| September 12 |  |
Editor says, what if the Ottoman Empire had collapsed thirty years earlier? Please note that the opinions expressed in this post do not necessarily reflect the views of the author(s). This story was published in the September 2012 edition of Changing the Times Magazine.
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In 1917, with Anglo-French Expeditionary Forces set to dissembark in Gallipoli, Pope Benedict XV announced his intention to consecrate the City of Constantinople.
Race to the Gates of Constantinople
by Ed, Scott Palter & Jeff ProvineThe near certainty of a multi-faith backlash was good cause for hesitatation by the would-be occupying powers. Their former ally, Tsarist Russia had defeated the Ottoman Empire in the war of 1877 and then occupied Turkish Territory including of course their ultimate prize, the capital city. Naturally, the Western Powers resisted this outcome, but under a grand bargain with British Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli, British overlordship of the Mediterranean had been guaranteed with Greece effectively becoming an Imperial Client State.
The Russians only had three decades to enjoy their new hegemony, and the rebuilding of the Hagia Sophia was still a work in progress by the time of the assassination in Sarajevo. Now, with the Tsar overthrown, Anglo-French naval forces were ordered into the Dardanelles to occupy the city and prevent the emergence of an independent Turkish nation. Looking further into the future, the Western Allies envisaged post-war protectorates that would enable them to dominate the Middle East in much the same demarcated manner as Colonial Africa. However, there was a religious dimension to the dispute which could be traced back to the sacking of the city by the Fourth Crusade. During the last days of Byzantium, Emperor Constantine XI Palaiologos had famously declared "Better the Sultan's turban than the Cardinal's hat!". Almost five centuries later, the British, French and Vatican appeared to be on the verge of a new power play over the glittering new future of the "Third Rome".
Entry posted by Todayinah Editor
© Alternate Historian, 2004-.Story Tags
Permalinks: Post, Day. Browse Thread: Politicians Source: Orthodox Christian Books Labels: Constantinople, Byzantium, Benedict XV, Gallipoli, World War 1. Editor says, in reality Russia hesitated in the face of fierce opposition of the western great powers, and especially Britain.
~ This could've changed everything in the Middle East...
~ How long this would have lasted is anybody's guess. The Greeks after WWI underestimated the Turks and paid for their overconfidence in blood and the permanent loss of the eastern Aegean shore.
~ it is virtually impossible forthere to be an assassination at Sarajevo if the Russians have achieved their ambition of gaining the Straits.
if so the serbs would have been pushed into line because the do not want any trouble with A-H.
The Serbs would almost certainlt been seen as trouble and put up as an A-H protectorate as happened at Buchlau in 1908.
Imperial Russia would be allied to germany and A-h, the Flliance would have gone for a burton and Russia and A-H divided S.E.Europe, except for Greece into sphers of influence.
This means Russia cannot be defeated.
Grey promised Russia the Straits when the 10907 Entente was signed in order to get it.
~ I have heard that when Americans were surveyed about which minority they hated the most, the Turks won the vote...despite the fact that so many Americans had never met one. One explanation is that so many Americans had been influenced by ancestors from Eastern Europe, where the Turks were so powerful.
~ Could set the groundwork for carving up the Middle East as was done for Africa and East Asia, provided this TL's World War doesn't have such high costs.
© Today in Alternate History, 2013-. All characters appearing in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
