If u u think it would the world more interesting and it is plausible change I say good ahead and recon it.
English Canada/French Carolina: A Timeline
- Thread starter Gabingston
- Start date
Could be a temporary stabilization under a competent sultan or vizier, but it eventually collapses after a few years from internal or external pressures. Maybe that nationalist figurehead gets assassinated by some group or another, prompting push back, prompting revolt, prompting... chaos.
I've decided that the next update will be on the collapse of the Ottoman Empire. The big question is what will replace it? I don't see the House of Osman surviving the fall of their empire, but I'm not exactly sure what should come after. A Military Junta? A Republic? A new dynasty? Or does the House of Osman somehow make it through? Suggestions would be welcome.
I was thinking about this actually! We could see a surviving Ottoman Dynasty backed by a military junta in the west of Anatolia, maybe backed by some more conservative powers, and a Russian backed republic in the east of Anatolia. South, a nationalist revolt seems likely, but we could see dueling ones backed by the Kurds, Iraq, and Arabia? Wouldn't put it past Britain to just seize Jerusalem and the Levant as well. Egypt might go for the Sinai as well, that seems especially likely.
Part 133: The End of The Ottomans 1/2
Part 133: The End of The Ottomans 1/2
By the middle of the 20th Century, the Ottoman Empire was a shell of its former self. The slow but steady decline it had been in since at least 1683 came to a head after their devastating defeat in the Great Balkan War of the 1940s. Not only had they lost all of the territory they had regained during the Second Global War 30 years prior, but they’d even lost their capital city of Constantinople, which became an independent city-state spanning both the European and Asian sides of the Bosporus Strait. They also lost Iraq and Kurdistan, the former of which had much of the oil that the empire had possessed before the war.To say that this was humiliating would be an understatement. Losing the City of the World’s Desire, which had been theirs for nearly four centuries, was a crushing blow to the empire’s morale and stability, not to mention all of the other land they’d lost. The sultan of the time, Mehmet, was competent enough to hold the dying empire together for a little bit longer, though, even achieving some things that I would’ve mentioned in my last update on the Ottomans, but unfortunately for the Ottoman Empire, he was quickly growing old, and did not have a ton of time left. He was also the main thing keeping the empire together. He had successfully appeased Arab separatism within the empire, but it hadn’t really gone away, and many Arabs still resented the rule of the Turk. The Turkish Levant and Mesopotamia was primarily Arab, but there were an increasing number of Turks settling there, which raised the ethnic tensions in those regions, especially since the growing oil industry was largely controlled by the new Turkish migrants. Once Sultan Mehmet died, who knew what would happen to the struggling empire?
Well, in 1955, Mehmet was diagnosed with cancer. Being in his 70s, it was going to be an uphill battle for him to survive, even with the world class medical care that you’d expect a sultan to receive. Despite the best work of his doctors, the cancer metastasized, and it became abundantly clear that his time on this Earth was coming to an end. Finally, on January 30th, 1956, Sultan Mehmet passed away, to be succeeded by his son Ali. Little did they know at Ali’s coronation that spring that he would be the final Ottoman sultan…
Shortly after Ali ascended to the throne, the Arab separatists decided to test the new sultan by rebelling. Arab rebellions popped up in the parts of the fertile crescent that were still under Ottoman rule, particularly in The Levant. The region of The Levant was mainly Arab, with the remainder composed of groups like the Turks, Jews and Armenians. It had been under Ottoman rule for centuries, but had been experiencing an upsurge of separatism in recent decades, especially after the Balkan War. Arab separatists began organizing in the region, committing acts against the Ottoman authorities and military and generally becoming a nuisance. The insurgency would be a slow burn for a few years, until, in the Summer of ‘59, sh*t would officially hit the fan in The Levant…
Inspired by the Hindustani rebellion against the British, the Syrian Liberation Front, or SLF, one of the main rebel groups in The Levant, began to increase its activities. They’d due all the things you’d expect from a rebel group, harassing local Ottoman troops and officials, robbing banks and supply trucks, even taking territory. It is this latter action, the occupation of territory, that would lead to the event that would spark the Syrian War of Independence and the ultimate downfall of the Ottoman Empire.
The SLF would store military equipment and supplies within the towns they occupied, often with the support of the locals who were sick of Turkish rule. Prominent buildings within these towns would double as military supply warehouses, which meant that any Ottoman attempt to retake the town would have to go into civilian buildings, which could lead to the death of civilians at the hands of Ottoman troops. Well, in June of 1959, that’s exactly what happened.
It was like any typical hot summer day for the residents of the countryside between Damascus and Irbid. The sun was shining high in the Levantine sky, the call to prayer had already rung out twice, and the residents of this unspecified town were just about ready to eat lunch. This town also happened to be under the control of the SLF, and was a major supply hub for them. Thus, the Ottomans marched on the town that day in order to take one of the SLF’s main bases. To make a long story short, though, it went terribly wrong. A mob confronted the Ottomans, with SLF fighters being mixed in with civilians. When The Ottomans and the SLF got into a gunfight, the Ottomans wound up firing upon civilians, killing several dozen and wounding many more. The news of this massacre spread fast, outraging the entire region, with many areas pledging their loyalty to the rebels. Now the Ottoman Empire was at war with Arab rebels across their entire Levantine and Arab territory, with the Arab rebels getting covert support from other Arab states like Egypt. The rebels in Greater Syria, including the SLF, decided to coalesce into the United Syrian Front, or USF. Arabs in areas like Kuwait also rebelled, looking to join nearby Mesopotamia (renamed Iraq). The Mesopotamian government embraced these rebels, declaring war on the Ottoman Empire in order to get their slice of the collapsing empire. Two other sultanates in the Arabian peninsula also declared war on the Ottomans, also to gain land. With this total onslaught on the Ottoman position in the fertile crescent, the Ottoman military was pressed very hard, struggling desperately to hold on. Morale was declining rapidly, and a sinking feeling that the Ottoman Empire was in its final days was setting in throughout the Ottoman military, government, crown and public. By 1962, some Turkish soldiers were flat out refusing to go to Syria, saying that the war was useless and that the empire should just cut their losses. Even then, Sultan Ali wouldn’t let the empire his ancestors had built up for over 650 years die without a fight. His father had lost the last Ottoman territories in Europe, so Ali was determined to keep the Ottoman Empire’s last territories in Arabia. In the following year, 1963, the Ottomans were still desperately fighting in the Fertile Crescent, but continued to lose ground to the rebels. By this point, even a lot of the high-ranking officers in the military were beginning to give up hope, and were urging Ali to throw in the towel and go to the negotiation table with the rebels. Ali still wouldn’t give in, though, urging the generals to press on in the hope that things could turn around. Heading into 1964, protests were starting to pop up in more and more Ottoman cities, with dissatisfied Turks voicing their frustrations with the government and the sultan. These protests began to turn into riots as tensions boiled over, and one of these would end up changing the course of history forever…
In early March of 1964, protests began to erupt in the Ottoman capital of Bursa, demanding an end to the war immediately. An angry mob gathered outside of the sultan’s residence, demanding the abdication of Ali. However, Ali wasn’t there. In order to escape from the chaos that was engulfing his realm, he, his wife and his two daughters had gone to their retreat in the mountains outside of Bursa. With pressure mounting, though, Ali was convinced to return to Bursa and attempt negotiations with the protesters. It may have been better to stay in the mountains, though, as this decision would ultimately lead to the end of his life.
As the royal motorcade entered Bursa, a crowd gathered around it. Some were hecklers giving the sultan and his family a piece of their mind, some were, despite their gripes, genuinely thrilled to see the sultan, and some were just curious. However, there was a seedier side to this too. Some within the Ottoman Empire had become so dissatisfied with Sultan Ali that they had plans to carry out the unthinkable: assassinate the sultan of the Ottoman Empire. One of these men had brought a grenade to the protest, hoping to get a chance to lob it at the Sultan and watch him go kaboom. Well, get a chance he did, as he spotted the motorcade coming up the road towards him. The driver had forgotten to close the windows, and Sultan Ali was in the passenger seat. Thus, the assassin lit his grenade, aimed and threw it. He probably should’ve tried out for an American Football (or whatever TTL’s equivalent is) team, because the throw was right on the money, flying right into the window and landing on the floor of the vehicle. Before the Sultan, driver or the other passengers of the vehicle had time to react, the car exploded in a fiery blast, with the Sultan, his wife and daughters and the driver dying instantaneously, along with dozens of people in the crowd who were struck by debris from the car. The assassin, who sustained minor injuries from debris but was otherwise unharmed, snuck away from the scene but was caught and arrested several days later, and after a quick trial was executed by firing squad. However, with the assassination, the Sultan of the Ottoman Empire was dead, and ultimately the Ottoman Empire as well, but that’s something for next time.
This was originally supposed to be one update, but I wanted to get an update out in September, so I made a last minute decision to make it a two part update.
The Ottomans had a decent run, so I guess it's time to say goodbye to them in this TL, albeit later than OTL.
Part 134: The End of The Ottomans 2/2
Part 134: The End of The Ottomans 2/2
The Sultan of the Ottoman Empire was dead. While Ali may not have been popular, the assassination of the Sultan was a shock to pretty much everyone in the Ottoman Empire, and no one really knew where things were going after this. Ali had only two kids, both of whom were daughters, and he was also the only son of Mehmet, whose other three children were female. Thus, there really wasn’t an obvious successor to the throne. Ali had several male cousins, but they’d probably start infighting to see who’d take the Ottoman throne. Needless to say, the fight for who would succeed Ali on the throne would be a messy one.Or would anyone succeed Ali on the Ottoman throne? There were plenty of other organizations that wanted to take control of the country and shape it in their own image. There was a small cadre of republicans who wanted to replace the monarchy with a republic based either on the Dutch or Russian models. On the other side, there were those that rejected Westernization and looked for the Turkish realm to become an Islamic state run by clerics. However, it wouldn’t be any ambitious ideologues that would form the new Turkey, but rather something much more familiar with the reins of power.
The moment news of the Sultan’s assassination reached the Ottoman military high command, they sprung into action to secure the state and prevent chaos. The high command declared martial law within the Ottoman Empire, and stated that it’d last indefinitely. With the homeland falling into a military junta, the already struggling Ottoman positions in the Levant completely collapsed, with Syrian separatists and the Mesopotamian Army completely overrunning the remainder of the Ottoman-controlled fertile crescent. While an official peace treaty wouldn’t be drafted until the dust settled in the Turkish heartland, the assassination and subsequent declaration of martial law basically meant the end of Turkish control in the Levant. Once controlling an area stretching from Hungary to Sudan, the Turkish realm had now shrunk to just the Anatolian heartland.
Within Anatolia, the military regime was busy solidifying its rule. The junta’s top priority was to secure order and suppress any opposition. Obviously the man responsible for the assassination of Sultan Ali and his family was found, tried and executed, but this extended beyond just him to anti-government organizations en whole. Across the political spectrum from Leftists to Islamists, opposition was broken up by the military regime, with leaders arrested and organizations forcibly dissolved. The junta didn’t intend to rule forever, but merely to secure the stability of the Turkish state before eventually forming a new government for the future.
Meanwhile, after securing Anatolia, the regime decided to come to the table with the Syrian rebels and with the various Arab states to draft an official treaty ending the war in The Levant. Syria was to become a new independent state stretching from Antioch in the north down to Sinai in the south, with the capital being placed in Damascus. Notably, Syria contained Jerusalem, the holiest city in Judaism and Christianity and the third holiest city in Islam, after Mecca and Medina. Kurdistan, Hejaz and the eastern Arabian state I forgot the name of also gained a bit of land from the now deceased Ottoman Empire. While there wouldn’t be any official policy of repatriation towards the more than two million ethnic Turks living in the newly independent countries, most of the Turkish population packed their bags and headed to Anatolia.
Even with the Turks gone, that didn’t mean that the new Syrian state was by any means unified, as the Arab population of the region was divided between a Muslim majority and a sizable Christian minority, particularly in Lebanon where the two religions were roughly equal in size. In addition, the Muslims were divided between the majority Sunnis and minority Shias, with there also being a noticeable Jewish community in the region. Thus, in order to keep the state together, Christians, Shias and Jews were provided freedom of religion, although Sunnis were obviously still the dominant religious group. The new country was also divided into several provinces like Lebanon, Antioch, Aleppo, Jerusalem and Sinai in order to better manage the country region by region. When it came to the form of government Syria would adopt, the Syrian framers offered the Syrian throne to the Hashemite dynasty of Hejaz, with the family accepting the offer. Thus, the Kingdom of Syria was born.
Going back to Anatolia, the military junta began pondering what to put in place after they were gone, as they didn’t plan on staying in power permanently. One thing was sure, though, it wouldn’t be a restoration of the House of Osman. That era was well and truly over, and while the members of the House of Osman were allowed to keep their properties and given a state pension for their service to the nation, they weren’t going to be ruling the new Turkish state anytime soon. No, the big debate here among the military regime was whether to turn the new Turkish state into a monarchy under a new dynasty or a republic. A monarchy would be keeping with tradition and bring an orderly transfer of power, while a republic would make it a sharper break with the rest of Turkish history and would allow this new state to establish a more separate identity from the Ottoman past. The Ottoman Empire, unlike the monarchies of Europe, didn’t really have a hereditary nobility, so there weren’t any sort of obvious candidates for a new Turkish throne. The top figures in the military junta were mostly high-ranking Ottoman officers, so they could work as monarchical candidates, but that would be too obvious of a continuation of the military regime. Thus, the decision was made to turn the new Turkish state into a republic…
First off, the new Turkish republican state would move its capital from the post-Balkan War Ottoman Capital of Bursa (which would maintain a status as the royal city) to the central Anatolian city of Konya, which was not only more centrally located and defensible but also had been the capital of the Seljuk Sultanate centuries prior. Speaking of Anatolia, because of the already existing country of Turkestan in Central Asia and the existing Turkish state of Rumelia in Europe, the new state was to be called the Republic of Anatolia, although the people themselves were still called Turks instead of Anatolians. The government would have a unitary structure, albeit with local governance at the town and regional levels. Electorally, the Anatolian Republic would have a bicameral parliament elected, with the upper house based on the national popular vote and the lower house based on local elections, with the head of state, or Grand Vizier, being appointed by the parliament. Each house would have elections every four years on a rotating schedule, so there would be a parliamentary election every two years, just for one of the two houses. The Grand Vizier would have to be reappointed by both houses every two years, which was hoped would mean that ineffective leaders could get the boot in due time and that politically extreme figures couldn’t ascend to the position of Grand Vizier as easily. A downside of this would be potential gridlock if the two houses couldn’t agree on a figure, but this was a bit of an oversight at the time. Thus, after a decade of military rule, the new Republic of Anatolia held its first elections for the upper house in 1974 and the lower house in 1976, with one of the top generals from the junta being appointed the first Grand Vizier of the Republic of Anatolia. Whether this new republican form of government would end up working out for Anatolia was yet to be seen, but for now, it was definitely a new start. I’ll get back to writing my other TL soon, although EC/FC isn’t going anywhere, and until then, have a great day.
Not sure if this has been mentioned but is there a significant Jewish population in greater Syria?
There will be a Jewish population in greater Syria regardless, but the scale of it depends on if Zionism took off ITTL and if the Ottoman Empire allowed European Jews to move to their ancestral homeland.
Now that I've gotten the Ottoman Collapse updates out of the way, I'd like some suggestions on what I should do next.
Well, the Portuguese only took OTL's Queensland and Northern Territory north of the Tropic of Capricorn plus the Kimberly in Western Australia, but thanks for the compliment.
It's cool because I have never seen a TL that had the Portuguese conquer (at least some of) Australia