would be Bismarck's most successful attempt to gain real security for Germany, though its success was only temporary​

Despite all his best efforts, France would not remain as isolated as Bismarck hoped. At numerous points in the 1880s, Bismarck attempted to encourage the French to focus on imperial expansion, most notably in Tunisia. This was primarily with the hope that she would find an alternate path to restore her national esteem besides the reconquest of Alsace-Lorraine, and perhaps in the hopes that this expansion would alienate France from Britain. However, the French under Gambetta and his successors held off the grander imperial adventures, and instead cooperated with Britain during the Egyptian Crisis of 1882. Bismarck did not personally dislike Gambetta, and his main objective when attempting the isolation of France was merely to avoid any future hostility toward Germany. France nevertheless avoided this trap and had a loose Entente with Great Britain throughout this period. This understanding with Britain enabled France to embark on an impressive campaign of empire-building throughout the 1880s and 1890s. In Africa, French officers mostly acting on their own initiative added huge swathes of territory to France’s colonial holdings, though much of this was sparsely populated desert. In Asia, France expanded her colonies in Indochina and even fought a war with the Chinese. In 1884 a key point of tension between France and Britain, namely the “Egyptian Problem” of what would be done with the country when the situation was stabilized was solved with the creation of an Anglo-French Condominium in the country.

The colonial expansion of Britain and France was enabled largely due to the cordiality between the two powers, as well as a lack of desire on the part of Germany’s government to invest seriously in building an overseas Empire. The colonial lobby was not especially strong within Germany in the 1880s, but nevertheless, there were some in society such as German nationalists and the merchant houses of the old Hanseatic cities that desired colonies. Bismarck was famously dismissive of their ambitions to build a global German Empire, placing little importance on the acquisition of overseas colonies. Attitudes in France and Britain were different. For France building, her colonial empire was a key part of her national rejuvenation after the defeat of 1870. France’s dominant political figure, Leon Gambetta explained that “To remain a great nation or to become one, you must colonize”. Bismarck encouraged France’s imperial mission, though Germany’s growing colonial lobby became more impatient with Bismarck’s policy as time went on. When Bismarck declined to support an attempt by the Society for German Colonization to establish a colony in East Africa, alienating the increasingly powerful Völkisch movement.[3] What African colonies were acquired by Germany, in Togo, Cameroon and Namibia were acquired largely due to internal political concerns, in particular, the hope that holding colonies could alienate the future Friedrich I from Britain.

In Britain, the pace of expansion depended somewhat on who was in charge at that point in time. When William Gladstone was Prime Minister, the pace slowed somewhat but his critics were quick to point out that it had been his government who had intervened in Egypt. The Condominium that he had established with the French was criticized by the Conservatives, and the then leader of the opposition Salisbury stated to the House of Commons in no uncertain terms that “our influence must be predominant in Egypt if we are to ensure the security of India”. Salisbury was wary of the growing alliance that Britain had built with France, believing that it took away Britain’s agency, and there were many amongst the establishment who believed that entrusting the security of India to the French (which was how they saw the Condominium) was a “the most dangerous foolishness that her majesty’s government has engaged in”. But of course, even when Gladstone was unseated in the general election of 1886 following a major parliamentary defeat over Ireland, the Conservatives did nothing to change Britain’s position in Egypt, and instead trusted in the growing ties between Britain and France, at least for the time being.

When it is all considered, the Anglo-French Entente was certainly not one free of discord. Many British politicians and businessmen were less than happy with the high tariffs in French colonies, and there was an increasing spirit of imperial expansion pushed along by figures such as Cecil Rhodes. Indeed, Britain saw a great deal of expansion in Africa throughout the period. Although the 1880s were opened by a British defeat at Majuba Hill and the following recognition of the Boer Republics’ independence, Britain began transforming what she could of her informal African empire into a series of colonies and protectorates. But it was in Asia where the stakes were higher and colonial tensions would prove to be far more dangerous. Many in Britain had long been cautious of Russian expansion in Central Asia and had attempted to counter what was seen as Russia’s march toward the North-western border of India in the “Great Game”, though, in fact, the Russians had no such long-term intention. Salisbury was keenly aware of this however and stated that when it came to foreign policy objectives, he was “inclined to believe that they (Russia) had none”. Although Russia did wish to seek a warm-water port that was not as isolated as Sevastopol, Russian policymakers in this era looked toward East Asia rather than south to Iran and India and there appears to be little appetite for an attack on India. Nevertheless, Russia saw Britain as her main imperial rival and this view was very much reciprocated.

This arrangement in which a loose “Liberal Entente” of Britain and France were aligned against a Continental Dreikaiserbund lasted until 1888 when the death of Wilhelm I of Germany threatened to upend the entire European system. His son Friedrich III was married to the British Princess Victoria, and the new Emperor had strong pro-British and pro-liberal sympathies. Perhaps most important for Germany, Friedrich had a strong enmity for Bismarck, who managed to survive only a few months as the new emperor’s chancellor. Once the new emperor had secured enough support, he unceremoniously dismissed Bismarck and replaced him with the liberal politician Rudolf von Bennigsen.[4] Although the new emperor and his chancellor were not immediately concerned with diplomacy, his Anglophilia was well known throughout the foreign ministries of Europe, and in particular, Russia feared the loss of her German ally. Although the feeling of weakness that Russia had suffered from since her defeat in 1877 had largely vanished by this point, Alexander III who was by no means pro-German in sentiment, feared that if Germany drifted away from Russia, then Russia would be left isolated and vulnerable.

The break that threatened to upend the existing diplomatic order in Europe came in 1890 when Von Bennigsen announced his intention not to renew the Dreikaiserbund with Russia and Austria-Hungary. Von Bennigsen’s intentions are still debated, and whether he wished to align Germany with the more liberal powers of Europe or whether he simply wanted to move away from an autocratic Russia whose internal policies, particularly those regarding internal minorities such as the Jews, horrified both the Kaiser and his liberal government. Bismarck bemoaned what he saw as a move away from an alliance that provided security for Germany and replaced it with nothing, and in his own words he stated his belief that “diplomacy is not to be made on the basis of personal sympathies and sentiments”. There was a fear that denied certain security on her western borders, Russia would instead seek to make common cause with France, encircling Germany. Alexander III’s foreign minister Nikolay Girs approached the French in 1891 with a proposal to form an alliance between the two countries. Although the Russians managed to secure some investment from France, with ties between Britain and France still strong the French were unwilling to risk alienating their British friends, who were seen as crucial in allowing France to expand her overseas empire. Instead, Russia would spend the first part of the 1890’s in an isolated position.

[1] – There were so many people lining up to take pot-shots at the Tsar that his assassination becomes something of an inevitability. I would have liked to have butterflied his death as I think Alexander II was pretty decent as far as Tsars go, but I’m writing alternate history damnit, not ASB fantasy!
[2] – It’s important to note here that due to the fallout of Russia’s defeat in 1877, tensions in the Balkans between Russia and Austria-Hungary are lessened for now, and the Dual Alliance hasn’t been created.
[3] – Without British entanglement in Egypt limiting them as much as OTL, they are far less likely to acquiesce to the German colony in what would become Tanganyika
[4] – Stopping someone from getting cancer is somewhat different from a man every assassin was lining up to throw a bomb at. Certainly, Friedrich’s heavy smoking caused his cancer, but as some very old smokers can attest, they’re sometimes just lucky. Friedrich’s reign probably won’t have the impact you expect, however.

* * * * * *

Author's notes - So a lot has changed for Europe's diplomacy compared to OTL. Without the tensions and hostility caused by Britain's unilateral invasion of Egypt in 1882, the Entente Cordiale is not delayed by twenty or so years, though it is worth keeping in mind that this is not a formal alliance as of yet. The Dreikaiserbund ends without the subsequent Reinsurance Treaty of OTL, which may well lead to Russia gravitating toward Britain and France unless some monumental screw-up takes place. The Liberals are in charge in Germany for now, but with Britain and France already cozy, she may have to wait for an opportunity to replace France as Britain's continental ally.

The next update will be more of a survey look at internal political trends in various European and non-European nations to see how things have changed, but I don't have many updates planned now before the big events of 1894-95 which may well turn things upside down. Is this an early Great War, or am I just being a ridiculous tease? Only time will tell.

 

[Nassirisimo]

Lü Shengli; The Transformation of the Human Mind – Ideology in the 19th and 20th Centuries: Tsinghua University Press

Ideology's place in politics up to 1900​

The assassination of the Russian Tsar Alexander II by the radical Narodnaya Volya was perhaps one of the most stunning of assassinations carried out by leftist radicals up until that point. The idea of the “Propaganda of the deed” was that an action undertaken even by a single individual could if aimed at a high-profile target, become the spark for mass movements. If this was the idea behind the Propaganda of the deed then the effects of the assassination of Alexander II would prove to be a great disappointment to many radicals both within and outside of Russia. Rather than an outpouring of anger against the system, most peasants did nothing. After all, Alexander II was the Tsar who had freed them from serfdom, and who had afforded them a modicum of political power under the Zemstvo system. The assassination of the “Liberator Tsar” did however produce a strong reactionary impulse in his son, Alexander III, whose reign saw the expansion of the Okhrana secret police, a weakening of reform, and what few democratic institutions that Russia had.

The aftermath did not seem to discourage other anarchists and radical leftists from what can only be described as a campaign of assassinations of important figures in the latter part of the 19th century. The Italian King Umberto was left paralyzed after an anarchist made an attempt on his life in 1899, and Alfonso XII of Spain was killed by an anarchist in 1892. The Hapsburgs of Austria proved to be a most tempting target for assassinations however, as in several different assassination attempts, both the Emperor and Empress were targeted (including an incident in which the emperor was stabbed, but from which he recovered). The Austrian Crown Prince Rudolf was killed by an anarchist in 1890, an event that shocked the world and led to a wave of repression on the part of the Austro-Hungarian authorities against what were identified as subversive elements.[1] As was the case with Alexander II none of these attempted or successful assassinations resulted in wider political uprisings against authorities, and by the beginning of the 20th century, the use of assassination as a political tool was starting to lose its popularity, particularly as radical or socialist political parties began to increase in popularity throughout Europe. This move from the margins of society to the chambers of power would have an impact on more than just anarchism.

In several different European countries, liberalism had been the greatest opponent of both conservatives and reactionaries. However, with the downfall of genuinely reactionary governments in Western and Central Europe, especially after 1848 and 1867, liberalism now had to become an ideology of governance outside its traditional home of the United Kingdom. Having been the object of fear for nearly a century in some places, it proved to be far less radical than was feared in some areas or hoped for in others. In Britain the old Liberalism of Gladstone was gradually fading away, having won most of its battles concerning free trade or individual liberty. Certainly, after his retirement from politics, it had lost its most eloquent advocate and appeared to be besieged by a resurgent conservativism, buoyed by an increasingly jingoistic outlook on foreign policy, by “New Liberalism” which claimed individual liberty was only possible under more favorable social and economic circumstances, and perhaps most threateningly by the nascent socialist movement. Challenged by these new movements and by the seemingly hopeless situation regarding Irish Home Rule, a desperate Liberal government had by the 1890s turned to foreign policy as a way to shore up its crumbling support.

Liberalism's unpopularity in Germany and his own reluctance doomed the attempts of Frederick III to build a Westminster style political system​

In Germany too, liberalism’s triumph appeared to miscarry. With the death of Wilhelm I and the subsequent downfall of Otto von Bismarck, it appeared that the government of Frederick III wanted to take Germany in a more liberal direction. While the German monarch had become more sympathetic to its cause, German liberalism began to fracture between different movements. They failed to win majorities in the Reichstag, being strongly challenged both by the still-powerful conservatives as well as by the growing socialist movement, which only grew stronger with the removal of the anti-socialist laws in 1889. Faced with the electoral weakness of liberalism in Germany, both the Kaiser and his Chancellor Rudolf von Bennigsen, preferred to keep the German cabinet responsible to the Kaiser rather than the Reichstag as much as possible until the German population could be “educated” to an acceptable degree. This the German people could not do apparently, and when the Kaiser’s ill health became more apparent in 1900, the German Liberals were divided, presiding over a fundamentally undemocratic system, and faced with the prospect of a Crown Prince who was unsympathetic to them taking the throne in the near future.[2]

However, in the East of Europe, the 1880s and ‘90s would prove to be far more difficult times for liberals. In the Ottoman Empire, the moves toward constitutionalism that seemed to be taking place in the 1870s were thrown off balance by a wave of catastrophes that swept the empire, leaving the conservative Abdülhamid II in power, who gave thought to political reform only when he was forced to. Although liberal opposition groups remained in the empire, the backwardness of Ottoman society meant that their influence was weak. Likewise in Russia, Alexander III saw liberalism as a limitation on what should be the absolute power of the Tsar. Both Alexander and Abdülhamid could not be counted as reactionaries in the old sense, however, as both undertook the modernization of their respective realms, especially in the case of the latter. There was an awareness that they could not simply turn the clock back but instead felt as though modernization could best be achieved under autocratic governments rather than the chaotic liberalism seen elsewhere.

Socialism had existed for decades by this point but was still a somewhat ineffectual force when compared to more established ideologies yet was still feared for its role in the Paris Commune of 1871. In 1900 there were no socialists involved in government anywhere in Europe, though trade unionism and the representation of socialists within parliaments and assemblies throughout Europe were expanding rapidly. The hectic pace of industrialization was producing a proletarian class in almost all the countries of Europe, and it was on this basis that Socialist parties were beginning to form and grow in number. The British Labour Party and Russian Socialist Revolutionary Party were formed in 1900, joining existing socialist parties in Italy, France, and Germany. While most of these parties promoted gradual reforms to improve the condition of the working classes, elements within them opposed this reformist trend and believed in a more Marxist, revolutionary path to power. Especially in Russia, this ensured that socialism would be on the receiving end of attention and repression from the authorities. In Germany too, the socialists were seen as subversive elements, and while not openly persecuted tended to be disregarded by those in power.

To what extent could Imperialism be seen as an ideology? Certainly, there was a belief amongst most Europeans in this period that Imperialism was a force for good. As the British saw it, their empire protected free-trade, individual rights and spread civilization across the globe. With the rise of “New Imperialists” such as Cecil Rhodes and Joseph Chamberlin, the expansion of the British Empire gained an added ideological element that had not been as prominent previously. For example, while the intervention in Egypt in 1882 had largely been justified simply due to the strategic risk presented by the Egyptian Revolution, the subsequent expansion of the empire across much of Africa was promoted by figures such as Rhodes as not merely being the process of “painting the map pink”, but as a project to spread the “Anglo-Saxon race” as far as possible. The “Civilizing Process” included both the settlement of white farmers in land previously held by African natives, but also the replacement of African leaders who were seen as the worse exemplars of cruelty, such as King Msiri of Katanga and the Afro-Arab slavers of Zanzibar. Appealing both to moral sensibilities as well as a sense of jingoism back home, British colonial administrators were able to build a more cohesive Imperial ideology than had existed in the past.

For other European powers, however, imperialism was somewhat less ideological. Certainly, in France, there appears to have been evidence of it. Although France’s expansion across the Sahel appears to have been pushed forward by the initiative of individual officers more than a push by the government in Paris, the latter was more than happy to take advantage of the political benefits of France’s colonial expansion. Although not without risk (Chinese expansion in Indochina nearly met disaster in the Sino-French War of 1888), this nevertheless assuaged some discontent over what was seen as France’s relative decline in the world. Certainly, when compared to the measly empires that were built up by both Germany and Italy, the French Empire proved that France was still a vigorous state. This was important in the age of Social Darwinism, where the Darwinian idea of “Survival of the Fittest” was applied to nations. Those that could compete would grow and thrive, while those that were “unfit” would find themselves ravaged by their stronger neighbors. In the general absence of European great-power conflict after the Franco-Prussian War of 1870-71, an expanding colonial empire was seen as a key indicator that one was a “fit” state. Thus, imperialism was tied up with other popular ideological strains such as Social Darwinism.

For those European powers that had colonial ambitions but not much of an empire to show for it, Imperialism was something that provided an impulse to more extreme movements. In Germany, the unwillingness of both Bismarck and von Bennigsen to challenge Britain’s colonial expansion and carve a “place in the sun” for Germany encouraged revisionist sentiments within the Volkisch movement and the Pan-German League. The conservative politician Bernhard von Bülow castigated what he saw as the timid foreign policy of von Bennigsen and questioned why “at a time when the world is divided up between the great European powers, one of the greatest at all is left without any place in the sun”. In Italy, it was limited resources rather than diplomatic considerations that prevented the development of a vast colonial empire. Nevertheless, some Italian politicians such as Francesco Crispi found Imperialism to be a useful tool to unite the still disparate Italy. [3]

Anti-Imperialist Imperialism? The paradox of Japan's rise to power was raised by its stunning victory over China in 1895​

And what of those powers that found themselves threatened by European Imperialism? Anti-Imperialism was beginning to mature as an ideology in the last quarter of the 19th century. The defeat of Russia by the Ottoman Empire in 1877 was noticed by other non-European powers as a sign that European Imperial powers could be defeated by a sufficiently determined nation. However, few Asian and African powers had the military resources of the Ottoman Empire, which had been undergoing a series of Westernizing reforms since the 1830s. The famous Pan-Islamist thinker Jamal al-Afghani identified the Ottoman Empire as the best hope of the Muslim world to avoid political domination by the European Powers, but by the 1890s he was somewhat disappointed in the lack of concrete efforts by Sultan Abdülhamid, who engaged in Pan-Islamic rhetoric, to aid other Islamic states that found themselves attacked by European powers. Nevertheless, the example of the Ottomans inspired others such as the Urabist Nationalists of Egypt and the Acehnese in their fights against European colonialists. However, the Urabists had little success when compared to the Ottomans or the Acehnese, and there was some debate in the Pan-Islamist movement over what course to take to better resist European Imperialism.

In East Asia, responses to Imperialism were more disparate, and can largely be seen through the lenses of Japan and China. In Japan, the elite, after spasms of rebellion including most famously Saigo Takamori’s uprising of Samurai in 1876, coalesced around what has been termed a “Meiji Ideology” which could be best summed up in the phrase Fukoku kyōhei, or “rich country, strong army”. If Japanese independence was to be preserved, the country would have to be enriched and the military strengthened, and other considerations such as the rights of the individual would be subordinated to this overall goal. The Meiji period saw a great increase in the amount of taxation that most Japanese were subject to, as well as the power of the central government. However, it would be unfair to characterize Japan’s political development in this period merely as a move toward autocracy. A constitution was promulgated in 1889, pushed by the belief that a constitution did not necessarily prevent a strong central government capable of preserving the nation’s independence. Not all the change that Japan experienced was framed as emulating Europe however, and a great deal of the transformation was framed as a renewal of tradition. The “restoration” of the emperor to a more prominent position in national politics for example was presented as a return to the days before the Shogun, as was the promotion of the national Shinto cult. The ideological basis of Japan’s modernization was thus more complicated than a simple paradigm of “Westernization”.

If Japan was the epitome of success when it came to ward off the imperialist ambitions of Western countries, then China may have been the opposite. But the previously fashionable explanation that this was because the Japanese government was more amenable to the adoption of Western ideas and ideology has been challenged strongly in recent years. The Chinese impulse to reform had started to gain ground with the self-strengthening movement in the 1860s, as multiple defeats at the hands of European powers had illustrated the weakness of the Qing State quite clearly to the ruling elite of China. As in the Muslim world and Japan, many Chinese thinkers argued that their ideology and systems of thinking were not incompatible with the scientific advances of the West and asserted that the two could be combined in a coherent system that would enable China to keep pace with the rest of the world. And until China’s defeat at the hands of the Japanese in 1895, it seemed as if the Chinese were on the path to success. China’s defeat and the punitive treaty of Shimonoseki that followed it seemed to present different lessons for different elements in Chinese society.[4] The disagreements that came in the aftermath of Shimonoseki would prove to be a watershed in the development of Chinese political thought in the early 20th century.

[1] – I just couldn’t bear to see the Hapsburgs get a break. At least an assassination ticks off one possible scandal (the Mayerling murder-suicide of OTL). I wonder what Redl is up to…
[2] – This of course being Kaiser Wilhelm II
[3] – Crispi will follow a somewhat different path to OTL, especially in terms of foreign policy
[4] – I can’t get into it much now, but for various reasons, Shimonoseki is a different treaty from what was seen in OTL. Trust me.

* * * * * *

Author’s notes – So this was a bit of a long one. I wanted to give a panorama of political thought, some of it broadly following OTL (the position of the liberals in Britain for example) but some quite divergent due to butterflies (Germany, the Ottoman Empire). Some of this is to give some perspective on the more radical changes that will happen in the future. It may appear that not a huge deal has changed up to this point, there have been some “under the hood” changes that are really going to transform a lot of things going into the first decade or two of the twentieth century.

Up until now places such as the United States and Latin America haven't been covered in any detail at all, but there will be some updates, for both places, not just in the near future.

 

[Nassirisimo]

Brian Lewis; Catastrophe - Africa's Path to Subjugation: Routledge

Gordon and the Tragedy of the Congo​

Belgium had been accepted as a state, in part, because of a desire for a neutral buffer between the three main powers in Western Europe. In 1885 its ambitious King Leopold II, who had long desired his own African colony, convinced the other colonial powers involved in Africa to accept his creation of a Congo Free State largely thanks to the same rationale. An enormous portion of Central Africa was awarded not to the Belgian state, but to King Leopold himself. Leopold had made a number of lofty promises for what his colony would achieve. The slave trade in the eastern part of the country, dominated by Arab-Swahili slave traders based in Zanzibar would be destroyed. The Congo basin would be opened up to European trade, offering a vast market not only for Belgian businessmen but for those of Britain, France, and Germany too. He would also provide a safe environment for missionaries to spread the Christian faith in the Congo. These were all high-minded goals but the reality of the Free State’s rule was to be vastly more insidious.

Initially, it seemed as if Leopold had made all the right moves to establish his colony. The famous Victorian explorer Henry Morton Stanley had helped Leopold set up his initial colonies in the West of the Congo, and with the creation of the Congo Free State, Leopold appointed another famous Victorian hero, the British soldier Charles “Chinese” Gordon as the governor of the Congo. This appeared to be a match made in heaven, with Gordon nothing that Leopold “seemed much concerned with the mission to abolish this horrid traffic in innocent lives”. Gordon had misgivings about Stanley and hoped that he could set the colony on a different course, writing to his friend Richard Burton that he hoped he could “establish a civilized rule in the dark heart of the continent, without any the cruel methods employed by that man (Stanley)”. Gordon relished undertaking expeditions to the east of the Congo, fighting the Zanzibari slave traders who had begun to operate in the Congo to seize ever more slaves for the hungry plantations of the coast and islands. In 1887 a confrontation between soldiers loyal to Tippu Tip, the infamous Zanzibari slave trader, and those of the Force Publique, ended in a Free State fort being captured by Tip.

Gordon responded furiously, leading a large expedition that began to push Tip out of eastern Congo. However, his own force was ravaged by supply issues and disease, and it took the best part of 1888 to steadily reduce the Zanzibari presence in the area. At numerous times it seemed as if Gordon’s insufficient force was on the brink of disaster, and it is only through some luck and an unwillingness by Tip to commit fully to the destruction of Gordon’s force that he was able to survive. Furthermore, Gordon’s expedition was incredibly costly, and these were costs that Leopold did not wish to incur in a war that risked his still-vulnerable colony. By the end of 1888, Leopold issued a decree which stated that the native African population could only sell their products, such as ivory and rubber, to the state. This action violated one of Leopold’s promises to the other European powers, namely that the Congo would be open to free trade. This led to protests from many companies, and this forced Leopold to backtrack and explore other ways to raise revenues. For the time being, he commanded Gordon to stop his war against the Zanzibari slave traders in the east, but this incensed Gordon, who subsequently decided to resign his position as governor of the Congo.

But this was not the end of Gordon’s adventures in Africa. After he left the Congo, Gordon traveled to South Africa where he met Cecil Rhodes, who at that point was attempting to expand British (and his own) influence within central Africa. When presented an opportunity to foil the ambition of Leopold to expand his Free State into Katanga, Gordon agreed to lead an expedition which resulted in the defeat of the native King Msiri who Gordon regarded as the “worst kind of cruel, slaving despot” and bringing Katanga into the British Empire. It was just the kind of action that the late Victorian public was enamored with, a brave soldier fighting to replace a savage chieftain with the civilized rule of Britain. He finally returned to Britain in 1891 to a hero’s welcome, furthering his legend as a soldier for the empire and for what was seen as the virtues of Britain’s empire.[1]

As for the Congo, the situation for the locals deteriorated as the 19th century came to a close. Although the power of the Arab slavers had been weakened by Gordon, they still launched slave raids from the few bases that they maintained west of the Great Lakes, and there remained an uneasy equilibrium of power in the eastern province of the Congo until 1893 when Leopold, confident in the strength of his Force Publique at last, sent it to destroy what was left of the Arab presence in the Congo Free State. He presented this as finally fulfilling the aim of destroying slavery, which went some way toward mollifying opinion toward his Free State. However, this would prove to be short-lived as throughout the 1890s, stories of atrocities within the Congo Free State, caused in part by Leopold’s rapaciousness and desire to increase the profitability of his colony, began to filter into the European consciousness. One of the most influential and damning accounts of the situation in the Congo came from the Polish-born British novelist Joseph Conrad in his book Heart of Darkness, which painted a harrowing picture of the situation within the Congo. By the 20th century, the picture became clear. Arab slavery had been removed from the Congo, but it had been replaced by something that was far more horrifying.

[1] – Gordon’s recklessness in the Congo is forgotten, for the time being, it seems.

* * * * * *

Zanzibar - A Colony of India?​

The Swahili coast had a complicated history and had been ruled by Oman until 1856 when the Omani Empire was divided between the two sons of Said bin Sultan. Even before the creation of the Sultanate of Zanzibar, the area was dominated economically by the British through their Indian subjects. Americans too had been influential in the trade with Zanzibar but under British political pressure, their trade waned as the 19th century progressed. By the 1870s Zanzibar was firmly in the British sphere of influence, an important part of their informal empire. Attempts by Said bin Sultan to break free of the grip of the British had come to naught, and as a result, the British had to some extent encouraged the division of his realm between his two sons, though this was not seen as a partition by the people of both Oman and Zanzibar themselves.[1]

The Sultanate of Zanzibar thrived in this era of growing commerce in the Indian Ocean. Zanzibar’s trade increased briskly, including both imports of cloth and weaponry, and exports of ivory and cloves. This trade was particularly strong with India, which was by far the largest trading partner of Zanzibar. Not only did Indians dominate Britain’s trade, but Indians resident in Zanzibar filled the role of financiers for the Sultan, and their interests were often protected by their British overlords. Zanzibar was the entrepot of the East African coast, and British commercial houses in the area saw the task of maintaining British influence as paramount. Following the call of David Livingstone to claim Africa by commerce and Christianity, both businesses and missionaries were increasingly interested in the opportunities presented by the interior, which was claimed by the Sultan of Zanzibar but which in reality was dominated by powerful slave traders such as the infamous Hamad al-Murjabi, better known as Tippu Tip. By the mid-1880s however, the power of these slavers was declining, as they were challenged to the west by forces of the Congo Free State led by the British military hero Charles Gordon.

Tales of Gordon’s fight against slavery inspired those in Britain who wished to see the abolition of the institution globally, but British policy did not push the abolition of the slave trade onto her Zanzibari allies too forcefully.[2] Indeed prior to the signing of the Anglo-Zanzibar treaty of 1891 which confirmed Zanzibar’s status as a British protectorate, Zanzibar was an informal colony of India as much as it was of Britain. But this had already begun to change in the latter half of the 1880s when trading companies based in Britain, attracted by the numerous raw materials and products to be found in the interior, began to set up trading posts there. The interior of Zanzibar was also seen as an important gateway to Uganda, which became a British protectorate in 1894. As the British began to build infrastructure such as railways and ports, both British and particularly Indian migrants came to build the railways and administrate the country which was steadily falling out of the hands of the Arab-Swahili elite based in Zanzibar. By 1900 the influence of the old ruling class on the island of Zanzibar itself was waning in the interior, replaced instead by a new British ruling class which although theoretically serving only in an advisory capacity, had instead usurped control of the vast interior of the Sultanate.

[1] - Loyalties were still based along personal and tribal lines rather to the idea of a nation-state.

[2] – Although British pressure in OTL resulted in the end of slavery in Zanzibar (it was a slow process that took decades), they were happy to turn a blind eye when convenient. In German East Africa even German officials traded in slaves as late as the 1890s however.

* * * * * *

Author's notes - Hand-wringing over slavery within Africa was a common justification for the expansion of European colonies toward the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th. Of course, the Arab-Swahili slave trade was a very real thing, as was slavery in West Africa, but as I was researching this update (that German officials buying slaves thing is totally true), the more horrified I was at the sheer hypocrisy. It takes all kinds, I suppose...

 

[Nassirisimo]

Talori, 1894​

The Kurds were here again. They came every year, to collect their “tribute”. For here in the mountains of Eastern Anatolia, there were not one, but two masters. As well as taxes to the regular government, the Armenians had to pay money and give various goods to the nomadic Kurdish tribes. But this year, they would be refused.

Last year, the tribute had included the pretty young daughter of one of the villagers, and this had been a step too far for many. Everyone’s wives, daughters or sisters were now at risk of being dragged into the harem of one of these savages and subjected to a kind of treatment that none of them dared imagine. So they would not meekly hand over whatever was demanded. They would fight.

Abdullah was the first to know that something was wrong. As they approached the village, they could not see any sign of life. No farmers tilling their fields, no children playing outside. No sooner had he stopped riding forward, than a gunshot rang out from the village. The man beside him fell off his horse, face down on the dusty ground. Abdullah let out a yell and charged forward along with his fellows.

Where the villagers acquired the guns, who knows. The Hunchaks and Dashnaks had both been arming civilians, hoping for a great revolution that would create a free Armenia. But for the village of Talori, they could wait no longer while these bandits and brigands took the food from their children’s mouths and their womenfolk from their homes. They would fight back today.

But the Kurds proved to be the better fighters. Abdullah sighted a man firing from behind a wall. He aimed his rifle, fired, and the man let out a scream. The Armenians were fighting hard but were no match for the numbers of the Kurds. After half an hour of fighting, the firing from the village had subsided and the Kurdish raiders now felt comfortable approaching the village. This time there would be no primitive system of requisitioning, there would be plunder. The doors of houses were kicked down, and terrified women and children huddled in the corner as strange men covered in dust and blood ransacked their houses. If they were lucky, the men would take any valuables and move on. If they were unlucky, they would snatch women and children, to become slaves or worse.

Talori was a footnote in history, but for the people of the village, it was nothing less than a holocaust. Their menfolk were slaughtered trying to defend what little they had, their women raped, their children snatched and their village destroyed. Abdullah and his compatriots rode away, as Abdullah turned back and saw the flames of the village illuminating the sky as evening turned to night. wamā l-naṣru illā min ʿindi l-lahi, thought Abdullah to himself as he held a young woman over his lap. Victory is sweet indeed.

* * * * * *

Westminster, 1895​

Archibald Primrose, Earl of Roseberry and Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, was not in a good position. He had become Prime Minister in the wake of yet another Liberal defeat over Irish Home Rule. Gladstone was now retired and it seemed as if Roseberry was given the unenviable task of carrying the Liberal Party to an inglorious defeat at the hands of the reinvigorated Conservatives. And now came word of fresh atrocities in the Near East against the Christian population of Turkey. Faced with a crisis such as this, Roseberry turned to the one man whose moral standpoint on the issue was beyond question.

“I had the firm conviction that something like this would happen. The situation is grave indeed” Gladstone had become cantankerous in his old age, and if there was one subject that would trigger his indignation like no other, it was that of Turkish atrocities against Christians. “We have all allowed them to undertake these actions. Myself included. I would have sooner allowed the Russians to take the straits than allow the Turk the whip hand over Christians”

“But what would you advise my government do? It appears we have little enough influence amongst the Turkish government to force an end to this madness” Roseberry asked. He and Gladstone had not seen eye to eye on all matters, particularly when it came to the matter of empire. However, it was prudent to seek the advice of the “Grand Old Man”, particularly when it came to topics with a great moral dimension.

“Intervention with our army and navy is the only way. If the crowned heads of Europe are content to stand by when Christians are slaughtered, then it falls upon us to lead the charge against the Turk”

This answer concerned Roseberry. “Intervention may come with difficulties. It will be no walkover to force the Turks into submission. You remember as well as anyone what the Russians attempted in 1877 to no avail”

“You asked what I would advise your government to do. You see all the talk of Beaconsfield about the protection of the Crimean order, did nothing to resolve what causes these Eastern Crises have. Mark my words, so long as the Turk is left with the whip-hand raised against Christians, we will be forever learning of some fresh massacre in the East. There is nothing else for it, finishing Turkey’s rule over Christians once and for all is the only real solution”

Roseberry digested what Gladstone had said. Certainly, if he were to finally bring a solution to the Eastern Question that had dogged both British and European statesmen for decades, he would have a great achievement on his hands. Something that would elevate his time as Prime Minister to greatness. What Gladstone said was correct. The Turks were racially incapable of the reform needed to establish lasting peace in the East. Something more drastic had to be done.

* * * * * *

Author's notes - And now we enter a more depressing phase of the timeline. Atrocities are for me, hard to write about, but they are an integral part of both history and our present. The Hamidian Massacres of the 1890s are still hotly debated, presented as the intensification of existing patterns of intercommunal violence and revolt by some, and as a precursor to the Armenian Genocide of 1915 by others. Honestly, after all the reading I did on the subject (and it was quite a lot), I'm still not decided. Certainly, there was a great deal of death, a lot of it inflicted by those such as the Hamidye who were supposedly subordinate to the Sultan, but there appears to be no smoking gun of Abdulhamid ordering these massacres. Indeed he was more concerned at the possibility of Europeans using the massacres as an excuse to curtail the empire's soverignty. Of course with a larger Christian population than OTL, TTL's Ottoman Empire faces an even greater reaction from the European powers. Atrocities are usually given attention over others for various reasons and this will be true of TTL's equivalent of the "Hamidian Massacres".

To stop from rambling too much, I'll simply say that I hope I've gone some way toward illustrating the very real violence that took place in Anatolia in the last decade of the 19th century and that I have done so in a respectful way.

 

[Nassirisimo]

Fadıl Necmi; The Sublime Ottoman State: A History of the Ottoman Empire: Istanbul University Press

From Massacres to Rebellions - The Eastern Crisis of 1895​

In isolation, the Sason Rising would be merely a particularly horrific case of intercommunal violence of the sort that was common in Eastern Anatolia toward the end of the 19th century. However, the uprising was not followed by a return to calm, but rather a wider uprising not only on the part of the Armenians but the Bulgarians too. The Sason rising had started when an Armenian village in the region was plundered, possibly by Kurdish tribesmen, and the Armenian population of the surrounding area protested this by refusing to pay taxes to the central government and with minor acts of violence toward local officials. The Ottoman government reacted harshly, sending soldiers, and provoking the Armenians into radical retaliation. Throughout the Sason district, Armenians who had been armed by the Dashnak Party and other revolutionary groups took up arms and banded together to fight the government forces. Some areas of the district held out for a month until they were finally subdued, and when reports of the massacre made their way to the international press, the outcry forced the governments of the Great Powers to send their own commission of enquiry to Eastern Anatolia.

Alone this was enough of a public relations nightmare for the Ottoman Government, but it would only pale in comparison to the events of 1894. Armenian Revolutionary Groups had been in contact with Bulgarian Nationalists since the 1880s, and in response to the events of Sason coordinated their efforts more closely. Observing the indignation seen even in countries thought friendly to the Ottoman Empire, both the Armenians and Bulgarians began to consider a change of tactics. Until this point, both had fought with the tactics of public opinion, appealing to Western powers to secure change within the Ottoman Empire, and they faced accusations that they entrapped the Ottomans into retaliation. H. F. B. Lynch, who journeyed throughout Armenia a few years after the events in question, described what he thought was the modus operandi of the revolutionaries: “The object of these men is to keep the Armenian cause alive by lighting a flame here and there and calling: Fire! The cry is taken up in the European press; and when people run to look there are sure to be some Turkish officials drawn into the trap and committing abominations.” Though taking away agency for atrocities from the Ottoman perpetrators of atrocities, this nevertheless sheds some light on the Armenian use of Ottoman countermeasures as a tactic in their struggle for nationhood.[1]

There has been limited study of the Dashnak archives, and it appears unclear as to whether a change from this type of provocateur tactics to those of seizing and holding territory was agreed upon beforehand by the Bulgarians and Armenians, or whether the Armenians simply observed Bulgarian success and emulated it. Regardless of how it was planned, the Vratsa Uprising of the 20th of April 1895 (a date certainly chosen for its significance) proved to be far more successful than the April uprising of 1876. Whereas before the Bulgarian Revolutionaries had hoped that the population would be inspired by their actions and rise up, now they had planned carefully in advance and had built up resistance cells in their targeted area. Ottoman garrisons were attacked, local commanders and officials were killed, and the rebels declared an independent Bulgaria. The Ottomans rushed troops to Sofia by railway to reinforce the beleaguered local forces, but rebels attacked the Sofia railway and forced the Ottomans to instead march troops by foot. Now the revolt spread, and soldiers were often ambushed while marching in columns. While the Ottomans remained in control of the larger cities and towns within Bulgaria, as well as areas of the countryside which were majority Muslim, their grip on the rest of the country was weakening by the middle of May.

The events in Bulgaria had not gone unnoticed elsewhere in the empire. In Van, Armenian revolutionaries followed a similar pattern to the Bulgarians and attacked Armenians who were seen as collaborators with the Ottoman government, going so far as to kill the pro-Ottoman Bishop Boghos Melikian of Van.[2] In Zeytun the Armenians took up arms as well, seizing control of the town and killing and expelling the Muslim population of the town. Outside of the Bulgarian and Armenian examples, the Ottomans found themselves challenged by a renewed revolt in Herzegovina and Crete, where nationalists agitated once again for separation from the Ottoman Empire, and in the case of Crete, Enosis or union with Greece. In just a few months, the Ottoman Empire had seen rebels take control of significant portions of the empire, and it would take some time for the authorities to assert control over these areas once again. Confronted with this mounting crisis and determined to restore control, Abdülhamid announced the partial mobilization of the Ottoman Army on the 2nd of June 1895. He also called upon local groups such as the Hamidiye irregular cavalry to do as much as possible to defeat rebels, and many such groups took this as a license to attack and rob their peaceful neighbours as well as rebels.[3]

Left to their own devices, the Ottoman Government might have been able to bring the revolutionaries to heel, albeit at a great cost to civilian lives and after some months of bloody fighting. As had been the case for other episodes of unrest it was not the military threat presented by the Sultan’s rebellious subjects that was the main challenge, but rather the reaction of the great powers to Ottoman attempts to quell these revolts. Already by the spring of 1895, stories of Ottoman atrocities, sometimes embellished but all too often true, were seen in newspapers across Europe. Abdülhamid was now nicknamed “Abdul the red” or “Abdul the damned” and was seen as the quintessential Eastern despot. Hook-nosed, hunched and with death whispering in his ear, Abdülhamid’s image as the great monster of the time in the minds of many in the West was solidified. With this image of the Ottomans circulating among the populations of the Great Powers, and with politicians and statesmen increasingly strong in their condemnation of the “Hamidian Massacres”, it seemed as if the conflict would escalate even further.

[1] – I do want to try and keep as balanced a view as I can here. The Armenian massacres and genocide of 1915 is a very touchy subject and has been on this very forum in the past. Recently the scholarly consensus has shifted toward acceptance of the events from 1915 as a genocide (even from scholars labelled as genocide deniers such as Edward J. Erickson), and this is a view I now hold. At the same time, I do think that some on the Armenian side of the debate tend to ignore the agency of Armenians within intercommunal conflicts in Anatolia and the suffering of Muslim populations. This of course does not excuse Turkish denial of the genocide or the massacres of Armenians, and I think that this is a debate that will no doubt continue to shift in the years and decades ahead. Anyway, this footnote is long enough as it is.

[2] – This happened in OTL as well. Van had a particularly high Armenian population and as such was not only protected from the first wave of massacres in the Hamidian massacres of OTL but was a focus of Armenian opposition to the Ottoman government until the genocide of 1915. Even then, however, the Armenians of Van went down fighting to some extent.

[3] – The Hamidiye were an irregular cavalry force designed to coopt the Kurdish tribesmen of Eastern Anatolia into defending the Ottoman State and serving as a Cossack-like force in the Ottoman army. They did not prove to be as effective a fighting force as the Cossacks though.

 

[Nassirisimo]

Timothy Evans; Boldly into the Modern Age - A history of Europe from 1789 to 2000: Oxford University Press

The Road to the Great Balkan War of 1895​

For some time before 1894, opinions within Europe toward the Ottoman Empire had slowly been shifting. Initially, the Ottoman victory in 1877 had seemed like a key spark in the renewal of the informal “Crimean Alliance” which had tied Britain and France together in an alliance that preserved the territorial integrity of the Ottoman Empire and kept Russia contained. Internal politics as well as changing international circumstances had swiftly taken the Ottomans out of the equation. A key breaking point was Egypt, in which the Ottomans had refused to act as the “policeman” for the European powers. The occupation of Egypt by Britain, France and Italy saw the subsequent creation of a condominium by the former two powers in 1884, pulling Egypt ever further from the orbit of Constantinople and producing a great deal of resentment within the Ottoman elite. More importantly, however, having the Suez Canal directly in the hands of the Franco-British removed some of the security concerns that had plagued the British for decades. By 1890, the once informal guarantee on the integrity of the empire was now dead. Furthermore, this was apparent to every power within Europe. The Ottomans were now in a dangerously isolated position, and this allowed more hawkish elements in the Russian Empire to start seriously considering how best to take revenge for 1877.

If the diplomatic situation had changed by the 1890s, so too had the increasingly important element of public opinion. Increased missionary activity, particularly in Eastern Anatolia, illuminated the ill-treatment of Christians within the empire to an ever-wider audience. A Scottish missionary active in Van noted that “the daily cruelties inflicted upon those near-eastern Christians could scarcely be imagined by even the most savage of African chieftains”. The Turks were now seldom seen in the same light as they were in Crimea but were viewed by a large part of the population as a savage, alien element in Europe whose continued existence as an empire was nothing less than a stain on humanity. “how” one writer asked, “is it that at the zenith of Europe’s power do we tolerate our Christian brethren in the Balkans under the yolk of a most savage Asiatic barbarism?”. Those politicians who still supported a policy of maintaining the Ottoman Empire could not think of a sufficient answer. And in Russia, the Pan-Slavic agitation that had pushed Alexander II into war in 1877 resumed, having undergone a lull in its popularity in the intervening years. This had not gone unnoticed by some in the foreign office, which once again began to imagine how a large Slavic state in the Balkans, dominated by Russia, could enable her to gain control of the straits and protect her soft southern underbelly.

"Together, we are strong"; Pan-Slavic propaganda increased greatly in volume following renewed South Slavic uprisings in the Ottoman Empire​

The Sason Uprising in Armenia, as well as the contemporary uprising in Bulgaria, signalled a sea-change in how those governments in Europe which had been previously supportive of the Ottoman Empire would deal with the empire now. The “Crimean Alliance” that had seen France and Britain band together to defend the Ottomans from Russian aggression had been dead for some time, killed by the changing nature of British and French internal politics as well as their intervention in Egypt. No longer did the Prime Ministers and their Foreign Ministers see the empire as a bulwark against Russian expansion in the Middle East and beyond. Instead, they saw the Ottomans, or at least their rule over Christians, as an abomination, and one that provided little real security for Britain in the long term. And as for the public, the thought of Russians dominating the straits had become less sickening than that of continued atrocities against the Christian people of the Balkans and Anatolia. This alone did not indicate that the governments of Britain and France would not come to the aid of the Ottoman Empire, but it represented another consideration for both.

When the uprisings had started, there had been calls from the foreign ministries and parliaments of Europe to exercise restraint. What happened in the empire was something else entirely. Reports soon began to filter out of the Sultan’s troops and irregulars committing atrocities against the Christian populations of Armenia and Bulgaria. Photographs were taken of the aftermath, dozens or hundreds of bodies strewn across fields. The Ottomans had a reputation for massacres before, but the level of violence in 1894 was unprecedented in Ottoman history. Much in the way of academic research needs to be completed to confirm the body count, as the body count is difficult to distinguish from the subsequent war. Even the most Turcophilic of European statesmen would have been hard-pressed to maintain support for the Ottomans in these circumstances, but by the 1890s, attitudes toward the Ottomans had changed greatly. The Liberal MP James Bryce was convinced that for the Ottoman government “the way to get rid of the Armenian question was to get rid of the Armenians”, and he said as much in parliament. Whether or not the central Ottoman government had ordered the massacres that swept the empire in 1894 is a hotly debated matter, but what is unquestionable is that there was a great deal of suffering amongst the Armenian and Bulgarian populations of the empire [1].

The suffering of Muslim populations, although it happened on a smaller scale, was ignored by the European powers in the following crisis, though it is relevant for its effect on Ottoman decision making during the crisis. In Eastern Anatolia the number of Muslim dead was small, perhaps a thousand or fewer civilians in all, but in Bulgaria, perhaps ten thousand Muslims, including members of the civilian administration, had been killed by Bulgarian insurgents. This had been noticed at the highest levels of the Ottoman government and had a demonstratable effect on the mindset, especially of Abdülhamid. When the massacres were reported in Europe and America, Abdülhamid noted: “how much they make of the suffering of my Christian subjects, and how little that of my Muslim subjects”. It was not this fear that pushed the Ottoman decision to mobilize on the 2nd of June 1895 however, but rather the fear that Bulgaria would be able to break away from the empire on its own if more soldiers were not called up to quell the rebellion. As a cautious character, it is unlikely that Abdülhamid had decided on this course of action lightly and may have felt some indignation at the apparent hypocrisy of the great powers.

The shift in the attitude of the Conservative Party toward the Eastern Question, brought about by Lord Salisbury, enabled Rosebery's change in policy toward the Ottoman Empire​

The success of the Bulgarian rebels had its own effects on the governments of Europe. The leader of Britain’s Conservative opposition Lord Salisbury had long believed that the Ottoman Empire was doomed to collapse, and he had stated that Disraeli’s desire to maintain it as a buffer was “backing the wrong horse”. The Liberal party had continued its opposition to the Ottoman Empire, seeing it largely as an unreformable despotism. The events of 1894-95 had seemingly vindicated these viewpoints, and now the British cabinet began to wonder whether it would not be better to effect a partition of the empire with Russia. These thoughts were not aired outside of the British cabinet room until the 9th of June when an Ottoman army clearing the city of Stara Zagora of Bulgarian insurgents killed thousands of civilians over the course of three days. This prompted protests in Constantinople by the Christian inhabitants of the city, which very nearly became a riot as they clashed with both police and Muslim inhabitants of the city. Intercommunal relations had often been troublesome in the past but following the massacres in Bulgaria and Armenia, they became practically poisoned, with both Muslims and Christians, blaming each other for the breakdown of relations between their communities. The Young Ottoman dream of the Christian and Muslim populations of the empire united in patriotism that encompassed both communities appeared to be gone, replaced with an ugly kind of bigotry that saw survival as a zero-sum game.

Abroad the impact of the Massacre of Stara Zagora was also substantial. The government of Lord Rosebury was increasingly pressured not only by Salisbury’s Conservative Party but also by members of his own Liberal Party. 1893 had seen the Second Home Rule bill defeated in the house of Lords, and Lord Rosebury’s government was floundering. Convinced that coming up with a durable solution to the Eastern Question could go some way toward saving his reputation and his ministry, Roseberry proved receptive to a suggestion from the German Chancellor Rudolf von Bennigsen that a conference be held to settle the “Eastern Question”, which was now as wrapped up in the question of the position of Christians in the empire as it was with the empire’s weakness. The German government had relatively little sympathy for the plight of the Christians, and indeed still maintained their military mission to the Ottoman Empire under Colmar von der Goltz, though again the opinion of the public was somewhat different in this regard. What the Germans were driven by however was an opportunity to ingratiate themselves with the British, whom they saw as their natural allies and split them off from a feared Franco-Russian entente, one which had little basis. The foreign ministers of the Great Powers were invited to meet in Berlin at the end of June.

The Russian mobilization was the decisive move in pushing the situation toward war​

Events moved far too quickly for this conference to take place, however. Already on the 12th of June, the Russians announced a partial mobilization combined with an ultimatum for the Ottomans to stand their soldiers down in Bulgaria and Armenia, pending the German Conference. This shocked the other powers of Europe, some of whom felt as though Russia was exploiting the situation. Although Abdülhamid was fearful of the consequences of a Russian invasion, he also felt as though standing down his soldiers would lead to the collapse of Ottoman authority in these areas and perhaps even the downfall of the empire itself. His only action was to request the Great Powers that they support the Ottomans in forcing Russia to commit to peace until the conference, but in this, he was unsuccessful, based largely on popular revulsion toward the Ottomans within Europe. The Russians in the meantime were in contact with both the British and the French, promising that if it did come to war, the Russians would stay away from the straits and that no Ottoman lands would be annexed by Russia. This went some way toward settling the fears of the French and the British that any war would be a Russian land-grab aimed at the straits, though elements within both countries remained sceptical about Russian intentions. By the 16th of June, a preliminary secret agreement had been made between Russia, France, Britain, and Austria-Hungary.

Russia had not only secured the neutrality (or active support) of the Great Powers in her crusade against the Ottomans, but she had also isolated Germany, which only caught wind of Russia’s backroom dealings when the Romanians published a Russian request for military access to Romanian territory in the event of another Russo-Turkish War. The Romanians were incensed at Russia’s betrayal during the last Russo-Turkish War the Romanians had given up southern Bessarabia in return for nothing, as Russia was not able to provide the promised land in Dobrudja in compensation. In response to the request, King Carol of Romania simply said “România refuză!” Bismarck, now in retirement and side-lined by the ascendency of the liberals in Germany was repulsed by what he saw as the incompetence of Germany’s Kaiser and Chancellor, writing in his diary that “I hoped that I would never live to see the downfall of what I had managed to build”. By the 18th of June 1895, Russia’s diplomatic triumph was complete as she declared war on the Ottomans once again, but this time with the tacit support of almost every other great power. All that remained now was for her army to carry through on the quick victory that would doubtless be needed to make the most of this stunning diplomatic alignment.

[1] – Again this is quite controversial stuff. Some historians have argued that the Hamidian massacres were a precursor, or even a practice run for the genocide of 1915, while others insist that we should examine the Hamidian massacres in their own context.

* * * * * *
Author's notes - This unlikely seeming chain of events does have quite a bit of basis, trust me! Hopefully, within the update itself, I've demonstrated that as in OTL, the willingness of the British and the French to prop up the Ottomans had steadily declined during the latter part of the 19th century, though this was perhaps more true of the British rather than the French.

As for the Russian aggressiveness vis-a-vis OTL, it's worth keeping in mind that despite being known as the "Peacemaker", Alexander III (who is living longer than his OTL counterpart) was not a particularly peaceable man himself and that Russia kept out of the war was largely down to the influence of his foreign minister, Nikolay Girs who has been butterflied out of his position in TTL.

Onto the course of the war itself. The first draft was going to be a monograph-style blow by blow description of the war, but honestly, I found it too boring to write and assumed that you would find it all too boring to read. I don't find the "X corps was defeated at X and general X was replaced" style interesting so instead, we'll be looking a lot less at textbook style updates and a lot more narrative to follow a few characters during the course of the war, with the odd textbook style update here and there. Hopefully you'll find the change in style interesting.

 

[Nassirisimo]

Ali Riza; A Military History of the Ottomans from Osman I: Imperial University Publishing

The Armies of the Ottoman Empire and Russia compared ​

As had been the case in 1877, an initial look at the numbers and figures would have suggested that the situation for the Ottoman Empire was dire. The army of the empire had been reformed to a significant degree prior to 1895, but this had still not given her the kind of army needed to fight a major European power one to one. The army had been reorganized into a territorial system in 1886 and divided into eight military districts to better coordinate a mobilization, but the paucity of railways and good roads within the empire in addition to the poor standard of military bureaucracy meant that any mobilization would be sluggish. German military advisors had been present in the empire, most notably Colmar von der Goltz, and while they had contributed to the drafting of mobilization timetables, in practice these would prove to be over-optimistic. And of course, as with any system in a pre-modern state, there would be desertions, particularly from the tribal forces that had been formed into the irregular Hamidiye regiments in Eastern Anatolia, as well as Arab, Albanian and Bosniak troops whose enthusiasm for the war was judged to be inadequate. Von der Goltz himself noted that “amongst all the races of the Turkish army, it is only the Turkish element itself which is to be relied upon”. The poor reliability of non-Turkish troops meant that from an overall population of 26 million, the Ottoman Empire could only rely on around 5.5 million Turkish men to draw recruits.[1]

Fully mobilized the Ottoman army would number around 800,000 overall, a number that would have placed her among the top ranks of the great powers only twenty-five years before, but already in the mid-1890s meant that she was mobilizing a relatively small army compared to countries such as Germany and France, but crucially that her fully mobilized army was several orders of magnitude less than that of Russia’s. Furthermore, it would take months before those reservists in Anatolia and the Arab provinces could be deployed to Europe. Against the 800,000 Ottoman soldiers, the Russian army as of 1895 could mobilize a total of 3,000,000 including trained reserves. If the Russians were able to supply and deploy this mass of men successfully, then it would provide the numbers to make even an offensive war successful. And since their defeat in 1877, a great deal of planning had been done by the Russian General Staff to ensure that they would be able to deploy enough men to the Balkans and Eastern Anatolia to successfully conclude a war with the Ottoman Empire. When the numbers alone were considered, the Ottomans were at an overwhelming disadvantage, though they were helped somewhat by the relative backwardness of the theatres.

Ottoman redif, or reserve soldiers, pictured during mobilization​

Unfortunately for the Ottomans, the efficiency of their army was substandard as well. The Ottoman Army possessed two general staffs, an independent Erkanı Harbiye as well as a Maiyeti Seniyye Erkani Harbiye, which answered to the sultan. This system of dual control would hamper the army in the event of a conflict, but also proved a detriment when it came to training the army and coordinating peace-time manoeuvres, which took place far less often in the Ottoman army when compared to its European contemporaries. This boded poorly for the ability of the Ottoman army to carry out complex manoeuvres and offensives in a wartime situation. There were also tensions between officers within the Ottoman army, namely the graduates of the new military academies and the poorly educated Alayi, or “rankers” who had been promoted from the ranks. These men were often old and resented those graduates of the academies but also tended to have a stronger connection with their men, often hailing from the same social classes. However, despite Abdulhamid’s insistence on promoting based on loyalty as opposed to ability, there was stability in the upper command that allowed for improved coordination between the senior generals. The chief of general staff, Serasker (the most senior officer) and the superintendent of the military schools had all served in their positions for several years prior to the outbreak of hostilities.

The Ottoman army also lacked modernized equipment, crucially lacking modern artillery in sufficient numbers. Although many of her frontline soldiers were armed with modern German-made Mauser model 1893s, her reserve soldiers were largely aimed with antiquated black-powder rifles left over from the War of 1877, which were inferior to the Russian Mosin-Nagants. The number of artillery within the army was vastly inferior when compared to the Russians, and a considerable number of these were outdated Krupp guns used during the previous Russo-Turkish War. The Russians for their part still had a great many more field guns than howitzers and mortars which could be used against a fortified enemy, nevertheless, their superiority in artillery was noted by Colmar von der Goltz, who explained that “without sufficient numbers of artillery, a military cannot be expected to undertake any kind of offensive operation, leaving initiative entirely to the enemy”. Rather than being able to undertake artillery duels against the Russian, the main Ottoman counter to the Russian artillery was expected to be the spade. Ottoman logistics were also in a poor state, with the poor infrastructure and insufficient numbers of pack animals exacerbating the shortage of equipment.

Even the health of the troops was said to be poor, partially due to the poor state of healthcare within the Ottoman Empire itself, in addition to the perennially poor supply situation. Ottoman soldiers were often underfed and expected to find their own supplies and “live off the land” as a coordinated system of supply was still in its infancy. The food which made its way from army supply depots to the front-line troops was often rotten or of poor quality. This lack of adequate supply encouraged Ottoman soldiers to “requisition” supplies from the locals which all too often resulted in the looting of local civilian homes. Field hospitals were also inadequate, lacking trained surgeons and beds which meant that Ottoman casualties who were wounded rarely made it back to the front.

The aged Gazi Osman Pasha, the Ottoman Serasker, was a respected and able commander​

Despite the catalogue of problems that dogged the Ottoman army, however, it is worth keeping in mind that the Ottoman army of 1895 possessed some advantages. The motivation of her soldiers, or at least those who belonged to the dominant Turkish ethnicity, was generally excellent, with the “fanatical Mohammedan spirit” identified by contemporary European observers ensuring that many Turkish soldiers could be counted on to do their duty even in difficult circumstances. Ottoman recruitment centres were often flooded with recruits and reserves in the early stages of mobilization. Turkish soldiers were also noted for their talent in defensive warfare. While often lacking in terms of other equipment, every soldier was equipped with a spade that could be quickly used to build defensive works that could provide shelter against bullets and artillery shells. The Russians had noted the difficulty of overcoming Ottoman trenches in the war of 1877 and expected that this would be one of the main challenges that the Russian army would have to face in the coming war. While the Ottoman army generally lacked the educated officers and NCOs needed to facilitate offensive operations, some of its German advisors hoped that its defensive abilities would make up for this shortfall.

The Russian army too was far below the standards of the Western European powers. Reforms had taken place in the wake of the War of 1877, but as was the case after the Crimean War, the reforms were not as far-reaching as was required. Many Russian generals consoled themselves that the dogged determination of the Russian peasant soldier would overcome the hardships presented by a modern campaign. This Russian peasant soldier however was more poorly educated than any conscript in Europe (the Russian literacy rate in 1900 was around 25%, an appallingly low rate at a time when countries such as Germany had near-universal literacy), and other social problems had made an impact on the Russian soldiers. Disparaging remarks about Russian soldiers “curled up in a ditch with a vodka bottle” besides, alcoholism was a tremendous problem within the Russian army, something that was almost entirely absent from that of the Ottoman army [2]. Nevertheless, the Russians maintained several key advantages over the Ottomans. Her army was far larger, there was a great deal more modern equipment available and unlike the Ottoman Empire, the Russians maintained enough of an armament industry to supply most of her needs. In a modern war, it appeared as though the Russians would be able to overpower the Ottomans if were they able to apply their superior strength.

Despite its shortcomings, the Imperial Russian Army was judged to be capable enough to defeat the Ottomans in 1895​

This last point was not a guarantee, however. Although there had been a great deal of railway building in the Russian Empire in the 18 years that followed the last Russo-Turkish War, the railways in some parts of the empire, particularly the Caucasus, were poor. Many of the railway lines were single-tracked, and the Russians suffered from a lack of rolling stock. This was an improvement on the Ottomans, however, whose railway lines only went as far as Erzincan (the line toward Erzurum was still under construction). The poor infrastructure on both sides of the Russo-Ottoman border would prove to be a great hindrance to military operations there, but in the Balkans, the situation was much better. Both the Russians and the Ottomans had railways that reached towns close to the border, ensuring that troops here could be mobilized quicker and supplied better. However, with the density and quality of Ottoman fortifications in the area, it remained to be seen whether or not the Russians could actually make a breakthrough in the area.

Navally, the two powers were more even. Though the Ottoman Fleet had suffered somewhat from neglect since the death of Abdulaziz, they nevertheless maintained a slight local superiority over the Russians. The Russian naval program to increase the size of their navy had been spread among their three main ports of Sevastopol, St Petersburg and Vladivostok. Though the Russians had more ships in the Far East and the Baltic, these were too far away to be of use to the Russians in the Black Sea, and therefore the Ottomans at least had the strength to challenge the Russians here. Though the Ottoman navy had suffered from a lack of training, and her performance had been mediocre in the last Russo-Turkish War, it could be at least relied upon to prevent the Russians from gaining supremacy in the Black Sea.

[1] – The number of Turkish men is a bit of a guess. Karpat records around 6.5 million Muslim men inhabited the empire in 1896 in OTL. The population is likely to be somewhat higher without the losses of 1878.

[2] – And this seems to be confirmed by observers of the Turkish army, who noted that the Muslim soldiers of the empire almost entirely abstained from alcohol. Although the elites of the Ottoman Empire certainly drank all the way up to the Sultan-Caliph, perhaps this was less true of the lower ranks.

 

[Nassirisimo]

Ibrahim Osman, Zeynep Osman; Adventures in the East, A Memoir of a Naturalised Mohammedan: Palgrave Macmillan

Erzurum, June 1895​

By the time we received the mobilization orders in the summer of 1895, I had been with the Turkish army for no less than eighteen years. A lot had changed in those years, perhaps nothing as much as myself. I had only been home once in all my time in Turkey, and my family members remarked that they saw a foreigner, though I had not been much attached to them at any rate. After a mere few weeks back at home, I didn’t find staying with my mother and my stepfather to my taste, however, so I was back in Turkey before long. But what kind of a life had I built for myself there? I was thirty-seven years of age, and yet I had no house to call my own, no family. As much as I had tried to make myself a part of Turkish society, I had always felt apart, much as I had done back in England. I had failed to make a name for myself as I had hoped.

Thoughts of leaving the service of the Sultan and serving as a soldier of fortune elsewhere were interrupted by what would become the “Great Balkan War” of 1895. In a fashion similar to the war of 1877, it had begun when some Christians in the provinces began shooting and shouting loudly about liberty from the Turkish yolk. But this time, it was different. In 1876 the Bulgar revolutionaries had entered a few villages, shot some Turks, and hoped that the rest of the country would join them. In 1894, they had made sure the other Bulgars would join them. This was an organized movement, and from what I had heard, they had given our boys in the country as difficult a time as any army could. Thus when it appeared the situation was getting out of his control, the Sultan ordered a mobilization to teach these rebels a lesson once and for all.

But this wasn’t the 1870s. The 1890s was a time in which many of the wonderous technologies we know of today had their start. And with those wonderous technologies, news travelled fast. In the 1870s the Europeans certainly had a sense of their own superiority, but by the 1890s it was confirmed, at least in their own minds, that they were the foremost race in existence on this earth. The Bulgarian Massacres of the 1870’s had been sickening news for them, but hearing Gladstone castigating the Turks for their savagery, inspiring to fans of oratory as it may be, was nothing like the photos. Unclear compared to the clear photos and moving pictures you see today for sure, but terrible all the same. The bodies of men, women and little kiddies were strewn lifeless across a field. What mattered for those people back in Europe however, was that they were white bodies, for they showed little concern when the bodies were those of negros or Chinamen.

I do not wish to provide an account of the political events that led to the Great Balkan War, as the events could be far better explained by a scholar than I. Suffice to say that the indignation that was raised by the behaviour of the Sultan’s men in trying to put down the rebellion had provided our old Russian foe with just the casus belli he needed to revenge himself for his defeat in 1877. When the newspapers told of the Tsar’s own mobilization, we knew that it would come to war once again.

I had previously described the war of 1877 as a happy war, but perhaps that was more in my recollection of it than of its reality. Nothing can quite prepare you for the whizzing of bullets and the crashing of shells, not even having experienced it previously. And it was the artillery that was the worst thing. In my experience after the war of 1877, I had been lucky not to repeat the experience of being the target of an artillery bombardment. Even safe behind defensive works, the constant thud and the smashing of explosions weaken your nerves. You cannot help but twitch like a dog when you hear the sound, and even now the memory of it fills me with terror. Understandably, I was not eager to experience these things once again.

When our mobilization orders came through, however, I attempted to push these thoughts out of my mind as best as I could. I was to be reassigned to a new company for the duration of the war, which concerned me a little as I preferred the company of those soldiers, I was familiar with. Nevertheless, when I met my new subordinates, it appeared that I was in luck. They were not only Nizamis but Anatolians. [1] You have probably heard that the Turk is the most capable soldier in the empire, and this is true. Though their empire may have atrophied since the days of Suleiman the Magnificent, the fighting spirit present in every martial race is still present within the Turk. He will not run away when fired upon, he would not ignore orders, and he would do his duty to the best of his abilities.

While inspecting the men, I came across a sergeant and enquired, “Where do you and your men hail from?”

“From Tokat, sir”

“Are you ready to fight?”

“We are ready to die”. I was unsure as to whether this was bravado or pessimism, but either way, I liked what I took to be his courage or his realistic outlook.
I took a few steps back and turned around to introduce myself to the men and give them some reassurance, “I am Ibrahim Osman, your captain. Soon we will be marching against the Russians as your fathers did. Take solace in the knowledge that I too, marched against the Russians. I know that they fall when shot like any other man, and I know that they can be beaten”

Most of them were young men, perhaps in their early twenties for the most part. They were still dressed in their handsome uniforms that would soon turn to rags, and many with impeccably groomed moustaches, which would soon turn to great unshaven beards. I wondered how many of them would still be with me when the war was over. “If indeed, I will still be here”, I thought to myself.

A shiver went down my spine. Any man who tells you he is not scared before a war is either ignorant of reality, or a liar. And to be an officer is worse. You must lead from the front, first of all, and your splendid uniform becomes an excellent target for sharpshooters. If like me, you are possessed of some paternal feeling for those soldiers under your command, then you fear that every single death will weigh on your soul.

When we settled down for the night, I looked at the men’s faces. Eighteen years had passed since my last major war, and I could only imagine what horrors would be inflicted on us. Repeaters were at the forefront of military technology in 1877, but now we all had them. Those old brass guns used by the Russians were sure to have been replaced by now with something far more terrible and quick loading. These thoughts haunted me, but I tried to keep them to myself as best as I could. Nobody wants a coward for a leader.

[1] – Nizami being the Ottoman Turkish for regular soldiers

 

[Nassirisimo]

Ibrahim Osman, Zeynep Osman; Adventures in the East, A Memoir of a Naturalised Mohammedan: Palgrave Macmillan

Erzurum, July 1895​

The war could have gone one of two ways. Either we were to hold the Russians at the Danube and the Caucasus for a few months, the European powers could have come to their senses, and we could have worked out some compromise agreement, or the Russians could have broken through and caused a disaster. We were holding them at the Danube, but when the Russians thrashed us at Kars in the East, we knew that things were not going our way.

Even those of us toward the bottom of the command structure cursed the incompetent Paşa who had commanded the troops at Kars. He had an excellent defensive position and could have tied down the Russians for weeks or even months in a siege. But as better military historians than I have noted, he foolishly fell for a Russian feint, leaving the fortress of Kars and falling right into their trap. We cursed the foolish Ali Bey, but regardless of his fault the Russians had secured their first fortress in Eastern Anatolia relatively easily, and this was before we had managed to properly mobilize.

Luckily, we were not in Kars. My unit had been stationed in Erzurum, not the best place to be due to the lack of a railway to supply us, but not the worst place to be either. We were around fifteen days march or so away from Kars, which meant that we still had ample time to receive reinforcements and dig ourselves in for the long struggle ahead. Our commander, Edhem Paşa, was an intelligent sort and had served Gazi Osman Pasha during the last war, which gave us officers some confidence in him. He was also from Eastern Anatolia, so he knew something of the unique climatic conditions, which he had explained to us officers. In his own words, we had to hold until the winter and “let those Ruskies freeze to death trying to besiege us”. With this in mind, I even slept soundly on the night that we received news of the fall of Kars.

Edhem Pasa, commander of the Ottoman forces in Erzururm​

But of course, one does not sleep so soundly in a war without paying for it the morning after. I left my cot in search of some coffee to wake me up, to find a number of junior officers like myself grouped around. “This looks like unhappy news”, I thought to myself as I approached and heard indistinct but worried murmuring. “What news of the front today?” I enquired to one of the men.

He replied in a rather sullen fashion, “Austria. Their soldiers have crossed over the border this morning.”

With this news, my heart sank. Certainly, we could hold the Russians in the Dobrudja with the numbers we had, but with the Austrians approaching from the West? I didn’t fancy these odds indeed, and now I began to curse myself for not absconding when our mobilization orders came through. It appeared that now our boys in the Balkans would be squeezed between the Austrians and the Russians, and who knows what else would come afterwards? Some amongst us officers had long theorized that the Christians were only waiting for the right time to band against us and split the empire between them. Was this the long-awaited time when the powers would walk upon the sick man in his bed and suffocate him with a pillow?

These were hardly the thoughts I wanted to have in my head, but it turned out that I was to receive far worse news that day. Some of the officers from my regiment were ordered into the tent of our commanding officer. Unfortunately, a capable commander has to act with the best interests of the army in mind, rather than merely the best interests of some of its members. And this showed itself when he briefed us with some rather unsettling news.

“We have received orders from Gazi Osman Pasha that he will march the Rumelian army south into the main part of Bulgaria to preserve it. We will not be receiving reinforcements in light of the change in the situation of Rumelia, and thus we will need more time to prepare our defences here and to aid whatever forces we have left near Kars. Your regimental commander has informed me that he would be willing to undertake this”

My heart suddenly felt as though it had sunk down to my belly. What he was telling us, in effect, was that our regimental commander had agreed for us to be a sacrificial lamb to cover for the stupidity of Ali Bey. In other words, he had signed our death warrant. And we were to move out later that day.

Never had I experienced such a frightful prospect ahead of me. Ambushing Dutchmen in a mosquito-ridden jungle or riding hard on the desert sands against the Wahabis of central Arabia was a fun jaunt, but this was modern warfare. The Russians were not likely to give us much quarter if they captured us, and ultimately, we would face either a quick death in battle or a drawn-out death in captivity. Happy thoughts indeed.

I moped back to my tent, wanting to get my things in order. I wrote a goodbye letter to my mother, explaining my position and my likely fate. I would not want her to wonder what had happened to her son. I gathered my things and prepared to deliver the orders to my men before we made our march off to our fate.

I did not know how else to explain it to them. I tried to keep a brave face and explain their orders as a matter of fact. All of them to a man looked on stoically, which pleased me greatly as I felt like breaking down and blubbering myself, I would not know how to deal with any of my men doing so. We were to march out the following morning to keep watch on one of the roads approaching Erzurum where elements of the Russian army may pass down. The implicit order was that we were to die in the process of delaying the enemy. My first thought was on how to abscond, as while I was not averse to a little bit of danger, a suicide mission was not something I wanted. But dejectedly, I and my boys marched out that following morning.

I would suppose that this was the only point in my life I walked on expecting that I would not live to see the following week. It’s a strange feeling, marching on knowing with certainty that you are going on to your death. But at any rate, you are probably wondering why I am still writing this.

We had dug in at the point on the map where we had our orders to hold, on a hill some twenty or so kilometres away from a small town called Sarıkamış. It was not a bad defensive position, surrounded by fields, but as it was elevated, we should be able to see any approach by the enemy, which was rather a good thing as I hadn’t the stomach for some Russians sneaking upon us. Any low-trajectory artillery would be deflected, we could see around for miles, but alone and without support, it was likely that we would die here.

The first day passed without incident, the second and the third. We organized as best as we could, taking count of our ammunition, cleaning our rifles, and getting some rest. But on the fourth day, we finally saw signs of the enemy. Rather than scouting us out first, it appeared that they were marching in columns, about half a regiment’s worth of men on horseback. And yet they still couldn’t see us! Well, this was an opportunity, as my company had a surprise. We had been given one of the few maxim guns they had at Erzurum and as it turned out, this was our saving grace. I told the men to hold as long as we could, and when the enemy was only around 400 yards from us, I yelled out the order to open fire.

Immediately, a blaze of rifle fire, as well as fire from the maxim gun, poured out from our trenches onto the Russians below. Immediately men fell, as the Russians scrambled off their horses to find whatever defensive cover they could, or else galloped away. But as I mentioned, they were mostly fielded below so the best that they could do was to lay prone in fields of wheat. A few brave souls charged toward us, but that merely made them a better target for us. Even for those trying to hide in the wheat, we still knew where they were. Perhaps their rifles were sighted incorrectly, as for the most part we only heard the whizzing of bullets, but for a few unfortunate men, they found their mark. The firefight was perhaps one of the most intense events of my life, but it was over all too quickly, as around ten minutes or so after we had opened fire, what remained of the Russian force began running back in the direction that they had come from.

We could not see how many men they left behind them, suffice to say that I think that their dead and wounded outnumbered my company even before our casualties. There were a few of my boys dead, about 10, and the same number of walking wounded. I did not know what to do with the men who were more severely wounded, however.

I called out for the lieutenant I trusted most. I had judged Orhan to be the dependable type and seeing his cool conduct under fire showed me that perhaps I have some instinct when it comes to judging men.

“Those Russians will be back”, I said.

He only grimly nodded in response, but I had to say what I was about to, “a group that large means there must be none of Ali Bey’s force remaining. Those Russians will be back in far greater numbers, storm our trenches and kill us all. And our orders were only to buy time”

“That is correct” he replied.

At this point, I wondered whether he was trying to drag my true thoughts out. But hey, death from Russian bayonets and death by a firing squad is, all the same, so I came out and said it. “We won’t buy any extra time if we stay put here. We have already bought them time, so is it not time to make ourselves scarce?”

He turned his head toward me, and my bowls began to turn into stone as I thought he was about to condemn me as a coward and a shirker. However, he just muttered his agreement. “So, we will retreat?” I confirmed. Once again, he just nodded. Dependable he may have been, but he wasn’t much of a conversationalist.

I yelled out to the men, “be proud. Look upon those bodies below and know that you have done your duty to your country. We will pull back and attempt to link up with the rest of the army where we can”. This was a lie. I did not want to be met with accusations of desertion, and my intention was to try and hideaway in the countryside until an opportunity arose to retreat someplace safe. Still, the die was cast.

* * * * * *

Author's notes - So we are starting to see the first actions of the war. Although the initial screw-up has been on the part of the Ottomans, it's a long way to Constantinople. But on the other hand, they cannot be blamed for the Austrians deciding to seize Bosnia. The Ottomans don't know it at this point, but the Austrians will only be going as far as Novi Pazar, but of course, if one other army is joining in on the gang-up, others may follow. The situation isn't as hopeless as it looks though. And just maybe Ibrahim Osman may survive too, as well as the empire.