Neutral or Entente Ottoman Empire

[Paul V McNutt]

Today is the 100th anniversary of the ratification of the Sykes Picot agreement, So we should ask if Ottoman Empire joined the Entente or stayed neutral, could it survive.

 

[Deleted member 93645]

Its outdated imperial structure was definitely a problem, as the German Empire and Russian Empire both fell. If somebody like Atatürk takes power though, no contest. The Ottomans become the new power of Southeast Europe and West Asia, and are later propped up against communism if they have any difficulties.

 

[Tom_B]

This comes up fairly often. There is one problem in that carving up the turkey would still be appealing to Britain, France and Russia even if the OE after the war with Germany is won if it remained neutral.

Internally the OE struggled to find its identity.

Was it primarily a very broad Panturanic nationalism as the Young Turks esp. Enver fantasized about?

Was it a narrowly defined Turkish secular national identity which was essentially Kemalism?

Was it fundamentally based on Islam?

Was it a multinational multireligious confederation as Tanzimat was working towards?

 

[Lee-Sensei]

Its outdated imperial structure was definitely a problem, as the German Empire and Russian Empire both fell. If somebody like Atatürk takes power though, no contest. The Ottomans become the new power of Southeast Europe and West Asia, and are later propped up against communism if they have any difficulties.

Ataturk was a Turkish nationalist. Before the war even began he wanted to pull back to more defensible and ethnically Turkish borders. He was also a republican.