The Sublime State - An Ottoman AAR

Stuyvesant said:

Surely the holiday season and New Year's will interfere?

Have to agree that predicting future updates is a no-win situation. If I were the writing type (which I'm not), I'd not make any promises, unless I were running a final spell-check on the finished update.

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Yes it will, but not for another week. And the problem with promises is that I've learned that the moment I try and keep a schedule or make a "it will be done shortly" remark... I don't. It's a curse, I tell ya!

I reread the telegram again as I stood in the lobby of the Prussian Generalkonsulat, mildly surprised by its contents. “The same political status? What does that mean?” I asked myself as I flipped the drab piece of paper over as if I expected to find the answer written there. I didn’t really know why I had asked my friend to look into Lady Greenhaven in the first place. At the time my faculties had been addled by a monstrous hangover and uncontrollable paranoia (completely understandable after a near-death experience, I might add), but by know I was almost certain I could trust her. If she had wanted me dead she probably could have managed it by now.

A soft cough of annoyance brought my attention back to the mousy clerk who had handed me the telegram. His palm was held out expectantly as he coughed again, the irritation in his tone growing. “Ah yes, I almost forgot,” I quickly withdrew a few coins from my pocket as I apologized and dropped them in his upturned hand. Wrapping his scrawny fingers tight around the payment he wordlessly turned on his heels and scurried from the room; a two-legged rodent disappearing back into its mouse-hole. Left alone I glanced back at the telegram one final time to ensure I hadn’t missed anything (I hadn’t, of course) before I crumpled the not up and tossed it into a nearby wastebasket. “I wish I could tell you what was happening, Helmut,” I said to myself, “but I don’t even know what is going on.”

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Sultan Suleiman II had a sharp mind and a great sense of his current predicament. The military leadership in the Balkans had executed his half-brother Mahmud and placed him on the throne; he “ruled” at their pleasure. Or so they encouraged him to think. Suleiman was not a child and knew full well that his “advisors” needed him as much as he needed to remain in their good graces. The Ottoman Empire was still a devoted monarchy where those with titles reigned at the discretion of the Sultan. For Suleiman the problem was in exercising his imperial authority without being quietly deposed. Only a small group within the empire knew that Mahmud had been forced out and executed; his predecessors had also suffered from repeated and sudden deaths within the imperial line, so if the commanders and advisors felt he was too much of a threat they could certainly chance another palace coup.

To this end the Sultan found himself having to allow certain concessions to the Janissaries. Mostly these were minor issues such as pay-raises and the like, but the most vital and consequential of them all was the removal on the restriction of Janissaries having to have been Christian converts. Over the years the Sultans had found it prudent to give the Janissaries greater degrees of freedom to ensure their loyalty such as the ability to marry and let their children inherit property. Over time the strict regulations on the Janissaries had weakened as non-Christians and the children of former Janissaries found their way into the schools, but this decree formally abolished the need for the Devşirme. This would help relations with the Christian populations, but it also lead to a rapid decline in the quality and loyalty of the Janissary Corps. Eventually this would lead to a future crisis that would threaten the entire Empire.

Initially military leaders were very worried about the possibility that the new Padishah might seek to arrest or execute them and regain absolute control of the state. During the first year of his reign Suleiman was closely watched by his minders for fear of an imperial order for their heads. Yet as time passed and Suleiman remained very quiet and pliable the worry began to lessen. Even within the ad-hoc “council” commanding the Balkan war the generals and other administrators were not unified in how to handle the Sultan. They could not treat him as a prisoner as eventually he would be expected to return to Constantinople where he would be out of their grasp and he would be free to do as he pleased. A few of the most confident believed they could occupy the Imperial capital and thus keep the monarchy forever under the thumb of the military, but the majority saw this as folly: the rest of the Empire would see it as a military coup and rally around the beleaguered Sultan.

Others sought to work with the Sultan and build good relations with him in preparations for his return to power. They tried to befriend him or convince him that his predecessor had been a threat to the general stability of the Empire, all in the interest of self-preservation. Amongst these individuals were a select few who were truly devoted to the Sultan and the monarchy, seeing the deposition as a horribly necessity. It was from these men that Suleiman would find his first true allies, and of the two dozen or so leaders of the coup they alone would be spared Suleiman’s patient retribution.

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The war against the Holy Roman Empire had become a disaster for the Ottoman Empire. The early and well prepared invasion of Hungary had quickly netted a massive swath of territory, but this was all soon recaptured by the advancing Austrian armies. Turkish forces had fallen back into the heart of Serbia around the massive fortresses of Belgrade. Belgrade (“White City” or “White Fortress” in the Slavic tongue) was the most strategically important of all Ottoman cities within Europe with the sole exception of the capital of Constantinople itself. Built where the Danube and Sava Rivers met, its location allowed swift river transport from the Black Sea and offered the perfect staging ground for any further Ottoman conquests into Europe. The Ottomans had even attempted to rename the city with the Arabic name “Dar Al Jihad” ( “House of Jihad”) to reflect this future goal, although this was never taken seriously by the locals or even the Turks themselves. Belgrade would, like Constantinople, retain its earlier name due to its common usage within the Empire.

To support that expansionist end the Turks had invested heavily in the city in the centuries after its conquest. Belgrade was surrounded with thick walls and numerous fortifications to cement Turkish control over the region, becoming the lynchpin of Ottoman defences in the Balkans. Any invader had to neutralize the city if they wished to utilize the rivers or march further into the Ottoman Balkans, for its massive garrison was a small army all its own. The city was important for more than just military matters however. Its location on the rivers made it a centre of trade and economy for the entire region, allowing its population to swell to more than a hundred-thousand souls. This importance was reflected in the numerous mosques and Turkish-style buildings the Empire build within the city as thousands of Muslims relocated to the city (most willingly).

Belgrade had become the centre of administration for one of the three main sub-divisions of the Christian population, dealing with the Christian Serbs under the broad category of the Orthodox Christian Millet (and its leader the Patriarch in Constantinople). The city became an independent Sanjak not included in a specific Vilâyet / Beylik, although still under the rule of the Beylerbey of the region (the Northern Balkans, as opposed to the Southern Balkans which included Greece and Bulgaria). Its fortifications are still mostly intact and well preserved, and this author highly recommends any Oriental adventurer to make Belgrade a stop on their travels east. You will not be disappointed.

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The Danubian access to Belgrade was vital for Suleiman’s armies by allowing the untapped reserves from the rest of the Empire to arrive swiftly to replenish the depleted Ottoman forces. While the combined Austrian, Bavarian, and Brandenburgian armies were formidable by any sense of the word, the Austrian’s lacked one key element to threaten the Empire: naval power. The wars with Portugal had shown the Turks were very dependent on naval transportation to move their military swiftly, and the key to disrupting the Turkish military on the ground was to take control of the seas. The Germans lacked any means of threatening the Black Sea, giving the Turks the ability to reach Belgrade unmolested. This would prove the turning point in the war as by the late-spring of 1605 the Ottomans had regained much of their lost strength and could resume their counter-offensive.

Suleiman himself began to take a more primary role in the military campaigns by exerting his Imperial authority to take command of armies and overwrite the orders of others. Still walking quietly to appease the Janissaries, the Sultan was sure not to overstep his bounds until the time was right. He personally led one of the smaller armies back into Hungary while the bulk of the military engaged the Germans to the north. Here his military acumen was obvious when he swiftly conquered much of the Hungarian Kingdom; although resistance was minimal he moved with great speed and threatened Hungary with destruction again. Desperate to hold onto whatever land they had left King Lajos III (and his mother) made territorial concessions to the Ottomans. The Turks had not gained their original goals by grabbing more of the low-lying Hungarian lands, but knocking Hungary out of the war created divisions within the German ranks and sealed their right-flank from attack.

Hungary’s defeat had two major effects: it was both a blow to Emperor Maximilian’s prestige and gave Sultan Suleiman much respect amongst the military. More commanders began to support the Padishah as they nominally would, granting him greater control over his armies once he returned from Hungary in victory. Maximilian on the other hand found himself in a tight spot. Defending Christian Hungary from Muslim aggression had been the key motivator for the conflict. With Hungary at peace with the Turks the Bavarian and Brandenburgian detachments developed an unwillingness to keep up the fight, and Maximilian feared that if they returned home he would not be able to properly gain what he had demanded in the Treaty of Rust. Forced into action Maximilian advanced on the Turks, knowing the others would continue to follow him as long as they kept winning. A solid victory would cement their loyalty and give him the support needed to re-conquer the Hungarian lands. The Emperor Maximilian and his Holy Roman armies met Padishah Suleiman outside Osijek.

The Battle of Osijek was a reversal of what had occurred at Buda and Slavonia with the Ottomans sending the Germans retreating from the field in disarray. The losses were not as severe as at Buda or Slavonia for either side but Osijek, like the two other major battles, had disastrous political consequences. The unity of the Germans was sundered completely. It was the Brandenburgian detachment that was the first to desert Maximilian after secret negotiations with the Ottomans. Essentially Suleiman paid the Prince-Elector of Brandenburg off by transporting a large sum of precious metals up to the Baltic ports. This cost Maximilian roughly a fourth of his military strength when he needed it most.

Without the large quantities of reserves the Turks were able to call on the Austrians were forced to fall back. The Bavarians loyally stayed in the field but Count-Elector Anton I returned home and refused to send more men to die in a “fruitless conflict so the Emperor can gain more land.”

As the Austrians retreated the Ottomans hotly pursued them, spreading out once they reached the Croat lands to besiege the forts and castles the Austrians had built there. Maximilian still held a strong military but could not dislodge the Turks from their siege lines. In a humiliating reversal the Holy Roman Emperor was forced to concede lands to the “heathen Turk and their bloodthirsty Sultan”, granting Suleiman the accolades and popular support he needed to fully regain power from his military minders. Returning home to Constantinople Suleiman began to resume leadership on the Ottoman Empire, all the while patiently putting into action the plot he had conceived of to seek retribution against the leaders of the coup that had so threatened Imperial authority.


- Johannes Krieger, The Sublime State: A History of The Ottoman Empire; vol. 2

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Posting from London today (it's cold and I'm jet-lagged), as I won't be home again until early next year. I can't believe I'm missing Texas weather, but then it was in the mid-70s (F) when I left...

I miss wearing shorts.

LordOfBlood said:

Great AAR, Great storyline.
Only problem; We need more and more frequent updates

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Thank you; glad you are enjoying it. And I am fully aware of my inability to post with any kind of speed or regularity; a glaring fault for which I have no proper apology.

Hopefully I can pick up the speed a bit in 2011.

Stuyvesant said:

Excellent... Suleiman is turning into quite the Sultan, given the perilous start of his reign.

This following sentence I really like:With just those two words at the end, you sketch out quite a bit of the future of Suleiman's reign. "Patient retribution", I really like the image that conjures.

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He isn't one to rush these kinds of things, for reason of personality and practicality. And in the end, as much of a bastard Mahmud was, he was still a Sultan - blood is thicker than water.

loki100 said:

... I do like a nice plot teaser and that is one big tease

nice reversal of fortunes in the Balkans, given where you were a few years back a peace with actual gains is some achievement

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I was a bit worried, but thankfully Hungary was so weak that it surrendered quickly, and Brandenburg was keen to abandon the conflict (for a price). The benefits of having such a large empire are impressive manpower reserves during war, but the problem is that marching the reserve armies from Egypt or Iraq take a great deal of time. Especially when you need to keep forces in the area to deal with the occasional revolt.

Enewald said:

Nice WE!

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Thanks!

gabor said:

And yet he wins. Now I wonder whether the MM Helius's mechanics of anti-Ottoman crusade will trigger or not. Did you have a rebel problem during this war? Btw, why Cilli? Wasn't Triest more tempting?

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Oh it will... but thats for a later update. Rebels are generally not a problem except for very unfortunate circumstances - they are more annoyances than anything. But they can divert forces away at unfortunate times. And Triest probably was, but then I wanted peace to avoid more war exhaustion and didn't want to keep fighting.

aldriq said:

Things didn't end as badly as they could have... Now Suleiman is safe and can cook his revenge for as long as he wishes

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Revenge is a dish best served boiling hot with a cream sauce and plenty of lemon and salt. It hurts more when its poured into the lidless eyes of those who dared to defy the House of Osman!

Well first off, I need to apologize for the delay over the last few months. I had been planning on updating some as a break from school, but real life has continued to keep me from finding the time or desire to resume. I'm graduating within a month, after which I need to find a place to live and employment. So between university classes and making sure I don't die of starvation/exposure once I graduate, I have found little willpower to work on the next chapter.

I've had a few false starts: I already have all the screen-shots edited for the next chapter, but I can't seem to get started on the more important part of actually writing things down. Hopefully once school is over and I'm settled in I should be able to continue (I do want to finish TSS), but if I update again in the near future it will probably be the only one for a while.

The good news is that I still possess all my game files and such, so I haven't had any tech problems sabotage me (yet). With that, on to the (very delayed) answers to previous comments.

Stuyvesant said:

Enjoy London. As far as the shorts go: pah! In Minnesota, there are idiots who'll go around in shorts (and possibly sandals) when it's about zero degrees (yes, Fahrenheit), so there's no reason why you couldn't wear them. Now, as to being comfortable...

Looking forward to Suleiman's revenge. Of course, with your posting habits, the 'patient' part of the retribution might take on unexpected relevance.

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Yes... I am just roleplaying, is all. These last few months of silence were me being "in character."

... Thats my story, and I'm sticking to it.

loki100 said:

pah.. London, you should come to Glasgow where men are men and women are ....

back in the 70s there was a brief and awful craze for wearing Hawaiin shirts. In the bulk of the UK all this did was to send people blind, unfortunately by the time the craze reached Glasgow it was also mid-winter ... I believe in parts of the East End you can still see the frostbite scars

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Ouch. I've spent most of my life living in warm climates (California, Texas, Singapore, etc.), so I would probably panic if I ever had to deal with weather of that magnitude.

RGB said:

You know, with all these armies advancing, retreating and then counter-advnacing, the countryside must be really suffering.

But surely, such victories are a great boost for the Sultan even domestically...let's see what his next move is.

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The people of the Empire are a hardy folk.