What if instead of expanding little by little, the Ottomans had a leader with a mindset like Timur, Alp Arslan, or Alexander, who focused little on internal administration and tried to conquer every empire around him?

After this leader (perhaps an alternate version of Mehmed II) forges this massive empire and dies, what would the resulting Turkish successor states be like?
 
Oh, the closest you get is the Ottoman Interregnum, where you had the sons of Bayezid I fighting one another. Yet I really doubt that an Ottoman Empire could pull an Alexander, going eastwards meant having to go fight in a Mesopotamia and Iran still trying to pick the pieces after the breakup of the Illkhanate and Timur's invasions. The North seems to hardly be worth expanding into while South would mean fighting the Mamluks. Westward has the problem of driving serious fear into Europe, that greatly weakening themselves in an invasion there could cause a retaliatory invasion.

This assumes that the Ottomans could operate like Timur or Alexander, in such a diverse region, and somehow manage even more diverse populations.
 
Top