WI: No Roxelana?

Silent Cal

Silent Cal

In a timeline I've started working on, (you can see a rough map in the Map Thread) I started out with a POD of Roxelana either dying young (or never being captured, dying during captivity, or before she meets Suleiman) or dying during childbirth, but with Selim (II, the Drunkard OTL) alive.


Now I have a few questions:

1. What implications would this have? Would Suleiman, without her influence, be able to destroy 'the Sultanate of the women' before its very inception, or would it continue under a new sultan? Would Mustafa, his eldest son, without Roxelana to plot and scheme against him and propel her own son (Selim), get on better with his father and instead become his successor?

2. What would this mean for future Ottoman conquests? Would Cyprus still be conquered (a common story is that it was conquered to quench Selim II's thirst for the famed Cypriot wine)?

3. (kind of tied to 2) Would Mustafa prove to be as great a conqueror as his father and make Europe tremble beneath his feet? Would Vienna fall? Would now Mustafa (unlike Selim in OTL, who was too busy invading Cyprus) successfully support the Morisco Revolt?


Feedback would be helpful :)

(Yes, I'm looking at you Abdul, Keenir, Xeno and co. :p)
 
Silent Cal

Silent Cal

R. I. Alsidecias said:
So THIS is the PoD for that map that has a quirky obscure independent Kurdistan ? Actually a nice map though... ;)

Should there still be a "Sultanate of the Women" without Roxelana ?
Click to expand...
That was an unforeseen mappish (note: not n00bish :p) mistake, I inteneded to have a (much more reduced) Russian-puppetted Kurdistan there, but, oh well, guess you'll have to wait for the next map.

And no, that's what I think, though what's to say there won't be another weak Sultan that would let the harem girls take over? What's to say another Roxelana (maybe Circassian this time?) will not pop out?

I think somehow restricting the influence of the harem on the court should be the solution, but I think it'd be a tad difficult to achieve, unless we make Mustafa (or his descendants) a bit more pious and have them outlaw the harems. *shrug*
 

Keenir

Banned
Calcion said:
In a timeline I've started working on, (you can see a rough map in the Map Thread) I started out with a POD of Roxelana either dying young (or never being captured, dying during captivity, or before she meets Suleiman) or dying during childbirth, but with Selim (II, the Drunkard OTL) alive.
Click to expand...

before Roxelana (Hurrem Sultana, I think she was called), Ottoman Kings had two groups of women:
a) diplomatic marriages. no heirs - ever.
b) others. heirs tended to come from concubines and slaves.
(fairly straightforward reasoning -- if you're the Emperor, do you want Russia or Persia's ruler going "I'm intervening in your country to protect the interests of my grandson"?)

Roxelana is generally touted as a "marriage of love" rather than either a or b.

though I'm not sure how much the pre-Roxelana system broke down after Roxelana's death in OTL.
 
Silent Cal

Silent Cal

But by removing Hurrem (Roxelana) from the picture, does this give a chance to Prince Mustafa to improve relations with his father, or will someone else from the court plot to kill him? Can he somehow secure the succession for himself?
 

Abdul Hadi Pasha

Banned
There is no truth to the idea that Cyprus was conquered because Selim liked the wine there - that's kind of ridiculous.

I think there's little doubt that Mustafa would have been a much more able ruler than Selim - as for conquests, it's hard to protect. If I were in his place, I'd try to consolidate what I had, remove remaining bastions like Cyprus and Crete, take out Persia, and otherwise aid Muslim states in trouble.

I don't think there's much potential in the direction of Germany, although it might be worthwhile to take Vienna and smash the Hapsburgs to secure the northern border.

Calcion said:
In a timeline I've started working on, (you can see a rough map in the Map Thread) I started out with a POD of Roxelana either dying young (or never being captured, dying during captivity, or before she meets Suleiman) or dying during childbirth, but with Selim (II, the Drunkard OTL) alive.


Now I have a few questions:

1. What implications would this have? Would Suleiman, without her influence, be able to destroy 'the Sultanate of the women' before its very inception, or would it continue under a new sultan? Would Mustafa, his eldest son, without Roxelana to plot and scheme against him and propel her own son (Selim), get on better with his father and instead become his successor?

2. What would this mean for future Ottoman conquests? Would Cyprus still be conquered (a common story is that it was conquered to quench Selim II's thirst for the famed Cypriot wine)?

3. (kind of tied to 2) Would Mustafa prove to be as great a conqueror as his father and make Europe tremble beneath his feet? Would Vienna fall? Would now Mustafa (unlike Selim in OTL, who was too busy invading Cyprus) successfully support the Morisco Revolt?


Feedback would be helpful :)

(Yes, I'm looking at you Abdul, Keenir, Xeno and co. :p)
Click to expand...
 
Silent Cal

Silent Cal

So Mustafa would've been likely to go to war with Persia?

I was thinking that he might take Vienna to finish what his father started, plunder and/or burn the place and simply retreat back and focus on other things. This would certainly leave the Habsburgs devastated, and would cause major butterflies afterwards, in my opinion.

An Ottoman-supported Morisco revolt could also possibly destabilize Spain, if for a little while, allowing other powers to take advantage of that, again, major butterflies afterwards.

I rather liked an idea you postulated, Abdul, that the safest bet for the Ottomans is to have a Calvinist Hungary as a vassal state to provide the bulwark against the aggressive empires of Europe, primarily the Austrians, do you think that could happen ITTL?
 

Abdul Hadi Pasha

Banned
I'm not sure what Mustafa would have done, but I would have gone after Persia.

I don't know when Hurrem started having influence over Suleyman, but I assume it was before Buda was conquered, as she would have been 31 by then. So I don't see why you couldn't have a Calvinist Hungary develop.

Likewise there's no reason why support of the Moriscos couldn't have happened - maybe a more vigorous Sultan like Mustafa would have been interested in this.

Calcion said:
So Mustafa would've been likely to go to war with Persia?

I was thinking that he might take Vienna to finish what his father started, plunder and/or burn the place and simply retreat back and focus on other things. This would certainly leave the Habsburgs devastated, and would cause major butterflies afterwards, in my opinion.

An Ottoman-supported Morisco revolt could also possibly destabilize Spain, if for a little while, allowing other powers to take advantage of that, again, major butterflies afterwards.

I rather liked an idea you postulated, Abdul, that the safest bet for the Ottomans is to have a Calvinist Hungary as a vassal state to provide the bulwark against the aggressive empires of Europe, primarily the Austrians, do you think that could happen ITTL?
Click to expand...
 

Matthais Corvinus

Abdul Hadi Pasha said:
I'm not sure what Mustafa would have done, but I would have gone after Persia.

I don't know when Hurrem started having influence over Suleyman, but I assume it was before Buda was conquered, as she would have been 31 by then. So I don't see why you couldn't have a Calvinist Hungary develop.

Likewise there's no reason why support of the Moriscos couldn't have happened - maybe a more vigorous Sultan like Mustafa would have been interested in this.
Click to expand...

If you have a Calvinist Hungary, then would you see Calvinist Hungary intervening in Bohemia and Austria in favor of their co-religionists? IIRC there were large Protestant populations in both countries, and extended Hapsburg control, brought on by unsuccessful revolts, exterminated the large Protestant populations.

So I have a couple of things that I think would need to be addressed:

With a Calvinist Hungary on the northern border, would the Ottoman's inevitably turn east against the Persians?

Or, would with the Balkan border secure, do we see the Ottoman's making a bid for Italian territory?

Do the Ottoman's expand real control (ie actual rule from Constantinople) into North Africa, and support the Morisco rebellion?
 
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