So will their be a fully realized Cape to Cairo Railway as Britain has control of Tanganika?
With the Crescent Above Us 2.0: An Ottoman Timeline
- Thread starter Nassirisimo
- Start date
sudan is still in revolt no? Also egypt still has a slim chance of being taken back by ottomans.
From the stuff in the text (i.e. Urabi being described like a proto-Nasser and the posthumous father of the Egyptian national awakening, the many references to Arab nationalism and the Turco-Circassian elite, etc.) it sounds like Egypt is an Arab nationalist independent state by the modern day, because that's not the sort of narrative you'd expect to pop up if it's a part of the Ottoman Empire. Though I guess it could have had a period of being Ottoman in the middle.
Maudoldu00
Banned
Lol you sound like my mom. She actuallý traumatize from eating beef because of hair found in a venison she eating.
Can't agree more. The smell itself make me want to vomit. Yeah here in Malaysia the only person to eat is non muslim and majority is the chinese.
The Great War is the most inevitable, as well as evitable (is that a word?) conflict in mankind's history. And I suppose it depends on who is in charge. Someone like Enver Pasha (who's role may likely be butterflied totally. His parents may not have been together in 1876, which is our POD, and while there will be some leaky butterfly nets in some places, I think when it comes to issues like this, I'll be largely sticking to the butterfly rule) may well lead the Empire into ruin in a similar fashion to OTL. If Abdulhamid is still in charge at that point, things may get interesting.And so, it begins. The breakdown of alliances and the shattering of current status quo( albeit a shaky one). All spiralling towards conflict of a greater scale. May the Ottomans put off from any European conflict, much like your previous one where they sat out almost the entire one if it weren’t for an enthusiastic madman.
It is more of a cultural one than an actually Sharia based one. In my country, for a muslim to refrain from eating beef is looked down upon because Hindus Don't eat beef. So I am the target of my friends who ridicule me. Come on, I just love Fish and chicken more than beef! In subcontinent Beef sets apart Muslims from Hindus , hence it is at the centerpoint of so many crises in today’s Indian politics . And you are right about sin, Zina is ultimately greater sin than Pork consumption or even alcohol one. But identification point is a far greater value in a cultural sense. Hence the greater emphasis. Also, pigs are disgusting creatures
I have always wondered how the whole Muslim/beef thing works in India to be honest with you. Hui Muslims here in China are great lovers of beef (beef pulled noodles or Niurou Lamian is a dish they're super famous for) but as my father's family comes from Arabia, we don't really eat beef much outside of McDonalds or Jasmis.
Pigs are strange animals. I think the piglets can actually be cute, but the adults disgust me. It makes me feel a little bit queasy just to see people eating pork some
Sudan is still independent, though I suppose you can say it is internationally recognized as being part of Egypt, even if Egypt has been reduced to the status of a colony. A Cape to Cairo Railway would be pretty cool though, and I'm not averse to inserting some plausible things for the rule of cool.
To be totally honest with you, I don't have the timeline planned out for an ATL 2022 as of yet. The plan so far goes up to the 1920s, with only some broad-brush ideas after this. Egypt was at an odd position at this point in OTL, as while Egyptians still had a stronger sense of their status as Muslims (except the Copts of course) and subjects of the Ottoman Sultan, a stronger national spirit was emerging and politically separated from the Ottoman Empire this would only be likely to grow. Of course, the 20th century in our own timeline was a time of great ideological change, and this may well be the case in TTL.
I don't remember seeing a lot of pork in my time in Malaysia (I didn't exactly spend much time with Chinese Malaysians, which perhaps explains it). I guess I'm used to the smell, living in China and all. But halal food is actually far easier to find here than I thought which is nice.
A quick political overview of the world - 1877 to 1894
Lü Shengli; The Transformation of the Human Mind – Ideology in the 19th and 20th Centuries: Tsinghua University Press
Ideology's place in politics up to 1900
Ideology's place in politics up to 1900
The assassination of the Russian Tsar Alexander II by the radical Narodnaya Volya was perhaps one of the most stunning of assassinations carried out by leftist radicals up until that point. The idea of the “Propaganda of the deed” was that an action undertaken even by a single individual could if aimed at a high-profile target, become the spark for mass movements. If this was the idea behind the Propaganda of the deed then the effects of the assassination of Alexander II would prove to be a great disappointment to many radicals both within and outside of Russia. Rather than an outpouring of anger against the system, most peasants did nothing. After all, Alexander II was the Tsar who had freed them from serfdom, and who had afforded them a modicum of political power under the Zemstvo system. The assassination of the “Liberator Tsar” did however produce a strong reactionary impulse in his son, Alexander III, whose reign saw the expansion of the Okhrana secret police, a weakening of reform, and what few democratic institutions that Russia had.
The aftermath did not seem to discourage other anarchists and radical leftists from what can only be described as a campaign of assassinations of important figures in the latter part of the 19th century. The Italian King Umberto was left paralyzed after an anarchist made an attempt on his life in 1899, and Alfonso XII of Spain was killed by an anarchist in 1892. The Hapsburgs of Austria proved to be a most tempting target for assassinations however, as in several different assassination attempts, both the Emperor and Empress were targeted (including an incident in which the emperor was stabbed, but from which he recovered). The Austrian Crown Prince Rudolf was killed by an anarchist in 1890, an event that shocked the world and led to a wave of repression on the part of the Austro-Hungarian authorities against what were identified as subversive elements.[1] As was the case with Alexander II none of these attempted or successful assassinations resulted in wider political uprisings against authorities, and by the beginning of the 20th century, the use of assassination as a political tool was starting to lose its popularity, particularly as radical or socialist political parties began to increase in popularity throughout Europe. This move from the margins of society to the chambers of power would have an impact on more than just anarchism.
In several different European countries, liberalism had been the greatest opponent of both conservatives and reactionaries. However, with the downfall of genuinely reactionary governments in Western and Central Europe, especially after 1848 and 1867, liberalism now had to become an ideology of governance outside its traditional home of the United Kingdom. Having been the object of fear for nearly a century in some places, it proved to be far less radical than was feared in some areas or hoped for in others. In Britain the old Liberalism of Gladstone was gradually fading away, having won most of its battles concerning free trade or individual liberty. Certainly, after his retirement from politics, it had lost its most eloquent advocate and appeared to be besieged by a resurgent conservativism, buoyed by an increasingly jingoistic outlook on foreign policy, by “New Liberalism” which claimed individual liberty was only possible under more favorable social and economic circumstances, and perhaps most threateningly by the nascent socialist movement. Challenged by these new movements and by the seemingly hopeless situation regarding Irish Home Rule, a desperate Liberal government had by the 1890s turned to foreign policy as a way to shore up its crumbling support.
Liberalism's unpopularity in Germany and his own reluctance doomed the attempts of Frederick III to build a Westminster style political system
In Germany too, liberalism’s triumph appeared to miscarry. With the death of Wilhelm I and the subsequent downfall of Otto von Bismarck, it appeared that the government of Frederick III wanted to take Germany in a more liberal direction. While the German monarch had become more sympathetic to its cause, German liberalism began to fracture between different movements. They failed to win majorities in the Reichstag, being strongly challenged both by the still-powerful conservatives as well as by the growing socialist movement, which only grew stronger with the removal of the anti-socialist laws in 1889. Faced with the electoral weakness of liberalism in Germany, both the Kaiser and his Chancellor Rudolf von Bennigsen, preferred to keep the German cabinet responsible to the Kaiser rather than the Reichstag as much as possible until the German population could be “educated” to an acceptable degree. This the German people could not do apparently, and when the Kaiser’s ill health became more apparent in 1900, the German Liberals were divided, presiding over a fundamentally undemocratic system, and faced with the prospect of a Crown Prince who was unsympathetic to them taking the throne in the near future.[2]
However, in the East of Europe, the 1880s and ‘90s would prove to be far more difficult times for liberals. In the Ottoman Empire, the moves toward constitutionalism that seemed to be taking place in the 1870s were thrown off balance by a wave of catastrophes that swept the empire, leaving the conservative Abdülhamid II in power, who gave thought to political reform only when he was forced to. Although liberal opposition groups remained in the empire, the backwardness of Ottoman society meant that their influence was weak. Likewise in Russia, Alexander III saw liberalism as a limitation on what should be the absolute power of the Tsar. Both Alexander and Abdülhamid could not be counted as reactionaries in the old sense, however, as both undertook the modernization of their respective realms, especially in the case of the latter. There was an awareness that they could not simply turn the clock back but instead felt as though modernization could best be achieved under autocratic governments rather than the chaotic liberalism seen elsewhere.
Socialism had existed for decades by this point but was still a somewhat ineffectual force when compared to more established ideologies yet was still feared for its role in the Paris Commune of 1871. In 1900 there were no socialists involved in government anywhere in Europe, though trade unionism and the representation of socialists within parliaments and assemblies throughout Europe were expanding rapidly. The hectic pace of industrialization was producing a proletarian class in almost all the countries of Europe, and it was on this basis that Socialist parties were beginning to form and grow in number. The British Labour Party and Russian Socialist Revolutionary Party were formed in 1900, joining existing socialist parties in Italy, France, and Germany. While most of these parties promoted gradual reforms to improve the condition of the working classes, elements within them opposed this reformist trend and believed in a more Marxist, revolutionary path to power. Especially in Russia, this ensured that socialism would be on the receiving end of attention and repression from the authorities. In Germany too, the socialists were seen as subversive elements, and while not openly persecuted tended to be disregarded by those in power.
To what extent could Imperialism be seen as an ideology? Certainly, there was a belief amongst most Europeans in this period that Imperialism was a force for good. As the British saw it, their empire protected free-trade, individual rights and spread civilization across the globe. With the rise of “New Imperialists” such as Cecil Rhodes and Joseph Chamberlin, the expansion of the British Empire gained an added ideological element that had not been as prominent previously. For example, while the intervention in Egypt in 1882 had largely been justified simply due to the strategic risk presented by the Egyptian Revolution, the subsequent expansion of the empire across much of Africa was promoted by figures such as Rhodes as not merely being the process of “painting the map pink”, but as a project to spread the “Anglo-Saxon race” as far as possible. The “Civilizing Process” included both the settlement of white farmers in land previously held by African natives, but also the replacement of African leaders who were seen as the worse exemplars of cruelty, such as King Msiri of Katanga and the Afro-Arab slavers of Zanzibar. Appealing both to moral sensibilities as well as a sense of jingoism back home, British colonial administrators were able to build a more cohesive Imperial ideology than had existed in the past.
For other European powers, however, imperialism was somewhat less ideological. Certainly, in France, there appears to have been evidence of it. Although France’s expansion across the Sahel appears to have been pushed forward by the initiative of individual officers more than a push by the government in Paris, the latter was more than happy to take advantage of the political benefits of France’s colonial expansion. Although not without risk (Chinese expansion in Indochina nearly met disaster in the Sino-French War of 1888), this nevertheless assuaged some discontent over what was seen as France’s relative decline in the world. Certainly, when compared to the measly empires that were built up by both Germany and Italy, the French Empire proved that France was still a vigorous state. This was important in the age of Social Darwinism, where the Darwinian idea of “Survival of the Fittest” was applied to nations. Those that could compete would grow and thrive, while those that were “unfit” would find themselves ravaged by their stronger neighbors. In the general absence of European great-power conflict after the Franco-Prussian War of 1870-71, an expanding colonial empire was seen as a key indicator that one was a “fit” state. Thus, imperialism was tied up with other popular ideological strains such as Social Darwinism.
For those European powers that had colonial ambitions but not much of an empire to show for it, Imperialism was something that provided an impulse to more extreme movements. In Germany, the unwillingness of both Bismarck and von Bennigsen to challenge Britain’s colonial expansion and carve a “place in the sun” for Germany encouraged revisionist sentiments within the Volkisch movement and the Pan-German League. The conservative politician Bernhard von Bülow castigated what he saw as the timid foreign policy of von Bennigsen and questioned why “at a time when the world is divided up between the great European powers, one of the greatest at all is left without any place in the sun”. In Italy, it was limited resources rather than diplomatic considerations that prevented the development of a vast colonial empire. Nevertheless, some Italian politicians such as Francesco Crispi found Imperialism to be a useful tool to unite the still disparate Italy. [3]
Anti-Imperialist Imperialism? The paradox of Japan's rise to power was raised by its stunning victory over China in 1895
And what of those powers that found themselves threatened by European Imperialism? Anti-Imperialism was beginning to mature as an ideology in the last quarter of the 19th century. The defeat of Russia by the Ottoman Empire in 1877 was noticed by other non-European powers as a sign that European Imperial powers could be defeated by a sufficiently determined nation. However, few Asian and African powers had the military resources of the Ottoman Empire, which had been undergoing a series of Westernizing reforms since the 1830s. The famous Pan-Islamist thinker Jamal al-Afghani identified the Ottoman Empire as the best hope of the Muslim world to avoid political domination by the European Powers, but by the 1890s he was somewhat disappointed in the lack of concrete efforts by Sultan Abdülhamid, who engaged in Pan-Islamic rhetoric, to aid other Islamic states that found themselves attacked by European powers. Nevertheless, the example of the Ottomans inspired others such as the Urabist Nationalists of Egypt and the Acehnese in their fights against European colonialists. However, the Urabists had little success when compared to the Ottomans or the Acehnese, and there was some debate in the Pan-Islamist movement over what course to take to better resist European Imperialism.
In East Asia, responses to Imperialism were more disparate, and can largely be seen through the lenses of Japan and China. In Japan, the elite, after spasms of rebellion including most famously Saigo Takamori’s uprising of Samurai in 1876, coalesced around what has been termed a “Meiji Ideology” which could be best summed up in the phrase Fukoku kyōhei, or “rich country, strong army”. If Japanese independence was to be preserved, the country would have to be enriched and the military strengthened, and other considerations such as the rights of the individual would be subordinated to this overall goal. The Meiji period saw a great increase in the amount of taxation that most Japanese were subject to, as well as the power of the central government. However, it would be unfair to characterize Japan’s political development in this period merely as a move toward autocracy. A constitution was promulgated in 1889, pushed by the belief that a constitution did not necessarily prevent a strong central government capable of preserving the nation’s independence. Not all the change that Japan experienced was framed as emulating Europe however, and a great deal of the transformation was framed as a renewal of tradition. The “restoration” of the emperor to a more prominent position in national politics for example was presented as a return to the days before the Shogun, as was the promotion of the national Shinto cult. The ideological basis of Japan’s modernization was thus more complicated than a simple paradigm of “Westernization”.
If Japan was the epitome of success when it came to ward off the imperialist ambitions of Western countries, then China may have been the opposite. But the previously fashionable explanation that this was because the Japanese government was more amenable to the adoption of Western ideas and ideology has been challenged strongly in recent years. The Chinese impulse to reform had started to gain ground with the self-strengthening movement in the 1860s, as multiple defeats at the hands of European powers had illustrated the weakness of the Qing State quite clearly to the ruling elite of China. As in the Muslim world and Japan, many Chinese thinkers argued that their ideology and systems of thinking were not incompatible with the scientific advances of the West and asserted that the two could be combined in a coherent system that would enable China to keep pace with the rest of the world. And until China’s defeat at the hands of the Japanese in 1895, it seemed as if the Chinese were on the path to success. China’s defeat and the punitive treaty of Shimonoseki that followed it seemed to present different lessons for different elements in Chinese society.[4] The disagreements that came in the aftermath of Shimonoseki would prove to be a watershed in the development of Chinese political thought in the early 20th century.
[1] – I just couldn’t bear to see the Hapsburgs get a break. At least an assassination ticks off one possible scandal (the Mayerling murder-suicide of OTL). I wonder what Redl is up to…
[2] – This of course being Kaiser Wilhelm II
[3] – Crispi will follow a somewhat different path to OTL, especially in terms of foreign policy
[4] – I can’t get into it much now, but for various reasons, Shimonoseki is a different treaty from what was seen in OTL. Trust me.
* * * * * *
Author’s notes – So this was a bit of a long one. I wanted to give a panorama of political thought, some of it broadly following OTL (the position of the liberals in Britain for example) but some quite divergent due to butterflies (Germany, the Ottoman Empire). Some of this is to give some perspective on the more radical changes that will happen in the future. It may appear that not a huge deal has changed up to this point, there have been some “under the hood” changes that are really going to transform a lot of things going into the first decade or two of the twentieth century.
Up until now places such as the United States and Latin America haven't been covered in any detail at all, but there will be some updates, for both places, not just in the near future.
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Maudoldu00
Banned
If Alien exist and see how human treat other humans as worse than an animal they probably surrendered their belongings to us because scared to see the human cruelty
Is there a chance to see Bolivia joining the Paraguayan War on the side of Francisco Lopez?
As this could lead to Peru and Chile joining the Triple Alliance (Quintuple Alliance), as they were in border disputes with Bolivia over the Atacama desert.
As this could lead to Peru and Chile joining the Triple Alliance (Quintuple Alliance), as they were in border disputes with Bolivia over the Atacama desert.
I'm a little sceptical that the Sino-Japanese War would happen on schedule with a POD so early, but you haven't steered the timeline wrong so far and I'm intrigued by what you have planned for the reigon.
What were you expecting, Japan going to war with Spain over it's Pacific holdings instead?
Most certainly would, as Japan would get Spanish Pacific isles in exchange for recognizing the First Philippine Republic.
Well, it looks like Jingoism is returning to Britain but nothing too severe on plates for now. Political situation in Europe is indeed interesting. And most of all.....
Tennoheika Banzai!
that being said, Hopefully Japan won't go all berserk over Asia and have a sensible streak. Japan in your previous TL was my favourite( afrer ottomans)
Tennoheika Banzai!
that being said, Hopefully Japan won't go all berserk over Asia and have a sensible streak. Japan in your previous TL was my favourite( afrer ottomans)
No, if there's a war it would start in Korea- 'a dagger pointing at the heart of Japan,' as one genrō put it. But given how volatile the politics of all three nations involved were, to say nothing of the great interest of the Great Powers in the region, the war starting in 1895 and ending in a Treaty of Shimonoseki seems unlikely.
The huge weaknesses the war exposed in China needed a lot of time, and a lot of things happening in the right way, and a lot of people making bad and venal decisions. Up until the war, many in the British establishment thought that if Britain was seeking an ally in Asia, China was going to be a stronger and more valuable partner than Japan.
Nassirisimo is well aware of how volatile court politics can be, as shown by how many changes are mounting up in the Romanov, Hapsburg, Hohenzollern and Ottoman governments; Korea made those governments look like a Sunday tea party. Qing leadership was also in flux; unless you subscribe to the outdated view that Cixi always going to retain her position on top and she was hopelessly evil and bent on sabotaging the Self-Strengthening Movement at every turn, I just find it unlikely that things would develop so close to OTL's schedule.
I'm a bit late to this party. But still hope the feedback is okay!
I will also agree with @SenatorChickpea here. Qing politics vis-a-vis Japan were extremely volatile, and would have likely led to war yes, but the nature of the war being essentially the same despite a bit different treaty is hard to swallow, especially how connected the Qing Self-Strengthening Movement and the Ottoman Tanzimat were. The Qing in the 1860s were very much inspired by the Ottoman Tanzimat, in-fact Liu's book on the Self-Strengthening movement in China identifies the Tanzimat as one of the major drivers of modernization in China. The success of atleast the military part of the Ottoman Reforms would have led to a radically different Qing military push, considering the Ottoman defeat in 1878 and subsequent default in 1881 forced the Qing to literally upend its plans and create new ones.
Eh, while the Ottoman Government and the Young Turks made a big deal out of the OPDA, it wasn't that big of a deal. It was its legal nature as a foreign body supervising the Ottoman Economy that was more problematic than its economic front. Economically, in many ways, for the post-1881 bankrupt Ottomans, OPDA was essentially a valuable economic tool. It allowed the government to take loans with impunity with very little interest making it easy to pay back, and the smaller countries such as Spain and Netherlands who were represented in the OPDA despite having given little to no loans to the Ottomans opened the Ottoman market to a wide variety of trade. This can be seen in the 1897 Ottoman-Greek War when the OPDA essentially bankfunded the Ottoman War Effort for little to no gain at all. Despite the bankrupt manner of the Ottoman Government, the Ottomans had around 20% of its revenue go to the OPDA, not a third. Without an Ottoman government declaring a third default in 1881, Around 10 - 15% would be more economically realistic, speaking from the perspective of an Economic Historian.
Unlikely to improbable. Despite him not being radicalized by defeat in this timeline, Abdulhamid II was always an islamist; one that was tolerant of Christians before 1878 but one that quickly turned anti- after 1878 otl. Despite the radicalization not happening, to cede Palestine to the Zionists would basically spell murder for him not only from the Arab populace, but also from the Turkish, Kurdish and Rumeliote community who would not be comfortable with having sovereign land being sold off. The memories of the cessation of southern Thessaly are still there where the muslim community was thrown to the wolves after all.
Partially true and partially false. The native Jews of the Ottoman Empire, the Sephardics had an extremely dim view of Jewish immigrants iotl, calling them foreigners and subversive elements, often joining the Arabs in linching mobs during the 1st and 2nd Aliyahs against the immigrants. This sense of unwelcome even from fellow Jews in the Middle East was surprising to the Zionists, who believed they would be welcomed with nearly open arms - causing the Congress in 1902 to propose to Abdulhamid II the system of 'Quota Jewish Settlements' with a fixed number of Jewish immigrant families being settled throughout the Ottoman Empire in equal dispersions - with around a quarter percentile more in Palestine. Abdulhamid II was initially supportive of the idea, but without support from the Russian and Austrian governments, this QJS plan fell apart. According to Beloved Ottomania by Michelle Campos, this idea was significantly popular among the zionists as well. As the protector of Jews in the Middle East since 1517, the Ottomans themselves had a very good image among the Zionist Congress until the advent of the Three Pashas.
The Problem of Victory is often that the lessons of defeat are not learnt. Outside of the Principality of Rumelia that was created in 1881, the remnants of Ottoman Bulgaria saw a renaissance of administrative and economic growth due to defeat lessons in the region. Locals were appeased, and promises were kept, allowing for some semblance of loyalism to return back. Indeed Kardzhali IOTL rose up in revolt in support of the Ottoman Government in 1912-13 as a result of this. A quirk of winning a war here to see indeed.
Sultan Abdulhamid II was not a Russophobe however. According to his biography by Gundognu, Abdulhamid II was very much a Russophile, despite the deep political and historical animosity between St. Petersburg and Constantinople. His letters to the British where he expressed wonder at the Russian 'Civilization and Authority' highlight a sense of awe at Russian Culture. Indeed, the multiple Russian artists who found work in his court also add support to his russophilic tendencies. I find it slightly improbable that he would publicly support the idea of an anti-Russian Coalition, where he would be more disposed to bring Ottoman Support to Russia. The 1881 - 1911 Ottoman-Russian near alliance (to the point a marriage alliance was explored in 1892!) is an impossibility i would presume due to the nature of 1878 war ittl, but certainly better relations under AH II is a given. The idea that two nations will always be enemies is a fallacy that i hope this timeline will avoid.
The bolder part is not particularly true however. Liberalism was seen in the aftermath of Tanzimat as the great cause that would save the Empire from the clutches of the encroaching Europeans. It was only the apparent failure of this liberalism in the wake of the 1878 War that liberalism became a reviled ideology in most of the OE, for it had 'failed' in its promise to save the empire. If you read accounts from the day to day people in the OE prior to the war, as shown in Sohrabi's book on Ottoman constitutionalism, most citizens expressed wonder and a bit of hope regarding Liberalism. With victory in 1878, Liberalism would absolutely be a very powerful force in internal Ottoman politics.
I will also agree with @SenatorChickpea here. Qing politics vis-a-vis Japan were extremely volatile, and would have likely led to war yes, but the nature of the war being essentially the same despite a bit different treaty is hard to swallow, especially how connected the Qing Self-Strengthening Movement and the Ottoman Tanzimat were. The Qing in the 1860s were very much inspired by the Ottoman Tanzimat, in-fact Liu's book on the Self-Strengthening movement in China identifies the Tanzimat as one of the major drivers of modernization in China. The success of atleast the military part of the Ottoman Reforms would have led to a radically different Qing military push, considering the Ottoman defeat in 1878 and subsequent default in 1881 forced the Qing to literally upend its plans and create new ones.
Russians were always aiming at Constantinople for the mantle of orthodoxy and warm water port as seen OTL, unless Slavism and Orthodox fundamentalism suffers blows ITTL, I see no significant change in this attitude. Remember that Russians Didn't suffer a major defeat in 1878 ITTL , they just retreated haphazardly and dishonorably so their ambition still burns wild.
I think it has to do with Empire’s education system and literacy rate more than the idea actually being palatable. Western style education system no matter what will produce a bunch of liberals ( no matter the number) even in the most extremist of factions as seen in ME post colonial era political movements like Ikhwanul muslimeen and such. And Ottoman society was not just the urbanites of Constantinople or Rumelia, it was a diverse and disparate one, you know that more than me
Eh not really. Alexander III and early Nicholas II both pursued very pro-ottoman policy to the point that Alexander iii stated in 1886 that Tsargrad was only a dejure claim and nothing much else. AIII was serious when he made this remark. The Russian foreign office basically stopped every mention of the claim except for the yearly dejure reports. Similarly AHII was very russophilic, even going so for as to present a few of his sister's and daughters as prospective wives of NII which was actually seriously considered by the Russians with the added clause of conversion.
Not only the city educated elites, even rural peasants were identified to be very liberal in pre-1878 OE. Many liberal young ottomans in the first and second ottoman parliament's, a plurality even came from the rural Muslim countryside for example.I think it has to do with Empire’s education system and literacy rate more than the idea actually being palatable. Western style education system no matter what will produce a bunch of liberals ( no matter the number) even in the most extremist of factions as seen in ME post colonial era political movements like Ikhwanul muslimeen and such. And Ottoman society was not just the urbanites of Constantinople or Rumelia, it was a diverse and disparate one, you know that more than me