PC: Tuareg/Berber people as Mongol-esque conquerers

Maybe, though I think Iberia might be the equivalent to Japan in this situation, that is an area that's close by but hard to conquer do to it being over the water and the Berbers not really big on seafaring, though they'd probably do better than the Mongols.

I think considering that they were integral in the 711 invasion of Iberia, they definitely would. Italy maybe more like a Japan analogue.

I also suspect they would expand southward into Mali to capture the vast riches of West Africa.
 
Well that's assuming these Berber-Mongols have the same achillies heel for the sea the OTL Mongols did.

Like I said in my edit, the Berbers are'nt really a seafaring people, though they'd very likely do alot better than the Mongols since they'd atleast have some experience with ships.

The big issue is building the fleet needed to move the invasion force (admittedly alot easier than with Japan due to less distance between coasts).
 
I've seen this movie and it is called Almoravids.

Again, the Almoravids were one single Berber tribe ruling over Ifriqiya, not a confederation of them running loose like Turkic hordes.

On a side note, weren't the Barbary pirates Berbers?
 
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On a side note, weren't the Barbary pirates Berbers?

While their were probably some overall the Barbary pirates were just pirates based on the North African coast and were primarily Arab and European (mostly Ottoman, though some Western Europeans as well).
 
Again, the Almoravids were one single Berber tribe ruling over Ifriqiya, not a confederation of them running loose like Turkic hordes.

I fail to see the difference.

Genghis Khan had little trouble waging war on Mongol tribes like the Naimans and Khitans, and he boiled alive the chieftains that opposed him.

He didn't just come one day and say "hey tribes, let's form a confederacy".
 
I fail to see the difference.

Genghis Khan had little trouble waging war on Mongol tribes like the Naimans and Khitans, and he boiled alive the chieftains that opposed him.

He didn't just come one day and say "hey tribes, let's form a confederacy".

Even then, they weren't all out conquerers, they only really wanted Ifriqiya, Al-Andalus was just a bonus and shield to protect them against Christians.
 
Even then, they weren't all out conquerers, they only really wanted Ifriqiya, Al-Andalus was just a bonus and shield to protect them against Christians.
Yeah, an enormously wealthy and profitable shield with several trading centers and one of the largest cities in the world :p.
 
Some people just don't appreciate what they have until its gone ;).
Well I was being somewhat sarcastic. The Almoravids may have conquered al-Andalus to protect against the Christians, but if it wasn't a wealthy area they wouldn't have bothered--it wasn't a holy land or anything so if it was barren and sparsely-populated the Christians taking it wouldn't matter to the Moors.

A Tuareg/Berber horde in North Africa would certainly pillage coastal Morocco and Algeria for all they were worth. The closest wealthy center to raid would be al-Andalus. Meanwhile they would fortify their wealth in traditional centers of Morocco like Marrakech and Fez, and as they 'civilize', end up becoming like the Almoravids or Almohads.
 
Maybe, though I think Iberia might be the equivalent to Japan in this situation, that is an area that's close by but hard to conquer do to it being over the water and the Berbers not really big on seafaring, though they'd probably do better than the Mongols.

Conquering Spain wasn't that difficult in reality. I mean the straight of Gibraltar isn't that broad.
Also, for most of the history of Islam in the mediterranean there's huge amounts of muslim pirates in the ports of Algeria and Tunisia. While Al-Andalus was around, they had a massive naval presence. So conquering an area and then usings its ships and seamen for transport is pretty plausible.
 
Actually the reason I brough the Almoravids and not the Almohads is because unlike them the Almoravids also went south and destroyed a black African empire, I think Ghana. In Iberia they came invited by the Taifas as protectors, but decided to backstab their kings and just annex them. Then they moved onto the Christian kingdoms and while their highly effective light cavalry, horse archers and camels won some key battles they failed to make many territorial gains because the country is mountainous and too fortified. As you can see the story is highly reminiscent of the Mongols, just in a minor scale; even the existence of castles, which in Spain were perhaps more common than in any other part of the world, is often brought up in alternate hsitory discussions about why the Mongols couldn't have taken over Western Europe.

Mapas%2520Imperiales%2520Imperio%2520Almoravide1.jpg

Now the differences:

The first one is religion. The Mongols were followers of several different religions and Genghis Khan was a pagan himself who gave no though on the religion of his subjects and allies. The Almoravids were on the other hand, universally followers of their particular branch of Islam (though not nearly as zealots as the Almohads, but I think that's only a matter of degree).

The second is the degree of destruction involved. Passing entire cities to the sword and destroying everything including water works because their rulers didn't surrender when told and all that, like the Mongols did. Any Berber state/group/dynasty understood the value of cities and infraestructures as not just deposits but also generators of wealth, which doesn't seem to be the case with the Mongols, at least early in Genghis early reign (and for the whole duration of Timur's, but in this case it was probably pure sociopathy on his part rather than cultural differences).

On the other hand the Almohads mostly spread later along an east-west axis rather than a north-south like the Almoravids and reached eastern Libya; they even brought an army of Turkish mercenary archers employed by the Egyptians that they had captured in a battle there to Las Navas. This use of multiethnic armies (even if the top leadership was not) with new peoples being added with each conquest as their troops advanced is also reminiscent of the Mongols.
 

Well, I'm not one to argue when I'm proven wrong, so I guess I was wrong. But they really never had the whole "conquer the world" mentality the Mongols had, and its not like it was uniquely Mongol, the Rashidun caliphate held a similar view.
I guess all you have to do is give the Almoravids a Jihad-esque mentality for conquest and you have a Berber-Mongol equivalent, give or take.
 
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