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I am working on a TL that requires, but is not directly about, an effective Spanish withdrawal from the New World in the early 16th century. My POD is that Cortes gets defeated by the Aztecs and King Carlos decides to rearrange Spain's priorities and concentrate on the Old World.

My assumption is that he would turn his attention to North Africa and try to re-Christianize the Muslim lands there. I figure he'd go after Morocco and Algeria first. Does this seem reasonable? And how difficult would it be for him to conquer them, given that no more Spanish soldiers are heading to the Americas?

And if he is successful there, how much farther could Spain go? Given a starting point of 1520, could they take Egypt? The Holy Land? As far as I know, it's the Ottomans who own that area now, and would not have been a pushover. Is it possible the Spanish Empire could be ruined by a long and expensive Crusade? Or was the Ottoman Empire too strong for the Spanish to even try? And if they wouldn't go after Ottoman lands, where would they go?

See, my TL is not about the Spanish, but I do need to know what they would be doing in the 1500s and 1600s if they had chosen to stop sending expeditions to the New World. Basically, I just need to keep them distracted, but I want to do it plausibly.
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