WI: Sixteenth-century Ottomans build Suez and Volga-Don Canals

In the late seventeenth century, under the leadership of Grand Vizier Sokollu Mehmed Pasha, the Ottomans planned on building two canals.

The first canal would link the Red Sea with the Mediterranean by building a canal between the Nile River and the Bitter Lakes, meaning that the Ottomans could easily send ships and supplies to extend their power to the Indian Ocean. The Vizier hoped that Constantinople could then shatter Portuguese power in Asia, simply by overwhelming Lisbon with troops fresh from the Mediterranean power base, and extend its hegemony over India.

The second would link the Volga with the Don. Russia/Muscovy had been unusually aggressive towards the Tatar khanates of the western steppe, and the Ottomans wanted to link the Black Sea with the Caspian and enable Ottoman troops to easily reach Central Asia, essentially smothering Russia's eastern expansion and making Constantinople the dominant power on the steppes.

What if both had succeeded? (The Suez Canal was certainly not unfeasible, while the Volga-Don canal was probably significantly more so.) How would world history have been transformed?
 
It'd be interesting (if terrifying) because it is POSSIBLE.

The question is how do you fund it all? The Ottomans would need a fantastic amount of war-loot to realistically pay for both. Which isn't impossible to find, it just depends on what they pull back on.

Realistically, the Nile River-Bitter Lakes-Red Sea canal is the more likely project, because the benefits are much more clear cut (the profits then can be used to build the second.)

I'd say avoid the Battle of Molodi - instead having that raid lead to another devestating raid - in similar numbers to the previous year (say grabbing 120,000 Russians) - the Crimeans can sell those to the Ottomans, but the price of slaves will be lower. Those Russian slaves can be shipped to dig the canal, perhaps with the idea of "This is your Jizya, pay and you'll be free", with daily demands of conversion, where those who convert get better accomodation, some actual pay, and then told this is their duty.

Eventually settling the survivors of such a project near the mouth of the new canal. Greatly depleted in number.

That also buys more time for the Don-Volga canal, as Russia is harder hit, at which point the Bitter Canal is paying itself off, and allowing the Ottomans to completely wreck Portuguese trade, instead have those trade routes lead via North Africa, and onto France - practically taunting Spain and Portugal.
 
The Bitter Lakes canal would have been a rebuilding project. The Canal of the Pharaohs followed the same route until it was closed due to military concerns around the 1400's. The problem is that it's very maintenance heavy, sometimes seasonal and silts up almost immediately. It was never rebuilt because with the volumes of the era the cost of transshipping overland from the Med to Red Seas isn't high enough to justify a canal. For the construction and maintenance costs involved in a canal it might have been cheaper to just build all new ships in the Red Sea.

Also, the Ottomans controlled Mesopotamia in the period. wouldn't it be more efficient to use the Tigris and Euphrates down to the Persian Gulf if they were interested in dramatically expanding their Indian Ocean presence?

I think the idea of an India focused Ottoman Empire is interesting but can they do that at the same time as expanding and maintaining their holdings elsewhere?
 
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It'd be interesting (if terrifying) because it is POSSIBLE.

The question is how do you fund it all? The Ottomans would need a fantastic amount of war-loot to realistically pay for both. Which isn't impossible to find, it just depends on what they pull back on.

Realistically, the Nile River-Bitter Lakes-Red Sea canal is the more likely project, because the benefits are much more clear cut (the profits then can be used to build the second.)

I'd say avoid the Battle of Molodi - instead having that raid lead to another devestating raid - in similar numbers to the previous year (say grabbing 120,000 Russians) - the Crimeans can sell those to the Ottomans, but the price of slaves will be lower. Those Russian slaves can be shipped to dig the canal, perhaps with the idea of "This is your Jizya, pay and you'll be free", with daily demands of conversion, where those who convert get better accomodation, some actual pay, and then told this is their duty.

Eventually settling the survivors of such a project near the mouth of the new canal. Greatly depleted in number.

That also buys more time for the Don-Volga canal, as Russia is harder hit, at which point the Bitter Canal is paying itself off, and allowing the Ottomans to completely wreck Portuguese trade, instead have those trade routes lead via North Africa, and onto France - practically taunting Spain and Portugal.

The Don-Volga canal isn't happening if Molodi has to be avoided. Ivan the Terrible is not letting the Sack of Moscow go unavenged, and the Tatars and Ottomans have both the numbers and the fact they did such an attack in the year prior going for them giving them confidence in a similar raid. If I recall some literature on the subject the Crimeans weren't all that enthusiastic about a larger Ottoman presence in the area either. While both canals could be possible it would stretch the Ottomans thin and could be a white elephant, since the Ottomans have to at least secure the Don-Volga area to build the canal.
 
It'd be interesting (if terrifying) because it is POSSIBLE.
Why terrifying though?

The Bitter Lakes canal would have been a rebuilding project. The Canal of the Pharaohs followed the same route until it was closed due to military concerns around the 1400's.
Source? Also, the Canal of the Pharaohs was very small compared to the large-scale construction project Sokollu Mehmed Pasha had in mind.
 
Why terrifying though?

Because it would mean an Ottoman Empire with a functioning connection between the Red and Med seas - allowing fleets built near Constantinople to transport goods, men, materials, messages, EVERYTHING in a fraction of the time it would take anyone else.

As a result it can deploy major forces into the Indian Ocean. Suddenly you could see an Ottoman Ceylon, and later India - perhaps even efforts to unite Indonesia under Ottoman rule.

Securing all that trade is a huge boost to the Ottomans, who can then turn all that brand new resource on Europe, perhaps even breaking the HRE in Vienna. At which point, realistically, all those goods from Indonesia means that Europe can't do anything but trade with the Ottomans.

It is a gigantic strategic change, with massive consequences. Hence. Terrifying. It'd be like Cannon-Launched Greek Fire, but for economics.
 
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