Chungus Maximus
Banned
The Russian Empire in our timeline conquered central Asian Turkish peoples as part of their empire building. What if they decided to conquer Anatolian Turks, who had more natural resources and farmland, instead?
There was a certain mildly ill but still unnegligible European man in the way.
The Russian Empire in our timeline conquered central Asian Turkish peoples as part of their empire building. What if they decided to conquer Anatolian Turks, who had more natural resources and farmland, instead?
I mean, the central Asian Turks were also mighty. Tamerlane, for example.
To do this Russia had to “pacify” Caucasus or at least Western part of it. And by the time this was accomplished whatever the Ottoman Empire possessed in the terms of the natural resources and farmland in Anatolia was rather unimportant from the Russian perspective. Conquest of the CA had been backed by the following main considerations:The Russian Empire in our timeline conquered central Asian Turkish peoples as part of their empire building. What if they decided to conquer Anatolian Turks, who had more natural resources and farmland, instead?
I mean, the central Asian Turks were also mighty. Tamerlane, for example.
Conquering Constantinople and, even more extravagantly, reviving the Byzantine Empire had been a foreign policy goals of the Tsars for centuries. The desire was there - implementation was the issue.
Meanwhile, the Ottoman state is in another league, compared to the central Asians. It had held together a state encompassing most of the Middle East all through the 1700s, and while they start suffering noticeably in the 1800s (losing provinces north and south) their hold on Anatolia didn't waver. Their military modernization efforts, while difficult and increasingly successful as the 1800s wore on, made impressive strides. Plus, when you're messing with the Ottomans, you're messing with Western Europe-- the OE sits astride too many important naval routes to be abandoned to the Russians, and the British and French went to war in Crimea to prove this point. By contrast, landlocked Central Asia is less strategically important to Russia's rivals. Only Britain really has an interest in it, and they're just trying to make sure Russia doesn't use it as a route to invade India.
As a target, Central Asia is militarily easier, diplomatically easier... and the farming's not bad. North Kazakhstan isn't too different in geography or climate from South Russia, that's why so many Russians still live there. The urban life's not bad either, Tashkent's Russian population was big enough to support a majority-Russian "Tashkent Soviet" through most of the Russian Civil War.