Es Geloybte Aretz - a Germanwank
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The RN did a little of that after the HSF scuttled at Scapa Flow. They machinegunned the lifeboats, killing nine.
Well it is not as if old PDNs will be that useful anyway with the DNs already sailing. A few years of useful service perhaps and a few more in reserve.
IIRC the HSF incident was to force the crews back onboard where they would have to save the ships out of self preservation.
For being marketed as "Germanwank" there is remarkably little wank in the story...
IIRC the HSF incident was to force the crews back onboard where they would have to save the ships out of self preservation.
For being marketed as "Germanwank" there is remarkably little wank in the story...
Part of it, if I recall correctly, is that Carlton's intention is a long-term wank, meaning that there may be short-term, well, problems in order to guide history towards other things.For being marketed as "Germanwank" there is remarkably little wank in the story...
(To provide a simplified example, using a costly war with a bitter victory to cool off rampant jingoism).
Ritos
Banned
To be honest, a all around better outcome would be a long, relatively bloodless war (maybe commanders realize the futility of storming trenches, and the inefficacy of shelling them) to cool down jingoism and turn into introspective national character improvement. This way, millions fewer people die, and you have a national fervor of self-improvement.
Explaining the trick of a long and relatively bloodless early-modern war might be harder than you make out.
These states viewed their war as one for national survival, and only worth fighting because the alternative was decline and extinction. That's not compatible with the decision to make no assaults. OTL the French military could not have decided not to attack; leave their territory in German hands by choice?!? The alternative to Germany attacking (France first, then Russia) was Germany fighting a long 2-front war with only one possible outcome. The British and Russian and Austro-Hungarian and Italian governments could not, politically, have survived the decision to start the war and then not try to win it.
The job of the generals is to win the war. Winning being possible or not....it doesn't change their job description. If they don't attempt it, the politicians will do their job: replace the generals.
A long and relatively bloodless early-modern war is at least extremely improbable.
Any major power European war in the early 20th century was virtually certain to become a sanguinary and protracted conflict.
The benefit of Carlton's timeline is to generate a plausible way in which such a conflict could happen with the least destructive long-term cultural, political and demographic consequences. In fact, that's true here so far not only for Germany and Western and Central Europe, but arguably even for Russia, though we don't know the details of how Carlton plans to play that out. Even if it is true that this trajectory wrecks Russia as a great power (to great human cost), that merely pushes that development back into the early 20th century, rather than 1989-1991. And the death toll will have to be very high indeed to match the millions of Russian nationals killed in World War I, the Civil War, the Terrors of Lenin and Stalin, and World War II (which, combined, I would put very conservatively at a minimum of 50 million dead).
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The Sandman
Banned
I expect the Ottomans would want shipyards that can build light combatants and that are at least capable of repairing capital ships. Having your own battleship isn't as useful if it needs to be sailed around the whole of Europe for maintenance and upgrades.
In fact, what they might now demand the Russians send them in lieu of the scuttled ships is at least one actual shipyard, dismantled and removed from its current location in Russia.
The Turks had something like that, sort of, at Istinye, Istanbul.
I could see them modestly upgrading such facilities. But anything from cruiser on up - that would have to be purchased from abroad. The Turks simply did not have the industrial capability to build things like that.
Come to that, even their destroyers during WWI were all French and German built.
yboxman
Banned
Russia, even under new and rational management, really seems to be cutting off it's nose to spite it's face. The sunk ships would be obsolete long before Russia would be in a position to assert itself. The humiliation of handing them over to a minor and despised power is understandable, but Russia would still have been better off just forking them over.
As for the OE, it can;t hope to build up a fleet to match even the Italians- but it does need a fleet capable of keeping the Greeks in check. Even with Serbia gone it's position in Macedonia is shaky (did Bulgaria take a bite out of Eastern Serbia BTW?) and the means it uses to maintain control are going to make it a growing embarresment to the German government, both internationally and domestically.
As for the OE, it can;t hope to build up a fleet to match even the Italians- but it does need a fleet capable of keeping the Greeks in check. Even with Serbia gone it's position in Macedonia is shaky (did Bulgaria take a bite out of Eastern Serbia BTW?) and the means it uses to maintain control are going to make it a growing embarresment to the German government, both internationally and domestically.
It's an interesting question just how far Berlin is willing to go to prop up the Ottomans in the coming years. The odd Arab revolt is one thing, but those Balkan provinces won't be any less restive, nor any less attractive to zealous Balkan states.
yboxman
Banned
With Serbia gone, the IMRO is going to dominate Macedonia, and the Serbian-Bulgarian rivalry over the future of the province is no longer an issue. That will, on the one hand, make the insurgents less divided and more of a threat, and also gain them more international sympathy and credibility (since they won;t be occupied with massacring each other). But the conventional quantitative millitary threat Bulgaria alone, or Bulgaria+ Greece pose will be much lower than that of Bulgaria+Serbia+montenegro+Greece, and the Ottoman Millitary will be qualitatively better (and won't be sucked into lost causes like Tripoli). Still, putting down Christian insurrection in the Balkans will be an ongoing embarresment, especially after the Armenian massacres.
Also, Abdul Hamid is not likely to carry out democratic reforms, and any CUP analogous coup is quite likely to descent into a Turkish nationalist dominated junta, even without a Balkan wars analog- which will make sepratism, in the Muslim as well as Christian provinces, more of an issue.
yboxman
Banned
Must have missed it- though I guess that with Talat being a Pasha it had to have happened. Which is odd, given Talat's OTL trajectory. He was in the Saloniki post office in the decade preceding the 1908 revolution, and was kicked out of the CUP prior to inserting himself into parlimant by winning the Edirne (his home town) parlimantary seat.
Does anyone remember what exactly went down in the OE in this TL?
My gut says that that the Sublime Porte (whoever is running it) has bought themselves a decade to a generation as far as their European holdings are concerned. But obviously the basic demographics are against them, and Balkan nationalism isn't going away. Thrashing Christian minorities in obscure Anatolian hinterlands is one thing; trying to crack the whip on overwhelmingly Christian populations in Macedonia and Thrace is something else. The Bulgarians and Serbs are clearly reduced as threats for now, but that probably won't be the case forever. And if push comes to shove, Vienna and Budapest would surely rather have Balkan ambitions directed toward Turkish possessions rather than their own - if they can manage the process in an acceptable way.
Much will depend on how things develop in Constantinople. A strong nationalist military regime might be able to impose their will be force for a while (though it might also trigger full-scale rebellion). Chaotic developments will create opportunities for restive nationalist groups and neighbors.
With Russia reduced to marginal status for the next decade (or two) Austria will be the dominating power on the Balkans. Austria will allow the creation of "independent" nations on the Balkans instead of Ottoman Europe. But Austria will closely monitor that none of those nations becomes too big - sort of what Britain tried with the continent, prevent a domination nation that might become a future opponent.
Constantinople, Vienna---and Berlin. The flip side of my belief that AH will not disintegrate, because the most dominant German interest is to preserve it, also implies that in the end AH is a German protectorate. Not one without considerable say in its own fate, to be sure! They are "equal partners" the way the British Commonwealth was with the USA during the Cold War. A serious breach in policy between them would probably lead to the breakdown of AH, and enough dominant players in AH will understand that that they will, perhaps with a tight smile hiding gritted teeth in many cases, maintain the harmony.
And OE is the same sort of case I think--German interest favors keeping it all in one big package, especially keeping Mesopotamia (this may not be as obvious yet as it will become soon, but the region is valuable enough even without oil that the Germans will want to see it kept under the same ramshackle roof--and then the oil will be found and the stakes go higher).
The two client empires have obvious conflicts of interest; they will ultimately be mediated in Berlin.
Or of course German policy could slip and become less astute than it ought to be! Given the coming conservative ascendancy we've been promised, despite immediate factors my more romantic disposition suggested ought to block it, real stupidity is clearly an option. I suppose that when push comes to shove, given a less than deft handling of events combined with the balance of forces favoring disintegration versus unity in the two empires, if it comes down to having to betray or fail one or the other the Germans will prefer to favor Austria-Hungary. It is European, Christian, their neighbor, their close partner in a long hard war--OE is distant, Muslim, only a brief and peripheral partner. Of course they have all that oil! (If a possible crisis is delayed long enough for that to become a known factor). Perhaps that that point German policy would favor seeing OE break up and attempt to capture the Mesopotamian piece of it under some client regime--but doing that puts the region up for grabs, with British, and possibly French or American (via private channels as with Saudi Arabia in the interwar period OTL) and possibly even Russian tentacles getting into the game. Who knows, maybe the Japanese get involved? (Diplomatically, as fellow non-Christian, non-European outsiders appealing for unity against European hegemony?)
As a rule I think it is smart for Germany to preserve both empires. But if smarts fail, or outsmart themselves, I suppose OE would become a mess.
We have no author prophecy I recall on the matter. I'm going to call it as 50/50. A strong and well-run German hegemony can set the Empire on course for survival, perhaps with some negotiated and compensated withdrawal from the Balkans. Things can easily go wrong and a spectacular breakup and regrouping of influence channels would result.
To the extent that Germany has a strategic interest in the survival of the Ottoman Empire, it rests chiefly a) along the Berlin-to-Baghdad Railway, and b) the Empire's utility as a counterweight to Russia in the Black Sea and Caucasus.
To ensure that, supporting continued Ottoman control of the Straits, Anatolia, and Mesopotamia are key. But it's less obvious that the same considerations will govern in Albania, Macedonia, and (western, at least) Thrace, if push come to shove. The default stance will be to avoid any dismemberment of the Empire, out of fear that it will lead to its dissolution. But if Ottoman control over its remaining possessions in the Balkans looks untenable - and I really do think that is inevitable at some point by the 1930's - I can see Berlin (and Vienna/Budapest) trying to mediate a wind-down that at least leaves the Ottomans with the Straits - in short, what the Turks have in European Turkey today, roughly.
Richter is probably right that the preference would be for more, small, weak Christian Balkan states, rather than allowing any one (esp. Serbia or Bulgaria) from becoming too large or too strong. The elimination of Russia as a great power threat for a generation will increase the comfort level with such an outcome. And then there's the question of what role the British would play.
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