Maybe you could make the upcoming war against France a bloody struggle, making the peasantry of Western and Central Europe pretty pissed off at their leaders and the church (maybe a priest sparked the conflict), so when the Luther analogue comes he gains quite the momentum, maybe a succession crisis in France leads to civil war later in the 1530s-1540s making the trust in the first two estates pretty bad, allowing the Huguenot analogue much more popular. If they still fail you could have them succeed in the Americas, unlike OTL.
The Undying Empire: A Trebizond Timeline
- Thread starter Eparkhos
- Start date
- Status
Eparkhos
Banned
The more I think about it, "King-in-the-Rhine-Mouths" and "Rhinemouther" both sound pretty cool.
Eparkhos
Banned
Thanks.
I swear, if you drop it again.....
Serious, your Trebizond TL is probably the most-hyped I've ever seen a newborn timeline. IIRC, it got >30 votes in the Turtledoves after a week published.
Like I said earlier, I'm sticking with Rhine-mouths. Netherking is pretty good, though.
Re: People talking about my kick.
I'm obviously going to try and not get kicked/banned, but if I do, I'll continue posting here
Thank you! I'll have a pan_Europe map out soon.
Thank you, my loyal subjects.
Eparkhos
Banned
France will definitely be the epicenter of a major conflict that will help spread the Renaissance, that's all I'll say for now.
A Global Overview, 1500, Part III
Eparkhos
Banned
Report on Timeline L-843 (III)
File One: A Global Overview (III)
It appears that the Incidence of Divergence occurred somewhere around the Mediterranean basin less than a century before 1500, as there do not appear to many secondary effects east of the Qutlughid Empire. There may be slight differences in Arabia, India and other nearby regions that may have escaped my team’s observations, but obviously, I would not be aware of such differences and so would be unable to report them. I may includes sections of texts from this timeline describing this time period as an addendum, but I’m overstretched as is and can’t afford the time to dig them up.
Arabia, that is, peninsular Arabia, is fairly similar to its state in TL-1. The Rassid imams of Yemen have managed to re-establish control over most of Yemen, but this is the only notable difference in the region. The current imam, al-Mansur I, is beset with internal troubles, as his sudden rise to regional ruler had been built off the backs of impoverished peasants and vanquished rivals, many of whom are now growing in power. If the imam can manage to fend off these numerous opponents, he may be able to extend Yemeni rule across the Bab el-Mandeb into the Horn of Africa, which is currently in a state of effective anarchy. The Adal Sultanate collapsed in 1478 after its sultan and his army were shattered by an Ethiopian army, and the remaining emirates are fighting it out amongst themselves. However, the Ethiopians are prevented from exploiting this by the recent arrival of the Oromo from the Nilotic ethnogenesis region. Through some means, the Oromo appear to have been converted to Christianity very early on in this timeline, or at the very least syncretized Christianity with their native religion. This radically alters the political situation in the region from TL-1, and given the infighting between Warsangali and Ajuraan, the chief Somali state, the struggle for the Horn could be anyone’s game. The best candidates, however, are the Ethiopians, who will soon be coming under the rulership of the skillful Dawit II, and the Ajuraan, who are attempting to establish themselves as a proto-Omani state.
Further south, the Kilwa Sultanate is in the process of collapsing under its own weight. Generations of harem politics, general instability and a remarkable string of assassinations and child rulers has caused the formerly great state to collapse into anarchy, with most of her subject cities declaring their own independence and ignoring the central government as it plunges further into anarchy. The centuries of prosperity and the flowering of trade that occurred during this period may soon vanish, like sugar into the tossing sea. There are now more than a dozen city-states and jumped-up admirals who claim to be the rightful Sultan, and there is no doubt this conflict shall be ended bloodily. To the south, better climate patterns have left Great Zimbabwe intact, albeit greatly reduced from their heights of power. A number of tribes are coalescing in the surrounding region, and it is entirely possible that Zimbabwe may soon go the way of TL-1’s Zimbabwe. Then again, it’s entirely possible they could stage a recovery.
Also in Arabia, the Nahbani Dynasty of Oman has begun to push strongly against Hormuz. The Omanis are far more capable in land combat than their maritime neighbors are, and they have begun to push strongly into the Musandam Peninsula. The Hormuzites have begun to struggle in recent years as their profits drop with the rise of new competitors, chiefly the Yemenis of Aden and the Indians of the Gujarat cities. This has put them not only into the crosshairs of the Nahbani, who hate them due a long-running religious dispute between the Sunnis and the Ibadis which in this part of the world is more bitter than it is elsewhere, but also those of the Qutlughids. Arslan II is almost salivating at the thought of complete control of the Gulf, and he is willing to go to extraordinary lengths to secure the keystone of this trade-rich region. The Ma’danis, who make up the majority of the south Mesopotamian swamps, are uncooperative due to their fanatical Shi’ism, and in his desperation to secure the Gulf, Arslan has begun to look to other sources of potential sailors and shipbuilders. In fact, he has spent a dispatch to Trebizond, asking if the aftokrator would allow him to settle Ponts in his own realm to build a navy for him.
To the east, India is mostly unchanged from our timeline, albeit with the significant asterisk that the Timurids do not appear to be in any position to stage their miraculous comeback as the Mughals as they did in our timeline. As previously mentioned, the afore-time rise of the Bukharan Empire has effectively crippled them, the few surviving dynastic states circling the drain as native Afghans and Khorasanis increase in importance. It is entirely possible that the final Timurid state may collapse less than a century after their founder’s demise. The Lodi Sultanate is still standing strong, with not potential threats from the north or the west, leaving them free to utterly fail to convert the local Hindus to the true faith. The Bengal Sultanate is essentially the same as in our timeline, albeit slightly more less repressive, as the presence of a large, menacing rival of the same faith has caused their sultans to try and balance the interests of their Muslim and Hindu subjects to keep their heads still on the shoulders. On the southern tip of the peninsula, Vijayanagar is at its height, having crushed the Bahmanis in a long and bloody war that concluded with the shattering of the Deccan states. The Hindus are now making a comeback on the plateau, with adventurers and peasant rebels carving their own chunks of the weak rump states of the region. Across Adam’s Bridge, meanwhile, a third Sinhalese kingdom has risen, with its capital at Trincomalee, and is in the process of expelling the Tamils of Jaffna from the island in what is shaping up to be a long and bloody campaign that will likely take several decades to complete.
Outside of India, not much has changed in the eastern parts of the world. The Siamese are still rising as in our timeline, although they have not yet completely supplanted the Khmer, who still manage to cling on in the ruins of Angkor Wat. Great Viet is also rising, having incorporated most of TL-1’s Vietnam and Laos. It appears as if the two states will eventually become rivals for the control of Indochina, though of course neither of them could even hope to match the raw power of the Ming Dynasty, which is near its height. The Tumu Incident, in which the Yingzong Empire was captured by the Oirats, who then proclaimed a revival of the Yuan Dynasty before collapsing due to infighting, appears to be averted, but just as little came of the crisis in TL-1, even less came of its lack of occurrence in TL-L(843). In Korea, the Joseon Dynasty rules as it did in OTL, and just as in OTL Japan is wracked by internal struggle in the Sengoku Jidai or Warring States Period. The Onin War resulted in disaster for the Ashikaga shoguns as it did in our timeline, and since then the shoguns have had no control outside of Kyoto. The provinces are ruled by individual noble families, who share the common tenet of hating the shogun more than they hate each other.
The only major anomaly in East Asia, apart from a few date discrepancies in proclamations made in Nusantara, is the establishment of the Ainu Kingdom. It appears the Koshamain’s War did not break out in the 1450s but instead the 1460s, by which point the shogun was distracted with the Onin War and unable to send aid to the northern fortresses. As such, Koshamain and his followers were able to overwhelm the Matsume on Hokkaido and drive the Japanese from the island, creating their own hybrid tribal-mandala modeled off of the similar government system in China and their own traditional forms of government. This state, the Ash Dynasty (literally, ‘The Steadfast Dynasty), has managed to establish control over all of Hokkaido, as well as establish tributaries on Sakhalin and the Kurils. They live scattered across the island, but their chief cities are Hakodate, a Japanese fortress on the southern tip of the island, and Otaru, a pilgrimage center and the capital of the newly-established kingdom. Farmers live across the hills and plains, but many still hunt and many more fish for their living. The emperor--the Ainuaynumosir Emperor (Koshamain) until his death in 1493, then the Ekashiba Emperor since--has near absolute power in all things above the village level, but villages are allowed to self-govern so long as they pay their taxes. The Ash Dynasty is a strange and fascinating country, but I will save the rest for the official report on them, to be submitted at a later date. Notably, however, they are tributaries of the Great Ming, presumably in hopes of staving off Japanese invasion upon their reunification. Presumably, as with most tributaries, Chinese artisans will be imported and doubtless have an impact on Ainu culture, but it’s unlikely that even this can fundamentally alter the nature of these strange people[1].
Further south, across the great breadth of the Pacific, lies Nusantara. As previously mentioned, there is little that has changed here, other than a few exact dates that were thrown off by a couple of days, or sometimes even weeks. The Sultanate of Malacca continues to rise in prominence as guarantor of passage through the Straits, but their Islamic nature has left them having to deal with an alliance of Hindu-Buddhist states against them, as well as the Acehnese, who consider them to be heretics. Some things never change. Beyond Malacca, Sumatra is essentially identical to what it was in TL-1, with a number of small principalities along both costs vying for control of the pepper-producing regions in the highlands. To the east lies Java, where things are only slightly different from in our timeline. The Demak Sultanate reformed a decade earlier than it normally does and as such was able to keep up the war against the ailing Majapahit, which finally fell in 1498. The great city, which had once been the greatest spice trading port in all the world and the emporium of the seven seas, whose streets had once been whispered of as being paved in golden cobblestones and whose walls had once been cased with copper, was put to the sack. Several decades of decline meant that there wasn’t much to actually be looted, but the symbolic blow was still a great one. The only state to have once unified all of Nusantara had now faded away into history, eclipsed by her younger neighbors. A bitter end for the kingdom of the bitter fruit.
Yet further beyond lies the Kingdom of Wehali, occupying the OTL island of Timor. The Wehalites are thoroughly unremarkable as Nusantaran states go, with their only major trading products being sandalwood and candleberry, neither of which are in especially great demand. However, in 1497, a Wehaliate vessel drifted out into the Timorean Sea and made landfall on Australia, which was reported as being a strange and exotic island. Several strange beasts were sighted, but this did not prevent the Wehalite court from dispatching a series of expeditions to determine if this new land could be used for growing spices.
Finally, there are the Polynesians, who are going about as normal, bar only their anomalous contact with the Andean civilizations.
This concludes the Global Overview of 1500 in Timeline L-843.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
[1] All of this is because of a secondary PoD. I’ll admit I’m not the fondest of secondary PoDs, but the potential to create a vibrant Ainu state was too good to pass up, especially considering how they are neglected in most proper timelines.
File One: A Global Overview (III)
It appears that the Incidence of Divergence occurred somewhere around the Mediterranean basin less than a century before 1500, as there do not appear to many secondary effects east of the Qutlughid Empire. There may be slight differences in Arabia, India and other nearby regions that may have escaped my team’s observations, but obviously, I would not be aware of such differences and so would be unable to report them. I may includes sections of texts from this timeline describing this time period as an addendum, but I’m overstretched as is and can’t afford the time to dig them up.
Arabia, that is, peninsular Arabia, is fairly similar to its state in TL-1. The Rassid imams of Yemen have managed to re-establish control over most of Yemen, but this is the only notable difference in the region. The current imam, al-Mansur I, is beset with internal troubles, as his sudden rise to regional ruler had been built off the backs of impoverished peasants and vanquished rivals, many of whom are now growing in power. If the imam can manage to fend off these numerous opponents, he may be able to extend Yemeni rule across the Bab el-Mandeb into the Horn of Africa, which is currently in a state of effective anarchy. The Adal Sultanate collapsed in 1478 after its sultan and his army were shattered by an Ethiopian army, and the remaining emirates are fighting it out amongst themselves. However, the Ethiopians are prevented from exploiting this by the recent arrival of the Oromo from the Nilotic ethnogenesis region. Through some means, the Oromo appear to have been converted to Christianity very early on in this timeline, or at the very least syncretized Christianity with their native religion. This radically alters the political situation in the region from TL-1, and given the infighting between Warsangali and Ajuraan, the chief Somali state, the struggle for the Horn could be anyone’s game. The best candidates, however, are the Ethiopians, who will soon be coming under the rulership of the skillful Dawit II, and the Ajuraan, who are attempting to establish themselves as a proto-Omani state.
Further south, the Kilwa Sultanate is in the process of collapsing under its own weight. Generations of harem politics, general instability and a remarkable string of assassinations and child rulers has caused the formerly great state to collapse into anarchy, with most of her subject cities declaring their own independence and ignoring the central government as it plunges further into anarchy. The centuries of prosperity and the flowering of trade that occurred during this period may soon vanish, like sugar into the tossing sea. There are now more than a dozen city-states and jumped-up admirals who claim to be the rightful Sultan, and there is no doubt this conflict shall be ended bloodily. To the south, better climate patterns have left Great Zimbabwe intact, albeit greatly reduced from their heights of power. A number of tribes are coalescing in the surrounding region, and it is entirely possible that Zimbabwe may soon go the way of TL-1’s Zimbabwe. Then again, it’s entirely possible they could stage a recovery.
Also in Arabia, the Nahbani Dynasty of Oman has begun to push strongly against Hormuz. The Omanis are far more capable in land combat than their maritime neighbors are, and they have begun to push strongly into the Musandam Peninsula. The Hormuzites have begun to struggle in recent years as their profits drop with the rise of new competitors, chiefly the Yemenis of Aden and the Indians of the Gujarat cities. This has put them not only into the crosshairs of the Nahbani, who hate them due a long-running religious dispute between the Sunnis and the Ibadis which in this part of the world is more bitter than it is elsewhere, but also those of the Qutlughids. Arslan II is almost salivating at the thought of complete control of the Gulf, and he is willing to go to extraordinary lengths to secure the keystone of this trade-rich region. The Ma’danis, who make up the majority of the south Mesopotamian swamps, are uncooperative due to their fanatical Shi’ism, and in his desperation to secure the Gulf, Arslan has begun to look to other sources of potential sailors and shipbuilders. In fact, he has spent a dispatch to Trebizond, asking if the aftokrator would allow him to settle Ponts in his own realm to build a navy for him.
To the east, India is mostly unchanged from our timeline, albeit with the significant asterisk that the Timurids do not appear to be in any position to stage their miraculous comeback as the Mughals as they did in our timeline. As previously mentioned, the afore-time rise of the Bukharan Empire has effectively crippled them, the few surviving dynastic states circling the drain as native Afghans and Khorasanis increase in importance. It is entirely possible that the final Timurid state may collapse less than a century after their founder’s demise. The Lodi Sultanate is still standing strong, with not potential threats from the north or the west, leaving them free to utterly fail to convert the local Hindus to the true faith. The Bengal Sultanate is essentially the same as in our timeline, albeit slightly more less repressive, as the presence of a large, menacing rival of the same faith has caused their sultans to try and balance the interests of their Muslim and Hindu subjects to keep their heads still on the shoulders. On the southern tip of the peninsula, Vijayanagar is at its height, having crushed the Bahmanis in a long and bloody war that concluded with the shattering of the Deccan states. The Hindus are now making a comeback on the plateau, with adventurers and peasant rebels carving their own chunks of the weak rump states of the region. Across Adam’s Bridge, meanwhile, a third Sinhalese kingdom has risen, with its capital at Trincomalee, and is in the process of expelling the Tamils of Jaffna from the island in what is shaping up to be a long and bloody campaign that will likely take several decades to complete.
Outside of India, not much has changed in the eastern parts of the world. The Siamese are still rising as in our timeline, although they have not yet completely supplanted the Khmer, who still manage to cling on in the ruins of Angkor Wat. Great Viet is also rising, having incorporated most of TL-1’s Vietnam and Laos. It appears as if the two states will eventually become rivals for the control of Indochina, though of course neither of them could even hope to match the raw power of the Ming Dynasty, which is near its height. The Tumu Incident, in which the Yingzong Empire was captured by the Oirats, who then proclaimed a revival of the Yuan Dynasty before collapsing due to infighting, appears to be averted, but just as little came of the crisis in TL-1, even less came of its lack of occurrence in TL-L(843). In Korea, the Joseon Dynasty rules as it did in OTL, and just as in OTL Japan is wracked by internal struggle in the Sengoku Jidai or Warring States Period. The Onin War resulted in disaster for the Ashikaga shoguns as it did in our timeline, and since then the shoguns have had no control outside of Kyoto. The provinces are ruled by individual noble families, who share the common tenet of hating the shogun more than they hate each other.
The only major anomaly in East Asia, apart from a few date discrepancies in proclamations made in Nusantara, is the establishment of the Ainu Kingdom. It appears the Koshamain’s War did not break out in the 1450s but instead the 1460s, by which point the shogun was distracted with the Onin War and unable to send aid to the northern fortresses. As such, Koshamain and his followers were able to overwhelm the Matsume on Hokkaido and drive the Japanese from the island, creating their own hybrid tribal-mandala modeled off of the similar government system in China and their own traditional forms of government. This state, the Ash Dynasty (literally, ‘The Steadfast Dynasty), has managed to establish control over all of Hokkaido, as well as establish tributaries on Sakhalin and the Kurils. They live scattered across the island, but their chief cities are Hakodate, a Japanese fortress on the southern tip of the island, and Otaru, a pilgrimage center and the capital of the newly-established kingdom. Farmers live across the hills and plains, but many still hunt and many more fish for their living. The emperor--the Ainuaynumosir Emperor (Koshamain) until his death in 1493, then the Ekashiba Emperor since--has near absolute power in all things above the village level, but villages are allowed to self-govern so long as they pay their taxes. The Ash Dynasty is a strange and fascinating country, but I will save the rest for the official report on them, to be submitted at a later date. Notably, however, they are tributaries of the Great Ming, presumably in hopes of staving off Japanese invasion upon their reunification. Presumably, as with most tributaries, Chinese artisans will be imported and doubtless have an impact on Ainu culture, but it’s unlikely that even this can fundamentally alter the nature of these strange people[1].
Further south, across the great breadth of the Pacific, lies Nusantara. As previously mentioned, there is little that has changed here, other than a few exact dates that were thrown off by a couple of days, or sometimes even weeks. The Sultanate of Malacca continues to rise in prominence as guarantor of passage through the Straits, but their Islamic nature has left them having to deal with an alliance of Hindu-Buddhist states against them, as well as the Acehnese, who consider them to be heretics. Some things never change. Beyond Malacca, Sumatra is essentially identical to what it was in TL-1, with a number of small principalities along both costs vying for control of the pepper-producing regions in the highlands. To the east lies Java, where things are only slightly different from in our timeline. The Demak Sultanate reformed a decade earlier than it normally does and as such was able to keep up the war against the ailing Majapahit, which finally fell in 1498. The great city, which had once been the greatest spice trading port in all the world and the emporium of the seven seas, whose streets had once been whispered of as being paved in golden cobblestones and whose walls had once been cased with copper, was put to the sack. Several decades of decline meant that there wasn’t much to actually be looted, but the symbolic blow was still a great one. The only state to have once unified all of Nusantara had now faded away into history, eclipsed by her younger neighbors. A bitter end for the kingdom of the bitter fruit.
Yet further beyond lies the Kingdom of Wehali, occupying the OTL island of Timor. The Wehalites are thoroughly unremarkable as Nusantaran states go, with their only major trading products being sandalwood and candleberry, neither of which are in especially great demand. However, in 1497, a Wehaliate vessel drifted out into the Timorean Sea and made landfall on Australia, which was reported as being a strange and exotic island. Several strange beasts were sighted, but this did not prevent the Wehalite court from dispatching a series of expeditions to determine if this new land could be used for growing spices.
Finally, there are the Polynesians, who are going about as normal, bar only their anomalous contact with the Andean civilizations.
This concludes the Global Overview of 1500 in Timeline L-843.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
[1] All of this is because of a secondary PoD. I’ll admit I’m not the fondest of secondary PoDs, but the potential to create a vibrant Ainu state was too good to pass up, especially considering how they are neglected in most proper timelines.
Lol I don't have any plans on dropping it. I'd be a pretty shitty Basileus Komnenos (pun intended) if I didn't continue with the tl about the Komnenian restoration of the Empire.
I was blown away by how much people enjoyed it though. Though as for a pending update, what happened is that the drive I stored all my notes and outlines for that tl failed, so I was a bit pissed for a while because I had to start from scratch for some of the next few chapters. Then I saw you started writing this amazing gem of a tl which piqued my interest.
Its pretty well researched as well. What sources are you using for the 15th Century? I couldn't really find very much on Trebizond for this period when I looked. Most of the focus of late medieval and early renaissance scholarship for this goes towards the fall of Byzantium and the Rise of the Ottomans.
Eparkhos
Banned
I'm using an ecclectic mix of Google Books, free internet resources and mentions in a handful of physical books I have. Most useful is probably Arms and the Military in Late Byzantine Society, as the Trapezuntines kept most of the Komnenoi institutions.
Why the crickets?
Part XXVIII: The War of the Lithuanian Succession (1498-1501)
Eparkhos
Banned
Part XXVIII: The War of the Lithuanian Succession (1498-1501)
Upon the death of Kazimierz IV, his empire shattered. His eldest son, Vladislaus, had been co-king of Bohemia alongside Matthew the Raven for a decade and a half[1], but he was unwilling to assume complete control over his father’s vast realm, preferring to remain with his subjects in Prague. As such, the many crowns of King Kazimierz were divided between his other sons. His second son, Jan Olbracht, was crowned as King of Poland, while his third son, Aleksandras, became Grand Duke of Lithuania. Finally, the youngest son, Sigismund, became Duke of Pomeralia and Lord of the Prussian Confederation, effectively ruling the lands which his father had seized from the Teutons.
This sudden division caused a myriad of problems. Vadislaus and Sigismund were alright, but Poland and Lithuania, the former heartlands of the Jagiellon dynasty, were soon facing dozens of brewing conflicts. Kazimierz had kept taxes in Poland almost ridiculously low to mollify the local nobility, drawing most of his funds from his possessions in Lithuania. With no Lithuanian reserves to draw upon, Jan Olbracht was forced to raise taxes, which made the szlachta thoroughly despise him. In fact, even raising the taxes was a hard-fought battle, as the sejm blocked every attempted reform he made for three entire years before finally granting concessions. However, this came with a price; the sejm would have the ability to veto any appointment made by the king. Jan Olbracht chafed at this, but eventually agreed, relieved to be able to finally pay back the Italian money-lenders who were circling him like sharks. He soon realized his error in 1495, when the sejm refused to allow him to appoint a general to lead a relief expedition to Lithuania, and so he was forced to watch impotently as his brother’s kingdom burned.
The chief problem facing Lithuania was not internal disputes, as was the case in Poland, although this was still a major concern, as many of the Lithuanian nobles despised Aleksandras. Instead, Lithuania was beset on all sides by hostile neighbors. To the east, the Russian states eyed the increasingly weak state as a bank whose stolen wealth could be used to finance their wars, and to the north the Teutons and Livonians were smarting for revenge against the dynasts who had driven them out of Prussia. However, the gravest threat was to the east, where Ahmed Sultan had recovered his control of the Golden Horde and was eying up Lithuania as a route for expansion. In 1498, after recovering from the disaster in Georgia, Ahmed led an army across the Dnieper and ravaged the lands across the river, going as far west as the Tylihul before returning to his pastures, a great train of slaves of other such loot following him home. Aleksandras marshalled an army and marched to meet him, intercepting the Mongol army at Yavkyne. The resulting battle was a massacre, the Lithuanian army being encircled by the mounted archers and ground to a pulp. Aleksandras barely escaped with his life, he and a few other knights managing to escape on a river barge. This was the spark that lit the powder keg, and within a few months all of Lithuania was aflame.
With the king revealed to be fully incompetent, the nobility of Lithuania rose in revolt. Mykolas Glinskis[2], a magnate whose lands occupied the heavily-raided eastern frontier, was the first to revolt in late 1498, raising the standard of Jan Olbracht, whom he formally invited to take the throne a few weeks later. He was quickly joined by much of the eastern nobility, who hoped for a strong ruler to help defend their lands from Russian and Tartar incursions. The irony of trying to install the weak king of Poland to fulfill this desire was apparently lost upon them. Within a few months, Glinkis’ rebellion had spread across all the east of Lithuania, with most of the nobility either defecting or declaring their neutrality. A handful of nobles stayed loyal, however, led by Konstanty Ostrogiškis[3], who was able to muster some 5,000 men against Glinskis’ 8,000. Lithuania, like Poland was also deeply in debt, and so neither side was able to bolster their strength with mercenary hosts, although Glinskis was able to rally a few Tartar light horsemen to supplement his knights. The winter of 1498-1499 saw negotiations between the two parties fail, and in the spring the two armies began probing each other’s positions.
Meanwhile, over in Poland, Jan Olbracht was attempting to join his supporters in Lithuania. However, he was being held up by obstructionists in both the sejm and in the eastern duchies. Many of the Polish nobles thought that having a weak king and thus being able to exercise however many ‘rights’ they wished, was more important the geopolitical power that would be brought by the annexation of Lithuania, and so were opposed to Jan Olbracht’s desire to intervene. Chief among these was Konrad the Rudy, the Duke of Mazovia. In the much-reduced Polish kingdom, Konrad had become a king-maker, with his support needed for any faction hoping to enact anything major. However, in a reunified Poland-Lithuania, his power would be significantly reduced, and thus he was vehemently opposed to any plans of reunification. He succeeded in stalling Jan Olbracht for a year and a half until, with the king even going so far as to threaten to assassinate Konrad if he did not give in. During this time, Jan Olbracht could do little but send funds--very limited funds--to his Lithuanian supporters, with which they could hire mercenaries. Finally, in mid-1501, Konrad relented in exchange for the promise of vast tracts of land in Lithuania, and the Polish army was joined by a sizable number of Mazovians.
It was fortuitous, because Polish force was needed to help the pro-Jan Olbracht faction’s numerous handicaps. Although Glinskis had the initial advantage in terms of numbers and general support, the fractious nature of his cause made it difficult for him to rally these resources, and he spent more time mediating between his subordinates than he did actually campaigning. Ostrogiškis, on the other hand, was more of an autocrat than Aleksandras was, able to order his followers about at will and was thus able to coordinate strategic maneuvers in a way Glinskis could not, which gave him a slight edge against the rebels. He could also completely withdraw from or march into areas without concern for the properties of his subordinates which, once again, was not something Glinski could do. Finally, he had control over the capital, Vilnius, and thus access to the state treasury and tax collection system, which allowed him to keep his army well-supplied, while Glinski had to beg, borrow and steal from the landowners whose regions he controlled.
The campaign season of 1499 saw fighting primarily around the northern Dnieper. As soon as the roads were navigable once again in late May[4], Ostrogiškis rushed eastward to try and seize the royal armory at Smolensk. However, he was beaten to the city by rebel forces, and the loyalists soon found themselves beating a hasty retreat back along the northern bank of the river. A force of over-eager cossacks rushed ahead of the main force and were shattered at the fords of the Drut north of Drutsk. This left the two armies at a rough status quo, but the strategic position had been changed. Ostrogiškis had planned to seize Smolensk and then use it to pin the rebels on the right bank of the Dnieper, eventually surrounding and crushing them. Now, however, he would be forced onto the defensive. However, the ever-active mind of the great general soon evolved a new plan. With hostile intervention from Poland a possibility at any time, he would use the broad and defensible Neman to anchor his flank, then deploy his forces along the roads eastward. He would draw the rebels in to the gap between the fortress cities of Minsk and Kreva, where they could be cut off and defeated. Glinskis, meanwhile, was hesitant to attack before support from Poland could arrive. As such, he was very cautious, and that year limited his advancement to assaults on the fortresses of Drutsk, in mid-July, then onward to the former royal residence at Barysaw in late August. However, he was mindful enough to send a sizeable force north-east to cut the roads to the fortresses of the northern frontier, where a large potential reserve force was waiting to be marshalled.
The standoff continued into the winter and spring of 1500. Deciding that he had to do something, Glinskis took the offensive, unknowingly doing so only a few weeks before Ostrogiškis would have yielded more ground. In late June, the rebels marched north-east from Barysaw, reaching the banks of the Nevis River, which flows directly into Vilnius itself, without a fight. With his forces caught out of position, Ostrogiškis rushed north with the left flank of his army to block their advance, while his right swung around to cut off their retreat. The resulting Battle of Smarhon was fought on 12 July, near the small fortress on the river banks. Both forces were tired, but the loyalists were able to form up quickly and were able to batter down the rebel vanguard before their cavalry could be deployed. The lines then joined ranks, fighting for over an hour before the rebels withdrew. Losses were light--less than 3,000, overall--but Glinskis was forced to withdraw by the arrival of the right flank in their rear, which forced a hasty withdrawal back to Barysaw. The two forces would remain in roughly the same position through the rest of the season, the rebel cause gradually shedding men as they failed to make headway.
Ostrogiškis was preparing for a final offensive to crush the rebels against the Dnieper the following spring. A number of fence-sitters had rallied to him after Smarhon, and he now saw an opportunity to crush the rebels against the banks of the Dnieper, hopefully breaking the back of the insurrection in one blow. However, this plan was scuppered by the arrival of a Polish army in mid-1501. Seeing his final opportunity for survival, Ostrogiškis immediately abandoned his defensive works and force-marched towards the approaching host. On 2 July, the two hosts spotted each other and the Poles rushed into battle formations. However, instead of attacking, the Lithuanian general rode out between the lines. He knelt before the king, explained that he was fighting out of loyalty to the throne not because of loyalty to Aleksandras, and that he now recognized him as Grand Duke. Recognizing it for what it was--an attempt to jump ship, but still an opportunity to pacify the Lithuanians--Jan Olbracht accepted his pledge of loyalty. The combined host then marched on Vilnius, where Jan Olbracht was crowned as Grand Duke of Lithuania, taking the first step to restoring his father’s empire.
The obvious question in all of this is where was Aleksandras? It was in his name that Ostrogiškis, and one would reason that he would join in to preserve his throne. However, he was nowhere to be found. After the disaster at Tylihul, the Grand Duke had fled to the Black Sea littoral of his realm. He holed up in the small maritime fortress of Ginestra, where he remained for the next few days. Nominally, this was because the continued Mongol raids required his presence to protect the region, but in fact it was cowardice. When word reached him of the surrender of Ostrogiškis, he lost any hope he had left of recovering the grand duchy and turned to flight. He gathered up a host of mercenaries and loyalists and fled from Ginestra, not entirely sure of his plan but confident that he could escape his brother’s coming wrath.
After a turbulent crossing of the Black Sea, the former Grand Duke made landfall near Sinope. It was an immense relief, as he and his followers had nearly been sunk several times on their crossing, but he did not have long to celebrate it. The sudden appearance of this strange force had caused the local bandons to be mustered out, and within a few hours Aleksandras was surrounded by several hundred militiamen. In probably the only moment of valor in his life, the Lithuanian rallied his men and tried to make a breakout, only to be utterly slaughtered as more and more bandons appeared. Aleksandras himself was clapped in chains and dragged to Trapezous, where he was thrown before the aftokrator. Alexandros had been distracted with an ongoing family dispute (more on that later), but the insolence of this Latin was infuriating to him. Disregarding his status and rank--well, actually, he did pay a great deal of attention to it, as it was the only thing keeping Aleksandras’ head on his shoulders--he had the noblemen stripped naked and beaten, then tied up outside the palace gate to be mocked by the poor while he figured out what to do with him.
Alexandros sent an embassy under his brother, Basileios Megalos Komnenos, to Krakow. Jan Olbracht was busy with the intricacies of bringing Poland and Lithuania together in formal, not just personal, union, but he was eager to get his hands on his idiot brother and thus remove one of the greatest threats to his rule. He offered the Trapezuntines twenty thousand pounds of gold[5] in exchange for Aleksandras, but this was rebuffed. The Trapezuntines did not want gold or coin, they had more than enough of both. Not that they would refuse it, to be sure, but there were still more important things. One of the chief demands of Alexandros was that the Poles and Lithuanians extend a former declaration of protection over his realm. There were few states that the Ottomans feared, and he would not pass up the opportunity to bring one of them to his defense. Jan Olbracht considered this fair, and was about to agree before Basileios inserted the final clause. The king’s closest brother, Fryderyk, would be taken to Trapezous as a hostage. Seeing this as an insult to his honor, Jan Olbracht had the Pont thrown out on his ear. A few weeks later, a second embassy arrived in Krakow, led by the aftokrator’s far more diplomatic half-brother, Basileios Mgeli. Mgeli flattered the King, telling him of how the insults which the previous embassy had been egregious and completely unsanctioned, and of how it was entirely right for him to expel him. Mgeli told Jan Olbracht that the Trapezuntines would greatly reduce their demands to apologize for this insolence. They would ask for only 15,000 pounds of gold and the fortress of Ginestra, which was the only formerly Genoese possession in the Black Sea the Trapezuntines hadn’t been able to con-- protect. Olbracht considered this acceptable, and promised to turn over Ginestra when his brother was given over to him. Mgeli also convinced him to enter into an anti-Ottoman defensive pact. After all, there was nothing for either of them to gain by allowing the Sublime Porte to increase in size and strength, and so they should act together, as Christian brothers, to stem the tide of the Islamic hordes which surrounded their beacons of light.
Aleksandras was returned to Lithuania in early 1503, and shortly afterwards a Trapezuntine garrison was installed in Ginestra. It would prove to be excellent timing, for only a few months later Trapezous would be plunged into a crisis similar to Lithuania’s…..
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[1] This is Matthais Hunyadi. ‘Matthew the Raven’ is just such a badass name that I find myself compelled to use it.
[2] Better known as Michael Glinski. Funnily enough, I actually killed him off in ‘Gog and Magog’ but accidently left it out, so he’s still alive and kicking.
[3] Better known as Konstanty Ostrogski, he is most notable in OTL for participating in a crusade against Muscovy in spite of being Orthodox himself.
[4] The same road-destroying rains that plagued Napoleon and Hitler effected the moving of the two factions.
[5] This is actually a surprisingly small ransom; the ransom for Richard I of England, whose realm was about as valuable as Lithuania, had a ransom of some 150,000 pounds of silver.
Upon the death of Kazimierz IV, his empire shattered. His eldest son, Vladislaus, had been co-king of Bohemia alongside Matthew the Raven for a decade and a half[1], but he was unwilling to assume complete control over his father’s vast realm, preferring to remain with his subjects in Prague. As such, the many crowns of King Kazimierz were divided between his other sons. His second son, Jan Olbracht, was crowned as King of Poland, while his third son, Aleksandras, became Grand Duke of Lithuania. Finally, the youngest son, Sigismund, became Duke of Pomeralia and Lord of the Prussian Confederation, effectively ruling the lands which his father had seized from the Teutons.
This sudden division caused a myriad of problems. Vadislaus and Sigismund were alright, but Poland and Lithuania, the former heartlands of the Jagiellon dynasty, were soon facing dozens of brewing conflicts. Kazimierz had kept taxes in Poland almost ridiculously low to mollify the local nobility, drawing most of his funds from his possessions in Lithuania. With no Lithuanian reserves to draw upon, Jan Olbracht was forced to raise taxes, which made the szlachta thoroughly despise him. In fact, even raising the taxes was a hard-fought battle, as the sejm blocked every attempted reform he made for three entire years before finally granting concessions. However, this came with a price; the sejm would have the ability to veto any appointment made by the king. Jan Olbracht chafed at this, but eventually agreed, relieved to be able to finally pay back the Italian money-lenders who were circling him like sharks. He soon realized his error in 1495, when the sejm refused to allow him to appoint a general to lead a relief expedition to Lithuania, and so he was forced to watch impotently as his brother’s kingdom burned.
The chief problem facing Lithuania was not internal disputes, as was the case in Poland, although this was still a major concern, as many of the Lithuanian nobles despised Aleksandras. Instead, Lithuania was beset on all sides by hostile neighbors. To the east, the Russian states eyed the increasingly weak state as a bank whose stolen wealth could be used to finance their wars, and to the north the Teutons and Livonians were smarting for revenge against the dynasts who had driven them out of Prussia. However, the gravest threat was to the east, where Ahmed Sultan had recovered his control of the Golden Horde and was eying up Lithuania as a route for expansion. In 1498, after recovering from the disaster in Georgia, Ahmed led an army across the Dnieper and ravaged the lands across the river, going as far west as the Tylihul before returning to his pastures, a great train of slaves of other such loot following him home. Aleksandras marshalled an army and marched to meet him, intercepting the Mongol army at Yavkyne. The resulting battle was a massacre, the Lithuanian army being encircled by the mounted archers and ground to a pulp. Aleksandras barely escaped with his life, he and a few other knights managing to escape on a river barge. This was the spark that lit the powder keg, and within a few months all of Lithuania was aflame.
With the king revealed to be fully incompetent, the nobility of Lithuania rose in revolt. Mykolas Glinskis[2], a magnate whose lands occupied the heavily-raided eastern frontier, was the first to revolt in late 1498, raising the standard of Jan Olbracht, whom he formally invited to take the throne a few weeks later. He was quickly joined by much of the eastern nobility, who hoped for a strong ruler to help defend their lands from Russian and Tartar incursions. The irony of trying to install the weak king of Poland to fulfill this desire was apparently lost upon them. Within a few months, Glinkis’ rebellion had spread across all the east of Lithuania, with most of the nobility either defecting or declaring their neutrality. A handful of nobles stayed loyal, however, led by Konstanty Ostrogiškis[3], who was able to muster some 5,000 men against Glinskis’ 8,000. Lithuania, like Poland was also deeply in debt, and so neither side was able to bolster their strength with mercenary hosts, although Glinskis was able to rally a few Tartar light horsemen to supplement his knights. The winter of 1498-1499 saw negotiations between the two parties fail, and in the spring the two armies began probing each other’s positions.
Meanwhile, over in Poland, Jan Olbracht was attempting to join his supporters in Lithuania. However, he was being held up by obstructionists in both the sejm and in the eastern duchies. Many of the Polish nobles thought that having a weak king and thus being able to exercise however many ‘rights’ they wished, was more important the geopolitical power that would be brought by the annexation of Lithuania, and so were opposed to Jan Olbracht’s desire to intervene. Chief among these was Konrad the Rudy, the Duke of Mazovia. In the much-reduced Polish kingdom, Konrad had become a king-maker, with his support needed for any faction hoping to enact anything major. However, in a reunified Poland-Lithuania, his power would be significantly reduced, and thus he was vehemently opposed to any plans of reunification. He succeeded in stalling Jan Olbracht for a year and a half until, with the king even going so far as to threaten to assassinate Konrad if he did not give in. During this time, Jan Olbracht could do little but send funds--very limited funds--to his Lithuanian supporters, with which they could hire mercenaries. Finally, in mid-1501, Konrad relented in exchange for the promise of vast tracts of land in Lithuania, and the Polish army was joined by a sizable number of Mazovians.
It was fortuitous, because Polish force was needed to help the pro-Jan Olbracht faction’s numerous handicaps. Although Glinskis had the initial advantage in terms of numbers and general support, the fractious nature of his cause made it difficult for him to rally these resources, and he spent more time mediating between his subordinates than he did actually campaigning. Ostrogiškis, on the other hand, was more of an autocrat than Aleksandras was, able to order his followers about at will and was thus able to coordinate strategic maneuvers in a way Glinskis could not, which gave him a slight edge against the rebels. He could also completely withdraw from or march into areas without concern for the properties of his subordinates which, once again, was not something Glinski could do. Finally, he had control over the capital, Vilnius, and thus access to the state treasury and tax collection system, which allowed him to keep his army well-supplied, while Glinski had to beg, borrow and steal from the landowners whose regions he controlled.
The campaign season of 1499 saw fighting primarily around the northern Dnieper. As soon as the roads were navigable once again in late May[4], Ostrogiškis rushed eastward to try and seize the royal armory at Smolensk. However, he was beaten to the city by rebel forces, and the loyalists soon found themselves beating a hasty retreat back along the northern bank of the river. A force of over-eager cossacks rushed ahead of the main force and were shattered at the fords of the Drut north of Drutsk. This left the two armies at a rough status quo, but the strategic position had been changed. Ostrogiškis had planned to seize Smolensk and then use it to pin the rebels on the right bank of the Dnieper, eventually surrounding and crushing them. Now, however, he would be forced onto the defensive. However, the ever-active mind of the great general soon evolved a new plan. With hostile intervention from Poland a possibility at any time, he would use the broad and defensible Neman to anchor his flank, then deploy his forces along the roads eastward. He would draw the rebels in to the gap between the fortress cities of Minsk and Kreva, where they could be cut off and defeated. Glinskis, meanwhile, was hesitant to attack before support from Poland could arrive. As such, he was very cautious, and that year limited his advancement to assaults on the fortresses of Drutsk, in mid-July, then onward to the former royal residence at Barysaw in late August. However, he was mindful enough to send a sizeable force north-east to cut the roads to the fortresses of the northern frontier, where a large potential reserve force was waiting to be marshalled.
The standoff continued into the winter and spring of 1500. Deciding that he had to do something, Glinskis took the offensive, unknowingly doing so only a few weeks before Ostrogiškis would have yielded more ground. In late June, the rebels marched north-east from Barysaw, reaching the banks of the Nevis River, which flows directly into Vilnius itself, without a fight. With his forces caught out of position, Ostrogiškis rushed north with the left flank of his army to block their advance, while his right swung around to cut off their retreat. The resulting Battle of Smarhon was fought on 12 July, near the small fortress on the river banks. Both forces were tired, but the loyalists were able to form up quickly and were able to batter down the rebel vanguard before their cavalry could be deployed. The lines then joined ranks, fighting for over an hour before the rebels withdrew. Losses were light--less than 3,000, overall--but Glinskis was forced to withdraw by the arrival of the right flank in their rear, which forced a hasty withdrawal back to Barysaw. The two forces would remain in roughly the same position through the rest of the season, the rebel cause gradually shedding men as they failed to make headway.
Ostrogiškis was preparing for a final offensive to crush the rebels against the Dnieper the following spring. A number of fence-sitters had rallied to him after Smarhon, and he now saw an opportunity to crush the rebels against the banks of the Dnieper, hopefully breaking the back of the insurrection in one blow. However, this plan was scuppered by the arrival of a Polish army in mid-1501. Seeing his final opportunity for survival, Ostrogiškis immediately abandoned his defensive works and force-marched towards the approaching host. On 2 July, the two hosts spotted each other and the Poles rushed into battle formations. However, instead of attacking, the Lithuanian general rode out between the lines. He knelt before the king, explained that he was fighting out of loyalty to the throne not because of loyalty to Aleksandras, and that he now recognized him as Grand Duke. Recognizing it for what it was--an attempt to jump ship, but still an opportunity to pacify the Lithuanians--Jan Olbracht accepted his pledge of loyalty. The combined host then marched on Vilnius, where Jan Olbracht was crowned as Grand Duke of Lithuania, taking the first step to restoring his father’s empire.
The obvious question in all of this is where was Aleksandras? It was in his name that Ostrogiškis, and one would reason that he would join in to preserve his throne. However, he was nowhere to be found. After the disaster at Tylihul, the Grand Duke had fled to the Black Sea littoral of his realm. He holed up in the small maritime fortress of Ginestra, where he remained for the next few days. Nominally, this was because the continued Mongol raids required his presence to protect the region, but in fact it was cowardice. When word reached him of the surrender of Ostrogiškis, he lost any hope he had left of recovering the grand duchy and turned to flight. He gathered up a host of mercenaries and loyalists and fled from Ginestra, not entirely sure of his plan but confident that he could escape his brother’s coming wrath.
After a turbulent crossing of the Black Sea, the former Grand Duke made landfall near Sinope. It was an immense relief, as he and his followers had nearly been sunk several times on their crossing, but he did not have long to celebrate it. The sudden appearance of this strange force had caused the local bandons to be mustered out, and within a few hours Aleksandras was surrounded by several hundred militiamen. In probably the only moment of valor in his life, the Lithuanian rallied his men and tried to make a breakout, only to be utterly slaughtered as more and more bandons appeared. Aleksandras himself was clapped in chains and dragged to Trapezous, where he was thrown before the aftokrator. Alexandros had been distracted with an ongoing family dispute (more on that later), but the insolence of this Latin was infuriating to him. Disregarding his status and rank--well, actually, he did pay a great deal of attention to it, as it was the only thing keeping Aleksandras’ head on his shoulders--he had the noblemen stripped naked and beaten, then tied up outside the palace gate to be mocked by the poor while he figured out what to do with him.
Alexandros sent an embassy under his brother, Basileios Megalos Komnenos, to Krakow. Jan Olbracht was busy with the intricacies of bringing Poland and Lithuania together in formal, not just personal, union, but he was eager to get his hands on his idiot brother and thus remove one of the greatest threats to his rule. He offered the Trapezuntines twenty thousand pounds of gold[5] in exchange for Aleksandras, but this was rebuffed. The Trapezuntines did not want gold or coin, they had more than enough of both. Not that they would refuse it, to be sure, but there were still more important things. One of the chief demands of Alexandros was that the Poles and Lithuanians extend a former declaration of protection over his realm. There were few states that the Ottomans feared, and he would not pass up the opportunity to bring one of them to his defense. Jan Olbracht considered this fair, and was about to agree before Basileios inserted the final clause. The king’s closest brother, Fryderyk, would be taken to Trapezous as a hostage. Seeing this as an insult to his honor, Jan Olbracht had the Pont thrown out on his ear. A few weeks later, a second embassy arrived in Krakow, led by the aftokrator’s far more diplomatic half-brother, Basileios Mgeli. Mgeli flattered the King, telling him of how the insults which the previous embassy had been egregious and completely unsanctioned, and of how it was entirely right for him to expel him. Mgeli told Jan Olbracht that the Trapezuntines would greatly reduce their demands to apologize for this insolence. They would ask for only 15,000 pounds of gold and the fortress of Ginestra, which was the only formerly Genoese possession in the Black Sea the Trapezuntines hadn’t been able to con-- protect. Olbracht considered this acceptable, and promised to turn over Ginestra when his brother was given over to him. Mgeli also convinced him to enter into an anti-Ottoman defensive pact. After all, there was nothing for either of them to gain by allowing the Sublime Porte to increase in size and strength, and so they should act together, as Christian brothers, to stem the tide of the Islamic hordes which surrounded their beacons of light.
Aleksandras was returned to Lithuania in early 1503, and shortly afterwards a Trapezuntine garrison was installed in Ginestra. It would prove to be excellent timing, for only a few months later Trapezous would be plunged into a crisis similar to Lithuania’s…..
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
[1] This is Matthais Hunyadi. ‘Matthew the Raven’ is just such a badass name that I find myself compelled to use it.
[2] Better known as Michael Glinski. Funnily enough, I actually killed him off in ‘Gog and Magog’ but accidently left it out, so he’s still alive and kicking.
[3] Better known as Konstanty Ostrogski, he is most notable in OTL for participating in a crusade against Muscovy in spite of being Orthodox himself.
[4] The same road-destroying rains that plagued Napoleon and Hitler effected the moving of the two factions.
[5] This is actually a surprisingly small ransom; the ransom for Richard I of England, whose realm was about as valuable as Lithuania, had a ransom of some 150,000 pounds of silver.
But gold, not silver, and gold was 20-30/1 to silver. Also, Richard was ransomed by his supporters; Aleksandras by his enemies. Why should Jan Olbracht pay such a huge price just to have Aleksandras as a prisoner, when Aleksandras is a powerless fugitive?
I’m really hoping for a strong Poland-Lithuania in this timeline. I’ve see so many started and then aborted attempts at it I would love to see a complete one, even if it’s secondary to the real stars of the timeline.
Its also great to see the trade empire expand across the Black Sea. I’m interested to see if they start any other new Colony’s or take any other cities.
Its also great to see the trade empire expand across the Black Sea. I’m interested to see if they start any other new Colony’s or take any other cities.
Same, although I think this Poland-Lithuania would not be the same as OTL PLC. Instead, Jan Olbracht could create a more absolutist system around himself as he seriously beats the Sejm into submission while uniting Lithuania into Poland proper through more direct control and increased polonization.
My reaction reading this:
The idea of a centralized and strong Polish state is really quite fascinating. Maybe the Jagellion will be the big kid on the block in Eastern/Central Europe as as sort of parallel to the Habsburgs of otl.
Yes, I am very interested in what an absolutist Jagiellon Poland could do in terms of European politics and Jan Olbracht could be the first steps toward achieving that reality, especially doing so against the Russians and the revitalized Mongols. All in all.....
POLAND CAN INTO EMPIRE.
Novogrod and Muscovy: What is that strange music playing in the background? Wait why is it getting louder.
My reaction reading this:
The idea of a centralized and strong Polish state is really quite fascinating. Maybe the Jagellion will be the big kid on the block in Eastern/Central Europe as as sort of parallel to the Habsburgs of otl.
It makes sense that Jan Olbracht would be able to use the threat of the Russians and the Golden Horde breathing down their necks to solidify control over Poland and Lithuania. Especially if he was able to use the fractious nature of the Sejm to divide and conquer it. The sooner they get rid of the most horrifically corrupt and obstructive legislature ever devised the better.
Yeah, I could see Jan Olbracht use the concurrent Civil War and the looming threat of Muscovy and the Golden Horse to justify the purge of the Sejm. From there, the history of the Jagiellons would be forever changed.
Given the destruction of Ottoman hegemony over the Balkans and the possible rise of Poland, the Habsburgs would be extremely neutered compared to their original counterparts. I would be very excited to see a strong Jagiellon Poland on top of a powerful Hunyadi Hungary with this development.
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