Hows your day today?

  • Great

    Votes: 10 13.0%
  • meh

    Votes: 18 23.4%
  • horrible

    Votes: 4 5.2%
  • I just read my worst nightmare so...

    Votes: 12 15.6%
  • Long Live the Sultan!

    Votes: 17 22.1%
  • Allahu Akbar

    Votes: 26 33.8%
  • all of the above

    Votes: 11 14.3%

  • Total voters
    77
I am beginning to think that many of you are far more interested in criticizing a timeline you do not have a full picture of, which I did not post for very obvious reasons as I mentioned originally, rather than either actually helping me, the reason I posted this thread, or asking out of curiosity. If you are curious about some of the events that have unfolded leading up to the Great War, as some people have politely asked about, I am more than happy to answer your questions. However if you want to debate the merits of my timeline and add in little tidbits about magical winds or such, go right ahead but I'm not going to respond, have fun with each other ;)
 
Okay, so um, easy question - why don't you have any of this in your TL?

Your TL basically is "the Ottos don't have the Battle of Ankara, do marginally better, befriend the GH, then suddenly stomp all of Europe and kill more people than died in all of WW2" You can't just withhold important information about the setup of your TL and keep it in the background only to throw it at people criticizing the plausibility of the concept. That's simply bad TL design.

I do have some inaccuracies to point out - you seem to be completely misunderstanding the Polish-Lithuanian union.

King Wladyslaw (I assume you mean Wladyslaw III, because Jogaila, known by Poles as Wladyslaw II, died in 1434) had never been Grand Duke of Lithuania, he was only King of Poland, this is because after Jogaila's death and a six year long succession crisis in Lithuania, Poland and Lithuania were divided between both of his sons, Wladyslaw and Casimir.

If we give you the benefit of the doubt and assume that you meant Casimir IV, who was Grand Duke of Lithuania as well as King of Poland, however, then there's another problem - you forgot the existence of the Privilege of Casimir, signed by Casimir in 1447 as the condition upon which the Lithuanian nobility allowed him to assume the title of King of Poland. It basically amounted to "Lithuania and Poland are only united in name and Lithuania is free to pursue whatever foreign policy it wants independent of Poland". In fact, during the reign of Casimir IV, Poland and Lithuania were hostile to each other, competing with each other for border territories and nearly entering war during those years.

As such, in this scenario, it is far more likely that Lithuania would just sit this war out or maybe even attack Poland for Podolia, much like they sat out the Thirteen Years' War in OTL.

It is in my timeline, not the timeline on the thread which I have said again and again I did not post specifically because it is a large amount of information that has little utility in helping to answer this question concerning the Battle of Rome. If you have clarification questions ask them.

Thank you for the input on the Poland-Lithuanian Union, that does actually help me a lot. I did in fact mean Wladyslaw III, as IOT he died at the crusade of Varna. His and Casimir's seperate reigns do change things a bit, though in which case, when Wladyslaw dies, Casimir will assume the union mid-war anyway.

The Lithuanians would probably not use the war to attack Poland, as they are 1) catholic and 2) already preemptively attacked by the GH and the Ottomans, as I have earlier stated.
 
Thank you—that does pretty much assuage my concerns about the merchant republics. The way the Mamluks fell would be ASB—if it weren’t exactly how it happened IOTL :closedtongue:

I still have concerns about Grenada, though, mostly about it being so far away from Ottoman core territories. I honestly think Castile alone could defeat and occupy Grenada before the Ottomans could land a single troop, and good luck landing an army without a friendly port...

EDIT: Wait, is Morocco helping? They might, might barely make the difference long enough for the Ottomans to arrive.

Here's the second part of the timeline, which takes place roughly during Beyazit's reign. During the wars between the Merchant republics the Hafsid Sultanate of Tunisia was experiencing revolts in its domains of Algiers, Tilimsan and Tripoli. Tripoli specifically was the worst. the Hafsid Sultan, Abu Faris, was at the time concentrating on destroying the revolts and consolidating power, which IOT took him about 14 years. the Hafsids also claimed the title of Caliph IOT, descending from the Almohad line I believe, which rubbed Beyazit the wrong way. So Beyazit very intentionally allies himself with the Tripolitanian chiefs, invoking his right as Caliph to protect Islamic domains from oppression, which angers Abu Faris. this is around 1413. Beyazit is meanwhile sending meagre amounts of aid to Tripoli. As you can imagine, this seriously sours relations between the Hafsids and the Ottomans and tension begins to build. By 1919, Abu Faris launches his third campaign against Tripoli, with some forces still quelling rebellions in Algiers and Morocco. The Chief of Tripoli sends message to Beyazit for protection, and Beyazit responds by sending the Hafsid Sultan an ultimatum: either cease your agressions against Tripoli or we will be at war.

The war erupts, the Hafsids and Ottomans fight for about four years. The Ottoman navy is far superior by this point due to the wars with venice and genoa, which they use to their advantage. Their army is larger, despite which fact they deal with serious losses and issues because of the terrain in Tunisia. Beyazit extends his alliance-chain with the leaders of Algiers and Tilimsan who both revolt. Beyazit is killed in the war in 1421, marking the reign of Murat II. Murat finishes the war, and in the ensuing peace the Ottomans create protectorates in Tilimsan, Algiers and Tripoli. They only directly annex Tunisia (if you're wondering why the Ottomans still managed to win, the Hafsids had either not yet adopted gunpowder, or very rarely used it by this point, from what I had read).

So the Ottomans by 1423 are far closer to Granada and Morocco. After regional stabilization, when Grenada revolts the Ottomans are able to send some immediate aid from Tunisia and Algeria, especially with the help of the local Algerian armies until the Ottoman army itself can arrive.

And yes Morocco is helping. Morocco, Tilimsan and Algiers initially move their armies into Granada to defend until the Ottoman army arrives. And as I said in my original post, even the end of the war was only a minor victory, mostly because it was not an easy war and there was no way the Muslim allies could fully defeat Iberia at that time.
 
First of all doesn't "No battle of Ankara" means there should be no Mehmed II, you know butterflies and stuff

Secondly the Ottomans at the height of their power could not conquer Naples, even without battle of Ankara, simple demographic says that an anatolia & balkan ottoman empire could not be stronger than the one who has egypt, levant, libya and arabia. But probably you forgot to mention that they conquer egypt in 3 days or something.

And without Alexanderian shipyards, Ottomans could not fight a combined europe fleet, you mentioned they somehow curbmstomped Venice, could you explain how they do it to us, copy paste and post from your research couldn't be that hard.

Thirdly there is no way 30% of Europe Population dies... I'll accept this as an oversight.

So for us to actually say what happens you need to clarify a few things, does the ottoman control Egypt and how many of Europe population actually dies. I mean like 30% Is simply too much. (I'll accept this as an oversight)

Btw care to post your research if its not in Turkish. Im genuinly curious want to know what actually makes the Turks this strong.

Edit : I just read you clarified that the Turks control Egypt at this point, so ignore the second point.

well as for your first question, yes this is probably true in reality. But unfortunately I think opening up that whole issue is a can of worms that's impossible to predict for an alt-history timeline, lol. So I kept the rulers roughly the same only accounting for situational stuff (like dying, being overthrown etc).
 
So wait the Great War is Ottomans (who control Balkans, Anatolia, and Constantinople) along with North African allies vs ALL of Christian Europe.

How, how exactly did they win?

The Ottomans control the Balkans, Transylvania, Budapest, Anatolia, Azerbaijan proper, Iraq, Levant, Hejaz, Egypt, Tripoli, Tunisia and Algeria, along with the Eastern Med. They are allied with Morocco, Granada, and the Golden Horde. Here's a map.

Lighter shades of the same color indicate vassals (ex: Austria is bohemia's overlord, the Ottomans are Transylvania's).

Military occupation indicates the presence of Ottoman garrisons in the region, due mostly to the first war with Iberia.
Hopefully you can figure out the alliances themselves (Novgorod is obviously not in here, nor is Ming China).
 

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Contrary to the historic legends, the Ottomans did NOT have "the ridiculously huge" army and the high-quality parts of their armies had been even smaller. Neither could they advance too much in the tactical development and they did very little prior to the creation of the modern army: most of their cavalry had been feudal militia and tactically you can do a limited number of things with the infantry equipped as the Janissary.

Of course, it is entirely up to you to explain how exactly are they tactically superior to the OTL version. ;)

As for the power vacuums, yes, they were successful in the areas with a power vacuum but this situation was applicable mostly to the Balkans and even Hungary was a problem as long as there was a competent government.
literally look up the battle of Ankara on google. You will see that in the Battle the Ottoman army numbered 85,000 soldiers, and the Tiimurid army 140,000. The Ottomans lost 40,000 men in the battle, accounting for almost half their fielded manpower.

If you have any more than cursory knowledge on the Ottoman Empire you know that this was one of the most catastrophic events in Ottoman history; the Ottomans were already on the rise before the battle of Ankara and the loss of half their army and the death of the Sultan not only stagnated their growth but literally sent them into near collapse. The Ottomans very well, IOT, could have been dead for good.

I cannot overstate the catastrophic effects of the battle of Ankara. There are many books that cover it in detail and even books exclusively covering the Ottoman Interregnum that you can read to gain a more comprehensive understanding.

Tactical development progressed because they have been fighting wars, on and off, for the majority of this timeline.

The Timar system provided a large amount of their cavalry, which is not the same as the European feudal system. Timariots were well disciplined compared to European feudal cavalry because they had more to gain from war, and extended a greater amount of loyalty to the state.
 
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literally look up the battle of Ankara on google. You will see that in the Battle the Ottoman army numbered 85,000 soldiers, and the Tiimurid army 140,000. The Ottomans lost 40,000 men in the battle, accounting for almost half their fielded manpower.

The numbers on both sides are extremely unreliable. Ottoman numbers are varying between 70 and 200K and Timur's numbers between 140 and 350K. As far as the Ottomans are involved, their numbers at Ankara were approximately 65K only a fraction of which had been high-quality troops. There were also 5K Serbians (including 500 - 600 knights), at least 18K Tatar mercenaries (who switched the sides) and troops of the Anatolyan beys who also fled to Timur's side.

Tactical development progressed because they have been fighting wars, on and off, for the majority of this timeline.

You keep repeating something that you seemingly don't quite understand. How exactly did it progressed?

For you to understand:

On the European side it is quite easy to trace a progress of infantry from the pike columns to pike and shot, then tercios, then linear formations, attack in columns, etc. You can also trace change of the weaponry with a progress from pike to the muskets with the bayonets.

As far as the Ottoman infantry is involved, Janissary had been good while staying in the defensive formations behind the stakes or trenches at Nikopol, Warna and Mohacs (time span from 1396 to 1526) and the only, rather questionable, "progress" in the later time was attacking in a disorderly mob (Saint Gotthard, 1664; Stawuchani, 1739; Kagul, 1770 etc.) in which formation they tended to be regularly beaten unless they were facing the Austrians (but not Prince Eugene or Montecuccoli :winkytongue:). Even defending the field fortifications was not working anymore (Zenta, 1697; Rymnik 1789). Since introduction of the firearms, change their tactics and weaponry were minimal.

The Timar system provided a large amount of their cavalry, which is not the same as the European feudal system. Timariots were well disciplined compared to European feudal cavalry because they had more to gain from war, and extended a greater amount of loyalty to the state.

Oh dear, the European feudal cavalry became secondary branch even before the 100YW was over: its flaws had been illustrated beyond any reasonable doubt at Crecy, Poitiers and Agincourt and most of the fighting had been done by the mercenary bands. In France they introduced compagnie d'ordonnance system in 1445, in Italy most of the fighting had been done by the condottieri since mid-XIV century, Swiss pikemen started gaining their reputation in 1315 and by mid-XV were considered undefeatable.
 
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KC, I would love to read your book sometime. Will it be in English?
And I wouldn't worry too much about realism. I'm willing to overlook some plausibility issues if the narrative is interesting, and I'm sure I'm not the only one. Not to mention it seems you've done more research than many alternate history book authors.

Also, while you seem to already have a lot in your plate, does your book deal with the Americas and Australia?
 
thanks. I think you're right, it would depend on region, I guess my major thing is I am not sure which regions would be affected. Will have to research each individually, the promince of heresies, devotion to Catholicism etc at the time.

Another good point I didn't factor for was that Christians in other Muslim states (like Iberia) would probably follow the Ottoman-Roman church. Obvious oversights like this is why collaboration is good :)
Excatly but this is before indulgencies and other stuff, when division exist, the muslim can easily push the Roman(as true roman even if the rest of europe goes in their own way) Catholicism as the dhimmi true version, plus Rome would be more a full city that a religious one as much later opulent churchs have not been build, we could see Mosques and other taking place there.
 
Once again my man; if you want to understand why the Ottomans are so powerful, you need to read about the Ottoman Sultanate under the rulership of Beyazit, because this is the point of divergence.

Don't try to be condescending. I read about the Ottoman Empire and have an idea about its military capacities.


At the time of the Battle of Ankara in 1402, the Timurids and the Ottomans both fielded the two largest armies in the Islamic World (accounting of course for vassals). The Ottoman army of the time numbered around 100,000 soldiers according to some estimates, with around 15-20,000 Janissaries as they controlleld a substantial amount of Balkan territory.

It did not have 15 - 20K Janissary, just under 8K of them and they were the only high-quality troops. Admittedly, at that time 8K of a high-quality infantry was a considerable force but it was not adequate for the grandiose conquest you fantasized.

In OTL the Ottomans had been expanding into the areas with a high degree of a power vacuum (the Balkans) and even then expansion was quite slow in most cases.

In the case of the Mamluk Egypt they won (after losing the 1st war) due to a technical superiority of infantry with the firearms over the cavalry with the bows (Mamluks). In the Eastern direction they had been expanding mostly when Persia was weak but Nader Shah was defeating them.

At the time of Bayazit the Ottomans did not even have Kapıkulu Süvarileri ("Household Slave Cavalry") introduced by Mehmed II. The Yaya units (created in the early XIV and abolished in 1582) had been irregulars of a low quality and not very good in the field or at the sieges. Sipahi and Akinci were typical irregular cavalry.

As for Ankara and the numbers involved, it is rather hard to believe all these huge numbers when 500 of the Serbian knights had been playing such a prominent role in the event.

In other words, Ankara or not, the Ottoman armies of the pre-modern times were not excessively big and their high-quality part was even smaller. An idea that they'd just keep growing with a growth of population is, of course, "interesting" but here goes the problem: by 1500 population of the Ottoman Empire was approximately 11M, the HRE - 16M, France - 15M, Spain - 8.5M, the PLC - 7.5M. In other words, population of only the main Ottoman opponents was approximately 4.5 times grater than one of the Ottoman state and, following your idea about the direct relation between the population and army size, the Ottomans would be simply squashed by the much greater numbers. Of course, in a real life this dependency did not exist until the age of the universal conscription and your speculations simply do not make too much sense.

Anyway, in the time when the reported numbers became more reliable sizes of the Ottoman armies suddenly began dwindling regardless a considerable growth of population. By 1800 population of the Ottoman empire was approximately 26M but in the wars of the late XVIII - early XIX size of the Ottoman armies is seemingly in the low 100Ks and by 1877 it is under 300K.
 
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