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?
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?