WI: Timur spares the Golden Horde

Emir Timur chooses not to ride northward with his armies in 1395, deciding that Tokhtamish, Khan of the Golden Horde, is more valuable as an ally than a rival. The great empire of the northern steppes is spared. Timur instead directs his energies westward toward Iraq, Syria, and Asia Minor.

Possible results:
  • Russia remains dominated by a Muslim/Turkic empire. Greater transmission of Islamic culture into Russia. (I know that Russia successfully resisted Islamification while under the GH, but add a century or two of GH rule and you're bound to see some cultural transmission.)
  • Among the Christian states, Moscow still becomes dominant (it was the most successful appeaser of the khans), but an Islamic overlord remains in power over it.
  • The rising Ottoman Empire and the fading Byzantine receive the full brunt of Timur's armies. The Ottomans are never able to regroup.
  • After Timur's death, the power vacuum in the Balkans is filled by local powers. Venice and Genoa tighten their hold on the coasts. Hungary becomes a major power in the northwest. In the northeast, the Crimean Tatarss, themselves loyal to the Golden Horde, expand into the Danube valley. Greece itself is divided among petty principalities that show only nominal loyalty to the Emperor in Constantinople.
 
The rising Ottoman Empire and the fading Byzantine receive the full brunt of Timur's armies. The Ottomans are never able to regroup.

Shall it be never be forgotten that Ottoman base of power around those times was in the Balkans ! Eventhough Timur can sweep all of Anatolia it's doubtful that his army will be able to cross Marmara sea. At least crossing it smoothly...
 
Shall it be never be forgotten that Ottoman base of power around those times was in the Balkans !

Hm... admittedly the Rise of the Ottomans is not an era I'm familiar with. It appears that the POD occurs in the early stages of Ottoman expansion into Europe...

OTL dates:
1365: Capital moved to Edirene
1387: Capture of Thessalonika (from Venetians)
1389: Battle of Kosovo (defeat of Serbia)
1396: Crusaders fail to capture Nicopolis/Nigbolu
1402: Timur's invasion of Anatolia

...and you're absolutely right. Too late to stop the Ottomans, too late to save the Balkans for the Serbs or Italians.

Eventhough Timur can sweep all of Anatolia it's doubtful that his army will be able to cross Marmara sea. At least crossing it smoothly...

Here's a thought. In this TL, Timur's westward advance occurs just as the Crusaders are on the move. I'd imagine they'd bait Timur - not be so willing to "surrender" in order to spare the people, as the OTL Byz. Emperor was. Timur was hardly a naval force, but he could certainly be lured across the Bosporus. Is an early fall of Constantinople likely? Would this pave the way for a more powerful Ottoman Empire in Europe?
 
You gotta remember, you're talking about Tamerlane - it was nothing for him to invade and destroy an area two or three times, and OTL he actually gave Tokdamish the benefit of the doubt for a long time, before he got tired of getting invaded. Not to mention that Tokdamish wasn't exactly a tactical genius, either - I doubt he could have retained hold over the Golden Horde much longer than OTL.
Not to mention that after Timur went bananas and went all the way to Lithuania, he purposefully destroyed important trade centers around the Crimea and Serai as a way of crippling the northern legs of the Silk Road, thereby forcing trade to pass through Samarqand. Timur's long range goals (besides killing a lot of people) were essentially to strengthen the Timurid heartland, and the Golden Horde was a direct economic threat. Not to mention that in OTL he died on the way to destroy China - Timur didn't really hold himself back at all.
 
Emir Timur chooses not to ride northward with his armies in 1395, deciding that Tokhtamish, Khan of the Golden Horde, is more valuable as an ally than a rival. The great empire of the northern steppes is spared. Timur instead directs his energies westward toward Iraq, Syria, and Asia Minor.

Possible results:
  • Russia remains dominated by a Muslim/Turkic empire. Greater transmission of Islamic culture into Russia. (I know that Russia successfully resisted Islamification while under the GH, but add a century or two of GH rule and you're bound to see some cultural transmission.)
  • Among the Christian states, Moscow still becomes dominant (it was the most successful appeaser of the khans), but an Islamic overlord remains in power over it.

Not going to happen - see below.

You gotta remember, you're talking about Tamerlane - it was nothing for him to invade and destroy an area two or three times, and OTL he actually gave Tokdamish the benefit of the doubt for a long time, before he got tired of getting invaded. Not to mention that Tokdamish wasn't exactly a tactical genius, either - I doubt he could have retained hold over the Golden Horde much longer than OTL.

Agreed - and even if Toqtamish manages to keep the Golden Horde together, the whole thing still is very likely to fall apart under his successors.

Aside from the fact that the Golden Horde has never been a properly unified state (the division between the Blue Horde and the White Horde remained, and both hordes usually had their own khans - and then I'm not even talking about the Shaybanids, who drifted away from Golden Horde influence and into independance fairly early on), the actual fragmentation of the Golden Horde is a process that already started during the mid-14th century.

And while it's true that Toqtamish and his predecessor managed to unite most of the Golden Horde under their rule, this unity was only as strong as the reigning khan - a strong khan could keep his many rivals, along with the dozens of independance-minded local nobles and warlords in check, but the Golden Horde simply lacked a proper system to hold itself together under the reign of a weak khan.

With a bit of luck, the Golden Horde may last a few decades longer as a coherent polity, but this situation simply cannot last much longer than that.

Here's a thought. In this TL, Timur's westward advance occurs just as the Crusaders are on the move. I'd imagine they'd bait Timur - not be so willing to "surrender" in order to spare the people, as the OTL Byz. Emperor was. Timur was hardly a naval force, but he could certainly be lured across the Bosporus. Is an early fall of Constantinople likely? Would this pave the way for a more powerful Ottoman Empire in Europe?

No, Timur would have to be a complete and total idiot for risking crossing the Bosporus (and thus risk having his troops on the other side being cut off by an Ottoman fleet), and an attack on Constantinople is very unlikely as everything about the city except for it's formidable defenses were a shadow of their former glory, and in OTL, the Byzantine Emperor actually was a nominal ally of Timur Lenk ("my enemies' enemy...", etc.).

And seeing as that in any campaign in Anatolia and the Balkans, Timur's main target and enemy is going to be the Ottomans, the 'Crusaders' you speak of are likely to make a nominal alliance with Timur againest the Ottomans (whom they consider the greater threat), just like the Byzantines.
 
Gotcha. Well, the idea of a continuing Muslim presence in Russia was the main hope I had for this TL... and I guess 'twasn't meant to be.
 
Gotcha. Well, the idea of a continuing Muslim presence in Russia was the main hope I had for this TL... and I guess 'twasn't meant to be.
I would say that Horde's rule over Russia is doomed after 1550, 1600 if Russians are particularly unlucky. And idea of Muslim proselytism in Orthodox Russia is long dead at this point. So, you would be very lucky to get several more Tartar families among Russian nobility (a-la OTL Yusupovs), but that's about it.
 
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