Ah, yes, yet another new story. I'm just awful, aren't I, especially considering Bozhe, Tsarya Khrani hasn't been updated all month? Really, I couldn't help myself - I loaded up a little 600 CE Turkey spawn and felt that tickle. I just couldn't resist. I just had to chronicle the misadventures of this befuddled pack of horsemen who happened onto Asia Minor at a most inopportune time for Europe; and the litany of historical happenstance and simple, terrible mistakes which led to their new Empire's repeated meteoric rises and abrupt falls.
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Through their incompetent governance and weak rule, the once-proud Roman Empire, astride the Bosporus, Greece, and Asia, fell into ruin under the long and miserable rule of the Angeloi emperors. The fortresses along the eastern frontier fell into disrepair, with Germanicea and the Cicilian Gate falling for the final time to the Arabs. As Moslem forces pressed further into eastern Anatolia, the Holy Empire of the German Nation and its client state, the Serenissima Republic of Venice, fell upon the weakened Rhomaioi.
The Holy German Empire and Venice.
For all the prayers and efforts of the Romans, Constantinople, the queen of cities, was taken and sacked by the westerners. After no less than three years of plundering the rich countryside, the Venetians took the time to install an Italian in the city as the Emperor of the Romans, beginning the brief and miserable period of the Latin Empire.
The Balkans following the so-called 'German Crusade'; the Latin Empire of Constantinople, the Despotate of Epirus, and the Empire of Morea shown.
With Emperor Vittore I in power in Constantinople allowing access across the straits into Asia, German 'crusaders', now out of work, poured into the unsuspecting countryside, taking what cities they could and establishing feudalistic law over the beleaguered Greeks. With their protectors disappeared, the citizens of stately Trapezountas were forced into a humiliating surrender to the Abbasids, followed shortly thereafter by numerous forced conversions to Islam.
Anatolia after the Crusade in 1270; the Ducate of Iconium and the new Abbasid gains in former Roman Asia.
Now, at about this time, a Saljuq horde arrived in the western Anatolian highlands. Forced out of Transoxiana by their kinsmen, this particular tribe, the Osmanoglu, were considered almost the runts of the litter, and as such made easy prey for the other Turks. Moving south, they were inflicted yet another shameful defeat by the forces of the Abbasid Caliphate near Takht e-Jamshid, picking up stakes and moving with all due haste west. Slipping through German territory unmolested, the leader of this scraggly band of steppe warriors, one Mehmet, eyed his people's surroundings greedily.
The Saljuq horde of Mehmet the Red, rampaging through the Thracesians.
At first at a loss, alone in a strange land, the Osmanoglu (Osmanids or Ottomans in other peoples' words) proceeded to plunder what they could from western Asia Minor, taking whatever the Latins had missed in their sweep into the peninsula. Soon, their caravans were too weighted down to continue the nomadic style of life - by 1280, it was the consensus amongst the various chieftains within the tribe that the Turks had to claim a city of their own here in the west. Though some advocated settling down more or less on the spot near the ruined cities of Nicaea and Ephesos (the name 'Sögüt' was thrown around more than once), Mehmet had other plans. The new 'soltan' of the Turks, as he styled himself, was (though an exceptionally cruel and unintelligent fellow) nothing if not an opportunist. He had his eyes on a far more appealing prize than a patch of arid, depopulated plateau.
Constantinople, once the glittering gem of the East, now filthy with squalor thanks to typical Latin negligence.
In the not entirely distant future, the peoples of Central and Eastern Europe, the Americas, and even distant Nippon and Cathay would look back in hindsight - to the depopulated cities lying prostrate before the feet of an ambitious barbarian and his horde, the undefended country and mountain passes of the Balkans, and the now-spent manpower of Europe's only vanguard, Germany - and with more than a hint of regret. Yes, this is where things all went terribly, horribly wrong.
Through their incompetent governance and weak rule, the once-proud Roman Empire, astride the Bosporus, Greece, and Asia, fell into ruin under the long and miserable rule of the Angeloi emperors. The fortresses along the eastern frontier fell into disrepair, with Germanicea and the Cicilian Gate falling for the final time to the Arabs. As Moslem forces pressed further into eastern Anatolia, the Holy Empire of the German Nation and its client state, the Serenissima Republic of Venice, fell upon the weakened Rhomaioi.
The Holy German Empire and Venice.
For all the prayers and efforts of the Romans, Constantinople, the queen of cities, was taken and sacked by the westerners. After no less than three years of plundering the rich countryside, the Venetians took the time to install an Italian in the city as the Emperor of the Romans, beginning the brief and miserable period of the Latin Empire.
The Balkans following the so-called 'German Crusade'; the Latin Empire of Constantinople, the Despotate of Epirus, and the Empire of Morea shown.
With Emperor Vittore I in power in Constantinople allowing access across the straits into Asia, German 'crusaders', now out of work, poured into the unsuspecting countryside, taking what cities they could and establishing feudalistic law over the beleaguered Greeks. With their protectors disappeared, the citizens of stately Trapezountas were forced into a humiliating surrender to the Abbasids, followed shortly thereafter by numerous forced conversions to Islam.
Anatolia after the Crusade in 1270; the Ducate of Iconium and the new Abbasid gains in former Roman Asia.
Now, at about this time, a Saljuq horde arrived in the western Anatolian highlands. Forced out of Transoxiana by their kinsmen, this particular tribe, the Osmanoglu, were considered almost the runts of the litter, and as such made easy prey for the other Turks. Moving south, they were inflicted yet another shameful defeat by the forces of the Abbasid Caliphate near Takht e-Jamshid, picking up stakes and moving with all due haste west. Slipping through German territory unmolested, the leader of this scraggly band of steppe warriors, one Mehmet, eyed his people's surroundings greedily.
The Saljuq horde of Mehmet the Red, rampaging through the Thracesians.
At first at a loss, alone in a strange land, the Osmanoglu (Osmanids or Ottomans in other peoples' words) proceeded to plunder what they could from western Asia Minor, taking whatever the Latins had missed in their sweep into the peninsula. Soon, their caravans were too weighted down to continue the nomadic style of life - by 1280, it was the consensus amongst the various chieftains within the tribe that the Turks had to claim a city of their own here in the west. Though some advocated settling down more or less on the spot near the ruined cities of Nicaea and Ephesos (the name 'Sögüt' was thrown around more than once), Mehmet had other plans. The new 'soltan' of the Turks, as he styled himself, was (though an exceptionally cruel and unintelligent fellow) nothing if not an opportunist. He had his eyes on a far more appealing prize than a patch of arid, depopulated plateau.
Constantinople, once the glittering gem of the East, now filthy with squalor thanks to typical Latin negligence.
In the not entirely distant future, the peoples of Central and Eastern Europe, the Americas, and even distant Nippon and Cathay would look back in hindsight - to the depopulated cities lying prostrate before the feet of an ambitious barbarian and his horde, the undefended country and mountain passes of the Balkans, and the now-spent manpower of Europe's only vanguard, Germany - and with more than a hint of regret. Yes, this is where things all went terribly, horribly wrong.
with Olaf, but I'd rather see you actually finish some of your other stories first.
Although I sort of dislike the Ottomans, being a Byzantine supporter 
