I'll try to clarify my thoughts: Armenian nationalism should be in, and I think Paradox could model Turkish firm response without having to go into the whole genocide controversy.
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I'll try to clarify my thoughts: Armenian nationalism should be in, and I think Paradox could model Turkish firm response without having to go into the whole genocide controversy.
By in large, "atrocities" were rare in the ACW. Quantrell's killing of civilians in Lawerence, Kansas and the Fort Pillow massacre are exceptions. (I think it was Fort Pillow) Sherman was a shrewd commander and understood the changing nature of war earlier than most. Not an excuse for his conduct, but an observation. Why leave a large proportion of his army to occupy Georgia, when he could destroy any economic value by burning everything which could be of use to the Confederacy in a 60 mile wide swath from Atlanta to Savannah? That included food stuffs which directly affected the ability of civilians to survive. But he believed, rightly or wrongly, that the only and fastest way to win the war was to destroy the will of the Southern people to continue the fight, and total destruction was, in his view, the best way to do that. Ironically, Sherman had lived in the South, admittedly liked the Southern people and professed it was his intimate knowledge of their "constitution" which lead him to believe that it would take more destruction than just defeating armies to put down the rebellion. Sherman is still reviled in some quarters in the South, but this Southerner admires his maybe slightly clouded insight and willingness to do what he thought it took to help win the war.
That was exactly my thought in starting this post. Armenian nationalism is something that must be dealt with, but I don't want genocide to be a fixed event. Sorry to be philosophical, but no murder is an inevitability, so why should I, as player of Turkey, have no choice in the Armenian question. If England can let the Irish go peacefully, I want that choice as well.
Also, this is a game, and while it's goo to make a realistic and adult game, it shouldn't divide its crowd anymore than it needs to. Enjoyment should be primary.
I just can't wait until the new Victoria avatars come out. Don't know about the gold frame, but in this time period, almost every nation ever should be represented, so the new flags should be cool.
Also, this is a game, and while it's goo to make a realistic and adult game, it shouldn't divide its crowd anymore than it needs to. Enjoyment should be primary.
I just can't wait until the new Victoria avatars come out. Don't know about the gold frame, but in this time period, almost every nation ever should be represented, so the new flags should be cool.
I think that's one important point to remember (and to remind the inevitable outraged people); that the game gives you an opposrtunity to keep some horrific things (slavery, genocide, etc) from happening by taking different choices than were taken historically, if you follow.
"Of course, then there's that matter of who's going to play Turkey and ally with the Central Powers during the Great War. That's going to be one of the suicide campaigns for players better than me." - Surgünoglu
???
I always thought the Ottomans had everything to gain from joining the central Powers, and not a whole lot left to loose. Most of his debts were owed to the Allies and we all know they would have just squeezed the Turks till their empire fell apart weather or not they went to war or not. At least with the Central Powers they had a chance, they could have got their debts cleared and probably Egypt as well. With Suez Canal all ready in place that could have opened all kinds of new money for the poor old Ottomans. I guess it depends on weather or not the game shows debt's to foreign nations, and how Western Powers used this to extort land and treaties from weaker nations.
???I always thought the Ottomans had everything to gain from joining the central Powers, and not a whole lot left to loose. Most of his debts were owed to the Allies and we all know they would have just squeezed the Turks till their empire fell apart weather or not they went to war or not. At least with the Central Powers they had a chance, they could have got their debts cleared and probably Egypt as well. With Suez Canal all ready in place that could have opened all kinds of new money for the poor old Ottomans. I guess it depends on weather or not the game shows debt's to foreign nations, and how Western Powers used this to extort land and treaties from weaker nations.
Originally posted by Helium Hound
I always thought the Ottomans had everything to gain from joining the central Powers, and not a whole lot left to loose. Most of his debts were owed to the Allies and we all know they would have just squeezed the Turks till their empire fell apart weather or not they went to war or not. At least with the Central Powers they had a chance, they could have got their debts cleared and probably Egypt as well. With Suez Canal all ready in place that could have opened all kinds of new money for the poor old Ottomans. I guess it depends on weather or not the game shows debt's to foreign nations, and how Western Powers used this to extort land and treaties from weaker nations.
True, the higher-ups thought they were going to gain much from a war. Enver Pasha envisioned spreading the empire up into the Balkans again and extending to the Caspian, maybe parts of Persia. Almost assuredly he wanted to retake Greece.
But what happened? Sevres. Revolution. Loss of almost every island in the Aegean, including those within sight and swimming distance. Dissolution of the office of Sheykh-ul-Islam, loss of power through religious means(though the Young Turks could not have cried much for that). Loss of lands that, within a couple of decades, would see great wealth of oil. Indeed, they had much to lose, and not even Atatürk could save Turkey those costs.
There was even incentive for staying out. The Allies were willing to pay handsomely for the Empire's neutrality. Paid neutrality! How could the Germans blame them? Besides, if they started winning, Turkey could just jump in.
But alas. All Turkey had to do was survive another fifty years, maybe, without a war of attempted expansion, and their empire would suddenly appreciate greatly in value. But, as often with empires, it is internal failure that precipitates external collapse. Hey, I think things turned out best in the end, republic and all, might have been better if they controlled a bit more of the Middle East, but whatever.
Hey, I'm a fanatic about all this stuff, and I'll tout Atatürk's victory over Churchill all day, but there was no way that the Turks were going to win against England and France. If the war was a gamble for Germany, how good were the Ottomans' odds?
Point is, would the Ottomans have been able to profit from any of the new found spoils of their land? More than likely the answer would be no. England and France had them so far in the hole that you would have found the exact same situation as after the war, and the land would only be owned by the Turks in name with all the real profit still going to Western Europe. War or no war the Turks would have lost their empire because France and England are just as if not more arbitrary in peace as they were in war. Same goes for the United States and their strangle hold on Latin America in our time because if we found tons of oil sitting in Central America right now all the profit would go the United States more than likely. With that in mind I never really felt the Turks had much of a real choice in the matter, unless they could work out a deal with the allies were the interest on their debt would be staled long enough for them to pay it down to a reasonable figure. I agree it would have been better to wait and see how the war was going before hoping right in, but that's the comfort of 20/20 hindsight. The Sultan had no way of knowing that Austria-Hungary was no going to be able to support them in the Balkans or that Germany was going to get bogged down into the atrocity that became known as the Western Front. He felt the same as much the rest of the World that Germany was the undisputed champion of warfare, and that he could get ample support for his allies.
PS Is there any real maps made by the Centeral Powers displaying their war aims? If so I would really like to see them posted or at least a link to them.
PS Is there any real maps made by the Centeral Powers displaying their war aims? If so I would really like to see them posted or at least a link to them.
But the oil states do make money, and lots of it, off their reserves. Why would the Turks be different?
The oil states today started with a clean slate after the Second World War, but Turkey was so far in debt it's not funny. The British and French would have taken control of their oil fields to pay back the debts when they found out there was real money to be made there. In fact even with all the oil they could not have paid the annual intrust on their loans. Only chance they had was to take the Jews offer and sell Jerusalem, and I do not see any devout self respecting Muslim, let alone the Caliph, doing that.
Ok, this web site says the Ottoman debt in 1914 stood at 139.1 million Turkish pounds.
http://www.bartleby.com/67/1341.html
This website suggests that a Turkish pound equals $1.52 in silver in the period around 1914.
"The Ottoman currency gradually inflated. In 1688 CE, the kurush ("piaster") was a silver dollar, but by 1909 CE, it had shrunk to a small coin equivalent to $0.038 in silver. It continued to depreciate in Republican Turkey (1923- ); the last kurush was minted in 1979." (40 piaster = 1 Turkish pound).
http://www.cyberussr.com/hcunn/gold-std.html
So the Ottoman debt, in dollars, was 211,432,000 in 1914. Compounding it to 1960, when oil was very valuable in the Mideast, assuming no debt payments at 10% interest it becomes 16.9 billion dollars. Compounded until 1980, it is 114 billion dollars. That is assuming no payments at all. That's a lot of money, but nothing oil revenues couldn't handle.
Besides, they would likely have repudiated the debt anyway during the cold war. I remain unconvinced the Ottomans would not have benefited. If they had just payed half of the assumed 10% interest the debt would have only been 5 billion dollars in 1980.
Then, if Turkey was that deep in the hole, no war was going to win enough to repudiate it. Thus, loss of lands, or revolution, or both, was the only way. There was one reason for Turkey to enter the war: Atatürk and his following revolution.
So regardless of the oil, I'm still right. The Ottomans were a bunch of imbeciles to fight that war. They had more to lose and less to gain than Austria.
If there were any Muslims to do it, it'd be the Turks. Ask any Arab.
Myself, considering that revolution in Turkey was almost inevitable... And if Turkey hadn't fought World War One and so had kept most of the Middle East, what would I as a leader do? Well, Jerusalem is dead weight, the Arabs hate me any way, and considering what the Arabs would do with their own governments... there's only one sane option, isn't there?
But eh. Hindsight 20/20 and all that. Alas.
So regardless of the oil, I'm still right. The Ottomans were a bunch of imbeciles to fight that war. They had more to lose and less to gain than Austria.
If there were any Muslims to do it, it'd be the Turks. Ask any Arab.
Myself, considering that revolution in Turkey was almost inevitable... And if Turkey hadn't fought World War One and so had kept most of the Middle East, what would I as a leader do? Well, Jerusalem is dead weight, the Arabs hate me any way, and considering what the Arabs would do with their own governments... there's only one sane option, isn't there?
But eh. Hindsight 20/20 and all that. Alas.
The two Empires are more similar than you think.
I'm not quite sure Austria would have had anything to gain from WWI, apart from a couple of unruly Slavic provinces (Serbia and Montenegro), and AFAIK not even Conrad von Hötzendorf expected anything better than maintaining the status quo, sort of.
As with the Ottoman Empire, it was only a matter of time until Austria-Hungary completely broke into pieces, and was replaced by a couple of "national" states (as none of the states that emerged from A-H were in fact national, but had huge minorities)
But the Turks had one pivotal advantage the Austrians lacked. Their hegemony was over an almost homogeneous region. South of the Levant you get into almost undifferentiated Arabia. There are coast Arabs and Bedouin Arabs, all with enough room to, more or less, get along. Heck, there are still borders they don't even bother to define.
And thank you, IEX Totalview, for supplying facts I am too lazy to find. You bring up a good point about debt repudiation--if the Ottoman Empire, in whatever form it took, survived to World War Two, there's no question the Western allies would be happy to forgive the Turkish debt in exchange for countering the Soviets. And if the Turks opted to play the two off each other...
Let me quote IEX's Web Page
"After prolonged negotiations with the European powers, an agreement was reached (published in the Decree of Muharrem in Nov. 1881). It set up the Public Debt Administration, consisting of Ottoman and European representatives, to which certain revenues were assigned. This arrangement subjected the Ottomans to foreign financial control from which they failed to free themselves, in part because of continued borrowing. In 1914 the Ottoman debt in circulation stood at 139.1 million Turkish pounds, and the government was as dependent as ever on the services of European financiers."
See if they didn't enter the war they would have just kept taking more and more loans and the Public Debt Administration would most definitely decide to put all those oil fields under foreign financial control. So, although I do not know if it was one of their war aims, getting the central powers to negate all of their debt in case of victory, and getting war reparations should have been top priority. As for selling Jerusalem, that would be like slitting your own wrist with all those Muslims in the country, and the Arabs would most definitely have left the Empire or at least would have made very unwilling subjects. Why not just sell Mecca to the French why you are at it?
"After prolonged negotiations with the European powers, an agreement was reached (published in the Decree of Muharrem in Nov. 1881). It set up the Public Debt Administration, consisting of Ottoman and European representatives, to which certain revenues were assigned. This arrangement subjected the Ottomans to foreign financial control from which they failed to free themselves, in part because of continued borrowing. In 1914 the Ottoman debt in circulation stood at 139.1 million Turkish pounds, and the government was as dependent as ever on the services of European financiers."
See if they didn't enter the war they would have just kept taking more and more loans and the Public Debt Administration would most definitely decide to put all those oil fields under foreign financial control. So, although I do not know if it was one of their war aims, getting the central powers to negate all of their debt in case of victory, and getting war reparations should have been top priority. As for selling Jerusalem, that would be like slitting your own wrist with all those Muslims in the country, and the Arabs would most definitely have left the Empire or at least would have made very unwilling subjects. Why not just sell Mecca to the French why you are at it?
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Because the French would have to come and get it. Zionism during the Ottoman period might not have been like the founding of the Israeli state we saw. Even if a group of Jewish lobbyists had secured independence, the province would be majorly Arab Muslim. I'm not sure about Islam socially. I've studied the religion, not the sociology, but I would venture a guess, possibly quite wrong, that the Turks could handle themselves against the Arabs.
Maybe not if the Arabs rose up in great numbers, but there were enough who were loyal to Constantinople, held by some to be as holy a city as Jerusalem or Mecca.
Regardless of the feasibility, foundation of a Zionist state would be a last effort. I think that with the oil and the Cold War, even if 80% of production was going to the West, the Ottomans would be in a fine position to retain their empire, a far cry from what happened in World War One. Even if war was their only way of beating the debt, it would be more logical to go with the debt. They weren't going to beat the English. Let alone with the French and the Russians and the Arabs rising up and the Greeks and Bulgars waiting to stake their claim. World War One was suicide--there was no chance whatsoever they could have won with their allies--Enver was a tactician but not a strategist, and the emperors were fools.
You missed the preceding paragraph from the same webpage:
"In 1854 the Ottoman government signed its first foreign loan agreement. It was followed over the next two decades by a succession of loans taken at increasingly adverse terms from European banks (primarily French). In Oct. 1875, when the total external debt amassed had reached some 242 million Turkish pounds, with over half the budgetary expenditures going toward its service, the Ottoman government declared its inability to meet its financial obligations. The fall in tax revenues due to bad harvests and increased expenditure made worse by the costs of suppressing the uprisings in the Balkans hastened the slide into bankruptcy."
So the Public Debt Administration reduced the debt from 242 million to 139.1 million Turkish pounds. There is no guarentee the debt would have continued to grow.
THis has develloped into a very educational thread
That's what I love about these forums, when threads go off topic they go off topic in a very realavant, thought-provoking manner.
That's what I love about these forums, when threads go off topic they go off topic in a very realavant, thought-provoking manner.
I think the key to the Armenian Massacre (of which I admit to knowing almost nothing) seems to be from this thread:
Now you have events that simulate the events (within what I know from this thread ), without mentioning "genocide", but with the exact same historical effects.
Duuk
Code:
Ottoman Event: Armenian Nationalism
Option A) End the Revolt Harshly
reduce population in Armenian Areas.
revolt risk for a short period of time
stability +1
Option B) Maintain the Status Quo
stability -1
revolt risk for 10-15 years in Armenia
wake event "Kurdish Nationalism"
Option C) Accede to the Armenians
stability +1
Armenian Independence
wake event "Kurdish Nationalism"
Cash + a bunch
Ottoman Event: Kurdish Nationalism (slept by default)
Option A) Maintain the Status Quo
stability -1
revolt risk in kurdish provinces
Option B) Accede to the Kurds
stability +1
kurdish independence
wake event "Dissolution of the Ottoman Empire"
Option C) Deal with the Kurds Harshly
population reduction in Kurdish provinces
Ottoman Event: Dissolution of the Ottoman Empire (slept by default)
Option A) The End of an Era
Release all vassals
Country becomes "Turkey"
Remove all CB shields on non-turkish provinces
Option B) No! We are still an Empire!
stability -6
revolt risk + a bunch for 10 years
random desertions from all armed forcesNow you have events that simulate the events (within what I know from this thread
), without mentioning "genocide", but with the exact same historical effects.Duuk
Originally posted by Deaghaidh
THis has develloped into a very educational thread
That's what I love about these forums, when threads go off topic they go off topic in a very realavant, thought-provoking manner.
We're mostly academics here, which explains the violent attitudes as well as such oases of discussion as you see here.
And thanks, Duuk, for keeping us on topic so the post isn't uprooted or closed.
I haven't read a lot of discussions on implementation of the Armenian issue into the game (have seen a bit of anger in historical discussion, though). I think that the code you posted makes a lot of sense. I know it's silly to tiptoe around people's irrational issues (like mine), but I think it's very important to try and see that some difficult subjects can be both presented accurately, with minimal interpretation, while being expressed in a manner acceptable to us all. History, I think, should be as dispassionate as possible. No politics, no loaded language, just facts for everyone to review and from which they may build their own opinions.
But those of us interested in playing Turkey are going to have to bite a lot of bullets in this game. Crap.
Oh goody. Even more stuff about good ol' OE. My, sometimes my chest fills to bursting with pride at all the interesting things my forefathers did. Ya know, assassinating sultanas, growing tulips, bingeing on debt, the odd spot of ethnic cleansing.
I ask you, is there ever such a groovy topic for discussion as the OE? Apart from China, which is even more fun to model - and play!
I ask you, is there ever such a groovy topic for discussion as the OE?
Apart from China, which is even more fun to model - and play!