Home Trending Latest threads New posts Developer diaries

The Sublime State - An Ottoman AAR

Jump to latest Follow Reply
  • We have updated our Community Code of Conduct. Please read through the new rules for the forum that are an integral part of Paradox Interactive’s User Agreement.
Winner: I wouldn't know about any experiments. But whenever ubik rings that little bell I can't stop salivating.

ubik: The medication doesn't side affects right has?

Enewald: and Hitmanalex: Did you guys catch the name of the last chapter? Just for you two, heres what I spent my weekend on. Or actually, what I spent the last 15 minutes on. Whatever.

piratesofthemedfinalpossb4.jpg

Edit: Maybe I should be doing an update instead of random pictures.

. . .

Nahhhhhhh.
 
ubik said:
You are doing pretty well, you are showing encouraging progress... just continue playing! :D
Click to expand...

I havn't played EU3 in about 3 months now. :eek: I have about 50 years worth of screenshots saved up that I need to go through first. . .

To keep things a little more interesting, the subsiquent Sultans will not be given the same level of detail during their reigns unless they truly warrant it. That way I won't be writing updates 20 years from now.
 
It's far too true that it is difficult balancing scheduled updates with RL while still keeping the joy of writing intact.

Personally I still find it a bit tough..

But that is irrelevant as I'm certainly looking forward to more updates in this little gem of an AAR.
 
__________________________________________________________________________________________​

Herr von Steuben,

I fear that I write with a heavy load weighing down upon me. News has just reached me that the wars here in Italy have spread further north. The people are calling it a war to unify the peninsula into a single Italian state. I doubt that France will stand by and let it happen so easily, but I don’t mention such fears amongst the local populace for fear of being strung up from a tree as a spy.

I am at least reassured that it is the kingdom of Sardinia-Piedmont leading the efforts for unification and not one of the miserable republics. The last thing the people here need is a weak leader who is elected by an uneducated mob. A strong monarchy is the only thing that is capable of keeping an Italian state independent. But I digress.

The problem for me is that my original plan had been to avoid such uprisings and nationalistic fervor in the Austrian and Hungarian lands by headed west to Italy, but now my progress north is again halted by news of war and uprisings. I hope this letter finds you well and I pray the Germans are not as foolish as these Italian’s to declare war against the strongest powers just because a well-spoken demagogue has gotten them all riled up.

signatureqe9.png

Johannes Krieger
September 10, 1854​

__________________________________________________________________________________________
aartitlebarfinalyu1.png

Part Fourteen
The Fall of the Mad Prince
__________________________________________________________________________________________​

Why the [Greek soldiers] kept advancing on our position I fear I shall never know. The garrison held the high-ground along the road further into the [Ottoman Empire's] Greek lands as our commander sent out a rider to demand that the Prince’s soldiers turn back at once. He returned minutes later to converse with the commander, the Greek detachment still advancing in good order up the gentle slope towards our ranks. Word passed down the line: ready arms!​
- Journal from Ottoman junior-officer describing the start of the 2nd Ottoman-Morean War​


aar070winter1471mn6.jpg

Morea was the last independent Greek state, but it was severely burdened by its monarch Prince Demetrios. The Prince suffered from severe mental deficiencies and was prone to hallucinations and conversing with phantom courtiers, his madness only matched by his undying hatred of the Ottoman Empire and his belief that he would be the hero of Christendom by recreating the Byzantine Empire and throwing the infidel from European soil. The Prince’s first war with the Ottomans had been a complete disaster and seeing Morea loose more than half its territory to a combined force of Ottoman and Italian soldiers.

The Prince had not been removed from power after this debacle, although how much power he held over the nation is questionable. What is known is that a detachment of Greek soldiers on the Ottoman-Morean border advanced directly at a Turkish garrison and refused to discuss with the commander there. The Janissaries quickly destroyed the Greek unit without the loss of a single man and dispatched a rider to inform the Sultan of the events. Mehmet capitalized on the opportunity and used the ‘attack’ by Morean soldiers and declared war on Morea, intent on finally fulfilling his desire to unite the Greek peninsula under Ottoman rule.

The war against Morea was over in mere weeks. The small nation had not recovered from the damage dealt to it a decade earlier and Ottoman soldiers faced no organized resistance, the lower nobility and soldiers refusing to sacrifice themselves needlessly. Morea capitulated and was annexed by the Ottoman Empire who swiftly executed the Prince for his crimes against the Ottoman state. This was a ideal example of how the Ottoman’s preferred to conquer lands; eliminate the strongest contenders or figure heads of any potential monarchy but keep most of the lower nobility in place to ensure stability and order. There was no outcry in Europe over the annexation, Morea having lost any of its support when it had attacked fellow Christians in the previous war, and even the people of Morea were not to upset by the change in leadership.

The only real questions that remains about this small war is how involved was the Prince in the affairs of state and why did the Greek soldiers ‘attack’ the Ottoman Garrison. A few writings from the period have survived, and a number of them from Morea suggest that the Mad Prince was only monarch in name and kept isolated in his personal quarters by a loose council of senior nobility. There have been a number of suggestions then about why the Greeks crossed the border with the Ottomans, ranging from a simple miscalculation by either sides forces about where the border really lay to the entire incident being a falsely-created justification for finishing off Morea. The answers are not clear, but the results are: the Ottomans seized the Greek lands and have never let go.


__________________________________________________________________________________________​

The Ottoman military was one of the finest in the known world at this time, its armies feared for their discipline and technological might. The Janissary’s presented the Sultan with a loyal corps of dedicated professional soldiers that could best the poorly trained feudal militia of other nations. However the Ottoman’s still lacked the ability to move soldiers across the many bodies of water that separated their lands. Mehmet had been forced to create numerous smaller garrisons to ensure that were expensive to maintain and easy to isolate in times of conflict.

aar072winter1471ft4.jpg

To resolve this dire problem a ship building program was initiated to increase the number of larger sailing vessels capable of transporting the soldiers across the Black Sea or along the Ottoman coast. The ships would give the Ottomans the capability to move their own forces where they were needed without having to worry about hiring Venetian or Genoan merchants to do the job instead.

The Knight’s of Rhodes took a great interest in the shipbuilding efforts of their mortal foe, quickly realizing that the fleet would be of sufficient size to allow Ottoman soldiers to force a landing on their island fortress. The knights sent desperate pleas to Europe for support, but only a trickle of soldiers and small amount of gold arrived. The Hospitallers were on their own if the Sultan sought revenge for their actions in the past.


- Johannes Krieger, The Sublime State: A History of The Ottoman Empire; vol. 1

__________________________________________________________________________________________​
 
Last edited:
__________________________________________________________________________________________​

Herr von Steuben,

It seems nothing is known about what exactly is going on up north, only rumors and hearsay. I am beginning to wonder if the world is going mad around me. If there is such a conflict between France and the northern Italian states then I have nowhere to turn. I doubt I would survive the trip from Italy to Spain, even if I had the money to purchase the services of any reputable captain.

Indeed I fear that I must now head back west and hope to skirt the worst of the uprisings in the Ottoman northern lands by reaching the Black Sea and heading north. The Russian and Lithuanian monarchies know how to treat deluded peasants properly, so I hope that they are not involved in the same revolutionary fervor that has spread across these lands.

Herr Abate was visibly upset by this news, but would not elaborate on his reasons. Nonetheless he relented and agreed to travel with me back east. I am glad to have another set of eyes with all this craziness.

Yours,

signatureqe9.png

Johannes Krieger
September 12, 1854​

__________________________________________________________________________________________
aartitlebarfinalyu1.png

Part Fifteen
The Death of Mehmet el-Fatih
__________________________________________________________________________________________​

In the spring of 1473 the Venetian Doge Nicolò Tron was surprised when an unassuming Turkish diplomat arrived at the Palazzo Ducale di Venezia and presented him with a simple note that very politely informed the Doge that the Ottoman Empire was now in charge of the Greek island of Corfu. The note had been sent the moment Imperial troops had begun loading themselves onto the simple boats and rafts to seize the Venetian territory, an act that caught Venice completely by surprise.

The Doge delayed his response for a week as he sought information about the truth of these claims and considered his possible responses to the aggressive act. He decided that he would send a small naval contingent to the island to assess the strength of the Ottoman presence there. They returned later and described the Ottoman navy which rested near the islands as a ‘wall of wood and sail that stretched to the horizon’. The impact of this was significant on the Doge’s decision to write a response to the diplomat’s note agreeing that he agreed with the Sultan’s claims on the island.

AAR078Spring1473.jpg

Thus the Ottoman Empire secured the Greek Island of Corfu without firing a shot, an episode in history that has proven surprisingly popular with comedic playwrights in both Italy and the Ottoman Empire, although the plays tend not to do well in Venice for obvious reasons.

__________________________________________________________________________________________​

The conquest of Corfu is more than just a humorous anecdote, however. It is one of the most visible displays of how the strength of the Ottoman Empire had grown under Mehmet’s reign. He had expanded the borders of the realm by incredible dimensions to form one of the world’s most powerful kingdoms. Through military innovation and the development of a more modern governmental system Mehmet had laid the foundations that other Sultan’s would base their own successes on for generations.

AAR080Spring1473.png

The Millet system was one of the areas of Ottoman law that was modified and expanded under Mehmet, and act that helped cement the loyalty of the multiple religious groups of the empire. It would go a long way to reducing religious tensions within the Ottoman Empire for most of the major religious groups and would provide a justification for including non-Muslims into the government bureaucracy. These early movements towards religious pluralism are still studied and debated today, but for the Ottoman state they were crucial to prevent the very heterogeneous nation from tearing itself apart through rebellion and religious conflict.

__________________________________________________________________________________________

AAR081Spring1473.png

One of the results of the Millet system’s growth and development was that the Ottoman state further recognized groups not only on religious affiliation, but ethnic and cultural as well. Until the 1474 reforms the entire Orthodox community had been under the auspices of the Greek Patriarch in Constantinople, which had been resented by the Orthodox Christians of Serbia who claimed that the Serbian Patriarchy should be given a degree of independence.

These claims had often been ignored before as Mehmet had needed to focus on other matters of state and not on dividing up power when stability and order was needed most. However the successes of the devshirme system and the rise of the janissaries would have an interesting result for the Serbian Patriarch when a converted Serbian named Mahmud Pasha Angelović was made Grand Vizier. Mahmud had risen fast within the Ottoman bureaucracy, having begun as a converted prisoner of war and rising up to even marry one of Mehmet’s daughters.

His support for the creation of the Patriarchy to help placate the Serbs combined with the relative stability of the era allowed Mehmet to consider the request, which he granted later that year.

__________________________________________________________________________________________

AAR087Winter1475.png

Kanuni Sultan Mehmet II el-Fatih was arguably the finest of the Ottoman Sultans who even today is still regarded as a national hero, most notably in Constantinople where there are multiple mosques, schools, hospitals, and even markets named in his honor.

His legacy is often discussed amongst historians who often disagree on which of his accomplishments was the most important to the continued Ottoman strength. Yet almost all agree that the 43 year old Sultan’s death during the winter of 1475 from a severe illness was one of the most defining moments in Ottoman history. It is quite possible that he could have succeeded in fulfilling his own dream of recreating the Roman Empire if he had lived for a few years longer.

- Johannes Krieger, The Sublime State: A History of The Ottoman Empire; vol. 1

__________________________________________________________________________________________​
 
Last edited:
Creating the Roman Empire?
There are no more romans and neither any empires.
Just claimants for the provincial rule. :D
Oh noez, who is the next padishah or shahanshah?
 
Let's see if his children inherited some of his qualities :D
 
Mehmet! Nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!!!
Oh well. I really like that Serbian Patriarch decision, that makes Serbian an accepted culture, even though it will make up such a small portion of your population.
 
Truly the end of an era...
 
I just finished reading through all 11 pages and must say i am impressed, both with the gameplay but especially the writing skill. the narrative about the train explosion looked like it could have been in a bestselling book.

great job my friend, it takes alot to get me to subscribe to an AAR about a nation i so severly dislike, due to my love of recreating Byzantium in MM.:D
 
Enewald: Mehmet didn't marry a distant relative of the Byzantine Emperor just because she looked great in a two-piece.

Mehmet was also the first to adopt the title Kayser-i-Rûm (Caesar of the Roman Empire). He was a big dreamer.

Winner: Well, in a word: no. I mean, look at the first page for a preview of the new Sultan's name. Its. . . unique.

EnragedKiwi: Me too. Less rebellion is always nice.

balkanite: Whose next? My hussy of an ex-wife, thats who! Muahahahaha!

RGB: Mehmet will be known far and wide for his amazing accomplishments in the realm of personal hygiene: the El-Fatih brand shampoo is still popular to this day!

Jman47: Thanks for the compliment! *Blush*

I really need to figure out how I'm going to continue the whole Krieger stuff. I don't even have any kind of overall plot figured out yet.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top Bottom
Back