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I've become accustomed to seeing TLs promulgate throughout this site with quite overused PODs for keeping the Byzantine Empire alive and a major power, i.e. victory at Manzikert or no blind Doge of Venice with delusions of grandeur. One I haven't seen speculation on yet, however, is whether the campaigns of Timur (Tamerlane) which decapitated the Ottoman Empire for eleven years in our world could have reasonably been so ruinous as to destroy the Ottoman Empire beyond recovery. If Timur had not turned east to settle a rivalry with China but had elected to pursue his enemy up to the Bosporous, what might have happened?
In OTL, Timur defeated Bayezid at Ankara in 1402 and died three years later from fever contracted from his campaign in China (he was considerably aged at this point).
According to my sources Timur stated his intention as reaffirming Seljuk sovereignty in Anatolia. What if Timur had eradicated all remnants of the Ottoman Empire, sweeping across Asia Minor as he did in Persia and the Middle East, and placed a Seljuk state in its wake? Would the Byzantines ally with the Timurids to boot the Ottomans out of the Balkans and regain their former territories in Thrace and Bulgaria?
Or, on the other hand, is the survival of the Ottoman Empire assured regardless of Timur's best efforts, and the fall of Byzantium just as certain?
Thoughts? Should I further pursue this idea?
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