Hedjaz, Egypt, Serbia, and Liberia are puppets. Sphere includes Poland-Lithuania, Italy, Persia, and Nejd, among others. Allies are Germany (#1) and the UK (#2). The occupation in Russia is a communist revolution that came twenty years late.
In 1836, the Ottoman Empire was failing. 8% of the population was literate. The army couldn't even muster 30 units. Egypt, Tripoli, and Tunis had broken free of their bonds. Although Tripoli, Tunis, and the Levant were restored in a matter of months, the rot at the core of the Empire--its resistance to change in the face of a Western wind--would destroy it if immediate action was not taken.
Soon after, Abdulmejid I ascended to the throne, and although court intrigue stopped his overt attempts to modernize the nation, he cleverly implemented policies that resembled basic improvements to the state of the empire but were in reality the groundwork for future reform. Expansion of the clergy and intellectuals of the nation caused the literacy rate to quickly rise, reaching double digits in a few years and increasing ever more rapidly as the years passed. This, in turn, helped the bureaucracy and intelligentsia to expand, allowing military and industrial modernization to come even more quickly.
Meanwhile, the sultan curried favor with the reactionary wing of the bureaucracy. Knowing that the progressive factions' liberty-focused politics lined up with their economics, he allowed the reactionary wing, who staunchly supported state industry, to set up European-style factories across the Balkans and Anatolia. Railroad technology was shared with them by Western travelers, and railroads were soon laid across every stretch of land where they would fit. The army was reorganized, and though its numbers were still meager, it was much better than their terrible organization of yesteryear.
Years passed and times changed. The sultan informed the reactionaries that they were no longer needed, and dismissed them. They were soon replaced by the liberal faction of the bureaucrats, who called themselves the "Peoples' Union". Putting the factories in the hands of private citizens created much-needed funds for the empire, and the now-apparent modernization of the Ottoman industries allowed them to maintain their status in the eyes of the international community. More land was reclaimed in Egypt, and Arabia and Persia quickly came under the influence of the Empire. The military, too, modernized; although the navy continued to use wooden ships well into the 1880s, it was not long before the army used breech-loaded rifles and studied fortification tactics used in France and Germany. Alliance with the Russians, Scandinavians, and British kept the Ottoman Empire out of potentially brutal international politics and warfare, and any Balkan liberation crises were solved through offers to the Germans and threats to humiliate the French. Though the Empire was forced to cede East Macedonia to the Greeks, it was not long before it was reclaimed.
Eventually, the day came when the Sultan created a parliament, giving landowners the right to vote. More political reforms soon followed; the wealthy were allowed to vote, and eventually voting rights were extended to all. Violence and harassment toward the opposition stopped, although voting districts were constantly redrawn to favor the party in power.
But for some this was not enough. Republican rebels, seeking to overthrow the Sultan outright, occupied the capital,
while the military stood around for no reason cutting off lines of communication to stop military intervention. The Ottoman Empire was overthrown, and the Turkish Republic was proclaimed, the Peoples' Union in charge. A flurry of reforms came. No longer were votes weighted based on wealth, voting districts were reworked to end so-called "gerrymandering". The Union's generous citizenship laws allowed all male citizens to vote, be they Turkish, or Kurdish, or Greek, or Slav.
Developments in the military, the navy, and in medicine suddenly opened up a world of possibilities for the Republic of Turkey. Using their North African holdings as a base, they colonized the Sahara Desert, Cameroon, and Ghana. They surrounded the Egyptians with their colonies, preventing outside intervention in their affairs. All of Northeastern Africa came under Turkish rule. Ethiopia was annexed, and most of the Egyptian desert was taken.
In the late 1800s, the Democratic Front and Kurdish Party came to power. They were two socialist parties seeking to satisfy the calls for reform emerging among the lower class. Under them, workplace safety laws were put into place, a national schooling system was created, and a minimum wage was designated. Their state capitalist policies streamlined the nation's industries, closing down underperforming factories, such as obsolete clipper shipyards, wineries in the Arabian desert, and steel refineries hundreds of miles away from the iron and coal mines.
Stability and isolation came for Turkey for the next twenty years. France failed to fight off the North German tide, and the German Empire was formed, annexing Alsace-Lorraine. Austria proclaimed itself Austria-Hungary, and a few congresses and revolutions later, the Republic of Romania was created (taking with it Turkey's puppet states, Wallachia and Moldova.) Grand European wars devastated lands from Moscow to Morbihan. A revolution in Spain installed an anarcho-liberal government; their failure to maintain the nation's roads and talk of recreational artillery bombardment prompted a communist revolution. Egypt modernized itself, and the Turkish Republic declared war again; the peace treaty established the Egyptian government as the head in Sudan and in Giza, which became semi-autonomous regions of the Turkish republic. Serbia, which had maintained its status as a small, independent state for nearly a hundred years, underwent another communist revolution. Their attempt to reappropriate Turkish businesses in the area was met with intervention, and Serbia was made into another of Turkey's semi-autonomous regions. Toward the end of this period, Turkey made a landmark decision and gave women the right to vote. Continued Democratic Front and Kurdish Party dominance caused a domino effect, leading to a series of feminist reforms.
In the early 1930s, however, a crisis began over territory in western Russia. Lands formerly part of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, containing Ukranians, Belarussians, and a Lithuanian minority were hotly contested by the citizens, who wished to reestablish the Commonwealth in Russian and German lands. The Turkish government, being wary of the Russian tsar and seeking to create a balance of power in Eastern Europe, quickly took charge of the situation, demanding Russia release the territories. They were soon joined by the German government, who seeked to lessen the strength of the Russians, and by the United Kingdom, who were promised the release of the land of Latvia. The Russians, meanwhile, were backed by the French and Austria-Hungarian governments, staunch Russian allies and egged on by rivalries with Germany and England.
War came, and the Ottoman and German armies spilled over the borders. Newly-developed airplanes and "land-ships", or tanks, destroyed the infantry and cavalry of the French, Austrian, and Russian armies. Within months, Austria was occupied, and the Ukranian and Belarusian heartlands were overrun. France, Austria-Hungary, and Russia were forced to pay huge reparations. The Commonwealth was freed, Italy claimed Lombardia from the Austrians, Latvia became independent, and Germany claimed Tirol, Bohemia, and Moravia from Austria.
The remaining six years have been ones of glory and triumph for the so-called "Three Brothers". Their militaries were rebuilt, and Turkey provided every division with a group of tanks thanks to a post-war economic boom putting plenty of surplus weapons on the market. The Hedjaz underwent a communist revolution, and seized Turkish property; so the Turks annexed the Hedjaz, too, as a semi-autonomous state. In 1936, Turkey stood triumphant, the third-greatest country in the world.
Boasting an unmatched 99% literacy rate, extensive political freedoms in the vein of the United States, a comprehensive welfare state (including unemployment subsidies, government healthcare, and old age pensions,) strenuously-enforced workplace safety and work hour regulations, a world-leading education system, a multiethnic population including people as diverse as Sunni Turks, Orthodox Greeks, Shi'a Iraqi, and pagan Yoruba, and a world-leading economy focusing on lumber, grain, and cotton exports, the Turkish Republic has come out of the Victorian Era as one of the strongest world powers. Istanbul is famous as a center of learning and culture worldwide, and is the home of a number of famous scientists, economists, and "talkie" films. World leaders look up to Turkey as a beacon of strength and modernity, and their politics shape world events.
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