Why would the Rhomanians let the Turks have Jerusalem? It’s a holy Christian city wouldn’t they want it?
The Eagle of the East, Rhomania: An Eastern Roman Timeline (1196 - 1245)
- Thread starter Averious
- Start date
Muslims have had Jerusalem for roughly 600 years by now, sure the crusade took It back but that also won't last long (and the crusaders are Catholic). Nobody except the pope gives a fuck whether or not some Turkish dudes conquer Jerusalem.
As long as the Turks allow them to exist and don't persecute Christians the Romans still have no reason to invade them.
The Ottomans were a dynamic Empire high on what were effectively consecutive nat’ 20’s. They only ever stumbled due to dynastic issues when it came to their early Empire, which is what allowed to them to carve out such a large Empire. Plus, you’re ignoring the fact that the Ottomans were effectively an early adopter of gunpowder (they’re not called the Gunpowder Empire for nothing), as well as Muslim, which allowed them an easier time conquering the territories they did after establishing their core in the Balkans and Anatolia.
The Patriarchs aren’t really a factor. As it stands there are *Latin* Patriarchs in Antioch and Jerusalem, they’re not tied to the Orthodox Church in anyway. Added to this, just for added context, even the great ‘Conquer’ Basil II quite literally couldn’t give a fig about Jerusalem; it was out of the way and not viable to reconquer and hold. The underlying mentality of the Grypads; one of restoration of a functional Empire, won’t allow them to think with enough grandeur to try and reconquer the ‘Holy Land’ in full.
True, but my gut reaction is to always try and keep things levelled in realism, so I’m still evaluating things such as that as we go.
Think of it this way. The greatest problem the Romans have had trying to reclaim their empire to it's old extent is so many competing interests and the fact that Europeans really don't want that to happen. Colonization is the easiest way for the empire to spread the glory of Rome without massive wars with peer powers. The Roman Empire in this timeline seems to have fully or near fully abandoned the idea of retaking the western empire. However in an age of colonization where the great empires of the world are growing massively from colonizing the ERE colonizing as well would be needed just to have the resources to keep up and avoid being stomped on by the western European empires. The ERE having it's core territories, not trying for any actual expansion of those borders and instead colonizing is the easiest way for the empire to maintain it comparative strength and ability to keep up with Europe. After all once the Suez is a thing the ERE will need all the strength it can muster to keep the great powers from trying to claim it.
On another note I have a question. Will the ERE try to reclaim Cyprus? Or have they already through vassals?
*Edit*
Should have looked at the map again before asking that last question. Never mind.
Going to be a bit more difficult for the future Turkish or Ottoman state in the Levant/Mesopotamia to be a gunpowder empire without the Balkans and Anatolia which helped supply the resources for the making of gunpowder.
Any chance the ERE will look more Northwards? Taking more of the Crimea or Ukraine area as the decades pass? This would allow them to always have a breadbasket region for the empire and with the Black Sea being a Roman lake. I don't know how much food Anatolia supplies or Rome's food situation.
It’s actually got to do with the fact that the Mamluks were in a state of decline.By the time the Mamluks were defeated,the Mamluks have gone through multiple rounds of civil war, and lived entirely separate lives from their subjects.So much that people actually welcomed Ottoman rule.The ERE could IMO quicken this process by disrupting the influx of slave soldiers into Egypt.Their location is well placed to do this.Without fresh supply of slave soldiers, the fighting ability of the Mamluks would decline.
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I agree with the assessment of the Mamluk state- also would like to add that the disruption of the Indian maritime trade (courtesy the Portuguese), severely damaged central finances. This weakened Egypt's ability to project power quickly and effectively, and sparked sort of a decentralization.
Thats why the Mamluks didn't respond as quickly as they would have a century ago, when the Ottomans invaded, and surprisingly, even for the Turks Syrian cities began to submit en mass.
I think as much as it was a great conquest for the Porte, the greater threat in not invading Egypt is that it was basically like Ottomans at their fag end- Even if you didn't conquer them, you can be sure someone else will.
Would there be an Egyptian client state/ally after the Mamluks collapse? Perhaps a native Christian Egyptian uprising succeeds due to Roman interference. That would explain how the ERE would be able to expand and colonize past the red sea since an unfriendly Egypt would prevent that from happening.
By the way, the ERE also needs to have some control over the countries around the Red Sea. I think they would have Muslim client states on the east of the red sea while propping up the Ethiopians in the south to control the gulf of Aden.
Places I think the ERE would colonise: India, Sri Lanka, South East Asia
Places I think the ERE will have client states: Syria, Palestine, Egypt, East of the gulf of Aden, Ethiopia, Yemen?
PS: the Ottomans did conquer Egypt, but they ruled it mainly using an Ottoman representative, meaning the original structures of Mamluke Egypt didn't change much.
PPS: I hope Japan can become Christian and colonise Siberia and the West Coast of America in the 1700s. It's insane and too fun to not do. Plus, it could've actually happened if Japan went through a different centralisation process.
PPPS: Would Aragon survive? I'd like to see a timeline where Aragon unifies Spain and Italy into a weird country.
By the way, the ERE also needs to have some control over the countries around the Red Sea. I think they would have Muslim client states on the east of the red sea while propping up the Ethiopians in the south to control the gulf of Aden.
Places I think the ERE would colonise: India, Sri Lanka, South East Asia
Places I think the ERE will have client states: Syria, Palestine, Egypt, East of the gulf of Aden, Ethiopia, Yemen?
PS: the Ottomans did conquer Egypt, but they ruled it mainly using an Ottoman representative, meaning the original structures of Mamluke Egypt didn't change much.
PPS: I hope Japan can become Christian and colonise Siberia and the West Coast of America in the 1700s. It's insane and too fun to not do. Plus, it could've actually happened if Japan went through a different centralisation process.
PPPS: Would Aragon survive? I'd like to see a timeline where Aragon unifies Spain and Italy into a weird country.
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They would need Egypt to be under full control.Expanding and colonizing past the Red Sea without Egypt under full control is extremely fool hardy. It's a Suez Crisis waiting to happen.The Romans had their share of trying to rule via client states, but their clients always turn out to be highly unreliable and will always breakaway whenever there's some sort of crisis back in Constantinople. It really makes no sense that you try to directly rule India, Sri Lanka and SE Asia when you do not actually have the Eastern Mediterranean under full control. It's one of the things that made me quite AoM.
An empire composing of the entirety of the Eastern Mediterranean is feasible. What determines whether a client state should be established should be the flow of communication between the region and Constantinople. It is quick and easy to get messages back and forth Egypt/Levant with Constantinople by ship. My personal opinion about why the Ottomans left the Mamluks in control had to do with convenience instead of something they really had to do.
Yeah I mean it wasn't like they cared much about the productivity of the region or its demographic potential- Most of their army came from the Balkans or Anatolia anyways. They just wanted to prevent it from becoming a rival power centre, while monopolising the eastern trade routes.
I think this is also speaks to the nature of conquests in general. From our perspective it may seem that conquering is mostly something that happens due to the will of individuals, and to a certain extent it might also be true. But it is important to remember that individual will is also shaped by numerous macro-economic, social and geopolitical pressures. No one seeks out war for no reason, the prevailing conditions force them to do so.
Even Mongols, the consummate conquerors, never sought war as a first option (though they did have sort of a Manifest Destiny complex, so they never backed down either). Subutai and Jebe's raid, hailed as the ultimate campaign of conquest for conquests sake since Alexander, was aimed originally at preventing western reinforcements to Khwarezmians from Azerbaijan or Cumans and Qipchaks in the north-west. They did not want to fight Georgians or Russians, and neither did they want to pick a fight with Mongols, but it was impossible to ignore them so they did.
I genuinely don't see the need for the Empire to functionally control all of Egypt just to allow for colonization. In truth it only requires that the Empire project power over the area in question in order to affirm things. Added to this, the reason for the Suez Crisis is that the Canal was built later than needed, and the population of the area was well-established. If the Romans were to functionally colonize the Suez as another part of the Empire there would be no real possibly for the Canal to be taken away unless the Empire drops the ball quite heavily. It would no longer be 'Egyptian', but Roman.
As an added note, the northern Egypt, as in facing the Mediterranean, will be diluted in power by the creation of the Client State of Alexandria; a territory where Egyptian Christians are effectively pulled to that controls a large chunk of northern Egypt that revolves around Alexandria itself. When we do get to this point, Alexandria is intended to survive into the 'modern' day as a sort of 'City State', similar to Monaco in our modern world.
Seeing people continue to push this narrative that the Empire 'must' hold the Eastern Mediterranean is genuinely starting to irritate me, as no matter how much I press the topic people don't seem to accept the fact that it simply isn't viable, or worth the effort, for the Empire to annex all this competing territory. It simply needs to project sufficient power within the area to get what it wants.
Simply put--whoever controls Egypt would never allow the canal to be in the hands of a foreign power.The Suez Crisis was basically this happening. It's got nothing to do with the population of the area being well-established.The Canal Zone and the Sinai peninsula during the 1950s did not have a large population.Under your proposal, the empire with only the Balkans and Anatolia would just be a strong power on the level of France/Germany if they are lucky. It lacks the critical mass as entities such as Russia, India, China and the US to be invulnerable to other powers in the region,and there are many of them.Losing control of the canal is far from impossible given it would be an attractive target for other powers as well.If they can’t get it themselves,they might just assist whoever controls Egypt to take it from you in hopes of a more lucrative deal.
And the Romans would have to invest heavily into protecting such an entity.We've seen time and time again how such entities fall when their guarantors become distracted. The simplest and most feasible solution would be to conquer the whole region. It's not like it's actually a poor place or that it's difficult to control. It is a territory repeatedly conquered and controlled by foreigners until modern day.
Frankly, if your empire find it 'unviable' or not worth the effort to control another country in the neighborhood when it's got the military strength to wrestle large parts of Egypt and even create a city state in the area, why is it trying to colonize lands half the way around the world?How would colonies half away in the world be more worth it and viable?
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That implies that they have the capacity to even think of such a thing, let alone try it. It isn't a matter of 'allowing' it; it's a matter of if they can. Added to this you're ignoring the fact that the Romans purposefully populating the area would leave it with a larger population than the area OTL, which would allow it to more easily defend what it has with local forces.
Even aside from this, acting as if an Empire that controls the Balkans, Anatolia, the Crimea, and chunks of the Levant (which is over thrice the size of France or Germany) would be 'on the level' of such powers is dismissive and ill-thought-out. It doesn't add up when you consider the resources, the manpower and the functionality of the areas verses France and Germany. There is no 'luck' with this; a properly managed Empire with these core territories will be stronger than France or Germany; it doesn't need the supposed critical mass of Russia, India, China or the US to be supposedly 'invulnerable' as no state truly is.
Losing control of the canal certainly is possible, but just because it is doesn't mean that I should just decide to not write something because it 'might' not work in the context of the universe. That's a bad way to go about functionalities such as that.
That depends on how such a state handles itself; does Israel rely on everyone else for protection, despite its size and enemies? No, it's built a culture of arming its people and not allowing a step to be taken back--this has allowed them to build up a reputation as someone that would be hard to dislodge despite their size and population. I don't see why a state of Alexandria, which would hold near the same size territory and population as Israel, would be so weak as to continuously rely on the Romans for every little thing as you make it seem they should.
'Simplest' and 'Feasible' don't quite work here. Egypt is predominantly Muslim and has been heavily Arabized. There is nothing 'Simple' and 'Feasible' about annexing a whole region who will make every attempt to throw off the 'yoke' you've put on them. Ignoring this and implying its not difficult to control doesn't do justice to the fact that it was only repeatedly conquered at its absolute weakest points--and even then, if you see the actions undertaken by it as a semi-independent arm of the Ottomans you'd know it isn't something you can easily keep under wraps.
It's not another country in the supposed 'neighbourhood', its an entirely different polity with its own religion and culture; both of which are outright hostile to the Romans and their way of life and its culture and religion. You're fundamentally ignoring huge elements of the area just to push this argument which by itself is based on nothing more than semantics.
Having the strength to wrestle away portions of a territory doesn't imply you have the strength, or even want, to hold all of it. Again, ignoring huge elements of how states work and how they function to push your argument. As for why they would make colonies 'half way in the world', well, Africa isn't half way of anything, its southward. Taking control of small island ports and so on, which can easily be colonized and built up into bases of trade and power projection, is rather self-explanatory in why they would do this instead of taking over a 'neighbour'. Shall I remind you that Spain did the same thing in ignoring Portugal and instead colonizing the new world?
Functionally, having trade with India, and other African polities such as Ethiopia, is worth the effort to make minor colonies downward the winds of the Red Sea. Taking over a territory full of angry, religiously fanatical and militant people who hate you, your state and everything you and your people stand for on the other hand? I don't think so.
I think the attitude of maintaining the borders and just establishing colonies in either mostly uninhabited or extremely primitive areas would make sense for the ERE. Over extending the borders is why the Roman empire had to be split in east and west in the first place. Having territory full of angry natives is why the western half of the Empire fell and why the ERE couldnt hold what parts of the Western Empire it retook. Those lessons from history would be a solid reason why the empire after retaking it's important territories has no real desire to expand those borders very much. Making those nations they share borders with Vassals on the other hand fulfills any needs for expansion by gaining access to ERE's new vassals resources but also makes sure that those nations maintain their own forces for defense that can be called upon.
I think the ERE still needs to have great power over egypt tho. Maybe egypt will be split into north and south egypt where north egypt will be majority Christians (around the delta area and the Suez) and a client state, while the muslims live upstream