Which faction are you going to play first ?

[\Vazul's Ghost/]

That is correct!

Yes... I know all there is to know about Tsardoms...

[Bosnae]

\Vazul/ the living Tsardoms Index

[SrbLordMija]

I will of course play with the Serbian factions (Tsardom of Serbia and Banate of Bosnia)

[KoRnflakes]

I will play the BYZANTINE EMPIRE
after that probably the ottoman emipre

[Mauzeer]

Tsardom of Serbia ofc \o/

[alien_t]

...Some historians say that Timurid soldiers lighted thousands of fires at the Chaldeon which is on the asian side of the Bosforus.
It would have been very interesting if they crossed into the Balkans in 1402 because they could have done it easily.
There was nobody really to stop them....

May be they had no fleet.

[The Noble Lord]

Hi,


Now can you imagine the history if Amir Timur and his horde crossed
into the Balkans in the early 1400s and marched towards the central Europe.
Or perhaps took Constantinople and settled there.
Nobody would have been able to stop him really, maybe the plague.
Or, in the mountains of the Balkans his archer cavalry would have been rendered useless.
It would have been very interesting. The history of the Balkans would have been different and definitely more bloody.


CHEERS

[Bosnae]

Or, in the mountains of the Balkans his archer cavalry would have been rendered useless.

Why usless? after the Battle of Sajo 1241 the main mongolian force moved pillaging through the Bosnian mountains without Problems, the inhabitants of the region where not able to do any damage by ambushing or something alse, but if they had took constantinople in 1400...... OH MY they would have been unstoppable, i guess the most people would had tried to save their lives by running away instade of fighting, to mention Timur's name was enough to turn any Army of experienced soldier into an horde of insecure shacky sheeps.

[Artizan]

well it seems beijing appealed to him more

[Bosnae]

Beijing Timur??? I guess you mean Kublai Chan

[The Noble Lord]

Hi,


Yeah, I know what you saying. momentarily his archer cavalry would have no problems, but then later it would have been hard for them to fight in the
high mountainous regions of the Balkans. For example, Amir Timir encountered the same problem in north-eastern Afghanistan in todays province of Badakshan.
Thats the area where famous Panjshir valley is. He never really conquered it, but made the deal with the local ruler instead. And Badakshan of Afghanistan looks exactly like some regions of the Balkans, primarily areas such as: Rodopi mountains, northern Greece,
Prokletije mountain chain, and Montenegro.
The point is, if he crossed the Dardaneles or Bosphorus in the early 1400s he would have been unstopable for some time. However, in some areas of the Balkans his tactics wouldn't have been that succesful.

well it seems beijing appealed to him more

Its true that he died in 1405 planning the invasion of China.
He knew that Ming dynasty was very rich. In my opinion if he haven't died and proceded with the invasion he would have succeded in defeating the Chinese. The guy was just unbeatable in his prime.


CHEERS

[Bosnae]

did not knew that he was on for China!!

thx for the info

[Kavhan Isbul]

I am not sure Timur had any interest in the Balkans. I think he was satisfied that he had done enough to ruin the Ottoman Empire and put them out of contention. And I am sure that China back then provided far more resources than Constantinople and all of Europe.

What strikes as a more interesting question, pertaining to the mod is - why were the Christian kingdoms of the Balkans so unable to mount any serious comeback in the aftermath of the battle? Did they underestimate the situation, or were they that weak?

I knowthis is off topic, but since acitvity here has died off in recent weeks, I think it might be a good idea to get an active discussion going - ot might help bring interest in the mod back up.

[The Noble Lord]

Yes, it could be that Timur was just satisfied with the defeat of the Ottomans that he didn't care about the Balkans.
And of course, Chinese Ming empire was just next door to his empire. It was much more tempting target.

When it comes to the Balkan nations and why they didn't do more when Ottomans were at their weakest after the defeat at Ankara in 1402, poses a very good question.
It was the number of things, first and foremost they were disunited and pretty much hated each other. The Byzantines disliked the: Serbs, Bulgarians, Walachians, Bosnians almost as much they disliked the Turks.
The Balkan nations didn't trust each other and feared each others territorial ambitions.

Second factor was the economic hardship that the region of the Balkans endured since the battle of Maritza in 1371, the economic growth was interrupted by constant Ottoman pressure and raiding.

Third factor was treacherous and dangerous influence of Hungary from the north. Every time Serbian despots Stefan and Djuradj got stronger and more vibrant the Hungarians invaded from the north.

Fourth factor was the plague that occurred in 1403 and lasted until 1405. It decimated the manpower of the Balkan nations.

And fifth factor is that Balkan nations were not strong enough for the immediate offensive against the Ottomans. Serbian despot Stefan needed more time and was preoccupied with the imminent invasion by Hungary from the north. Constantine Dragash, Serbian prince of Serres was too weak and needed more time.
Byzantine empire was the shadow of its former self and could only do something if it was helped by Pope and West-European Kings.
Theodore, despot of Morea was just too small to do anything and needed help from outside.
Bulgaria or its organized nobility was practically non-existent at this time.
Bosnia was too weak and too much under the Hungarian influence.

Also keep in mind that Rumelia or the Sultan's Balkan dominions remained as firmly as ever in the Ottoman grip. The Battle of Ankara destroyed the Ottoman's military dominance and capabilities, but it didn't dealt the fatal blow. They were down but not out. Even though the period of civil war followed, still they were able to quickly reform and adapt in the Balkans.

If there was a historical chance to eject the Ottomans from the Balkans it was in 1402. But, Balkan nations were just not strong enough and organized enough to do it. Plus they were under pressure from elsewhere.
If they had more time they could have done it, but sometimes History doesn't give you all the time that you want.


CHEERS

[Thule]

Serbia... Is there any other faction?

[Phunkracy]

Lengyel, magyar – két jó barát, együtt harcol, s issza borát! Hungary of course

[NikeBG]

When it comes to the Balkan nations and why they didn't do more when Ottomans were at their weakest after the defeat at Ankara in 1402, poses a very good question.

Som years ago I had translated one part of the book "History of the Bulgarian nation" by Petar Mutafchiev (one of the most renowned Bulgarian Byzantinists) and his daughter Vera Mutafchieva (respectively an Ottomanist). This particular part is written by V. Mutafchieva and is about the preconditions of the Ottoman expansion on the Balkans and the declines and rises of the European East and West, respectively:

"The Dawn of the Ottoman Expansion


In our country the interdependence between Byzantium and Bulgaria in the Middle Ages is often underestimated. There is a traditional concept that we have established ourselves in an opposition with this mighty neighbour. If we accept categorically that this is true, then the worse for us; we have missed our chance already in the Middle Ages. But it’s good that it’s only partially true: while we were tenaciously waging war against Byzantium in order to preserve our government, we were also an inseparable component in the Byzantine cultural sphere. Therefore, the decline of Byzantium, which started in 1204 with the capturing of Constantinople from the Fourth Crusaders and continued till the middle of the XV century, seemed beneficial for our country in the beginning, but in the end brought its destruction.
It’s far from any argues that Bulgaria’s existence was a shield for Byzantium and its Northern borders. This shield parried the mobile barbarity, which travelled for long centuries via the Path of the peoples. As a result of the victory of Basil II “The Bulgar-slayer” over Samuil, the lands of the Peninsula became spoils for the invasions of Pechenegs, Uzis, Kumans, and also of Normans, of Crusaders; Byzantium was forced to fight against all of them due to the lack of a Bulgarian state with a Bulgarian army, which would defend the right Danube coast from the non-stopping barbaric waves.
In the mentioned traditional concept, about whom we protected and to whom we ensured prosperity, the opposite element is lacking: who protected us from the South. Because to the European South-East, closely connected with the Levant and Asia Minor, even with the Eastern Mediterranean, dangers were coming not only through the Path of the peoples, but also – again with a dispatch area Asia – from Southern direction. With one word, when we point out our tragic fate, which put us in the end of the XIV century to half a millennium of Muslim rule, let us remember that such a fate could’ve met us much earlier if it wasn’t for Byzantium. Her capital – the most populous and richest city on the continent even until the XVIII century, has attracted since a long time the hungry for plunder barbarians, as well as the non-barbarians. Thus, while Avars and Bulgars were pushing towards Constantinople from the North, a main danger for Byzantium were the Arabs, which had embarked in a victorious expansion, conquered Mesopotamia, Palestine, Syria. Emphasizing on the historical ill fortunes, we should also mention some beneficial circumstances, which came quite by surprise: entwined in a battle of life and death against the Arab aggression, Byzantium was forced to allow the creation of our state over its naturally defended realms – from this side of the Danube. Which means that we owe our gratitude to the Arabs, as well as to Byzantium, whose successful resistance against them gave an opposite direction of their invasion; after the unsuccessful sieges of Constantinople the Muslims headed towards North Africa and the Iberian Peninsula. Otherwise, if they had conquered the key to Europe, Constantinople, then the South-East would’ve fallen in their power not in the XIV, but in the VII century.
Once again the Muslim expansion from Southern direction could not damage the Balkan Peninsula, being stopped by Byzantium: the Seljuk one, during the XI century. After their great defeat at Manzikert (1071) the Byzantines dedicated decades to limit the Seljuk expansion in Asia Minor. By the way, if the Muslims had taken the coast of Asia Minor, and why not also Constantinople, the Balkan lands would’ve become accessible to them. But this, which the faithful followers of Mohammad could not achieve in their “holy” wars, was achieved by the Crusaders, our co-religionists; they crushed Byzantium to three weak and small kingdoms. In its reborn form she was a pale memory of her previous might. The long-lasting internal wars from the XIV century contributed further to this. Thus the Southern approach of the Balkans became open. And although the invasion of the Tartars (Ed. note: Balkan and Russian name of the Mongols – coming from the Greek “tartarus” – hell, thus “Tartars” = “people from Hell”) was stopped by us through military or political actions, the real danger for the South-East was at hand: a durable settling of Turkic-Muslims in Anatolia and Front Asia.
In order to make clear the combination of preconditions, which brought and helped for the Ottoman conquests, we should first examine the proportion of the powers in one large area – from West Asia to the Iberian Peninsula – even before the Ottoman’s expansion. Characteristic for this proportion is its “mobility”, which predicts the great changes, which happened in Europe in the next centuries and brought the Renaissance, the Humanism, the Reformation.
If we start from West to east, then we’ll notice that around the end of the XIII century the Spanish Reconquista – the repulsion of the Arabs out of Spain - is nearly over and the unification of the Spaniards is coming. Only in around a century later Columbus would reach America and put the beginning of the Age of Colonialism, which set the patterns for the rapid economical and spiritual development of Western Europe.
England, France and Germany, main powers in the realization of the Crusades, from XI till the XIII centuries were in an unstable position, typical for the blossoming of the feudalism: contradictions and conflicts between the different formations, which led to frequent local wars. With one new element: growth and stabilization of the cities and the urban production. This element found good soil at first in Italy, which also derived the greatest benefit from the Mediterranean trade as a result of the Crusader’s presence in the Levant. The positions of the Venetian Republic in the Fourth Crusade gave to this Adriatic city-state a special authority, increasing its political and economical value for the Eastern Mediterranean, where another Italian centre of sea trade, Genoa, was trying to compete.
The groundless feudal fiction, proudly called Kingdom of Jerusalem, established in 1099 in the Holy Lands, didn’t kept them for long due to the pressure of the Seljuks, but until its destruction during the XIII century it managed to ensure the profitable for Western Europe trade bridge between its Mediterranean ports and the Levant. Markedly flexible with its republican structure, Venice was on the way to create an original sea empire, taking regions from Dalmatia, Peloponnesus, almost all of the Ionian and Aegean islands, including Evbea, Crete and Cyprus, also 1/3 of Constantinople under Latin power. After the restoration of Byzantium in 1261 Venice, and later also Genoa, received considerable concessions in the capital, which turned them into co-rulers of this city. Separate Latin aristocrats kept their lands in South and Central Greece until the XV century.
As we see, in the XIII century the European states headed towards the Eastern Mediterranean with its respective areas, famous with their traditional agriculture, stock and cattle breeding, with intensive trade. Already the early awakening of the urban life in Europe, accompanied with worldly knowledge, testified for the active pursuits of the rulers of these places to acquire – through military expeditions or through profitable treaties – the economical potential of the Balkans and the Levant. The military decline, and later the internal conflicts in Byzantium only encouraged their appetite.
The Bulgarians, which during the rule of the Assen dynasty successfully coped with the Crusade pest, whether in victorious wars or manoeuvring between the disintegrated Byzantine and Latin formations, after the end of this dynasty also became a victim of feudal separatism. The not-long rise of Serbia in the XIV century soon passed to a similar state – she became also in a field for actions of centrifugal forces. And if, after the withdrawal of the Tartars in the end of the XIII century, a foreign power did not intervened in order to take control of whole South-East, this is in a large scale due to the fact that there was no such power nearby. The closest one – Magyarsko (Ed. note: Hungary) – was whirled in lasting internal conflicts, which hindered it to fulfil its old intentions for South-Eastern expansion.
In the meantime our continent entered a century, which started to prepare him for the New Time – the fourteenth one, on Italian Trechento (because the Italians count the centuries according to the second number, not according to the first two). During the century in question the two halves of Europe would finally pass each other in the means of value and way of life. Its eastern part, leading in the European development since the disintegration of the Roman Empire until the beginning of the XIII century would sharply step back, giving a way to the West, which had catch up on her and would only now leave her behind. During the Trechento events would happen, in which the South-East would act more as a territory of routs and defeats. The Orthodox Balkan culture, marking its last great achievements, would be forced to carry them elsewhere, to engraft them in a foreign soil. Ahead was the fateful change in the proportion East-West, in which the latter had to thank to the late barbaric – Mongol and Turkic – invasions in the European lands. The geographic facts were often decisive for the fate of the pre-industrial societies.
Let us mention here the factor geography, which determined in a large scale the historical backwardness of the South-East. It’s like if we avoid accepting the unconditional fact that this part of our continent serves as the door to Asia – not only the largest, but also the mightiest in any kind of potential continent. Because all of its southern territory – from China through Indonesia, India, Iran etc. – was not frozen during an ice age, there existed an unviolated demographical continuity, there humanity multiplied without cataclysms. That’s why in separate Asian areas, more favourable in climate and vegetation, in water resources, from time to time things reached overpopulation, and from its side it caused mass migrations. In western direction, of course, because South-East Asia was always too densely populated.
Whether they travelled to the west via the Northern Road through the Russian Steppes and near the left Danube coast, or via the Southern Road – from Middle Asia through Northern Iran and Mesopotamia to Asia Minor, the result was similar: the emigrants reached the narrow place between Asia and Europe. And woe to these nations, which have created here centuries ago their countries. Because the invaders, which have crossed unfriendly realms, were finally on a cultivated and fertile soil; they came down on this land with purely barbaric greed with the clear ambition to take and settle it.
Everyone, who has paid attention to the past of Asia Minor and the Balkans, would notice that here, war was a yearly constraint for the local people. It’s not about for these, the feudal conflicts between the White and the Red rose, between the Anjou and Luxemburg dynasties et cetera collisions of hired troops from a couple of hundred of men, but for campaigns, in which the whole male population took part. The call-up in the case wasn’t the king’s orders, but it was dictated by the necessity to save kids and stocks from another wild invasion.
Of course, we can’t fully say this for every period of the history of Asia Minor and the Balkans – in the times of feudal fragmentariness, the feudal lords here have also rushed to numerous local wars with the help of mercenaries, but this counts mainly for the years of new barbaric aggression. This scourge did not allow the Balkans to develop a monumental religious and public building as in the West, where the construction of a cathedral or a rathaus easily took two-three, even five centuries. But – on peace! The magnificent constructions were unthinkable at our place, because every other year, or maximum decades, the barbarism erased whatever it could find. Impossible was also the accumulation of great funds when the crops were often burned, the stock and cattle – stolen, and girls and boys sold into slavery.
In the just reproaches to history, which put us to five centuries of Muslim rule, which provoked the underdevelopment of the South-East from the common European process, let us not forget that even before the Ottomans we were not in step with this process, that the last barbarians on the European soil were preceded by many and many barbaric waves. That in the face of the fatal danger the South-East lied helpless, almost defenceless. For the happiness not only to the Ottoman invaders, but also to the Western Christianity, which saw in the face of Byzantium, Bulgaria, Serbia eventual competitors for its economical expansion this way."


P.S. Sorry for the Off-Topic and my old and worse English-grammar.

[The Noble Lord]

Yes I can see. That is true pretty much for all the other Balkan nations beside the Bulgarians.
Primarily the Serbs and Greeks. The territory of the Balkans was ravaged by invasions, wars, and black death before, so when the Turks appeared on the scene the entire region was too weak and disunited to fight as it should have done it. Like they did it in 1912. Imagine the people of the Balkans fighting in 1402 like they did in 1912.

There is even Bulgarian national anthem or popular patriotic song from the Balkan wars that says something like this: "I was weak and still born when Turks came and ravaged me, I was in the crib, now I must avenge and send them back to where they come from". Maybe this is not the exact text, but you know the song that I am talking about.


CHEERS

[ST. Toma]

I'll play with my home country, HUNGARY

Vivat Hungaria!

[Kavhan Isbul]

Interesting article, NikeBG, and both you and The Noble Lord provide a very good explanation. The Balkan kingdoms were in a disarray, with no real power present in 1402 able to take advantage of the Ottoman civil war. And I agree that the powers who could do something, such as Hungary or Venice chose not to act and pursued their own goals at the expense of their Orthodox Balkan neighbors.
However, I am not sure if the latter should be attributed to their greediness, but I rather think it might had to deal with underestimating the threat. Before the Ottomans, there had been numerous invasions from the east, but the invaders were always dealt with in one way or another. The Bulgars and Magyars actually became Christian an settled down, the Arabs were stopped and later became weak and divided, the Seljuks followed the same path, the Mongols stopped at the end of the steppes, etc. Perhaps the Europeans of the time thought the Ottomans had reached their height of their power already and were now about to slowly enter a decline and fragmentation, just like any other invader before.

Also, I think some credit should be given to the Ottomans themselves. Balkan historiographers always paint a very bloody picture when it comes to the conquest, but recent, more objective studies tend to show that during the early years of the Ottoman Empire, the Ottomans were actually quite a benevolent conqueror, and the athrocities that became associated with them actually date from the period of their decline, post the end of the 16th century. I think in the early 1400s, Konstantin Frujin's attempt to regain his kingdom was unsuccessfull mostly because it met with little to no support from the local population - the Ottomans had decreased taxes in newly conquered regions to keep the population content and were not yet converting people to Islam at the point of the sword, so the locals really had no reason to prefer Konstantin Frujin over Murat or Musa (obviously Musa later became famous for his athrocities, but he was defeated). Same goes for the Bulgarian nobility. True, part of it was killed in Turnovo, but the majority simply chose to convert and keep their titles, and there were even Christian sipahis. I think it is this lack of support among the Christian population and nobility that basically ruined any attempt at a Reconquista back then.

Back in the day in school we were taught about the Varna Battle as the "Battle of the Peoples", in which almost all of what later became the Soviet Block was represented. The sad truth is that the Crusaders were treating the local population worse than the Ottomans and despite the romantic but incorrect beliefs that many Bulgarians took arms alongside the great, noble and chivalrous Huniadi and King Vladislav, in reality most Bulgarians were joining the Ottomans as the Ottomans were actually protecting them, and not the other way around. The same happened with Venice later in Peloponesia and Crete. So one has to give credit to the Ottomans for their achievements and the way they treated the conquered population, at least initially.