AH challenge: Ottoman remnant in Balkans

I'm always interested in how the Ottoman Empire in many TLs usually falls more or less around the time in OTL and either transforms into Republican Turkey or a surviving Ottoman remnant in Turkey (and sometimes with northern Syria and Iraq added it just for kicks). It seems rare to find an Ottoman Empire, if it declines, that retains the huge chunk of land it had in Rumelija (the Balkans).

Any possibility the Ottomans can lose everything but the Balkans?
 
If the Persians are stronger and the Russians are weaker maybe? Or if the Ottomans are a lot weaker, as are the Austrians?
 
The Persians weren't that strong to begin with. The closest that I ever got to a scenario remotely resembling the one I had needed a powerful Egyptian state that conquers most of the Ottoman lands in the Mid-east and vassalizes the Barbary States in Tripoli, Tunis, and Algiers but that still leaves out Anatolia.
 
Maybe have a situation where Anatolia rebels successfully and the Balkans stay loyal, though how that happens is beyond me.

Plus the Persian and Egypt successes mentioned, that is.
 
Erm, maybe have a massive fleeing of Turkish peoples from Anatolia when a more successful Timur starts killing everyone in Anatolia? Then the Timurid lack of a navy stops them from getting the Ottomans in the Balkans?
 
Have France and Britain not restrain Muhammad Ali in his invasion of the Ottoman Empire, which was on the verge of collapse before they intervened(difficult, because they didn't want a power vacuum that Russia could take advantage of). So Ali captures Constantinople, and the Ottomans basically see the complete collapse of their Asian territories. However the Ottoman establishment retain control a rump area roughly corresponding with Greater Bulgaria, Southern Serbia and Albania. Russian/Austrian attempts to exploit are warned/fought off by France and Britain, and the state with it's capital in Adrianople struggles through the nationalist era by making even greater concessions to equality for Christians.
 

Philip

Donor
Have France and Britain not restrain Muhammad Ali in his invasion of the Ottoman Empire, which was on the verge of collapse before they intervened(difficult, because they didn't want a power vacuum that Russia could take advantage of).
Maybe French and British support occurs a later than in OTL. For whatever reason, the intervention does not occur Ali gains control of Anatolia. Then, France/UK props up the remains of the Ottoman Empire in the Balkans to prevent Russian gains.
 
Without an absolute support of the local balkan population, Bosniaks and Albanians for the most part it would be unlikely. And since they as well hold no love for Turkey as entire Balkan doesn't I'm afraid it is pretty improbable. We are a very complicated people:p.
 
Without an absolute support of the local balkan population, Bosniaks and Albanians for the most part it would be unlikely. And since they as well hold no love for Turkey as entire Balkan doesn't I'm afraid it is pretty improbable. We are a very complicated people:p.
There was also a significant population of Turks in the Balkans. I don't think the population was as big as it would get in the 1870's, but they would be an important factor in any future rump in the Balkans Ottoman state. Is there any possibility of Muslims fleeing with the Ottoman government into the Balkans, or would they just assume that under Mehmed Ali, things would be similar?
 
There was also a significant population of Turks in the Balkans. I don't think the population was as big as it would get in the 1870's, but they would be an important factor in any future rump in the Balkans Ottoman state. Is there any possibility of Muslims fleeing with the Ottoman government into the Balkans, or would they just assume that under Mehmed Ali, things would be similar?

Muslims made up a plurality in the Balkans in the 1870s though it's hard to say if most of them were Turks instead of say Muslim Bulgarians, Greeks and Albanians. There was a lot more Muslims in the areas that held Muslims due to Muslims being expelled from other territories like Greece or Serbia and groups such as the Circuassians being expelled as well from Russia.

Albanians only rebelled because they saw that the Ottomans were too weak to protect them from being ethnically cleansed by Serbia and Greece.
 
Erm, maybe have a massive fleeing of Turkish peoples from Anatolia when a more successful Timur starts killing everyone in Anatolia? Then the Timurid lack of a navy stops them from getting the Ottomans in the Balkans?

That's pretty much what happened in OTL. Timur if anything made the Ottomans far more stronger by basing themselves in the Balkans.
 
But did he manage to capture all of Anatolia?

I don't think so. What he did was devastating enough for the Ottomans to move their attention from Anatolia to the Balkans. It probably was easier to conquer the rest of the Balkans given the huge influx of Turks who might have fled from Timur.
 
I don't think so. What he did was devastating enough for the Ottomans to move their attention from Anatolia to the Balkans. It probably was easier to conquer the rest of the Balkans given the huge influx of Turks who might have fled from Timur.

Yes, and that's where my point lies. He could have grabbed the rest of Anatolia, with the Ottoman Interregnum going on. He just needed a bit more time, perhaps dying a few years later.
 
Yes, and that's where my point lies. He could have grabbed the rest of Anatolia, with the Ottoman Interregnum going on. He just needed a bit more time, perhaps dying a few years later.

That's probably a start. You might want Timur to reconsider conquering Ming China as he planned on doing when he died.
 
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