1453 WIs

In 1453, after a long seige, Constantinople, the half-ruined capital of and all that was left of the once-great Byzantine Empire, fell to the Ottoman Turks. Once the Byzantines fell, the city was attacked by the Turkish army, and many were killed in revenge for the long seige. Distraught at the distruction, the Turkish leader (Mehmed II, I think) forced the Turks to stop, and decided to rebuild the now even more ruined city and make it his capital. Many turks and other members of the Empire moved to the city, and Istanbul is a firmly islamic, turkic city today.

Now what if this had gone differently? For example, what if some sort of problem with the gates of the city had caused them to break near the beginning of the seige, and Constantinople fell far faster, perhaps with a survivng Constantine XI (Would Mehmed just kill him anyway?). In this scenario, would the Constatinopolitians still be massacred by the Turks, or was that simply punishment for not surrendering? Is Constantinople's location too valuable for it to become just another greek city within the Ottoman Empire, or would Mehmed leave the city somewhat alone? If Constantinople remained greek, where would the Turkish capital be?
Crazy idea: After conquering Trebizond, Medmed makes that his capital...

And, for a second part, did Constantinople have any chance of NOT falling in 1453, and even if it did survive, were it's days numbered? Though the idea of having a tiny little city-state in the middle of Turkey claiming to be the Roman Empire is an interesting one.

I'm not too knowledgeble about the Turks in general, so any information about how insane and implausible my conclusions are is welcomed.

Imajin said:

And, for a second part, did Constantinople have any chance of NOT falling in 1453, and even if it did survive, were it's days numbered? Though the idea of having a tiny little city-state in the middle of Turkey claiming to be the Roman Empire is an interesting one.

Click to expand...

Mehmet Fatih saw himself as the successor to and inheritor of the Roman Empire, so no, he would not have left a rival claimant to this title deep in the middle of his territory. That is one reason why he demanded that his troops respect Constantinople and made it his capital immediately.

IIRC, Greek was one of the official languages of the Ottoman Empire - in theory co-equal to Ottoman itself.

Here's my WI. Emperor Constantine gets wind of Urban the military engineer, who in OTL built the cannon the Turks used to demolish the walls of Constantinople. In OTL, he went to the "Romans" first, but either they turned him away because they believed the walls could stand up to cannon, or else they couldn't afford the fee. Okay...In this POD, Constantine convinces Urban to see him, then has him seized and forces him to build cannon for the "Romans." The "Romans" lift the siege, but what happens afterwards I'm not too sure of...unless...YES! GOT IT! A stray cannonball hits Mehmed's tent and kills him, and the Ottoman Empire falls apart. The "Romans," emboldened by their victory against great odds, go on a spree of reconquest, with the aid of weapons built for them by Urban, with history-changing consequences.

I think the best hope for the Byzantines is for the Catholic Church to swallow the pill about re-uniting the churches and come to the aid of the Eastern Empire. Perhaps 20,000 French and German troops could turn the tide in the favor of the Byzantines. The Greeks wouldnt like it too much, but at this point they could either join the Ottomans or wait til the time is right and rebel against the Catholics. They could even let the Ottomans and Catholics battle each other to exhuastion and pounce on them later, its not likely but its possible

My best bet is on Constantine typing

F12
Event 94006
enter

a few times.
I'm sure many of you get that (I hope).

He could also go for "difrules"...

DominusNovus said:

My best bet is on Constantine typing

F12
Event 94006
enter

a few times.
I'm sure many of you get that (I hope).

Click to expand...

Imajin said:

In 1453, after a long seige, Constantinople, the half-ruined capital of and all that was left of the once-great Byzantine Empire, fell to the Ottoman Turks. Once the Byzantines fell, the city was attacked by the Turkish army, and many were killed in revenge for the long seige. Distraught at the distruction, the Turkish leader (Mehmed II, I think) forced the Turks to stop, and decided to rebuild the now even more ruined city and make it his capital. Many turks and other members of the Empire moved to the city, and Istanbul is a firmly islamic, turkic city today.

Now what if this had gone differently? For example, what if some sort of problem with the gates of the city had caused them to break near the beginning of the seige, and Constantinople fell far faster, perhaps with a survivng Constantine XI (Would Mehmed just kill him anyway?). In this scenario, would the Constatinopolitians still be massacred by the Turks, or was that simply punishment for not surrendering? Is Constantinople's location too valuable for it to become just another greek city within the Ottoman Empire, or would Mehmed leave the city somewhat alone? If Constantinople remained greek, where would the Turkish capital be?
Crazy idea: After conquering Trebizond, Medmed makes that his capital...

And, for a second part, did Constantinople have any chance of NOT falling in 1453, and even if it did survive, were it's days numbered? Though the idea of having a tiny little city-state in the middle of Turkey claiming to be the Roman Empire is an interesting one.

I'm not too knowledgeble about the Turks in general, so any information about how insane and implausible my conclusions are is welcomed.

Click to expand...

All right, let's start with what REALLY happened. First of all, the Ottomans did not massacre the population. It was actually quite complicated and the Ottoman army was quite disciplined in its treatment.

In Islamic law, you can't sack a city that surrenders. Constantinople by 1453 was so ruined and depopualted that it had actually become several villages within the shield of the massive walls, with much of the ruins cleared for agriculture. The different districts were themselves walled with stockades.

When the Ottomans broke through the walls, some districts surrendered, and others did not. Those that open their gates remained untouched - prime amonst those was the Phanar, in which the Byzantine nobility continued to live and wield great influence in Ottoman affairs, and continue to today. The people that didn't surrender were not massacred, they were sold into slavery.

Istanbul is almost entirely Turkish today, but that is because there has been an enourmous influx of peasants from Anatolia, which has increased the population 30-fold. Until the 1950s, the population was about half Muslim, 5-10% Jewish, and the rest Armenian and Greek.

When Mehmed was repopulating the city, he deliberately imported a diverse population, and because of that, the city did not have more than a bare Muslim majority throughout Ottoman history, and at times less than that.

Mehmed was quite upset that Constantine was killed, he wanted him alive, and planned to settle him somewhere with an estate, as he did with his brothers.

Remember that Mehmed did not really consider it the final conquest of the Roman Empire, but a coup de etat, replacing the Palaiologos dynasty with the Osmanli as rulers of the ROMAN Empire. Mehmed had himself crowned Roman Emperor by the Orthodox Patriarch, who, BTW, was fgiven full temporal authority over the entire Christian population of the Ottoman Empire, elevating the office to greater power than it had ever held under the Byzantines. He used many Byzantine officials in his administration.

The Phanariotes held influential posts throughout Ottoman history, and for a long period had a monopoly on the governorship of Moldavia and Wallachia - they were also influential bankers, and dominated the diplomatic corps.

The Ottomans never called their empire "The Ottoman Empire" or any other translation of that. Osmanli is Ottoman Turkish for "Ottoman", but it only applied to the dynasty, until Ottomanism in the late 19th c. The empire was simply called the "Sublime State".

If the seige had ended earlier or later, the outcome would have remained basically the same - it just depended upon which neighborhoods decided to surrender.

There is no real chance that the city would NOT have fallen eventually. It was a goal of the Ottomans since day one. It lasted as long as it did because the Byzantines made themselves vassals of the Sultan, so there was no excuse to attack. Also, it's inconceivable that Trebizond would have been made capital - Adrianople/Edirne was already the capital and was far more strategically situated.

DominusNovus said:

My best bet is on Constantine typing

F12
Event 94006
enter

a few times.
I'm sure many of you get that (I hope).

Click to expand...

LOL. I've managed it once, due to a fortuitous series of wars the Ottomans got themselves into and really serious deficit spending.

Romulus Augustulus said:

Here's my WI. Emperor Constantine gets wind of Urban the military engineer, who in OTL built the cannon the Turks used to demolish the walls of Constantinople. In OTL, he went to the "Romans" first, but either they turned him away because they believed the walls could stand up to cannon, or else they couldn't afford the fee. Okay...In this POD, Constantine convinces Urban to see him, then has him seized and forces him to build cannon for the "Romans." The "Romans" lift the siege, but what happens afterwards I'm not too sure of...unless...YES! GOT IT! A stray cannonball hits Mehmed's tent and kills him, and the Ottoman Empire falls apart. The "Romans," emboldened by their victory against great odds, go on a spree of reconquest, with the aid of weapons built for them by Urban, with history-changing consequences.

Click to expand...

What would Urban use to build the cannon when locked away in a destitute city? Which workmen? Once people got wind of the Emperor kidnapping foreigners and forcing them to do his bidding, he loses more support than he gains.

Urban's cannon weren't important to the seige anyway - his monster only fired three times before cracking, and the Ottomans were perfectly capable of making their own. Also, it doesn't matter WHAT happens to the Ottoman Empire - the Roman Empire's population is down to 50,000. Mehmed's mother could raise a larger army than the Byzantines out of her gardening staff. No spree of reconquest. Also, cannons that can only fire once a day and require 700 men and 40 pairs of oxen to move do not make good weapons of conquest, since the entire Byzantine army was not much larger than that.

Abdul Hadi Pasha said:

LOL. I've managed it once, due to a fortuitous series of wars the Ottomans got themselves into and really serious deficit spending.

Click to expand...

I actually saw the Byzantines pull it off on their own while playing the Muscovites once. Unfortunately, I think this was the game where I learned that the game crashed whenever I tried to load a game after my state changed name (from Muscovy to Russia, of course). Either that or I had been cheating insanely just for the hell of it.

Regardless, I wasn't able to see how it ultimately turned out, but Byzantium had regained at least the European territory held by the Ottomans.

Yet to see the AI pull it off again.

Edit: The fairest way I've ever done well as the Byzantines was to play as the Ottomans first, then fuck up majorly on purpose (persecute everyone but the nonexistant Shi'ites ), then switch over to the Byzantines.

Meh, I did it once as Byzantium...

Early on the ottomans got into a war with Karaman or something and moved all their army accross the straits. So I used my navy to blockade the straits and took back all the OE's european territory. I then raised a massive army and invaded the mainland. In the end I got all the OE's European territories and Smyrna. I think I went bankrupt at least once if not twice.

Heck...I re-established the Byzantine Empire as Trebizond! I got lucky but whatever...

And all this with now cheating, just alot of bankruptcy...

Anyhow...

Well, it is possible to survive as the Byz with just a small bit of luck and a lot of bankrupcies... I think I did it once with no bankrupcies, with my empire consisting of Morea, Albania, Hellas, Macedonia, Thrace, Rumelia, Ionia, and Smyrna by 1480s, however, I ended up rather behind in the tech race as a result of having to mint all the time, and my inflation was quite high.

Now if I were to play as the Byz without taking loans (the Byz didn't have much luck IRL by that time), and with limiting army size to, say, 5000 per province even if the province's actual manpower was higher, at least until the empire is on the more solid footing (by the end, the Byz had a hard time raising a native army even to fight their civil wars, let alone to defend themselves)...

I might just try it this evening.

Fearless Leader said:

Meh, I did it once as Byzantium...

Early on the ottomans got into a war with Karaman or something and moved all their army accross the straits. So I used my navy to blockade the straits and took back all the OE's european territory. I then raised a massive army and invaded the mainland. In the end I got all the OE's European territories and Smyrna. I think I went bankrupt at least once if not twice.

Heck...I re-established the Byzantine Empire as Trebizond! I got lucky but whatever...

And all this with now cheating, just alot of bankruptcy...

Anyhow...

Click to expand...

what game is this?

cow defender said:

what game is this?

Click to expand...

Europa Universalis II.

On their webboards, one guy (who's basicly the best player there is) managed to conquer the world. Not as Byzantium, but as Trebizond! Hell, he had to conquer Byzantium early enough to get the event to change to Catholic, so his conquest of Europe would be easier.