AHC: Powerful Georgian Kingdom

KaiserCorax

Banned
Your challenge is to make the Kingdom of Georgia (Sakartvelo) a dominant kingdom that is not once conquered. POD of 1 AD or later.

Rules:

- Georgia must be Orthodox Christian, as in real life.
- Georgia must evade Mongol conquest - this can be through successful defence or alliance.
- Georgia must not once be conquered by a foreign power, but may lose territory to them.
- Georgia must at some point rule over the entire Caucasus, perhaps lasting through to the modern day.


Bonus points if:
- Georgia successfully converts several Turkic tribes to Christianity
- Georgia allies with Armenia and helps it to withstand Islamic conquests
 
I think the best time for the Kingdom of George was the time of Queen Tamar the Great around 1200. George was a major regional power then. However, the Crusader states had fallen to Saladin just a few years before, and the Fourth Crusade would destroy the ability of the Byzantines to hold off the Turks.

What if for some reason the Third Crusade had succeeded (or they had never fallen for whatever reason)? Then the Fourth Crusade would never had happened (for it to take Constantinople took so many twists, it'd be impossible to duplicate it), and Byzantium would still be strong. At the same time Cilician Armenia was becoming an established power. With four strong powers in the Levant (Byzantium, Armenia, Georgia, and the Outremer), the Christians were probably at their strongest since the Muslim Conquests. The Seljuk Turks would probably be hard pressed starting 1210 or so and lose various terrtories to its rivals.

The Ottomans would never take power, and Georgia is likely to survive. It would probably occupy all of the Caucasus and have ports on both the Black and Caspian Seas. Armenia could its southern neighbor, with the border somewhere near Lake Van.
 

katchen

Banned
If Georgia can cut off Anatolia from Turkestan, Georgia may very well be able to butterfly away Osman's clan and therefore inadvertently strangle the Ottomans in their cradle. This will enable Rhomanion to survive, probably until the present day unless either the Safavids in the 17th Century or Ibn Wahab in the 18th Century get their act together to destroy Rhomanion and Georgia with modern warfare. I doubt if the Mamluks have it in them to do so.
And Georgia is just as strategically situated as Muscovy, perhaps better situated, to take over and dominate the Pontic Steppe to Georgia's northwest as well as expand into Siberia to Georgia's northeast, building trade routes to China.
Without an Ottoman Empire, there is little to stop a Kingdom of Hungary, or a Kingdom of Bulgaria or Serbia from reaching the Black Sea Coast---except perhaps a Kingdom of Georgia--which will be a player in European politics and the terminus of the Danube River--Black Sea trade route. With Europe extending all around the Black Sea, Georgia may well be in position to remain a Great Power on the order of Poland, Muscovy, Hungary or Rhomanion in Christiandom. Armenia, which is landlocked and on the Muslim frontier, less so.
 
If Georgia can cut off Anatolia from Turkestan, Georgia may very well be able to butterfly away Osman's clan and therefore inadvertently strangle the Ottomans in their cradle. This will enable Rhomanion to survive, probably until the present day unless either the Safavids in the 17th Century or Ibn Wahab in the 18th Century get their act together to destroy Rhomanion and Georgia with modern warfare.

What's to stop another ghazi Turk on the borders from doing what Osman did?

Or a "Balkan" (term probably won't be used TTL) power?
 
Would having Islam not be founded -- or, at the least, have any attempts at spreading Islamic rule outside of Arabia by force be defeated -- help significantly?
 

katchen

Banned
Great. Georgia is strong. How does this help Rhomania?
A strong Georgia, ruling Greater Armenia and Assyria and possibly Tabriz can bar the door, acting as lips to the Rhomanian teeth against Turkoman or Uzbek or Kirghiz reinforcements coming in from Central Asia. The two as allies can deal with the Mamluks and maybe pick up the pieces in Iraq from the fall of the Mongol IlKhans.
The real test from the Iranian Plateau will come in the 16th Century with the rise of the Shiite Safavids in Persia. And if that test is met, the Wahabis in Arabia.
 
A strong Georgia, ruling Greater Armenia and Assyria and possibly Tabriz can bar the door, acting as lips to the Rhomanian teeth against Turkoman or Uzbek or Kirghiz reinforcements coming in from Central Asia. The two as allies can deal with the Mamluks and maybe pick up the pieces in Iraq from the fall of the Mongol IlKhans.
The real test from the Iranian Plateau will come in the 16th Century with the rise of the Shiite Safavids in Persia. And if that test is met, the Wahabis in Arabia.

Barring the door after the horse has fled the barn doesn't do much good. There's already a substantial Turk or Turkified presence in Anatolia by this point.

I'm trying not to address the butterfly slaughter here.
 

katchen

Banned
Barring the door after the horse has fled the barn doesn't do much good. There's already a substantial Turk or Turkified presence in Anatolia by this point.

I'm trying not to address the butterfly slaughter here.
Actually it's a bit like raising the height of the corral so that wild horses from the herd outside don't jump the corral and help the horses inside the corral bust it down. Indeed there is a substantial Turkic presence in Anatolia by now, but the various Beys in Anatolia IOTL rely heavily on Ghazi warriors from Persia and Central Asia Turkestan traveling to Anatolia and flocking to their banners. A strong Georgia may be able to bar this door, especially if, with the help of a strong Armenia, it can establish a Christian ruled belt that cuts Turkey off from the rest of Dar al Islam at Hatay and the Gulf of Alexandretta. Eventually, those Turkish Beys can be picked off one by one and conquered, between a resurgent ERE and Georgia.
 
Actually it's a bit like raising the height of the corral so that wild horses from the herd outside don't jump the corral and help the horses inside the corral bust it down.

Except not.

Most of Anatolia is under Turkish control in the early 1200s (Tamar). And Turkifying.

Yes, I'm sure having even more ghazis from elsewhere helped, but to use your metaphor, there are plenty of horses inside the corral already.
 
Top