To Cure a Sick Empire: a Victoria 2 AAR

Prelude (1828-1835)

The year was 1828. The Ottoman Empire was in peril. It has been years since the Turkish might generated fear in the hearts of every man, woman, and child in Europe. Vienna itself nearly fell to the Ottoman might, in 1683. Only the Polish Commonwealth stopped the fall of the mighty city.
The days of Ottoman greatness, however, are over. The deteriorating empire has dealt with territorial losses, technological backwardness, internal corruption, and a plethora of unmentioned plights. No longer can Ottoman Sultans afford to look hungrily northwards, into Austria and the rest of Europe. Now, they struggle to hold onto the lands that have been theirs for centuries. The current Sultan, Mahmud II, rules the mighty Turkish empire in 1828. The Greeks are in open rebellion. The janissary corp, by now a burden to reform, is gone. Is is a dark time for the empire. But the starry night must grow darker still before it can blossom into day.

1828:

The Greeks, supported by Britain and France, were pushing Turkish forces out of the homeland of the oldest civilization in Europe. They had been fighting for independence from the Ottoman Empire for years, and a Greek victory seemed inevitable. Meanwhile, fresh hostilities were brewing between the Ottoman and Russian Empires. The Akkerman Convention was nullified and the Dardanelles was closed to Russian ships. In June, a 100,000 strong Russian army under the command of Emperor Nicholas I and Hans Karl von Diebitsch crossed the Danube into Bulgaria, with the goal of taking three key cities: Varna, Shumla, and Silistra. By the end of September, Varna was under Russian control. Initially, the siege of Shumla proved disastrous for Russia, as the 40,000 Ottomans making up the garrison outnumbered the besieging Russians. However, relief soon arrived from Russia, and outbreaks of disease harassed the Ottoman garrison. Shumla fell before the end of the year.

1829:

Silistra was a more prolonged affair, as the Sultan in Istanbul sent 45,000 soldiers to help in the defense of the city. The counterattack was initially successful in repelling the Russians from Silistra, but on the 30th of May the Turkish army met 50,000 Russians in Kulevicha. The Ottomans were forced to retreat from Bulgaria entirely, and Nicholas I, seeing the opportunity, had his forces push further into the Balkans. The Ottoman forces were ordered to reorganize and prepare to defend the Turkish holdings in Europe.
On the 14th day of July, however, these Ottoman soldiers were called to Thessaloniki, where 30,000 people amassed in full revolt against the Ottoman Empire. There, on the 3rd of September, the Ottomans met not only the 30,000 rebels, but also a force of 20,000 well-equipped and well-trained Greeks. The battle was a bloody one, and the Ottomans ultimately proved victorious. However, the victory was a pyrrhic one, and the Turkish army was forced from the city in a second rebellion on the 7th of August.
Meanwhile, the Russian army pushed into southern Serbia. There, they found little resistance, as the local Serbian population was eager to be released from Ottoman rule. Many Serbians even helped the Russians, supplying them with fresh provisions, granting them rest in Serbian homes, and even joining the ranks of the Russians. The Serbian Principality to the north officially joined the war on the Russian side on the 29th of August. When the Russians advanced into Bosnia, however, they found that the local population was less kind to them. However, after another several battles with the Ottomans over the course of the several months, Russia was in control of Bosnia.
Winter struck Europe as expected, and the Russian campaigning slowed down. The Ottomans, instead of hunkering down like the Russian, chose to concentrate on stopping Greek incursions to the north. Sultan Mahmud II commanded an army of 60,000 soldiers that retook Thessaloniki in early December and was at Athens by the end of the year. The Greeks were not able to meet the Turks in open battle, and thus relied on guerrilla movements to harass the Ottomans.
1830:
The besieging Ottoman army soon found itself the victim of disease, hunger, and low supply. Mahmud II himself succumbed to cholera on the 30th of February. His son, Bahadir I, came to power.
Bahadir I began his reign by calling all Ottoman forces in the Balkan Peninsula to Edirne and the surrounding lands. The European lands beyond Edirne were a lost cause to him. He was right.
The 27th of June saw nearly 55,000 Russian soldiers meet 70,000 Ottomans only 3 miles from Edirne. The Battle of Edirne, as it came to be known, was a brutal and bloody affair. The Russians, lacking in provisions after months of campaigning, were unable to defeat the Ottoman army. However, the Turks were in no position to advance further. Bahadir I sued for peace, and after a week of negotiation, the Treaty of Adrianople was signed on the second day of August, 1830. In it were harsh conditions for the Ottoman Empire.
The Ottomans were forced to recognize the full independence of Greece after 9 years of fighting in the war for independence. Furthermore, the Ottoman Empire was to relinquish control of nearly all of its European lands, including Edirne. The land was divided into multiple independent states. Greece was granted a large quantity of land to the north of the core areas of the Greek rebellion. Serbia was given extensive tracts of Serbian territory formerly a part of the Ottoman Empire. Montenegro even gained some land in the treaty. Russia annexed much of the Black Sea coast as well. Finally, Bulgaria, Albania, Romania, and Bosnia were to be born as independent states.
1831-1835
The rest of Bahadir I's reign was spent maintaining the status quo in terms of reform. Peace was, for the most part, upheld, but he was not well-liked, being the Sultan who relinquished most of Ottoman Europe. Most Turks hated him, and his reluctance to enact reforms did not help matters. Eventually, he succumbed to a plot on his life in December 1835.
His successor was his younger brother, Savas I, a man with stark contrast to Bahadir. Savas was a man of action, a brilliant administrator, and an ambitious human being. Thus begins the period of the Ottoman Revival, when decades of decline would halt and the Ottoman Empire would once again join the ranks of the Great Powers of the world.