No Ottoman Empire = Venetian Empire?

What if the Ottoman Empire never unified and, as the Eastern Roman Empire declined, Venice swooped in and became the dominant power of Southeastern Europe.

With a POD before Osman I's reign, how could this be achieved?
 
Have Tamerlane catch the Osmans in 1402, preventing Venice or Genoa from shuttling them away. The Ottomans splinter into anarchy, various Turkish Beyliks carve out their own spheres.

Venice would probably take Thessalonika and probably Constaninople, maybe all of southern Greece and Albania as well.

The lack of Ottomans means Hungary is going to be much stronger (as in potentially rule all of OTL Austria-Hungary plus Romania Serbia and Bulgaria powerful) and a major rival for Venice over Dalmatia and the Balkans. They could support Bulgaria as a counterweight perhaps, but they need a strong ally (Poland? Bavaria?) Willing to match Hungary.

They might also gain Lombardy and the Romagna, OTL they made multiple attempts with varying degrees of success before collapsing in the League of Cambrai.
 
I could easily Venice expand into Greece, but honestly Venice are a empire in decay, if they do very well, they will still be major factor far into the 17th century, but as the 18th century begin they will become less and less relevant as absolute states arises.
 
The big change that comes to mind would be no Sack of Constantinople. It destroyed relationships between Venice and the Byzantines and it lead to many bloody wars between Venice and Genoa over control of the Aegean.

That is a big POD with a lot of changes involved in it, but as a broad sketch I could see a byzantine empire still wallowing along in the fourteenth century, strong enough to keep the the turks from grouping up under Osman but weak enough to be totally reliant on the Venetians.

Then to establish Venice as the dominant power, I would see it occurring in a much more covert manner. Constantinople itself would continue to decay, except for Galatea which ITL would be Venetian colony instead of Genoese. Venice would become dominant through soft power instead of attempting to create a Latin empire by force they could try to latinize the existing empire.

Obviously religion would be sore point, but perhaps they could win special rules for Catholics in the empire if they successfully defend the Constantinople if Tamerlaine tries to take it. I'm thinking that method "empire by influence" would work out by the Byzantine emperor having very little say in the actual running of the empire but venetian viziers and trade comptrollers managing day to day affairs.

In the longer term, it would be against the POD if the Venetians officials do so much good running the Empire that the Greeks become strong enough to through them off. But this is against the outcome of the POD.
Venetian colonies could probably spring up in every major city of the empire. So if the Veneto-Byzantines take over Sarajevo you would have a venetian colony there.
 
I could easily Venice expand into Greece, but honestly Venice are a empire in decay, if they do very well, they will still be major factor far into the 17th century, but as the 18th century begin they will become less and less relevant as absolute states arises.

The Venetians "empire" was born from the 4th crusade and persisted into the 17th century, collapsing solely due to intense Ottoman pressure. By the end the Venetians still held Dalmatia and Ionia. Their holdings in Italy were likewise both fortuitous and long-lived; although their attempts to secure Milan in the collapse of the Visconti failed, their western border persisted (with a brief interruption in the League of Cambrai) until 1797. They also briefly held Trieste and Austrian Istria in the 16th century, and part of the Romagna in the 15th as well, both lost during the League of Cambrai, where the Austrians, French, Spanish and Papacy combined to stomp her into the dirt. She still survived that coalition via adroit diplomacy and luck, albeit as a firmly secondary/regional power.

Remove the Turks and prevent any similarly antagonistic power from emerging in the region and they will at minimum keep Crete, Cyprus and much of Albania/southern Greece until the era of Nationalism at the very minimum.
 
I really like the discussion here, and thanks for bringing up the fact that Hungary was a substantial power before the Ottomans, I am making a timeline where a lot of history goes differently (PoD is a different Rise of the Mongol Empire and the story takes place in the 1950s) and one specific aspect is that the Republic of Venice ruled over southeastern Europe (owning very little in Italy itself).

The territories that it controlled at its greatest extent were (modern day): Hungary, the former Republic of Yugoslavia, Greece, Turkey, Armenia, Cyprus + Northern Cyprus, and (briefly) Egypt (they invaded Egypt and successful took it but holding it nearly bankrupted the republic, which helped begin their decline, they held onto the territory for less than 40 years).

Is there any time in Hungarian history where they would be in such a sorry state that a merchant republic could realistically take them over circa early 1600s (which would be the Venetian Gold Age ITTL)?

I'll do some research independently but I'd love to here whatever you guys can come up with. Thanks!
 
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