No Turks in Anatolia - Where else?

[Rekjavik]

I've been working on a timeline of mine and I am increasingly finding that the PoD I've gone with puts me a head of many of the foundational stones of the modern world. One such example is it predates the arrival of the Turks in Anatolia. So, for diversities sake, I was wondering how this could be altered.

I am not sure on the reasons why the Turks moved into Anatolia, since this is an area of my timeline I have not researched properly yet, but I've seen some depictions of them migrating into Hungary instead. Would it really be a possibility, considering the large Hungarian population already there, to from them to displace them and become the dominant ethnicity in the region? What other alternatives are there for them? Is it possible they could move to the Caucasus, or maybe Persia? Or could they even just stay in Central Asia?

In addition, what do you think would happen to Anatolia in such a scenario? Would it remain Greek or would it be picked off by one local power or another?

 

[Salvador79]

I've been working on a timeline of mine and I am increasingly finding that the PoD I've gone with puts me a head of many of the foundational stones of the modern world. One such example is it predates the arrival of the Turks in Anatolia. So, for diversities sake, I was wondering how this could be altered.

I am not sure on the reasons why the Turks moved into Anatolia, since this is an area of my timeline I have not researched properly yet, but I've seen some depictions of them migrating into Hungary instead. Would it really be a possibility, considering the large Hungarian population already there, to from them to displace them and become the dominant ethnicity in the region? What other alternatives are there for them? Is it possible they could move to the Caucasus, or maybe Persia? Or could they even just stay in Central Asia?

In addition, what do you think would happen to Anatolia in such a scenario? Would it remain Greek or would it be picked off by one local power or another?

At the moment of their movement into Anatolia, you`re speaking of Turkic peoples, not Turks in the modern sense of the word.
You have Turkic peoples over a large part of Eurasia.
There are Turkic peoples in the Caucasus already (Azerbaijanis, Balkars and others).
There are Turkic peoples in Bulgaria (Old Bulgars were Turkic).
The titular nations of Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan and Kyrgystan are Turks.
There are Turkic peoples in China, today mostly labelled Uyghurs.
There are Turkic peoples all over Russia - way too many to name them all.
Also, the distinction between "Turkic" and "Mongolian" becomes less and less clear-cut the farther back you go in history.
There were so many great Turkic Empires in history: the Göktürks, Old Bulgaria, Volga Bulgaria, the Khaganates of the Chasars, the Kimeks, the Uyghurs, the Kyrgyz... and I haven`t even approached the High Middle Ages yet.

If that is not enough to draw something interesting from, the most likely bet for a Turkic state that didn`t exist would be an enduring one in OTL Ukraine (as that was steppe). Of course, they`d be in constant trouble with the Rus, but you could have them overthrow the Rus and create more Turko-Slavic states in North-Eastern Euroope.

 

[GdwnsnHo]

The Turks took Anatolia because they could. It is as simple as that. They took Persia, waged war against the Romans, and had huge numbers of Turks settle in the region. Because of this, Anatolia without the Turks is Greek. Hands down, unless some other migratory tribe has the same swing of luck/talent/military gusto, then it'll be Greek. Possible something akin to "Highland Greek" - not quite Pontic, not quite Hellenes Greek.

Now, I don't know how far back your PoD is, but if Persia is strong, then it isn't as easy a target for the Turks, who may instead go west - if the Caucauses are strong, they'll go west, if the lands north of the Danube are weak, they'll dive in there, if the Balkans are strong, but the Carpathian basin is weak - they can easily take advantage of the situation and conquer it. A (very) simplified version of why the Turks moved outwards was overpopulation, and a desire for a place to live - if there is an easy target, they'll take it - if there isn't they'll go for a lesser target, if that isn't possible, then there will be internal strife but potentially a homegrown solution in Central Asia.

Demographically, I imagine they could become the dominant culture in the Carpathian Basin (OTL Hungary/Romania). Anatolia under the Romans wasn't sparsely populated, it took generations for the Greeks there to consider themselves Turks, after being ruled by the Turks for so long. It isn't so much that the Turks displaced all the Greeks there (though some certainly fled) it was just that after 200+ years, you can assimilate/wipe out a culture, regardless of how sophisticated it is. Even so, the Turks may be less Hellenic than they became IOTL, and more Hungarian/Magyar in certain aspects, as their assimilation of the Greeks made them more Hellenic.

I do love the idea of the Turks fighting for Vienna in a totally different timeline though

So Christian Turks, will likely emerge in Hungary, just because there is little no exposure to other religions.

What would be highly amusing (to me, a shameless byzantophile) is that the Turks overwhelm the Carpathian Basin, accidentally piss off the HRE, and offer to join the ERE if the Emperor protects them.

 

[LSCatilina]

I am not sure on the reasons why the Turks moved into Anatolia, since this is an area of my timeline I have not researched properly yet, but I've seen some depictions of them migrating into Hungary instead.

As Salvador79 said, when we say "Turks" for Middle Ages, we're actually speaking of a large set of peoples, often called "Türk/Turkic/Turkish" because of their relations (linguistical or cultural) with Turks but sometimes as well unrelated people as Maygars.

In Europe, Turkic peoples were essentially represented by Avars, Old Bulgars, Pechenegs or Cumans/Kiptchak that if Turkic peoples, were quite distinct from islamized (and persianized) Turks of Anatolia.

The latter migrated there, but not directly. See Turkic mercenaries and slaves come from islamized turks peoples from Central Asia, essentially influenced by the Arabo-Persan civilisation, and began to form states by taking over their former masters' as Ghaznavids, or being pushed by other Turks forming their own states (Kara-Khanids, Oghuz) such as it happened for Seljuks.

Eventually, it's less Seljuks migating from Central Asia to Anatolia, than taking over the whole eastern Arabo-Islamic world. Not that is was an unifed states : dominated Arab states cohabited with state under Turkic domination with an overall Seljuk suzerainty.

Why Seljuks in Anatolia precisely? Well Byzantine Empire was still one of the major opponents of the Arabo-Islamic world, and its avance on Armenia and Middle-East was enough trouble for that Seljuks that while they knew a bit the region (critically on Caucasus), they attacked an empire that had already problems with Normans and Pechenegs, and managed to swallow all Anatolia by the late XIth century (that Byzantines would recover partially eventually).

Would it really be a possibility, considering the large Hungarian population already there, to from them to displace them and become the dominant ethnicity in the region?

I don't think : it would have meant for Hungarians to simply trample over Byzantines to cross the sea and Balkans and would have they done that, they wouldn't have left for a less wealthy and interesting Anatolia (let's be straight, for Hungarians to take on Byzzies would be insanely hard).

As far as I know : there wasn't an Hungarian population in Anatolia (if it's what you mean by "already there")

If you meant for Turks to take over Pannonian Plain...Well they did with Avars and partially so with Old Bulgars. But eventually, you had to have some form of stabilisation, and Hungarians did that pretty well. If they wouldn't have...My bet would be on Pechenegs, but not as successfully, would it be only for Germans and HRE being clearly the strong man of Central Europe.

Is it possible they could move to the Caucasus, or maybe Persia? Or could they even just stay in Central Asia?

They did so IOTL, it's just that Persia or Mesopotamia were definitely too big of cultures to be turkified as was (and in the long run) the anatolian melting pot.

Would it remain Greek or would it be picked off by one local power or another?

Thing is, Byzantine Anatolia wasn't wholly greek. You had Armenians, Syrians, Assyrians, a whole set Caucasians, already some Turks, etc.

While Byzantine identity managed (more or less, especially on on eastern Anatolia) to gather all of that, you had some distinct cultures. And I'm not even speaking of religious differences.

 

[Namayan]

Thing is, Byzantine Anatolia wasn't wholly greek. You had Armenians, Syrians, Assyrians, a whole set Caucasians, already some Turks, etc.

While Byzantine identity managed (more or less, especially on on eastern Anatolia) to gather all of that, you had some distinct cultures. And I'm not even speaking of religious differences.

I always wondered when did parts of Anatolia become Turkish.

Let say Western Anatolia, when did it become Majority turkish? Only 19th century or earlier?

I am really curious since in Eu4 in 1444 everything in Anatolia is Turk. Shouldnt Western and coastal Anatolia still be Greek?

 

[GdwnsnHo]

I am really curious since in Eu4 in 1444 everything in Anatolia is Turk. Shouldnt Western and coastal Anatolia still be Greek?

Not to go off topic, but Wiz has made it abundantly clear that in 1444 he thinks for gameplay that it should be all Turkish. Hell, even the small Pontic enclave in Sinope is now turkish at start.

There was a point where Sugla (part of Western Anatolia) was still marked as Greek, but EU4 has an issue representing minority cultures (even if they are a significant minority). Game abstraction combined with the lead repeatedly nerfing the Byzzies leads to a huge amount of distortion.

As I have learned, don't rely on EU4 to describe history. Games abstract facts. The devil is in the details (which are where the most interesting changes can happen)

 

[LSCatilina]

Let say Western Anatolia, when did it become Majority turkish? Only 19th century or earlier?

Well...it never clearly so until the XIXth islamizations and the XXth century and great exchanges of population, I think.

Heck, even Eastern Anatolia wasn't massively Turkic by the XIXth century. Not that Turks didn't represented the majority of the Empire, even in parts of Europe, but it was more of a widespread presence than "core lands" (except arguably in Central Anatolia) IIRC

I am really curious since in Eu4 in 1444 everything in Anatolia is Turk.

Don't make me say it.

 

[Workable Goblin]

Don't make me say it.

There's nothing wrong with becoming curious about history due to a video game. And Namayan did explicitly say that it seemed off to him.

 

[Caesar Biden]

There's nothing wrong with becoming curious about history due to a video game. And Namayan did explicitly say that it seemed off to him.

As long as we don't have anyone from the crowd that says it's an accurate simulator of history. It's a fun game, but not very historical. That's why I get all my info from CK2. I'm kidding, I'm kidding!
As to the OP, the Turks could go a number of places. They could even be repulsed and go nowhere- if they're kicked out of Persia and lose a lot of warriors, it will be a generation until they might invade someplace else, at which point they could once again be repulsed or new factors could arrive that negate their desire to migrate. It's not a given that any nomadic group will conquer and migrate.

Regardless, all you have to do is change a few decades in the mid-11th century to make the Turks never arrive in Anatolia. The Romans had a fearsome reputation as soldiers, even amongst the Turks, and really up until Manzikert most Turkic peoples were much more interested in taking Syria, the Levant and eventually Egypt.

So if the Romans could deflect Turkic attacks, the Seljuks will just continue their conquest across the Middle East and into Egypt. The Romans themselves might lose parts of Armenia or Syria, but they could just as well gain them back and more when and if the Seljuks implode.

As for the Turks themselves, they aren't numerous enough to avoid assimilation, perhaps besides a few regions. But for a while we will see a distinct Turkic upper class ruling over a bunch of Arabs and Persians, sort of like OTL but even more so.

 

[fluttersky]

IOTL they migrated West from Central Asia, of course.

If you're looking for something different, they could migrate East to the Manchuria area?

Or migrate South to the Indus river valley?

I don't know the necessary PODs to make either of these happen, though.

 

[Ricard (i.e. Rdffigueira)]

(...) As to the OP, the Turks could go a number of places. They could even be repulsed and go nowhere- if they're kicked out of Persia and lose a lot of warriors, it will be a generation until they might invade someplace else, at which point they could once again be repulsed or new factors could arrive that negate their desire to migrate. It's not a given that any nomadic group will conquer and migrate. (...)

We all know that the Byzantines had their back broken in Manzikert (and the destructive civil war that followed 1071 A.D.), but how did the Seljuks managed to conquer the whole of Persia in first place? The Abbasid Caliphate was crumbling, but was there any significant power in Iran which could have repelled the invaders? It was quite a feat IOTL, to overran the very core of the Muslim world.

Another scenario: if the Byzantines avoided Manzikert and the Turks went to war with the Fatimids (which was their ambition in first place), could they conquer Egypt as well?

 

[Caesar Biden]

We all know that the Byzantines had their back broken in Manzikert (and the destructive civil war that followed 1071 A.D.), but how did the Seljuks managed to conquer the whole of Persia in first place? The Abbasid Caliphate was crumbling, but was there any significant power in Iran which could have repelled the invaders? It was quite a feat IOTL, to overran the very core of the Muslim world.

Another scenario: if the Byzantines avoided Manzikert and the Turks went to war with the Fatimids (which was their ambition in first place), could they conquer Egypt as well?

It all goes back to could. In both cases, things really could have gone either way.

I'm hesitant to say that the Turks really could have conquered the Fatimids, after all they had almost overextended themselves already. On the other hand, they did conquer most of the Levant IOTL, and still managed to gain quite the foothold in Anatolia. Considering the fact that there are far less people in Egypt than Anatolia, and that the Fatimids were a weaker power than the Romans, it's not so easy to dismiss a Seljuk conquest of Egypt.

 

[LSCatilina]

There's nothing wrong with becoming curious about history due to a video game. And Namayan did explicitly say that it seemed off to him.

Who said that? I just commented about "don't make me say that EU4 isn't about being real History but fun".
He was, as you saw, already agreeing that, so I saw (and see) no harm joking about it.

We all know that the Byzantines had their back broken in Manzikert (and the destructive civil war that followed 1071 A.D.)

Well, "having their back broken" may be a bit exxagerated : while Byzantines went trough several crisis, they eventually managed fairly efficiently to overcome it, first against Normans and Pechenegs (that were more direct and organised threats) and eventually against Turks. It asked for several other crises and defeat to really broke Byzzies.

but how did the Seljuks managed to conquer the whole of Persia in first place? The Abbasid Caliphate was crumbling, but was there any significant power in Iran which could have repelled the invaders? It was quite a feat IOTL, to overran the very core of the Muslim world.

Turks were already quite present, both on the border, and as auxiliaries in Muslim Persia. I suppose you could make a comparison with Romano-Germans Barbarians in Roman Late Antiquity.

Another scenario: if the Byzantines avoided Manzikert and the Turks went to war with the Fatimids (which was their ambition in first place), could they conquer Egypt as well?

Fatimids would be an hard shell to crush. Anatolia was taken thanks to a general Byzantine crisis, with attack from multiple fronts that delayed Byzantine counter-attack.

Fatimids would beneficy from having one big front to deal with, and even if inner crises were a political reality in the XIth century. I suspect that without Turkic advance in Anatolia, a successful campaign against Egypt may be doable, but maybe not as definitive than Seljuq conquest of Anatolia (rather definitively getting rid of Fatimids in Asia and Arabia) while you may likely have raids in Egypt itself.

 

[Cregan]

Could the Turkic tribes migrate to India instead? Earlier Mughal dynasty(ies)?

 

[LSCatilina]

Could the Turkic tribes migrate to India instead? Earlier Mughal dynasty(ies)?

Things is, it's less Turkic tribes migrating to Anatolia than Turkic elite taking over a region, and it's more or less what they did both in Anatolia and India (as, for exemple the Mameluk Dynasty) then having whole tribes settling up in the same time you had a Turkification of the population (which didn't happened wholly in India, mostly IMO because Mongols Invasions broke the migratory possibilities).

 

[Cregan]

Things is, it's less Turkic tribes migrating to Anatolia than Turkic elite taking over a region, and it's more or less what they did both in Anatolia and India (as, for exemple the Mameluk Dynasty) then having whole tribes settling up in the same time you had a Turkification of the population (which didn't happened wholly in India, mostly IMO because Mongols Invasions broke the migratory possibilities).

OK, what if the Turkic dynasties that set up shop in Anatolia, the Caucasus and the Middle East were deterred by a stronger Byzantine Empire and Persia, and instead took over fragmented India?

There would be several Turkish dynasties alongside the Mamluke Delhi Dynasty then. The first effect I can think of is that more of India would be converted to Islam, but also that the Caucasus would remain Christian and ruled by Georgians, Armenians, etc?

 

[LSCatilina]

OK, what if the Turkic dynasties that set up shop in Anatolia, the Caucasus and the Middle East were deterred by a stronger Byzantine Empire and Persia, and instead took over fragmented India?

As long Arabo-Persians dynasties are on their way, which is something hard but doable, you won't have Islamized Turks takeover.

If you accept Turks to takeover Persia, politically speaking, you may end with two or three dynasties in the Indian sub-continent (Delhi, Bengale, maybe another) but that would be still largely Persianized and eventually going native by sheer societal mix.

That said, I honestly think if Seljuks are not going for Anatolia, that Egypt would be an obvious target : it was far more a problem than Hindu states ever were (altough opportunistic takeover on these wealthy states would still probably happen).

but also that the Caucasus would remain Christian and ruled by Georgians, Armenians, etc?

I don't think it would be that obvious : I'd rather say something akin to Romano-Persian situation, as in part of Caucasus under Roman domination, the other under Turco-Persian domination; with changing alliegances from the dominated statelets and possible turkic presence in the eastern part.

 

[Basileus Giorgios]

Why Seljuks in Anatolia precisely? Well Byzantine Empire was still one of the major opponents of the Arabo-Islamic world, and its avance on Armenia and Middle-East was enough trouble for that Seljuks that while they knew a bit the region (critically on Caucasus), they attacked an empire that had already problems with Normans and Pechenegs, and managed to swallow all Anatolia by the late XIth century (that Byzantines would recover partially eventually).

This isn't quite right...

From the 1040s onwards, the Great Seljuks, wary of causing trouble in Mesopotamia and Iran, began to encourage the warlike and still only lightly Islamised Turkomans to expend their energies against the Rum, rather than causing trouble amongst the Arabs and Persians in the imperial heartlands, which they duly did. For the first twenty years or so of this, there was a reasonable balance, with Byzantine armies generally able to keep a lid on the situation: but the Turkomans kept coming.

Eventually, a confused Byzantine army ended up going into battle with the Seljuk Sultan at Manzikert and losing, but even then, Anatolia didn't fall under the control of the Seljuks, but instead the tribal Turkomans, who were in large part invited in to serve various Byzantine commanders in the chaos that followed. It's worth remarking that many of the important cities of Anatolia did not fall until the reign of Aleksios Komnenos, who withdrew most of the professional army from the region to deal with the more pressing Norman threat. In Anatolia, he relied on a Turkish warlord named Suleyman who was, to be fair, fairly loyal to the Emperor: but when Suleyman died in 1086, it all fell apart: that's when Anatolia really fell, in the years either side of 1090. Which also makes much more sense when one considers the time that the Byzantines began making noises for support from the West in Anatolia.

All of this was able to happen, I'd argue, because of the transition from the largely defensive army of the eighth and ninth century to the offensive one of the tenth and eleventh, that wasn't really prepared to having to deal with small raiding parties again come the later eleventh century. It didn't help that the contemporary Emperors and their advisers all idolised Basil II's military successes, not really realising how much times had changed.

 

[Workable Goblin]

Who said that? I just commented about "don't make me say that EU4 isn't about being real History but fun".
He was, as you saw, already agreeing that, so I saw (and see) no harm joking about it.

Ah, it read to me like you were serious and angry. Tone not transmitting through text and all that...

 

[LSCatilina]

Ah, it read to me like you were serious and angry. Tone not transmitting through text and all that...

Fair enough, but I would have tought that my post history (which I think, maybe wrongly, not being overly aggressive) would have owed me some bona fide points. Anyway, I'm sorry if it was confusing, but it was merely a jest.

Apart from that, I concede the whole point to BG.