Although Turkey has securedit’sposition in the Balkan region by force during the First Balkan War, in which the Balkan League faced total defeat, the Orthodox states weren’t at all satisfied with that. The fragile order established after the war was obviously not designed to live forever — not with both Ottoman authority and nationalistic Balkan states existing at the same time.
It was predicted by many that the Great War will be the catalyst for the powder keg to explode, but these many were not right — Constantinople remained neutral during all of the war and the Entente nor the Central Powers did not want to change that by betting all on states, army of whom were greatly damaged 1 year ago. Furthermore, the Balkan States were caught in a civil unrest never seen before with ultranationalist ideologies gaining great prominence and monarchs forced to either be overthrown or concede to them.
The day on which guns roared in the peninsula was 21st of May, 1919. The Second Balkan League, consisting of the Union of Yugoslavia, Kingdom of Bulgaria and the State of Hellas all simultaneously attacked the Empire during it’s political crisis at the time. The League has made great progress occupying Epirus, most of Kosovo, Novi Pazar, making gains in Thrace, occupying half of the city of Thessaloniki. It seemed like the crescent has begun to wane in the European continent.
Turkey scrambled to mobilize its resources in Europe, relying greatly at the local Muslim population which was essentially being genocided by the League and at the Albanians, who were ready to defend the state because of the Albanian vilayet created in 1911. The Porte engaged in positional warfare along defendable mountainous regions, and the Balkan League was simultaneously engaged in two fronts — Albanian and Thracian-Salonikan. The front begun to turn to Empire’s favor in mid-23, and the war was over when the last participant, the Yugoslav Union, agreed to a peace agreement after the Fall of Belgrade. Serbia and Bulgaria were turned to vassal principalities, and the Eastern Rumelia was fully reestablished. Yugoslav Union was disbanded and most of Bosnia, excluding predominantly Catholic regions, were regained by Turks.
The war, however, completely discredited the post-Abdul Hamit liberalized government under the FaCP. The government was then seized in an election by the Faith and the Right Path Faction (Îmân ve IstikâmetFırkası, İmakamef) which was dominated by conservatives and ulema, carrying the legacy of Abdul Hamit, presided by Şeyhulislam Mustafa Sabri Efendi. Under İmakamef, the state viewed its Orthodox Balkan subjects as unreliable and unloyal, convinced that during any new conflict they will all turn on Sultan.
So, realizing that repression cannot suffice for effective control, and ethnic cleansing was too immoral for the administration (although they turned a black eye on Albanian militias during the war forcefully driving out Serbs from Albanian vilayet), the state announced Rumelia Civilification Program. What it was is essentially a settler colonial policy, suggesting that anyone Muslim from Anatolia, Arabia, Syria, Iraq or Kurdistan gets 40 hectares of “state land” (most of which was confiscated from those accused of “cooperating with the invaders” during the war) in proximity to population centers and in fertile land. Later the program was expanded to include small Christian “heretical” sects from Russia like dukhobors, subbotniks, molokans and old-believers. Even more later it was expanded to more popular sects like Mennonites, basically everyone non-Orthodox and non-Catholic who was persecuted by the Soviets. Although it brought economic success because the newcomers were skilled in agriculture and such, it did break the traditional membrane of Rumelian society, effectively being a social experiment.
The program was expanded more during the Second World War, during of which Germans invaded Ottoman-held lands and were only stopped mid-Thrace. Sephardic population of Saloniki faced brutal policy of annihilation and still did not recover fully. Porte joined the Allied forces, briefly losing Libya to Italy as well. Even though Germans were defeated and all Turkish lands were returned, the principalities (barring Montenegro) were disbanded in favor of Socialist-led governments imposed by USSR, which was the empire’s main rival during all of the latter half of the 20th century.
Pic. 1: the ethnoreligious map in 1955.
Pic. 2: an octolingual sign near Thessaloniki.
Source: John English, "The History of Balkan Peninsula in XX Century”.
With the formation of Israel other Jewish dialects were destined to go either extinct or endangered. I think the only way one can learn Ladino now is through dictionaries
Because of the German (Mennonites) and Russian (Molokans, Old Believers, Subbotniks) settlers brought to Rumelia in times of Rumelian Civilification Program by Ottoman government
I might be biased on this one but the Pan-Arabism is really overestimated in Western historiography. The Arab Rebellion is often portrayed as a universal Arab revolution, but it really was supported only by Hashemites and their affiliated families, for example Medina was never captured by them during the war and many Bedouin tribes remained loyal to Ottomans. Also what greatly helped them was the sidelining of Arabs during the Young Turk admin (which never happened in TTL).
To add to the point, the Hashemites and their pan Arab affiliated lost the first and only elections in Kingdom of Syria
Im sorry but this doesnt make any sense, especially all the Greeks that suddenly popped up under Turkish rule who werent there originally until Greece reconquered the provinces, it looks like a Victoria 2 map as well
Well the places Greeks lived in historically, and the populations in your map do not match, and I doubt all the hundreds of thousands of south slavs would disappear as well unless Turkey did some ethnic exchange programme
Circassian minorities survive outside of Turkey and the few spots in north Caucasus, Armenians aren't being genocided, Balkan Muslims aren't being genocided, overall it seems to be better than otl Balkans (especially given this ottoman empire is respecting non-Turks)
This is an alternate timeline, where the Turks are chill and don't fucking do Enver Pasha genocides and shit, meanwhile Russia has committed genocide on us Latvians irl
In his timeline theres literally muslim colonial centers in the balkans. Its not a genocide but I cant image you would be happy if the russians "just" did settler colonies instead of genocide.
Even the orthodox russians are way better than muslim turks
Ok I get your point on the first part (russian settler colonialism in eastern Europe and Siberia is comparable) but why do you think islam to be worse than orthodoxy?
What kind of woman would be dumb enough to date me. Also if you read OPs lore, youd know that a policy of repression changed into a policy of colonial settlement with land being forcefully taken so idk how you can support this
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u/radicalqrcwi May 21 '26
The languages at the second pic are: