You've peaked my interest once again telynk. Moriscos rebelling in New Valencia sounds very nice. I don't want to pry too much details from you right now but is settlement in New Valencia anymore spread out TTL as it was in OTL. The Spanish had difficulty penetrating anywhere beyond the coasts due to the Mapuche peoples dominating the pampas. If so, would there be some degree of cooperation between the Moriscos and Mapuche to destroy a common enemy. Even if the rebellion ends up failing disastrously, some of the surviving Moriscos might decide to join Mapuche communities. Perhaps we could get some cultural diffusion like the Mapuche adopting Arabic script to write their language?

Hmmm... well the settlement would be a little bit more spread out simply because the population of settlers would be substantially higher (the de la Plata region was undersettled OTL), and also that the Moriscos are going to want to move away from the watchful eye of the colonial government. However, at the same time, settlement in the region hasn't been going on for very long at this point (settlement in OTL Argentina only really began in the 1570s and 1580s, and the expulsion of the Moriscos happened in the 1600s), so there's hasn't been a lot of time for settlers to spread away from the main ports on the Rio de la Plata.

However, I will say that there will be interaction between the Moriscos and the Mapuche, I'm just not sure exactly what that will be like at this point....
 
Update 47 - War in the Mediterranean and Southern Europe
Update 47

The following in an excerpt from The Schismatic Wars: Europe in Crisis 1590-1660 by Duncan MacCallum, Ph.D.

War in the Mediterranean and Southern Europe 1620-1650

Spain and France, the two great powers of the early 17th century, found themselves backing opposite sides in the Second Schismatic War. However, the two powers didn't come into direct conflict in Germany, where the war was centred, but instead fought in the Mediterranean, along the Alps and Pyrenées and in the colonies. This chapter will cover the conflicts that were fought in the Mediterranean and Southern Europe during the time of the Second Schismatic War.

The ongoing war in Mediterranean is often treated as simply an additional theatre to a war which began and ended in Germany However, just like the 'Scottish theatre', these conflicts began before the Second Schismatic War began, and ended earlier. To a large extent, these conflicts began more as part of the Ottoman Civil War than anything else. They only became a part of the Second Schismatic War once the war in Germany began.

During this time, the Ottoman Empire was divided into two Sultanates which both claimed to be the legitimate Ottoman Empire. The Constantinople Sultanate controlled the Empire's traditional capital and the Janissary infantry corps, but it was de facto under the control of Grand Vizier Dervish Mehmed Pasha with the disabled Sultan Yahya serving only as figurehead. The Alexandria Sultanate was led by Sultan Ahmed, who held a more legitimate claim to the throne, but had only a weak cavalry-based army, and had its capital in the reconstructed City of Alexandria [1], outside of the Ottoman Empire's traditional heartland. It is often said that the Constantinople Sultanate was 'an army without a state', and the Alexandria Sultanate 'a state without an army', although this is a gross oversimplification.

At the end of the War of the Great Holy League, the leaders of Austria, Spain, France, and their allies had agreed to recognize the Constantinople Sultanate as the legitimate Ottoman Empire, and had continued their war against the Alexandria Sultanate. However, Austria, having no land borders with the Alexandria Sultanate and very little naval strength, had soon pulled out of this conflict. France too would make peace with the Alexandria Sultanate in 1621 with the death of Francis II and the succession of the anti-Spanish Henry III to the French throne.

Thus, by 1622, Spain and her Italian allies were left to face the Alexandria Sultanate alone. The distance between Spain and the Egyptian and Levantine territories of the Alexandria Sultanate meant that no direct invasion would be attempted. However, Spanish and Italian privateers would attempt raids on the Eqyptian and Levantine coasts, and these would lead to naval battles between the Spanish and Alexandrian navies.

The Constantinople Sultanate had no navy of its own (as most of the Ottoman naval command had been loyal to Sultan Ahmed), but it did encourage the Greeks living under its rule to engage in piracy of their own, attacking Egyptian and Levantine shipping. While this extensive raiding did impoverish much of the Eastern Mediterranean coast, the Alexandria Sultanate remained dominant on the seas.

The Alexandria Sultanate responded with counter-raids of its own upon the Greek territories loyal to the Constantinople Sultanate. Venice, who had stayed out of the War of the Great Holy League, soon allied itself with the Alexandria Sultanate [2] and began attacking territories loyal to Constantinople in the Balkans. Ragusa, much of the Dalmatian and Albanian Coast, and a number of islands in the Ionian and Adriatic soon fell under Venetian control. Venetian and Spanish ships often clashed with each other in the Eastern Mediterranean, although the two powers remained officially at peace.

In addition to its naval skirmishes in the East, Spain also used the opportunity of the Ottoman Civil War to try to expand its colonies in Africa. Much of the coast, including the ports of Algiers and Oran had been captured by Spain under Phillip II. However, the hinterland had remained in Muslim hands, under nominal Ottoman suzerainty. With the power vacuum caused by the Ottoman Civil War, Spain, under Phillip III, decided it was time to attempt to continue the 'reconquista'.

In 1632, once Spain had achieved peace with France, it was decided that the time was right for an attack on Tlemcen, the capital of the Muslim state bordering Spanish North Africa. Troops fresh from the war in Rousillon were brought across the Mediterranean, and began their trek inland. The campaign would ultimately be successful, and Tlemcen would fall to the Spanish armies, and the nominally Ottoman Bey of Tlemcen would be killed. It seemed, at least for the time being, that Spain had won. [3]

The Spanish attack, while it had been successful, had also angered the Muslim population of Tlemcen and the surrounding countryside. Revolts became more and more common, and the Spanish troops in the invasion force had a harder and harder time putting them down. However, the revolting populace, while it could keep the occupation force busy, couldn't win the pitched battles necessary to drive Spain from the African interior. In prior decades, the local Muslims would have called the Ottoman Empire to come to their aid, but with the Ottoman Civil War still going on, they had to turn elsewhere.

On either side of Spanish North Africa were located two Emirates: the Portuguese-backed Emirate of Fez and the French-based Emirate of Tunis. Both were ruled by local Muslim dynasties allied with a Christian European power. The Portuguese had pioneered this protectorate model by appointing Abu Faris Abdallah, [4] the nephew of the old Moroccan Sultan, as Emir of Fez. Under this system, the Emir would rule all of Northern Morocco from Fez except for the key ports, which were under direct Portugese rule. The Emir would be prohibited by treaty from building a navy of his own, and the necessity of the presence of the Portugese navy kept the Emir allied with Portugal while allowing him a great deal of internal autonomy. The French had copied this model in their appointment of Ahmad IV as Emir of Tunis, with the French reserving control over the harbour district of Tunis while the Emir had complete autonomy over the rest of the Emirate.

In the late 1620s and early 1630s, the Emirate of Fez had become involved in a war against the rump Sultanate of Morocco based out of Marrakech. The new Sultan of Morocco (the cousin of the Emir of Fez) had started a war to to reconquer Fez, but Portuguese support for Fez had led to the defeat of the Sultan. After many years of war, Emir Abu Faris Abdallah was able to capture Marrakech itself and bring all but the Southernmost portions of Morocco under his rule.

The victory of Abu Faris Abdallah over Marrakech led to a request by many of the people of Algeria for the victorious Emir to come to their aid and liberate them from the Spanish. Similar requests were made to the Emir of Tunis, although Fez carried much more prestige than Tunis at this time. As Spain was vastly more powerful than either Emirate, neither Emirate was willing to declare war without at least the diplomatic support of its European patron. In the end, both France and Portugal agreed to provide subsidies to their protectorates in the case of a war against Spain. The two Emirates formed an alliance with each other, which in turn led to the Franco-Portuguese alliance that would follow.

In 1638, both Fez and Tunis would lead their armies into Spanish North Africa in an attempt to liberate the Muslim populace from Spanish rule. The constant revolts which kept the Spanish armies busy allowed the two Emirates to force the Spanish to retreat to the ports of Mellila, Oran, and Algiers. However, this in turn led to a stalemate: the fortifications of both ports were too strong for the Emirates to defeat on their own, but the garrisons couldn't be starved into submission without control of the seas.

One of the reasons that Spain delayed its entry into the Second Schismatic War was the ongoing sieges of the Spanish North African ports. It was feared that a declaration of war by Spain against France would soon lead to the fall of Spanish North Africa. However, as France and the League of Heidelberg had early success in Germany, and as the North African sieges had no end in sight, Spain decided to risk a declaration of war in 1642. This was quickly followed by a declaration of war by Portugal against Spain, and soon the French and Portuguese navies began a blockade of Mellila, Oran, and Algiers.

The blockade of these North African ports quickly led to the 1643 Battle of Oran between the French and Spanish fleets, as Spain tried to lift the blockade. The battle was a Spanish victory, but it was a Pyrrhic one. Enough Spanish ships were sunk in the battle, that the fleets blockading Mellila and Algiers handily defeated the remains of the Spanish fleet. [5] The fact that Spain was still at war with the Alexandria Sultanate, whose fleet had only swelled in numbers, only made things worse for Spain in the Mediterranean.

By the end of 1644, Spain had completely withdrawn from North Africa, leaving its possessions to be divided between the Emirates of Fez and Tunis. Fez would receive Mellila and Oran while Tunis would receive Algiers. France soon reached an understanding with the Sultanate of Alexandria, as both were co-belligerents against Spain (although Portugese-Alexandrian conflict in the Indian Ocean would continue). The Spanish possessions of Sicily, the Balearic Isles, and Sardinia were now under threat, and much of the naval action in the later part of the Second Schismatic War would be fought off the coasts of these isles.

While the Franco-Portuguese alliance was able to assert dominance in the Western Mediterranean, their dominance was not total enough to cut off trade between the Spanish mainland and the isles nor to completely block the Strait of Gibraltar to Spanish ships. Raids were conducted, mostly by the French, against Sicily and Sardinia. However, the bulk of the naval action in the later part of the Second Schismatic War took place not in the Mediterranean, but in the Atlantic. The Atlantic theatre will be discussed in the next chapter.

While the Franco-Portuguese fleets were engaged with the Spanish navy off the coast of North Africa, the French and Portuguese armies fought the Spanish on land in three main theatres. The first was the Alpine theatre where Spanish and Italian armies based out of Milan clashed with France, Savoy, and Switzerland, the second the Pyrenéean theatre where French and Navarrese forces fought against the Spanish, and the third the Iberian theatre where Spanish and Portuguese forces clashed all along their mutual border.

The Iberian theatre was by far the quietest of all three. This was partly due to the fact that Portugal, as a navally-focused power, didn't prioritize the offensive capabilities of its army. After turning back a Spanish attack in 1643, Portugal did launch an offensive into Galicia in 1644. However, this offensive was mostly intended as a diversion to cause the Spanish to pull troops away from the Galician coast, which was soon under attack by the French navy. The Galician offensive was soon defeated by the Spanish army, after which the Portuguese pulled back behind their fortifications. Subsequent Spanish attacks in 1646 and 1648 were repelled easily.

The Spanish, for their part, were relatively uninterested in the Iberian theatre, as they felt that a defeat and occupation of Portugal would only tie down troops that would be better used elsewhere. The Spanish had had a long history of friendly relations with Portugal, [6] didn't see them as a long-term threat, and had no unresolved claim on Portugese territory. Thus Spain dedicated most of its forces to the Alpine and Pyrenéean theatres in an attempt to try to force France to its knees, and only attacked along its border with Portugal as an afterthought.

The Pyrenéean theatre, as the direct border between Spain and France, was the location where Spain directed its first offensive. In 1642, as soon as the declaration of war had been made, Spain launched an attack into French Rousillon, and won a few early victories. However, the early victories were not enough, and soon French reinforcements had arrived to put a stop to the Spanish advance. By the end of 1643, Spain had taken control of Perpignan, but had little hope of advancing much farther.

Spain had at first been reluctant to attempt to attack France through Navarre. This was partly due to the lack of success Spain had had in the Navarro-Spanish war 40 years earlier. However, it was also due to the fact that Luxembourg, Spain's only remaining possession in the Netherlands, was vulnerable to attack from the Navarrese Netherlands. Attacking Navarre would mean angering King Anthony of Navarre, who could easily retaliate in Luxembourg.

However, by 1644, Luxembourg had almost completely fallen to the Franco-Dutch armies, so the fate of Luxembourg was a foregone conclusion. Thus, in May of 1644, Spain launched a new offensive, directed at Navarre itself. Again, Spain faced limited success. Pamplona was taken before the end of the year, but French reinforcements for the Navarrese troops defending the passes prevented Spain from crossing the Pyrenées into Lower Navarre.

In fact, in 1645, France was able to respond with a counter-offensive directed along the Atlantic coast. French spies had informed them that many of the garrison soldiers from Northern Spain had been redirected to aid in the occupation of Pamplona. The French generals took advantage of this and attacked and took control of San Sebastian, opening up the way for further advances along the coast.

The French advance into Spain would continue in 1646. The French hoped that their naval superiority could allow them to advance easily along the North Coast. However, the rough terrain of the coast gave the defender quite the advantage, and the French army was soon stopped and defeated by Spanish forces. By the end of 1647, San Sebastian had been retaken, but the Spanish armies again were held back at the Pyrenées.

While Spain had been busy fighting France on the coast, the Navarrese army, stiffened by French reinforcements, had retaken Pamplona and advanced Southwards to reoccupy the parts of the old Kingdom of Navarre that had been take by Spain in the Navarro-Spanish War. However, at the same time, Spain remained in possession of much of Rousillon, which they had captured early in the war. The Pyrenéean front, while it saw some of the largest battles of the Second Schismatic War, was relatively static due to the difficult terrain and good defensive positions for both sides.

The Alpine theatre, while it was also mountainous and relatively easily defended, would turn out to be more interesting in the end. This was largely due to a French miscalculation which underestimated the power of the Spanish Italian possessions. France, with much of its army busy fighting in Germany, and with its dominance of the Mediterranean preventing the movement of troops from Spain to Italy, had felt that its allies in Spain and Switzerland would be enough to handle any Spanish advance from Italy. In the end, they would turn out to be wrong.

For almost a century, Spain with control over Milan and Naples, had been the dominant power in the Italian peninsula. While many of the Italian states were de jure vassals of the Holy Roman Emperor, the Spanish Hapsburgs were the ones who held the de facto power. Since coming to the throne, Ferdinand IV of Spain had had a desire to make the de jure situation match the de facto one. He wished to make the Italian princes acknowledge him as overlord, firmly establishing Italy as part of the Spanish sphere of influence.

At this time, the Holy Roman Emperor still carried the formal title of 'King of Italy', although this title was rarely used. Ferdinand IV wished to have this title for himself. At the same time, Ferdinand still held Luxembourg and the Franche Comté, which were becoming harder and harder to defend since Savoy's alliance with France had cut off the Spanish Road. These lands had become more liabilities than assets for Spain, and Ferdinand soon approached his brother-in-law Emperor Charles VI to propose a trade. In 1641, King Ferdinand IV was granted the additional title King of Italy, and Luxembourg and the Franche-Comté became Austrian, rather than Spanish, possessions.

The formal acknowledgement of Ferdinand as King of Italy had given him the authority to unite the armies of the various Italian states behind him, and soon a united Italian army was on its way North and West towards Savoy. Facing off against this Italian army were the armies of Savoy and Switzerland. France had initially promised Savoy troops to aid in its defence, but these soldiers had been reallocated when Spain had postponed its entrance into the war. By the time Spain had assembled its armies ready to attack, the French troops had already been sent elsewhere.

On their own, Savoy and Switzerland were no match for the Italo-Spanish army. By the end of 1644, only two years after Spain had entered the war, Turin had fallen to the Spanish. Spanish and Italian armies were in control of most of the North Italian Plain, and the Savoyard armies had been driven back to the Alpine valleys.

In 1645, while much of the Spanish army was distracted occupying Savoy, the Swiss Confederacy launched it own attack aimed at Milan. The Swiss advance made it as far as Como before being turned back, and driven back to the Alps. The defeats of the Savoyard and Swiss armies at the hands of the Spanish led to both states to call upon French aid. The French however, seeing little threat of a Spanish offensive making it across the Alps, declined to send more than a token force, instead promising to trade French-occupied land in Germany for Spanish-occupied lands in Piedmont.

In 1646, Spain began preparing for a major offensive directed at the Alps. The Spanish general Guillermo da Silva, in charge of the Italian Army, was a veteran of the wars in the Spanish Netherlands, and he knew the route of the old Spanish Road well. He hoped to be able to retake the Spanish Road from Savoy, thus allowing Spanish troops to pass Northward over the Alps. The most crucial part of this route was the Mont Cenis Pass over the Alps, which could be easily defended, and hence had to be taken by surprise.

So, in the fall of 1646, the Italo-Spanish army began an attack on the Aosta Valley, in the hopes of drawing troops away from Mont Cenis. When winter set in, the Spanish withdrew from Aosta, but the Savoyards armies had already been diverted to Aosta. In the Spring the Spanish attack came not at Aosta, but instead against the Susa Valley which led to the passes of Mont Cenis and Montgenèvre. The Town of Susa fell quickly, and the main Spanish army continued up the valley towards Montgenèvre, leaving only enough troops behind in Susa to prepare for the attack on Mont Cenis.

The most defensible part of Mont Cenis was not the pass itself, but the steep narrow valley that led up to it. A Savoyard army in a defensible position at the top of the valley could easily hold off an attacking force ten times the size coming up the valley. [7] However, da Silva's plan was not to march his army up the valley into oncoming fire, but to get small detachments into the mountains on either side of the valley. If these detachments could rain fire down on the defenders, hopefully the defenders could be forced to withdraw, allowing the Spanish troops to ascend the valley.

Da Silva's attack on Mont Cenis came early enough in the spring that the mountainsides were still covered with deep snow. However, accompanying the Italo-Spanish army were a few Danish officers who had experience with skis. [8] Over the winter, they had trained a few hundred Spanish troops in the use of these skis, and these few hundred troops were the ones that da Silva sent up the mountainsides. These skis that these troops used not only allowed them to move more easily through the snow, but, more importantly, prevented the Savoyard defenders (who had no skis) from coming up to meet them.

Da Silva's plan worked. The fire from the ski infantry on the hillsides about Mont Cenis demoralized the defenders enough that they were forced to withdraw deeper into the pass, allowing the main Spanish army to march up and confront them head on. The Spanish soon won the Battle of Mont Cenis, allowing them to travel over the pass to the other side of the Alps.

With da Silva's army now North of the Alps, and with much of the Savoyard army distracted in the Aosta Valley, the Italo-Spanish army made a quick advance Northward. By the end of 1647, they were at the walls of Chambéry. It was clear at this point that Spanish goal was not to reopen the Spanish Road through Geneva to the Franche-Comté, but instead to threaten Lyon, a key city in the heartland of France itself.

While the war would end before Lyon could fall to the Spanish, the psychological affect of this Spanish advance in the eyes of the French people was one of the key factors in convincing the French to come to terms. For much of the Schismatic Wars, France had seemed invincible. France was certainly the most powerful Kingdom in Western Europe throughout the 17th century, and it hadn't been since the religious wars of the 16th century that France's heartland had been threatened by any foreign army. Thus, while Spain had lost her North African possessions and had generally been defeated in the naval war, she had scored a great victory in the land war against France, proving that France, even in the height of her power, was not invincible. This would play a key part in the peace negotiations that would bring and end to the Second Schismatic War.

Footnotes:

[1] In OTL, Alexandria was well on its way into decline by 1600, as the Portuguese discovery of the trade route around Africa had lessened the importance of Alexandria in Red Sea trade. However, in TTL, the Ottoman governors in Egypt have been attempting to re-establish trade via the Red Sea, and, in doing so, have rebuilt the City of Alexandria, and dredged the silt from its harbour. The choice of Alexandria as the capital of one half of the Ottoman Empire is going to help make the city more prosperous, but it will never really reach the heights it had enjoyed during the medieval period.

[2] This Venentian-Alexandrian alliance is also a key part of the attempt to reestablish the Red Sea trade route, as Venice's prosperity was built on the Red Sea-Mediterranean trade.

[3] The rampant success of TTL's Southern Europeans in colonizing North Africa compared to OTL is not supposed to reflect any technological superiority of Europeans at this time (really, the technological superiority only came into play much later on OTL), but simply the fact that there is no strong Muslim state in North Africa at this time. The Ottomans are occupied in civil war, and Morocco has had a series of weak Sultans (there was no Ahmed al-Mansur in TTL).

[4] Abu Faris Abdallah is an ATL-cousin of OTL's Sultan of Morocco of the same name. He was the son of TTL's Ahmed al-Mansur, although TTL's Ahmed al-Mansur died young, before the Portuguese could come to topple his brother.

[5] Spain's fleet is larger, but of worse quality, than the French fleet, but adding Portugal to the mix means that Spain is at a disadvantage. It doesn't help that much of Spain's fleet is busy defending the colonies against the English and Dutch.

[6] There was no Iberian Union in TTL, and the long era of royal marriages between Spain and Portugal only ended because the Spanish Kings were enticed by French and Austrian matches instead.

[7] To be honest, I've never been to Mont Cenis Pass, nor read any military professionals' assessment of the pass' defensibility. I'm just make an assessment of my own based upon google earth.

[8] Denmark and Spain are allied in this war, so there would certainly be an opportunity for Danish officers to serve with Spanish armies. Maybe they were on board a Danish ship which was captured by the Portuguese at sea and they were then ransomed by Spain....
 
Update 48 - War in the Atlantic
Update 48

The following in an excerpt from The Schismatic Wars: Europe in Crisis 1590-1660 by Duncan MacCallum, Ph.D.

War in the Atlantic: Galicia, Ireland, and South America

The naval dominance that France achieved over Spain in the Mediterranean was surpassed by that it achieved in the Atlantic. For much of the early decades of the 17th century, much of France's energies had been focused on building a powerful modern navy for itself, specifically to be able to compete with that of Spain. By 1640 this goal was largely complete, and the French navy, while still not quite containing as many ships as that of Spain, had larger and stronger ships so that it was more than a match for anything Spain could muster. In the Second Schismatic War, France held the additional advantage of having Portugal, the Navarrese Netherlands, and England as allies. While Spain had Austria and Denmark on its side, Austria had little naval strength to speak of, and Denmark's growing navy had little experience fighting on the high seas. [1]

Galicia

Early in the Second Schismatic War, France saw the advantage it held in its strong navy and maritime allies, and adapted naval superiority as an integral part of its strategy. Thus, early in the war, France made a number of efforts to cripple the Spanish naval capacity, giving French control of the seas. The most famous, and most successful, of these is the Galician campaign of 1644.

Galicia had always been an important centre for the Spanish Atlantic navy. While trans-Atlantic trade was operated out of Seville and the Mediterranean navy was based out of Barcelona and Valencia, the port of La Coruña handled much of Spain's trade with Northern Europe, and neighbouring Ferrol held Spain's largest naval arsenal. Ferrol, defended by the Castle of San Felipe, was considered one of Spain's most defensible ports, and considered by many to be impossible to attack by sea.

France's goal was to do the impossible. In 1644, coordination was made between France and Portugal for a combined land/sea assault on Galicia. Portugal would attack Southern Galicia with their army, while the French navy would sail along Spain's Northern coast to attack by Sea. The Portugese attack was intended mostly as a ruse, to draw Spanish troops away from La Coruña and Ferrol, while the French attack was intended to deliver the crippling blow.

To a large extent, the Portuguese diversionary tactics worked, and, when the French fleet arrived in La Coruña in June of 1644, much of the Spanish garrison was busy elsewhere. After a short battle, the Spanish ships that were present were captured and their cargo sent back to France as spoils. French marines looted and burned the city, hoping to cripple the port as much as possible.

However, La Coruña itself was not the ultimate goal. The capture of La Coruña allowed the French marines to acquire a flotilla of fishing boats, and take hostage a number of locals to serve as guides. These fishing boats would be used to transport the French marines across the bay and beached North of Ferrol. [2] From there, the marines would travel overland to Castle San Felipe to attempt to take it from the landward side while the French ships provided cover fire.

This daring attack, while it led to many casualties amongst the French marines, succeeded in taking Castle San Felipe, and allowed the French ships entry into Ferrol. Many more ships were captured, but, more importantly, the naval arsenal was destroyed, depriving the Spanish of much needed munitions for their fleets. This French victory meant that the Spanish could no longer afford to engage its enemies in full battles on the seas. For much of the rest of the war, the Spanish navy could do nothing more than defend the treasure fleets against privateers, and France and its allies had free reign of the seas.

Ireland

News of the the French victory in Galicia reached England only months after peace had been made in Scotland, and only weeks after King Henry X had ascended the throne. Henry, blaming the Spanish fleet for his father's failure to continue the advance into Scotland, decided that it was time, once and for all, to eliminate any Spanish threat to England. Spain's only remaining possession that posed a threat to the English homeland was its control of Dublin and the surrounding Kingdom of Meath. Thus, Henry began making plans to attack Dublin and eliminate the Spanish presence in Ireland.

However, the dominant opinion in England at the time was that a full occupation of Ireland would prove more trouble than it was worth. The English nobles who had taken control of Ireland in medieval times had then gone on to assimilate to become 'more Irish than the Irish'. The Tudor Kingdom of Ireland had succeeded only at uniting the warring Irish petty Kings against it. Moreover, the victory of the Supplicants in Scotland had led many to think that the imposition of a Protestant King on the Catholic Irish would end just as poorly as had the imposition of a Catholic King on the Protestant Scots.

Thus, Henry did not pursue a purely military strategy, but combined a naval blockade of Dublin with envoys sent to the various Irish petty Kings. He told the various petty Kings that his quarrel was not with them, but with the Spanish, and promised them that they could maintain their own positions if they allowed him to expel the Spanish from Ireland. He asked the Kings of Leinster, Ormond, Desmond, Connacht and Tyrone [3] to recognize Henry himself as the new King of Meath and High King of Ireland.

To a large extent, Henry's offer was received well by the Irish petty Kings. While the Irish Confederation created after the Peace of York had brought unprecedented peace and stability to Ireland, [4] the Spanish had grown less and less popular with the Irish over the decades. Once Ferdinand VI had come to the throne in Spain, Ireland had been neglected by the Spanish and the petty Kings had begun to wonder whether they would in fact be able to count on the protection of Spain in the case of war.

However, the petty Kings were not really pleased with Henry's offer for two reasons. The first was that Ferdinand VI had been allowed to succeed to his father's position as High King of Ireland because the Irish petty Kings felt that they needed an outside ally to support them against future English invasion. They did not trust Henry X enough to allow him to serve as High King himself. The second was that the Catholic petty Kings were opposed to any Protestant holding political power in Ireland. This was not only an ideological objection, but also a real fear that the small Protestant minority in Ireland might form a Supplicant-like organization and rally behind any Protestant petty King.

Thus, the agreement reached in 1646 between Henry X and the Irish Petty Kings was that it would not be Henry himself which would become King of Meath but his uncle William, Duke of York, who agreed to convert to Catholicism. William had been married to a daughter of Phillip III of Spain to help seal the Peace of York, so he had claims to the Kingdom of Meath through both the English and Spanish lines. He had led the English armies in Ireland during the War of the Scottish Succession, and so was familiar with Ireland and its people's ways. Furthermore, his children were well known to have inherited Catholic sympathies from their mother, so they would make good future Kings of Meath.

Similarly, Henry X agreed not to pursue the High Kingship for himself or for William of York, but accepted that it was enough to have Ferdinand removed from the position of High King. However it also became clear that none of the Irish petty Kings could be elected High King without threatening to start a war with one of the other petty Kings. In the end it would Charles Bothwell, King of Scotland, who was named as the new High King, himself married to yet another daughter of Phillip III of Spain. Charles Bothwell was not only Catholic and nearby but also carried the reputation, amongst the Irish, of having successfully defended his own Kingdom against an English attack.

This agreement between Henry X of England and the petty Kings of Ireland, was, at this point in time simply a secret diplomatic understanding: no formal treaty had been signed. The idea was that, if Henry was able to expel the Spanish from Meath, the agreement would be made into a peace treaty, while, if Henry would fail, the existence of the agreement could be denied by all parties. However, between 1644 and 1646, due to a lack of naval strength, the Spanish had failed to lift the blockade of Dublin, and thus had been unable to deliver fresh troops or supplies to aid in the defence of Meath. Thus, when the English invasion began late in 1646, it became clear that the Spanish could not hold out. Many of the Spanish garrisons simply surrendered without a fight.

Thus, by the time the Second Schismatic War was over, Spain had been thoroughly expelled from all of its holdings North of the Alps. The Netherlands had been lost to France, Luxembourg and Franche Comté had been traded to Austria, and Meath had been lost to England. While this seemed like a disasterous result, it meant that Spain was able to consolidate its position, reduce its expenditures, and cement its control over lands South of the Alps. Furthermore, the crushing naval victory of France over Spain and the loss of Spanish land made it clear to the rest of Europe that it was France, and not Spain, that was the power to be feared.

South America

While battles of the Second Schismatic War were fought in North America and the Caribbean, [5] the most dramatic New World theatre of the war would be in South America, in New Valencia. It would be here that France would truly press its naval advantage home, using its superiority at sea to support the invasion of a Spanish colony on the other side of the Atlantic. However, before we can talk about the war in New Valencia, we must talk about the colony itself, and the unrest that led to the French invasion.

New Valencia, consisting of the Southern Cone of South America between Brazil in the East and New Aragon in the West, had been the least prosperous of the three divisions of Spanish South America. New Aragon had grown rich off of gold and silver deposits, and New Catalonia had accumulated wealth through promotion of the Panama trade route between the Atlantic and Pacific. However, New Valencia had neither known mineral resources nor a good position for trade, and thus had quickly become the backwater of South America.

However, what New Valencia did have was fertile land. The lowlands both around the Rio de la Plata and in the valleys of the Pacific Coast had good land and good climate for the cultivation of European crops. However, the local Natives, [6] while they practiced agriculture, were warlike and did not take kindly to being taxed. They had never lived under a State government, and were unwilling to subjugate themselves to the Spanish. Furthermore, the arrival of the Spanish had led to a decrease in the Native population due to introduction of new diseases.

As the government of New Valencia was becoming aware of its predicament, King Phillip III of Spain was ordering the expulsions of the Moriscos: the descendants of Spain's Muslim population which had converted to Christianity, but hadn't otherwise assimilated. The Moriscos, while ostensibly Christian, were seen as crypto-Muslims and a potential liability in the case of a Spanish war against a Muslim power, and thus it was felt that they had to be dealt with. While many argued for enslaving or eliminating them, in the end, it was decided that they would be expelled. Starting in 1612, boats would leave the ports of Spain to carry Moriscos over the seas to Spanish North Africa. [7]

This expulsion would create only chaos in Spanish North Africa. The Moriscos were not welcome amongst the existing North African population, and the small coastal strip controlled by Spain did not have the carrying capacity necessary to support such a population. While many of the Moriscos simply fled North Africa of their own accord, many in the New Valencian government had an idea. In 1615, Viceroy Diego Marti of New Valencia announced that he would welcome any Moriscos who wanted to settle in New Valencia, and would pay for their passage across the Atlantic. The hope was, that the Moriscos could be settled as tenant farmers on the fertile land of New Valencia, giving the government of New Valencia a tax base.

While the Moriscos who settled in New Valencia would only be a small fraction of the total number of Moriscos expelled from Spain, they would number in the tens of thousands, outnumbering the ethnically Spanish settlers. Soon, they would form their own distinct class above the 'Indio' Natives who they saw as primitive and savage, but below the 'Criollo' merchants and tradespeople who populated the cities.

The Moriscos themselves soon divided into two classes. Most of them would be content to live as 'Campesino' [meaning 'Peasant'] tenant farmers working the land of ethnically Spanish nobles. However, a minority would flee colonial rule to live as 'Vagabundo' [meaning 'vagabond']. These 'Vagabundo' would settle in small groups in the wilderness, undertaking a lifestyle of hunting, herding, and small-scale agriculture. While the 'Vagabundo' are often portrayed as criminals in Spanish historiography, they only resorted to raids against the more settled colonial population in times of desperation. To a large extent, the Vagabundo lifestyle was based on that of the Native peoples of New Valencia, and, by 1650, most of the Vagabundo bands were made up of individuals of mixed Native-Morisco heritage.

The Campesino/Vagabundo divide was also a divide of religion as well as lifestyle. The Moriscos who had come over to New Valencia from Spain had all been ostensibly Christian, although many of them had been practicing Islam in secret or semi-secret before their trans-Atlantic voyage. The Moriscos who were the most devout in their Islamic faith were the first ones to flee their Christian landlords to become Vagabundo, while those who stayed behind to be Campesino were more thoroughly converted to Christianity over the generations. Thus, most of the the Vagabundo practiced Islam, although it was a highly syncretized Islam mixed with Catholicism and Native beliefs.

An uncommonly successful raid by a Vagabundo band against the city of Santiago de Chile in 1638 led to a decision by the government of New Valencia to undertake military action against the Vagabundo bands. The 'Vagabundo War' saw Spanish troops chasing Vagabundo bands through the mountains and plains of New Valencia. While some Vagabundo bands were captured and brought back to be hanged in city squares, most bands were able to escape from Spanish troops through superior knowledge of the local geography.

However, at the same time as the 'Vagabundo War' was going on, news had reached New Valencia of the victories of the Emirates of Fez and Tunis over Spanish North Africa. The Portuguese sponsorship of the Emirate of Fez had given Portugal a reputation amongst Muslisms as being 'the good infidel'. Portugal was seen as one of the few Christian powers willing to come to the aid of Muslim people against Christian oppression. While the 'Vagabundo War' was not primarily a religious war, it had enough of a religious flavour to it that some of the Vagabundo leaders began to journey to Portuguese Brazil to seek the aid of the colonial government there.

During this time Brazil itself was undergoing a time of massive expansion. The Carreira Expedition, commissioned by King Sebastian the Great [8] of Portugal in 1609, had discovered gold in the Brazilian interior. This had led to a rush of settlers to seek the gold for themselves and an influx of slaves brought from Africa to work in the mines. While in 1600, Brazilian colonial settlement had largely been restricted to the coast, by 1630, bands of settlement stretched inland from the ports of São Vicente and Rio de Janeiro.

This new inland expansion of settlement had led to the charting of the course of the Parana River, which led from the Brazilian interior to join the Rio de la Plata in New Valencia. Most of the course of this river was located West of the Tordesillas Meridian, technically in Spanish territory, although the headwaters of many of the Parana's tributaries were located East of the Meridian, in Portuguese Territory. However, by this point in time, the Portuguese presence in the Parana valley far outweighed that of the Spanish. To the government in Brazil, it seemed that, if it came to war, there was a good chance that Portugal could secure all of the course of the Parana from the mines all the way to the sea. This would then give a cheaper route for the shipment of gold from the mines and the shipment of supplies to the mines.

So, when the Vagabundo leaders approached the Portuguese in Brazil for aid, the Portuguese agreed. At first, aid just meant the sale of arms to the Vagabundos and the training of the Vagabundo bands in the use of these weapons. Even with just with this indirect aid, the Vagabundo bands were soon able to take control of much of the countryside of New Valencia. Successful ambushes against Spanish troops led to the rejection of a offensive campaign against the Vagabundo bands, and by 1642 the Spanish Viceroy had to pull his troops back to defend the major cities of New Valencia.

In the 1640s, New Valencia contained only four major cities. Buenos Aires, the capital, was located on the Rio de la Plata, and was the only city that could easily be resupplied by sea. Santiago, the second city of New Valencia, was located in the Valley of Chile [9] near the Pacific Coast. Ascuncion, while smaller than either Buenos Aires or Santiago, was older than both and guarded the overland route from New Valencia to New Aragon. Lastly, Nueva Xativa [10] located in the central interior, was the youngest and smallest of the major settlements, but was important due to its central position.

As soon as news of the Portuguese declaration of war against Spain reached Brazil, the Portuguese forces stationed in Brazil began marching inland to secure the upper reaches of the Parana River. Forts were established on the banks of the river at strategic locations as the Brazilian army travelled South along the river. However, the Portuguese army soon came into conflict with the Spanish army based out of Ascuncion. In the Battle of Itapua [near OTL *Posadas, Argentina] the Spanish army defeated the Portuguese force and forced them to turn back. While the total strength of the Portuguese army was much more than that of the Spanish, the supply chain from Itapua back to São Paulo was much longer than that to Ascuncion, so the Portuguese had had to leaver a greater portion of their troops behind to guard their supply train.

Thus, in 1644, the Portuguese governor of Brazil sent a request to Portugal for more troops to help take control of the Parana River. King Sebastian II refused, arguing that all of their soldiers were needed at home to defend the border against Spain. [11] However, before word could be sent back to Brazil, news of the French victory in Galicia reached Lisbon. It was now clear that the Spanish fleet stood no chance of opposing the Franco-Portuguese alliance on the high seas, and so it seemed that there would be no better time for an attack on New Valencia. However, at the same time, Portugal could not afford to spare the troops necessary to occupy such a vast territory.

Thus, instead, the Portuguese leadership made a proposal to their French allies. If France could provide the troops necessary for an invasion of New Valencia, Portugal would allow them the use of Brazilian ports to supply their invasion. If the invasion was successful, the two powers agreed that Portugal would keep all territory East of the Parana River, while France would get to keep everything to the West. In Portuguese eyes, this agreement allowed Portugal to achieve their aim of gaining access to the complete length of the Parana River without having to divert more troops away from the Iberian theatre.

The French interest in New Valencia was based upon their desire to gain access to the Pacific. The terms of Franco-Portuguese Alliance had prevented the French from competing with the Portuguese in the Indian Ocean trade [12], and thus the Pacific was the only possible route by which the French could gain access to Asian goods. Control of New Valencia would give France control of the nearest ports on either side of Cape Horn as well as giving them a possible land route across South America from the Rio de la Plata to Chile.

In September of 1645, a French fleet arrived in the harbour of Rio de Janeiro carrying thousands of troops. There, the fleet would be joined by a smaller Portuguese fleet which would sail with them to Buenos Aires. The attack on Buenos Aires was supported from the landward side by Vagabundo bands, and went without a hitch. From there the army divided into two parts. A small force of mixed Portuguese and French troops would travel North up the Parana River towards Ascuncion, supported by those ships which were small enough to navigate the river. Meanwhile, the bulk of the French army would continue Westward towards Nueva Xativa and Santiago.

The French efforts to take Nueva Xativa and Santiago were met with great success. The Vagabundo bands were willing to help the French as scouts, guides, and skirmishers, and the Spanish garrisons of both cities had been depleted. By March of 1647, Santiago had been secured and French troops had made it to the Pacific.

The Parana Campaign was significantly less successful. The Portuguese campaign to secure the Parana in 1643 had led to a Spanish effort to better defend the river. Men, munitions and supplies had been moved from Nueva Xativa and Santiago to Ascuncion, where it was thought they were more badly needed. Thus, the Franco-Portuguese force was presented with stronger defenders than it was prepared for, and was forced to beseige a number of new Spanish forts along the Parana before it could even make it upriver to Asuncion. To make matters worse, the climate of Northern New Valencia was hotter and more humid than the French troops were used to, and disease soon became a problem.

Thus, when peace was made at the end of the Second Schismatic War, Asuncion still held out against the Franco-Portuguese forces. In the peace settlement, Portugal did receive their aims of keeping the East bank of the Parana River, and France was allowed to keep the rest of New Valencia South of the 30°S parallel, but Spain kept the remainder of New Valencia, which would be governed from Asuncion. This rump New Valencia would prove even less profitable than the old New Valencia had been, but it would at least be rid of its Vagabundo problems, as the Vagabundo bands were now located mostly in French and Portuguese territory.

Thus, the French victory at Ferrol, giving France and its allies control of the seas, had far-reaching consequences. The explusion of the Spanish from Ireland was only possible because Spain lacked the naval strength to break the blockade of Dublin. Similarly, the French capture of most of New Valencia was made possible by the fact that there were no Spanish ships to prevent the transportation of French troops to South America. This naval dominance contributed to the general success of France and its allies in most of their colonial campaigns, which in turn shaped the peace which would bring the Second Schismatic War to an end.

Footnotes:

[1] Denmark during this time is making the transition from being a regional power to a great power. Most of its naval experience is in various wars in the Baltic, and it is only now in the 1630s and 1640s attempting to expand to create a global empire for itself.

[2] Basically, they're following the same attack plan as OTL's English Ferrol Expedition of 1800.

[3] See update 28 if you're curious who these petty Kings are and which lands they govern.

[4] Remember the Irish Confederation is the Federal arrangement by which Ireland is divided into petty Kingdoms which are in turn subject to the High King. It's based upon the medieval situation in Ireland, but with a formal constitution and codified laws so as to keep the peace between the petty Kings.

[5] The Caribbean theatre of the war is mentioned in Update 43.

[6] The 'local Natives' here are the Mapuche and their neighbours.

[7] You'll notice two things that are different about TTL's expulsion of the Moriscos so far. Firstly, it is happening a little later than OTL. Secondly, they are sent only to Spanish North Africa rather than being more widely dispersed, causing greater unrest in the areas where they are sent.

[8] Sebastian I is called 'Sebastian the Great' in TTL partly because of his more or less successful crusade against Morocco founding the Emirate of Fez, but also because his reign saw expansion of the Portuguese Empire in Brazil and the Indian Ocean as well. The much earlier discovery of gold in Brazil is partly due to his actions as King.

[9] In TTL, the term 'Chile' just refers to the Chilean Central Valley, and not the whole Pacific Coast of New Valencia.

[10] Nueva Xativa is basically the equivalent of OTL's Cordoba, Argentina. It is named after a historic city in the Kingdom of Valencia.

[11] King Sebastian II is a fairly cautious monarch, seen as cowardly by his detractors, although he has succeeded at preventing a major Spanish offensive into Portuguese territory.

[12] TTL will not see a plethora of East India Companies as every naval power worth its salt tries to get its hand into the trade around the Cape of Africa. Instead, allies will divide the globe between them as Spain and Portugal did in the Treaty of Tordesillas. Portugal and France have done this already with Portugal getting a sphere of influence over the Indian Ocean and France over the Pacific. A similar arrangement has been made between New Spain and New Catalonia over the division of the trans-Pacific trade.
 
When can we get back to North America? I'd like to see how European colonies are affected by the war and it's aftermath.

Does this mean that Ireland is going to get it's own branch of the Tudor family?
 
That was as good as I had anticipated it to be and much more! :winkytongue:

I'm glad you liked it! To be honest, your comments earlier helped inspire me a little. My original plan was for it just to be Morisco tenant farmers revolting, but then you made that comment about interaction between the Moriscos and the Mapuche. I then realized that any Moriscos who were seriously unhappy with their landlords would simply pack up and leave and join the Mapuche before they would take up arms against their landlords. From there the vagabundos were born.

When can we get back to North America? I'd like to see how European colonies are affected by the war and it's aftermath.

It'll be a few updates before we get back to North America. We've got two more updates covering the war itself than two or three covering the aftermath.

The thing is I already covered most of North America up to 1650. The only real North American theatre of the war was in the Caribbean, which I already covered for the most part. The three and a half powers that control the Eastern Seaboard (the Netherlands, England, France, and English-allied Tudor Scotland) are all on the same side, so there were not conflicts between them. Thus, for the most part, war simply meant a greater demand for shipyards, etc. There will be some more interesting things that happen in the 1650s and 1660s but I want to cover the immediate aftermath of the war in Europe first, as these events in North America will be consequences of what happens in Europe.

One of the weird things about how I've been updating this TL is that, since the action started in North America, I've always been covering events in North America first, even if those events are consequences of events that have happened in Europe, but haven't been covered yet.

Does this mean that Ireland is going to get it's own branch of the Tudor family?

Yes, and eventually it will be the only reigning branch of the Tudor family, sort of like the Spanish Bourbons lasting longer on the throne than the main French branch of the family.

I am deliberately trying to create a permanently divided British Isles, and the federal structure of Ireland is part of that. The idea is that if the Tudors have a branch of their dynasty controlling part of Ireland, they're more likely to work to get their fellow dynasts elected High King than conquer Ireland outright....
 
Yes, and eventually it will be the only reigning branch of the Tudor family, sort of like the Spanish Bourbons lasting longer on the throne than the main French branch of the family.

I am deliberately trying to create a permanently divided British Isles, and the federal structure of Ireland is part of that. The idea is that if the Tudors have a branch of their dynasty controlling part of Ireland, they're more likely to work to get their fellow dynasts elected High King than conquer Ireland outright....

So you've just delayed the end of the Tudor Dynasty in England? I'm hoping it happens after the Irish Tudors had gone native. Because Ireland deserves to be a reasonably-prosperous independent kingdom in at least one timeline.

I personally hope Danish Florida succeeds. Mostly because having a Nordic nation as a colonial nation just makes me smile.
 
I myself am hoping for a swift Haudenosaunee recovery from the Arkevujay raids and expansion towards the lands of the Erielhonan and Mescountens. The Haudenosaunee may lack the guns that the Kanatians have easy access too but they do have more firepower than other tribes. They can do it.
 
French *Argentina, Dutch *United States, Tudor Ireland and a divided Scotland...the butterflies have flapped, and a mighty storm is brewing.
 
So you've just delayed the end of the Tudor Dynasty in England? I'm hoping it happens after the Irish Tudors had gone native. Because Ireland deserves to be a reasonably-prosperous independent kingdom in at least one timeline.

Yeah, as someone who has a good deal of Irish ancestry, I've always had a soft spot for the Irish, and felt that they were screwed a bit too much OTL. So, yeah, I'm not planning anything majorly Irish-wank-y like an Irish global empire, but reasonably-prsperous independent kingdom is part of what I have planned.

I personally hope Danish Florida succeeds. Mostly because having a Nordic nation as a colonial nation just makes me smile.

Well, I plan for it to succeed at least as well as French Louisiana did. As in it should last for a couple centuries at least. I don't think it's going to end up being large enough to form a successful post-colonial state on its own, and so it'll probably get eventually absorbed by whatever the post-colonial state in the New Netherlands winds up being called. But, it will still be distinctively Nordic-cultured at that point.

I myself am hoping for a swift Haudenosaunee recovery from the Arkevujay raids and expansion towards the lands of the Erielhonan and Mescountens. The Haudenosaunee may lack the guns that the Kanatians have easy access too but they do have more firepower than other tribes. They can do it.

Oh yeah, for sure. They've been displaced, but not destroyed, and they've had much more experience with European tech than their neighbours to the West, and are tied into a fur trade network of their own. I hope it isn't giving too much away to say that I do plan on having the Haudenosaunee win the upcoming war against the Erielhonon.

French *Argentina, Dutch *United States, Tudor Ireland and a divided Scotland...the butterflies have flapped, and a mighty storm is brewing.

Yeah, just wait till you see what emerges from the mess of the HRE :).
 
Update 49 - Anna Cullerez
Update 49 – Anna Cullerez

(Hacienda de Mendoza [1], October 1636)

Anna and her brother Joaquin were busy planting seeds. The warmth of the spring sun helped warm them against the cold wind blowing up from the South. Anna treasured the few moments she had with her older brother. He was often away tending the Haceinda's cattle herd, as it roamed over the vast prairie. However, right now, it was time for spring calving, and the cows were kept close to home so they could be better taken care of. Joaquin was free to spend time with his family, for once.

For some reason, today Joaquin seemed more serious than he usually was. He didn't joke with Anna they way he usually did, and kept glancing over his shoulder. It was almost as if he was afraid someone was watching him. “Anna,” he at last asked, “have you ever had a chance to hear a recitation of the Quran?”

Anna thought for a minute. Her mother had often told her of the beautiful words she'd heard as a child in Oran before her family had come across the ocean to New Valencia. But she'd always spoken of it as something in the past, something that Grandmother and Grandfather used to do before they'd left Oran. Anna had never thought of a Quran recitation as something that still happened here in New Valencia. “No, I definitely have never heard one,” she replied.

“Well, I have,” bragged Joaquin. “It's really a life-changing experience. Those words, there can be nothing more beautiful than holy words read out loud.”

Anna was puzzled. Speaking Arabic was strictly prohibited, and, while Grandmother and Grandfather had made an effort to teach her the basics of the language as a child, she'd never felt comfortable using it with anyone who wasn't immediate family. “Where did you hear such a thing?” she asked.

“Well,” Joaquin replied, “last time I was out with the cattle herd, we came across a vagabundo hunting party, a group of five young men off hunting Rheas. At first we thought they were after our herd, but they soon laid down their weapons, and offered us some of their crafts and herbs if we would feed them and let them spend the night with us.”

“It took them a while to open up,” Joaquin continued, “but once their leader had ascertained that there were no criollos [2] amongst us, he began speaking to us of religious matters. He told us of the freedom that his people had to worship the One True God. He told us that if any of us wanted to leave these oppressive criollos behind, we were welcome to join them. He taught us to pray, and then he gave us a recitation of the Quran before we went to sleep.”

Anna felt that she knew where her brother was going with this. “So, do you want to join them, she asked? Do you want to leave our family behind?”

“Well, what sort of a future do I have here? I could stay and take care of the Mendoza cattle herd for the rest of my life, or I could leave, join the vagabundos and maybe someday I could have a cattle herd of my own.”

“But, they won't be your cattle, they'll just be some other criollo's cattle that you stole. And you'll probably get shot before you can get anywhere with them.”

“You know, little sister, the vagabundo lifestyle isn't all about stealing. Vagabundos are an honourable people who live their lives according to the Quran. They only take from the criollos what is due according to the jizya tax. And they never ever steal from fellow Muslims.” [3]

“How do you know so much about vagabundos all of a sudden?” Anna asked. “This isn't the first time you've met up with them out on the range, is it?”

Joaquin was silent. It seemed that he didn't know what to say. Almost like he didn't want to tell Anna everything that was going on. When he next spoke it was almost a whisper. “Let's just say that I might be leaving soon to go join them. And I'm worried about missing my family. I know that Mother and Father are going to want to stay here: after all they have our younger siblings to take care of. But you, you're thirteen now. You're old enough to make your own way with me in the wilderness. You could be a vagabunda too if you were willing to join me…”

“I don't know,” Anna replied, “Father always told me that it was our Muslim ways that got us expelled from Spain. He always said that the path of Islam was the path of the persecuted, and that we'd have to give it up if we were to be successful. He always said that if I keep going to Church I might meet a criollo boy, and one day I might be able to become a mistress of my own Hacienda. Honestly, I just don't think I'm willing to give that up.”

“I'll miss you sister,” Joaquin said as he turned and got back to his planting.

* * * * *

(Hacienda de Mendoza, February 1639)

Anna awoke to the sound of her window being opened from the outside. She sat bolt upright in bed, and looked around the room she shared with her two younger sisters. She saw a figure climbing in through the window. The figure was dressed in buckskins and carried a bow and arrow over his shoulder. A vagabundo! she thought.

Before Anna could let out a scream, a hand was placed over her mouth. “Shh…” a familiar voice said. “You mustn't wake anyone.”

“Joaquin?” Anna inquired hopefully. It was her brother's voice that she had heard, wasn't it.

“The name's Imran ibn Yahia al-Kullera, [4] but yes, I am your brother.”

“What are you doing here?” Anna asked. “You know that you'll be shot on sight if the criollos see you!”

“Yes, and that's why it's your job to make sure that they don't see me. I'm here because I need your help.”

“My help?” Anna asked.

“Yes,” Joaquin – or Imran, as he was now calling himself – replied. One of my friends, a fellow vagabundo, was captured by the army last week. We believe he's being held prisoner inside Nueva Xativa. We have no hope of getting inside the city ourselves to get him out, but we were thinking that you could get inside. Maybe you need to go to the market there to buy a new pot for our kitchen. Could you deliver this letter to my friend?” He held up a folded piece of paper.

“Are you mad?” Anna asked. “I may be able to get inside the city, but that's not the same as being able to deliver a letter to your friend. He's probably being held within the barracks itself, and I am not going to risk going in there. The only way a campesina girl like myself could get inside would be to sleep with one of the soldiers. I haven't seen you in over two years, and this is what you ask of me. I'm sorry, but I'm not doing that for you!”

Imran was silent. He clearly was embarrassed, but as usual, didn't have anything to say for himself. He sat there staring at Anna as she glared back at him.

“Joaquin?” came a voice out of the darkness. It must be Anna's sister Juana. The commotion must have woken her. “Mommy! Daddy!” she called out. “Joaquin's back!”

This time it was Anna who ran across the room. “Don't yell like that!” she whispered. “You'll wake the whole hacienda.”

But it was too late. Anna already saw the flicker of a torch outside her window. She ushered Yaakoub into her bed, and covered him in her blankets as the watchmen strode up to her window.

“Is everything ok in there?” the watchman asked. “I heard a yell.” He shone his torch in the window, with his other hand on the pistol at his belt. His light soon fell on the lump in Anna's bed. “Oh, I see what's going on,” he said, “you have a boy in here don't you? Let me get a good look at him!”

Anna knew that she couldn't let the watchman see her brother. If he did, he'd probably shoot him, or at least take him prisoner. As she thought of what to say to the watchman, she noticed her brother's bow and quiver of arrows propped against the wall next to the window.

Being careful to keep her movements out of sight, Anna grabbed an arrow from the quiver, and thrust it out the window, striking the watchman. While the watchman was able to block the blow with his arm, this only succeeded at driving the arrowhead deep into his forearm, causing him to call out in pain and drop the torch to the ground. A momentary darkness was followed with increasing light as the flames from the torch spread to the dry grass.

“Fire!” Juana called out. “Fire! Fire!” She had grabbed up her chamber pot and dumped it on the flames outside the window, but it seemed to make little difference. Anna was quick to take charge and herd her siblings out of the house. It was only when they were clear of the house and standing in the yard that Anna realized that her brother was still with her.

“Yaakoub,” she asked, “why are you still here? It's not safe for you.”

“It's also not safe for you,” he replied. “You just assaulted the watchman. Once he recovers from the wound you gave him, I'm sure he'll be looking for you. You'd better come with me.”

Anna turned to her sister. “Juana,” she said, “I need you to be in charge. Stay here can keep our siblings safe until Mother and Father find you. I need to go with Joaquin. I hope to see you again some day, but it might not be for a while.” She hugged her sister, and then ran after her brother who was already off ahead.

Over a low rise was a horse tied to a stake in the ground. “This here is Fatimah,” Yaakoub said, “she's strong. She can probably carry the weight of both of us.” He jumped on the back of the horse and helped his sister get on behind him. Soon Anna was clinging to her brother's back as the horse bore them away into the warm night.

* * * * *

(Carahue, December 1642)

Anna dreamed that she was on horseback. She was riding, riding, over the dry plain towards the mountains. Her band of vagabundos surrounded her, each on their own horse, with the herd of cattle that belonged to the band out in front of her.

She recognized this place. This was a small valley in the foothills of the great mountains. The land in this valley had once been farmed by the vagabundos before the Spanish armies had come and burned the fields. She had come to this valley many times since then. Whenever the band was under pursuit by the army, they always came here. There were many spots here where the band could hide, and take up positions to ambush the soldiers. While Imran had his bow, Anna would carry a musket she had picked off of one of the dead soldiers. It was heavy and difficult to aim, but she had killed many criollos with it over the years of war.

However, in her dream, there were no criollos behind her. Chasing her was a single man on a single horse. At first the man was the prophet Moses, carrying a stone tablet that read “And do not kill anyone which Allah has forbidden!”. But, as soon as Anna read those words, the man's face changed, and now it was the prophet Mohammed crying out “Fight in the name of your religion with those who fight against you!”. But, as Anna focused her eyes again, she realized that there was not one man but two, and two women as well. She recognized the four faces of Ngenechen: Moses was the old man, Mohammed the young man, the old woman bore the face of the Machi [5] of Carahue, and the young woman bore the face of Anna herself. [6]

“Aanaa, Aanaa,” a voice called. Anna woke to see her brother shaking her. He pronounced her name in the Arabic fashion which had always seemed artificial to Anna herself. Anna still spoke Spanish in her day-to-day life. While she followed the Muslim religion herself, and said her prayers in Arabic, she refused to learn any more of the language than was necessary for that. After all, it was Spanish that the vagabundos used in

Looking out the flap of the hide tent in she slept, Anna could see the glow on the horizon that signalled that dawn was on its way. “Thank you for waking me in time,” she said to her brother, “it will be good to get a good nourishing meal in before the sun comes up.”

“Yes,” Imran replied “today is the day that we slaughter our cattle. You will need the energy of a good meal.

Ever since Anna had been with the vagabundos, they had made a point of coming to Carahue every year during Ramadan. The vagabundos had always had a tradition of staying put during Ramadan, as traveling while fasting took quite the toll on the body. Before the war had started, the annual Ramadan fast would take place in the vagabundo villages in the Eastern foothills of the mountains. However, since the army had destroyed most of the vagabundo villages, most vagabundos had instead decided to come over the mountains to the Mapuche lands to fast amongst their friends, allies, and trading partners.

The Mapuche people had been at war with the Spanish long before Anna's own grandparents had come over the ocean to New Valencia. The Mapuche town of Carahue was itself built on the ruins of a Spanish city that had been built almost one hundred years ago. In the Mapuche language, Carahue meant 'city that was'. The Mapuche had been trading partners of the vagabundos ever since the first vagabundo had fled his criollo masters, and, with the outbreak of the war, the Mapuche and vagabundos were no longer just trading partners, but were military allies.

While Imran had assured Anna that there had been a time when the vagabundos had refused to steal more than would be owed to them by the jizya tax, the war had forced the vagabundos to steal in order to feed themselves. Isolated villages and haciendas would be raided by the vagabundos who would carry off anything of value, would eat the crops and would herd the cattle away. However, the cattle would not be immediately slaughtered, but would be led over the mountains to the Mapuche lands. It was here that the great cattle slaughter would take place, followed by the great feast that Mapuche and vagabundo alike would share on the final night of Ramadan. In exchange for beef and leather obtained from the great slaughter, the Mapuche would provide the vagabundos with agricultural foods, weapons, and other supplies for the coming years' raids.

In the great field in the centre of the vagabundos' tent city was gathered the cattle herd. In the dawn light, Anna could already see men at work dividing the cattle herd into two parts. About a quarter of the herd would be slaughtered by the vagabundos' Imams while the remaining three quarters would be given to the Machi of Carahue to be slaughtered as a prayer was said to Ngenechen.

Anna could remember the first year she had come to Carahue. Back then, the Machi had only prayed over those animals which would be sacrificed to Ngenechen, and the remainder had been slaughtered and butchered without any prayer being said. That was the year that the Imam of Anna's band had declared the meat haram, and had refused to eat any of it. This had caused such an uproar that, the following year, the Machi had been careful to pray for every single animal before it was killed, both those that would be sacrificed and those that would be eaten. [7]

Anna soon found herself walking over to the Mapuche side of the field, where the Machi was busy drumming and chanting her prayer for the cattle that would be slaughtered. Whatever beauty Yaakoub had found in the recitation of the Quran, Anna found that same beauty in the songs of the Machi. Anna couldn't help but think that her Imam was nothing more than a boy. He was just a boy like her brother who had been taught Arabic and given a copy of the Quran by his grandfather. While he could recite the Quran and describe everything it said, he seemed utterly lost when it came to the ways of the world.

The Machi on the other hand, had an almost magical aura of wisdom and power. She not only knew how to pray, but also could heal the sick and could lead her people in coming together for ceremony. There was something she had, something that Anna still did not quite understand, that drew Anna to her. Anna wanted to watch her, to learn more about her spiritual power, and to get a greater understanding of the ways of the Mapuche.

As Anna walked towards the Machi, she caught sight of a young man she recognized. His name was Nahuel, and he was one of the few men in Carahue who spoke good Spanish. Anna had gotten to know him through her stay in Carahue, and it was good to see someone on this side of the field that she could talk to.

“It's good to see your lovely face again,” Nahuel greeted.

“Lovely?” Anna responded, “you'd think that by now it would be scarred with guilt from theft and murder.” She was only half sarcastic – she really did feel that every raid against the Spanish made her heart a little heavier.

“But you are talking about warfare, are you not? You are fighting to save your own life, and the lives of your band.”

“But that doesn't make it any better,” Anna answered, “I still feel deep in my heart that every time I kill, I lose a little bit of my own soul. I've talked to my Imam about it, and he says that the Quran makes it very clear that there's nothing wrong with killing in defence of your faith. However, the more he tells me about it, the less and less I believe him. I was hoping maybe of having a chance to ask your Machi about it. She seems much wiser than my Imam.”

“Well,” Nahuel responded, “I can try to set up a meeting for you. But, you know, she doesn't speak and Spanish.”

“But, you could translate, couldn't you?”

Nahuel smiled. “In fact, I'm translating for her right now,” he said. “She says that your place is not on the battlefield. She says that you don't have the heart of a warrior, but one of a family woman, a mother.”

“A mother?” Anna asked. She knew that she was now old enough that she should be looking to get married and settle down, but she had been too busy just surviving for the past three years to really think about that.

“The problem,” Anna continued, “is that I don't really have a choice. I'm a vagabunda now, I've killed Spanish soldiers, and they will never forgive me for that. I can't go back to the hacienda and become a campesina again. I thought, when I first joined the vagabundos that there would be a chance I could make my way in an isolated village in the wilderness, growing vegetables, tending to the herds, and marrying a man who would would go off hunting and raiding. However, it seems that every vagabundo village we've visited has been abandoned. They've all been destroyed by the Spanish army. The only choice we have now is to run, fight, and then run again.”

“Well, you do have another choice,” Nahuel broke in. “You could stay here. I'm sure there are plenty of men here who would be happy to marry you.” From Nahuel's tone, it was clear that it was himself he was speaking of.”

“I'll think about it,” Anna replied. Nahuel will do, she thought.

* * * * *

(Carahue, August 1650)

“…and then Allah said to Nuh: 'I am sending a great flood to the Earth to wash all sinners away. You must build a great boat and you must collect my followers in it…' ” Anna was busy telling the story of Nuh and his Ark to her children, when she was interrupted by Rayen, her eldest daughter.

“I know how this ends!” Rayen broke in. “Allah is going to send Caicai-Vilu to flood the land, and then Tenten-Vilu will come and save the land from the great flood!”

“Well, not quite,” Anna replied, “this flood I am speaking of happened back in the Dar al-Tawhid across the great ocean. The flood caused by Caicai-Vilu happened right here in the Dar al-Dawa.” [8]

“So, does Allah rule the Dar al-Tawhid while Tenten-Vilu rules the Dar al-Dawa?”

“Not exactly,” Anna replied. This type of question was one of the hardest for Anna to answer. One of the few verses of the Quran that she had taken to heart was 'Say to the disbelievers: To you, your beliefs, to me, mine.' This verse had greatly influenced her dealings with her husband and with her husband's people, but was hard to apply to her own children. They were not really 'believers' nor 'disbelievers' yet, and, as much as Anna wanted them to follow her own faith, she knew that life would be easier for them if they instead followed that of her husband.

Anna was still trying to figure out what to say when she was interrupted by a man at the door of her hut. “I thought you would want to know,” he said, “that your people are here.” Anna knew which people he meant. His brother must have come back this year, and just in time for Ramadan. She quick got up and ran to the edge of the town to watch the vagabundos approach.

By the time Anna got to the edge of town, the vagabundos had already arrived. There seemed to be fewer of them this time, only half as many as had come last time. And, this time there was no great cattle herd. But, at least they were here. Last year, the vagabundos had not come at all.

Anna caught site of her brother, and ran towards him, greeting him with a great embrace. “Imran, I'm so glad you came!” she called out.

“I'm glad to see you too. I see you have my niece and nephew with you too,” Imran said, looking down at Anna's children. “They're so much bigger than they were last time I was here.”

“Well, that's because you didn't come last year! What happened? Why weren't you here for Ramadan.”

“Well, you've probably heard that the war is over,” Imran replied, “the Spanish were defeated, and there's a new French government in Buenos Aires, or Bien-Air as they're calling it now. They've promised us religious freedom, and have granted every vagabundo band land to call our own. That village that used to be ours in the foothills, it's now been rebuilt!”

“Congratulations!” Anna replied, “but you still haven't answered my question.”

“Well, we did spend a good part of last Ramadan rebuilding the village. Besides, we didn't have any cattle to bring here. There wouldn't be a point in coming over the mountains if it wasn't for the cattle-trading. You see, part of the deal with the French which has allowed us to return to our village is that we've promised never to steal from the criollos. We were allowed to keep the cattle we already had at the time of the peace, and we've been breeding them to rebuild our herd. It's taken us until this year to breed enough cattle to have a herd worth driving over the passes.”

“Besides,” Imran continued, “having our own land comes at a cost. The French government has taken to taxing us in exchange for protection against 'Native attacks'. We're required to give a portion of our herd each year to the tax collectors who then take it to Nueva Xativa to be sold. Some of our band have refused to give in to the French demands for taxes, and have returned to a life of banditry. The French soldiers have mostly succeeded in driving those bandits South of the Rio Negro, but they continue to raid North of the Rio Negro, attacking vagabunos and criollos alike.” [9]

“But peace is still better than war, isn't it?” Anna asked.

“For sure,” Imran replied, “I mean I'm actually thinking of getting married now and settling down. That was actually something I thought that maybe you could help me with. Do you know of any young women in town who are looking for a husband and might be willing to convert to Islam?”

Footnotes:

[1] This Hacienda is located near TTL's Nueva Xativa (near OTL's Cordoba, Argentina). The 'de Mendoza' is the name of the family that owns the Hacienda, it bears no connection to OTL's Mendoza, Argentina.

[2] The Moriscos use the term 'criollo' to refer to all settlers of Spanish Christian ancestry. The 'penninsulaire' vs 'criollo' distinction is nearly irrelevant to the Moriscos as both castes oppress them equally much, and most of the penninsulaires are in the citys of Buenos Aires and Nueva Xativa far away from the Haciendas where the Moriscos work.

[3] Joaquin is romanticizing here. The vagabundo code of ethics isn't quite as strict as he's making it out to be, but the vagabundos aren't at this time, primarily thieves. They hunt, herd cattle, and cultivate small farms in their villages in the Andean foothills.

[4] This is just an Arabization of the Spanish name Joaquin Cullerez.

[5] Ngenchen is the Mapuche creator spirit. A machi is a female shaman amongst the Mapuche.

[6] Don't read too much into this scene. Anna is dreaming, and her brain is just jumbling up ideas from Islam and Mapuche spirituality all together. The point of this paragraph is just to illustrate some of the ideas that Anna is exposed to, and the syncretic nature of the vagabundo version of Islam.

[7] In orthodox Islam, meat is only halal if it is slaughtered by a Muslim (or, for some, by a Christian or Jew), but meat slaughtered by a pagan is usally not considered Halal. Thus, the acceptance of meat slaughtered by the Mapuche as halal is one of the syncretic aspects of the vagabundo Islam.

[8] 'Dar al-Tawhid' means 'house of Monotheism' and is a phrase that is used in Arabic as roughly synonymous with 'Dar al-Islam' to refer to the Islamic world. TTL's vagabundos have adopted the term to refer to the Old World where Islam is established, as opposed to the New World where Islam is just being introducted. 'Dar al-Dawa' means 'house of invitation' and refers to lands where Islam has been recently introduced. Thus, to a certain extend, the Dar al-Tawhid vs. Dar al-Dawa divide is the Old World / New World divide, but in a way that paints the Old World as synonymous with the Muslim world, ignoring Christian Europe, much of sub-Saharan Africa, and most of Asia.

[9] Just like in OTL, Patagonia won't be properly settled by Europeans until the 18th/19th centuries. The Rio Negro and BioBio River mark the division between French-governed terrritory and Native-controlled land.
 
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Technically, Joaquin is Spanish for Joachim, whereas Yakub (Yaakoub, however you want to transliterate it) is Arabic for Jacob (Spanish for which is Iago or Jaime, IIRC). So they are different names. OTOH, I can't quickly find an Arabic form of Joachim, so it may well be that Yakub is used for it.
 
Interesting. Seems religious identities are a bit fluid out on the Patagonian frontier. I wonder if the Mapuche will eventually go Muslim (and how long it will be before the French in Argentina feel strong enough to go back on their promise of religious tolerance. Seriously, if they weren't willing to keep their treaties with the Protestants, I suspect 17th century French aren't going to consider promises to Muslims worth much)
 
Technically, Joaquin is Spanish for Joachim, whereas Yakub (Yaakoub, however you want to transliterate it) is Arabic for Jacob (Spanish for which is Iago or Jaime, IIRC). So they are different names. OTOH, I can't quickly find an Arabic form of Joachim, so it may well be that Yakub is used for it.

Thanks. Yeah, this is totally one of those times when I felt that I knew something well enough that I didn't have to look it up. I had a prof whose name was Joachim and who went by 'Jim', so I had this Joachim = James connection in my brain. Then when I found out that James = Jacob, I made the connection Joachim = Jacob. Looking it up, I see that this last connection was false as Joachim and Jacob are separate biblical figures (i.e. separate Hebrew names).

The Biblical Joachim is referred to in Arabic as 'Imran', so likely, Imran would be the Arabization of the Spanish Joaquin. I think I'll change that.

Interesting. Seems religious identities are a bit fluid out on the Patagonian frontier. I wonder if the Mapuche will eventually go Muslim (and how long it will be before the French in Argentina feel strong enough to go back on their promise of religious tolerance. Seriously, if they weren't willing to keep their treaties with the Protestants, I suspect 17th century French aren't going to consider promises to Muslims worth much)

Yeah, the fluidity of religious identities is due to two things: 1) none of the Moriscos have been able to practice Islam openly in generations, meaning that most of them are just rediscovering Islam 2) this generation of Moriscos have little to no contact with Muslisms in North Africa and the Middle East, so they have nowhere to turn to to help figure out what is considered 'orthodox' or 'unorthodox' Islam. It's the same sort of fluidity that neopaganism has, but to a much lesser extent (as most neopagans were separated by tens of generations from their pagan roots rather than just 2 or 3 generations between the Moriscos and their Muslim roots.

The Mapuche will adopt some Islam-inspired practices, but I'm not sure if they will go fully Muslim. Politically speaking, the Mapuche's powerful neighbours (French, Spanish, Portugese colonies) are all Catholic, so the Mapuche have an advantage in maintaining their overtly pagan status as it makes them a potential target for missionary activity, which an official conversion to Islam would make them an automatic enemy.

Yeah, the promise of religious tolerance is not something the French are going to take too seriously. It's really a matter of political pragmatism as the French were only able to take control of the Southern Cone with the help from the vagabundos, so they need to keep them on side until there's enough of a French population on the ground to create a degree of loyalty to the French crown.
 
Update 50 - the Ottoman Civil War
Update 50 – The Ottoman Civil War

The following is a chapter taken from Brother fights Brother: The 'Great' Monarchies in times of Civil War by Klaus Huber

Sultan versus Grand Vizier: The Ottoman Civil War

The war which is most frequently known to historians as the 'Ottoman Civil War' is that which was fought between 1618 and 1644. However, it was certainly not the only civil war that took place within the Ottoman Empire, as the House of Osman had a long tradition of brothers fighting each other over succession to the throne. Like many of the monarchies in this book, the Ottoman Empire did not have Constitutionally-governed succession practices, [1] and the only way to avoid civil war was to have the new Sultan kill his brothers immediately upon ascending to the throne. To a certain extent, the 1618-1644 Ottoman Civil War was again a squabble between brothers as the Empire was divided into two Sultanates, with the Constantinople Sultanate being ruled by Sultan Yahya while the Alexandria Sultanate was led by Sultan Ahmed.

However, while the Ottoman Civil War was, to a certain extent, a dispute between brothers, it was not primarily so. In the 17th-century Ottoman Empire, the Sultan was no longer as directly involved in ruling the Empire as he had been in the past, and had delegated much of his power to the Grand Vizier. To a certain extent, the Ottoman Civil War was as much a war between rival Grand Viziers as it was a war between rival Sultans with Dervish Mehmed Pasha serving the Constantinople Sultanate and Öküz Mehmed Pasha and Misir Mustafa Pasha serving the Alexandria Sultanate.

Even so, more than a war between personalities, the Ottoman Civil War was a war between different branches of the Ottoman state. The Constantinople Sultanate was dominated by the Janissaries: an infantry corps who had begun as slave-soldiers but who had grown to control much of the Ottoman government. The Alexandria Sultanate, on the other hand, represented all the interests that opposed the Janissaries: the Ottoman navy, the Sipahi cavalry, the nascent civil government, and the Mamluks of Egypt. Also, to a large extent, the two Sultanates represented differing ideas of Ottoman governance, with the Alexandria Sultanate modelling a modernizing absolute monarchy under Sultan Ahmed while the Constantinople Sultanate modelling a military oligarchy led by Grand Vizier Dervish Mehmed with the Sultan as a mere figurehead.

The Ottoman Civil War began during the War of the Great Holy League as a dispute between Grand Vizier Dervish Mehmed Pasha and Sultan Ahmed. Dervish Mehmed, leading a military campaign in Hungary, had disappointed the Sultan with a single defeat. The Sultan had sent a letter to the front asking for the Grand Vizier's resignation, and Dervish Mehmed had refused, instead hoping to retain his position by leading his armies to victory.

This dispute had led to the 'Battle of the Two Viziers' in 1618 where the new Grand Vizier Öküz Mehmed led his own army against Dervish Mehmed in an attempt to bring him back to Constantinople by force. In this battle, Öküz Mehmed's own Janissary troops defected to his rival, giving Dervish Mehmed control over the entire Ottoman field army. An attempt by Ahmed to crack down on the disloyal Janissary corps had led to a general uprising of the Janissaries, forcing Ahmed to flee Constantinople, and leading to the crowning of his brother Yayha as Sultan. [2]

For the first year of the civil war, Ahmed was in the custody of the Kapudan Pasha, admiral-in-chief of the Ottoman Navy, who had been responsible for his successful escape from Constantinople. The Kapudan Pasha had ferried Ahmed to Smyrna, then Athens, then Cyprus, each time hoping to provide Ahmed with a base from which he could rebuild an army and retake Constantinople. However it wasn't until early in 1620 that Ahmed finally settled on Alexandria as his new capital.

Öküz Mehmed Pasha, before he had served as Grand Vizier, had been the Ottoman governor of Egypt for almost two decades. Öküz Mehmed had largely succeeded where his predecessors had failed at winning over the support of the Egyptian people and the Mamluk elite for the Ottoman regime, and had presided over the reconstruction of the port and city of Alexandria, which had, in previous centuries, fallen into ruin. While Öküz Mehmed had done much to ensure Egypt's loyalty to Sultan Ahmed, the real importance of Egypt was its lack of Janissaries. The army of the Eyalet of Egypt consisted mostly of Mamluks, Egypt's own force of former slave-soldiers, who still controlled much of the power behind the scenes in Egypt. The Mamluks were eager to displace the Janissaries as the Ottoman Empire's most powerful military corps, and thus proved to be loyal supporters of Sultan Ahmed.

While Sultan Ahmed was busy building an army for himself, Grand Vizier Dervish Mehmed Pasha was busy using the Janissary army under his command to take control of as much of the Ottoman Empire as possible. The Janissary army was put to work securing cities and fortresses in the name of Sultan Yahya, as non-Janissary troops had taken control of many key garrisons. Additionally, the people of the Ottoman Empire were largely still loyal to Sultan Ahmed, so the Constantinople Sultanate had much work to do putting down revolts. Thus, it was not until late in the year 1620 that Grand Vizier Dervish Mehmed could think of launching a campaign directed at Sultan Ahmed himself, and by then, Ahmed had assembled a Mamluk army capable of facing the Janissaries in battle.

By this time, the Constantinople Sultanate had secured its control over most of the Balkans. The only exception was Greece, where the Ottoman navy's loyalty to Ahmed had secured control of much of the isles and the coastal fortresses for the Alexandria Sultanate. At the same time, Ahmed had expelled the remaining Janissaries from Egypt, Syria, and Trioplitania, gaining secure control over the Southern areas of the Ottoman Empire. The two remaining contested areas were Anatolia, where garrison troops loyal to Ahmed held out against the Janissaries, and Mesopotamia, where Janissary armies isolated from the Constantinople Sultanate held Baghdad and Basra. It was in Greece, Mesopotamia, and Anatolia where the next battles in the Ottoman Civil War would be fought.

In Greece, it would be the Constantinople Sultanate which would eventually win out. While Sultan Ahmed's control of Mecca and Medina gave him the stronger claim to the title of Caliph amongst the Muslims of the Empire, Dervish Mehmed Pasha had been largely successful in courting the Christians of the Empire. The Christians, or Rum Millet, had been excluded from the Ottoman military, although their children were taken as slaves to serve in the Janissary corps. Dervish Mehmed himself had been born a Christian and taken as a child. As the Balkan territory most securely controlled by Dervish Mehmed was majority Christian, allowing Christians to serve in the military could provide a substantial boost to the Constantinople Sultanate's manpower. Thus, in 1620 Dervish Mehmed created a new Rum Army to be made of up Christians from the Rum Millet, and a number of key Janissaries converted to Christianity in order to serve as officers in the Rum Army. It was the Rum Army and the corresponding Rum Navy consisting of Greek fishing and merchant boats serving as privateers which eventually took control of Greece for the Constantinople Sultanate.

In Anatolia, the Constantinople Sultanate faced stiffer resistance. While the control of the Straits by the Constantinople Sultanate kept the Alexandria Sultanate out of the Black Sea, and guaranteed control of the North coast of Anatolia for Constantinople, the combined forces of the Ottoman Navy and Ahmed's Mamluk-led army allowed Alexandria to gain control of much of the South coast and the interior. For much of the years 1621 and 1622 the two main armies didn't engage with each other directly, instead focusing their efforts on securing cities and fortresses and consolidating their position. It was only in 1623 that a decisive battle was fought between the two main armies outside of Ankara. The battle of Ankara, as this confrontation was known, was a great victory for Dervish Mehmed and the Constantinople Sultanate. The mostly-cavalry army of Sultan Ahmed was easily defeated by the mostly-infantry army of the Janissaries, demonstrating again the superiority of well trained infantry over cavalry. [3]

Meanwhile, in Mesopotamia, the Janissaries in control of Baghdad and Basra had been fighting on two fronts. While a detachment of Mamluk forces based out of Mosul had been harassing them for much of 1621, a Persian army had attacked from the East in 1622. It was only in 1623, when Ahmed sent a larger, stronger army in the hopes of taking Baghdad, that it became clear that Baghdad was no longer in Janissary hands, but had fallen to Persia.

The loss of Baghdad was a great shock for the governments in Constantinople and Alexandria alike. Both sides had thought that the civil war would be over before any external power would attack, and both had seen the rival Sultanate as the more pressing enemy. However, with the intervention of the Persian empire, it was clear that the two Sultanates could no longer focus on fighting amongst themselves. They would have to defend the Empire's borders or else there would be no Empire left to defend.

Thus, late in 1623, the government in Alexandria began asking for a truce. The Alexandria Sultanate knew it couldn't fight both Constantinople and Persia, and wanted to be able to concentrate on the exterior enemy. At the same time, the Constantinople Sultanate was losing ground to Venice in the West, but was also in a dangerous financial situation. The Janissaries had long demanded high salaries for themselves, and the control of the Aegean by a Navy loyal to Ahmed had cut off Constantinople's trade income. Thus, while it did have superiority in terms of land forces, the Constantinople Sultanate was worried that it lacked the logistical capacity to sustain an advance all the way through Syria and Egypt to Alexandria.

The truce was signed in 1624, requiring neither side to undertake actions of war against the other for the next ten years. Both sides hoped that ten years would be enough time to get their act together to bring a decisive end to the war. In the meantime, both sides would hold on to their currently-occupied territory, and rebuild.

Many have argued that, in 1624, the Constantinople Sultanate missed its opportunity to press is own military advantage home and defeat the Alexandria Sultanate once and for all. It is true that the Janissary infantry was better trained and experienced than Sultan Ahmed's Mamluk-centered army. It can also be said that 1624 was the only opportunity the Janissaries could have had to decisively defeat Sultan Ahmed, as Ahmed could be forced into a war on two fronts with both Constantinople and Persia. Many have argued that a Janissary victory could have led to a continued evaporation of the Sultan's power leading eventually to Constitutional government. However, I would argue that a Janissary-led government would have would up just as far from Constitutionalism as did the absolute monarchy of the Alexandria Sultanate. The Ottoman Civil War was not a missed opportunity for anti-monarchial reform of the Empire, but simply an example of the pointless wars that all unconstitutional governments create.

The Alexandria Sultanate did use the period of truce to reform its own army. An over-reliance on Mamluk cavalry had proved fatal in battle against the Constantinople Sultanate, and the death of many Mamluks in battle against the Janissaries had freed up Mamluk land to be used by Sultan Ahmed for the support of new infantry units. The Alexandria soon Sultanate began recruiting new infantry regiments and training them in modern tactics. These new infantry regiments were intended to be as professional as the Janissaries, while being kept separate from the civil government, preventing the military takeover of government that had happened under the Janissaries.

During this time, the Alexandria Sultanate made contact with the London Oriental Company which was looking for a toehold in the Indian Ocean, and granted the London Oriental Company a concession in the Alexandrian-controlled port of Aden in exchange for assistance in reforming the Alexandrian military. The London Oriental Company recruited English veteran officers (many who had fought in the War of the Scottish Succession as well as some few older veterans who had fought against Spain in the Netherlands under King Henry IX) to come to Egypt to train the new infantry officer corps, made up of Mamluk veterans who were willing to abandon their cavalry tactics in exchange for a promotion. These officers would train their Alexandrian counterparts in contemporary Western European tactics and strategy. [4]

In addition to modernizing its military, Sultan Ahmed also invested great efforts in rebuilding the Alexandrian trade network. Ever since the Portuguese had discovered the route around Africa from the Atlantic to the Indian Ocean, trade overland through Egypt and Mesopotamia had stagnated. It was largely due to this trade stagnation that the port of Alexandria had been allowed to fall into ruin in the first place. During the 1620s and 1630s Venetian merchants and Alexandrian Pashas would collaborate to rebuild a trade network from Venice to Alexandria, and down the Red Sea to Aden. Roads were built in Egypt, port facilities were improved, and pirates were cleared from the Eastern Mediterranean and Red Sea. For now, goods would be carried across the Arabian Sea from Aden to India by the London Oriental Company, although this was seen as a temporary measure due to an inability of the Ottoman Navy to compete with the Portuguese in the Arabian Sea. [5]

The military modernization and rebuilding of trade networks that the Alexandria Sultanate undertook at this time sparked a new era of innovation in the Muslim World. One prime example of this was the coastal beacon system established by Sultan Ahmed in the early 1630s. While the Alexandria and Constantinople Sultanates were officially at peace, the privateers of the Rum Navy had often refused to respect the truce, and had continued to attack Alexandrian and Venetian ships and continued to conduct raids against the Egyptian and Levantine coasts. Greek piracy together with continued Spanish naval raids had inspired Sultan Ahmed to improve the coastal defences of the densely-populated Nile Delta. A series of beacons were constructed along the coast stretching out from Alexandria across the Delta. The idea was that any locals who sighted an enemy ship should light the local beacon, sending a signal back to Alexandria so that the Alexandrian Navy could sail from port to respond to the threat.

This beacon system was almost an immediate success, and soon the network was expanded along the coast to Gaza, and eventually to Jaffa, whose residents requested an extension of the beacon system to help protect them from pirates. [6] It was during the late 1630s that bored beacon-monitors in two neighbouring Nile Delta towns began establishing a code of lantern flashes to communicate with each other during the dark night. This code was then adopted by neighbouring beacon-monitors and soon beacon-monitors were casually sending messages from Alexandria to Jaffa and back again in a single night. It was only in the early 1640s that Sultan Ahmed learned about this code, and began to adapt the beacon system into a rapid communication system linking Alexandria with Damascus. It was these beacons which gave birth to the what the Western world knew as the Shiklet (from the Turkish words 'Isik' meaning light and 'Iletisim' meaning communication) communication system. [7]

The reform of the Alexandrian army and the rebuilding of the Red Sea trade route had breathed new life into the Alexandrian war effort against Persia. While the Persians had advanced as far as Mosul by 1626, occupying almost all of Mesopotamia, Sultan Ahmed refused to make peace, feeling that his military modernization could help him create an army capable of pushing the Persians back. Persian attacks on Damascus were fought back in 1627 and 1628, and in 1629, the Alexandrian army was now strong enough to retake Mosul. Baghdad would fall in 1631, and Basra in 1632, and, by the time the truce had ended in 1634, the Alexandria Sultanate had succeeded in reestablishing the Ottoman border with Persia. In the process, the Alexandria Sultanate had gained control of the whole Eastern margin of the Empire, as the Janissary garrisons in the Eyalet of Van, under siege by Persia, had defected to Sultan Ahmed upon being rescued by the Alexandrian army.

During the truce years, the Constantinople Sultanate was also busy. While their Janissary army was as professional as could be, and had no need of the modernization undertaken by the Alexandria Sultanate, the vast sums of money spent on the Janissaries meant that the Constantinople Sultanate had great financial difficulties. Not only were the salaries of the Janissaries serving in the field armies abnormally high, the retired Janissaries who made up much of Constantinople's elite were entitled to expensive pensions. In an effort to reduce the cost of the Janissaries without alienating his power base, Grand Vizier Dervish Mehmed Pasha forbid the induction of new recruits into the Janissary corps, instead filling any personnel gaps using the cheaper soldiers of the Rum Army.

At the same time, the Constantinople Sultanate was undertaking an ongoing war against Venice. The Constantinople Sultanate still lacked a navy able to confront that of Venice at sea, but was able to make good use of its army to repel attacks by Venetian fleets against the many coastal fortifications of the Constantinople Sultanate. In the end, Venice would succeed at taking control of all of the Adriatic Coast of the Balkans, including the important city of Ragusa, and would take control of many islands in the Ionian Sea. However, the Constantinople Sultanate succeeded at defending the Ionian coasts of Morea and Epirus, and maintained control of the few Aegean Islands under their control.

By 1629, the Constantinople Sultanate decided that the reconquest of the Venetian-occupied ports would be impossible without a proper navy, and the Venetians had given up any hope of advance into the interior, thus the two belligerents agreed to peace. The peace recognized Venetian control of most of the ports and islands that it had taken, although the important port of Durrës remained in Turkish hands for the time being. The Constantinople Sultanate hoped that peace with Venice could allow trade to once again flow through Constantinople, as the Sultanate was by this point nearing bankruptcy.

In a desperate attempt to stave off Constantinople's financial woes, Grand Vizier Dervish Mehmed Pasha declared war on Wallachia in 1630. The hope was that a quick campaign against the Principality could result in a reestablishment of Ottoman suzerainty, allowing tribute to flow once more into Constantinople's coffers. While much of Wallachia was occupied by the end of 1631, Wallachia was not without allies. Armies from Moldavia and Transylvania soon began campaigns to liberate Wallachia. Additionally, with the signing of the Peace of Aussig and the end of the First Schismatic War, Austrian armies which had previously been busy fighting in Germany were able to come to the aid of their Wallachian allies.

The result of the 'Wallachian War', as this conflict was called, was nothing more than the complete devastation of Wallachia. The Petrascu dynasty was brought to an end and Wallachia was divided between Princes Stephen II Bathory of Transylvania and Mihai II Movila of Moldavia. [8] The armies of the Constantinople Sultanate would be driven from Wallachia, and, in 1636, Grand Vizier Dervish Mehmed would be killed.

The death of the Grand Vizier put the Constantinople Sultanate into a state of chaos. Sultan Yahya, disabled as he was, was unable to rule on his own, and didn't even have the capacity to chose a new Grand Vizier without advice from the very same Janissary elites who wished to take the Grand Vizier's office for themselves. A series of Viziers ruled in quick succession for a few months at a time until each was deposed and executed by the Janissary elite. By the end of 1637, the Constantinople Sultanate had settled into a permanent state of oligarchy, with the Janissary elite ruling as a group.

However, this instability had come just at the wrong time, as Sultan Ahmed was launching a new campaign into Anatolia. The initial offensive had come in 1635, while much of the Janissary army was still busy in Wallachia. Sultan Ahmed had succeeded at pushing across Anatolia to take Sinope, cutting off the Eyalet of Trebizond from the rest of the Constantinople Sultanate. Ankara fell in 1637, threatening Bursa and Constantinople itself.

However, the biggest turning point in the war would not happen during Ahmed's Anatolian campaign, but on the battlefields of Silistria where an important Rum Army detachment, sent to confront a Moldavian-occupied town, refused to fight their fellow Christians, and instead mutinied and defected. The leader of this detachment was none other than Palaiologosazde Yahya, a distant descendant of the Palaiologoi Byzantine Emperors. His great-great-grandfather Andreas Palaiologos had converted to Islam, and Yahya had been brought up as a low-ranking Muslim member of the Janissary corps. However, when he discovered the respect that the Christian soldiers of the Rum Army paid to his name, Yahya converted back to Christianity, becoming Ioannes Palaiologos, and joined the Rum Army himself as an officer.

In 1637, the defection of his detachment of the Rum Army gave Ioannes Palaiologos an opportunity to seize power for himself. He called himself 'the rightful King of the Rum Millet' and called upon all Rum Army regiments to defect to his aid. The defections of a number of Rum Army units, together with aid from Moldavia and Hapsburg Hungary allowed Ioannes' 'Kingdom of the Rum Millet' to occupy most of Silistria and Northern Rumelia. [9]

Thurs, in 1638, it seemed clear that the Alexandria Sultanate would be victor of the Ottoman Civil War. The Crimean Khanate, which had so far supported Constantinople, switched its allegiance to Alexandria at this time. 1638 was also the year that most Western European powers began to recognize Alexandria as the legitimate Ottoman government. However, it would take 6 more years for the war to finally come to an end.

One of the reasons the war would draw on as long as it did was the tenacity of the Janissaries, who were now fighting for their own survival as an institution. There was a glimmer of hope within the Janissary leadership that 'Kingdom of the Rum Millet' and the Alexandria Sultanate could be forced to fight each other, giving the Janissaries a chance to rebuild. However, in the meantime, the Janissaries did their best to turn Constantinople into a fortress, filling its stores, rebuilding the walls, and driving out civilians. The idea was that, in Constantinople could hold, the Janissaries could retain control of Thrace at least.

Through the years 1638 and 1639 the Alexandria Sultanate made very little progress against the Janissaries in Anatolia, instead focusing on Trebizond and Armenia, where Rum Army officers loyal to Ioannes Palaiologos had taken control. While Trebizond, the last Rum Army-controlled city in the East, did fall to Sultan Ahmed's armies in 1639, Ioannes himself had made much progress in Rumelia, advancing as far South as Salonika to reach the Aegean Sea and as far West as Durrës to reach the Adriatic. The years 1640 and 1641 would see the Rum Army continue South into Morea, coming to control all the Christian-dominated territories of Rumelia and Greece.

It would take until 1642 for Constantinople to finally fall, after a siege lasting nearly a year. By the time the armies of Sultan Ahmed reached the city, they found much of it devastated and depopulated, with much of the treasures of the Sultan's Palace having been sold off by the Janissaries in order to pay their soldiers. While this was celebrated as a victory by Ahmed, who now had the legitimacy of being the only claimant Sultan, the 'Kingdom of the Rum Millet' had grown to become a formidable foe in its own right.

Even before Constantinople was taken, an Alexandrian army had landed in Morea and had begun a Northward advance through Greece. Following the capture of Constantinople, a second front against the Rum Army was opened in Thrace. The Rum Army was poorly-trained and poorly-equipped compared to the troops of Sultan Ahmed. To a large extent, Ionnes Palaiologos had only been able to take control of Rumelia so easily because so many of the Janissaries had been withdrawn to Western Anatolia to slow down the advance of Sultan Ahmed. However, the majority Christian population of the Balkans was largely in support of the Rum Army, and so occupying Thrace tied down large numbers of Sultan Ahmed's troops. Thus, Sultan Ahmed's advance into Rumelia was fairly slow, especially since the Rum Army had the support of the neighbouring principalities of Transylvania and Moldavia.

Before the advance into Rumelia could be completed, Sultan Ahmed himself died, leaving his young son Selim to be crowned as the next Sultan. The government in Alexandria, fearful that Ahmed's death would lead to renewed civil war, decided it was necessary to make peace with the Rum Army. The Balkans North of a line from Burgas to Sarandë, was split off as the vassal 'Principality of Rumelia', with Ioannes Palaiologos being granted the title of Prince. This Principality, with a capital in Sofia, remained a vassal-state of the Ottoman Empire for the time being, having the same status the Carpathian Principalities had had fifty years earlier. The buffer this created between the Ottoman Empire proper and Central Europe ended once and for all the Ottoman threat to the Hapsburg monarchy. [10]

While Sultan Ahmed had always intended to return to Constantinople once the war was over, Sultan Selim, who had been born and raised in Egypt, decided to keep the Ottoman court in Alexandria. Thus, the Ottoman Civil War would mark the beginning of the transformation of the Ottoman Empire from a Turkish Empire into an Egyptian Empire. Selim himself would mark the beginning of the transformation of the House of Osman itself from a Turkish dynasty to a ruling family which was culturally Egyptian and spoke Arabic.

When Ioannes Palaiologos bent the knee and submitted himself to the new Emperor Selim, there was still one spot in the former Ottoman Empire where the Janissaries were still in control. The Western Balkans - the place where Grand Vizier Dervish Mehmed Pasha had first defied Sultan Ahmed – was the place where the Janissaries last held out. Bosnia, Slavonia, and the remaining Ottoman parts of Southern Hungary had contained strong Janissary garrisons along the border with the Hapsburg Empire. This land also contained a much larger Muslim population than some of the lands farther East. Most importantly, however, the Christian population in this region was Catholic rather than Orthodox, and thus was unsupportive of the Orthodox-led Rum Army.

The Janissaries in this region (which became known as Greater Bosnia) had held out against the forces of the Rum Army, and were still in control when peace was signed between Ioannes and Selim in 1644. The de jure status of Greater Bosnia remained unclear, but it soon became a de facto protectorate of the Republic of Venice whose Dalmatian lands bordered Greater Bosnia. Venetian financial support was necessary to keep the Janissaries of Greater Bosnia paid and equipped, and the Janissaries of Greater Bosnia would eventually evolve into a sort of Muslim mercenary army serving Venetian interests. Low-level warfare and raids would continue across the borders Greater Bosnia had with Rumelia and Hungary, but no major campaigns would be attempted.

The 1644 peace between Sultan Selim and Prince Ioannes, which officially ended the Ottoman Civil War did not really address the root causes of the war. The Ottoman Empire still lacked any sort of succession law, and Sultan Selim would continue the practice of having his brothers executed to prevent them from claiming the throne. The Sultan's power only grew due to the civil war as the office of Grand Vizier and the Janissary corps which had held much political power were discredited. While there was a degree of modernization that occurred within the Ottoman Empire this modernization only served at transforming the Empire into an early modern absolute monarchy, purging the Empire of its last feudal elements. The decades of war would do nothing to free the Ottoman people from arbitrary rule.

Footnotes:

[1] Remember, the author of this book is the one whose goal is to discredit 'Benevolent Monarchy' in favour of Constitutional government.

[2] The opening moves of the Ottoman Civil War were covered back in Update 29, if you want a more detailed treatment of these paragraphs.

[3] This is not the first battle that's paired a mostly-infantry army against a mostly-cavalry army and demonstrated the effectiveness of well-trained and well-disciplined infantry. The Mamluk-centered army would not have attacked if they hadn't had significant numerical superiority over the Janissaries. The outcome of the battle was also due to other factors such as the fact that the Mamluks haven't fought a properly-trained enemy in a century at this point, while the Janissaries have recently fought in Hungary against the Hapsburgs.

[4] It's not that Western European tactics were superior to Ottoman tactics at this time, just that Western European tactics have been proven to be able to defeat the Janissaries in battle, and Ahmed doesn't have a local source of experienced infantry officers outside of the Janissaries.

[5] The Portuguese dominance of the Indian Ocean is lasting a little longer than OTL due to a lack of an Iberian Union and hence a lack of a Dutch-Portuguese War, but it is going to be ending soon. In fact, it might be ending in literally the next update I'm writing.

[6] The port of Jaffa was nearly abandoned around this time due to piracy, and the desperation of the residents is providing the financing for the beacon system.

[7] Yes, this is an optical telegraph system in the mid-17th century. It won't be adopted by the West for quite some time, but it will soon form a crucial peace of the Ottoman Empire's military communications system.

[8] I don't want to go into too much detail on Moldavia, Wallachia, and Transylvania, but I should mention that the princes mentioned here are not the same people (not even the same generation) as their OTL namesakes. The one thing I will say is that the Moldavia and Transylvania will be a lot less chaotic than they were OTL with the Bathory and Movila families forming proper dynasties with fairly stable succession within the family.

[9] Yes, I'm trying to cater to the Byzantophiles on AH.com a little bit here....

[10] The 'Principality of Rumelia' is mostly made up of Serbians and Bulgarians, although its language of government is Greek for the time being as Greek had been the language of government of the Rum Millet, and the language of the Church (which is in some way the unifying factor behind the Rum Army). This will prove interesting once Nationalism becomes important. Also, the Patriarch of Constantinople will soon take up residence in Sofia (but will not change his title), as Christians in positions of power will no longer be welcome in Constantinople, as they will be seen as potential rebel leaders.
 
As you can see, I've decided it was time to write about the Ottoman Civil War. This was partly because I had Muslisms on the brain after the last update, and partly because this update might be necessary to fully understand the next one....

Just to keep folks aware of what's coming next, it looks like we'll see:
Update 51 - the Second Schismatic War in the East (Poland, Russia, and the Indian Ocean)
Update 52 - the Second Schismatic War in Germany (I'm covering the main theatre of the war last)
Update 53 - the peace treaty which ends the Second Schismatic War (not sure what it will be called at this point probably "the Peace of [insert name of important city here]")
Update 54 - the Catholic Schism (covering the religious situation in France & elsewhere in Europe resulting from the Second Schismatic War)
Update 55 - the Four Blocs (describing the division of Western Europe into four alliance 'blocs' in the 1650s and 1660s)

the alliance blocs are really what's going to have the greatest impact in the new world, so I want to get to that point before I jump back to cover what's going on in Kanata and the North American colonies.
 
Sorry it's been so long since my last post. I do have an update which will be posted shortly. This update was a slow one to write, mostly because I felt fairly uninspired to write it. Luckily, the next one is pretty much half written already, so it might be out within a week.
 
Update 51 - the War in the East
Update 51 - the War in the East

The following in an excerpt from The Schismatic Wars: Europe in Crisis 1590-1660 by Duncan MacCallum, Ph.D.



War in the East: Fractured Alliances



Those historians who describe the Second Schismatic War as a single global war with theatres in various parts of Europe, the Americas, and the Indian Ocean often have much difficulty making sense of the fighting that took place in the East. While in Western Europe, most countries were clearly on the pro-French or pro-Hapsburg side of the war, the contemporary fighting which took place in Eastern Europe and the Indian Ocean often was fought between countries which were ostensibly on 'the same side' of the war in Germany. In Eastern Europe, the Polish-Russian war of 1643-1647 pitted an Austrian ally against a Danish ally when both Austria and Denmark were fighting on the same side of the Second Schismatic War. In the Indian Ocean, Dutch and Portuguese ships fought each other while both were simultaneously allied with France. It is precisely because of these conflict between powers which were otherwise allied that it is best to think of the Schismatic Wars not as a single generational conflict but as a period of time in which many separate but connected conflicts took place between various European powers.



Russia, Poland, and the War in Eastern Europe



Two wars were fought between Poland and Russia during the time of the Schismatic Wars. If we stretch the time period of the Schismatic Wars to refer to the entire first half of the 17th century, we can even include the Polish intervention in the Russian Civil War as a third such Polish-Russian War. To a large extent, both the 1626-1633 and 1643-1647 wars were attempts by the Russian Czar Theodore II to regain territory lost during the Russian Civil War. It was only the death of Theodore II which would finally bring a chance for lasting peace between Poland and Russia.



In the first half of the 17th century, there were four main powers with aspirations in the Baltic region. The Kingdom of Denmark and Kingdom of Sweden were old rivals, and Sweden coveted the Danish monopoly on the straits leading form the Baltic to the North Sea. At the same time, the Polish-Lithuanian Union and the Czardom of Russia were each other's rivals on land, and depended on the Baltic for trade with Europe. Poland and Sweden had formed an alliance against Russia late in the 16th century, and this alliance continued in the 17th century only interrupted twice: once by conflicting interventions in the Russian Civil War, and again when Duke Peter of Finland allied with Denmark to help him gain the Swedish throne. [1] In opposition to the Polish-Swedish alliance, Russia and Denmark had formed an alliance, although Russia and Denmark were isolated from each other by Polish and Swedish control of the Baltic coast, meaning that the two could rarely cooperate as allies.



The Polish-Russian war of 1626-1633 had been fought during the lapse in the Polish-Swedish alliance caused by Duke Peter of Finland's rise to become King Peter I of Sweden. Peter had been forced to accept Danish support to put him on the throne, and in exchange Peter was asked not to come to the aid of Poland and its Austrian ally against Denmark or the League of Dresden. This in turn weakened the Polish-Swedish alliance, encouraging Czar Theodore to seize the opportunity and attack Lithuanian-occupied Smolensk.



Czar Theodore's war strategy was based upon the idea that the Orthodox population of Eastern Lithuania and Ruthenia would rise up in support of his troops. Theodore had been brought to the throne in the first place by an Orthodox uprising against Polish overlordship, and Theodore had been accepted as a sort of messiah by much of the Russian peasantry. The 'Cossack War' of 1618-1622 had seen both the Zaporozhian Cossacks and Don Cossacks join together and lead the populace of Polish Ruthenia in a revolt against their Polish King, and Czar Theodore had only been kept out of the 'Cossack War' by the threat of Swedish intervention. The 1626 Russian campaign against Smolensk was intended to end what the 'Cossack War' had started.



While Russia did succeed at capturing Smolensk in 1627, it soon found the population in the area to be much less willing to accept Russian rule than had been expected. The Polish installation of King John II's son Vladislav as an Orthodox Grand Duke of Ruthenia had largely pacified the rebellious Ruthenian populace. While Russian armies were able to advance as far as Chernigov in 1629, they were not able to take Kiev, and Polish campaigns in subsequent years were eventually able to retake Chernigov.



Poland's ability to defend its Orthodox-populated lands against the Russian advance was largely due to the structure of the Second Polish-Lithuanian Union which had divided the state into the five constituents of Poland, Lithuania, Ruthenia, Livonia, and Prussia, allowing more efficient taxation by giving each constituent the ability to tax its own subjects. It was during the Polish-Russian War of 1626-1633 that separate monarchs were assigned to each constituent, with John II remaining King of Poland to be succeeded by his eldest son Sigismund while his second son Vladislav would become Grand Duke of Ruthenia, his third son Michael would become Grand Duke of Lithuania, and his fourth son Albert would become Grand Duke of Livonia. Later, in 1641, when the last Hohenzollern Duke of Prussia died, his lands would revert to the Polish crown to then be passed to Sigismund's second son Casimir. [2]



By 1632, the Polish-Russian war had dissolved into stalemate, and both sides would agree to a ten-year truce, allowing Russian to keep the occupied land around Smolensk for the time being. The truce would last from 1633 to 1643, with war only resuming once the truce expired. During the time of the truce the Russian alliance with Denmark and the Polish alliance with Austria continued to hold. However, Austria and Denmark themselves had undergone somewhat of a diplomatic revolution, with the two major antagonists of the First Schismatic War becoming allies in the Second Schismatic War. At the same time, King Peter I of Sweden had abandoned the pro-Danish stance he had adopted upon his rise to the throne, rebuilding his alliance with Poland, while at the same time forming an alliance with England, an enemy of the Hapsburgs. This meant that, when war broke out in 1643, it was fought by Poland (an Austrian ally) and Sweden (an English ally) against Russia (a Danish ally).



If the Polish-Russian war of 1626-1633 had been a moderate Russian victory, the war of 1643-1647 was a moderate Polish victory. The entrance of Sweden into the war forced Russia to fight on a second front, being forced to defend Novgorod form attacks based out of Swedish Ingria and being subjected to raids on the White Sea coast based out of the Swedish port of St. Petersburg. [3] Russia was deprived of Danish support by the ongoing Second Schismatic War, which kept Danish troops fighting in Germany.



However, at the same time, Poland and Sweden were fighting a much strengthened Russia. Czar Theodore had put much effort into modernizing his army, importing not just military trainers from Western Europe but also skilled gunsmiths and gunpowder experts. Much of Theodore's early reign had been marked by conflicts between the Boyars who traditionally had held much of the power in Russia and Theodore's own Cossack backers. By the 1640s a compromise had been made within the Russian government and military where some posts would be reserved for the nobility while others could be occupied by commoners such as the Coassacks. While some Cossacks were able to obtain positions in the Russian government and military, most still resided in the Cossack Lands of Zaporozhie and Don, which were not yet a de jure part of Russia. These 'Southern Cossacks' (as opposed to the 'Northern Cossacks' which would go on to become a sort of Russian military caste) would be integral to the Russian war effort as they would raid into Ruthenia, diverting Polish troops from their major campaign against Smolensk. The fact that the Ottoman Empire was still in the middle of its own civil war allowed the Southern Cossacks to focus all of their attention on Poland-Lithuania. [4]



In the end, while Poland was successful at winning back Smolensk, it did not have success at pressing further into Russian territory. Additionally, the Easternmost part of Polish Livonia, including the City of Pskov, was recaptured by Russia. The peace signed in 1647 would return the Polish-Russian border almost to the same line it had occupied in 1626. The border between Smolensk and Kaluga was drawn in the same place it had been after the Russian Civil War, although Russia gained a bit of land around Pskov, and lost a bit to Swedish Ingria.



The Polish-Russian wars of 1626-1633 and 1643-1647, while largely indecisive conflicts, do illustrate an important point. While many Western European historians are biased towards viewing conflicts in the East peripheral theatres of Western wars, this is very much not the case. It was not because Austria and Denmark were at war that their allies Poland and Russia fought from 1626-1633, and it was even less so not because Austria and Denmark were fighting together against France that Poland and Russia would fight again from 1643-1647. The Polish-Austrian and Dano-Russian alliances were not the cause of the wars between Poland and Russia. If anything, it was because of the state of conflict between Poland and Russia, that these two Eastern European powers felt that they needed Western allies. While the Schismatic Wars were generally a time of conflict, this didn't mean that all or most of the conflicts that were fought were directly related to one another.



Portugal, the Netherlands, and the War in the Indian Ocean



The Second Schismatic War is called 'the first global war' by many historians largely because it was the first war in which battles were fought in Asia and the Americas as well as in Europe. However, there is an important extent to which the conflicts fought in Asia were not simply just an additional theatre of the Second Schismatic War, but were in fact part of another war entirely. This war is often referred to as the 'East India War', and it began as a conflict between the Antwerp East India Company and the established trading network of Portugal. As was the case with Poland and Russia, the Netherlands and Portugal were ostensibly 'on the same side' of the Second Schismatic War, as both powers were allied to France. However, the conflict between them predated the Second Schismatic War, and had been started before either power's alliance with France had been fully formed.



The Portuguese had had a presence in the Indian Ocean ever since the voyages of Vasco de Gama in the later 15th century. By 1600, their trade network spread throughout the Indian Ocean with outposts as far East as Macau in China, Nagasaki in Japan, and the Sultanate of Ternate in the Spice Islands. They controlled the ports of Fernando Po, Luanda and Sofala on the African coast, had extensive possessions centered in Goa and Ceylon in India, and controlled Malacca, the hub of the spice trade. These extensive trading connections had brought much wealth back to Portugal, and had allowed the Portuguese to dominate the Indian Ocean throughout all of the 16th century.



This Portuguese dominance had been challenged throughout the 16th century both by local rulers throughout the region as well as by regional powers such as Mamluk Egypt and the Ottoman Empire. However, no power in Asia matched the naval capacity of Portugal, and thus the Portuguese dominance continued. Things would only change with the beginning of the 17th century and the entry of the Netherlands into the Indian Ocean. [5]



The Antwerp East India Company had been founded by King Henry of Navarre in 1604 as part of an attempt to rebuild the prosperity of the City of Antwerp. Antwerp had been devastated by the Dutch Revolt and the Navarro-Spanish War, but it had previously been the most prosperous trade port in all of Europe, and King Henry had attempted to regain that status. Antwerp drew much of its trade from Lisbon, where Asian goods arrived in Europe, although the supply of Asian goods was quite limited due to the limited size of the Portuguese fleet. The East India Company's original goal was to increase the supply of Asian goods by bypassing Lisbon, thus lowering prices for Antwerp-based merchants.



The initial years of the Antwerp East India Company were less than successful. The first two fleets to sail to India returned empty-handed: the first fleet was nearly destroyed by a storm off the African coast, and the second was able to reach the Indian Ocean, but was unable to find a local merchant willing to trade in spices or other valuable goods. It was only when the third fleet encountered by chance a Portuguese fleet on the high seas that the decision was made by the desperate captains to seize the Portuguese fleet and bring its cargo home. While the fleet had been sent out to trade rather than to engage in piracy, it seemed to the East India Company's directors that, for now at least, preying off of Portuguese trade was the only reasonable way to ensure a profit.



When this fleet returned home to Antwerp, the origin of its cargo caused much controversy. King Henry was not willing to risk a war with Portugal at this time, and initially demanded that the East India Company return the cargo. However, after much pleading, King Henry agreed to negotiate with the Portuguese to see if peace could be maintained while still allowing the Company to seize Portuguese shipping in the Indian Ocean. In the end, pressure from France (whose alliance with Navarre was stronger at the time that that with Portugal) forced Portugal to agree that piracy in the Indian Ocean would not be considered an act of war, and that piracy and privateering would be perfectly legal, provided that it took place beyond the Cape of Good Hope.



Thus, for the first decade of its existence, the Antwerp East India Company would be mostly engaged in attacking Portuguese ships and stealing their cargo. Bases were established at Kaapstad at the Cape of Good Hope, Pulicat along the Coromandel Coast, and Banten on the island of Java. From these bases, fleets were sent out to locate and attack Portuguese ships, and the cargo would be loaded onto convoys to be sent back to Antwerp.



Even during the early years of the 'East India War', the Antwerp East India Company was never completely dependent on piracy. The bases it had established came to be frequented by local merchants who felt that the Dutch might offer better prices for their goods than the Portuguese. However, the most lucrative of these trade goods were spices, and the Portuguese, with their control of Ceylon, Malacca, and Ternate, had almost complete control of the spice supply.



It was only in 1618 that the Antwerp East India Company's governor in Pulicat would decide to go beyond attacking individual ships and would launch an attack on the island of Ceylon itself. The Portuguese fort at Mannar was captured, giving direct access to Ceylon by Dutch traders. The Dutch would soon make contact with the local Sinhalese rulers who had been fighting the Portuguese for generations, and a Dutch-Sinhalese alliance was soon established with the goal of expelling the Portuguese.



For much of the 1620s, the focus of the Antwerp East India Company would shit away from piracy and would instead move towards an attempt to take control of Ceylon for the Dutch. Dutch traders would provide the Sinhalese with weapons and would provided them with naval support while the Sinhalese themselves would do much of the fighting against the Portuguese. By 1632, the Portuguese had been firmly expelled from Ceylon, leaving the island in Dutch hands.



After the capture of Ceylon, the Dutch and Portuguese would begin to see each other more as equals in the Indian Ocean trade. Rather than the Portuguese being so dominant that the Dutch could not compete with them but could only steal from them, the Dutch now had their own monopoly on trade with Ceylon. Soon, the Portuguese themselves began engaging in privateering against Dutch ships. The battles between Dutch and Portuguese ships would soon focus more on capturing strategic forts and trade ports than on capturing individual ships with their cargo.



During this time, a number of other powers had made their presence known in the Indian Ocean. England had been the first with the establishment of the English East India Company in 1608. This first English East India company had itself dissolved with the capture of London by the Spanish in 1619. While the company itself survived the initial Spanish attack, the Spanish governor of London forced the shareholders to liquidate the company, as its very existence violated the Treaty of Tordesillas. Its successor, the London Oriental Company was only established in 1626, once peace had been reached between England and Spain.



The London Oriental Company, like its Antwerp-based competitor, began its existence by preying off Portuguese shipping. However, by this time, Portugal had improved the defences of its trade network, and the London Oriental Company found piracy to be less than profitable. At the same time, King Edward of England was less willing to bow to his merchant's wishes and risk war with Portugal and threatened to seize the assets of the Oriental Company if it continued to commit 'warlike acts' against Portugal. It was with luck that, in 1628, the Oriental Company was able to make an arrangement with the Alexandria Sultanate to allow them to take control of the port of Aden in exchange for aid in modernizing the Mamluk-based Alexandrian army.



Using Aden as a base, the London Oriental Company established trade links with India, China, and the East Indies. The first trade outpost was established in Calicut on the Malabar coast in 1631, however Calicut, which had been a Portuguese trade outpost in the previous century, was often in a precarious position, and would be vacated again in 1642 when the Portuguese-allied native ruler would drive out the English.



It would only be in 1637 that the Oriental Company would take control of the city of Jayakarta on the island of Java, which would go on to be renamed New Greenwich. New Greenwich would compete directly with the Portuguese port of Malacca and the Dutch outpost at Banten. While Portguuese ships were sunk or captured by the Dutch and Dutch ships attacked by the Portuguese, the English were careful to maintain a state of peace with both powers, allowing their own ships to become the safest way to transport goods from East Asia to Europe. Thus, even Portuguese merchants operating out of Macau and Makassar would sometimes bring their goods illegally to New Greenwich for shipment back to Europe when the threat of Dutch piracy was too high. It was, to a large extent, the East India War which allowed New Greenwich to eventually outcompete Malacca and Banten as the hub of trade in the East Indies. [6]



From their base at New Greenwich, the London Oriental Company would trade with the Chinese from the ports of Guangdong, Fujian, and Zhejiang, and would ship these goods on English ships back to Aden. After the 1642 loss of Calicut by the English, the London Oriental Company would increasingly rely on Arab traders under Ottoman Suzerainty to bring goods from India to Aden. [7] Aden would serve as the port at which English traders would exchange some of their Chinese goods for Indian goods carried by the Arabs, and would send convoys back to London carrying goods from all over Asia. Unlike the Dutch and Portuguese the London Oriental Company had no need of waystations along the African coast, as it conducted little direct trade with Africa, and did not have the same need of refuge from attack that the Dutch and Portuguese did due to the East India War.



The last entrant into the struggle for the Indian Ocean was Denmark. For much of the early 17th century, Denmark had been a growing naval power, as its dominance of the Baltic trade had made it quite wealthy. However, for much of the 1620s and 1630s, the First Schismatic War and the subsequent financial troubles had prevented the Danish Monarch from sponsoring overseas voyages, and it was only in 1638 that Denmark would gain its first overseas colony with the Florida Purchase. However, even before the Florida Purchase, there had been efforts by Danish merchants to establish trade ties with the Indian Ocean, although a proper 'East India Company' had not been formed. However, the lack of any Danish-controlled ports in the Indian Ocean and a prohibition on piracy during peacetime prevented any of these merchants from being able to secure a profit.



It was only with the beginning of the Second Schismatic War in 1641 that King Frederick III would begin selling letters of marque to Danish ships to allow them to prey on French, English, and Dutch shipping. At first, this privateering mainly took place in the Caribbean where Danish ships were able to take refuge in Christiansborg in Danish Florida. However, soon Danish privateers began entering the Indian Ocean to prey off the Dutch and English trade there. In 1642, the declaration of war by Portugal against Spain was soon followed by a declaration of war of Denmark against Portugal, meaning that Danish privateers were now attacking both sides in the East India War.



Thus, the situation in the Indian Ocean soon devolved into a four-sided conflict with the Dutch, Portuguese, and Danish all at war with each other while the English fought with the Danes but remained at peace with the Dutch and Portuguese. At the same time the Spanish based out of Manila fought alongside the Danes against the Dutch and Portuguese. The French were the only European naval power which was conspicuously absent due to their agreement with Portugal not to enter the Indian Ocean.



The result of this phase of the 'East India War' was the destruction of much of the Portuguese colonial empire. The Portuguese-backed Sultanate of Ternate was defeated by the New Catalonian-backed Sultanate of Tidore in 1644 giving New Catalonia trade dominance over the Spice Islands. At the same time, Malacca was captured by the Dutch in 1643, only to be recaptured by the Portuguese in 1645, by the Danes in 1646, and by the Portuguese again in 1647. Much of Portuguese East Africa would wind up in Dutch hands, while the island of Fernando Po, off of West Africa would fall to the Danes.



By the war's end in 1649, the Portuguese colonial empire had been reduced to four bastions. Brazil itself had come under little attack, and had been defended well with French support. The Port of Luanda in Equatorial Africa and the adjoining Kingdom of Kongo was still under firm Portuguese influence. Goa and the adjoining Malabar Coast of India was still under a Portuguese monopoly. Last but not least, the ports of Macau in China and Nagasaki in Japan were still fully Portuguese, although their trade hub at Malacca had been devastated by war.



The Dutch, English, and Danes each came out of the war with dominance over their own sphere of the Eastern trade network. The Dutch had gained trade dominance over East Africa from Sofala to Zanibar and the Coromandel Coast and Ceylon in Southeast India. The English had fully established New Greenwich as the hub of trade in the East Indies, with satellite outposts throughout Southeast Asia. The Danish had taken Fernando Po from the Portuguese and Banten from the Dutch, although both ports were of little use to the Danes without a wider trade network. In the end it would be the Danish presence in Bengal, first established in 1645 when Danish privateers took refuge in the Ganges Delta, that would grow to become the centre of Danish India.



There is a certain extent to which the final stages of the 'East India War' were a part of the Second Schismatic War. Certainly, the Danish and Spanish interventions against the Dutch and Portuguese only began due to the state of war existing between Denmark and Spain on one side and the Netherlands and Portugal on the other. It is also true that even the fighting between the Dutch and Portuguese was brought to an end by the Peace of Frankfurt that ended the Second Schismatic War. However, the Dutch-Portuguese portion of the East India War is very difficult to categorize as part of the Second Schismatic War simply because it was fought between two powers which were at least co-belligerents (if not allies) in Europe. Thus, it is better to view the East India War as a separate war which connected to, but separate from, the Second Schismatic War in Europe. Thus, when I speak of the Schismatic Wars I refer not only to the First Schismatic War and the Second Schismatic War, but also all wars connected to them, including the War of the Scottish Succession, the Liège War, the Supplicant War, the Polish-Russian Wars, the Vagabundo War, and the East India War. These wars, by being fought by the same powers during the same period of time, became closely connected to each other.



Footnotes:

[1] See update 34 for what was going on in Sweden at this time.

[2] There will be no Kingdom of Prussia in TTL, as a stronger Poland means that the Brandenburg Hohezollerns are unable to inherit the lands of their Prussian cousins.

[3] Remember, TTL's St. Petersburg was a port built by the Swedes on the coast of the White Sea near OTL Belomorsk, Russia. It's Sweden's only outlet to the ocean that doesn't require going through Danish territory, although it's still pretty much a backwater with little use besides the export of Finnish furs.

[4] Cossacks becoming an integral part of the Russian military is sort of OTL, but TTL's Cossacks are going to become a more more powerful military and political force that OTL's, largely because of the role the Cossacks played in bringing Tsar Theodore to the throne.

[5] Everything about the Portuguese Empire up to this point is OTL.

[6] Not knowing very much about Indonesian geography, I'm hoping that readers will forgive the convergence of having TTL's English East Indies have the same capital as OTL's Dutch East Indies.

[7] It is these Arab traders who will eventually establish the Ottoman presence in India.
 
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