Konstantinopel holds
- Thread starter mattep74
- Start date
What brakes the Siege? A new crusade? a civil war? The city probably can not hold but the ottoman empire could collaps in on itself under favorable circumstances. If you want to go that route, a whole lot of stuff would need to happen in Russia to make it a protectorate of the city. if you want to go orthodox, the emperor could become catholic and get Lucky inmagening inheriting the kingdom of Napels or even spain. Some crazy desease could spread taking out most of the population go native american or spice it up and have a blight on levant type grain but somehow spare european crops. The ottomans use the byzantine emperors as puppets to mary into the european royalties etc . Your pick if you can write it
The battle was not a decided thing. Many times things could have turned in favor of the Romans. One critical thing about the battle is the death of Giovanni Guistiniani. He was a very effective commander whose death left the defenders without leadership while also causing their morale to plummet. If Giustiniani lives, then the Romans will have better luck surviving. There's also the fact that a gate to the city was left open which allowed the besiegers to overcome the defenses of the city. The gate might have been left open due to Roman defenders working to disrupt Turkish operations. Whomever opened the gate might have forgotten to close them in the heat of the battle. Plus there was aid from the Italian city states that did arrive too late. If you can have Constantine XI be a little more successful in diplomacy he might have even secured some aid from some of the other Italian states.
Though the Romans were pretty much dead as an entity past 1341 where the Second Palaiologian civil war decimated what little manpower, funds, and resources the Romans had left. The Romans would be utterly dependent on the aid from the West to survive with something like a successful Crusade of Varna. Though if Mehmed was repulsed and forced to abandon the city, Constantine XI could release Mehmed's uncle who took refuge in the city, and start another Ottoman Civil War. Using this distraction would be key for any real hope of Roman territorial expansion.
Though the Romans were pretty much dead as an entity past 1341 where the Second Palaiologian civil war decimated what little manpower, funds, and resources the Romans had left. The Romans would be utterly dependent on the aid from the West to survive with something like a successful Crusade of Varna. Though if Mehmed was repulsed and forced to abandon the city, Constantine XI could release Mehmed's uncle who took refuge in the city, and start another Ottoman Civil War. Using this distraction would be key for any real hope of Roman territorial expansion.
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At this point the Romans don't even successfully rule over the Morea. It's de facto independent from the Basileus in Constantinople.
Their chances of territorial expansion in even the best case scenario are poor at best.
Especially as at this point the general thought process of the common folk was basically: Better the Ottoman turban than the Papal tiara.
Fully agreed. There would have to be some sort of massive response from the West to defeat the Ottomans. I know in @The Undead Martyr's timeline Visconti Victorious, Gian Galaezzo lives and as a result achieves his ambition of seizing the crown of Italy after uniting most of the North under his rule (he almost did in otl). He personally led a massive crusade against the Ottomans and manages to restore the Eastern Roman Empire to basically a height it hadn't been until the reign of Manuel I Komnenos.
Small nitpick but it was his son and successor Gian Maria who went on crusade, and the eastern empire was "restored" as a client state in thrace (and eventually usurped by a bastard line).
In any event the main beneficiary of an Ottoman collapse is probably the black sheep tribe. The Akk qoyunlu, once they deal with the Qara Qoyunlu, are surrounded by power vacuum stretching from the bisphorus to Afghanistan. Italy or Hungary may be capable of defeating the Ottomans and clientizing the Balkans, but neither they nor byzantium (which will gain only what she is allowed by the latins and no more) are going to be in a position to really contest central anatolia. At best they might conquer part of the asia minor littoral to suppress piracy or whatnot (and at this point I do not think a partial reconversion of ionia implausible given a few decades of stable latin or greek rule; many "Turks" in Anatolia are the descendants of converted greeks, who in turn are hellenized descendants of the ancient peoples there IIRC). That in turn suggests another state, either a native anatolian Beylik, some fragment of the Ottomans, or someone else like a Turko-Iranian empire, to fill the void.
Koprulu Mustafa Pasha
Gone Fishin'
It won't. They survived 1395-1402 because Timur came to Anatolia. There is nothing that stops the Ottomans. Other than divine intervention of course...
If it survived the Ottomans would return soon.
True, broadly the only thing that could save it is the Ottoman empire tearing itself apart and that is not happening. At worst if Mehmed fails he's strangled or at least replaced for a second time as Sultan. The Turks then go away, build many more guns and come back in a year or so and that's that.
The walls can't fight gunpowder and the population is below 50,000 at this point so manning all 14 miles is a dicey prospect anyway. Wall technology to deal with siege guns is decades away and the Byzantines have no money or resources so replacing the walls before a second attack isn't happening.
The Serb's and Hungarian's may fight but both are already quite weak (their own final declines are imminent) and getting involved in round two is likely to annihilate their armies and speed up Ottoman domination. Also the daughter of the Serbian King is the former sultan's widow and Mehmed's mother figure and she will doubtless try to influence her father to stay out of round two as well.
Latin involvement beyond Mercs is likely fatal to Byzantine chances since as others mentioned the schism is now so bad that Islsmic domination is preferred to accepting papal superiority. Especially as the Ottomans had been quite canny and pretty much allowed their subjects to keep their faiths with payment of a tax. In contrast letting Rome back in is heresy and would stir ugly memories of 1204.
In the end all that can be done is to buy a broken, crippled city a few more years before the Ottomans come back and finish the job. At this point better to put the city out of its misery and start towards a new golden age under the turk.
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I have said this before the turks try again in 1460s if they can survive that they can get to the 1500s since the Ottomans will be busy with hunyadi skanderbeg , vlad and the ak kuyunlu in fact if constantinople does not fall the empire of trebizon most likely gets absorbed by the ak kuyunlu