Realistic examples of additional territories being reclaimed for Christendom?

[WolfBear]

Which additional realistic examples of additional territories being reclaimed for Christendom could there have been? Spain and Portugal were reconquered from the Muslims in real life, and Ottoman Armenia and Constantinople could have also been reconquered for Christendom had Russia not collapsed in the middle of World War I. However, which additional territories could have realistically fit the bill for this?

I suppose that France could have held onto parts of Algeria and that Italy could have held onto parts of Libya, but in both cases, only with the help of large-scale European settler colonialism.

 

[Skallagrim]

Go back far enough, and many things become realistic.

Preventing the split between the Byzantines and the Crusaders in 1098 during the First Crusade is an excellent starting point. From there, you can realistically work towards a stable Outremer, continued Byzantine-Crusader co-operation, the eventual entry of the Georgians and Armenians into this alliance (with Byzantine patronage), and a further Crusade to capture Egypt.

At that point, you've effectively built the foundation for an ATL Reconquista that doesn't stop with Iberia, but continues into North Africa, and eventually links up with forces from Egypt. This makes additional sense when we consider that capturing Egypt lends the Christians access to the Red Sea, and thence the Indian Ocean. Therefore, oceanic journeys of exploration into the Atlantic are far less attractive. Thus, any European efforts are more likely to be directed to North Africa, instead of turning into American conquistador ventures.

The end result is that Islam becomes a purely Asiatic phenomenon, being driven entirely out of Africa and away from the Med.

There was a timeline called And All The Nations Shall Gather To It on AH.com and it very much seemed to be heading in this direction. I don't know if it's still going, since I haven't had time to catch up with it in ages.

 

[WolfBear]

Go back far enough, and many things become realistic.

Preventing the split between the Byzantines and the Crusaders in 1098 during the First Crusade is an excellent starting point. From there, you can realistically work towards a stable Outremer, continued Byzantine-Crusader co-operation, the eventual entry of the Georgians and Armenians into this alliance (with Byzantine patronage), and a further Crusade to capture Egypt.

At that point, you've effectively built the foundation for an ATL Reconquista that doesn't stop with Iberia, but continues into North Africa, and eventually links up with forces from Egypt. This makes additional sense when we consider that capturing Egypt lends the Christians access to the Red Sea, and thence the Indian Ocean. Therefore, oceanic journeys of exploration into the Atlantic are far less attractive. Thus, any European efforts are more likely to be directed to North Africa, instead of turning into American conquistador ventures.

The end result is that Islam becomes a purely Asiatic phenomenon, being driven entirely out of Africa and away from the Med.

There was a timeline called And All The Nations Shall Gather To It on AH.com and it very much seemed to be heading in this direction. I don't know if it's still going, since I haven't had time to catch up with it in ages.

Very interesting! So, Islam will be just Iraq, Iran, the Arabian Peninsula, and the territories to the east of them? Also, what about eventually pursuing the Reconquista there as well?

Also, what about more recent PoDs?

 

[Husky_Khan]

Very interesting! So, Islam will be just Iraq, Iran, the Arabian Peninsula, and the territories to the east of them? Also, what about eventually pursuing the Reconquista there as well?

Also, what about more recent PoDs?

There's also more practical concerns. There were still a lot of Christians in the Levant, Egypt and of course Anatolia with smaller communities throughout the Middle East all the way to India.

To have Christendom reconquista much of the Middle East would be chancy since it wasn't clearly dominant ever, even when Islam first swept through. And it gets more chancy the further East one goes where Christianity was never really dominant.

For the Middle Age Europe and Byzantines that'd require a consistent investment ranging into the time period of centuries against relatively peer civilizations on their home ground so to speak. Christianizing the Arabian Peninsula or Persia/South Asia would be really really hard.

Later more technologically advanced civilizations trued Christianizing Muslim and Hindu places later on in history and weren't really successful after all. It'd be generous to grant that Middle Ages Europe could.

Expanding to the borders of the actual Byzantine Empire circa 5th century as well as Armebia and Georgia etc seems like a solid limit to a Reconquista in this era.

 

[WolfBear]

There's also more practical concerns. There were still a lot of Christians in the Levant, Egypt and of course Anatolia with smaller communities throughout the Middle East all the way to India.

To have Christendom reconquista much of the Middle East would be chancy since it wasn't clearly dominant ever, even when Islam first swept through. And it gets more chancy the further East one goes where Christianity was never really dominant.

For the Middle Age Europe and Byzantines that'd require a consistent investment ranging into the time period of centuries against relatively peer civilizations on their home ground so to speak. Christianizing the Arabian Peninsula or Persia/South Asia would be really really hard.

Expanding to the borders of the actual Byzantine Empire circa 5th century as well as Armebia and Georgia etc seems like a solid limit to a Reconquista in this era.

Interesting and makes sense. BTW, it's fascinating how the Crusades sort-of flamed out after the First Crusade. The first one was a huge and unexpected victory, but the subsequent ones ended up being much less impressive.

 

[Skallagrim]

Very interesting! So, Islam will be just Iraq, Iran, the Arabian Peninsula, and the territories to the east of them? Also, what about eventually pursuing the Reconquista there as well?

A lot depends on how the Islamic powers react to the events as described.

Of course, then there's the Mongols. I've raised the notion that, since they are operating at the limits of their strategic range once they get to the Levant and Anatolia, the Christians (being well-organised a this juncture) can withstand them of they act in concert. This would result in a single Ain Jalut-style defeat for the Mongols, after which pretty definitive borders are drawn up by default.

This means that I expect the Muslim powers to get absolutely hammered from the East, while the Christian powers take a major beating, but keep their footing. And then they have the Ilkhanate next door. What happens to Islam depends on the Ilkhans. If they convert to Islam, it prevails. But Islam is already weakened a lot by this point. So I can easily see the Ilkhans converting to Nestorianism (as two of them did in OTL). Thus, you'd see Islam getting wiped out. Maye some small remnants would continue to exist, but it would cease to be a major religion.

Also, what about more recent PoDs?

The more recent you get, the more difficult it becomes. I'm sure there are people who can come up with some specific examples where things could be done. The last really major opportunity I'm aware of is the Russian desire to go "back to Byzantium", particularly in the latter stages of the 18th century. You have to really steer thing so they work out for Russia and is allies (in the event, that would be Austria), but it can be done. And then you can have them carve up the Ottoman Empire, with particular attention to rewarding all the Christian minorities within the empire with their own brand-new states. This would involve:

-- A big-ass Greece, a.k.a. "the Byzantine Kingdom", eventually to be placed under Konstantin, with a regency first. (Some forced relocation of Turks required.)

-- A big-ass Georgia. (Much less relocation required.)

-- A big-ass Armenia. (More relocation of Turks, and also Kurds.)

-- A small Assyria. (Because there's no way to make it any bigger than small, and even they you need to kick out some Kurds and Arabs to make it work.)

-- A Levantine state for (primarily) Maronite Christians. (... a.k.a. Lebanon, but everyone who's not a Christian gets three days to leave before they're put to the sword.)

-- The ultra-shiny mega-holy Kingdom of Jerusalem. (Muslims and Jews will be forced out. Expect joint Catholic-Orthodox oversight over this state.)

-- Maybe something for the Copts in Egypt, if that can be made into a workable project. (Press X to doubt.)

Beyond that, Arabs and Kurds will all be going their own way, while the Turkish heartland (central Anatolia) ends up surrounded by Greeks, Georgians and Armenians (who all hate them) backed by (primarily) Russia, who will not hesitate to reward any sign of Turkish revanchism with full-scale genocide.

So, yeah, that gets it done, too. But as you can see, it's a messy affair with loads of little wars and atrocities scheduled for the near- to mid-term future. And the later we go with the POD, the worse this gets. Do European powers in the modern period have the stomarch for this? Rule of thumb: the closer to home, the less they're willing to be truly brutal. So I'd say "no".

The only reason Russia would be able to really get away with what I'm suggesting here in the later 18th century is because we can time the whole thing to perfectly line up with the great French republican cock-up. As in: Russia and Austria dismantle the Ottomans together, and then events in France force Austria to turn all its attention West, and Russia gets a free hand to carve out Christian client states by any means necessary.

(The motive for Russia to go that far is that Russia's real aim is to unite Russia with the proposed Byzantine Kingdom, thus making good on Russia's claim to have rightfully inherited the Byzantine legacy. Third Rome, third Rome!)

 

[WolfBear]

A lot depends on how the Islamic powers react to the events as described.

Of course, then there's the Mongols. I've raised the notion that, since they are operating at the limits of their strategic range once they get to the Levant and Anatolia, the Christians (being well-organised a this juncture) can withstand them of they act in concert. This would result in a single Ain Jalut-style defeat for the Mongols, after which pretty definitive borders are drawn up by default.

This means that I expect the Muslim powers to get absolutely hammered from the East, while the Christian powers take a major beating, but keep their footing. And then they have the Ilkhanate next door. What happens to Islam depends on the Ilkhans. If they convert to Islam, it prevails. But Islam is already weakened a lot by this point. So I can easily see the Ilkhans converting to Nestorianism (as two of them did in OTL). Thus, you'd see Islam getting wiped out. Maye some small remnants would continue to exist, but it would cease to be a major religion.


The more recent you get, the more difficult it becomes. I'm sure there are people who can come up with some specific examples where things could be done. The last really major opportunity I'm aware of is the Russian desire to go "back to Byzantium", particularly in the latter stages of the 18th century. You have to really steer thing so they work out for Russia and is allies (in the event, that would be Austria), but it can be done. And then you can have them carve up the Ottoman Empire, with particular attention to rewarding all the Christian minorities within the empire with their own brand-new states. This would involve:

-- A big-ass Greece, a.k.a. "the Byzantine Kingdom", eventually to be placed under Konstantin, with a regency first. (Some forced relocation of Turks required.)

-- A big-ass Georgia. (Much less relocation required.)

-- A big-ass Armenia. (More relocation of Turks, and also Kurds.)

-- A small Assyria. (Because there's no way to make it any bigger than small, and even they you need to kick out some Kurds and Arabs to make it work.)

-- A Levantine state for (primarily) Maronite Christians. (... a.k.a. Lebanon, but everyone who's not a Christian gets three days to leave before they're put to the sword.)

-- The ultra-shiny mega-holy Kingdom of Jerusalem. (Muslims and Jews will be forced out. Expect joint Catholic-Orthodox oversight over this state.)

-- Maybe something for the Copts in Egypt, if that can be made into a workable project. (Press X to doubt.)

Beyond that, Arabs and Kurds will all be going their own way, while the Turkish heartland (central Anatolia) ends up surrounded by Greeks, Georgians and Armenians (who all hate them) backed by (primarily) Russia, who will not hesitate to reward any sign of Turkish revanchism with full-scale genocide.

So, yeah, that gets it done, too. But as you can see, it's a messy affair with loads of little wars and atrocities scheduled for the near- to mid-term future. And the later we go with the POD, the worse this gets. Do European powers in the modern period have the stomarch for this? Rule of thumb: the closer to home, the less they're willing to be truly brutal. So I'd say "no".

The only reason Russia would be able to really get away with what I'm suggesting here in the later 18th century is because we can time the whole thing to perfectly line up with the great French republican cock-up. As in: Russia and Austria dismantle the Ottomans together, and then events in France force Austria to turn all its attention West, and Russia gets a free hand to carve out Christian client states by any means necessary.

(The motive for Russia to go that far is that Russia's real aim is to unite Russia with the proposed Byzantine Kingdom, thus making good on Russia's claim to have rightfully inherited the Byzantine legacy. Third Rome, third Rome!)

What about trying to do at least some of this with a mid-1890s Ottoman partition over the Hamidian massacres?

Also, as a side question, why did the Mongols fail to conquer most of Europe? I read that Europe's fortifications system might have had something to do with this:

https://prism.ucalgary.ca/bitstream/handle/11023/232/ucalgary_2012_pow_lindsey.pdf?sequence=2

 

[Skallagrim]

Interesting and makes sense. BTW, it's fascinating how the Crusades sort-of flamed out after the First Crusade. The first one was a huge and unexpected victory, but the subsequent ones ended up being much less impressive.

My working theory for this is that the Crusades were the consequence of the millennium not turning out to be literal.

Okay, I admit that sounds weird. Let me explain. For the first thousand years of its existence, Christianity was rather strongly influenced by Platonism. One consequence of this is a great emphasis on the "higher", non-physial world (in Christian terms, "the world to come"), over the mortal, physical reality, whose importance is down-played. And one way this manifested was in the near-universal belief that the millennium was literally going to be thousand years. Whereafter the Kingdom of God would come about.

You may recall the world not ending around the year 1000. This came as a surprise to many people in Christendom. That sounds like a joke line from Monty Python, but I'm serious. People were expecting the end to come, and to come relatively soon. And it didn't come. This whole sequence of events -- anticipation and let-down alike -- resulted in considerable agitation, mania, extremism, and all such things.

One possible notion here was that the Kingdom had not arrived unto the world because man was unworthy. Well. For one thing, many powerful Europeans held this to be at least plausible. For another, such sentiments can quickly turn into fanatical masses agitating against the "corrupt nobles" (Christianity having a pretty radical streak from the get-go, after all).

Which meant that taking the matter seriously was wise, both on religious and on socio-political grounds. The Crusades became the anwer to this conundrum. What better way to cleanse the world of sin than liberating the Holy Land? What better way to cleanse oneself of sin than participating in that mission? And what better way to externalise all that millenarian frustration, agitation and mania that was alive within Christendom... than to deliberately turn it outward, against the heathen foe?

It worked. And one Crusade was actually enough to get the job done. The rest were really just after-births.

We may note that after the Crusades had well and truly launched, Christianity almost at once ceased its mainstream belief in literal millenialism, and began to treat "the thousand years" as a metaphorical concept. Platonism became less important, and Aristotle made a big come-back. The singular attention for the "world to come" was somewhat lessened, and it became accepted that we may know God by coming to know His creation. So attention for the physical world became more important.

This culminated in the advent of scholasticism.

What about trying to do at least some of this with a mid-1890s Ottoman partition over the Hamidian massacres?

I'd call that too late to do much effectively. They tried thirty years later, and Christian-dominated Lebanon didn't work out.

Also, as a side question, why did the Mongols fail to conquer most of Europe? I read that Europe's fortifications system might have had something to do with this:

Maybe. I think those fortifications existed because of the European terrain, and that it was the terrain that was most troublesome to the Mongols. Once you run out of steppe, you can only go that much further. That's a universal rule for all steppe hordes. The Mongols pushed it to the absolute limit, and then they reached it. They were very good at adapting, to be sure. Closer to home, they had the operational reach to expand into non-steppe territory and make it work. But once they hit Europe, they were at the very edge of their range, the terrain was unfavourable, and the locals were well-adapted to the terrain by means that further impaired rapid conquest (e.g. castles all over the place).

 

[WolfBear]

My working theory for this is that the Crusades were the consequence of the millennium not turning out to be literal.

Okay, I admit that sounds weird. Let me explain. For the first thousand years of its existence, Christianity was rather strongly influenced by Platonism. One consequence of this is a great emphasis on the "higher", non-physial world (in Chritian terms, "the world to come"), over the mortal, physical reality, whose importance is down-played. And one way this manifested was in the near-universal belief that the millennium was literally going to be thousand years. Whereafter the Kingdom of God would come about.

You may recall the world not ending around the year 1000. This came as a surprise to many people in Christendom. That sounds like a joke line from Monty Python, but I'm serious. People were expecting the end to come, and to come relatively soon. And it didn't come. This whole sequence of events -- anticipation and let-down alike -- resulted in considerable agitation, mania, extremism, and all such things.

One possible notion here was that the Kingdom had not arrived unto the world because man was unworthy. Well. For one thing, many powerful Europeans held this to be at least plausible. For another, such sentiments can quickly turn into fanatical masses agitating against the "corrupt nobles" (Christianity having a pretty radical streak from the get-go, after all).

Which meant that taking the matter seriously was wise, both on religious and on socio-political grounds. The Crusades became the anwer to this conundrum. What better way to cleanse the world of sin than liberating the Holy Land? What better way to cleanse oneself of sin than participating in that mission? And what better way to externalise all that millenarian frustration, agitation and mania that was alive within Christendom... than to deliberately turn it outward, against the heathen foe?

It worked. And one Crusade was actually enough to get the job done. The rest were really just after-births.

We may note that after the Crusades had well and truly launched, Christianity almost at once ceased its mainstream belief in literal millenialism, and began to treat "the thousand years" as a metaphorical concept. Platonism became less important, and Aristotle made a big come-back. The singular attention for the "world to come" was somewhat lessened, and it became accepted that we may know God by coming to know His creation. So attention for the physical world became more important.

This culminated in the advent of scholasticism.


I'd call that to olate to do much effectively. They tried thirty years later, and Christian-dominated Lebanon didn't work out.


Maybe. I think those fortifications existed because of the European terrain, and that it was the terrain that was most troublesome to the Mongols. Once you run out of steppe, you can only go that much further. That's a universal rule for all steppe hordes. The Mongols pushed it to the absolute limit, and then they reached it. They were very good at adapting, to be sure. Closer to home, they had the operational reach to expand into non-steppe territory and make it work. But once they hit Europe, they were at the very edge of their range, the terrain was unfavourable, and the locals were well-adapted to the terrain by means that further impaire rapid conquest (e.g. castles all over the place).

FWIW, Russia would be able to use settler colonialism to its advantage in any mid-1890s Ottoman partition. Russia would have a lot of surplus peasants to send to the near abroad by the Tsar's orders, after all.

Also, is that the same reason as to why the Mongols failed to conquer India? Interestingly enough, though, they did manage to conquer all of China. Was China all steppe?

 

[Skallagrim]

Also, is that the same reason as to why the Mongols failed to conquer India? Interestingly enough, though, they did manage to conquer all of China. Was China all steppe?

Yes, I'd say that's the reason they didn't conquer India.

As for China: they easily conquered the North, and not the South. The North is a big flat plain. The South is very much not a big flat plain. The South took them a good long while to bring into line. And it was after they had effectively become Chinese first. Go figure.

 

[WolfBear]

Yes, I'd say that's the reason they didn't conquer India.

As for China: they conquered the North, and not the South. The North is a big flat plain. The South is very much not a big flat plain. Go figure.

They did conquer the south in 1279, though!

 

[Skallagrim]

They did conquer the south in 1279, though!

Yeah, I was just editing to clarify. My point is that they first became Chinese, and then conquered the remainder of China from a starting position in China.

If the Ilkhanate stabilises, for instance, I could potentially see them expanding into India after a few generations. That's not impossible. But they'd have to functionally become a Persian empire, first. (OTL example: Baburids doing just that, from a home base in Afghanistan.)

 

[WolfBear]

Yeah, I was just editing to clarify. My point is that they first became Chinese, and then conquered the remainder of China from a starting position in China.

If the Ilkhanate stabilises, for instance, I could potentially see them expanding into India after a few generations. That's not impossible. But they'd have to functionally become a Persian empire, first. (OTL example: Baburids doing just that, from a home base in Afghanistan.)

Or the Mughals, right?

BTW, just how many Russian peasants do you think would find places such as Anatolia/Constantinople/Assyria attractive?

 

[Skallagrim]

BTW, just how many Russian peasants do you think would find places such as Anatolia/Constantinople/Assyria attractive?

It's more attractive than a bayonet to the belly, which may just turn out to be motivation enough.

(Don't over-do it, though, because then you get social instability that you can't overcome.)

 

[WolfBear]

It's more attractive than a bayonet to the belly, which may just turn out to be motivation enough.

(Don't over-do it, though, because then you get social instability that you can't overcome.)

Fair point!

BTW, an off-topic but related question: Without the World Wars, just how much more European settler colonialism do you think that there could have been by now? I think that had there been more Singapore equivalents in the developing world, it would be easier for people in the developing world to deal with things such as poverty since they could then work in these Singapore equivalents and get much higher wages. Of course, one would also want to make sure that they are not mistreated there as guest workers sometimes/often are, unfortunately.

 

[Skallagrim]

BTW, an off-topic but related question: Without the World Wars, just how much more European settler colonialism do you think that there could have been by now? I think that had there been more Singapore equivalents in the developing world, it would be easier for people in the developing world to deal with things such as poverty since they could then work in these Singapore equivalents and get much higher wages. Of course, one would also want to make sure that they are not mistreated there as guest workers sometimes/often are, unfortunately.

I'll answer that one in the relevant thread.

 

[WolfBear]

I'll answer that one in the relevant thread.

Thanks!