WI: The Ottoman Empire Conquered Persia/Iran (Somewhat Reestablishing Alexander's/Achaemenid Empire)

No not really. It was Parthia. All their nobles were Parthian, their officers were all Parthians and all their administrators were Parthian.

The Sassanians were an authentic Persian dynasty, however their powerbase remained in Mesopotamia, away from the iranian plateau, the homeland of the iranians

The Saffarid powerbase was in Herat, Khorasan and Balochistan, not the Iranian Plateau

Ikhanate's power base was in modern Azerbaijan and Azeri Iran today, and almost the entirety of their government, army, administration, officers, were Turks, and Mongols.

True enough, however the distance between Algiers and Constantinople is the same as Constantinople to Kabul. The distance does not really matter. Good governance does, and in the early modern era, that largely depends on the kinds of governors put in place rather than anything else.
The point is: they were all at least phisically or culturally - and in a lot of cases both - much closer to Iran or being iranian than the Ottomans were.

And while the distance might be the same from Constantinople but I have a suspicion than Algiers could be reached much faster by water than Kabul by any mean at the time.

And yeah good government will solve a lot of hurdles. But the problem with such great phisical and cultural distances are that they exacerbate the effect of bad government. If a governor on the balkans is so bad that it can cause a rebellion or has ideas of independence Constantinople will get information way faster and especially react way faster than in Iran.
 
The point is: they were all at least phisically or culturally - and in a lot of cases both - much closer to Iran or being iranian than the Ottomans were.
Er what. The Ottomans were the ones to basically invent modern day legalist and mysticist culture, which is what Iran's culture post-1400 is based out of. Persian dignitaries in the 1600s called the Ottomans more Persians than the rulers of Persia!
Please read before making comments like this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Culture_of_the_Ottoman_Empire The Ottomans were very close to Iran culturally.
And while the distance might be the same from Constantinople but I have a suspicion than Algiers could be reached much faster by water than Kabul by any mean at the time.
Not really. Constantinople to Basra took a very short amount of time to cross for small parties. From Basra to the Afghan/Baloch coast is then even faster due to the gulf. Ottoman delegates to the Durrani Empire in modern day Kabul reached in about 1 and a half to 2 months time, which is around the 2 weeks longer than Algiers to Constantinople at sea during the age of sail. Not a large difference at all
And yeah good government will solve a lot of hurdles. But the problem with such great phisical and cultural distances are that they exacerbate the effect of bad government. If a governor on the balkans is so bad that it can cause a rebellion or has ideas of independence Constantinople will get information way faster and especially react way faster than in Iran.
Again, as historical travels of Ottoman delegates and Durrani ambassadors proves, no the distances were easily traversable most of the time, and the Ottomans culture was extremely close to Persian culture
 
Er what. The Ottomans were the ones to basically invent modern day legalist and mysticist culture, which is what Iran's culture post-1400 is based out of. Persian dignitaries in the 1600s called the Ottomans more Persians than the rulers of Persia!
Please read before making comments like this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Culture_of_the_Ottoman_Empire The Ottomans were very close to Iran culturally.
This I will have to concede - I remembered them being mostly arabic influenced.

Not really. Constantinople to Basra took a very short amount of time to cross for small parties. From Basra to the Afghan/Baloch coast is then even faster due to the gulf. Ottoman delegates to the Durrani Empire in modern day Kabul reached in about 1 and a half to 2 months time, which is around the 2 weeks longer than Algiers to Constantinople at sea during the age of sail. Not a large difference at all

Again, as historical travels of Ottoman delegates and Durrani ambassadors proves, no the distances were easily traversable most of the time, and the Ottomans culture was extremely close to Persian culture

2 weaks is a huge difference. A report of an incident will reach the capital at least 2 weeks later and any decision made there will also take an additional 2 weeks to reach the local authorities - so at least an additional month to react to any problems.

Further this is about small parties - military intervention in the region should be way harder without a sea route or connection.
 
The Ottoman Empire and the Achaemenid Empire/Macedonian Empire are very very different beasts. One cannot change a system of governance that has worked for centuries on a whim. And anyway, the Ottomans considered themselves the islamic heirs of Rome, not the islamic heirs of Macedonia and Acheamenids. You need a fundamental change in thinking for that to happen for any interest shown by the Ottomans to conquer the Iranian Plateau.

Most likely convenience. After all not having a powerful potential enemy in the east helps.
 
2 weaks is a huge difference. A report of an incident will reach the capital at least 2 weeks later and any decision made there will also take an additional 2 weeks to reach the local authorities - so at least an additional month to react to any problems.
Not really. Ottoman Beys and Vilayets had autonomous powers over many many issues such as local and even international incidents
Further this is about small parties - military intervention in the region should be way harder without a sea route or connection.
Not really. The Ottomans projected power deep into the indian ocean well into the 1700s and only stopped after 1793. The Ottomans conquered basically half of Iran during the 1600s before the Austrians and Spaniards attacked diverting the action. In the Ottoman Safavid War of 1623, there was a very real threat that the Ottomans would conquer Iran, install a cadet ottoman line to the shah's throne and then leave. Shah Safi himself believed as such sending pleading letters to Murad IV.
Most likely convenience. After all not having a powerful potential enemy in the east helps.
The Ottomans only ever planned to install a cadet line of the osmanoglus in the case of total victories on the shah's throne, not total annexation. You cannot just handwave centuries worth of policy.
 

Paradoxer

Banned
The Ottomans were already a bit Iranized, with this they would end up becoming a full-fledged Iranian empire. Might as well change the capital to Baghdad.
They might also might have more Turkish/Turkic groups in Central Asia to integrate into ottoman sphere if they take that place too.

Ottomans can claim multiple “legacies” by “right of conquest” alone. They can claim the caliphate and I think did at times. More Islamic land they hold the more that is legitimatized to many within Islamic world. The caliphate is most important claim to have in Islamic in world. Everything else is really just bonus and bragging rights.

The issue more so is the more they spread into Iran and East the more they must deal with Shia opposition to Sunni dominance of Islamic world. Culture will be secondary to that at times especially among dynastic and nobles or local clans/tribes.

The Arabs if the ottomans want to keep those lands must be given equal footing or at at least local self rule under loyalty/allegiance to sultan in Istanbul(making them Emirates right?). The Turkic in Central Asia might be given similar treatment along with concessions on behalf of Sultan in Iranian lands especially if Sunni.

The big issue those on international scene is Russia to north and possible UK to parts of south and sea. Navy especially in Indian Ocean would need expansion.

The British or East Indian company might not expand out of South Indian. The Ottomans could more easily intervene and even puppet/client Islamic parts of India or ones with Islamic rulers.

The Islamic world if Ottomans do well might become easier to maintain for time at least. Balkans and Christian lands less so. Bigger they are more likely Europeans are to possibly team up on them
 
Limit the Ottoman expansion in the Balkans and redirect them towards the Iranian plateau, Central Asia and the Caucasus. With this eastern focus, I think the Ottomans could rule Anatolia, Syria and the Levant, Mesopotamia, Egypt and Libya, the Arabian Peninsula, Iran, the Caucasus, Afghanistan + Balochistan + Northwest India and Central Asia up to Transoxiana.
 
Limit the Ottoman expansion in the Balkans and redirect them towards the Iranian plateau, Central Asia and the Caucasus. With this eastern focus, I think the Ottomans could rule Anatolia, Syria and the Levant, Mesopotamia, Egypt and Libya, the Arabian Peninsula, Iran, the Caucasus, Afghanistan + Balochistan + Northwest India and Central Asia up to Transoxiana.
If anything ottoman cordon sanitaire would begin on the Balkan mountain range all the way to the Adriatic-Ionian, so the whole of Greece, bulgaria and albania would still be ottoman and their military border them
 
If anything ottoman cordon sanitaire would begin on the Balkan mountain range all the way to the Adriatic-Ionian, so the whole of Greece, bulgaria and albania would still be ottoman and their military border them
Yep that makes sense, a very defensible border there in the Balkans to give the Ottomans enough breathing room to conquer the East
 
1 No not really. It was Parthia. All their nobles were Parthian, their officers were all Parthians and all their administrators were Parthian.

2 The Sassanians were an authentic Persian dynasty, however their powerbase remained in Mesopotamia, away from the iranian plateau, the homeland of the iranians

3 The Saffarid powerbase was in Herat, Khorasan and Balochistan, not the Iranian Plateau

4 Ikhanate's power base was in modern Azerbaijan and Azeri Iran today, and almost the entirety of their government, army, administration, officers, were Turks, and Mongols.

True enough, however the distance between Algiers and Constantinople is the same as Constantinople to Kabul. The distance does not really matter. Good governance does, and in the early modern era, that largely depends on the kinds of governors put in place rather than anything else.
1. Parthia is part of Greater Iran lol, Parthian is a Iranian language (although if Arsacid Pahlavi is the same as Parthian is debatable, some say it is a descendant of Median), although hard sidelined the Arsacid are considered a legitimate Iranian dynasty in the Shahnameh, "Iran" in the past went further beyond modern Iran's borders (which are fairly recent). Most of historical Parthia is still part of the Islamic Republic btw, only outlying regions like Nisa aren't, and they are very close to the border.
2. Mesopotamia (Asoristan) was known as the "Heart of Iranshahr" during the Sasanian era, it was part of Eran, not Aneran.
3. Once again, during the middle ages (honestly all the way to the 16th century) Greater Khorasan was part of the "Greater iran" region.
4. The Ilkhanate's capital was in Soltaniyeh, in modern-day Iran, Azerbaijan (historically know as Shirvan or Albania) has been considered part of Iran after the late Sasanian period btw, even more so after the Safavid dynasty.
 
Not really sustainable. Taking everything west of the Zagros and Khuzestan is more sustainable in the long run.
Ok looking back at this, how would this Ottoman Empire deal with its eastern neighbors? Will they have to deal with them constantly attacking the eastern frontier or will they more or less live with the Ottomans peacefully? As far as I know the Uzbeks only waged war as soon as the Safavids attacked first.
 
So to basically rehash what other people said:
  1. Ottomans probably could conquer Iran before the Safavids do
  2. But they probably can't rule it from Constantinople
  3. And they still need to manage their western front before going all-out.
The question is, why would they want to suddenly turn their focus away from the west? AFAIK Wien has always been more attractive than Isfahan for the Ottomans. Even with Irak being razed to the ground in their tug-of-war, OTL Ottomans still preferred to gun for Vienna.

Besides, looking at history, for an empire that stretches from Alexandria to Nishapur, a governor-general of Iran is an emperor in all but name. He would pose far too much of a challenge to the Sultan-Caliph (if the Porte is gunning for the plateau I think it's safe to assume the Ottomans hold Egypt already)

Anyhow, assuming the Ottomans do, somehow, set up a working system of government in Iran (by dividing Iran into smaller provinces perhaps?), India would probably be their next problem. If their is a Mughal ambitious enough to attempt to unify the plateau, the tax burden will push peripheral regions into revolt, like what happened to OTL Punjab. Raids would destabilize the southeast. The northeast would have less problems because the Ottomans have the political capacity to either hire the Uzbeks etc. or land them as Timarli Sipahis. The reason the southeast probably can't be pacified this way would be because Mughals, obviously. If the Mughals stay put (really can't see that happening), the fallout would bring whatever East India Company it is this time right up to Baluchistan, if they adopt OTL British colonial strategies. In a sense, Spanish colonization of India would be one of the best outcomes for TTL Ottoman Empire.
 
The western front in the Balkans is a potentially very simple solution. IOTL while Selim the Grim was running loose over the Middle East and Iran, the Hungarians were falling over themselves with their poor attempts at invasions being repelled by Ottoman garrisons. If the Ottomans make no moves into the Pannonian Plains I don't see the Hapsburgs getting particularly involved in Balkan affairs when they're going to have their issues with the Protestant Reformation and the French to eat up all of their attention.

Hungary seems to have been on a trajectory similar to Poland with a powerful nobility strangling the state's ability to act. With enough Ottoman indifference and focus elsewhere, Hungary being a bulwark for the Hapsburgs and a cheap pinata to the Ottoman Empire might allow for a rough status quo to persist for long enough for the Ottoman Empire to properly digest most of modern Iran into their realm. OTL Selim the Grim clapped the Safavids as they first rose into a dynasty; if he hadn't stopped and committed to a conquest of his entire realm then IMO it's a done deal in the short term. Who's gonna stop them, the Uzbeks? Or if he didn't die young, he might have doubled back after finishing up in Egypt and conquered Iran from Shah Ismail's son who at the time was a very young child under a particularly unstable regency.

That covers the how, when, and why. If Selim the Grim lives longer and conquers Iran then his OTL Indian Ocean projects that his son Suleiman neglected might actually have both greater success and properly reorient the Ottoman Empire away from Europe. Selim's entire reign was spent focused exclusively on the Middle East and a longer reign means a longer focus on the area that might also influence his successor Suleiman in his policies(and away from European quagmires). This would be some excellent timing considering Suleiman's focus on reform and governance, honestly. If he's knee-deep in revolts in Iran and Yemen and still true to who he was OTL then I'd expect ambitious reforms to properly integrate both regions into the Ottoman Empire long-term.

Other things that might crop up due to butterflies might be a proper Ottoman Indian Ocean presence that contests the Portuguese instead of the half-hearted effort of OTL, and a greater Ottoman presence in India(via sea) than OTL's adventures in Gujarat that could maybe even butterfly the Mughal Empire away.
 
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