WI: Timur Lenk (Tamerlane) dies in the 1398?

In 1398 Timur was fighting wars in India, before he turned westwards, fighting among others the Ottomans. In 1402 he won the battle of Ankara, which weakened the Ottomans, although Timurs death three years later lead to the demise of his empire. But what if he had died in the Indian wars? Would this have lead to an earlier fall of Constantinople? In OTL, the Ottomans used the first half of the 1400s to recover from Timur, but if he and his army had never arrived to Anatolia and Syria, then maybe the Ottoman conquest of Constantinople might have happened earlier? Also, what would have been the consequences for Europe if the Ottoman attacks against Hungary had happened half a century earlier? The historical context was of course different.
 
Unless he dies after the 17th of December, Delhi is spared. The "pretender" Ottomans are not supplanted even temporarily by either Timur or a neo-Seljuk client state. Bayezid will sucessfully finish the Siege of Constantinople, which was going on when Timur invaded the Ottomans. ;) Aleppo and Damascus probably keep a lot of their people too. Smyrna stays with the Hospitallers, probably just to fall to the Ottomans. Kingdoms of Armenia and Georgia also have a lot more people. Samarkand will be decidely less great a capital if Delhi stands. This in turn could weaken the prestige and power of future Timurid rulers. Europe probably suffers from this. Several nations, such as Castile and France, seem to have traded with the Timurids. As well, an even stronger Ottoman Empire is VERY bad for the east. If Bayezid is present in presumabely alt-Istanbul, he will ensure an orderly succession. This means no chaos where Europe can rebuild. Bosnia at least, is in chaos. The Pope will probably want a crusade, and there will be another Nicopolis or Varna. Anyone south of the Danube is screwed. The usual capacity of nations for conquest is greatly extended by brilliant leaders. I could see Albania being completely absorbed earlier, as Skanderbeg won't even be born yet. Bosnia is lost too, and Croatia will be wide open then. A naval invasion of Italy is POSSIBLE, but I don't think it would work. Venetian lagoon is still too strong. Hungary is going to lose a lot of land.

Overall, this just makes the Ottomans a whole lot stronger, and perhaps Ming or Muscovy (in the future) can project power into a possibly vacant Central Asia. I would actually expect Timur's successors to move south and basically become Persia, because without the plunder of Delhi, parts of India and Iran are looking more attractive. Hungary and neighbors are going to get crushed if not destroyed early, and whether they turn west or east, I would believe Ottoman Kiev or Vienna. :)
 
If Timur dies early, Temur Qutlugh and Ediga, the two military commanders he placed in the Golden Horde after kicking out Tokhtamysh, will lose a lot of legitimacy, seeing as the empire of their master is now in shambles. If the Golden Horde shows signs of weakness, Vytautas will probably receive much more support in his crusade of 1398-1399. Tokhtamysh probably won't betray him, either, and if he is with Vytautas, he might inform him of the Tatar feigned retreat before it is too late.

So merely a year after the POD, in 1399, you're looking into a much more possible Lithuanian victory at the Battle of Vorskla, which throws Eastern European history off the rails immediately. Maybe even ending up with King Vytautas and a Lithuanian dominated Russia.
 
I am no expert on the history of weapon technology, but this seems to have been the period when the "West" gradually started to build up a lead compared to other parts of the world. So, let us assume that the Ottomans had arrived at the gates of Vienna about 50 years earlier; would Europe be in a relatively weaker situation compared to the Ottomans? On the other hand, when they did arrive, Europe was in the beginning of the Reformation, which lead to the Wars of Religion. Might Europe have been more united against the Ottomans 50 years earlier?
 
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