Ottoman Medium Power

[wkwillis]

The Ottomans need to do six things between 1895 and 1945.
1. Monopolise cheap oil.
2. Avoid the Balkan wars and WWI, while acquiring emigrants for skills and connections and selling high priced oil.
3. Annex the British occupied parts of the Ottoman empire like Yemen, Kuwait, Oman, the Trucial Coast, etc.
4. Annex Iran and the 'stans for manpower, agricultural exports, and oil, after Russia loses WWI.
5. Avoid the Depression.
6. Avoid WWII, while acquiring emigrants for skills and connections, and selling high priced oil.

1. Drill in Mosul and get lots of cheap oil from the supergiant field there. So no Texas oil or Iranian oil because the price collapses. Both drillers had trouble getting enough money to drill in frontier areas.
2. That gives Ottoman Turkey enough money to build a big enough navy to fend off the Italians in 1911/1912, so the Balkan alliance of Serbia, Bulgaria, Greece, and Montenegro doesn't have a go at them in 1912/1913, so the Bulgarians don't go after the Serbs and Greeks in 1913/1914 with Turkey getting involved again and making more enemies, so they don't join the Central Powers for revenge in 1914/whenever.
3. During WWI they can pick up the stuff that nominally belongs to them anyway because the Brits need the money and troops. They could even buy the stock in the Suez canal, lessoning British desires to control Egypt. They get the money to do this because they control the cheapest oil in the world, right next to the sea to avoid the high transport costs of rail from Azerbaijan, etc. Coal prices are going to be sky high because of British and German manpower shortages and lack of foreign currency to buy American coal, which will increase the price of oil.
4. Grabbing Iran is no problem. They can bribe all the regions that aren't Iranian into changing sides. Iran doesn't have a seaport or oil area with majority Iranian population, anyway.
No one wants Afghanistan. Conquering Afghanistan merely requires that you send gold instead of troops and give it to whoever is standing at the airport with some troops. They will settle that among themselves if you let them.
After Russia collapses and revolts, they can pick up the 'stans without too much trouble from either side.
China doesn't have a government at this time, let alone one that gives a damn about Sinkiang or anyplace else that doesn't have lots of Chinese speaking people around. Not that they want Tibet or anything...
5. If they base their monetary system on silver (traditional for noneuropean cultures), they can avoid the gold standard recessions and depression. They buy lots of gold during boom times to keep the value of the currency down, and then sell it during hard times to buy imports. This helps everyone concerned.
If they are big enough, they can fend off the Nazis or whoever would have been in power while the West was building up it's forces to fight whichever bunch of socialiststook over Russia. Doesn't matter who is on which side as long as Ottoman Turkey and Iran and Arabia is big enough to be left alone.
That should settle the first fifty years. What do they do after that?

 

[Dr Pervez Hoodbhoy]

3. Annex the British occupied parts of the Ottoman empire like Yemen, Kuwait, Oman, the Trucial Coast, etc.

Yemen, Oman and the Trucial States were not Ottoman at all. Egypt, Cyprus and Kuwait were. Except for the last 2, none of the areas I mentioned can be taken without a war, even while WWI is raging.

4. Grabbing Iran is no problem. They can bribe all the regions that aren't Iranian into changing sides. Iran doesn't have a seaport or oil area with majority Iranian population, anyway.

Grabbing Iran is a huge problem. They get into a war with both Britain and Russia.

You seem to greatly over-estimate the economic value of oil at this time. BTW, have you ever heard of the butterfly effect?

 

[Grey Wolf]

IIRC Yemen had been an Ottoman vassal not too long ago, possibly via being an Egyptian vassal in the 19th century ?

Best Regards
Grey Wolf

 

[Billi the Axe]

Regardless The British Empire is not giving up any territory they need the troops a lot less than the Oil reserves and Suez canal.Not to mention no
one is going to let a Islamic superpower mature from the sick old man the Ottoman Empire had become ecspecially one that is that huge,that bigger
than the Persian Empire at it's peak. The European powers aquirred territory
in the Middle East for strategic reasons and those reasons are still there.

As to the Turk's not getting involved in the Balkan War's it really doesn't change the fact that they are hated by the whole region for past sins.
Besides most of the Ottoman Empire was way underdeveloped and the capital outlay to turn it around and modrnize it would preclude the build up
of any significant military assets.

Your PoD would have to be pretty far back to even make expansion possible, let alone successful.

 

[Ridwan Asher]

1) Regardless The British Empire is not giving up any territory they need the troops a lot less than the Oil reserves and Suez canal.Not to mention no
one is going to let a Islamic superpower mature from the sick old man the Ottoman Empire had become ecspecially one that is that huge,that bigger
than the Persian Empire at it's peak. The European powers aquirred territory
in the Middle East for strategic reasons and those reasons are still there.

2) As to the Turk's not getting involved in the Balkan War's it really doesn't change the fact that they are hated by the whole region for past sins.
Besides most of the Ottoman Empire was way underdeveloped and the capital outlay to turn it around and modernize it would preclude the build up
of any significant military assets.

3) Your PoD would have to be pretty far back to even make expansion possible, let alone successful.

1) Your points about Islamic superpower and European interests in Middle East, I just couldn't agree more....

2) I don't know if I should believe this statement of yours. There was the hate, but in reality, 'Ottoman Yoke' is often exaggerated anyway. And generally, during the time of WW1, you can consider Ottoman Empire as a modern country. Their chance to be "cured from their illness" was only closed because they lost the war, and really just that...

3) It's maybe a good way to make things easier. I'm thinking about early or middle times of 19th century....

 

[Rockingham]

The Ottomans need to do six things between 1895 and 1945.
1. Monopolise cheap oil.
2. Avoid the Balkan wars and WWI, while acquiring emigrants for skills and connections and selling high priced oil.
3. Annex the British occupied parts of the Ottoman empire like Yemen, Kuwait, Oman, the Trucial Coast, etc.
4. Annex Iran and the 'stans for manpower, agricultural exports, and oil, after Russia loses WWI.
5. Avoid the Depression.
6. Avoid WWII, while acquiring emigrants for skills and connections, and selling high priced oil.

1.Seems quite plausible

2.Possibly avoiding the Italian-Ottoman war altogether as well, rather then defeating the Italians....Libya would be very valuable in the long term as a another source of a large amount of oil...
Achieving this would avoid the balkan wars, which would be subsumed by WW1...which was inevitable considering the buildup of Russian railroads.

3.Jumping in WW1 on the allied side could benefit them...gaining Bosnia from Austria perhaps(it had a large Islamic population), and territories from any minor Balkan states which side with the CP. Kuwait, Bahrain, Aden and Cyprus would be reasonable rewards from the British, but not if the Ottomans remain neutral.

4)This would make them very over extended, and Russia may not collapse in this scenario. Furthermore, you suggested that Iran was not producing much oil in TTL, so the Ottomans would just be annexing huge chunks of mountains and deserts. As you say, no one wants Afghanistan. NE India is impossible even if they ally with the CP. They need only annex some west Iranian provinces.

5)This is not impossible. However what you suggest below requires a lot of foresight. The nazis...are probably not as big a threat as a still intact and non-socialist Russia... why would it have collapsed? The straits have remained open in WW1.

1. Drill in Mosul and get lots of cheap oil from the supergiant field there. So no Texas oil or Iranian oil because the price collapses. Both drillers had trouble getting enough money to drill in frontier areas.
2. That gives Ottoman Turkey enough money to build a big enough navy to fend off the Italians in 1911/1912, so the Balkan alliance of Serbia, Bulgaria, Greece, and Montenegro doesn't have a go at them in 1912/1913, so the Bulgarians don't go after the Serbs and Greeks in 1913/1914 with Turkey getting involved again and making more enemies, so they don't join the Central Powers for revenge in 1914/whenever.
3. During WWI they can pick up the stuff that nominally belongs to them anyway because the Brits need the money and troops. They could even buy the stock in the Suez canal, lessoning British desires to control Egypt. They get the money to do this because they control the cheapest oil in the world, right next to the sea to avoid the high transport costs of rail from Azerbaijan, etc. Coal prices are going to be sky high because of British and German manpower shortages and lack of foreign currency to buy American coal, which will increase the price of oil.
4. Grabbing Iran is no problem. They can bribe all the regions that aren't Iranian into changing sides. Iran doesn't have a seaport or oil area with majority Iranian population, anyway.
No one wants Afghanistan. Conquering Afghanistan merely requires that you send gold instead of troops and give it to whoever is standing at the airport with some troops. They will settle that among themselves if you let them.
After Russia collapses and revolts, they can pick up the 'stans without too much trouble from either side.
China doesn't have a government at this time, let alone one that gives a damn about Sinkiang or anyplace else that doesn't have lots of Chinese speaking people around. Not that they want Tibet or anything...
5. If they base their monetary system on silver (traditional for noneuropean cultures), they can avoid the gold standard recessions and depression. They buy lots of gold during boom times to keep the value of the currency down, and then sell it during hard times to buy imports. This helps everyone concerned.
If they are big enough, they can fend off the Nazis or whoever would have been in power while the West was building up it's forces to fight whichever bunch of socialiststook over Russia. Doesn't matter who is on which side as long as Ottoman Turkey and Iran and Arabia is big enough to be left alone.
That should settle the first fifty years. What do they do after that?

 

[Dr Pervez Hoodbhoy]

3.Jumping in WW1 on the allied side could benefit them...gaining Bosnia from Austria perhaps(it had a large Islamic population), and territories from any minor Balkan states which side with the CP.

They're going to have to argue with Serbia over it.

Kuwait, Bahrain, Aden and Cyprus would be reasonable rewards from the British, but not if the Ottomans remain neutral.

Aden was one of the more important points on the road to India - Britain's not giving it up. Cyprus they could get, since the British were willing to give it to Greece in OTL. As for Kuwait and Bahrein, that depends on just what the Foreign Office has planned for the Persian Gulf region. If they only get one, it would make more sense to take the former than the latter.

 

[wkwillis]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Oil_Prices_1861_2006.jpg

That's the price of oil till quite recently.

Avoiding war is important. Wars are expensive.
Balancing Russia/France/Britain/Italy/Balkans vs Germany is important. You want to make the war last longer or not involve America or both. Possibly if you can keep America out of the war then America becomes more populous and less powerfull. Immigration isn't restricted and they dodge the expensive of war, and also they don't build up a military larger than they need for defense. You also want to weaken Russia so that the rest of Europe doesn't band together against them. It gives them the capability to band against you and you don't want that.