DBWI: What if Constantinople was annexed instead of being vassalized

What if the Eastern Romans did not agree to be vassals of the Ottoman Empire.

I remember that Greece was liberated due to the help of the Bohemian Empire(OTL Poland and Bohemia) and Russia as well as the Kingdom of Naples and also because Constantinople became the Nucleus of the Greek-Roman Nation.

The current wife of the Spanish King Don King Carlos Bartolome de Borbon, Dona Euphrosyne Palaiologina would never been born, she is a kind queen, she was a bridge between the Eastern Roman Empire(Greece) and Spain.
 
With a first foothold in Europe, I don't see them stopping their expansion there. Most likely, the Ottoman Empire would have expanded all over the Balkan, maybe even right into Germany, or towards the southern coast of Ruthenia*; instead of Persia, the Arabian peninsula, and parts of Central Asia as it did IOTL. But, in fact, they did annex parts of former Constantinople. Not many today know that the city used to be partially in Asia, albeit only sparsely populated. That's why we have the Greek city of Byzantion on the European side of the Bosphorus and the Turkish** city of Istanbul on the Asian side of the Bosphorus today.

*OOC: OTL Ukraine and Belarus.
**OOC: Yes, Turkish; every empire has to crumble eventually.
 

GdwnsnHo

Banned
Personally I'd imagine they'd just take the title of Roman Emperor, and then use that to legitimize a conquest of the former Empire - religion and culture differences be damned.

Probably see the Pontic Greeks disappear rather than dominate the north anatolian coast, much harder to integrate restive greeks than have them under the jurisdiction of a greek vassal.

I might prefer such a timeline if it meant that the Ottomans would turkify both the Croats and Serbs - less issues in the Balkans.

I wonder if it would have kick-started the Italian Flourishing - best place to take all those greek and roman texts that kept them so wealthy IOTL.

At the very least, Greece would have been smaller - after Constantinople kneeled, so many of their problems disappeared! The greeks may do worse in western and northern anatolia we'd see the turks there in greater numbers, which would probably preserve some Kurds.
 
OOC - people do know that the Ottomans held extensive lands in Europe decades before Constantinople fell, don't they? A vassal or an outright conquest would make little difference to Ottoman expansion in the Balkans - as has been pointed out the Byzantines were vassals in the late fourteenth century when the Ottomans hled most of Greece. Bulgaria and Serbia (as vassals if not absolutely)
 
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