Common Ottoman-Turkish Misconseptions
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I want to take some time to talk about the common misconseptions around the Ottoman Empire and Turkic groups at large by the Alternate History community.
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The Ottoman Empire, during it's 623 year long tenure ruled over many seperate peoples from different cultural, religions and social backgrounds. In fact, ruling over many different peoples is usually a criteria for being considered an empire, but i digress. Of course, a lot can change over 600+ years. Germany went from a monarchy into a liberal republic, into a totalitarian dictatorship and then into a country literally divided by Cold War machinations in a single lifetime. So any claim i make here will only apply to certain situations.
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The Early Ottomans (Roughly from 1299 to 1453) were initially welcomed by the Orthodox populations in the Balkans, because their nomadic-turned settled taxation system, even if specifically targeting non-Muslims with the Jizya, were still generally lower than their previous Byzantine or local suzerains. This is partially due to the Ottomans not being that centralised, unlike the bureocratic Byzantines meaning they could levy lesser taxes. Another was that the Ottomans had fresh blood; They werent bogged down by centuries of established families and bureocratic "Red Tape" if you will.
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The Ottomans established dominance early on by focusing their efforts against Byzantine governors in the region. While other Turkic beyliks fought against one another, the Ottomans under Osman Ghazi only fought against the Byzantines. This allowed them to establish themselves in their early tenure, which allowed them a strong enough position to conquer the remaining Beyliks. They also arrived at a crucial time of internal division in the Balkans: They arrived in the Balkans when the Byzantines were defeated by the Serbs and were bogged down by civil wars, and then they expanded further when the Serbian Empire itself collapsed.
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The Ottomans were generally religiously tolerant early on. Their steppe origins meant that they had a lesser focus on "heathens" in internal politics, which emerged with the nomadic lifestyle of the Steppes. The afformentioned decentralised nature also allowed peasants to keep a lot of their religious freedoms. there was also the fact that the Anatolian Turks had a different viewpoint of Islam. There is a good reason why many sects emerged in Anatolia; It was the meeting point of Christianity and Islam. There were many smaller sects that emerged which had more favourable view of Christianity and Christian traditions, and these affected Ottoman internal policy.
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The Ottoman Empire's Rise (Roughly from 1453 to 1699) was propelled by a centralised Sultan and his personal, capable authority. The Ottomans did not have the "Feudal" nobility that was prominent across most of the world. On the contrary; the Ottoman Sultan possessed large parts of the territory he ruled over. These lands were called "Timar", and were leased to individuals. These individuals would then use the income gained from the land to arm a certain number of "Sipahi" warriors, whom would protect that land and when called by the Sultan engage in campaigns. Other than the "Provisional Army", there was the "Kapıkulu" and "Janissaries". Janisseries were started as a small portion of Christian war captives who would be recruited into a unit loyal to the Sultan in a military slavery (Similar to Mamluk and Ghulam systems). This system later expanded to include Christian locals, which would both volunteer their kids and also would be forcefully recruited. This was to ensure that the Janissaries did not have ties to anyone but the Sultan, and thus both the military devshirmes and the bureocratic devshirmes would serve the Sultan dutifully. This system actually functioned pretty well for a time, but by the end of the 16th century the Devshirme system had largely been replaced by less rigid recruitment, which allowed Muslims to enter the corp and it also allowed sons of Janissaries (Whom previously were banned from marrying) to also become Janissaries, getting rid of the main reason the Janisseries were ever created. Nepotism and Corruption made the Janissaries inefficient, long before technological advancements made them obsolete.
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The Janissary system is usually seen as the Ottomans mass-enslaving countless people straight from the peasentry of the Balkans. This view is a bit flawed due to a few reasons:
1) The Ottomans practiced many forms of slavery, and the Devshirme was much MUCH better than the Chattel Slavery that you usually associate with the word "slavery" (The one practiced in the Americas) and also the serfs in Europe. Devshirme were some of the most skilled men in the Empire, they were paid handsomely and they had a lot of freedoms. (There were rules such as Janisseries not being allowed to marry)
2) The Janissaries only were a few thousand people at most, and combined with another few thousand Devshirmes they represented a tiny amount of the population. For example, in 1523 there were 7164 Janissaries in the entire Empire; which had a rough population of 20 or so million (Combining 1500 Ottoman and Mamluk populations).
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The Collapse Period of the Ottoman Empire is usually associated with Turkish Nationalism, homewer the Turks were one of the last peoples in the Empire to have a widespread national movement (Due to their countryside, agricultural nature). Turkishism (The idea that the Ottoman Empire could only be maintained by being centred around a Turkish entity, an antithesis of Islamism, Westernism and Ottomanism) only became official government policy in 1913 (With the Three Pasha Coup), waaaay later than what most people associate with. Abdulahmid II (1876-1909) himself was an Islamist.
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The Ottomans by the 1900's were not as backwards as most people assume. The Ottoman military in WW1 performed, in all honesty wonderfully and above any expectations. In Selman-ı Pak, the British Advance towards Baghdad was broken, and in Kut-ul Amare an entire British force with 6 generals was forced to surrender against an Ottoman Force which had less men than the British that tried to relieve the siege. The Ottomans held in Palestine until 1917, Medina would hold until 1919 despite being deep behind enemy lines without any hope of relief or resupply, the Ottomans were on the offensive in Yemen and of course there was the victory in Gallipoli, which diverted crucial material from the Western Front and a defeat which had a major effect in the Russian Defeat.
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Even in their infamous defeats, the Ottoman soldiers still performed expertly. In Sarikamish, the Ottomans came very close to encircling thousands of Russian troops in a very well-planned offensive (Which coincided with heavy snowfall that shielded the Ottomans). Most of the casualities in Sarikamish and indeed the very reason it failed was due to one single man, Hafız Hakkı Bey. He commanded the Southern prong of the Two-Pronged offensive into Sarikamish (Inspired by the earlier German victory at Tannenberg), and he sent 2 of his 3 divisions east to follow a small Russian unit retreating. He decided to cross the Allahuekber Mountains to take Kars, deviating from the plan set by Enver Pasha. The trek lasted 19 hours, and his forces lost roughly 90% of their strenght before engaging in any meaningful engagement, which losses are infamous as part of Sarikamish. The Ottomans had only 4.000 or so Russian soldiers arrayed againt roughly 6.000 Ottomans that managed to get into Sarikamish (an important railway junction). It is very possible that the Ottomans might have won if Hafız Hakkı Bey didnt deviate from the plan.
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The Lighting Army Corps (Yıldırım Ordu Grubu) was tasked with defending Syria-Palestine in 1917. This force included many of the finest Ottoman officers (Fevzi Çakmak, Mustafa Kemal etc.) Homewer, it was headed by Erich von Falkenhein and Liman von Sanders (Both German). These officers disagreed with the Ottoman officers on strategy, and instead of a fluid defense opted for a more stationary "No Step Back" aproach, which costed the Ottomans dearly when Austrialian cavalry broke through their ranks in Meggido. All in all, roughly 50.000 Ottoman soldiers were captured by the enemy, and the British aproached as far North as Aleppo. This was the first defeat of the Ottomans in WW1.
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The Ottoman Government before WW1 was actually quite liberal. After Abdulhamit II's deposition in 1909, the Parliment was empowered, which was composed of what i can describe as post-revolution hopeful romanticism? What i mean is that the new parliment had a lot of western and liberal visions, even if they were unrealistic. This only ended when the Three Pashas established their dictatorship in 1913. It is ironic that you were more likely to face punishment in Britain in 1952 for being gay (Alan Turing) than in 1852 in the Ottoman Empire, even if this was due to the Ottomans not having enough control over the population and thus focusing their efforts on more important fields.
So yeah this is kinda my rant about what people usually misunderstand about the Ottomans. Numbers provided may not be fully accurate, but the main gist of stuff is the same.
