This post originally appeared on Today in Alternate History
December 9, 1917
On
this day in alternate history, the First Empire Army led by future
British Prime Minister, Field Marshall Jan Smuts, captured
Constantinople.
Back
in May, Prime Minister David Lloyd George had sought a commander of a
"dashing type" in order to inflict a crushing defeat of Ottoman Turkey
and boost Allied morale. Unfortunately the Egyptian Expeditionary
Force, which had once numbered a mighty three hundred thousand men, had
been drained of resources for the struggle in Flanders. Before Smuts would
agree to be George's hero, Smuts demanded, and was given, reinforcements from Australian
Corps, Canadian Corps, NZ Division, Indians, and the new tanks to drive a campaign that General Haig, commander of the Western Front, didn't believe
in.
Nevertheless, this decision to ensure a victory "of the
Easterners" had still managed to enrage the other involved parties in Europe. Ultimately, the reluctant French were bought off with
the promise of a French flag in Beirut and Alexandretta. However, General
Haig, who was on particularly bad terms with Lloyd-George, had created a
very great deal of dissent amongst the Tory back-benchers in the House
of Commands. Later in the year, the situation in France would indeed
deteriorate, although the arrival of American Forces would eventually overcome this
set-back. Smuts, meanwhile, used his new resources to capture the heart, and then the whole of the eastern Ottoman Empire.
Of more lasting consequence was the effect on the plan to
offer a Jewish Homeland. This endeavour was already imperiled by
contradictory promises of sovereignty to various Arab Princes. Moving
ever more centre stage, Smuts then recommended a relocation to
copper-rich Northern Rhodesia, a proposal that was accepted
with less resistance given that the indigenous people had even less say
that the population of Palestine. To seal the deal, it was accompanied by
a British guarantee of minority rights for
religious Jews in an Arab Palestine.
By now an Imperial Statesman of the highest order, Smuts
and his colleague Louis Botha were war heroes that had both played a
key role in the victorious British Army during the Great War. Smuts
would soon succeed Botha as Prime Minister of South Africa upon the
death of the latter in 1919. Twenty years later, Smuts was invited to
re-join the Imperial War Cabinet, and, in Westminster, he was talked about
in private as a potential substitute for Winston Churchill should the
old lion perish during war-time. The irony of this was of course that
Churchill, despite being on good terms with Smuts, had conceived the
earlier Dardanelles operation that had failed to capture Constantinople.
Nevertheless, this contingency was put by Sir John Colville,
Churchill's private secretary, to Queen Mary and then to George VI, both
of whom warmed to the idea.
This contingency proved necessary
when Winston Churchill suffered a fatal heart attack while staying at
the White House as a result of the sinking of the Repulse and the
Princes of Wales almost twenty-four years to the day that Smuts had
entered Constantinople. Smuts would then lead the Empire to victory, but, by the
end of the war, he confronted a new form of nationalism that would
threaten his legacy both in South Africa and also in the Zionist
Homeland he had helped to create.
Author's Note: In
reality Smuts refused refused the command (late May) unless promised
resources for a decisive victory, and he agreed with Robertson that
Western Front commitments did not justify a serious attempt to capture
Jerusalem. Allenby was appointed instead, and he did capture Jerusalem on
this day OTL.
