How would the ottomans figure out creating a poison gas wep? I'd figure it would be places where really education is spread out to a good portion of general population. I can see that it's possible for the lotharingians to develop it seeing their in a position, where the flow of intel and trade are coming.
Can this be one of the reason they can hold off the triunes for a significant amount of time?
The Ottomans, by the standards of the 1630s, are a well-educated and technologically advanced society, and not many people have the time, money, and interest to perform chemical experiments. The leading edge is not very far out there at this time and the Ottomans can easily be out there. Once disciplines develop and the knowledge required to master them becomes more extensive, more effort is needed to stay on the leading edge, but at this point one can still be a Renaissance Man.
It's important to note that the reduced rates of malnutrition as a consequence of agricultural advances were a very important part of why infant mortality rates dropped, since proper nutrition early in life is crucial to the development of the immune system. With that said, fertilizers were just one part of the paradigm shift in agriculture during the industrial revolution, mechanization and electricity were equally important in sustaining the population boom into the 20th century. The Haber process used for the production of ammonia is extremely energy intensive and accounts for about 2% of all global energy consumption today. Meanwhile phosphorous fertilizers are extracted from phosphorous bearing rocks using sulfuric acid, the production of which is also fairly energy intensive. Both phosphorous and potash (the major source of potassium for agriculture) are mined out of the ground, and thus benefit tremendously from mechanized mining, so 3/3 of the major macronutrients for fertilizer are in some way limited by mechanization or technologies that inherently depend on mechanization to keep up with rising demand.
* to the extent that such measures could be successful with no germ theory.
Good point. I’m thinking that a good way to keep population growth done is to not bust the Malthusian trap wide open but gradually loosen it bit by bit so that any population surges can’t get very far. If the surges can be tamped down enough until ‘low births’ becomes commonplace, then population growth won’t be that extreme.
Population control: There are such things as condoms made from sheep intestine. And there’s pulling out. And there’s also having intercourse that’s not of the mortar and pestle variety. There are lots of low tech ways to do family planning. Condoms and the pill are helpful but not necessary.
Population figures: So I went ahead and did a compiling of population figures I’ve already stated in the TL in recent years (1625 till now). So according to Mark Greengrass, author of Christendom Destroyed: Europe 1517-1648 in Appendix 5, the population of Europe in 1650, excluding Russia and the Ottoman Empire, is 74.45 million.
Here are TL totals for the area in question:
Triple Monarchy total: 22.75 million,
France: 15.5 million
England: 4.5 million
Ireland: 2.75 million
Lombardy 7.5 million
Spain: 9 million
Arles: 6 million
Holy Roman Empire: 26 million
Poland: 4 million
Lotharingia: 4 million
Empire of All the North: 3.5 million
Aragon: 1.5 million
Bernese League: 1 million
Sicily: 3.5 million
This totals to 88.75 million, nearly one fifth more than the OTL 1650 figure.
Now let’s add the rest of Europe:
Hungary: 4 million
Vlachia: 1.9 million
Russian States: 28 million
Roman Europe: 7 million
That comes up to 129.5 million, and Serbia, Prussia, and the Kingdom of the Isles are missing, so I’m going to round to 133 million. In comparison, according to Angus Maddison in The World Economy: A Millennial Perspective, pg. 231, the European population IOTL 1700 was 126.8 million.
So TTL Europe in 1635 has a population comparable, and even slightly larger than that OTL Europe in 1700. So there’s already been a noticeable population boom, so the TTL figures will not be adjusted.
The area that is off is the biggest European cities. Here are the current levels, with the first number being the 1635 figure ITTL.
Constantinople: 340,000 (700,000 in 1650 IOTL)
Paris: 270,000 (430,000 in 1650 IOTL)
London: 180,000 (400,000 in 1650 IOTL)
Now the figures for Constantinople and other Roman cities, as well as the history behind those figures, especially for Constantinople, are too well-attested for me to want to mess with them. The Excel spreadsheet earlier in the thread that showed the 49 largest cities and their populations added up to 2 million, and I figure another 2 million live in a larger group of smaller cities, leaving 4 million of 16.7 million Romans as urban dwellers. That is the proportion I want. So as to not mess with these, the Roman city figures are not being adjusted. Any weirdness with, say, Antioch can be attributed to two factors. One, Antioch would often be used to top up depopulated areas in Syria, messing with its growth rate. Two, records are spotty and untrustworthy from the comparatively unorganized 1400s and earlier.
Now Paris and London have much less excuse. So I’m retconning those figures. In keeping with the earlier estimate of Latin Europe having about 20% more people ITTL than OTL, Paris is now at 516,000 and London at 480,000. Constantinople is the third largest city in Europe at 340,000 and fifth in the world. Vijayanagara and Luoyang are numbers #1 and 2.
). Plus they would probably be security issues since it’d be a way to bypass the land walls.
