Why would lower unionisation in Britain during the Great War have any of the outcomes you see? I wasn't aware that this was a particular problem so far as innovation was concerned.
"Mound of spring: An early developing Israel in a late developing world TL"
- Thread starter yboxman
- Start date
yboxman
Banned
Because automatization of various industrial processes results in skilled positions being lost and the overall number of workers employed in particular industries declining. Unions in general, and British unions in particular, were opposed to this. From an employers point of view, investing in a new process or machinary is not cost-effective if he then faces a strike.
If a particular industrialist decides to tell the unions to go to hell and puts in the new machinary.. well then, his competition, avoiding a fight with the unions edges him out of the market. according to this source http://emlab.berkeley.edu/~eichengr/research/floudjohnsonchaptersep16-03.pdf this was a major issue in the textile industry but also in many other fields.
Other issues include A post war reduction work-weeks (from 54 to 47 work hours) with no corresponding rise in productivity/hour and less flexibility for firing/reducing wages when industries contract.
It's more complicated than that and Union leaders could often understand or be brought about to understand, that absent innovation their constituents position would worsen. However, the process of negotiating with them was long, often unsuccessful, and generally made British industry less competitive compared to industry in less unionized countries.
That, at least, is one hypothesis explaining the acceleration in relative British decline post WWI and WWII.
Needless to say, this is an age old issue and is wrapped up with current political controversy. However, for the purposes of TTL, the evidence seems to be fairly striking that the unionization pursued by the British government (which was far more widespread and structural than the German-French equivalents) may have been a short term boost to war production but led to a structural disadvantage in the post war world.
That is not to imply that I support neo-liberal approaches to the 21st century economy or that other, equally important issues, were not served by increased unionization in the early 20th century. Simply that given less unionization if the war ends in 1916 the UK industry may be less handicapped Vs the U.S, Japan and it's continental rivals. What the social outcome of a less unionized Britain are? well, that's another question.
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Hmm, well. I do recall this being a very controversial point when I briefly studied this at uni/high school. The general consensus being that there were a huge number of issues/drivers. You are of course able to draw your own conclusions based on additional developments.
Russian was was least industrialized economy among Great Powers early 20th century. So if after WWI Russian economy should be fastest growing economy. Because labour shifting from agricultural sector to more productive industrial sector would lead to huge economic leap (sea Chinese or emerging markets). So I think Russians number is bit pessimistic. After all they have largest population among Great Powers (even without Poland and Finland) and huge natural resources.
It's more radical than that. "Everybody knew" that Tuaregs and Punjabis and black Africans could fight. There were endless colonial battles to show that.
No organized force of Jewish soldiers had been seen in battle for over a thousand years. It's almost like turtles flying.
Also, I think, the news is going to reshape radically the self-image of Jewish communities - especially younger Jews. When Handel's oratorio Judas Maccabeus came out, the Jews of London came to hear it - again, and again, and again. It was the first work of popular entertainment to feature Jews as the heroes. The story of the Maccabee Corps will have similar impact, on a much wider scale.
And it won't be just Jews who hear about it. There will be much spillover from the Jewish community to the larger community in Russia. Incidentally, there could be blowback in Germany and Austria-Hungary against Zionist emigrants as traitors. I'm not sure how the Poles would see it. Congress Poles resented Russia, but I don't know if that extended to them being anti-Russian-alllies.
katchen
Banned
A good example of how strong unions retarded innovation in the United States was the railroads. The unions insisted on "featherbedding" jobs that otherwise were not needed, such as stokers on trains that ran on oil or firemen. And because railroads were tightly regulated by the Interstate Commerce Commission and their rates set by this commission, the unions could lobby Congress and the commission to block mergers between railroads that made economic sense but might cost some union workers their jobs. So union workers kept their jobs to the point where sometimes they were paid to show up and do absolutely nothing. And railroads lost their market to less regulated trucks from the 1930s until the 1990s as roads were paved and freeways built.
On the other hand, in the 1970s, American longshoremen reached an agreement whereby ports agreed to keep them on in return for them not interfering with containerization. American ports innovated and remained competitive.
yboxman
Banned
Well, there are indeed a vast number of factors leading to relative British decline not only in comparison to the USSR, U.S, Japan and the third world but also in comparision to it's continental neighbors. . Some of them are not going to change TTL. Some might. Here is a list of what I think will not be affected Vs what might be effected:
0. Britain is simply rather small and, with the exception of it's coal deposits, not particularly rich. The land area is only about 40% of France, and most of it is less arable than France. Ditto compared to Germany. Accordingly, the resource base it is resting on is rather narrow. Once the sea-trade, colonial and innovation advantages wear off it is only natural for it's economy to shrink into something resembling it's proportionate size and resources.
This is pretty much unavoidable. you can only "cheat" for so long. The question is not whether Britain reaches a "proportionate" share of the world economy but how quickly it happens- and whether it is sufficiently delayed for the paradigm shift in economic interactions which took place OTL in the late 1980s (lower transportation costs, more open global markets, etc) to allow divorce the British economy from local constraints.
1. Britain was the nation which led the wave of technical and managerial innovations which made up the industrial revolution and that gave it what amounted to a 30 year's qualitative head start.
But by the 1880s other West European (and American) countries had adopted the initial British innovations and Britian had ceased offering a disproportionate number of new innovations. Given that, a certain leveling out effect among the Western countries was ineveitable.
This factor remains unchanged.
2. Britain's initial advantage rested on a high concentration of Coal and iron deposits. By the 20th century those deposits had been heavily exploited and new discoveries elsewhere (and new materials required for modern industry such as oil in which Britain was not blessed) and that gave industrial zones close to them a comparative advantage.
This factor remains unchanged.
3. New Land transport technologies meant that Britain lost much of the comparative advantages it earlier enjoyed in exporting manafactured products and importing raw materials. For example, As late as 1914, the primary source of Coal for St Petersburg was not the Donets basin but Wales, and it was only marginaly more expensive to ship Ukrainian wheat to Britian than send it by rail to St Petersburg (and the latter had a far less flexibility and maximum carrying volume) by 1934 that was certainly no longer the case.
This factor remains unchanged.
4. Britain had gained and maintained it's empire on the cheap by exploiting a massive gap in technological and organizational capabilities between Europe and Asia/Africa. It usually found eager collaborators and allies in local elites /minorities/tribes who lacked a larger national awareness or loyalty.
By 1920 it's colonial subject had acquired both the hardware (bombs, guns) and the software (Pan-Islamic/ Pan-Indian nationalism, race consciousness, or class/communist consciousness) for more effective insurrections.
Keeping control of the natives now required greater government investment and produced fewer returns.
This factor is slowed down. No USSR means less funding, arming and training for insurgent movements and also that one ideological organizing principle cutting across tribal/religious lines is off the grid. Also with no Wilsonian Versailess and the "Right of self determination" entering the global consensus, independence seems more like a demand and less of a right for both British and natives. How matters develop in each colonial theater is complicated but roughly speaking, it should be easier for Britain to maintain the pre-war snail's pace transfer of power to Indian/other hands
5. Finance and debt.
OTL, Britian effectively bankrolled the French, and to some extent the Russian war effort. to do so, It liquidated many overseas investments resulting in what may have been as much as a 10% drop in national income due to the loss of so many invisible earnings and incurring significant internal debt towards those British citizens whose overseas investments were nationalized. It also borrowed heavily from the U.S, securing the loans up to May 1917 with British investments in the U.S. afterwards, the U.S provided unguranteed loans.
Since Russia went Kaput and since France was unable to pay it's own debts to the U.K with it's own investements in Russia gone and without reparations from Germany (which were never paid in full and never could be) Britian was left in the lurch.
TTL, the war ends before Britain become insolvent-after the war it will continue to collect debt from France (which will receive reduced reparation from Germany in full as well as income for investments from Russia). So Britian is obviously better off- but does the international financial situation give Britain more of a leg up compared to OTL France? I' think so- but it would really help if I could see the numbers, by year, of the various financial obligations each of the allies entered into during the war.
6. The Great war enabled the U.S and Japan to penetrate colonial markets where Britain was previously predominant, hurting the U.K more than France (which maintained a more protected colonial market) or Germany (which had little colonial market to speak of).
ITTL, the "foothold" the U.S and Japan acquire is smaller- British industry still faces more competition after the war but it's not quite as bad.
7. dirty Vs clean slate. Once advantage that devoloping countries can have is that they can leapfrog early techniques and go directly to "cutting edge" techniques. Developed states such as Britian already have capital, patronage networks (both elites and union equivalents), and emotional-habitual bonds commited to older techniques.
This factor will not change TTL.
8. The rise of new naval powers and techniques.
With Italy, Japan, Russia, Germany and the USA all developing new navies, Britain was forced to expand it’s own navy beyond what it's finances were used to. The rise of the submarine, and of naval aviation, also meant that surface ship supermacy was insufficient to dominate the sea-lanes the way the British navy did during the 19th century.
TTL, Germany keeps a significant surface navy after the war so the total potential naval challenge Britain is even larger than OTL. However, the fact that Russia did not implode and that France is still facing a Potential German land army, as is Italy, means that Japan-Russia-Germany-France-Italy are all going to devote most of their budget to their land forces facing each other and that most potential hostile coalitions will tend to be balanced against each other. Also, the USA may end it's building binge earlier once the Great war dies down. therefore, if a global naval conference takes place it probably places Japan in greater disadvantage than OTL (since it's international position is more threatened by Russia and it's domestic economy beniffited less than WWI). Maybe they are limited to 50% of the British navy. It's remotely possible that the USA may even accept something less than parity with the U.K navy.
So, on the balance, the financial drain of maintaining naval dominance is probably not much different than OTL, possibly slightly lower.
9. Then, of course, there is the matter of the unions.
Left leaning British politicians may argue till they are blue in the face why Maggies policies were heartless and wrong, that privatization was a blooming disaster, that the Unions were not a primary cause for the economic malaise Britain suffered from till the 1980s and that economic success should not be measured solely through GDP growth. The fact of the matter is, however, that Unions in post war Britain were larger, stronger, more allied (ie; more likely to engage in general strikes over matters unrelated to narrow union/factory specific interests) than their continental equivalents and carried out far more strikes. Until they were broken, the British GDP grew more slowly (or stagnated. Or shrunk) than the Franco-German numbers. Once they were broken, the numbers, over 20-30 years, seem to have equalized. worker-employer disputes in Britian were usually resolved through less-optimal output means than the continent, and after longer and more frequent strikes.
So on the balance, yes, I think delayed, and less centralized, unionization will lead to a slower British relative decline.Of course, uber-unionization was not merely a function of British policy during the great war. There are political, sociological, and economic factors underlying both the policy and developments that occurred independently of it. And obviously, many other factors contributed to British relative decline. But if the war ends with only a third of the workers unionized, as opposed to 80%, then the unions which develop post war will probably be smaller and more factory/industry specific.
They also have great structural problems, a crushing pre and post war debt, political instability, a demographic growth which is difficult to sustain and which spawns it's own difficultuties, etc, etc... but yes, the OTL destruction of infrastructure, loss of territory and life during the RCW, combined with fluctuating and harmful communisrt economic policies up to 1928, and "controversial" economic policies once Stalin consolidated power were so incredibly destructive OTL that almost anythiong else the camarilla surrounding the Tsar can come up with will be much, much, better. Almost.
Yes, but with other "dark" people, not "whites". When "natives" fought whites they were overwhelmingly crushed if they fought "properly" and scorned as irrelevant if they employed guerilla tactics (with the partial exception of the Sikhs). The fact that Sengalese performed tolerably well in the European trenches when mixed with white units did not have much of an effect on racist attitudes in the Rest of Europe, let alone the U.S.A, though it may have affected how the French related to their colonial subjects and to their willingness to accept "civilized" Africans as honorary Frenchmen (demographic weakness and ongoing fears of Germany were another factor).
Rationally, the fact that Africans and Asians seemed to perform about as well (or nearly as well) Vs Germans as French and British infantry , and considerably better than Itallians, when they were equally supported by the logistics, training, organization, armamanents, etc of their imperial overlords should have led European elites to conclude that one of the primary criteria by which they designated non-whites as biologically inferior was in fact, groundless. In fact, this was almost completely overlooked- because prejudicial attitudes are rarely rational (or lacking in self-interest).
The primary effect on attitudes was on the colonial troops and their countrymen (which is one major reason Britain, and to a lesser degree France, was reluctant to employ colonials in Europe). To be sure, there is a difference, in that the colonial people had little representation in European art, culture and Media. European Jews, on the other hand, had a disproportionate presence in German, and to a lesser degree french and British Media. So maybe....
Yes. And that impact will hit the younger generation much more than the older one.
Now there is where I disagree. Unlike Germany/West Europe Jews are not integrated into any portion of RUssian society or Inteligentsia (with the exception of revolutionary circles). What is talked about in the SHtetl is likely to stay in the Shtetl. Mind you, this might inspire some Jewish communities to form more robust self-defense groups during the 1917-1918 troubles... which may not end well.
Germany and AH will probably not view Britain as their #1 enemy after the Great war. And outside Austria proper, the other nations of AH are unlikely to hold a grudge regarding Great war involvement in the ME (If Jewish troops had been fighting in EUrope... well that's a different thing) Though, of course, this type of thing is rarely rational. More of an issue will be the growing influx of Jewish refugees from the Russian empire, and particularly the Cossack devastated Galicia which they have just annexed.
Where "anti-British-mercenary="traitors to the motherland"" sentiments may crop up is Tsarist Russia, which will probably enter a period of increasing tensions with the U.K in the 1920s. A schizophrenic attitude which simultaneously , rejects assimilationists, wants the Jews gone, and yet despises them for leaving (similiar to 1960s-1980s USSR) is not impossible, but the balance will probably be towards getting rid of the Jews while ensuring that they leave their wealth behind, rather than forcing them to stay.
Don't think the whole Maccabe Corps thing will figure much into the Polish nationalist calculus. What will be an "issue" (as OTL) is that Jews make up 10% of Poland's population but 50% of it's upper middle and proffessional classes. Where the Maccabe Corps might crop up as an issue is if the Polish Jews try to maintain or set up an independent millitia/self-defense force during the 1917-1918 troubles. Poles may view that as a potential trojan horse by the Tsar (Russia, while oprressing Jews, was also prepared post 1863 to use them against the Poles) While the Tsar will not be amused, once the siuation is stabilized, with the existence of a Yiddish speaking, pro-german attitude, millitia in his Western provinces. The combination could prove destructive.
Assuming Dmwoski strikes a deal with Tsarist Russia which leaves him in internal control of "Poland" you can expect him to anticipate or initiate, rather than follow, whatever anti-Jewish steps the Tsar puts into place.
A root factor in Ports remaining competitive was probably that ports in different states could have internal competition (eg; if the Boston posrt is on strike the new-haven port scabs rake in the business) much more than railways. OTL Israel, in contrast, has only two Ports, both "government" owned (in other words, union dominated). And our port unions threaten to shut down the country every time there is talk of opening a new port or allowing private operations to have a stake in an existing port. That's one reason imported materials and products cost so damn much.
But yeah, that's much the point I was aiming at. unions have (or at least had) many positive social benefits, and can sometimes compromise. But there is an inescapable tension between the goals of unions and labor reducing innovations and re-organization.
Anyways, digging up the relevant macro-economic pre and post WWI global Data is taking me a wee bit more time than I thought, so I'll be whizzing back to the Middle East in the next few posts (expect one in the next 3 days or so) and clunk out my global projections when I'm done calculating them.
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[SIZE=+1] WE'VE FOUGHT with many men acrost the seas,
An' some of 'em was brave an' some was not:
The Paythan an' the Zulu an' Burmese;
But the Fuzzy was the finest o' the lot...
So 'ere's to you, Fuzzy-Wuzzy, at your 'ome in the Soudan;
You're a pore benighted 'eathen but a first-class fightin' man...
-- Rudyard Kipling, "Fuzzy-Wuzzy"
[/SIZE]Yes, Europeans won the colonial battles in the end. But they had to fight, and sometimes fight hard. Shaka Zulu and Osman Digna and Abdel Kader and Geronimo were famous warriors. Maiwand and Isandlwana and Little Big Horn and Assaye were famous battles.
But there was hardly anything on the record about Jewish warriors since the fall of Jerusalem to Emperor Hadrian.
yboxman
Banned
post #19 Shards of a broken crescent#1
And... I'm back. next half a dozen posts will give a brief overview of the various chunks of the Ex-Ottoman empire during the 1917-1928 period. After that's off the table I'll focus on Zion and the "New society" during the same period.
"A line in the sand: The holy land and the Middle East between the wars" By John Hennery Patterson, 1944.
The destruction of the Ottoman Empire resulted in the victorious powers extending their more or less direct writ onto the coastal regions of the Middle East. The interior became the subject of a new great game. In this multiplayer game not only Russia and Britian but France and Italy as well, sought to increase their influence over the myriad warlords who lay claim those barren wastes while backing hose warlords whom they viewed as "theirs" against their rivals.
The result, by the time the 1919 Afghan-Persian crisis erupted, were over a dozen political units of varying strength, independence and character where once a single empire reigned. In the first section of this study I will overview the formation, character and defining issues of each of these units in the first period of the interwar period….
Autonomous principality of Vasupurakan
1928 Population: 6 million.
Population distribution: Armenian (45%), Russian (15%), Kurd (11%), Turk (15%), Georgian (5%), Azeri (4%), Greek (2%), other (3%).
Administration: Autonomous principality within Russian Empire.
The principality of Vaspurakan was originally little more than a Tsarist propaganda ploy, with little effort being made to develop autonomous institutions in the portions of North-East Anatolia captured from the Ottomans. However, the heavy recruitment and high Morale of the Armenian volunteer legions led to a relatively smooth takeover of most government functions by A Dashnak led coalition during the 1917-1918 troubles.
Unlike similar break-away administrations in Georgia and the North Casaucas the Vaspurakan republic remained largely loyal to the Tsarist administration and provided troops which assisted in the pacification of the Menshevik communes in Tbilisi and Baku and the Murad rebels in Daghestan.
Accordingly, Vaspurakan was recognized as a largely autonomous principality led by Catholicos George V (1). United with Pre-war Russian Armenia it consisted of the Ottoman vilayets of Sivas, Erzerum, and Trebizond as well as the northern portions of Van and Bitlis. For it's contribution to the defeat of the Mensheviks and Muradists it was further rewarded with the districts of Borcharo, Lori, Nagorno Karabach and Nechivan(2). The remainder of Russia's Ottoman gains, the Kastamonu and Izmid vilayets, were designated as a military frontier province and settled with Russian veterans and Cossacks.
As Vaspurakan had expelled most of the Turkish and Kurdish population during the great war and it's aftermatch, The Catholicos was able to avoid the social ills which plagued the rest of the Russian empire, and not incidently defang the Dashnak alliance, by redistributing lands vacated by Kurds and Turks to smallholders and landless Armenians. Though unable to completely prevent the re-infiltration of Kurdish and Turkish refugees during the time of troubles the Catholicos was able to resettle most of them in the interior and Northeastern frontiers of Vaspurakan, reducing the potential for future clashes with the Kingdom of Iraq and the Angora republic (3). In a decision which his heirs would often regret, George V further authorized the sale of land to Slavic and Georgian immigrants on the southwestern frontier in order to guard the border from further infiltaration.
Maintaining an Armenian plurality in the thinly populated land, and simultaneously maintaining his power base against a recovering and increasingly assertive Tsarist administration and the disgruntled Dashnaks would prove a major headache to George V…..
(1) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_V_of_Armenia
(2) The usual imperial game of supporting one minority against another. Now the Armenians are dependent on the Tsar to maintain their position Vs the Turks, Georgians and Azeris.
(3) Think Somalia, only worse.
Pontus frontier/Host
1933 Population (1): 2 million
Population distribution: Slavic* (65%), Greek (2%), Armenian (3%), Turk (30%)
* Many are households with a Slavic father and Turkish mother.
Administration: Military ruled province of the Russian Empire with the Cossack Pontus Host having considerable autonomy.
Little distinguished the initial Russian policy in Asia minor from that of the Hellenes insofar as the Turks were concerned. Like their forbear in the North Caucasus two generations prior, the Tsarist forces dealt with the Guerilla warfare of the Turks by evicting the civilian supporters of the guerillas, either to the interior of European Russia, or to the barren Angora Plateau. It took Russia over a generation to subjugate the Circassian and Dhagestani mountaineers and the Turks of Northern Asia minor were barely less fierce and far more numerous.
However, Unlike Milyutin, Yudenich had the use of reliable railways and shipping to supply his forces, Mountain artillery and mortars which reduced Rebels strongholds to rubble and an airforce which, much like it’s British counterpart in Somaliland, Chaldea and Waziristan, could drop deadly bombs, and even poison gas, on villages which were helpless to respond. And unlike Imam Shamil and the circassian fighters the Turks lacked any outside support and supplies. The outbreak of The Troubles resulted in a brief interruption of his plans to fully depopulate the Black sea coast of it's Turkish inhabitants (2).
Efforts to complete the initial plans of wholesale ethnic cleansing were halfheartedly renewed once a form of Stability was restored to the Russian empire. However, financial difficulties and the personal sentiments of the newly crowned Tsar Nicholas IIIrd greatly reduced the scope and ruthlessness of the Russification plans. Other than confiscating the rich coastal lowlands for the newly formed Pontic host (3) the Turks of the highlands were left alone save to being subjected to a high poll tax and encouraged through various financial means to either immigrate into the interior of the empire or convert and intermarry with the Veterans and Cossacks who had been settled on the coast.
The reprieve was not to last. On the local level, the growth in the Ranks of the Pontic host and their gradual adoption of agricultural techniques suitable for the interior highlands placed on strain on the relations with the remaining Turks. The 1928 slump, The Hashishi uprising, the Rise of the Rodina front, the death of Nicholas III and his replacement by Tsar Cyril and the inititation of the infamous five year plan spelled their final ruin.
It is noteworthy that three of the five members of the national emergency committee which seized effective control either served in the Pontus military district or are actual members of the Pontic host, indicating the importance of the region as an incubator of radical Pan-Slavic ideology in the millitary. In spite of that, local politics became increasingly dominated by a Cossack host that was remarkably eager to defend it's autonomy from the dictates of St.Petersburg.
(1) No comprehensive census was taken until 1933 due to unstable conditions.
(2) And also in the deaths of many of the Turks resettled in European Russia.
(3) made up of a core of Don, Terek and Kuban Cossacks and a whole shitload of mostly Ukrainian and Russian poor peasants from the most overpopulated agricultural regions of the empire (on the northern borderlands of the Ukraine).
And... I'm back. next half a dozen posts will give a brief overview of the various chunks of the Ex-Ottoman empire during the 1917-1928 period. After that's off the table I'll focus on Zion and the "New society" during the same period.
"A line in the sand: The holy land and the Middle East between the wars" By John Hennery Patterson, 1944.
The destruction of the Ottoman Empire resulted in the victorious powers extending their more or less direct writ onto the coastal regions of the Middle East. The interior became the subject of a new great game. In this multiplayer game not only Russia and Britian but France and Italy as well, sought to increase their influence over the myriad warlords who lay claim those barren wastes while backing hose warlords whom they viewed as "theirs" against their rivals.
The result, by the time the 1919 Afghan-Persian crisis erupted, were over a dozen political units of varying strength, independence and character where once a single empire reigned. In the first section of this study I will overview the formation, character and defining issues of each of these units in the first period of the interwar period….
Autonomous principality of Vasupurakan
1928 Population: 6 million.
Population distribution: Armenian (45%), Russian (15%), Kurd (11%), Turk (15%), Georgian (5%), Azeri (4%), Greek (2%), other (3%).
Administration: Autonomous principality within Russian Empire.
The principality of Vaspurakan was originally little more than a Tsarist propaganda ploy, with little effort being made to develop autonomous institutions in the portions of North-East Anatolia captured from the Ottomans. However, the heavy recruitment and high Morale of the Armenian volunteer legions led to a relatively smooth takeover of most government functions by A Dashnak led coalition during the 1917-1918 troubles.
Unlike similar break-away administrations in Georgia and the North Casaucas the Vaspurakan republic remained largely loyal to the Tsarist administration and provided troops which assisted in the pacification of the Menshevik communes in Tbilisi and Baku and the Murad rebels in Daghestan.
Accordingly, Vaspurakan was recognized as a largely autonomous principality led by Catholicos George V (1). United with Pre-war Russian Armenia it consisted of the Ottoman vilayets of Sivas, Erzerum, and Trebizond as well as the northern portions of Van and Bitlis. For it's contribution to the defeat of the Mensheviks and Muradists it was further rewarded with the districts of Borcharo, Lori, Nagorno Karabach and Nechivan(2). The remainder of Russia's Ottoman gains, the Kastamonu and Izmid vilayets, were designated as a military frontier province and settled with Russian veterans and Cossacks.
As Vaspurakan had expelled most of the Turkish and Kurdish population during the great war and it's aftermatch, The Catholicos was able to avoid the social ills which plagued the rest of the Russian empire, and not incidently defang the Dashnak alliance, by redistributing lands vacated by Kurds and Turks to smallholders and landless Armenians. Though unable to completely prevent the re-infiltration of Kurdish and Turkish refugees during the time of troubles the Catholicos was able to resettle most of them in the interior and Northeastern frontiers of Vaspurakan, reducing the potential for future clashes with the Kingdom of Iraq and the Angora republic (3). In a decision which his heirs would often regret, George V further authorized the sale of land to Slavic and Georgian immigrants on the southwestern frontier in order to guard the border from further infiltaration.
Maintaining an Armenian plurality in the thinly populated land, and simultaneously maintaining his power base against a recovering and increasingly assertive Tsarist administration and the disgruntled Dashnaks would prove a major headache to George V…..
(1) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_V_of_Armenia
(2) The usual imperial game of supporting one minority against another. Now the Armenians are dependent on the Tsar to maintain their position Vs the Turks, Georgians and Azeris.
(3) Think Somalia, only worse.
Pontus frontier/Host
1933 Population (1): 2 million
Population distribution: Slavic* (65%), Greek (2%), Armenian (3%), Turk (30%)
* Many are households with a Slavic father and Turkish mother.
Administration: Military ruled province of the Russian Empire with the Cossack Pontus Host having considerable autonomy.
Little distinguished the initial Russian policy in Asia minor from that of the Hellenes insofar as the Turks were concerned. Like their forbear in the North Caucasus two generations prior, the Tsarist forces dealt with the Guerilla warfare of the Turks by evicting the civilian supporters of the guerillas, either to the interior of European Russia, or to the barren Angora Plateau. It took Russia over a generation to subjugate the Circassian and Dhagestani mountaineers and the Turks of Northern Asia minor were barely less fierce and far more numerous.
However, Unlike Milyutin, Yudenich had the use of reliable railways and shipping to supply his forces, Mountain artillery and mortars which reduced Rebels strongholds to rubble and an airforce which, much like it’s British counterpart in Somaliland, Chaldea and Waziristan, could drop deadly bombs, and even poison gas, on villages which were helpless to respond. And unlike Imam Shamil and the circassian fighters the Turks lacked any outside support and supplies. The outbreak of The Troubles resulted in a brief interruption of his plans to fully depopulate the Black sea coast of it's Turkish inhabitants (2).
Efforts to complete the initial plans of wholesale ethnic cleansing were halfheartedly renewed once a form of Stability was restored to the Russian empire. However, financial difficulties and the personal sentiments of the newly crowned Tsar Nicholas IIIrd greatly reduced the scope and ruthlessness of the Russification plans. Other than confiscating the rich coastal lowlands for the newly formed Pontic host (3) the Turks of the highlands were left alone save to being subjected to a high poll tax and encouraged through various financial means to either immigrate into the interior of the empire or convert and intermarry with the Veterans and Cossacks who had been settled on the coast.
The reprieve was not to last. On the local level, the growth in the Ranks of the Pontic host and their gradual adoption of agricultural techniques suitable for the interior highlands placed on strain on the relations with the remaining Turks. The 1928 slump, The Hashishi uprising, the Rise of the Rodina front, the death of Nicholas III and his replacement by Tsar Cyril and the inititation of the infamous five year plan spelled their final ruin.
It is noteworthy that three of the five members of the national emergency committee which seized effective control either served in the Pontus military district or are actual members of the Pontic host, indicating the importance of the region as an incubator of radical Pan-Slavic ideology in the millitary. In spite of that, local politics became increasingly dominated by a Cossack host that was remarkably eager to defend it's autonomy from the dictates of St.Petersburg.
(1) No comprehensive census was taken until 1933 due to unstable conditions.
(2) And also in the deaths of many of the Turks resettled in European Russia.
(3) made up of a core of Don, Terek and Kuban Cossacks and a whole shitload of mostly Ukrainian and Russian poor peasants from the most overpopulated agricultural regions of the empire (on the northern borderlands of the Ukraine).
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yboxman
Banned
Post #20: Over the wine dark sea
Ionia
1928 Population: 3 million (1)
Population distribution: Greek (85%), South Slav (5%) Armenian (5%), Turk* (8%), Albanian (1.5%).
*Any non Albanian Muslim, including Greek speakers.
Administration: Integral part of the Constitutional monarchy of Hellas.
Exports: Olive oil, wine, wool, citrus, timber.
Venizelos's "Plan Trojan" had divided the fertile valleys of Western Anatolia into spacious smallholdings sufficient to end any land shortage in Greece proper and Crete. Assigned to each veteran upon release, the resulting exodus doubled the size of the Asian Greek population within half a decade, as the released veterans were joined by new immigrants coming from Bulgarian Thrace and Macedonia and mail-order brides sent to join the veterans from their villages in Thessaly and the Peloponnese. Nontheless, the population remains concentrated on the coast and the lands bordering the Angora Plateau remained ghost haunted ruins well into the 1930s.
The electoral and party machine powerbase thus established, together with the backing of Britain easily assured Venizlos's domination of the politics of Athens until the great slump. In Greece, the Pre-Slump interwar years are often viewed as a golden age. Politics were stabilized under the rule of Venizelos, who easily maintained parlimantary majorities.
While the Megali idea was not entirely fulfilled, with Bulgaria, Russia and Italy holding on to lands viewed as Greek, the cornucopia of Asia minor, and the effort required to safeguard those lands were sufficient to forestall any plans of revising the post war borders. While relations with Bulgaria remained tense, but the occasional attempt to transform the defensive alliance with Romania and Serbia into an offensive one, particularly during the Austro-Hungarian crisis of 1927, were repeatedly overruled by the position of the great powers (2), ensuring the continuarion of the watchful peace.
Good relations were maintained with the Italian monarchy, and tensions with Tsar Nicholas III largely avoided. With British protection and financial investment assured and with the harvests of Western Asia minor assuring a favorable trade balance Greece seemed poised to take off into a new Golden age.
Nostalgic Greeks pining for those years rarely scratch the golden gilding of their memories to consider the blood stains it coated. The triumph of the Hellenic race was at the expense of the ruin of the Turkish. The Turks of European Greece, Crete and Cyprus were subjected to a relentless campaign of Hellenization and conversion to Christianity, with both secular and religious institutions banned.
With nowhere better to flee to, and little prospects for resistance, the Muslims of mainland Greece could only thank their god for a fate less harsh than that of their Asian kin. With a hatred matched only by the fury the Turks bore them, an unyielding policy of exclusion was proclaimed and implemented, to the extent that Italy and even Russia privately issued complaints (3) over it's ferocity. The ongoing costs of "clearing" Asia minor and guarding against raids from Angora had begun, even before the slump, to raise discontent on the Greek mainland against Venizelos's increasingly authoritarian rule.
The various grievances, from corruption amongst long serving Liberal party officials, to arbitrary measures adopted by Venizelos in his persecution of political opponents, came to a head when the worldwide Slump hit the export driven Greek economy head on. The application of the idionymon , while targeting discontent on the Left, eventually served only to provide the monarchist right with the pretext and cover for their later coup.
(1) Another 5.5 million Greeks in Europe and the islands. Cyprus is annexed, No Post WWI demographic collapse, and the Turks (or rather Muslim greeks) in European Greece and the islands are never expelled.
(2) AH and especially Hungary, assume de-facto alliance with Bulgaria, as does Italy. Germany continues to back AH, though not as unreservedly as before the Great war. Russia vasciliates between alliance with Serbia and Bulgaria-but any gains Russia might contemplate against Bulgaria are matched by British opposition. And France, of course, is frantic to prevent any change to the statues quo which might enstrange Britain from containing Germany.
(3) Mostly because the Greeks effectively drive refugees into their own holdings via the Billiard ball effect.
Ionia
1928 Population: 3 million (1)
Population distribution: Greek (85%), South Slav (5%) Armenian (5%), Turk* (8%), Albanian (1.5%).
*Any non Albanian Muslim, including Greek speakers.
Administration: Integral part of the Constitutional monarchy of Hellas.
Exports: Olive oil, wine, wool, citrus, timber.
Venizelos's "Plan Trojan" had divided the fertile valleys of Western Anatolia into spacious smallholdings sufficient to end any land shortage in Greece proper and Crete. Assigned to each veteran upon release, the resulting exodus doubled the size of the Asian Greek population within half a decade, as the released veterans were joined by new immigrants coming from Bulgarian Thrace and Macedonia and mail-order brides sent to join the veterans from their villages in Thessaly and the Peloponnese. Nontheless, the population remains concentrated on the coast and the lands bordering the Angora Plateau remained ghost haunted ruins well into the 1930s.
The electoral and party machine powerbase thus established, together with the backing of Britain easily assured Venizlos's domination of the politics of Athens until the great slump. In Greece, the Pre-Slump interwar years are often viewed as a golden age. Politics were stabilized under the rule of Venizelos, who easily maintained parlimantary majorities.
While the Megali idea was not entirely fulfilled, with Bulgaria, Russia and Italy holding on to lands viewed as Greek, the cornucopia of Asia minor, and the effort required to safeguard those lands were sufficient to forestall any plans of revising the post war borders. While relations with Bulgaria remained tense, but the occasional attempt to transform the defensive alliance with Romania and Serbia into an offensive one, particularly during the Austro-Hungarian crisis of 1927, were repeatedly overruled by the position of the great powers (2), ensuring the continuarion of the watchful peace.
Good relations were maintained with the Italian monarchy, and tensions with Tsar Nicholas III largely avoided. With British protection and financial investment assured and with the harvests of Western Asia minor assuring a favorable trade balance Greece seemed poised to take off into a new Golden age.
Nostalgic Greeks pining for those years rarely scratch the golden gilding of their memories to consider the blood stains it coated. The triumph of the Hellenic race was at the expense of the ruin of the Turkish. The Turks of European Greece, Crete and Cyprus were subjected to a relentless campaign of Hellenization and conversion to Christianity, with both secular and religious institutions banned.
With nowhere better to flee to, and little prospects for resistance, the Muslims of mainland Greece could only thank their god for a fate less harsh than that of their Asian kin. With a hatred matched only by the fury the Turks bore them, an unyielding policy of exclusion was proclaimed and implemented, to the extent that Italy and even Russia privately issued complaints (3) over it's ferocity. The ongoing costs of "clearing" Asia minor and guarding against raids from Angora had begun, even before the slump, to raise discontent on the Greek mainland against Venizelos's increasingly authoritarian rule.
The various grievances, from corruption amongst long serving Liberal party officials, to arbitrary measures adopted by Venizelos in his persecution of political opponents, came to a head when the worldwide Slump hit the export driven Greek economy head on. The application of the idionymon , while targeting discontent on the Left, eventually served only to provide the monarchist right with the pretext and cover for their later coup.
(1) Another 5.5 million Greeks in Europe and the islands. Cyprus is annexed, No Post WWI demographic collapse, and the Turks (or rather Muslim greeks) in European Greece and the islands are never expelled.
(2) AH and especially Hungary, assume de-facto alliance with Bulgaria, as does Italy. Germany continues to back AH, though not as unreservedly as before the Great war. Russia vasciliates between alliance with Serbia and Bulgaria-but any gains Russia might contemplate against Bulgaria are matched by British opposition. And France, of course, is frantic to prevent any change to the statues quo which might enstrange Britain from containing Germany.
(3) Mostly because the Greeks effectively drive refugees into their own holdings via the Billiard ball effect.
yboxman
Banned
Post#21: In God's dark shadow
Turkish Anatolia
1928 Population: 1.2 million
Population distribution: Turk (100%)
Administration: Warlord/bandit patchwork.
Exports: Opium, raiders who target the rest of Asia minor, "contract workers" (1)
The Turkish government survived the death of Enver Pasha for nearly a half a year, but no society could survive the terrible winter of 1918, or the epidemics that followed. The remmenants of the CUP attempted to maintain a semblance of civil rule in Ankara but found themselves unable to provide for the throngs of refugees which nearly tripled the population of the province. Worse, they were unable to either provide provisions to the remaining field armies of the republic or force it's commanders to carry out demobilization.
Cut off from supplies, the remaining armies of the Turkish state could not prevent Venizelos from carrying out his draconic programme of Ethnic cleansing in Western Anatolia and could only delay Catholicos George V from doing the same in Sivas. Once Russia and Italy emerged from their domestic upheavals and returned their attentions to Pontus and Lycia the CUP had no choice but to sign a peace treaty recognizing the new borders, hoping that by opening their borders to trade and American aid they might somehow relieve the suffering of their people and perhaps prevent the expulsion of Turkish civilians from the Cappadocia and Pontus.
Ismet Inonu was the first to break with the CUP, using the treaty as a pretext. Altough he denounced the treaty to his troops, those who had not yet deserted their tattered banners had largely ceased to pretend that there was any hope to defeat the Russian backed Armenians. Their raids into Vaspurkan had become primarily forays to gather food and inflict bloody vengenance on the few Armenian civilians they could find. But by denouncing the treaty they could keep both their pride and the harvests of their civilian charges.
It took several months for the break to become open, as both sides maneuvered for advantage. While Ankara had backed Ismet's June 1918 decrees placing all farmland on the still fluid frontier with vaspurakan under military oversight and assigning production quotas to each plot (2), they were less pleased with his refusal to transfer any of the meager harvest to Ankara or to the landless refugees within his own. Instead, he distributed the rations to his own troops, thereby buying their loyalty.
The Northern front soldiers sent under the command of Ali Fuat (3) to bring him to heel were less loyal. While the engagement with Ismet's forces was inconclusive, his malnourished troops, following fraternization with their counterparts, more or less mutinied following the battle, a situation he was able to remedy only by denouncing the Ankara government and promising to improve his troops conditions- a promise he fulfilled by seizing the Ankara grain stores and gunning down both those members of the CUP who refused to endorse his rule and the civilians who tried to receive some meager rations for their own families.
Without even the thin veneer of legitimacy possessed by the CUP, Ali Fuat was unable to gain the recognition of the Diehard Western front forces under Fezi Cakmak. Kazim Karabekir, commanding the Southern front against the Italians was prepared to recognize his authority- but only so long as he did not try to enforce it. The war that followed between the Ionnou-Cakmak alliance and the "legitimate" Fuat-Karabekir Clique never truly ended but the winter of 1920 brought it's active phase to a sputtering closure. In the eight years that followed the warlords engaged in numerous skirmishes and one full blown resumption of hostilities which saw Ankara change hands (4). As the surrounding powers all had an interest to see this situation continue and were prepared to discreetly advance funds and weapons to any warlord who seemed threatened to be overurn by his rivals, no warlord was able to gain ascendancy over the others.
What ended this equilibrium was the rise of a new force on the Capadocian borderlands between Italian Lycia and Karabekir's domain in southern Ankara… the Hashishim, or, as they called themselves, the shadows of god.
(1) Something between Coolies, outright slaves and sex workers.
(2) War communism but even harsher and it will last for much longer.
(3) Who is commanding the forces facing the Russians proper, rather than Armenians and who therefore has more of a personal stake in preserving the treaty.
(4) Why are they fighting? For the same reason the Chinese warlords are fighting. The breach of trust and legitimacy required for a civil war to start pretty much destroys the ability of any of the warlords from trusting the others in a peace settlement.
Turkish Anatolia
1928 Population: 1.2 million
Population distribution: Turk (100%)
Administration: Warlord/bandit patchwork.
Exports: Opium, raiders who target the rest of Asia minor, "contract workers" (1)
The Turkish government survived the death of Enver Pasha for nearly a half a year, but no society could survive the terrible winter of 1918, or the epidemics that followed. The remmenants of the CUP attempted to maintain a semblance of civil rule in Ankara but found themselves unable to provide for the throngs of refugees which nearly tripled the population of the province. Worse, they were unable to either provide provisions to the remaining field armies of the republic or force it's commanders to carry out demobilization.
Cut off from supplies, the remaining armies of the Turkish state could not prevent Venizelos from carrying out his draconic programme of Ethnic cleansing in Western Anatolia and could only delay Catholicos George V from doing the same in Sivas. Once Russia and Italy emerged from their domestic upheavals and returned their attentions to Pontus and Lycia the CUP had no choice but to sign a peace treaty recognizing the new borders, hoping that by opening their borders to trade and American aid they might somehow relieve the suffering of their people and perhaps prevent the expulsion of Turkish civilians from the Cappadocia and Pontus.
Ismet Inonu was the first to break with the CUP, using the treaty as a pretext. Altough he denounced the treaty to his troops, those who had not yet deserted their tattered banners had largely ceased to pretend that there was any hope to defeat the Russian backed Armenians. Their raids into Vaspurkan had become primarily forays to gather food and inflict bloody vengenance on the few Armenian civilians they could find. But by denouncing the treaty they could keep both their pride and the harvests of their civilian charges.
It took several months for the break to become open, as both sides maneuvered for advantage. While Ankara had backed Ismet's June 1918 decrees placing all farmland on the still fluid frontier with vaspurakan under military oversight and assigning production quotas to each plot (2), they were less pleased with his refusal to transfer any of the meager harvest to Ankara or to the landless refugees within his own. Instead, he distributed the rations to his own troops, thereby buying their loyalty.
The Northern front soldiers sent under the command of Ali Fuat (3) to bring him to heel were less loyal. While the engagement with Ismet's forces was inconclusive, his malnourished troops, following fraternization with their counterparts, more or less mutinied following the battle, a situation he was able to remedy only by denouncing the Ankara government and promising to improve his troops conditions- a promise he fulfilled by seizing the Ankara grain stores and gunning down both those members of the CUP who refused to endorse his rule and the civilians who tried to receive some meager rations for their own families.
Without even the thin veneer of legitimacy possessed by the CUP, Ali Fuat was unable to gain the recognition of the Diehard Western front forces under Fezi Cakmak. Kazim Karabekir, commanding the Southern front against the Italians was prepared to recognize his authority- but only so long as he did not try to enforce it. The war that followed between the Ionnou-Cakmak alliance and the "legitimate" Fuat-Karabekir Clique never truly ended but the winter of 1920 brought it's active phase to a sputtering closure. In the eight years that followed the warlords engaged in numerous skirmishes and one full blown resumption of hostilities which saw Ankara change hands (4). As the surrounding powers all had an interest to see this situation continue and were prepared to discreetly advance funds and weapons to any warlord who seemed threatened to be overurn by his rivals, no warlord was able to gain ascendancy over the others.
What ended this equilibrium was the rise of a new force on the Capadocian borderlands between Italian Lycia and Karabekir's domain in southern Ankara… the Hashishim, or, as they called themselves, the shadows of god.
(1) Something between Coolies, outright slaves and sex workers.
(2) War communism but even harsher and it will last for much longer.
(3) Who is commanding the forces facing the Russians proper, rather than Armenians and who therefore has more of a personal stake in preserving the treaty.
(4) Why are they fighting? For the same reason the Chinese warlords are fighting. The breach of trust and legitimacy required for a civil war to start pretty much destroys the ability of any of the warlords from trusting the others in a peace settlement.
Last edited:
Re: Shards of a broken crescent#1
Great timeline!
But I noticed a couple of errors and a very dubious poin in the last update:
1) Yudenovich should be Yudenich
2) "ukrainian ex-serfs". Russia abolished serfdom in 1861, way before the POD. By 1917, the ex-serfs are too old to move to Anatolia.
3) Czar Nicholas III. He must have been born before the POD, who was he in OTL, and how the hell did he become czar in TTL??
Even if Nickolas II's son Alexis was butteflied away in TTL (or died from his hemophilia), his heir would be his younger brother Michael (who was born before the POD and hence present in TTL).
Please correct the first 2 points and correct or clarify the last.
Great timeline!
But I noticed a couple of errors and a very dubious poin in the last update:
1) Yudenovich should be Yudenich
2) "ukrainian ex-serfs". Russia abolished serfdom in 1861, way before the POD. By 1917, the ex-serfs are too old to move to Anatolia.
3) Czar Nicholas III. He must have been born before the POD, who was he in OTL, and how the hell did he become czar in TTL??
Even if Nickolas II's son Alexis was butteflied away in TTL (or died from his hemophilia), his heir would be his younger brother Michael (who was born before the POD and hence present in TTL).
Please correct the first 2 points and correct or clarify the last.
yboxman
Banned
Will be addressed once we finish the tour of the various fragments of the Ex-Ottoman empire and zoom in on *Israel and the New Society. They're doing pretty good though.
Corrected
I think it was abolished in 1863, but I didn't mean their legal statue, but the social statues of their descendants. But yeah, I'll change it to peasants or sharecroppers to avoid confusion.
It's the uncle of Nicholas II. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grand_Duke_Nicholas_Nikolaevich_of_Russia_(1856–1929)
He was a relatively competent general and administrator and the titular supreme commander of the Russian army until Gorlice Tarnow.
OTL, he was supported during WWI by a certain cabal of officers as someone who might replace the incompetent Nicholas II, which was one reason his nephew exiled him to the Caucasus following GT. the extent to which the plot was serious and to which he was aware of the plot is unclear.
He was considered to be one of the leading canidates to lead the White movement during the RCW but Kerensky had him removed from command shortly before the Bolsheviks took over and so ended up bumping all over the place and not getting in touch with the main white armies until the power structure within them was already consolidated.
Point is, he's an experienced commander and administrator, fairly popular with the ordinary soldiers, close enough to the line of legitimate sucession to be barely kosher and is not a red flag to either the progressives or arch-conservatives within the Russian elite.
The exact process by which Nicholas II is deposed from the throne will be detailed in a post covering the effect of the troubles of 1917-1918 in Russia and "autonomous Poland" (and Finland) but suffice it to say that it's not exactly constitutional, even by Russian standards, and that neither Michael or Alexi are viewed as suitable candidates by those doing the deposing for a variety of reasons.
yboxman
Banned
Post #22: The Fifth Shore
Protectorate of Cylicia
1923 Population: 0.6 million
Population distribution: Aramaic/Arabic speaking Greek orthodox (60%), Armenian (25%), Greek (5%), Italian (10%).
Language of administration: Itallian, Armenian, Aramaic.
Administration: Colonial department of Constitutional monarchy with limited self rule
Exports: Grain, vegetables, wool, Cotton.
Italian troops had landed in Cilicia in April 1915 and had received title to Cilicia less than Six months later in the Brusa armistice. As per the conditions of the armistice The Muslim (1) population of the Adana Vilayet was expelled to ottoman Syria, while the Greek Orthodox Christian population of the Haleb and Damascus Vilayets was resettled in Cilicia. The resumption of warfare in Anatolia did little to interrupt the exchange as Djemal Pasha, the effective ruler of Syria, maintained an ambiguous position, neither ratifying or openly denouncing the treaty.
Thus, while Djemal remobilized his troops and engaged in Skirmishes with French, Italian and Zionist forces, no large scale action was commited on either side prior to the Hauran-Transjordan campaign. As The French, Italians and British-Zionist occupations were burdening his agriculturally strained domain with Muslim refugees regardless of his wishes, divesting himself of the predominantly urban Christians seemed both a necessity and a benefit.
Unfortunately, Italy, focused on the war in Europe, neglected to place a civilian administration in place and largely delegated local affairs to the Armenian Dashnaks. As the Turks were being driven out of Cilicia the Dashnaks moved to claim possession of much of their land and houses, forcing the unarmed and unorganized Syrian refugees to settle for leftovers or else to become day laborers and tenants of Armenian landlords. For many of the relatively affluent, urban refugees the drop in statues to the lowest grade of Falah was more than they could bear, leading to outbreaks of violence in which the less numerous but better armed and organized Armenians generally got the better of.
As the refugees would quickly discover, the lowlands of Cilicia, unlike the Syrian plateau, were rife with Malaria to which the newcomers lacked immunity. The Italian administration, barely able to secure sufficient quinine for it's own occupation forces, was of no assistance, excaberating the humanitarian crisis. All in all, nearly 15% of the Syrian refugees died in the exodus, a number which, however high, was much lower than that suffered by the expelled Cilician Muslims.
When Italy turned it's attention back to Cilicia it moved to correct some of the abuses perpetrated by the Dashnaks, but did not seek to overturn the hierarchy which had de-facto been established. Administration of the protectorate was placed in the hands of a viceroy, with some power given to a parlimant which, much like the French Levant, apportioned seats on the basis of Sect. Unlike the French Levant, Roman Catholics, that is to say Italian administrators and settlers were recognized as one of the sects and given nearly 30% of the seats, with Armenians being likewise overrepresented. Thus, Greek orthodox and malachites, though composing the overwhelming majority of the population were granted no more than 40% of the seats in parlimant.
Italian rule had some benefits. The local infrastructure benifitted from Italian investment, new land was reclaimed from the swamps, Malaria was eventually eradicated and trade increased. However, As the Malarial lowlands of Cilicia were cleared the resulting farmland was largely awarded to smallholding Italian immigrants or else managed as large latufiandas by Italian magnates employing Greek orthodox labor. Furthermore, restrictions were placed on local industry and international trade to ensure a captive market for North Italian industrialists.
Inspite of these limitations, a grudging recognition of the Italians as protectors from the Angoran raiders and the rapacious regime of Djemal Pasha in Syria made Italian rule tolerable to the Greek orthodox lower class and largely welcome to the Armenian middle class. The praetorian coup following the great Slump and the programme of latinization pursued by El Caesar would rapidly change these attitudes.
(1) about 450,000 mixed Turkish and Arab.
Protectorate of Lycia
1928 Population: 0.5 million
Population distribution: Italian (10%) Greek (5%), Armenian (5%), Turk (80%).
Language of administration: Italian
Administration: Colonial department of Constitutional monarchy with unofficial local self rule
Exports: Not much. "Contract workers", wool, coal, Opium.
Unlike Cilicia, Italy had never established full control of Lycia, even it's coastline, during the great war. Only at the latter stages of the conflict did Italy move out of the coastal cities, primarily to forestall any Greek enroachement on it's territory. Like Russia, Italy had been troubled by social unrest in the aftermath of the Great war at home, and separatist movements in it's closer semi-colonial dependencies in Albania and Cyrnicia.
Accordingly, after clearing the coast of Turkish civilians and settling it with primarily Sicialian and Neapolitian veterans (1), Italy made little attempt to establish direct control of the interior. It was not until Greece launched an incursion towards Konya in response to "bandit activity" That Italy moved to establish sovereignty. Still plagued by an insurgency in Cyrnecia, Armando Diaz was commissioned by Victor Imanuel to negotiate a truce with the leaders of the interior.
Not all were prepared to listen but the increasingly tyrannical rapacious behavior of Karabekir's army, the outbreak of the Angoran civil war and the threat of Greek enrichment convinced enough local leaders that a deal with Italy was the lesser evil. Italy contented itself with direct rule of Konya and a number of fortified outposts, while the rest of the interior was ruled by local sheikhs and petty warlords loyal to Rome. Few, however, admitted to open alleigence to Italy, and accusation and murder of "collaborators" were common, as were skirmishes between rival clans and warlords.
Rather than attempt to impose direct taxation, Italy simply used it's control of the ports to turn a meager profit on it's nominal protectorate (2). The inability of local leaders to effectively prevent re-enroachment of Karabekir's officials/tax collectors/raiders into Cappadocia once the Turkish civil war ended may have been one factor behind the Italian viceroys decision to back the hetrodox Alevi-Sufi sect known as the Shadows of God (3).
It is just as likely, however, that the sects growing control of Opium production and trade and the profits which they shared with corrupt Italian officials explain their access to Italian arms. By 1926 a combination of prostelyzing, blackmailing, bribery and outright massacre, made them the dominant power in Cappadocia. In 1928, concurrently with the Great slump induced upheaval the occupying nations, they were no longer content with repelling Karabekir's "tax expeditions" into their territory- instead, armed with Italian weapons, supported with uprisings by local sympathizers, and utilizing fanatical "people bombs", they invaded his domain in Angora.
(1) Who are far less enthusiastic about the process in than their Greek and Russian counterparts. Returnees are common.
(2) Which incidentally drives up commodity prices and hurts the poorest worse.
(3) Whom I completely made up. However, they are based on certain esoteric traditions of Sufi and Alevi dervishes which were suppressed by both the Ottomans and the modern Turkish state. I think are likely to re-emerge in the extreme conditions the Turks are suffering under.
Protectorate of Cylicia
1923 Population: 0.6 million
Population distribution: Aramaic/Arabic speaking Greek orthodox (60%), Armenian (25%), Greek (5%), Italian (10%).
Language of administration: Itallian, Armenian, Aramaic.
Administration: Colonial department of Constitutional monarchy with limited self rule
Exports: Grain, vegetables, wool, Cotton.
Italian troops had landed in Cilicia in April 1915 and had received title to Cilicia less than Six months later in the Brusa armistice. As per the conditions of the armistice The Muslim (1) population of the Adana Vilayet was expelled to ottoman Syria, while the Greek Orthodox Christian population of the Haleb and Damascus Vilayets was resettled in Cilicia. The resumption of warfare in Anatolia did little to interrupt the exchange as Djemal Pasha, the effective ruler of Syria, maintained an ambiguous position, neither ratifying or openly denouncing the treaty.
Thus, while Djemal remobilized his troops and engaged in Skirmishes with French, Italian and Zionist forces, no large scale action was commited on either side prior to the Hauran-Transjordan campaign. As The French, Italians and British-Zionist occupations were burdening his agriculturally strained domain with Muslim refugees regardless of his wishes, divesting himself of the predominantly urban Christians seemed both a necessity and a benefit.
Unfortunately, Italy, focused on the war in Europe, neglected to place a civilian administration in place and largely delegated local affairs to the Armenian Dashnaks. As the Turks were being driven out of Cilicia the Dashnaks moved to claim possession of much of their land and houses, forcing the unarmed and unorganized Syrian refugees to settle for leftovers or else to become day laborers and tenants of Armenian landlords. For many of the relatively affluent, urban refugees the drop in statues to the lowest grade of Falah was more than they could bear, leading to outbreaks of violence in which the less numerous but better armed and organized Armenians generally got the better of.
As the refugees would quickly discover, the lowlands of Cilicia, unlike the Syrian plateau, were rife with Malaria to which the newcomers lacked immunity. The Italian administration, barely able to secure sufficient quinine for it's own occupation forces, was of no assistance, excaberating the humanitarian crisis. All in all, nearly 15% of the Syrian refugees died in the exodus, a number which, however high, was much lower than that suffered by the expelled Cilician Muslims.
When Italy turned it's attention back to Cilicia it moved to correct some of the abuses perpetrated by the Dashnaks, but did not seek to overturn the hierarchy which had de-facto been established. Administration of the protectorate was placed in the hands of a viceroy, with some power given to a parlimant which, much like the French Levant, apportioned seats on the basis of Sect. Unlike the French Levant, Roman Catholics, that is to say Italian administrators and settlers were recognized as one of the sects and given nearly 30% of the seats, with Armenians being likewise overrepresented. Thus, Greek orthodox and malachites, though composing the overwhelming majority of the population were granted no more than 40% of the seats in parlimant.
Italian rule had some benefits. The local infrastructure benifitted from Italian investment, new land was reclaimed from the swamps, Malaria was eventually eradicated and trade increased. However, As the Malarial lowlands of Cilicia were cleared the resulting farmland was largely awarded to smallholding Italian immigrants or else managed as large latufiandas by Italian magnates employing Greek orthodox labor. Furthermore, restrictions were placed on local industry and international trade to ensure a captive market for North Italian industrialists.
Inspite of these limitations, a grudging recognition of the Italians as protectors from the Angoran raiders and the rapacious regime of Djemal Pasha in Syria made Italian rule tolerable to the Greek orthodox lower class and largely welcome to the Armenian middle class. The praetorian coup following the great Slump and the programme of latinization pursued by El Caesar would rapidly change these attitudes.
(1) about 450,000 mixed Turkish and Arab.
Protectorate of Lycia
1928 Population: 0.5 million
Population distribution: Italian (10%) Greek (5%), Armenian (5%), Turk (80%).
Language of administration: Italian
Administration: Colonial department of Constitutional monarchy with unofficial local self rule
Exports: Not much. "Contract workers", wool, coal, Opium.
Unlike Cilicia, Italy had never established full control of Lycia, even it's coastline, during the great war. Only at the latter stages of the conflict did Italy move out of the coastal cities, primarily to forestall any Greek enroachement on it's territory. Like Russia, Italy had been troubled by social unrest in the aftermath of the Great war at home, and separatist movements in it's closer semi-colonial dependencies in Albania and Cyrnicia.
Accordingly, after clearing the coast of Turkish civilians and settling it with primarily Sicialian and Neapolitian veterans (1), Italy made little attempt to establish direct control of the interior. It was not until Greece launched an incursion towards Konya in response to "bandit activity" That Italy moved to establish sovereignty. Still plagued by an insurgency in Cyrnecia, Armando Diaz was commissioned by Victor Imanuel to negotiate a truce with the leaders of the interior.
Not all were prepared to listen but the increasingly tyrannical rapacious behavior of Karabekir's army, the outbreak of the Angoran civil war and the threat of Greek enrichment convinced enough local leaders that a deal with Italy was the lesser evil. Italy contented itself with direct rule of Konya and a number of fortified outposts, while the rest of the interior was ruled by local sheikhs and petty warlords loyal to Rome. Few, however, admitted to open alleigence to Italy, and accusation and murder of "collaborators" were common, as were skirmishes between rival clans and warlords.
Rather than attempt to impose direct taxation, Italy simply used it's control of the ports to turn a meager profit on it's nominal protectorate (2). The inability of local leaders to effectively prevent re-enroachment of Karabekir's officials/tax collectors/raiders into Cappadocia once the Turkish civil war ended may have been one factor behind the Italian viceroys decision to back the hetrodox Alevi-Sufi sect known as the Shadows of God (3).
It is just as likely, however, that the sects growing control of Opium production and trade and the profits which they shared with corrupt Italian officials explain their access to Italian arms. By 1926 a combination of prostelyzing, blackmailing, bribery and outright massacre, made them the dominant power in Cappadocia. In 1928, concurrently with the Great slump induced upheaval the occupying nations, they were no longer content with repelling Karabekir's "tax expeditions" into their territory- instead, armed with Italian weapons, supported with uprisings by local sympathizers, and utilizing fanatical "people bombs", they invaded his domain in Angora.
(1) Who are far less enthusiastic about the process in than their Greek and Russian counterparts. Returnees are common.
(2) Which incidentally drives up commodity prices and hurts the poorest worse.
(3) Whom I completely made up. However, they are based on certain esoteric traditions of Sufi and Alevi dervishes which were suppressed by both the Ottomans and the modern Turkish state. I think are likely to re-emerge in the extreme conditions the Turks are suffering under.
yboxman
Banned
Post #23: The Sunrise lands
French Protectorate of the Levant (1)
1928 Population: 1.1 million (2)
Population distribution: Maronite (37%), Armenian (3%), Druze (5%), Alawite (27%), Malachite (7%), Greek orthodox (20%).
Language of administration: French, Aramaic, Arabic
Administration: Colonial department of Constitutional monarchy with limited self rule
Exports: Silk, tourism, light industry, processed agricultural goods, cherries, apples and seasonal fruits, and transshipment destination from Syrian interior.
The coast of Syria is defined by it's Rugged mountains and those mountains, like the Caucasus and numerous other ranges has served as a refuge of last resort for the defeated nations and sects of the struggles of the lowlands, only to be conqured, in their turn by new refugees.
The Southern mountains are dominated y the Maronites, the oldest surviving group of these refugees, having fled the plains of Aleppo following persecution at the hands of the orthodox Byzantine patriarchs of Antioch. The theological point of dispute leading to the initial schism is today quite irrellevent. What is relevant is that while the more numerous Greek orthodox sects accomadated themselves to the invading armies of Islam, the maronites in their mountains continued to wage a stubborn resistance aided first by the Byzantines and then by the Frankish crusaders.
It is with these crusaders that the links to the Western church, culture and polities, and particularly France, were forged. Forged, and never forgotten. Eventually, the Maronites were conquered. Not by orthodox Sunni Arabs but by refugees not unlike themselves, the Druze. A schismatic and esoteric branch of a Ismaili Islam, itself a schismatic branch of twelver Shiite Islam which itself split off from orthodox Sunni Islam, the Druze do not speak much about their convoluted theology. With their small numbers matched only by fanatical group loyalty and incredible fighting skills they proved able to dominate the much more numerous Maronites for over six centuries. Exploiting the Maronite's economic prowess and Western connections their emirate dominated not only the Lebanese mountains but much of the surrounding Sunni and Shia regions. Yet long domination eroded the group loyalty of the Druze and even the adherence of their leaders to their secretive religion. A civil war between the Druze traditionalists and the Maronite backed progressives ended in the flight of the traditionalists to the barren mountain which today lies betwixt the commonwealth of Canaan and the the Kingdom of Syria. Wekened, the Emirate was eventually abolished the Ottomans who encouraged Sunni domination of the coastal cities controlling the commerce of the mountain. But Sunni domination came too late to erase these proud people
When Druze maronite tensions, long encouraged by the Ottomans, exploded into open warfare, France intervened on the side of the maronites, eventually establishing an autonomous province within the ottoman empire which, under European tutelage and free from ottoman extortions, developed far more rapidly than the Syrian interior.
When the French marines landed in the Sunni city of Tripoli, the Maronites to the south revolted, and confidently expected to be granted dominion not only over their mountain but over the surrounding regions from Acre in the South to Akkar in the North, from the sea to the Anti-lebanon mountains encompassing the Bikka valley.
British-Zionist advances and frustarated their ambitions to the south, while the Brusa agreement fixated their Eastern boundary on the old 1861 lines of the autonomous principality. It is to the North however, that the plot thickens.
Where the history of the Lebanese mountains is fairly well known the origins of the Alawites dominating the Northern mountains overlooking Tarsus and Latakia is unclear. Combing Christian, Ismaili, Gnostic and Pagan traditions, they have alternately presented themselves as Christians or Muslims depending on which imperial power ruled their lands. With fewer connections to the West, they lack the commercial aptitudes of the maronites and prior to the French conquest were mostly tenants of Sunni landlords in the coastal cities. Unlike the Maronites they held no love for the French and did not revolt when the French landed in Tripoli. Once it became clear that the Ottomans were vacating the coastal cities the Alawites very nearly unleashed a pogrom on their Sunni landlords, with a bloodbath being averted only by French bayonets and a public burning of the tax records of the lands worked by the Alawite tenants.
The Sunni merchants of the coastal cities were swiftly replaced by Greek orthodox and malachite Christian refugees from the interior which, unlike their unfortunate kin in Cilicia, were aided by the French in establishing themselves in Tripoli, latakia, tarsus and Beirut. Rapidly identifying these newly arrived refugees as the element most likely to support their rule, the French avoided giving a seperate administrative statues to either the Alawite North or Maronite South. Instead, both were ruled from Tripoli, with each major and minor sect being granted proportional representation in the consultive council. The French assumed that such an administrative structure would encourage the formation of a cross- secraterian Francophile elite and in this, at least until the post slump rise of the phalangists, they would prove to be largely correct.
Between the near automatic support of the Druze, Malachites, Armenians and Greek orthodox, and the pro French attitudes of many Maronites and not a few Alawites, France has had little trouble maintaining control of it's protectorate.
Control of the Levant coast was of concern to France not merely as a sop to their prestige and self-appointed role as protectors of Syria's Christians. In addition to the importance of a naval base in the Eastern Mediterranean in France's colonial rivalry with Britain and Italy, control of the Levant coast assured them of domination of the economy of the Syrian interior. The effects of that domination on the economic and political development, or lack thereof, of Djemal's realm, will be discussed at length in the next post.
(1) Basically Lebanon north of the Awali and West of the Bikka+ Northwestern Syria+ a small slice of Southwestern Turkey.
(2) The coast experienced relatively little starvation compared to OTL thanks to early liberation from the Ottomans and the Syrian Christian refugees are integrated relatively well into the coastal cities.
French Protectorate of the Levant (1)
1928 Population: 1.1 million (2)
Population distribution: Maronite (37%), Armenian (3%), Druze (5%), Alawite (27%), Malachite (7%), Greek orthodox (20%).
Language of administration: French, Aramaic, Arabic
Administration: Colonial department of Constitutional monarchy with limited self rule
Exports: Silk, tourism, light industry, processed agricultural goods, cherries, apples and seasonal fruits, and transshipment destination from Syrian interior.
The coast of Syria is defined by it's Rugged mountains and those mountains, like the Caucasus and numerous other ranges has served as a refuge of last resort for the defeated nations and sects of the struggles of the lowlands, only to be conqured, in their turn by new refugees.
The Southern mountains are dominated y the Maronites, the oldest surviving group of these refugees, having fled the plains of Aleppo following persecution at the hands of the orthodox Byzantine patriarchs of Antioch. The theological point of dispute leading to the initial schism is today quite irrellevent. What is relevant is that while the more numerous Greek orthodox sects accomadated themselves to the invading armies of Islam, the maronites in their mountains continued to wage a stubborn resistance aided first by the Byzantines and then by the Frankish crusaders.
It is with these crusaders that the links to the Western church, culture and polities, and particularly France, were forged. Forged, and never forgotten. Eventually, the Maronites were conquered. Not by orthodox Sunni Arabs but by refugees not unlike themselves, the Druze. A schismatic and esoteric branch of a Ismaili Islam, itself a schismatic branch of twelver Shiite Islam which itself split off from orthodox Sunni Islam, the Druze do not speak much about their convoluted theology. With their small numbers matched only by fanatical group loyalty and incredible fighting skills they proved able to dominate the much more numerous Maronites for over six centuries. Exploiting the Maronite's economic prowess and Western connections their emirate dominated not only the Lebanese mountains but much of the surrounding Sunni and Shia regions. Yet long domination eroded the group loyalty of the Druze and even the adherence of their leaders to their secretive religion. A civil war between the Druze traditionalists and the Maronite backed progressives ended in the flight of the traditionalists to the barren mountain which today lies betwixt the commonwealth of Canaan and the the Kingdom of Syria. Wekened, the Emirate was eventually abolished the Ottomans who encouraged Sunni domination of the coastal cities controlling the commerce of the mountain. But Sunni domination came too late to erase these proud people
When Druze maronite tensions, long encouraged by the Ottomans, exploded into open warfare, France intervened on the side of the maronites, eventually establishing an autonomous province within the ottoman empire which, under European tutelage and free from ottoman extortions, developed far more rapidly than the Syrian interior.
When the French marines landed in the Sunni city of Tripoli, the Maronites to the south revolted, and confidently expected to be granted dominion not only over their mountain but over the surrounding regions from Acre in the South to Akkar in the North, from the sea to the Anti-lebanon mountains encompassing the Bikka valley.
British-Zionist advances and frustarated their ambitions to the south, while the Brusa agreement fixated their Eastern boundary on the old 1861 lines of the autonomous principality. It is to the North however, that the plot thickens.
Where the history of the Lebanese mountains is fairly well known the origins of the Alawites dominating the Northern mountains overlooking Tarsus and Latakia is unclear. Combing Christian, Ismaili, Gnostic and Pagan traditions, they have alternately presented themselves as Christians or Muslims depending on which imperial power ruled their lands. With fewer connections to the West, they lack the commercial aptitudes of the maronites and prior to the French conquest were mostly tenants of Sunni landlords in the coastal cities. Unlike the Maronites they held no love for the French and did not revolt when the French landed in Tripoli. Once it became clear that the Ottomans were vacating the coastal cities the Alawites very nearly unleashed a pogrom on their Sunni landlords, with a bloodbath being averted only by French bayonets and a public burning of the tax records of the lands worked by the Alawite tenants.
The Sunni merchants of the coastal cities were swiftly replaced by Greek orthodox and malachite Christian refugees from the interior which, unlike their unfortunate kin in Cilicia, were aided by the French in establishing themselves in Tripoli, latakia, tarsus and Beirut. Rapidly identifying these newly arrived refugees as the element most likely to support their rule, the French avoided giving a seperate administrative statues to either the Alawite North or Maronite South. Instead, both were ruled from Tripoli, with each major and minor sect being granted proportional representation in the consultive council. The French assumed that such an administrative structure would encourage the formation of a cross- secraterian Francophile elite and in this, at least until the post slump rise of the phalangists, they would prove to be largely correct.
Between the near automatic support of the Druze, Malachites, Armenians and Greek orthodox, and the pro French attitudes of many Maronites and not a few Alawites, France has had little trouble maintaining control of it's protectorate.
Control of the Levant coast was of concern to France not merely as a sop to their prestige and self-appointed role as protectors of Syria's Christians. In addition to the importance of a naval base in the Eastern Mediterranean in France's colonial rivalry with Britain and Italy, control of the Levant coast assured them of domination of the economy of the Syrian interior. The effects of that domination on the economic and political development, or lack thereof, of Djemal's realm, will be discussed at length in the next post.
(1) Basically Lebanon north of the Awali and West of the Bikka+ Northwestern Syria+ a small slice of Southwestern Turkey.
(2) The coast experienced relatively little starvation compared to OTL thanks to early liberation from the Ottomans and the Syrian Christian refugees are integrated relatively well into the coastal cities.
yboxman
Banned
Next post will be about Kemalist Iraq and Djemal's Syria, after that a look at the Arabian Peninsula, then on to Chaldea (South Iraq/Kuwait/eastern SA) and then, at long last, an in depth look at the early years of New Society rule of *Israel.
Any preferences as to style (Viewpoint, narrative, academic review)? Was pretty much thinking to keep to the academic review until I get to *Israel but I'm getting a bit tired of it.
Any preferences as to style (Viewpoint, narrative, academic review)? Was pretty much thinking to keep to the academic review until I get to *Israel but I'm getting a bit tired of it.
yboxman
Banned
More maps?
I've posted maps earlier showing the general borders established during the war. That should be sufficient to orient you in respect to each post. I'll add another revised map with the final post war boundaries after I'm done with the tour of the ME (since it includes spoilers)
I've posted maps earlier showing the general borders established during the war. That should be sufficient to orient you in respect to each post. I'll add another revised map with the final post war boundaries after I'm done with the tour of the ME (since it includes spoilers)