re: #169 Ziggy_TARDIS

I wonder how history would have gone if Abdulmecid I of the Ottoman Empire had not contracted Tuberculosis. He started the Tanzimat, and was competent, and fairly good ruler.

I think he might, had he not died at 38 (!?!) have been able to reform the Ottoman Empire into a state that would have survived to the present day.

It was Abdulhamid II, one of the greatest monsters to come out of the Muslim World before 1923 (Along with Aurangzeb and the Mad Caliph Al-Hakim) fatally injured the Ottoman Empire. He gained two names because of his actions. The Red Sultan, and Abdul the Damned. I am fairly sure (~95%) that the last one is true. Abdulhamid II was a monster. Cannot say that enough.

There are those who see history as a series of Key Individuals who drive events, and those that see it as a series of movements which largely would have happened without those individuals. One can argue endlessly about this, and people do, but in the end you can’t really KNOW. Personally, I think it’s a combination.

For example, the dynasties that fell - one could reasonably argue that they’d not have lasted in any case, that monarchy’s time had passed, that it’s incompatible with the modern world. Even the British monarchy and aristocracy really only survived as symbols of British history. That fall left a vacuum in countries with no democratic traditions, so you get Fascism and Communism, which would inevitably collide, since both are expansionist ideologies.