Austria Does Better in 1737-9 Turkish War

Tibi088

It would be very interesting -a POD i have thought about somewhat.
If you know the history of those territories under Austrian rule they tried to settle them with germans (look at the Banat as reference which ended up with a significant german minority). Borderguard areas wuld be organized there instead of southern Hungary. This is imporatant because this was one of the main gripe throughout the century between the hungarian diet and the habsburg government - so better relations there.
But its later that things really get interesting. Serbia remaining austrian and serbian national identity developing at that period would be very important - my guess is that they will become in this scenario one of the most loyal people of the empire - like the croats. Especially as they hope for the further liberation of serbian territories on the balkans (meaning conquest by the habsburgs and addition of the serbian kingdom that exists within the empire). I think in TTL Austria would end up conquering much more of the Balkans and 19th century wont transform the territory to a powder keg.
 
Last edited:

alexmilman

Marius Mazzini said:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russo-Turkish_War_(1735–1739)

What if Austria had performed better in their 1737 war against the Ottomans, so that they kept their previous gains from the Turkish Empire especially Belgrade?
Click to expand...
They’d become even more of a patchwork empire than in OTL while still not being able to defend the important part of their territory, Silesia.
Acquisitions on the Balkans (providing they would not lose them to the Ottomans in the next war) would matter little economically or strategically because big part of the XVIII century Austria was busy fighting or recuperating from not too successful wars on its western borders.
 

raharris1973

Gone Fishin'
Tibi088 said:
It would be very interesting -a POD i have thought about somewhat.
If you know the history of those territories under Austrian rule they tried to settle them with germans (look at the Banat as reference which ended up with a significant german minority). Borderguard areas wuld be organized there instead of southern Hungary. This is imporatant because this was one of the main gripe throughout the century between the hungarian diet and the habsburg government - so better relations there.
But its later that things really get interesting. Serbia remaining austrian and serbian national identity developing at that period would be very important - my guess is that they will become in this scenario one of the most loyal people of the empire - like the croats. Especially as they hope for the further liberation of serbian territories on the balkans (meaning conquest by the habsburgs and addition of the serbian kingdom that exists within the empire). I think in TTL Austria would end up conquering much more of the Balkans and 19th century wont transform the territory to a powder keg.
Click to expand...

What about the potential leg up if consolidate Oltenia to permanently taking Wallachia? Could the Habsburgs extend their authority to the end of the Danube and to the Black Sea, by way of Moldavia or Dobruja, cutting off Russian access to Bulgaria/the Balkans in the future?
 

alexmilman

raharris1973 said:
What about the potential leg up if consolidate Oltenia to permanently taking Wallachia? Could the Habsburgs extend their authority to the end of the Danube and to the Black Sea, by way of Moldavia or Dobruja, cutting off Russian access to Bulgaria/the Balkans in the future?
Click to expand...
Highly questionable because the main fighting was on the Balkans and instead of “doing better” you need almost a miracle. 😜

However, if this miracle happens, Russia is a great beneficiary because the Crimea Khanate and the Ottoman holdings on the Northern coast of the Black Sea are completely separated from the rest of the Ottoman territory and, with Austria victorious, Russia does not have to return them back to the Ottomans as happened in OTL after Austrian screwup. So basically, during the reign of Anna Russia can get a big part of what in OTL it got only after the 1st Ottoman war of CII. The future war(s) is just a mopping operation to finalize the issue with the CH and to take few isolated fortresses retained by the Ottomans. The border is finalized on the Dniester or Danube.

The whole Balkan thingy was an issue of a much later period (and of power vacuum): during CIIs 2nd Ottoman War Russia was seemingly OK with the Austrian operations in Moldavia and there were even rather touchy examples of cooperation in which, rather untypically, Austrian general voluntarily went under command of the junior in rank Russian general. In a long term, this scenario would be very beneficial for Russia because it butterflies a number of expensive and unproductive wars or limiting some of them to Caucasus theater. All this assumes that Austria is lucky not just in that specific war but in the following Ottoman wars as well and manages to keep the conquest.

Austria, gets control of the Danube in which it was interested as in trade route but it also getting more “foreign” population and the Ottomans looking for revenge. And in this scenario Austria is facing the Ottomans alone (with a possibility of the Russian operations on Caucasus).
 

Tibi088

raharris1973 said:
What about the potential leg up if consolidate Oltenia to permanently taking Wallachia? Could the Habsburgs extend their authority to the end of the Danube and to the Black Sea, by way of Moldavia or Dobruja, cutting off Russian access to Bulgaria/the Balkans in the future?
Click to expand...

Not in the 1737-39 war - or at least not without a serious army reform as a POD. Austria can easily loose it less badly or maybe even manage it without loosing territory but the austrian army in the 1740's was the worst austrian army in the 18th century. See their performance in the war of austrian sucession just after this one. Later however they did manage to reform their army to a respectable level so later Ottoman wars in the 18th century could see Austria expanding further along the Danube - economically it would be really mportant to take the Danube Delta. Cutting off the Russians from the Balkans might also be a great boon later - however it also would put the 2 Empires on a collision course much earlier.

As for later stability of the Empire: Serbia was AFAIK incorporated to the Habsburg realm as a separate Kingdom between 1718-1740 and im pretty sure that would be was the case with Oltenia as well - the Habsburgs were not keen on putting territoryunder the control of Hungary even when it made sense or the hungarians wanted it (see the endless debates about the Partium in the hungarian diets in the 19th century). In the case of Serbia it both made no sense and the hungarians also did not want it. With Serbia in the Empire a trialist solution is much more likely than OTL.
 
Osman Aga

Osman Aga

Banned
Marius Mazzini said:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russo-Turkish_War_(1735–1739)

What if Austria had performed better in their 1737 war against the Ottomans, so that they kept their previous gains from the Turkish Empire especially Belgrade?
Click to expand...

There isn't much to say. If Austria did better in the war they would keep Serbia. There is no guarantee it would be lost later though. But that is just assuming. Serbia remains Austrian, the Muslims (Slavs, Albanians, Turks) are replaced by Catholics (Germans, Hungarians, Croats) as the local elite over an Eastern Orthodox majority.

Operating South of the Danube starts to become harder for the Austrians due to the geography and the existence of loyal Ayans in the Balkans (see: Bosnia 1737-39). Not impossible to hold but it definitely won't be like the reconquest of Hungary.
 
Last edited:

Vanity 6

One implication of retaining Serbia is that the second Serbian migration didn’t happen thereby
reducing the Serbian population in Vojvodina. Austria can hang on to Serbia if it extends privileges in return for serving as border guards. The church hierarchy in Serbia was an ally of Vienna and there wasn’t a nobility to wrangle with. Different situation in neighboring Oltenia. The boyars there did not appreciate the centralizing tendencies of the Habsburgs.
 

Fehérvári

From what I read, the Russians had to evacuate Crimea even before the Habsburgs called it quits because of the outbreak of diseases among the soldiers. Could the Russians really expect to gain more from this war compared to OTL? On another note, without the embarassing defeat of the Habsburgs ITTL, would Frederick II still feel confident enough to invade Silesia?
 
Osman Aga

Osman Aga

Banned
Fehérvári said:
From what I read, the Russians had to evacuate Crimea even before the Habsburgs called it quits because of the outbreak of diseases among the soldiers. Could the Russians really expect to gain more from this war compared to OTL? On another note, without the embarassing defeat of the Habsburgs ITTL, would Frederick II still feel confident enough to invade Silesia?
Click to expand...

The Russians had supply shortages in the Crimea as well. They had no problem to invade the Crimea and occupy the capital, but the problem was staying there in long term. Which was no problem anymore in 1783 as the Ukraine becomes more useful for logistics in the Crimea. What Russia could gain was maybe the gains of 1774, except the Crimean Khanate remaining an Ottoman Vassal. The Ottoman defeats against Russia in 1739 were not as horrendous as 1774, which the Russians went as far as defeating larger Ottoman Armies deep in Ottoman territory with less troops. Which means Russia had more grounds to make demands.

It is an assumption but Frederick II would likely still go to war if the Austrians did not maul the Ottomans on the levels of Mohacs, Zenta or Petrovaradin. Frederick II might even go as far as lure the Ottomans back into the war to regain Belgrade this time, if only to distract the Austrians even more.
 

Fehérvári

Osman Aga said:
Azov, some fortresses right bank of the Dnjepr
Click to expand...
I thought they already gained those in 1739? What about the Crimean Khanate being reduced to the size of the later Russian Taurida Oblast, while it still remains an Ottoman vassal? Does that sound reasonable?
 

alexmilman

Fehérvári said:
From what I read, the Russians had to evacuate Crimea even before the Habsburgs called it quits because of the outbreak of diseases among the soldiers. Could the Russians really expect to gain more from this war compared to OTL? On another note, without the embarassing defeat of the Habsburgs ITTL, would Frederick II still feel confident enough to invade Silesia?
Click to expand...
The Russians invaded the Crimea twice: in 1736 under Munnich (and evacuated it due to the plague) and in 1737 under Lacy (and evacuated it in 1738 due to the supply shortages). But in 1737 the Russians took Ochakov (which they had to evacuate the next year due to the plague) and in 1739 Munnich advanced into Moldavia, defeated the Ottomans at Stavuchani, occupied the fortress of Khotin (August 19) and Iaşi. In parallel, the second Russian army invaded Kuban. These successes had been offset by the Austrian defeat and separate peace. As a result, Russia got only Azov (on condition that it will not be fortified), some small pieces of land on the Dnieper and declaration of Kabarda as a neutral buffer state. Russia was not permitted to have a navy on the Azov and Black Seas and all naval trade had to be carried by the Turkish ships.

So, without the Austrian defeat, Russia definitely could get the better conditions. An access to the Black Sea coast and permission to create a Black Sea fleet would be quite realistic in exchange for returning Moldavia.

Annexation of the Crimea was not of a vital importance (CII a vassal state for years). The important thing was to demonstrate that the Khanate is not anymore invulnerable to the Russian attacks. This was a fundamental change of the existing perception which made the Crimean raids very risky: between 1711 and 1739 the raids had been happening practically annually. Then there were Crimean raids only in 1756, 1763 (during the 7YW) and 1769 (during the Ottoman War of 1768–1774). Without a major distraction of the Russian army the Khanate did not risk the raids anymore. After the battles of Lagra and Kagul in 1770 the Crimeans almost ceased to bt the military factor: in 1771 it took less than 3 months to achieve capitulation of the Khanate.
 

Fehérvári

@alexmilman
So essentially the territorial gains of Russia probably wouldn't be different, but the acquired rights to fortify Azov, conduct trade and maintain a navy would be a significant upgrade for Russia compared to OTL. Right?

Btw, does anyone know, why did the Habsburgs not join the next war in 1768-'74?
 

alexmilman

Fehérvári said:
@alexmilman
So essentially the territorial gains of Russia probably wouldn't be different, but the acquired rights to fortify Azov, conduct trade and maintain a navy would be a significant upgrade for Russia compared to OTL. Right?

Btw, does anyone know, why did the Habsburgs not join the next war in 1768-'74?
Click to expand...
As I said, Russia may end up having Ochakov or getting a right to build a port on the Black Sea as an exchange for the Moldavian territories they occupied. Not a given but realistic to expect.

The navy would provide an "upgrade" for the next Ottoman war.

Probably, Russia could get Kabarda and perhaps to arrange for the independence of the Crimea (getting close to the results of the 1st Ottoman War of CII).
 
Last edited:

Fehérvári

alexmilman said:
As I said, Russia may end up having Ochakov or getting a right to build a port on the Black Sea as an exchange for the Moldavian territories they occupied. Not a given but realistic to expect.

The navy would provide an "upgrade" for the next Ottoman war.

Probably, Russia could get Kabarda and perhaps to arrange for the independence of the Crimea (getting close to the results of the 1st Ottoman War of CII).
Click to expand...
If we assume, that the Habsburgs only do so much better that they can retain their current territories, them quitting the war in similar fashion to OTL might still happen, so maybe the Russians don't even get that much better terms compared to OTL. If anything, I don't see an independent Crimea being established, but I also doubt the Turks would agree to the severing of the land connection between them and the Khanate.

Was Kabardia the Ottomans' in the first place?

Either way, the next war would still definitely secure all of Crimea to the Russians.
 

alexmilman

Fehérvári said:
If we assume, that the Habsburgs only do so much better that they can retain their current territories, them quitting the war in similar fashion to OTL might still happen, so maybe the Russians don't even get that much better terms compared to OTL. If anything, I don't see an independent Crimea being established, but I also doubt the Turks would agree to the severing of the land connection between them and the Khanate.

Was Kabardia the Ottomans' in the first place?

Either way, the next war would still definitely secure all of Crimea to the Russians.
Click to expand...
Well, if Austria is making a separate peace then Russia is obviously in the same situation as in OTL.

However, if this does not happen or even if the Russian leadership was not suffering from an obsolete perception regarding the Ottoman power, then that part about Ottoman agreement does not make sense: the Ottomans already lost the land connection with the Crimea when Munnich invaded Moldavia so they can try to kick him out (and most probably to be beaten) or to agree to exchange: Moldavia for Ochakov. As was already demonstrated during that war, the Ottomans could not defend Ochakov so it would be retaken if the war continues. As for the Khanate independence, this would, again, depend on how seriously the Ottomans would be beaten and involved conditions. In OTL after it was lost the Ottomans retained a right to extract salt from Siwash, which was quite important to them. As for the rest, the Khanate had been turned into a liability and claims to it were a matter of prestige rather then real usefulness.

Kabarda was acknowledged as a Crimean protectorate in 1722 by Peter I.

The main and perhaps the only Russian handicap comparing to the next war had been on a purely tactical level: Munnich was marching his troops with a full supply train (including herds of the cattle) while the troops of the next war had been to a great degree relying upon provisioning from the land. As a result, the armies of CII could march faster and with much lesser losses from the exhaustion (*)

(*) Even Munnich himself at some point recognized that marching using “Munnich square” formation was too taxing on his troops.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top
Top