DBWI: The Ottoman Empire never fell in the 1580s and 90s?

What if the Ottoman Empire didn't fall apart in the period 1586 to 1599?

Since it subsequently, well, Ottomanized* into more than a dozen nations, which were preyed on by outside powers, I'd think there would be a big difference. Maybe the 'Turkish Caliphate' would continue to prosper.

Also one has to wonder what continued Islamic rule would be like in the Balkans. Some areas already had Turks living in them and had many converted Slavs, so if the Ottomans survived for a few more centuries those areas might become fully Muslim.

I wonder if that would lead to connection with the rest of the surviving Ottoman Empire and thus prosperity, or if maybe centuries on, the Christians and Muslims in the Balkans would fight amongst eachother and cause the region to Ottomanize.

Surely the Balkans would be much different than the peaceful, very Catholic (and Orthodox in Bulgaria's case), 'traditionalist'-but-modernizing land they are today that's reminiscent of some of the Italian nations to the west.

* (OOC: fractured or Balkanized)
 
Surely the Balkans would be much different than the peaceful, very Catholic (and Orthodox in Bulgaria's case), 'traditionalist'-but-modernizing land they are today that's reminiscent of some of the Italian nations to the west.

Don't forget the thoroughly Orthodox Greece.

But, honestly, I don't see how you intend to pull this off. Western Anatolia and the tip of the Balkans was simply too Greek and too Christian for the Ottoman reign in that area to have been much more than short epoch. It is possible for you Alexander the Great to conquer land all the way to India, but it won't take long before the Macedonians lose control of all these new provinces.

Besides, not only did you have a bunch of Greeks angrily wanting their land back under a Christian monarch, but you also had the Papacy, the Holy Roman Empire, Russia and Venice all having an interest in seeing Constantinople Christian again.

You'll have to handle this very well if it is to remain plausible, but if you ask me, I find it hard to make Ottoman rule in Europe last any longer than up to the year 1700.
 
Well the Jannisary Sultanate did do a pretty damn good job keeping Islam in Europe (Albeit in a different location) into the 19th century.
 
The founder of the Janissary Sultanate was an Albanian but he established his center of power in Sarajevo.

Ah yes, of course. Is there a map of the Balkans and Anatolia around 100 years after the collapse? Or can someone explain to me the major powers in these areas, along with their area of control?
 
Don't forget the thoroughly Orthodox Greece.
OOC: I was trying to imply it was Catholic because the Western European powers would probably grab some territories from the Ottomans and probably eventually Catholicize Greece. While Russia would Orthodox-ize Bulgaria.

IC: Well I wouldn't really call the Greek 'New Orthodox' church Orthodox. It's basically Catholicism that has a new name thanks to the 'Byzantine revival'--you know, the use of purple, red, and yellow as the Greek national colors, the renaming of provinces as themes, and the like, that happened in the 50s.

Of course they still have their own Patriarch/Pope, so if you group Coptic Christianity for example as Orthodoxy, you could include New Orthodoxy. I'm just being pedantic.

Well the Jannisary Sultanate did do a pretty damn good job keeping Islam in Europe (Albeit in a different location) into the 19th century.
That is very true. Though I think it was never more than 25% Muslim, and that was in 1809, the year before it collapsed.
 
Well on the bad side with a still strong Ottoman Empire both Genoa and Venice will be gradually 'robbed' of all their mediterrean possession or at least use lot of money to protect themselfs and so not ready to form the Italian League during the Thirty years war so to make sure everybody respected the neutrality of the Italian territory so beginning the almost 4 hundred years hold tradition of a neutral Italy.
On the other side the entire Levantine devastation during that war due to the fight by many proxy of the main powers will be surely not happened if the Ottoman Empire still existed.
 

Kosta

Banned
OOC: I was trying to imply it was Catholic because the Western European powers would probably grab some territories from the Ottomans and probably eventually Catholicize Greece. While Russia would Orthodox-ize Bulgaria.

That's even more unrealistic than Western Anatolia being taken back from the Ottomans in the 1580's.
 
That's even more unrealistic than Western Anatolia being taken back from the Ottomans in the 1580's.
OOC: No, not really. If Venice, Genoa, France etc. divvy up Greece which is very likely with an Ottoman collapse (which would partly be caused by one of those wars where everyone in Europe teams up against the Ottomans, which virtually happened more than once in OTL.) then they will gradually try to integrate the conquered regions. Which since they can't assimilate it linguistically or culturally, they'll have to Catholicize it.

I knew that you would show up on this thread and be mad though, since it's Catholic Greece :p.

Also, taken back from the Ottomans in 1580? It had been Turkish for four centuries. By that point you're not taking it back you're conquering it.
 
I wonder if a longer-lasting Ottoman Empire would have forestall the rise of Russia to the hegemonic position in the East? We're so used nowadays to thinking of Europe and the Balkans as the Russian sphere that we forget that in the earliest phases of the rise of the Ottoman Empire Moscow was relatively weak. A strong Caliphate in the Black Sea would have prevented the rise of Russia, and we all know that the Russians were not very kind to Greece when the two ran into clashing interests.
 

Kosta

Banned
OOC: No, not really. If Venice, Genoa, France etc. divvy up Greece which is very likely with an Ottoman collapse (which would partly be caused by one of those wars where everyone in Europe teams up against the Ottomans, which virtually happened more than once in OTL.) then they will gradually try to integrate the conquered regions. Which since they can't assimilate it linguistically or culturally, they'll have to Catholicize it.

I knew that you would show up on this thread and be mad though, since it's Catholic Greece :p.

Also, taken back from the Ottomans in 1580? It had been Turkish for four centuries. By that point you're not taking it back you're conquering it.

Right, because two and a half centuries of Crusader rule and like four centuries of Venetian rule in the Eptanesia totally made Greece Catholic. Reading the history of OTL really helps with games like these.
 
Right, because two and a half centuries of Crusader rule and like four centuries of Venetian rule in the Eptanesia totally made Greece Catholic. Reading the history of OTL really helps with games like these.

ooc: I agree with you there, the catholic wank is unrealistic. It is about as realistic as Anglican Normandy, and I mean Anglican Normandy as in mainland Normandy, not the Channel islands.
 

Kosta

Banned
ooc: I agree with you there, the catholic wank is unrealistic. It is about as realistic as Anglican Normandy, and I mean Anglican Normandy as in mainland Normandy, not the Channel islands.

All it did was create a metaphorical staph-infection; I was reading that in the 18th-19th Centuries, a "Jesuit" was a type of bogeyman in rural parts of Greece.
 
All it did was create a metaphorical staph-infection; I was reading that in the 18th-19th Centuries, a "Jesuit" was a type of bogeyman in rural parts of Greece.

Lol, of course, plenty of people feared the Jesuits, I think plenty of Englishmen would have agreed with those Rural Greeks.

A catholic Greece wouldn't be Roman Catholic, but the "*grumble, grumble* Okay, the Pope is the head of the church, now will you stop murdering us?" type. Orthodoxy is sort of ingrained in the Greek identity from what I have gathered.
 

Kosta

Banned
Lol, of course, plenty of people feared the Jesuits, I think plenty of Englishmen would have agreed with those Rural Greeks.

A catholic Greece wouldn't be Roman Catholic, but the "*grumble, grumble* Okay, the Pope is the head of the church, now will you stop murdering us?" type. Orthodoxy is sort of ingrained in the Greek identity from what I have gathered.

If we're going for a "Catholic" Greece, you could probably also continue the Crusader State's model where bishops are murdered and Latins are shipped in to tend to their flock. All Orthodox Christians had were their parish priests. This really would be a Dark Ages for Chalcedonian Orthodox Christianity.
 
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Right, because two and a half centuries of Crusader rule and like four centuries of Venetian rule in the Eptanesia totally made Greece Catholic. Reading the history of OTL really helps with games like these.
Two and a half centuries of Crusader rule? Huh? The Latin Empire only lasted from 1204 to 1261. Also, no need for passive-aggressive sarcasm.

But anyway, the situation is a bit different from both the Latin Empire and the Venetian hold on Ionian, Aegean, etc. islands and Crete. In the case of the Latin Empire: in this situation, it's not a crusader state, it's a mercantile/thalassocratic republic, and it wasn't conquered from the Byzantines almost for the hell of it. It's also conquered from the Ottomans after the Greeks had been under their rule for more than a century, even ITTL. Since most Greeks (or people in general) of the time wouldn't know more than the basic details the history of three to fourth centuries before, they might temporarily welcome the westerners as liberators, and then realize, no they're just another occupying power, but at least they're not any worse than the Ottomans.

In the case of Crete, Eptanisa, etc., they're smallish islands and used mostly for their ports. While a chunk of southern Greece, let's say the Peloponnese plus part of Attica, would be the largest part of the Venetian empire and thus they will have to do whatever they need to hold onto it.

At first it's likely they will leave the Orthodox Greeks alone and tolerate their religion, because doing anything else would be self-defeating. Only by the late 1600s and the 1700s (if the Ottomans are destroyed, trade may open up a little bit in the east, slightly extending Venice's relevance, even though there still is slowly increasing direct access to eastern spices from the western route around Africa) would they start sending missionaries, because they will have to start integrating the territories to keep them, with less and less power. But at the same time, the Counter Reformation would be fading away. That, plus the fact they have to tread carefully means that with a few wise doges they will just peacefully try and convert their mainland Greek territories.

Of course France would probably be different with the Catholic vs Huguenot struggle, and their divine-right-of-kings based absolute monarchy. They would treat their territory, possibly in Macedonia, somewhat more cruelly since they're more than able to do so. The Greeks would probably overthrow them, maybe this Janissary sultanate we've established would retake the area, or Russia would, or the area just becomes independent. It (the French territory) would probably stay Orthodox.

No idea about Genoa and how they'd treat their territories. Or if they're even powerful enough to get them.

But hell, it's an alternate world and the Islamic Turkish Ottomans and Greek Orthodox Byzantines get enough time in the AH limelight :p.

Plus a Catholic/half-Catholic Greece having a Byzantine revival is just cool. Also it's a DBWI, which usually has some contradictions and implausible things anyway.
 

Kosta

Banned
Two and a half centuries of Crusader rule? Huh? The Latin Empire only lasted from 1204 to 1261. Also, no need for passive-aggressive sarcasm.

But anyway, the situation is a bit different from both the Latin Empire and the Venetian hold on Ionian, Aegean, etc. islands and Crete. In the case of the Latin Empire: in this situation, it's not a crusader state, it's a mercantile/thalassocratic republic, and it wasn't conquered from the Byzantines almost for the hell of it. It's also conquered from the Ottomans after the Greeks had been under their rule for more than a century, even ITTL. Since most Greeks (or people in general) of the time wouldn't know more than the basic details the history of three to fourth centuries before, they might temporarily welcome the westerners as liberators, and then realize, no they're just another occupying power, but at least they're not any worse than the Ottomans.

In the case of Crete, Eptanisa, etc., they're smallish islands and used mostly for their ports. While a chunk of southern Greece, let's say the Peloponnese plus part of Attica, would be the largest part of the Venetian empire and thus they will have to do whatever they need to hold onto it.

At first it's likely they will leave the Orthodox Greeks alone and tolerate their religion, because doing anything else would be self-defeating. Only by the late 1600s and the 1700s (if the Ottomans are destroyed, trade may open up a little bit in the east, slightly extending Venice's relevance, even though there still is slowly increasing direct access to eastern spices from the western route around Africa) would they start sending missionaries, because they will have to start integrating the territories to keep them, with less and less power. But at the same time, the Counter Reformation would be fading away. That, plus the fact they have to tread carefully means that with a few wise doges they will just peacefully try and convert their mainland Greek territories.

Of course France would probably be different with the Catholic vs Huguenot struggle, and their divine-right-of-kings based absolute monarchy. They would treat their territory, possibly in Macedonia, somewhat more cruelly since they're more than able to do so. The Greeks would probably overthrow them, maybe this Janissary sultanate we've established would retake the area, or Russia would, or the area just becomes independent. It (the French territory) would probably stay Orthodox.

No idea about Genoa and how they'd treat their territories. Or if they're even powerful enough to get them.

But hell, it's an alternate world and the Islamic Turkish Ottomans and Greek Orthodox Byzantines get enough time in the AH limelight :p.

Plus a Catholic/half-Catholic Greece having a Byzantine revival is just cool. Also it's a DBWI, which usually has some contradictions and implausible things anyway.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duchy_of_athens. Yeah, what were you saying?

The Crusaders held parts of Greece, like I said, for up to two centuries. In fact, any Latin not of the ruling elite who married a Greek woman ended up with children who considered themselves Greek. The colonists went Native, so to speak. The Venetians held the Peloponneso for 34 years, Cyprus for 97 years, Crete for 464 year, and Cyprus had previously been in Western hands since 1191 and yet still there are like 10,000 Catholic Greeks in the world. Seriously, 379 years under a state that actively tried to suppress the Orthodox Church and it didn't work. There's no way in Hell you're going to see Greeks convert to Catholicism. Islam, maybe, since the Ottomans were nowhere near as bad as any Western occupier, but never in a thousand years.

But fine, if you want to not bring realism into a little game, go ahead. Continue, then. And what rule is there that says "Oh, this is a double-blind what if, I can be unrealistic about it"? How does that even make it fun?
 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duchy_of_athens. Yeah, what were you saying?

The Crusaders held parts of Greece, like I said, for up to two centuries. In fact, any Latin not of the ruling elite who married a Greek woman ended up with children who considered themselves Greek. The colonists went Native, so to speak. The Venetians held the Peloponneso for 34 years, Cyprus for 97 years, Crete for 464 year, and Cyprus had previously been in Western hands since 1191 and yet still there are like 10,000 Catholic Greeks in the world. Seriously, 379 years under a state that actively tried to suppress the Orthodox Church and it didn't work. There's no way in Hell you're going to see Greeks convert to Catholicism. Islam, maybe, since the Ottomans were nowhere near as bad as any Western occupier, but never in a thousand years.

But fine, if you want to not bring realism into a little game, go ahead. Continue, then. And what rule is there that says "Oh, this is a double-blind what if, I can be unrealistic about it"? How does that even make it fun?

ooc: Well there are the mainly Byzantine Catholic Griko people, but they have been in a Catholic dominated region for hundreds of years.
 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duchy_of_athens. Yeah, what were you saying?

The Crusaders held parts of Greece, like I said, for up to two centuries. In fact, any Latin not of the ruling elite who married a Greek woman ended up with children who considered themselves Greek. The colonists went Native, so to speak. The Venetians held the Peloponneso for 34 years, Cyprus for 97 years, Crete for 464 year, and Cyprus had previously been in Western hands since 1191 and yet still there are like 10,000 Catholic Greeks in the world. Seriously, 379 years under a state that actively tried to suppress the Orthodox Church and it didn't work. There's no way in Hell you're going to see Greeks convert to Catholicism. Islam, maybe, since the Ottomans were nowhere near as bad as any Western occupier, but never in a thousand years.

But fine, if you want to not bring realism into a little game, go ahead. Continue, then. And what rule is there that says "Oh, this is a double-blind what if, I can be unrealistic about it"? How does that even make it fun?
Oh yeah, forgot about the Duchy of Athens and Naxos and... think there was another one. I was thinking about just the Latin Empire.

But non-imposing conversion of Greek islands or possessions was never really done by any of the western states that held any Greek territory. They all tried to put restrictions on Orthodox clergy and generally be arseholes. If they just sent missionaries and built a few churches every decade, while leaving Orthodox Christians alone at least until there's a sizable Catholic population, then after two hundred years of rule, who knows they might be able to make an impact. Since it's the 1600s, 1700s, and 1800s, not the 1200s, and it even starts after the end of the Counter-Reformation, it's possible for them to do it in a peaceful way like that.
 
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