A resurgent Byzantine Empire

[Xen]

Now Im not exactly sure how to get the Ottoman's to lose at the Battle of Constantinople, Im thinking as defeat for the Byzantines seemed inevitble, an unexpected reinforcement of Christian soldiers from the west arrive and are able to drive the Ottomans away from the East Roman capital. I kind of envision Helms Deep, just as the defeat of Rohan seemed inevitable, the Calvary arrived. I think the Hungarians and Venecians were the most likely to send this sort of help. During the battle Sultan Mehmed is badly wounded; the wound became infected en route to Adrianople killing the Sultan several months later, he was succeeded by Bayezid.

Bayezid's overriding concern was the quarrel with his brother Cem, who claimed the throne and sought military backing from the Knights of St John in Rhodes. The Knights at the encouragement of the Byzantine Emperor agreed to help Cem claim the Ottoman throne. As Bayezid's army marched to meet Cem and the Knights, he found they had allied with the Byzantines, the Venecians and Hungarians. Though they fought valiantly, the Ottomans under Bayezid were defeated by their foes. Cem was killed in a battle in 1487, but Christian forces continued on their conquest of Ottoman Europe, taking Adrianople in 1490. Sultan Bayezid was killed defending his capital along side his son Selim.

After the fall of Adrianople, and the poor leadership of Sultan Ahmed, the Ottomans were forced into Anatolia, where the military regained order and repulsed the Christian attempts to regain the peninsula. Attempts to invade Anatolia from Armenia were likewise repulsed (in this TL Ani never fell). An uneasy peace developed between the Ottoman's and and the Christians of Eastern Europe. Upon proclaiming victory the Byzantine Emperor Manuel III declared the reconquered land to be part of the Eastern Roman Empire.



Now I know there are some flaws in this TL, constructive criticizm of how to iron these out and make something similiar to this would be much appreciated. I attached a map to show this region of the world as it looked at the time of the uneasy peace

Orange is Ottoman
Green is Byzantine

 

[wkwillis]

Merger of the Catholic and Orthodox churches?

How do you persuade the Western Europeans to keep sending troops and ships to fight the Ottoman empire for the Eastern Roman empire? Charlegmagne marries the daughter of an Eastern Roman emperor?

 

[DominusNovus]

How do you persuade the Western Europeans to keep sending troops and ships to fight the Ottoman empire for the Eastern Roman empire? Charlegmagne marries the daughter of an Eastern Roman emperor?

Don't think he'll try that, Charlemagne's been dead for half a millenia by this point.

 

[Norman]

Patriarch of Constantinople

Have the Eastern Patriarch approach the Pope and pledge himself and his church for help.

 

[Xen]

Well in OTL the Pope considered using Cem as a way to weaken the Ottomans and request a 10th Crusade to drive them out of Europe. However support for the Crusade was weak. With Constantinople still standing in Byzantine hands, the Patriach uses Cem to do just the same thing. He gets support from his allies in Venice and Hungary as well as the Knights, and moves against a divided (though not too deeply) Ottoman Empire.

 

[Abdul Hadi Pasha]

Now I know there are some flaws in this TL, constructive criticizm of how to iron these out and make something similiar to this would be much appreciated. I attached a map to show this region of the world as it looked at the time of the uneasy peace

I'll start with the criticisms and then go for constructive ideas for revision.

My first criticism is that this is utterly impossible.

The Ottoman Empire is at its military height, both in absolute terms and in relation to Europe. When considerably weaker, 60 years earlier, the Ottomans smashed the entire military of Hungary and a large assemblage of Crusaders at Adrianople. At the Siege of Constantinople, the Ottomans had 100,000 troops to 7,000 on the Byzantine side. More importantly, this was occurring in the very center of the Ottoman domain, at the very heart of its power - thus, not only was the size of the army huge, it was only a few miles away from the capital and in the middle of its recruiting grounds and supply sources. A relieving army large enough to defeat the beseiging army would be impossible to supply and would have to cross an enormous distance through hostile territory - effectively impossible. It WOULD have been possible to save the city, as the Ottomans at that time lacked the ability to block a strong naval force from entering the city, so a few thousand more troops could have saved the day, as internal political problems would have prevented Mehmed from maintaining the siege long term, and a concerted effort by the West to supply the city would have succeeded for some time until Ottoman naval power was built up - perhaps a couple of years.

This scenario is also impossible from the Byzantine perspective. There was nothing remaining of the Byzantine Empire but the city of Constantinople, which had a population of 50,000 at most, and a couple of Aegean islands, and some territory in the Morea, all of which was semi-independent. Any force capable of defeating the Ottomans would be so overwhelming in power compared to Byantium that there is no chance that the entire Balkan Peninsula would be given to the Empire, nor does the Empire have even a fraction of the resources to control such a vast domain.

A Byzantine survival at this late date is only conceivable within an Ottoman framework. Mehmed had at least a strong intellectual interest in Christianity, and there was a time when there was some hope that he might convert. I don't believe this is particularly credible or even conceivable, but what if the circumstances were changed a bit? Perhaps the West send aid, dragging on the seige. Halil Pasha, leader of the old Turkic nobility, who opposed the seige, overthrows Mehmed, who escapes and seeks refuge with the Byzantines. He converts to Christianity and marries Constantine's daughter. Rallying whatever supporters he can, and allied with various Chritian powers, Mehmed is victorious in a civil war, and succeeds Constantine as the next Emperor of a revived Byzantine Empire as founder of the Osmanoghlou Dynasty.

 

[Abdul Hadi Pasha]

Well in OTL the Pope considered using Cem as a way to weaken the Ottomans and request a 10th Crusade to drive them out of Europe. However support for the Crusade was weak. With Constantinople still standing in Byzantine hands, the Patriach uses Cem to do just the same thing. He gets support from his allies in Venice and Hungary as well as the Knights, and moves against a divided (though not too deeply) Ottoman Empire.

The problem is that the Greeks were more favorable to Muslim rule than becoming Catholic. It was they that coined the saying "Better the Sultan's turban than a Cardinal's cap!". And the Ottoman Empire was in no sense divided.

 

[DominusNovus]

Thats a cool idea, having a turk convert to Christianity and breathing new life into the empire.

Of course, if you really wanna weaken the Ottomans, just have Tamerlane kick their asses. Thats definately plausible.

 

[Faeelin]

Thats a cool idea, having a turk convert to Christianity and breathing new life into the empire.

Of course, if you really wanna weaken the Ottomans, just have Tamerlane kick their asses. Thats definately plausible.

you don't get much more ass kicked than your sultan dead and your capital sacked.

 

[Xen]

What is the absolute latest I can save the Byzantine Empire? I thought about Manzikert but that would throw off the whole history of Europe and the Crusades.

 

[DuQuense]

ASBs

Lt John Onnassis USN, leading a 1943 OSS team to delevier a shipment of weapons to the Greek rebels, falls thru a time hole and..............

 

[Abdul Hadi Pasha]

you don't get much more ass kicked than your sultan dead and your capital sacked.

The capital? The capital was Adrianople in Thrace. Timur never entered Europe.

 

[Faeelin]

The capital? The capital was Adrianople in Thrace. Timur never entered Europe.

Bah! Bah I say!

I meant, of course, bursa. My sultan comment stands, and there was that civil war.

Fun times.

 

[Abdul Hadi Pasha]

What is the absolute latest I can save the Byzantine Empire? I thought about Manzikert but that would throw off the whole history of Europe and the Crusades.

I think 1402 is the last possible moment. Even then it is extremely unlikely, but this is your best bet.

After Timur had defeated the Ottoman Army at Ankara, a civil war ensued; Prince Suleyman, to win alliance with Manuel II, returned some territory to the Empire, including Thessalonika, more of Thrace around Constantinope and up the Black Sea coast a bit, and a couple of Aegean Islands. As late as the 1440s, Constantine XI, when he was Despot of the Morea, managed to reconquer almost all of the Morea and built a wall across the Isthmus, but the Ottoman recovery rendered all this moot.

So if we take as a POD a concerted effort to push the Ottomans out of Europe, it's remotely possible for the Byzantines to stage another recovery. They will never be a big power, but at least there would be continuity. I would say this map shows the most that could be hoped for in the immediate; efforts could then be targeted at recovering the rest of Greece - this would be a long-term project.

 

[Xen]

Oh thanks, Ill have to study into that scenario a bit. I have the ultimate goal of by the mid 16th Century to have the Byzantines control the same part of Europe the Ottoman's did, give or take a few places of course. Im also wanting to get the Ottoman's to focus against the Arabs, then perhaps move against the Russians, the Asian Ottoman Empire controlling most of the Muslim world in Asia and North Caucasus region.

Perhaps that would be a better POD for me, instead of having the Ottomans want influence in Europe, they instead look at uniting the Turkish people of Central Asia and liberate the Tatars from the Emperor of Russia and the Uighurs from Chinese influence, that would create one huge landbased Empire and would be very powerful if it succeeds.

Could that work?

 

[Grimm Reaper]

Abdul, excellant work! I couldn't quite remember when that point had been!

How about if the Nicaen Empire takes a different path, leading to the reconquest of all of Greece/Albania/Bulgaria after 1261 while maintaining the hold on Western Anatolia?

 

[Abdul Hadi Pasha]

Oh thanks, Ill have to study into that scenario a bit. I have the ultimate goal of by the mid 16th Century to have the Byzantines control the same part of Europe the Ottoman's did, give or take a few places of course. Im also wanting to get the Ottoman's to focus against the Arabs, then perhaps move against the Russians, the Asian Ottoman Empire controlling most of the Muslim world in Asia and North Caucasus region.

Perhaps that would be a better POD for me, instead of having the Ottomans want influence in Europe, they instead look at uniting the Turkish people of Central Asia and liberate the Tatars from the Emperor of Russia and the Uighurs from Chinese influence, that would create one huge landbased Empire and would be very powerful if it succeeds.

Could that work?

Do you mean you want the Byzantines to control all the land the Ottomans did at their height or just what they had in 1450 or so? If the latter, then it's doable, but would be still hard and require some pretty fancy diplomacy. What I mapped is what I though could be grabbed fairly quickly in case of an Ottoman collapse in Europe; the rest would take some effort.

The problem is, if the Ottomans are ejected from Europe, they are just one of many principalities in Anatolia, and are unlikely to get far attacking other Muslim states - I'm not sure it's possible to have both a Byzantine Empire and an Ottoman Empire. It's a bit deceptive to think of them as separate empires.

 

[Xen]

Do you mean you want the Byzantines to control all the land the Ottomans did at their height or just what they had in 1450 or so? If the latter, then it's doable, but would be still hard and require some pretty fancy diplomacy. What I mapped is what I though could be grabbed fairly quickly in case of an Ottoman collapse in Europe; the rest would take some effort.

The problem is, if the Ottomans are ejected from Europe, they are just one of many principalities in Anatolia, and are unlikely to get far attacking other Muslim states - I'm not sure it's possible to have both a Byzantine Empire and an Ottoman Empire. It's a bit deceptive to think of them as separate empires.

Not all but a good bit of Ottoman Europe, the rest of it can be divided between the Byzantines, Hungarians and Russians, but the bulk goes to the Byzantines. But like you said before it will take time and diplomacy, im talking about the bulk of the Ottoman Europe being party of the Byzantine Empire over the course of a couple of centuries, lets say from 1450 to 1650.

Surely we can still get a Turkish Empire made up in Asia stretching from the Uighuristan region to Anatolia including the stan's of Central Asia, Persia and southern Russia. (I know Persia's not Turkish, but unless Im off my mark, the Ottomans controlled Persia for a long time)

 

[DuQuense]

It sound like He wants a Greek Empire in the Agean & Balkans, With a Seperate Empire in Anatolia, & Points West,

Could we have a Persian defeat of the Ottoman Turks, With The Greeks holding Tharce & Greece. The Great Persian Stab in the Back, of the Ottomans, just as they are ready to take Byzantine.

 

[Abdul Hadi Pasha]

It sound like He wants a Greek Empire in the Agean & Balkans, With a Seperate Empire in Anatolia, & Points West,

Could we have a Persian defeat of the Ottoman Turks, With The Greeks holding Tharce & Greece. The Great Persian Stab in the Back, of the Ottomans, just as they are ready to take Byzantine.

No; the Ottomans and Persians at this time had a large number of other states between them geographically.

The Ottomans derived a good deal of their early strength from their position as Gazis, caused by bordering on Christendom. One of the reasons Timur defeated Beyazid in the first place was because B had been conquering Muslim Anatolian Emirates, alienating his own nobility, many of whom deserted to Timur.

The Ottomans would still be the biggest power in Anatolia, though, so I suppose it would be possible to get them directed eastward - but having different powers controlling either side of the straits is going to lead to constant conflict.