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QuantumBranching — Turkish Louisiana

Published: 2011-10-14 05:11:53 +0000 UTC; Views: 7533; Favourites: 47; Downloads: 86
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Description A while back, Alt-Reality ([link] ) suggested I do a "global expansion" of one of his US or Europe-limited maps. I did one for his "Turkish Louisiana map" [link]

To explain:

This is a world where the Turks consolidated their grip on NW Africa and conquered Morocco as well: with access to the Atlantic, they managed to duplicate European deep-sea sailing technique (as Barbary pirates eventually managed to do OTL) and expanded the fight against Spain to the Atlantic and the Caribbean.

The Spanish managed to keep them out of their main holdings in Mexico and Peru, and the Ottoman settlements in jungly South America never attracted much settlement, but their bases for Caribbean attacks on the northern Gulf coast in time grew into actually colonies of settlement...

The Spanish, with real fears of Turkish invasion (what OTL is Gibraltar is as of 1900 still in Turkish hands) and a tougher battle at sea, were less able to help out their eastern Habsburg cousins in the HRE in attempting to squash Catholicism (fortunately for the Austrians, the Ottomans were throwing too many resources into overseas efforts to do any better than OTL in Sieges of Vienna), and eventually the Catholics were badly whipped in an alt-30-years-war (only 16 in this TL) - Bohemia remains protestant to this day.

However, the Protestants were in some ways victims of their own success - the huge, rickety Danish-North German Holy Union fell apart very messily in two generations. It was not until the mid-1700s that the Danes were able to create a new north German union under their leadership thanks to the the spur of the French Menace, and by that time the Austrians made a comeback: reduced to a rump of Austria and truncated Hungary-Croatia, marriage once again benefitted the Habsburgs as a Bavarian-Austrian union bore hereditary fruit, and by the late 1800s almost all of Catholic German (plus the former Spanish Netherlands) were under the rule of Vienna, and alliances consequently shifted...

The over-extended Ottoman Empire, ruling lands from the Americas to Indonesia, fell apart in the late 18th century, thanks in part to wars with the European powers, and also due to a well-intentioned Sultan who decided he'd do away with the "raise them in a cage" philosophy. How was he to know the son he'd carefully handpicked as his successor and massively bribed the Janissaries to support would be carried off by Cholera only two months after his own death? To this day two branches of the house of Osman rule in Cairo and Constantinople, while the Mahgreb went its own way with European help under the rule of an ambitious governor. The american colonies eventually went their own way, too, given the shakiness of communications.

Another country that did better than OTL were the Portuguese: for one thing, no king of Portugal was going to invade a Morocco well-garrisoned with Ottoman armies and therefore let the Spanish inherit his kingdom. Today, the Three Kingdoms of Portugal, if backwards and rural by north European standards, together comprise a quite respectable power, and a useful ally for the British (which as OTL unified their islands, but organized a bit differently). France, in the meantime, had a somewhat less apocalyptic revolution than OTL: they spread Republicanism to north Italy and the Netherlands, but managed to avoid uniting all of Europe against them, and actually gave the Spanish Netherlands/Belgium to Austria in the peace negotiations.

Butterflies prevented the Qing takeover of China from being pushed to its completion, so China became again divided into north and south, as in previous eras. The centuries-long duel between the two has led to stronger militaries than OTL 19th century China, so although there has been some probing at the edges by European powers, there have been no Opium-war type invasions of the heartland. Currently, the Qing have grown complacent after five decades without anything but border skirmishes: they're about to find out just how hard the Ming have been working to master superior European and Ottoman military technique...

A militarily more formidable Ottoman Empire (all those naval battles gave them a serious sharpening of their artillery skills) allied to a Poland less hapless than OTL (still dominated by its Aristocracy, but at least without the absurd liberum veto) blocked the Russian expansion south and west (they still cleared the north side of the Black Sea and took Moldova, but it was a longer and much more expensive effort than OTL) and to the east by a more formidable China, the Russians pushed south and east earlier than OTL through Central Asia, and do indeed have a warm-water port, which the first rails reached in 1875.

The Confederation of America is a former British colony, a democracy (with a more Parliamentary form of government than ours), and less given to grandiosity: the CA may be the damn best country in the world, but it's not the _only_ one, after all. Slavery has been given it's ending date: a government buy-back program is scheduled to come to an end in 1908, when all remaining slaves will be freed. This has been grudgingly accepted by the six states (the CA has smaller and more numerous per area states than the OTL USA) still practicing slavery on a large scale, given their limited prospects for expansion.

Expanding into the Great Plains, the horse-riding Turks, along with Arabs and Berbers and various Balkan Europeans, carved out a substantial domain, converting and incorporating (and infecting with deadly diseases, alas) the local tribes. The frontier Ghazi of the OTL Texas area, border fighters against the Mexican infidel (and the Apache and Comanche infidels) formed their own state during the period of rather confused central authority after the breakup of the greater Ottoman empire, as did the "swamp men" of the distant and almost inaccessible Florida peninsula. But under a series of strong men, authority was re-established throughout the Great Plains, and the new Sultanate expanded all the way to the Pacific...only to get into a war with its Christian neighbors, and be forced to submit to a plebescite in disputed areas.

The current regime is smarting and hoping for revenge some day: that may be sooner than later, for after a long era of small wars and cautious diplomacy, things are about to turn ugly. The breakout of war between the two Chinas will be regarded by later historians to kick off the era of international conflict that will be known as the "Bloody Zeroes..."
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Comments: 5

grisador [2015-09-20 11:43:17 +0000 UTC]

Amazing althistory; how ı shouldn't see this one before

👍: 0 ⏩: 0

eclipse-paladin [2011-10-31 13:53:02 +0000 UTC]

Hooray for super Ottomans! What's the ethnic make up of the the former Ottoman Colonies, is it mostly converted locals headed by a Turkish elite or what?

A Roman or Byzantine Empire with overseas colonies would be neat as well.

👍: 0 ⏩: 0

mdc01957 [2011-10-15 13:41:58 +0000 UTC]

I'm actually surprised that Austria managed to get a large chunk of Africa...

👍: 0 ⏩: 1

QuantumBranching In reply to mdc01957 [2011-10-17 05:12:23 +0000 UTC]

Well, ownership of the Spanish Netherlands gives them access to the Atlantic, and OTL Belgium managed to swaffle an even bigger stretch of the place all by its lonesome...

👍: 0 ⏩: 1

mdc01957 In reply to QuantumBranching [2011-10-17 05:14:05 +0000 UTC]

That much is true.

👍: 0 ⏩: 0