Surviving Ottoman Empire: Can Albania remain part of it without major violence?

[Ofaloaf]

...assuming some 19th-century POD that still sees the rise of Balkan nationalism, or at least Serbian independence.

My line of thought here is simple: Each nationalist movement in the Balkans seems to have sped up the development of the next, as radicals inspired radicals, and nationalist revolutions worsened the situation in Ottoman Europe, sparking new nationalist revolutions because of the worsening situation. Each new state also increased the hunger of the Ottoman Empire's northern neighbors, Austria-Hungary and Russia, who began focusing more and more on the Balkans as a potential realm for their expansion (either via direct control or client states). All these factors came together to make a royal mess of things.

With the situation nosediving (especially after the 1878 Congress of Berlin) and nationalism on the rise, is there any way for the Ottomans to hold on to Albania, Epirus, Macedonia, Thessaly, et al, without having to put down new revolts every five years? With the Albanians, could promotion of Pan-Islamism help keep these people in the empire? I'm flummoxed.

 

[I Blame Communism]

Post-78, there was a Muslim plurality in the remaining parts of Rumelia, with the Muslims (Albanian, Turk, Bosniak, and Pomak) generally hanging ogether in support of the regime while the Greek and Bulgarian paramilitaries were, between 1904 and 1908, so antagonous as to actual cause undeclared war between their sponsor nations (the so-called "struggle for Macedonia").

The Albanians were in a very differant position from the others. besides being mostly Muslim (although with '78 averted, Bulgaria and Serbian-speaking Bosnia could eventually end up with Slavo-Muslim majorities), they stoof to see their national territroy shirnk or vanish the moment the Ottomans were gone. The Albanian intellectual leadership didn't always get on with the Ottoman berauecracy, but nothing like IMARO was going to emerge in the foreseeable future. This pretty much was a case of nebulous "pan-Islamism".

There weren't "revolts every five years" at all. The biggest reviolt, Illinden, was squashed which did permemant damage to the position of the Bulgarian people in Macedonia. It was the realisatiion that, faced with demographic trends in favour of the Muslims and the dynamic post-1908 state, no externally-sponsored revolt would ever succees that made Bulgaria willing to allow the organisation of a Balkan League with its former nemesis Greece.

 

[Abdul Hadi Pasha]

I think the big problem with the Albanians was that 1878 caused them to lose faith in the ability of the empire to protect them, as Albanian-majority lands were ceded to Balkan states. They were actually able to successfully hold onto territory ceded to Montenegro in the Treaty of Berlin, forcing the empire to hand over coastal lands instead.

Unless you can come up with a POD that allows the Ottomans to fend off foreign intervention into their internal affairs so they can crush the various terrorist organizations operating in Macedonia, Albanian separatism is going to be a big issue come the 20th c.

 

[corourke]

Even if the Ottomans can successfully defend Albania from other Balkan states, and therefore possibly preempt the rise of Albanian secessionism, Italy will probably still see it as a tantalizing and attainable prize. Unless the Balkans is destabilized somewhere else (If Austria collapses in some way, Italy might be distracted by other opportunities on the Adriatic coast), Istanbul will find its position in Albania threatened by Rome.