AH challenge. Hordes from the steppes, 19th c

NapoleonXIV

Banned
Huns, Magyars, Turks , Mongols, since the fall of Rome, always the horse nomads came from the endless steppes to threaten or ravage Europe.

Except since the 1200s' not counting the Russians, who I see as a special case.

The challenge is to have Europe, (and the European Russians) successfully invaded by Central Asian hordes in anytime from...oh...1825 to 1900. POD can go all the way back to Genghis Khan, but later is better.
 

Hnau

Banned
Somehow keep Russia from unifying into one collosal state. Force a philosophical or religious development favoring anarchy, shifting tribal/ethnic movements, technological corporatism to give higher technology to the hordes-men, and perhaps a spiritual, staunch rejection of domination by other ethnic groups, imperialism, etc. etc. Jumpstart nationalism, and give it to hundreds and hundreds of groups! One collossal failed state, kept in chaos, with neighbours enforcing a border against a the forever-wilds, only to await the eventual surge based on overpopulation or climactic changes.
 
The only possibility for such an event would be to eliminate gunpowder weapons. The post-Napoleonic armies had enough cannon to shatter large hordes of bow-armed barbarians, even when their muskets might not match the distance an arrow could travel. And the later into the 19th century you go, the longer ranges the cannon have. Sooner or later the rifles would replace the smoothbores and they would outrange the arrow. If you give the hordes similar gunpowder weapons. they lose the range of their bows. A calvalry army cannot move enough heavy artillery to match that available to European forces.

So unless you employ magic to remove gunpowder from the equation...
 

Hendryk

Banned
The challenge is to have Europe, (and the European Russians) successfully invaded by Central Asian hordes in anytime from...oh...1825 to 1900. POD can go all the way back to Genghis Khan, but later is better.
Perhaps if Napoleon's attack on Russia causes a break-up of the country, with its eastern frontier falling into chaos and a charismatic leader emerging out of central Asia to seize the opportunity?

IIRC the plot in Jules Verne's Michel Strogoff is about stopping a Tartar warlord from attacking Russia, or something like that.
 
how about, WI a messianic Dzungar leader starts ranting about the return of Genghis Khan, and the Dzungar Empire expands throughout all of central Asia, defeating the Khanates and Emirates there, and somehow defeats the Durrani Empire and occupies them too. Then it invades weakened (still Safavid?) Persia, annexing it, before attacking Russia. would it work? no. but would be fun to see.


also the Kalmyks, they had a relatively big state in their day....


or for a later POD, maybe von Ungern-Sternberg goes even more insane (pretty hard to do), starts industrializing Mongolia post-WWI, and goes on a rampage in China?
 
Okay, so let's say that Kazan, Astrakhan, Moscovy, Nocgorod, and most of the Russian statelets get involved in a big war sometime in the sixteenth century before Russian unification. The war is sufficient to permanently weaken all of them, making the possibility of a Russian nation impossible.

Eventually a tribe in Central Asia manages to conquer-unite most of the steppes, only to have its empire toppled shortly after. This, however, eliminates the possibility of 'civilization' of the nomads, and sets the scene for another explosion of expansion by another tribe, and the trend continues until the nations of Eastern Europe get their act together and strike back, forever crippling the people of the steppe.
 
Flintlock made Nomad invasion impossible. Google on Kalmyk. Any patch of land could supply more musketeers than bow-wielding horsemen.
 
Not exactly what you want, but take a look at this AAR. There is an expansionist Tibet under a crazy lama that has annexed some Hindu statelets and allied with the British in order to improve its technology and repetively attack China. Its main force is indeed light cavalry.
 
Instead of scrabbling desperately to take the effectively useless Hungary, the Ottomans focus on defending the Crimean Tatars and Astrakhan so they can finish the Don-Volga Canal. That gives them control of the Caspian. Persia is deprived of all of Azerbaijan and left an effective vassal. The western edge of Central Asia gets a smattering of Ottoman outposts.

From that position, Russia is kept from ever getting a substantial position in Siberia. This in turn makes them weak enough that Poland-Lithuania straggles into the modern era in a semifunctional form. The Turkic peoples in the West acknowledge theoretical Ottoman overlordship and send men off to fight for them in exchange for glory and loot. They also go home with modern weapons, which means that they are stronger than their neighbors to the east.... By the early 1800s, Central Asian is firmly in the Ottoman camp in the form of allied states that acknowledge Ottoman leadership as long as the point isn't pressed too hard.

With access to more useful troops and a lot less troublesome Christians to attempt to rule, the Ottoman low is largely avoided, though they'll have their ups and downs, I'm sure. By this time, it's safe to say history is well and truly off track, so it's not unreasonable to assume they've kept hold of Egypt and Tunis. Moreover, a more stable situation in the Balkans will let them get more entrenched. Thus more opportunistic conversions, more Muslim settlement, and less national consciousness.

Meanwhile, this Europe will be utterly unlike our own. If we assume a general war erupts in the 1800s and the Ottomans get involved, it's concievable that a fair portion of the male population of Central Asia could show up on horseback south of Kiev. Supported by a skilled and (relatively) up to date Ottoman army and assuming that it isn't a one front war....
 
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