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The Ottoman Federation
Un Federation de Turquie
Official Languages (national) Turkish, Arabic, Japanese, French
Official Languages (regional) Kurdish, Armenian, Cilician, Greek
Capital Istanbul
Current Sultan Mustupha III
Last President Louis Dupond
Procurator Kapitan Joseph
Unification 1890
Dissolution -
Currency Turkish Pound

The Ottoman Federation was a coalition government tasked with maintaining control over the former territory of the Ottoman Empire. It was mainly dominated by France and Japan, whose agents and ambassadors kept a firm constitution in place, crippling the enterprise and liberty of the Turkish people. The Turks still had the option to elect a Sultan, but his authority was purely ceremonial; real power lay in the Federal Congress.

The System of Governance

The Federation was initially ruled over by a President, usually selected from one of the Foreign National Parties, either from France or Japan, who, in turn, managed a coalition cabinet of Frenchmen, Japanese and native Turks. These made decisions on how the Federation was to be run - there was no national parliament. Consequently, the country generally conformed to the interests of its rulers, though it was incapable of offering any truly beneficial support. In fact, the Foreign Nationals meant it to stay that way; they had feared the Ottomans potential and did not wish it to return to that stage and throw off the yoke of its masters. Quietly the Anatolian nation state plodded along into the twentieth century, silent observing the success of its nominal allies.

Fall of the System

The French and the Japanese continued their joint governence of Anatolia with surprising co-operation; in the end their control was shaken by rebellion from within. The French statesman, Louis Dupond, was blackmailed by a terrorist organisation known as the Children of the Ataturk to begin granting extra powers to the Sultan. Dupond, being a successful politician in his own right, rose to become President in 1934. His measures started as gradual changes to the status of the Turks, but gradually became more radical. Angered, the entire cabinet called an emergency meeting and attempted to have both the Sultan and the President deposed. The French were naturally reluctant to do this - Dupond was after all French - and a member of the French portion of the coalition leaked the story out to the Turkish press. There were riots throughout the Federation in response to this. Disgusted with the way that Dupond, and the French in general, had mismanaged affairs, the Japanese pulled their agents out of Turkey in 1936. The rift between France and Japan had begun.

Turkish Nationalism and the Civil War

A year later, in 1937, Dupond died, his last act being to hand over the government to the Turkish Sultan. Kemalh had long anticipated this - his first act was to abolish the cabinet and replace it with an entirely Turkish parliament. This not only angered the French, but also the various minorities, such as the Arabs, who thought they had been cheated. Kemalh did, however, seize the headquarters of the Children of the Ataturk to whom he could attribute his power and had the ringleaders executed. Duponds family, who they had held to ransom, were released back to France - they foresightly went to Italy instead, knowing, like many others, that war was brewing. Later that year, England and Japan declared war. The Second Eurasian War had begun.

Kemalh was always a decisive head of state ready to seize any opportunity - even when Dupond had been alive he had acted vigorously to improve Turkey's standing in Europe. Now, however, he held back; he knew that his newly independent kingdom could not support itself in war. His discretion was frowned upon by both the pro-European Turks and the pro-Japanese Arabs and suddenly, he was assasinated the next year. His successors were unable to control the tide of civil unrest and in 1938, civil war broke out in Turkey.

After much campaigning over the desert expanses, the pro-European forces led by Marshall Krundt and Visier Katrava defeated the Arab-Armenian-Persian confederations that opposed them. Amongst other things, this partially resulted in the fall of Persia's Shah. Krundt, an emissary from the German empire, soon enrolled the Ottoman Federation in the European Alliance.

Japanese Intervention

The Arabs may have been broken, but they weren't defeated, and later that year, they enlisted the support of the Japanese. The Japanese, who had been meaning to join the conflict in Turkey anyway, were partially held back by the Arabs previous alliegance to the Shahs in Persia that they had just deposed. However, the Japanese commanders did not let this trouble them; they were fully ready to punish both the Turks and their European benefactors (who were surprisingly Germans, rather than Frenchmen). The Arabs rose up in arms as soon as the Japanese set foot on Ottoman soil, overrunning Egypt, Arabia and the Levant. The best the Germans could come up with was an attempt to seize the Suez Canal. The Ottomans achieved even less, and by 1940 both Krundt and Visier Katrava were dead and their armies shattered. The Sultan, Mustapha, who was the only person left with authority left to address the situation, accepted peace on this basis. The terms were harsh:

  • The Ottomans were forced to join the Japanese alliance and provide a right of passage for Japanese and Allied troops.
  • All connections with the Europeans (namely the French and the Germans) were to be abandoned.
  • The countries of Saudi Arabia, Muscat, Levantine Arabia and Egypt were granted independence.
  • Mesopatamia was handed over to the new Shah of Persia as a reward for his support of the Japanese alliance.

Resistance to the Treaty and Russian Protectoration

Mustapha was hardly popular after signing this treaty, which ruined the chances given to the country by Kemalh. Gradually, the people of Turkey realised how stupid they had been to rise up against Kemalh in the Civil War. A resistance formed against Mustapha's Sultanate in favour of Kemalhist tactics with regard to the Sultanate's policies. The Japanese had failed to set up any permanent form of administration behind, leaving war torn Turkey in turmoil. The Sultan once again had absolute power but had no way of using it, the country was rife with Kemalhist factions and the sanctions proposed by the Japanese held back the government from making any decisions. The conflicts that aroused from these problems are often known as the Second Turkish Civil War.

This went on until the Second Eurasian War came to an end. Predictably, the Turk's former allies in Europe had been defeated by the Japanese, North-American Confederations, making an end to any potential support from Germany or France. The Japanese simply weren't interested in a state as economically defunct as Turkey, so they left it to the Russians, Greeks, and the Italians, as a reward for their neutrality. The Greeks took the province of Smyrna, East Constantinople, and Kocaeli. The Italians were too far away to be particularly effectual; they just took a few islands, leaving the rest for the Russians. The Russians hardly felt rewarded by this; in fact, they were insulted to be lumbered with the Turkish mess, so the government in Moscow merely sent an army under General Joseph Kutnorov to restore order. Kapitan Joseph, as he became known, did this to such good effect that the Sultan, Mustapha II, invited him to stay and manage his military affairs. Delighted, both Joseph and the Moscow government agreed to this proposal, which allowed Joseph to fully complete the task of rooting out the Kemalhists, restoring peace to Turkey for a generation.

Presidents of the Ottoman Federation

  • Fujiwara Hyushu 1890-1899
  • Sheikh Ibrahim 1899-1902
  • Takamori Tadajitsu 1902-1906
  • Shimazu Koboyakowa 1906-1916
  • Maximillien de Toulouse 1916-1920
  • Francis Toures 1920-1924
  • Henri Bolerez 1924-1927
  • Atari Yahamori 1927-1929
  • Julian Petain 1929-1934
  • Louis Dupond 1934-1937

Sultans of the Ottoman Federation

  • Khalil I 1890-1892
  • Omar I 1892-1914
  • Omar II 1914-1920
  • Abdullah I 1920-1928
  • Omar III 1928-1930
  • Kemalh 1930-1938
  • Mehmet I 1938 (First Civil War)
  • Suleiman 1938-1939 (First Civil War)
  • Mustapha I 1939 (First Civil War)
  • Mustapha I (continued) 1939-1940
  • Mustapha I (continued) 1940-1944 (Second Civil War)
  • Mustapha II 1944-1946 (Second Civil War)
  • Mustapha II (continued) 1946-1960
  • Mustapha III 1960-
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