WI: Venice keeps Morea?

If butterflies didn't result in other events occurring, and history took a generally similar course compared to OTL, I'm willing to believe that Napoleon would have been born. Whether Venice has the Morea or not probably won't affect the family lineage/life of an obscure bunch of Corsicans.

The conception of any given OTL human being at the OTL time with the OTL genome is a millions-to-one chance. Any trivial change in conditions can change which spermatozoan out of the millions present happens to fertilize the egg.

And that's enough. Consider Jose Canseco and his fraternal twin brother Ozzie. One was a superstar athlete who set records and collected millions in salary; the other was nothing.

Fifty years of events are enough not only to butterfly Napoleon himself, but also both of his parents.
 
The conception of any given OTL human being at the OTL time with the OTL genome is a millions-to-one chance. Any trivial change in conditions can change which spermatozoan out of the millions present happens to fertilize the egg.

And that's enough. Consider Jose Canseco and his fraternal twin brother Ozzie. One was a superstar athlete who set records and collected millions in salary; the other was nothing.

Fifty years of events are enough not only to butterfly Napoleon himself, but also both of his parents.

Even if Napoleon's not born that doesn't change the fact that Venice was on a downward spiral, and the problems that led to the French Revolution. Either way, unless Venice initiates massive military reforms, it would still fall to another nation in sooner or later. If the revolution doesn't happen or its wars are less successful in Italy then the Republic might, might get around 10-15 extra years of life. But eventually Venice will piss of a nation larger that it and finally be destroyed.If not France, then my money would be on Austria.
 
Even if Napoleon's not born that doesn't change the fact that Venice was on a downward spiral, and the problems that led to the French Revolution. Either way, unless Venice initiates massive military reforms, it would still fall to another nation in sooner or later. If the revolution doesn't happen or its wars are less successful in Italy then the Republic might, might get around 10-15 extra years of life. But eventually Venice will piss of a nation larger that it and finally be destroyed.If not France, then my money would be on Austria.

Sooner or latter, all nations decline and some fall entirely. And the problems that lead to the French Revolution - again, helllloooo, POD in the 1710s. Nearly eighty years is a long time to remain as OTL.
 
Sooner or latter, all nations decline and some fall entirely. And the problems that lead to the French Revolution - again, helllloooo, POD in the 1710s. Nearly eighty years is a long time to remain as OTL.

True but unless the French Kings magically decide to stop paying for expensive foreign wars on the national credit card and start taxing the Church and nobles, the financial problems will still exist.
 
If I may contribute to the discussion:

1. Despite how easy Venice occupied Morea, she had quite a hard time maintaining it. Unfortunatelly, the Venetians chose to disregard the local political customs and the local "aristocracy", so after a while the Moreans realised they prefered the Ottoman rule than the Venetian. Note that since the 1690's a bloke named Gerakaris, with his Maniates, maintained a guerilla war against the Venetians, cooperating with the Ottomans. When in 1715 the Ottomans invaded, many local chieftains and warlords allied with them, even participated in the attacks against Leukas (Santa Maura) and Corfu in 1716.

2. After the Ottoman reoccupation in 1715, which was more like a pic-nic for the invading army, the Venetians realised that they did not want the region back, because they couldn't hold it, and they couldn't maintain it for long, even if Austria would sacrificed some more of her soldiers and reached further south to impose such a condition to the Porte.

3. I think that the decision for Venice's future had been made in the decade of 1700's or until 1716: the Coniglio decided that Venice had to turn into a pure merchant republic, with no imperial visions, depending her existence and defence on the alliance with Austria as part of the later's sphere.
 
*Sorry if this a necro, but I didn't want to start a new thread on the same thing.

What if Venice had gone the indirect rule route? Instead of outright annexing Morea as a colony, Venice sets up a "Despotate of Morea". The, lets say, 30 most influential families each get to send a representative to an assembly, which acts as a legeslative body and nominates a "Despot of Morea" who is then confirmed by the Venetians. Morea's relationship with Venice is regulated by a permanent treaty which gives Venice control over Morea's foreign relations and a monopoly on all of Morea's external trade. No foreigners (besides Venetians) are permitted to own large landholdings/businesses. The Despot is permitted to raise a locally recruited military, and Venice assists in training it and modernizing all of Morea's fortresses.

Thus, when 1714 roles around, Venice has almost as much control over Morea's economy as OTL...but they've built a political system that gives the local aristocracy considerably more power than the Ottomans did, and which the aristocracy thus has an interest in maintaining. Thus, instead of an army of a few thousand mercenaries, the Ottomans are met with one several times larger, made up of locals who are defending their homeland from foreign invaders, and are defending from a network of somewhat modern fortresses, including one sitting right on top of the isthmus of Corinth. This not to say that the Ottomans can't take it...but its going to be potracted and ugly. They'll have to progress fortress by fortress, facing an enemy perfectly happy to melt back into the hills and villages and conduct guerilla warfare. Thus, they're in basically the same situation that Ibrahim Pasha was when he tried to crush the Greek revolt-yes, they can conquer Morea given time, but its going to take years, will probably involve wrecking a considerable amount of it (thus reducing its value once its conquered), and at some point, the Austrians and Russians are going to look at the whole situation (which probably isn't that nice to the civilian population) and find plenty of pretexts to intervene.
 
Not only does that make a lot of sense and seem plausible, it's a pretty darn interesting POD. I am skeptical whether other powers would come to assist such a small and isolated state though.
 
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I'm not sure that Venice would see it as advantageous, or that the Moreans would appreciate it as much as expected.

Not an expert, but I find the idea that you the Moreans would regard the rule of one set of foreign rulers as the same as defending their homeland and another as foreign invaders needing some basis other than a ruler that Venice determines (Yes, the Moreans nominate them, but Venice has yes or no power).
 
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