The Most Sublime Porte - An Ottoman AAR

[Riotkiller]

Good luck with your new allies, who are undefeated since ... the Ottomans defeated them long ago?

Yes, I believe the last French defeat was in the Second War of Italian Independence back in the early 1890s, when the Ottoman-Italian alliance called in the Germans and Spanish to secure a White Peace. The last defeat where the French actually lost territory would be the Franco-Prussian war and simultaneous First War of Italian Independence (When France & Sardinia-Piedmont fought Austria-Hungary and the Ottoman Empire) back in the 1860s.

Long live the Sultan and Vive le Roi!

That's the spirit

 

[diskoerekto]

The United States of America is dismembered by the Treaty of Washington at the end of the Second Great War (May 5th 1916)

Wow was this only because of blockage or did entente soldiers put boots on USA soil to enforce this? If it is the first case, it’s been gamey for the entente to do.

The Tsar was really itching for a war as it seems. I hope our allies do something. It seems retrospectively it would’ve been better for us if the guinea crisis became a war.

 

[Specialist290]

Dire news from America -- depending on how the course of the war actually went on American soil, I can see a "stabbed-in-the-back" myth becoming common, and Wilson vilified by future generations for essentially breaking up the United States, with all the possible consequences for the American government that that entails. Of course, given how close we are to the end of the game, that may not become directly relevant...

And, of course, as soon as the world begins to breathe again after coming to the brink of another Great War, the Russians muck everything up by unilaterally plunging everyone into the fire once again. The Tsar and his cronies are clearly enemies not merely of the Ottoman state and people, but of universal peace and stability.

 

[HIMDogson]

Also, I have to say: I'm happy for the Cherokee, getting their own state against the odds. Here's hoping some Fascist in America doesn't muck it up.

 

[blitzthedragon]

Alright, let's do this!

Hopefully the French prove to be more competent allies than the Germans.

 

[darkhaze9]

Wow, great chapter! It seems new things are in abundance: new allies, new Sultan, new nations in America, and new... war?!

Long live the Sultan, long live Pertev Pasha, and glory to the Sublime Porte!

 

[RossN]

Well, that peace didn't last long!

1916... are we in the age of the dreadnaught, aeroplane and tank yet, and where do the Ottomans and their foes stand on such technologies?

 

[stnylan]

My goodness a lot has happened. America broken, the Great Entente split, and a Third Great War.

The alliance with France is a great piece of realpolitik, but this war with Russia is not going to be good. One wonders even if the price of victory will be worth it.

 

[Riotkiller]

Wow was this only because of blockage or did entente soldiers put boots on USA soil to enforce this? If it is the first case, it’s been gamey for the entente to do.

The Tsar was really itching for a war as it seems. I hope our allies do something. It seems retrospectively it would’ve been better for us if the guinea crisis became a war.

I have to admit I wasn't closely following the outcome of the Second Great War, but I have to think that the Entente must have landed troops and defeated the Americans in battle a few times to get enough war-score to force an American surrender.

Dire news from America -- depending on how the course of the war actually went on American soil, I can see a "stabbed-in-the-back" myth becoming common, and Wilson vilified by future generations for essentially breaking up the United States, with all the possible consequences for the American government that that entails. Of course, given how close we are to the end of the game, that may not become directly relevant...

And, of course, as soon as the world begins to breathe again after coming to the brink of another Great War, the Russians muck everything up by unilaterally plunging everyone into the fire once again. The Tsar and his cronies are clearly enemies not merely of the Ottoman state and people, but of universal peace and stability.

Yes, I'll be watching America closely to see what political effect this has come the next election. Perhaps the Socialists will return to power, perhaps the Republicans will come back from the doldrums, or perhaps something more extreme will take hold.

And yes, Tsar Nicholas II is perhaps a modern day Napoleon - Never happy with peace, and always seeking further bloodshed. Let us hope he comes to a similar end as the Frenchman did!

Also, I have to say: I'm happy for the Cherokee, getting their own state against the odds. Here's hoping some Fascist in America doesn't muck it up.

Yes, it's certainly quite nice to see the Natives get an outcome that isn't completely horrific.

Alright, let's do this!

Hopefully the French prove to be more competent allies than the Germans.

Let's hope so! The French military has the greatest reputation in the world: But the Germans used to have that, too.

Wow, great chapter! It seems new things are in abundance: new allies, new Sultan, new nations in America, and new... war?!

Long live the Sultan, long live Pertev Pasha, and glory to the Sublime Porte!

Thanks! Yes, this is a new era for the world - and hopefully one in which the Empire returns to the apex.

Well, that peace didn't last long!

1916... are we in the age of the dreadnaught, aeroplane and tank yet, and where do the Ottomans and their foes stand on such technologies?

Dreadnoughts are indeed terrorising the ocean, although the Ottoman Navy is yet to develop these mighty beasts: The planned modernisation program was cancelled due to budgetary restraints in the aftermath of the First Great War, and rearmament has since focused on the army. On the bright side, the French Navy does have these mighty beasts and in a roughly similar number to the British - while the Russian Navy is of a similar size to our own navy and also lacks these modern titans. The Americans did build some Dreadnoughts but they now rest at the bottom of the ocean, so I think Italy is the only nation outside of France and Britain to have them in any significant quantity - though the Habsburg's may have a handful, too.

As for aeroplanes; whilst the world has witnessed the extraordinary development of flight, as far as I am aware no military has yet incorporated this - though that may change during this new war, and the Porte is certainly looking into their military potential.

I do not know what you could even mean by this word "tank" .

My goodness a lot has happened. America broken, the Great Entente split, and a Third Great War.

The alliance with France is a great piece of realpolitik, but this war with Russia is not going to be good. One wonders even if the price of victory will be worth it.

Yes, things change quickly. It is strange to be marching to war alongside armies we were fighting to the death a mere decade ago, but it is much better than fighting against them again. There remains optimism in the Porte that the grinding attritional warfare of World War One has been left behind by the impressive modern doctrines of the French and Ottoman armies.

 

[Riotkiller]

The Participants in the Third Great War​

The Third Great War was a massive confrontation between two behemoths in the Russian Empire and the Ottoman Empire. On one side the Russians were supported by their vassals in the Grand Duchies of Finland and Uzbekistan, and their allies in the Kingdom of Norway, the Persian Empire, and the British Empire. On the other side, the Ottomans were supported by their Romanian vassals, and their allies in the Empire of Japan, the Empire of Brazil, the Kingdom of Belgium, the Republic of South Africa, and their most recently gained ally: The Kingdom of France.

The fourth member of the Quadruple Entente – Austria-Hungary – elected to maintain neutrality upon the outbreak of the war, as no direct treaty between the Russians and the Habsburgs had existed since the Russian failure to support the Habsburg position upon the outbreak of the Second Great War. The Sublime Porte was nonetheless very concerned over the possibility of a Habsburg Intervention, and the memory of their invasion of Croatia during the First Great War weighed heavily upon Pertev Pasha and his cabinet [1]. Maintaining that Habsburg neutrality would be a key goal pursued by the Porte throughout the Third Great War.

Rearmament was still only partially complete by the time of the outbreak of the war, with the Ottoman Army having six full strength armies of 69,000 men alongside the half strength colonial Second Army. As a result, Pertev Pasha authorised an aggressive and high-risk plan where almost all the Ottoman forces would be thrown against the enemy. Pertev himself would take personal command of the 1st Army in the Balkans, where it would be supported by the 5th Army and by the Romanian forces. The 4th Army, 6th Army, and 7th Army would fight in the Caucasian and Persian Fronts; which left only the 3rd Army in a general reserve & garrison duty in North Africa, while the 2nd Army would be tasked with the capture of Aden and then dealing with any British incursions from British East Africa into Ottoman Ethiopia or Somalia.

Ottoman forces drive the Russians back at the Battle of Iasi (October 1916)

The Caucasian Front following the crushing Ottoman victory at Agdam, south of Ganja (November 1916)​

The first Ottoman battle of the war saw Pertev’s two European armies combine to drive out a Russian army under Giorgi Kuropatkin that had invaded Romania at the Battle of Iasi in October 1916, and Halim Bey’s 5th Army then pursued Kuropatkin to inflict another defeat on him at Botosani the following month while the Allied invasion of Bessarabia began, with the Romanians besieging the city of Chisinau and Pertev’s 1st Army besieging the great port city of Odessa. Whilst Ottoman forces impressed in these early skirmishes, it was clear that the main Russian effort would come in the Caucasus, and that given the second-string nature of the Russian forces in Europe they had performed remarkably well against us – something that caused a fair amount of concern in the Sublime Porte.

Meanwhile in the east however, things began in an even brighter fashion. Said Pasha’s 4th Army came up against a Persian force under General Kamran Khan at the Battle of Agdam in Azerbaijan in early November 1916 and utterly destroyed it before it could link up with the invading Russians. Said followed this up a couple of weeks later by destroying a second Persian force under Hossein Meshhedi at Lankaran; with the twin victories doing much to balance out the early numerical superiority in the Caucasian Theatre that the Russo-Persian forces were enjoying, with the 6th Army still making its way to the front.

This numerical inferiority was causing the Sublime Porte a lot of worries however, with the three Ottoman armies being concentrated in the Caucasus which left most of lower Mesopotamia completely unguarded. The fact that the British would potentially be able to once again march their Indian armies across Persia meant that the Porte were desperate for reinforcements: and therefore requested French aid. The French responded with the French Expeditionary Force, which was to land in the Caucasus and ensure that the Ottoman 6th Army could be redirected to Mesopotamia. The French force under General Felicien Bazaine arrived in November, and immediately linked up with the Ottoman 4th and 7th Armies to attack the main Russian prong with overwhelming force at the Battle of Sheki in December, where it succeed in inflicting heavy casualties and forcing the withdrawal of the Russians under General Nebogatov.

The French Expeditionary Force arrives while the Persians are annihilated at Lankaran (November 1916)

Allied forces score a massive victory at Sheki (December 1916)​

At this point however it became clear that the threat to Mesopotamia was not emerging; and that the destruction of the two Persian armies had all but eliminated the threat on that front. The 6th Army therefore began a preliminary invasion of Persia by seizing the city of Urumia in late December 1916. In fact, the opening salvo of the war had gone so well that the Sublime Porte officially declared its intention to annex the entirety of the Persian region of Tabriz with its large Azeri population – the very region that the Porte had unsuccessfully attempted to conquer in the Ottoman-Persian War seventeen years previously. The Porte also demanded the permanent British withdrawal from the city of Aden at the same time, with the British reeling after a heavy French naval victory at the Battle of the Bay of Biscay. The victory at Biscay, whilst not sounding the death knell for the Royal Navy, saw the French sink 6 modern British dreadnoughts and 3 battlecruisers at the loss of just 2 French dreadnoughts and 4 battlecruisers of their own: a disaster which forced the British to keep the rest of their navy in port and ensured that the British effect on the war would be extremely minor.

The other effect of the British defeat at the Bay of the Biscay was that the Sublime Porte found the Ottoman Empire had almost complete control of the Mediterranean Sea, and that even though the Porte had none of the modern dreadnoughts employed by the French and the British, we were still able to blockade the British in their port of Malta. And thus one of the most ambitious Ottoman naval operations in centuries was hatched: the 3rd Army that was being kept in reserve in North Africa would make an amphibious invasion of Malta itself. Ottoman forces had not seriously threatened Malta since the Battle of Lepanto over three hundred years earlier in 1571, but with the British prevented from accessing the Mediterranean by the French, the operation was deemed feasible by the Porte.

The Ottoman government demands the acquisition of Tabriz as compensation for Entente Aggression (December 21st 1916)

HMS Invincible is sunk at the Battle of the Bay of Biscay (December 24th 1916)​

And so even as the Porte encountered stiffening Russian resistance on the European fronts during narrow victories at Suceava and Odessa in late December, the 3rd Army was shipped from Tunisia to successfully land on Malta. The British were taken completely by surprise and most of the island rapidly fell with its fortifications proving hilariously obsolete. Only the city of Valletta held out for long, where it was besieged from both land and sea as the Ottoman Navy celebrated its seamless triumph at the dawn of the New Year. Valletta would in fact last just one month longer; falling by the end of January.

The Third Great War was in fact turning out to be nothing like the First. The deadly attritional trench warfare had simply not been encountered, save for on the relatively static Bessarabian Front. Mobility had been ensured by the combination of rocky terrain in the Caucasus making digging in more difficult, and the increased use of motorised vehicles on the well-developed Ottoman roads in Armenia and Azerbaijan. This meant that the Russian decision to split their forces into smaller units for ease of supply would prove time and again to be the wrong decision, as Ottoman forces could use their mobility and greater numbers to inflict defeat after defeat upon the Tsar’s forces: Sabaheddin Bey scoring another victory at Gyumri in early January.

The Caucasian Front following the Ottoman victory at Gyumri (January 1st 1917)

Entente forces inflicted a rare defeat on Ottoman forces in January 1917 at the Battle of Pervomaisk​

On the one front where warfare had remained static, Russian numbers were however beginning to tell. The Russians launched a diversionary attack at Cernauti to tie-up Halim Bey’s 5th Army in early January, before launching a far larger offensive against Pertev Pasha at Pervomaisk in Ukraine. While the Russian attack at Cernauti was easily repelled, the combined Norwegian-Finnish-Russian army under Olav Bratzland was able to use its superior numbers to inflict a very heavy defeat upon the Grand Vizier as a result, forcing a major retreat back across the Dniester and Danube rivers.

This front however was not the one that truly mattered; and in the East things continued to go well as the retreating Russian army suffered a further defeat at Tblisi in Russian Georgia. Indeed the Russians had now been pushed back across the border along the entire front while Ottoman forces were continuing to occupy Persian lands in the Tabriz region – and the city of Tabriz itself fell to Ottoman troops on February 25th 1917. The Russians were beginning to struggle as they suffered setback after setback with the French Expeditionary Force also scoring a number of important victories over them at Poti and Batum in early 1917, before battle was renewed when Ottoman forces once more drove the Russians back from Baku in early March.

Naturally the Sublime Porte was by now dreaming of a rapid end to the war that many had feared would last years. Aden had fallen to Murat Pasha’s 2nd Army in January and the only British response had been a half-hearted invasion of Somalia under General Charles Thesiger, while the much-vaunted Russian army was being overwhelmed by the Japanese in the Far East and by the Franco-Ottoman forces in the Caucasus. The French and British were continuing to clash in West Africa but on every occasion French forces had been triumphant, leaving the Anglo-Russian position in an increasingly precarious state. By the end of March this had got markedly worse as a renewed Persian offensive saw yet another Persian army destroyed by Cevad Bey’s 6th Army at the Battle of Siyazen; and the British invasion of Somalia was also driven back after minor skirmishes at Kismayo.

Entente forces were retreating on all fronts by the end of March 1917​

The first Russian peace-feelers were therefore received at the Sublime Porte in April 1917, but the War Cabinet was unwilling to accept Russian suggestions of a return to the Status Quo Ante Bellum. The Porte was determined to make the Tsar pay for his unprovoked aggression, and was at this point dreaming of making even greater territorial acquisitions at the expense of the Russian Empire. The frontline in the Caucasus had by now seen the Allied Forces gain numerical superiority over the Russian forces, and after further Ottoman victories at Baku and Agdam in April and May 1917, the Sublime Porte officially demanded the entirety of Russian Georgia be returned to Ottoman control after a century of Russian domination.

Tsar Nicholas II was outraged, and immediately ordered yet another futile offensive to begin: which was promptly driven back at Gyumri in June. The Russians had however attacked along the entire front, and the French were pushed back on the shores of the Caspian Sea at Siyazen. Even so, the Russians increasingly found themselves outmanoeuvred by our armies, with Ottoman forces taking up defensive positions in the mountains and then attacking the Russians in the plains whenever the opportunity arose. Two Russian corps were destroyed at Agdam and at Tblisi with a third almost obliterated at Poti in June 1917, and July saw further huge victories at Akhaltsikhe and Sheki.

The Caucasian Front sees a string of crushing Ottoman victories at the beginning of Summer 1917 ​

Russian gains in Bessarabia were also reversed following the Ottoman victories at Chisinau and the second battle of Pervomaisk, where Pertev Pasha avenged his earlier defeat. This string of unbridled success prompted the Sublime Porte to make its final territorial demand of the war: The permanent control of Malta. The island was the last remaining British naval base in the Mediterranean beyond Gibraltar, and by seizing control of it the Royal Navy could be kept away from all Ottoman waters and the critical Suez Canal.

The British were outraged, but in truth they had no option but to accept terms at this point. The French were preparing for a potential invasion of the British homeland itself, and the British forces in West Africa had been utterly routed by the advancing French Army. And so, with Entente forces retreating on every front, the Tsar once more sued for peace on July 23rd 1917. This time he accepted every Ottoman demand. A war which many had expected to last for years ended in just ten months: and it had been an utterly one-sided affair. The Russians had started the war, but it was the Sublime Porte that ended it. An astonishingly complete victory was ours.

The Bessarabian Front at the time of the Entente Surrender (July 23rd 1917)

The Caucasian and Persian Fronts at the time of the Entente Surrender (July 23rd 1917)

The new borders in the Caucasus following the end of the Third Great War​

[1] - The Austro-Hungarian Army is the second largest in the world after the French, and it spent almost the entire war with most of that army camped on our border...

 

[Riotkiller]

I have to say I really wasn't expecting to win this war so convincingly: The French completely tied the British up to the point where I barely even noticed they were in the war, and the Japanese also proved an excellent diversion to ensure that the Russian and Persian armies could just be picked off one by one.

I considered keeping the war going and potentially demanding the complete dismantling of the Russian or even British Empires, but I was very wary of the huge number of Austro-Hungarian forces on the border; and so I decided to play it safe and end the war early rather than bite off more than I could chew and find the Balkans getting completely overrun like in the First Great War.

 

[HIMDogson]

Vive la France! Trafalgar is avenged!

 

[HIMDogson]

Also, is that Japan allied with the Qing? Interesting.

 

[Riotkiller]

Vive la France! Trafalgar is avenged!

Indeed - the French are without doubt the #1 power after this victory.

Also, is that Japan allied with the Qing? Interesting.

Sort of - I believe China has just entered the Warlord Era so Japan are picking all kinds of sides in the great civil war there.

 

[Specialist290]

Victory! The previous war's loss has been avenged, Ottoman power has been vindicated, and the mighty Russian bear has finally been humbled!

 

[J_Master]

It's a good sign that the Ottomans were able to overcome disarmament and defeat the Russians whilst rearmament wasn't complete. You have found a good ally in France.

 

[diskoerekto]

Thanks for the action packed episode

The Porte was determined to make the Tsar pay for his unprovoked aggression, and was at this point dreaming of making even greater territorial acquisitions at the expense of the Russian Empire.

Territorial acquisitions + what happened to USA. Which releasable nations are there in the mod you’re playing? A huge Tatarstan or Turkistan as our vassals would be great. Let’s release them all and break their back forever.

This time he accepted every Ottoman demand.

This is very good as well. A very quick victory on a war we didn’t start and wasn’t even ready. Shall our alliance with France be long lived.

A great revenge in the end, and the start of a new era i think in which we’ll grow. Maybe kill off the Austrians during the Russian truce?

And I still wonder what kind of releaseables you have

 

[Telcharinogrod]

Wow, that was cool to see.

Why did you spend infamy on Malta, just for storytelling reasons or is there a point to owning it?

 

[Riotkiller]

Victory! The previous war's loss has been avenged, Ottoman power has been vindicated, and the mighty Russian bear has finally been humbled!

Tsar Nicholas has certainly been sent a message that the world will no longer stand for his wanton aggression, indeed.

It's a good sign that the Ottomans were able to overcome disarmament and defeat the Russians whilst rearmament wasn't complete. You have found a good ally in France.

Agreed, it is far nicer to be fighting alongside the French military than it was to be fighting against it.

Thanks for the action packed episode


Territorial acquisitions + what happened to USA. Which releasable nations are there in the mod you’re playing? A huge Tatarstan or Turkistan as our vassals would be great. Let’s release them all and break their back forever.


This is very good as well. A very quick victory on a war we didn’t start and wasn’t even ready. Shall our alliance with France be long lived.

A great revenge in the end, and the start of a new era i think in which we’ll grow. Maybe kill off the Austrians during the Russian truce?

And I still wonder what kind of releaseables you have

Yes, the spectre of the long and painful defeat in the First Great War has been well and truly laid to rest now.

As for releasables - the way the Dismantle Empire works is that for each GP there's a large bunch of them, with each one having a percentage chance of being released in the peace treaty (so for example in the American case they kept Alaska and also Deseret which were potential releasables). In the case of the Russian Empire the amount of potential releasables is huge - with all the nations that did historically secede from the Russian Empire/USSR alongside other ones such as Crimea, the Caucasian Imamate, Tatarstan, Kamchatka, Siberia, Astrakhan, the Cossack Hetmantate, and so on.

The chance of each one being released is further affected by which nations were in the war against Russia, so Kamchatka and other far east ones are I believe more likely to be released if Japan or China was in the war, and when released they then go into that nations Sphere of Influence. It's extremely complex and it wasn't me that designed it (they're in the base PDM mod), but each of the likely GP's has a bespoke event for a successful Dismantling, as well as there being a generic one for surprise cases.

Wow, that was cool to see.

Why did you spend infamy on Malta, just for storytelling reasons or is there a point to owning it?

Great Wars give far less infamy for adding wargoals, and Malta and Aden were both Place in the Sun CB's rather than full states (as they were British colonies) so it was even cheaper. The British did often use Malta as a base for one of their naval squadrons so it seemed like a useful place to take to keep the Royal Navy further away from my shores in future after it rebuilds. Plus given how strategically important it was to the British in OTL it seemed like a nice way to illustrate who the real boss of the Mediterranean now is

 

[stnylan]

The decision to sit out the Second War - and to yield when you did in the first war, is now vindicated. Hopefully reparations will further help the Ottoman economy recovery, and the new territory will bolster Ottoman pride.

I do have to wonder what the impact on all of this will be on Russia.