The Young Turks--Precursor to the Arab Spring?

[Lone Wolf]

No, no, no. World War One was inevitable and the British and French engineered it to dismember the Ottoman Empire, Hapsburg Empire and the Wilhemite Empire.

You forgot the Russian Empire. Remember what I said about the Orthodox Civilization and the Anglo-Saxon civilization? And of course, Gavrilo Princip was a Mason acting on the orders of Masons Lloyd-George, Asquith and Poincare. As FW Erdghal reports:

assassination of the Austro-Hungarian Archduke and heir to the Habsburg throne in Sarajevo by Gavrilo Princip, a member of a Serbian Black Hand secret society with reported French Masonic ties,

 

[mghani]

You forgot the Russian Empire. Remember what I said about the Orthodox Civilization and the Anglo-Saxon civilization? And of course, Gavrilo Princip was a Mason acting on the orders of Masons Lloyd-George, Asquith and Poincare. As FW Erdghal reports:

Wow! you actually took time out to read that F W Engdahl, essay. I appreciate that. Its one helluva of an interpretation of world war I. That Engdahl gives a whole new dignity to conspiracy theory. He is my idol and makes me proud of being a conspiracy theorist!

 

[LightSpectra]

So... his craziness is more plausibly accurate because he's long-winded about it?

 

[mghani]

I have much more time for his long-winded craziness than the absurd " am an authority in my own right " attitude which Dachs and others like yourself exemplify. Any scholar who makes his arguments by religiously citing evidence and sources is a scholar i respect. If you call that crazy and longwinded, it would be quite consistent with the attitude i made reference to.

 

[LightSpectra]

I have much more time for his long-winded craziness than the absurd " am an authority in my own right " attitude which Dachs and others like yourself exemplify.

k. Then I guess there's not much more here to discuss, is there? You've publicly stated that you'd believe the mentally ill over posters on this forum, so why still post?

 

[Plotinus]

Moderator Action: Everyone, please try to engage with each other's points in a constructive and respectful way. Satire doesn't meet that description.

 

[mghani]

k. Then I guess there's not much more here to discuss, is there? You've publicly stated that you'd believe the mentally ill over posters on this forum, so why still post?

The last time i checked you were the one accussing a qualified scholar and historian as mentally ill. Your sensitivity is incomprehensible, but not surprising.

 

[mghani]

It wasn't to any significant degree, and the people who allegedly did the encouraging had little to gain from it and in fact gained little from it anyway. This has already been addressed by people who are smarter than me.

Your counterarguments to that seem to be 1. they were under Anglo-French political influence because of their Western education (dubious, likely false), 2. the British were smart (not an actual argument) and 3. the French and British desired bits of the Ottoman Empire. This last one has some merit, but you still have to consider that putting a bunch of reformers in charge who wanted to strengthen Ottoman unity is hardly conducive to this, and neither is encouraging rebellions that would provide them minimal benefits. In any case, the British and the French only got their Middle Eastern mandates after the First World War, and in 1908 no one could've predicted that.

I disagree with just about everything that you have said here. I maintain that the French and british had soft power influence over the Young Turks, based on the fact that a vast majority of their leaders were educated in the West. And I repeat again if that soft power took the form of Masonic societies inspired by French models so be it.( yes I said it again, Free Masons) If you do not recognise the might of this soft power, the same thing certainly cannot be said of the sultan Abdul Hamid. I have given you the citation of the lengths taken by the Ottomman authorities to shield young students sent to Western Eurpe to study from this soft power--- in my edited post. Also the Young Turk Revolution and its preceding incitement was associated with secret lodges which the Sultan Abdul Hamid passed laws to ban or restrict. These are recorded facts, not insane conspiracy theories. It would be much more conspiratorial to suggest that the Young Turks had almost nothing to do with the Young Turk Revolution as Dachs has done, one of those persons you suggest as being smarter thann you.

And on the question of soft power, here is what it means:

Soft power is the ability to obtain what one wants through co-option and attraction. It can be contrasted with 'hard power', that is the use of coercion and payment. Soft power can be wielded not just by states, but by all actors in international politics, such as NGOs or international institutions.

Soft Power

Be honest with yourself. Are you seriously not able to imagine Young Turks most of whom simply adored French and British Culture, and who studied in French universities, who while in these universities joined secret societies based on French models to create the seeds of a movement which tranformed into a revolution that ousted a decademnt regime, being coopted, even partially by French and British soft power.

And to your last point. No one had to be a genius to know that the inevitable political chaos of a revolution would bring about the dissolution of the Sick Man of Europe. For Christ Sake at the time of the French Revolution, France was one of the most powerful regimes of Europe. And yet the chaos of the revolution led eventually to the loss of Haiti--the Crown Jewel of French empire at the time. Am sure the imperialist elites of France did not study history at their elite universities for nothing. Even in the modern Era is it that difficult to imagine that the invasion of Syria and the toppling of the Assad regime would lead to a sectarian break up of that country. Why would peoople call Syria the Yugoslavia of the middle East, then. In the case of Iraq, how many people knowledgeable of the region were not able to predict that the Kurds would get their own semiautonomous state, which in the future may well be fully independent, after the fall of Saddam. Even now as we speak the Turkish government has troops in the Kurdish parts of Iraq, desperately trying to stave off what many see as inevitable--- an independent Kurdish state. its not mindboggling genius, just the predictive power of intelligently studying history and real politik. And would you think me a prophet to predict that the toppling of the Gaddafi regime may lead eventually to a political break up of Libya to its three historic regions. Tripolitania; Cyrenaica and the Fezzan:

 

[Lord Baal]

The last time i checked you were the one accussing a qualified scholar and historian as mentally ill. Your sensitivity is incomprehensible, but not surprising.

The problem, mghani, is that the "qualified scholar" you mention is disagreeing with every single other qualified scholar on the subject. If there are multiple authorities on a subject, it is more likely that the majority will be correct than the majority. This is obviously subject to new information, bias, etc., but the more outlandish and extreme the theory - especially when it flies in the face of both established historical precedent, and simple common sense (as tk said, why would helping a bunch of reformers who wanted to strengthen the Empire, and succeeded for a time, assist the French and British in breaking it up?) as the hypothesis you've presented does - the more likely it is to be incorrect. Dachs can back up his assertions with far more than one single source. Hell, even I could, though I'd need to do more research since I haven't been a uni student in a long, long time, and I never really studied this subject.

I disagree with just about everything that you have said here. I maintain that the French and british had soft power influence over the Young Turks, based on the fact that a vast majority of their leaders were educated in the West. And I repeat again if that soft power took the form of Masonic societies inspired by French models so be it.( yes I said it again, Free Masons)

Mentioning the Freemasons in a thread in which you are illustrating a wildly outlandish, not to mention disproven, conspiracy theory is not a good idea. Many conspiracy theories involve Masons, almost as many as involve Jews, and they're all crap. The very mention of Freemasonry as a force behind a conspiracy makes you far less believable.

If you do not recognise the might of this soft power, the same thing certainly cannot be said of the sultan Abdul Hamid. I have given you the citation of the lengths taken by the Ottomman authorities to shield young students sent to Western Eurpe to study from this soft power--- in my edited post.

Paranoia on Abdulhamid's part, little more. Compare it with Stalin's treatment of German Communists, even Jews, who fled to the USSR from Nazi Germany.

Also, as tk said, simply because someone was educated in the West does not necessarily mean they would adopt Western ideals - and no, democracy is not exclusively Western in nature, as Japan, Mozambique and India, among others, have proven - nor does adopting those ideals necesssarily mean that they would favour the West. In the Russian constitutional crisis of 1993, where Boris Yeltsin launched an extra-constitutional coup against the democratically-elected Duma, Yeltsin was backed by the US, and pursued a very pro-Western policy, whereas the Duma, which had adopted Western ideals such as democracy, liberalism and Scandinavian-style social welfare (with several members of the Duma even openly stating that they wished to emulate Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal in Russia) was anti-Western in nature. In Iraq, currently, democracy has led directly to religious division and violent civil strife, a full-blown civil war that will probably result in an Iranian client-state led by Moqtada al-Badr shortly after the Americans pull out. Simply being a democrat doesn't necessarily make one liable to follow a Western nation's advice, pressure or leadership.

Also the Young Turk Revolution and its preceding incitement was associated with secret lodges which the Sultan Abdul Hamid passed laws to ban or restrict. These are recorded facts, not insane conspiracy theories. It would be much more conspiratorial to suggest that the Young Turks had almost nothing to do with the Young Turk Revolution as Dachs has done, one of those persons you suggest as being smarter thann you.

Except that it's an established historical fact that the Young Turks only showed up after the revolution had taken place. It would be like saying that the French Revolution was the work of Napoleon; he certainly benefited from it and ended up in power, but he didn't start it.

And on the question of soft power, here is what it means:

Soft power is the ability to obtain what one wants through co-option and attraction. It can be contrasted with 'hard power', that is the use of coercion and payment. Soft power can be wielded not just by states, but by all actors in international politics, such as NGOs or international institutions.

Soft Power

Soft power also includes bribery, which would seem to be forbidden under the definition above. That's how Japan wins votes on whaling and tuna-fishing in the UN and the International Whaling Commission. For that matter, it's how Australia does as well, which essentially makes the IWC a bidding war between the two nations.

Be honest with yourself. Are you seriously not able to imagine Young Turks most of whom simply adored French and British Culture, and who studied in French universities, who while in these universities joined secret societies based on French models to create the seeds of a movement which tranformed into a revolution that ousted a decademnt regime, being coopted, even partially by French and British soft power.

Of course I can imagine it. I can also read an exciting Robet Ludlum novel based on that premise - it sounds like the plot to several of his books, except with 'Turks' replaced by 'Americans' and 'French and British' replaced by 'Russian or German.' But imagining it doesn't make it true. John Lennon's "Imagine" certainly isn't the case, and he certainly imagined it. The onus is on you, or your source, to prove or at least provide compelling evidence of this fact. Instead, the only evidence provided is that there was 'unseen influence' and 'back-room deals' which is code for 'we have no evidence any of this actually took place, but there's also no evidence that it DIDN'T take place, therefore, my rock keeps tiger's away.'

Unfortunately, in this case, even that isn't effective, since there actually is ample evidence that the British and French were not involved in the Young Turk revolution, that they were alarmed by it, and that they had nothing to gain from it at the time. They certainly weren't planning on WWI that many years ahead. The British hadn't decided on WWI a week before it broke out, let alone six years.

And to your last point. No one had to be a genius to know that the inevitable political chaos of a revolution would bring about the dissolution of the Sick Man of Europe.

That's funny, since revolutions led to the strengthening of several other nations prior to this - Japan, China, America, France (as I'll get to later) and England, just to name a few - and that in the immediate aftermath of the Young Turk revolution the Ottoman Empire actually got much, much stronger than it had been previously. It took the Balkan Wars to really illustrate its weakness to outsiders, and Turkey was basically gang-raped by every other nation in the area during the first of those wars.

For Christ Sake at the time of the French Revolution, France was one of the most powerful regimes of Europe. And yet the chaos of the revolution led eventually to the loss of Haiti--the Crown Jewel of French empire at the time.

Haiti became independent, not a dependency of any other nation, and even that was mostly through Napoleon's bumbling in trying to reinstitute slavery after the success of the Haitian Revolution, when he should have simply granted them autonomy and self-rule. Also, in case you didn't notice, the French Revolution led to a decade of French domination in Europe. Things like that tend to look pretty good on a nation's resume, especially since France still ended up more powerful in 1815 than it had been in 1789, despite its defeat by the Fifth Coalition.

Am sure the imperialist elites of France did not study history at their elite universities for nothing. Even in the modern Era is it that difficult to imagine that the invasion of Syria and the toppling of the Assad regime would lead to a sectarian break up of that country. Why would peoople call Syria the Yugoslavia of the middle East, then.

I've never heard it referred to in that way before this thread. And my family's Palestinian, so we know a little something of the region. I think Iraq, Iran and Israel have far more ethnic divisions than Syria, though it certainly has them. Every nation in the Middle East does, even Palestine itself (and that's ignoring the Jews).

In the case of Iraq, how many people knowledgeable of the region were not able to predict that the Kurds would get their own semiautonomous state, which in the future may well be fully independent, after the fall of Saddam. Even now as we speak the Turkish government has troops in the Kurdish parts of Iraq, desperately trying to stave off what many see as inevitable--- an independent Kurdish state.

I've never once heard anyone describe that as inevitable. In fact, considering the brutality of Turkish reprisals and the preponderance of Turkish military power - they are the military powerhouse of both the Middle and Near East - it seems highly unlikely that an independent Kurdistan will happen anytime soon. Especially since none of the three states which hold large numbers of Kurds - Iraq, Iran and Turkey - are supportive of such a move.

its not mindboggling genius, just the predictive power of intelligently studying history and real politik.

Unfortunately, that predictive power seems very misdirected in your case. Not only that, but I don't really understand why you're wandering off on this tangent anyway. Tk mentions nothing of this nature.

And would you think me a prophet to predict that the toppling of the Gaddafi regime may lead eventually to a political break up of Libya to its three historic regions. Tripolitania; Cyrenaica and the Fezzan:

No, I'd think you ill-informed and not at all well-versed in either history or realpolitik. Libya is not breaking up anytime soon. The power in Libya right now is the rebel militias, which the government is attempting to incorporate into the army. Much as when Gaddafi was in charge, the army will be the power in the new Libya. The army has a vested interest in keeping the nation stable and whole, and therefore will do everything in its power to keep the nation from splitting up into two or three different independent states. Also, after a century of being one nation, there are very few Libyans who feel the need for independence these days. I've never come across a single article from a Libyan or about a Libyan where they have expressed a desire for a return to the three states of the past. Libya is actually far less likely to break apart than, say, Iraq.

 

[mghani]

The problem, mghani, is that the "qualified scholar" you mention is disagreeing with every single other qualified scholar on the subject. If there are multiple authorities on a subject, it is more likely that the majority will be correct than the majority. This is obviously subject to new information, bias, etc., but the more outlandish and extreme the theory - especially when it flies in the face of both established historical precedent, and simple common sense (as tk said, why would helping a bunch of reformers who wanted to strengthen the Empire, and succeeded for a time, assist the French and British in breaking it up?) as the hypothesis you've presented does - the more likely it is to be incorrect. Dachs can back up his assertions with far more than one single source. Hell, even I could, though I'd need to do more research since I haven't been a uni student in a long, long time, and I never really studied this subject..

Engdahl is not so much disagreeing with every other scholar on the facts of the Young Turk Revolution as he is giving a perspective or point of view, which you are not familiar with. Please point out any instance of factully information being misrepresented.Because I missed it.And dont you think it is somewhat presumptuous and even self-important to suggest that your point of view on the Young Turk Revolution is somehow representative of majority professional opinion? And explain to me how does Dachs back up the assertion that the Young Turk Revolution had almost nothing to do with the Young Turks. In one breath you pay homage to conventional historical opinion; in another you support ahistorical revisions which claim the absurd.

Mentioning the Freemasons in a thread in which you are illustrating a wildly outlandish, not to mention disproven, conspiracy theory is not a good idea. Many conspiracy theories involve Masons, almost as many as involve Jews, and they're all crap. The very mention of Freemasonry as a force behind a conspiracy makes you far less believable...

If you have your hangups about Masonophobia or antisemitism, then I suggest you deal with it. But please do not pin that kind of thing on me. Again I do not understand how you pay homage to conventional and accepted views of history and somehow react as you did at first so absurdly to mere mention of free Masons in relation to to the young Turk Revolution. How on earth is it possible for anyone to study or make reference to the history of the Young Turk Revolution without respecting the role of secret societies and Free Masonry? The Young Turk movement was born in the bowels of the secret socities started by Ottoman Emigre students in the universities of Paris. You might be afraid or embarrassed to speak about the role of Freemasonry in the Young Turk Revolution, the Young Turks themselves were not so modest. Here is one of the Itihàts ( conspirators), Refik Bey, boasting about it:

It's true that we receive support from Freemasonry and especially from Italian Masonry. The two Italian lodges [of Thessaloniki] -- Macedonia Risorta and Labor et Lux -- have provided invaluable services and have been a refuge for us. We meet there as fellow Masons, because it is a fact that many of us are Masons, but more importantly we meet so that we can better organize ourselves."

Do you know of any mainstream historians who are as eager as you are to wipe out the role of Freemasonry and secret societies in the young Turk movement? Do you know of any mainstream historians who deny that the young Turk movement begun in secret socities in Paris universities constituted of Ottoman emigre students?

Paranoia on Abdulhamid's part, little more. Compare it with Stalin's treatment of German Communists, even Jews, who fled to the USSR from Nazi Germany..

What on earth is paranoid about worrying about a threat which eventually leads to the deposition of your government? Give Abdulhamid more credit than that; he was no dunce and certainly no Stalin; not anywhere close.

Also, as tk said, simply because someone was educated in the West does not necessarily mean they would adopt Western ideals - and no, democracy is not exclusively Western in nature, as Japan, Mozambique and India, among others, have proven - nor does adopting those ideals necesssarily mean that they would favour the West. In the Russian constitutional crisis of 1993, where Boris Yeltsin launched an extra-constitutional coup against the democratically-elected Duma, Yeltsin was backed by the US, and pursued a very pro-Western policy, whereas the Duma, which had adopted Western ideals such as democracy, liberalism and Scandinavian-style social welfare (with several members of the Duma even openly stating that they wished to emulate Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal in Russia) was anti-Western in nature. In Iraq, currently, democracy has led directly to religious division and violent civil strife, a full-blown civil war that will probably result in an Iranian client-state led by Moqtada al-Badr shortly after the Americans pull out. Simply being a democrat doesn't necessarily make one liable to follow a Western nation's advice, pressure or leadership.

You are not getting it. You don't seem to appreciate the nature of soft power. In the case of the Young Turks we know for sure that the young revolutionaries were in love iwith any and everything British or French. You are free to point out any mainstream historian who believes otherwise. You mention the example of Russia. Is your memory so short? Did not the adoption of Western Style democracy lead to anarchy and chaos throughout the former soviet empire? Nowhwer have i ever said that accepting western values means that you are somehow not hostile to Western Interests. That is a kind of absurd oversimplification that you could never catch me engaging in. But as I said earlier it is recorded history that the Young Turks were in love with all things French and British and at the beginning of the revolution were eager at the chance of having warmer relations with these two countries.

And your point about Iranian influence in Iraq is simply an example of American geopolitical manoevreings backfiring on them. ( besides the americans if you are keen on International politics have every intention of deposing the Iranian regime as crazy as it may seem) And even now as the full blown civil strife rages throughout Iraq, there is the Green zone where american diplomats and oil business men, protected by mercenary outfits such as blackwater carry out a lucrative and surreal existence far away from the chaos and anarchy that the average iraqui suffers from. Is this not an example of Western oil interest benefiting from the imposing of Western democracy, and the chaos inevitable from societies not ready for it.

Except that it's an established historical fact that the Young Turks only showed up after the revolution had taken place. It would be like saying that the French Revolution was the work of Napoleon; he certainly benefited from it and ended up in power, but he didn't start it..

This is laughable coming from a man so keen on bashing conspiracy theories. Please point out to me a single Historian who argues against the idea of the young Turks being the driving force behind the how shall we call it--- The Young Turk Revolution?

Soft power also includes bribery, which would seem to be forbidden under the definition above. That's how Japan wins votes on whaling and tuna-fishing in the UN and the International Whaling Commission. For that matter, it's how Australia does as well, which essentially makes the IWC a bidding war between the two nations...

What on earth is the meaning of that point. I believe you got lost here. Please redirect yourself.

Of course I can imagine it. I can also read an exciting Robet Ludlum novel based on that premise - it sounds like the plot to several of his books, except with 'Turks' replaced by 'Americans' and 'French and British' replaced by 'Russian or German.' But imagining it doesn't make it true. John Lennon's "Imagine" certainly isn't the case, and he certainly imagined it. The onus is on you, or your source, to prove or at least provide compelling evidence of this fact. Instead, the only evidence provided is that there was 'unseen influence' and 'back-room deals' which is code for 'we have no evidence any of this actually took place, but there's also no evidence that it DIDN'T take place, therefore, my rock keeps tiger's away.'

Unfortunately, in this case, even that isn't effective, since there actually is ample evidence that the British and French were not involved in the Young Turk revolution, that they were alarmed by it, and that they had nothing to gain from it at the time. They certainly weren't planning on WWI that many years ahead. The British hadn't decided on WWI a week before it broke out, let alone six years.

We have no evidence that the young Turks were responsible for the Young Turk Revolution? But more seriously my hypothesis is based on the concept of Soft Power which i adquately explained. Soft Power is not something which is always tangible. As a result it is almost impossible to find a smoking gun. Then again the same thing can be said of a wide range of historical questions.


And you seem to have a very serious misunderstanding of European geopolitics prior to world war I. The young Turk Revolution accelerated the collapse of the Ottoman Empire. The French and the British had been waiting in the wings and preparing for this collapse for many years before it happened, especially in the Middle East: Again you are free to point out any mainstream historians who are oppossed to the idea. but anyhow are you unaware of British administrative and military takeover of Kuwait and Egypt Ottoman teriitory, long before the collapse of the ottoman empire? If you dont read this as British designs on Ottoman teritory, i don't know what you would read it as. Its not a question of planning for world war I, it is instead a question of planning the takeover of strategically important and resource rich Ottoman teritories in the so called Middle East. And eventually political realities associated with that question erupted into the 1st world war. Here is one writer giving an example of the British and french using soft power in preparation for their takeover the Middle East before the outbreak of war:

Vladimir Borisovich

France and Britain supported the separatist tendencies in the Porte’s Arab provinces. Operating in their respective spheres of influence, they tried to win the Arab Nationalists over to their side and thereby strengthen their positions for the time when the Ottoman Empire would be partitioned. France was especially active. The French consulates in Damascus and Beirut established tics with several Arab Nationalists and financed the publication of several Lebanese newspapers. The French Government allotted considerable sums for the upkeep of French schools in Syria and the Lebanon, which had 25,000 pupils, and encouraged all kinds of scientific, cultural, educational and charity organisations.

In 1912, during the Italo-Turkish war, Italian warships appeared off the shores of Beirut and shelled the Turkish ships at anchor in the port. The shelling caused considerable excitement in Syria and the Lebanon and gave the French an excuse to come forward openly with their claims. In December 1912, the Prime Minister of France, Raymond Poincaré, declared in the Chamber of Deputies that France had special interests in Syria and the Lebanon and that she would never renounce her traditional positions in these countries, the local population’s “sympathies” or her right to defend these positions and interests. Simultaneously, in December 1912, France secured the conclusion of a new protocol on the Lebanese question by which the Lebanon’s former autonomy established by the conventions of 1861 and 1864 was considerably expanded.

That's funny, since revolutions led to the strengthening of several other nations prior to this - Japan, China, America, France (as I'll get to later) and England, just to name a few - and that in the immediate aftermath of the Young Turk revolution the Ottoman Empire actually got much, much stronger than it had been previously. It took the Balkan Wars to really illustrate its weakness to outsiders, and Turkey was basically gang-raped by every other nation in the area during the first of those wars..

Yeah. The Ottoman empire got so strong, after the revolution that they lost territory to Austria Hungry, in how many years after the revolution. And by the end of world war I had lost all of the Mideast. And even more importantly before world war I had lost their European territories. That all in about 6 years after 1908. You have a hell of a definition for the word strong!

Haiti became independent, not a dependency of any other nation, and even that was mostly through Napoleon's bumbling in trying to reinstitute slavery after the success of the Haitian Revolution, when he should have simply granted them autonomy and self-rule. Also, in case you didn't notice, the French Revolution led to a decade of French domination in Europe. Things like that tend to look pretty good on a nation's resume, especially since France still ended up more powerful in 1815 than it had been in 1789, despite its defeat by the Fifth Coalition.

Thats not the point. Revolution leads at least in its initial stages to chaos and anarchy. In the chaos and anarchy of the French Revolution, the Hatians gained their idependence. In that same anarchy several 100 000 were slaughtered both soldiers and civilians in both haiti and france. Which is also true of the Young Turk Revolution.

I've never heard it referred to in that way before this thread. And my family's Palestinian, so we know a little something of the region. I think Iraq, Iran and Israel have far more ethnic divisions than Syria, though it certainly has them. Every nation in the Middle East does, even Palestine itself (and that's ignoring the Jews).

Yugoslavia of the Middle East That ought to sought you out.

I've never once heard anyone describe that as inevitable. In fact, considering the brutality of Turkish reprisals and the preponderance of Turkish military power - they are the military powerhouse of both the Middle and Near East - it seems highly unlikely that an independent Kurdistan will happen anytime soon. Especially since none of the three states which hold large numbers of Kurds - Iraq, Iran and Turkey - are supportive of such a move.

Well the Kurds themselves see at as inevitable. If not I suppose they would have been done with the fighting. And i suppose what they think matters than anybodyelse. How long did the South Sudanese fight to gain their independence, from the rest of Sudan?

Unfortunately, that predictive power seems very misdirected in your case. Not only that, but I don't really understand why you're wandering off on this tangent anyway. Tk mentions nothing of this nature.


No, I'd think you ill-informed and not at all well-versed in either history or realpolitik. Libya is not breaking up anytime soon. The power in Libya right now is the rebel militias, which the government is attempting to incorporate into the army. Much as when Gaddafi was in charge, the army will be the power in the new Libya. The army has a vested interest in keeping the nation stable and whole, and therefore will do everything in its power to keep the nation from splitting up into two or three different independent states. Also, after a century of being one nation, there are very few Libyans who feel the need for independence these days. I've never come across a single article from a Libyan or about a Libyan where they have expressed a desire for a return to the three states of the past. Libya is actually far less likely to break apart than, say, Iraq.

Libya is already broken up. There is no army in libya; there is no central government. What on earth are you talikng about? What we have are militias, most of whom are little more than death squads who go about looting, murdering and raping. They show no respect whatsoever to the NTC, based in Benghazi and show no signs of giving up their weapons. Right now even as we speak, Misrata is being run as a separate city state by rebel factions. In the fezzan the native tribes mostly Kel Tamashec or the Tureg and Warlaffa tribes men whose cities like Sirte were wiped off the earth by Nato and then looted by the criminal militias are planning an insurgency. In the case of the Tuareg their memories are fresh from witnessing the mass lynchings of black libyans and immigrants everywhere the revolutionary death squads went. Do you suffer from memory loss? Was there no insurgency in Iraq? In Afghanistan there are 140 000 western soldiers getting their butts kicked by a Taliban which keep sprouting two men for each one killed by Nato or the US. Why on earth would anyone imagine the same would be different in Libya? The only thing certain about Libya are the securing of Western oil and commercial interests. WEstern companies, like Haliburton are going to be given contracts to rebuild the country which Nato destroyed. And the worst thing about it is that money is gonna be given out in the form of loans to be paid back to the IMF and World Bank, never mind the source of these funds are Libyan Sovereign funds, confiscated by Western capitals such as Washington, London and Paris. It is the heist of the new century; and simply shows the devious manner in which the Western powers continue their political and economic exploitation, using democratic revolutions as cover, as was the case with the Young Turk Revolution.

 

[ParkCungHee]

Yugoslavia of the Middle East That ought to sought you out.

I'm sorry, but google search has weighed in, and it agrees Syria is more the Italy, France, or especially the United Kingdom of the middle east.
That ought to sort you out.

 

[Tee Kay]

Paranoia on Abdulhamid's part, little more. Compare it with Stalin's treatment of German Communists, even Jews, who fled to the USSR from Nazi Germany.

Also, as tk said, simply because someone was educated in the West does not necessarily mean they would adopt Western ideals - and no, democracy is not exclusively Western in nature, as Japan, Mozambique and India, among others, have proven - nor does adopting those ideals necesssarily mean that they would favour the West. In the Russian constitutional crisis of 1993, where Boris Yeltsin launched an extra-constitutional coup against the democratically-elected Duma, Yeltsin was backed by the US, and pursued a very pro-Western policy, whereas the Duma, which had adopted Western ideals such as democracy, liberalism and Scandinavian-style social welfare (with several members of the Duma even openly stating that they wished to emulate Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal in Russia) was anti-Western in nature. In Iraq, currently, democracy has led directly to religious division and violent civil strife, a full-blown civil war that will probably result in an Iranian client-state led by Moqtada al-Badr shortly after the Americans pull out. Simply being a democrat doesn't necessarily make one liable to follow a Western nation's advice, pressure or leadership.

I don't anything to add here except that it is worth quoting again.

And dont you think it is somewhat presumptuous and even self-important to suggest that your point of view on the Young Turk Revolution is somehow representative of majority professional opinion?

Considering that most of the posters are arguing with you, including Dachs and Lord Baal, here have degrees in history or are studying for one, and a few IIRC has also specialised on Middle Eastern or First World War history (in fact I think I may be the only one who isn't), no, no I don't think so.

You are not getting it. You don't seem to appreciate the nature of soft power. In the case of the Young Turks we know for sure that the young revolutionaries were in love iwith any and everything British or French.

Again, admiration for the West is not synonymous with control by the West. I find many things to like about American culture; I am not an American agent. Some of the Young Turks (and I'm using the term very loosely here, as if all CUP members think the same) were educated in the West and admired Western ideals and institutions; this is a stretch to conclude only from this that they were under Western "soft power" or whatever. The only thing you have to support this seems to be the Masonic connection and if that's not enough to show that they faked the Moon Landings, it's not enough to show that they destroyed the Ottoman Empire.

You mention the example of Russia. Is your memory so short? Did not the adoption of Western Style democracy lead to anarchy and chaos throughout the former soviet empire?

Exactly where in the Former Soviet Union was Western-style democracy adopted? Not in Russia. Not in Belarus. Not in Ukraine. Not in Azerbaijan, Georgia or Armenia. Not in the Central Asian states. The only countries that come close are the Baltic States, and they've done well for themselves given that they don't have oil, and a high proportion of their population is "foreign". More disruptive was the adoption of hypercapitalism (ie "let's stop looking after the economy and privatise everything") that caused so much misery in many of the post-Soviet states.

But as I said earlier it is recorded history that the Young Turks were in love with all things French and British and at the beginning of the revolution were eager at the chance of having warmer relations with these two countries.

No kidding. Russia is just up north looking all scary and threatening looking. If you want Great Power protection that is Not Germany, Great Britain is your best bet, and you'd want to keep France happy too.

The young Turk Revolution accelerated the collapse of the Ottoman Empire.

The First World War accelerated the collapse of the Ottoman Empire. The Young Turk Revolution was in fact the best bet to save it after 1878. CUP, militarists, liberals, the conservatives, the ulema, the Christian, Arab and Kurdish minorities, all united to restore the Constitution; the Ottoman Empire was at its most united in 30 years.

Its not a question of planning for world war I, it is instead a question of planning the takeover of strategically important and resource rich Ottoman teritories in the so called Middle East. And eventually political realities associated with that question erupted into the 1st world war.

I thought it was the Serbs.

Yeah. The Ottoman empire got so strong, after the revolution that they lost territory to Austria Hungry, in how many years after the revolution.

Bosnia-Herzegovina was essentially lost back in 1878. The Ottomans actually got Yenipazar (also occupied in 1878) back from Austria-Hungary in 1908, so yeah.

And by the end of world war I had lost all of the Mideast. And even more importantly before world war I had lost their European territories. That all in about 6 years after 1908. You have a hell of a definition for the word strong!

Imperial Russia, Imperial Germany, and Austria-Hungary were each far stronger than the Ottomans in 1908. You know what happened to them.

 

[Lord Baal]

I don't really have anything to add to the excellent post by tk, except to say that my specialty is more 1930s Germany (and all of Europe at the time, to a lesser extent) than WWI, though I'm certainly well-versed in the latter. Dachs is certainly the go-to-guy on the boards for info on this era. I'm mostly here for my looks.

Also, at mghani, I'm not keeping up with the Libyan situation very much at the moment - I honestly don't care what happens there, it will never effect me the way that the situation in Iraq and Afghanistan can - but I do know that the NTC has already formed its own army, which is quite a deal larger than the rival militias. It also has the advantage of NATO-backing, whereas the militias don't really have anyone they can rely upon for outside support. Russia and Iran aren't strong enough to really back them up with a great deal of weaponry, and I doubt China is interested in more than securing the oil. But the Chinese - or Pakistan, perhaps - may help out some separatist militia groups. That's always possible.

Regarding Kurdish independence, the Basques have always seen their independence as inevitable, for longer than the Kurds have even existed as a people. How long has it been since Navarre was an independent state? Six hundred years or so? Because I don't think the Basques are doing very well.

It is always possible to keep a people from gaining their independence. Guerrilla movements require either a parasitical relationship with the state, which isn't happening in Turkey, or outside support, in order to be effective. None of the Kurdish independence groups possess a large enough support structure. I think most of their support comes from Islamic militants in Saudi Arabia, but they still don't give them much. They basically still exist because they're established in three separate and belligerent nations, meaning that no coordinated effort has been made to wipe them out. If Iran and Turkey ever become friendly, the Kurdish movement is likely to be crushed in short order. There are only around 300,000 Kurds outside of Kurdistan, so there won't be much in the way of an emigre movement.

And your point on Haiti is ridiculous. If the initial stages of the revolution were what did the Ottoman Empire in, how was it that it took until 1913 before they lost any significant territory? As tk said, they actually regained territory in the Balkans prior to that. They also established firm control over Arabia, an area where they had never exercised more than nominal suzerainty. This tightening of Turkish control is what prompted the Arab Revolt, by the way.

 

[mghani]

Considering that most of the posters are arguing with you, including Dachs and Lord Baal, here have degrees in history or are studying for one, and a few IIRC has also specialised on Middle Eastern or First World War history (in fact I think I may be the only one who isn't), no, no I don't think so..

If Dachs or anyonelse needs to make a point they ought to do so by citing evidence and approprite sources. Why on earth are you informing me of their degrees in history? I dare Dachs or anyone else to make a sensible or proven argument against the position that the Young Turk Movement was the driving force behind the Young Turk Revolution. Scholarship and academics is not suppose to be a democracy, where the position which has the support of a majoritry turns out to be the correct position. Dachs and Lord Baal have an obligation to support their absurd claims that the Young Turks had almost nothing to do with the Young Turk Revolution, no matter how many of their friends on Civi agree with them.

Again, admiration for the West is not synonymous with control by the West. I find many things to like about American culture; I am not an American agent. Some of the Young Turks (and I'm using the term very loosely here, as if all CUP members think the same) were educated in the West and admired Western ideals and institutions; this is a stretch to conclude only from this that they were under Western "soft power" or whatever. The only thing you have to support this seems to be the Masonic connection and if that's not enough to show that they faked the Moon Landings, it's not enough to show that they destroyed the Ottoman Empire...

Where did I ever say admiration for the West is always equal to control by the West? And yes I maintain my position that the secret societies which were the nucleus of the Young Turk Movement was an extension of Western Soft Power. If you have no respect for the role of Free Masonry and secret societies in the Young Turk Movement, then what is the point of even commenting on the Young Turks? You and others around here keep trying to vulgarise and diminish my argument about Freemasonry being an extension of softpower by trying to link this argumet to all sorts of absurd masonophobic conspiracy theories ranging from JFK being shot by Joan of Arc to the Faked Moon Landing Theory.( why do these conspiracy theories keep revolving around JFK?). Please point out to me any sources which dispute that free masonry and secret societies were the nucleus of the Young Turk Movement. But I suppose this demand would be much more difficult than resorting to this cheap and easy masonophobia.

Exactly where in the Former Soviet Union was Western-style democracy adopted? Not in Russia. Not in Belarus. Not in Ukraine. Not in Azerbaijan, Georgia or Armenia. Not in the Central Asian states. The only countries that come close are the Baltic States, and they've done well for themselves given that they don't have oil, and a high proportion of their population is "foreign". More disruptive was the adoption of hypercapitalism (ie "let's stop looking after the economy and privatise everything") that caused so much misery in many of the post-Soviet states.

Well I will admit not being as well-versed as i ought to be about the recent history of reforms in the former USSR. But by Western Style Democracy i really meant the economic reforms led by the IMF in that region which you describe as hypercapitalism and which others would describe as Oligarchy capitalism, which led to such chaos and anarchy. If Ukraine and Georgia are not Western Style democracies or at least democracies modelled by Western Ideals of democracy, how come?

No kidding. Russia is just up north looking all scary and threatening looking. If you want Great Power protection that is Not Germany, Great Britain is your best bet, and you'd want to keep France happy too.

But that is my point. They preferred warmer relations with the British and French as oppossed to Germany, unlike the wiser and slandered sultan Abdul Hamid. And the wisdom of the Sultan was proven by history when the British and french drooling on the Middle Eastern part of the Ottoman empire rejected an offer of alliance with the Young Turks as pointed out earlier by Parkcunghee, before the outbreak of war.They were forced out of desperation to join hands with the Germans.

The First World War accelerated the collapse of the Ottoman Empire. The Young Turk Revolution was in fact the best bet to save it after 1878. CUP, militarists, liberals, the conservatives, the ulema, the Christian, Arab and Kurdish minorities, all united to restore the Constitution; the Ottoman Empire was at its most united in 30 years.

Are you kidding me? The best bet to save the Ottoman Empire, some would argue was the sultan Abdulhamid. His administration had respect for Western technology and intellect, but wanted none of their democracy; and wisely so. The Sultan's administration from what i have read was based not on Turkish nationalism but a kind of Pan--Islamic nationalism and respect for non islamic constituents within the empire. Maybe the Young Turks believed in multiculturalism when they just came in. However from the very beginning there were elements who encouraged Pan-Turkism or Turkish Nationalism as the basis of the ottoman state. And inthe end these element got their way. This Turkish nationalism contribute signifigantly to the sectarian division which led to the massacres against the Armenian Christians.

I think by praising the so called success of the Young Turk Revolution you are making reference to the short-lived euphoria of the masses which came with the deposition of the Sultan. This euphoria could be compared to the euphoria which followed the French revolution, which led to rivers of blood or the euphoria of the Bolshevik revolution which led to even greater tragedy. However if you wish to be more current the euphoria Egypt in the wake of the Arab Spring. The economy of Egypt is now in freefall; its credit rating has been downgraded, which is always a precursor to IMF takeover of state Assets. The violence against coptic christians and general lawlessness has exploded. I think the Young Turk revolution and the Arab Spring although intriguing politics and history are really overated because of this bias which the West seems to have in favor of their own forms of democracy.

Imperial Russia, Imperial Germany, and Austria-Hungary were each far stronger than the Ottomans in 1908. You know what happened to them.

They were all devastated by world war I. I know. But the Young Turk revolution accelerated the destabilzation of the Balkans which exploded into world war I. And did not Germany and Russia become superpowers or at least signifigant world powers, again after world war I? At what point did the Turks regain their lost greatness?

I'm sorry, but google search has weighed in, and it agrees Syria is more the Italy, France, or especially the United Kingdom of the middle east.
That ought to sort you out. .

I concede defeat.

 

[Masada]

International events spurred the outbreak of the insurrection. On July 3, 1908, Niazi, the commandant of the Resna fortress in Macedonia, initiated an uprising and retreated to the mountains, where he was joined by Enver, Mustafa Kemal, Jemal and others together with their detachments. Soon the revolutionary detachments had occupied Monastir (Bitolj), where the headquarters of the First Army was situated and from there they threatened to march on Constantinople. Thinking that the troops in the capital and in Asia Minor had also sided with the Young Turks, Sultan Abdul Hamid agreed to a compromise. On July 24, 1908, he restored the constitution and appointed elections. He then issued decrees instituting freedom of speech, freedom of the press and the right to assembly. He also abolished censorship and pardoned political prisoners.

Methinks events are more complex that someone has been presenting

 

[mghani]

Methinks events are more complex that someone has been presenting

Hey thats my link! You guys make me so proud. Actually taking time out to read my links. I greatly appreciate it--sincerely. But what revolution on the face of earth is not complex? What are you saying--that your quote gives credence to the Dach's theory that the Young Turk revolution was not really led by the Young Turks? Am just asking. And also-am I the one oversimplifying the role of the Young Turks? If so how come and how does your quote prove this? Will engage with you later.

 

[Dachs]

If Dachs or anyonelse needs to make a point they ought to do so by citing evidence and approprite sources. Why on earth are you informing me of their degrees in history? I dare Dachs or anyone else to make a sensible or proven argument against the position that the Young Turk Movement was the driving force behind the Young Turk Revolution. Scholarship and academics is not suppose to be a democracy, where the position which has the support of a majoritry turns out to be the correct position. Dachs and Lord Baal have an obligation to support their absurd claims that the Young Turks had almost nothing to do with the Young Turk Revolution, no matter how many of their friends on Civi agree with them.

laconic, because I've lost interest in most of this conversation:

Feroz Ahmad, The Young Turks: the Committee of Union and Progress in Turkish Politics 1908-1914 (1969) - holds up extremely well and author is still pretty much the Man for Ittihad
Erik-Jan Zürcher, The Unionist Factor: The Role of the Committee of Union and Progress in the Turkish National Movement 1905-1926 (1984) - very readable although I have to admit I partially skimmed it because I was mostly interested in the CUP's role around the outbreak of war in 1914
Hew Strachan - The First World War Part I: To Arms (2001) - massive collection of all knowledge on the first part of the war and everything that led up to it, ever, pointed me at the first two books

I am aware that other works also extol the same viewpoint e.g. Macfie (1998) but I haven't read it

 

[Masada]

But what revolution on the face of earth is not complex? What are you saying--that your quote gives credence to the Dach's theory that the Young Turk revolution was not really led by the Young Turks? Am just asking. And also-am I the one oversimplifying the role of the Young Turks? If so how come and how does your quote prove this? Will engage with you later.

You could just read your own source? It states that the First Army threatening to march on Constantinople in cahoots with the Young Turks was the deciding factor in the Sultan's decision. The source then goes on to say that the First Army wasn't actually in cahoots with the Young Turks and that the Sultan just thought they were. That fits with the pay dispute thesis that Dachs raised, namely that the Young Turks managed to interpose themselves in an existing pay dispute and that the Sultan misread the signals and assumed that the Young Turks were calling the shots which they weren't. This is quite apart from the grand revolutionary effort being planned for October not freaking July which would suggest that the effort wasn't some work of Machiavellian brilliance but an ad-hoc manoeuvre that happened to work.

 

[mghani]

You could just read your own source? It states that the First Army threatening to march on Constantinople in cahoots with the Young Turks was the deciding factor in the Sultan's decision. The source then goes on to say that the First Army wasn't actually in cahoots with the Young Turks and that the Sultan just thought they were. That fits with the pay dispute thesis that Dachs raised, namely that the Young Turks managed to interpose themselves in an existing pay dispute and that the Sultan misread the signals and assumed that the Young Turks were calling the shots which they weren't. This is quite apart from the grand revolutionary effort being planned for October not freaking July which would suggest that the effort wasn't some work of Machiavellian brilliance but an ad-hoc manoeuvre that happened to work.

You are getting lost in minutiae here. Do you really suppose i did not read my own source? Here is an extract from that source:

In July 1908, an armed uprising flared up in Turkey. It was organised by the Committee of Union and Progress (Ittihad we ‘Terrakki), which was founded in 1894. The members of the committee were progressive officers and intellectuals who represented the interests of the Turkish bourgeoisie and favoured the Ottoman Empire’s conversion into a bourgeois-constitutional state. Their chief demand was to restore the constitution.

How does going full depth into the intrigue and intricacies of how the revolution unfolded as your extract has done give any credence to Dachs' view that the Young Turk Revolution is somehow a historical misnomer. One officer in a part of the Ottoman empire notorious for its history of political turbulence or as the writer puts it-- Macedonia, a permanent breeding ground of anti-feudal struggle leads an insurrection in that region and that insurrection is almost immediately coopted by the Leaders of the Young Turks, who had planned the start of their own uprising , only a few months later. The Young Turks chose Salonika in Macedonia as their headquarters exactly because of the propensity of that region to cause political disturbances; with the rogue revolt they were in a position to tqake advantage of the situation. I just do not see how that fact supports the absurd theory of Dachs.

Feroz Ahmad, The Young Turks: the Committee of Union and Progress in Turkish Politics 1908-1914 (1969) - holds up extremely well and author is still pretty much the Man for Ittihad
Erik-Jan Zürcher, The Unionist Factor: The Role of the Committee of Union and Progress in the Turkish National Movement 1905-1926 (1984) - very readable although I have to admit I partially skimmed it because I was mostly interested in the CUP's role around the outbreak of war in 1914
Hew Strachan - The First World War Part I: To Arms (2001) - massive collection of all knowledge on the first part of the war and everything that led up to it, ever, pointed me at the first two books

I am aware that other works also extol the same viewpoint e.g. Macfie (1998) but I haven't read it.

What view point does this impressive list of sources extol--that the young Turk Revolution is a misnomer, and that the role of the Young Turks is overated. I donot have access to many of them. But I found something by Feroz Ahmad. Am gonna try to see what in him is there to vindicate you. But I wouldnt keep my fingers crossed if I were you.

 

[r16]

this post was intented for the 8th of the month , alas as the last line implies , thingz happenz . Happily they all contribute to this weirdo countdown .



had this series of posts that assumed a global war in the 20th Century was unavoidable ; basing them on the relentless desire for relentless expansion . My early versions were based on the notion that the amount of land one owned defined your power and power was essential as human beings kinda suck when it comes to living peacefully . The existence issue meant expansion though my text was hard to read as per the course . Plus , it had no reference to the likes of Adam Smith , something that will be corrected when ı sit down to write a definitive history of the last century . When ı retire from the Starfleet command .

the point is the world ended by the end of the 19th Century , the planet was mapped and shared , there was no where to go , except by fighting and taking over the parcels of the others .

this is how London played on the insecurity of Paris to get the Cordiale thing , played the Japonnais to kick the Russians between the legs all in order to get them under the same roof . To be useful against the threat that was rapidly overtaking the scepter of an uncooperative United States : Albion was blamed squarely for forming a war alliance against their racial cousins . ı also happen to have posts that suggest oil was the last hope of the Ottoman Empire and Germany was chosen , a weird word if you will , only because she was amenable to continued existance of this country . That only because we were to be the link to their oil . ( No belief that they could or should take over England as the maritime arbiter .)

america has done magnificiently with the former Axis countries , West Germany and Japan , as export-houses balanced with dependency on foreign power sources .

the Ottoman Empire was rotten to the core when it was delegated to be the first Empire to fall in the talks of Entente Cordiale . Aybody here in Turkey makes so much of the notion that the West had influence , far too much influence , in local politics and governance . That Germans took 20 km around the rail-lines are not that startling , no straight railroad has ever been constructed during the Ottoman period according to the perception as the custom was 10 and any construction catered for the maximum number of mines , mineral water sources and fruit gardens , whatever comes to your mind . Civ1 only needed the tech and a road in place to build railroads , Civ3 needs coal and iron . Unfortunately real life is more complicated .

Spoiler :

this country was bankrupt , due to undeniable mismanagement . Meaning we couldn't afford building railroads on our own or take any other palliative action . Will be familiar to most that ı was a museum guide and one day we were taken out on a field trip to a building / museum on the outskirts of the city . Built for a one or two day visit of the Padishah of the day in a week , as all the material were prefabricated in Istanbul , it is oppressive opulance at prohibitive cost . A visitor to the city at the time opiniotes that its cost could have been used to build a road to a harbour town to allow sale of agricultural products to the capital , had there been any . Because it appears my town was the Somalia of the day in 1850 or so ; people starving so that maximum amount of silk could be raised for the benefit of European companies . It is reported the French advised the rice planting in the area was causing malaria , the agriculture of it was banned yet nothing was done to get rid of the swampy areas . As such the one week palace then was all that could be done , with trees and plants brought in from Istanbul it impressed the -Turkish- locals with the might of the Sultanate and after the Padishah left there was no need or money to water the beautiful gardens .

the guy in question , Abdulmecid , is known for the reforms he tried to make . Tanzimat followed his ascension marked by the fact that a vezir took his seal hence the post of Prime Minister at gunpoint from the one holding it and the commander of the Navy , a mutual enemy with the new Grandvezir took the fleet to Eygpt , a legally Turkish holding who had just defeated the Ottoman Army right inside Anatolia , causing the stroke that killed the former Sultan . Islahat followed victory in the War , where all the draftees to Crimea were small business owners and operators of Turkish extraction , a seed for effective capitalism in the Ottoman Empire , untrained in any way possible . We have a rather peculiar view of Balaclava and " ship Johnny ship " . Ottomans were legally a part of Europe , it didn't stop Europeans acting like colonial governors here .

his replacement Abdülaziz tried to match and balance , loyalty of the vezirs and the like could only be bought so economy suffered in the same exact way and the military buildup only cost Padishah his life , toppled by the political opponents of the "Russian" Grandvezir , who are openly identified with British interests . The replacement's first act would be to rot the 3rd largest navy of the time , grass grew to knee height under our submarines . Alas for the country not much was lost as the ships were just bought to gain favours with London who were still somehow irritated with the kitten in wolves clothing ; the ships were not even sheep . They were hardly worth murdering the Sultan with scissor slashing the wrist-veins . At least Abdulaziz is reported to have scored with the wife of Napoleon III , kinda the only bright spot and achievement ...

the epitome of the Ottoman oppression of democracy , the Red Sultan , the bete noir of the Jeune Turc and my French is beyond non-existant , Abdülhamid is still hailed by the Right as the person who kept the Empire alive , though it is not that am taken to be a Leftist that this idea does not stand up to scrutiny . It was the time of grand alliances designed to keep peace a la Bismarck , Europeans could agree to rob us peacefully . The Jewish question appears in full here , with the Right claimining he stood fast against Zionism , declining the bankers' offer to pay Ottoman debt in return for land in Palestine and 1908 was engineered with revenge in mind . ı trust people here will know it much better than me that the emigration was not fully opposed , only as a show even farce . Plus the offer to pay the debt is a yet another invention , only in fiction , but am not supposed to say that .

with a background of this kind , ı have no issues with the statement that the Young Turks were chock-a-block with Western apparatchiks . Just considering what their fathers were in their days .

Spoiler :

and how does that match with Mustafa Kemal , favourite dictator o'mine ? What else could he have done ? Vahdettin sent him to Anatolia to keep order and save his realm if possible in any way , knowing well that he was the only person who could have done it . Uniting the Ittihadist powerbase , the fame of being effective in battle and service to the Sultan hence the mobilizing the slow thinking but loyal to a point Anatolia and his staunch womanizing ways . The last was much more preferable . To what , ı have really long posts . Yet the Crown Khalifa , if there is such a word , failed to do his part as it was planned he would have joined the Kemalists in Ankara . Preferring England . When the British got out , he failed the agreed deals once again , by acting as if he was the Sultan , beyond being the Halife , trusting on the feodal instincts of the Kurds to derail the long planned and hoped for balanced democratic process , wishing the Army to be beaten . Meant the country would be a republic instead of constitutional weak monarchy with real elections disguised as a republic . Second attempt at actual democracy was at 1930 , when Kemal hoped the great crisis would stop effective foreign intervention , like the case of 1924 when the British gold freely flowed to stop " Musul ". It was people here who killed the notion , as opium addicts were allowed to behead the commander of the isolated detail sent to put up the rebellion in a rural town . With a unsharpened saw , too .

it was those kind of people who bickered by his death bed and shot his aide de camp to get some documents , so that they could sell them to Europeans . And why that happened ? Only because the coming world war was foreseen and Kemal was pressuring US to be a man . Of himself . There would have been some relaxation of the diktat , too . The Ittihadist remnants you all know , the liberals were exemplified by Rauf , undeniable British fan who let Averoff get away only to discover the Aegean Islands were to fall to the Greeks and his reputation was salvaged only by the Corse de Guerre he conducted in the Med , with explicit British assistance . Naturally didn't effect the splendid British gunnery in the second battle .

ittihadists and the liberals were happy to stay in Anglosaxon orbit , old core remained loyal to Britain , liberals were pro America , which led to 1960 coup . The Britannia folk still desired to curtail the America's boys ; that's why they invented an İslamist party to divide the votes of the Right . By the end of 1990s the said party was toppled in some kind of legal coup , so that more polished Islamists , who could be an example to Middle East , could be brought to power . Ittihad still lives on , on both sides of the political divide . The old Islamists would have escorted the latest aid convoy to Gazze , disregarding the Israeli IRBM test last Wednesday and that merchantman that ran aground around the port the ships sailed . "Accidents" happen , right ?

this is the exact thing what ı mean by mighty victories against us , of which we don't know anything about .

ı don't expect any belief in the tall tales ı spin , imagine how angry the Greeks would have been at us for hitting a 12000 tons British ammunition ship in the Pire harbour so that the British printed banknotes with the picture of the National Chef on them failed to replace the ones with that of the now Eternal Chef . ( Many other vessels were obliterated in the blast including the one travelling to Istanbul .) The port was out for a month , though Hajo Hermann of Luftwaffe has a detailed account of how he did it .

we are much empty talk and hot air . Yet the altering of perception if not the truth to suit everyday interests is endemic . Just recently ı saw this Ufologist book that presumed Italians were the first to see saucers , in 1933 , so that they could jumpstart the German research into black arts , you know , only because the bog-standart "WW2" accounts are soo unconvincing from a project management aspect . This reinforced by the brilliant besterdization of Mussolini's anti-Lend Lease remarks that mockingly reminded Orson Welles and his leetle experiment : On February 23, 1941, as the war clouds between the Axis and the United States were growing darker, Mussolini made one of his characteristically blunt statements. He said, "It's far more likely that the United States will be invaded by unknown but warlike inhabitants from the planet Mars, who will come down from the starry space on unimaginable flying fortresses, than from the soldiers of the Axis." There was no need for Uncle Sam to lend his gardenhose to those who were fighting fires , the fires had no intention of coming to US . By the end of 1939 Italy had contracted to deliver 300 fighter planes to Great Britain by Adolf's permission , notably after the war began . This was the time Brits had only 18 or so Gladiator biplanes they shipped in crates hither and fro to deter undesirables around the Mediterrenean ... From taking advantage of White Man's family feud .

yeah , falls right into the era Il Duce was casting eyes at us . Right before the times we woved to bury the Italian Fascism in Ethiopia . Through a retired general , still in the uniform he wore in Gallipoli of 1915 , by the tall thin martinet and a Turkish Colonel from Sudan ( Black as they are Black down there ) . Times magazine online has a couple of newsclippings that seriously mock the general , it still surprises me to go around in Wikipedia and find those unrecognized gems ... It was definitely unobvious . Had to say this , now that am in the Starfleet . To nobody in CFC , especially those who are present in the thread with no slurs intented but you ( as in undefined people ) will talk to the flakfield we will give to United States of America .

as a preliminary for anti-Berlusconi rant , whose scandals are so worrysome that Uncle Sam has advised Ankara to put some distance between . This is history forum though , history ı must speak and Mussolini was much more manly ie. eager to get into physical contact as exemplified by "soiled" appearances after dances in State balls . Current day Europeans carry only the bark of their ancestors and only little of the bite . Daddy Sarkozy , talking about the defence of Euro and Europe , reminding the horrendous casulties of the world wars . The ideals of the European Union will live on in Canada , for a day or two .

ı know it is not very conducive but wordcount needs force me to have some frilivious exercises in futility , the only interesting thing about that planet is you are not allowed in , the stations ı mean , unless you are a blonde with the hairdo , in homage to Farrah Fawcett in Saturn V or 9 or whatever . Yeah , they would expect me to say BTW, Jean is innocent .

returning to semi idiocy from full , the connection of the 1911 to 2011 has been kinda rubbished . What for ? Papandreau got summoned to court to account for his attempt to evade being the tip of the spear in the Third Balkan War , he is son of the guy who campaigned for it to happen , you know . Being estranged kinda makes a difference . Supply is not limited by Europe , who are they to demand ? Should have said before , but the thing is CFC goes blank in my city during G-20 summits .