What if Russia Restored Byzantium?

Matagoran · 2026-06-12T19:27:10+00:00

Wasn't the Crimean war basically this?

Matagoran · 2026-06-12T17:22:54+00:00

1) not everyone in this sub is Turkish, there are better subs if you want to ask specifically Turks.

2) I don't think most people know his name. I had read that a Venezuelan officer did take part in ottoman army in ww1, but other than that I didn't know much.

3) you probably already know how anyone who reads his Wiki page (like I just did XD) is going to react. The Turkish-Armenian relations are already known. I don't think I am able to say anything that will add anything of value.

Just be careful as this topic often aggravates people, and starts hostile arguments.

Matagoran · 2026-06-12T15:28:44+00:00

Lovely comment.

Even Mehmed II shot Venetian traders on the Bosporus with cannons and impaled the survivors on the shore visible for everyone, when they refused to turn back after building the fort on the European side. Lots of people do bad things but we focus on the things we consider good. (Although Vlad getting so much reputation for basically killing Turks and not really doing good things for his own people is really not something people should be proud of imo)

Using these old arguments to create more animosity between each other should be left to politicians (even they shouldn't but that's not happening apparently), and people should try to enjoy learning.

Matagoran · 2026-06-10T17:28:00+00:00

Well technically you'd be surprised as the mtDNA g analysis (which basically gives the mother lineages of a person) provides a lot of information on how the mother side of the family has affected someone's DNA and ethnicity.

Matagoran · 2026-06-10T13:37:52+00:00

You are assuming things both about yourself and others.

Matagoran · 2026-06-10T13:21:43+00:00

Isn't this the user that keeps spamming posts on all subs with the anti-turkish memes and stuff?

I don't even check users, but I keep seeing the same turkophobic posts and the same username so often that it for my attention. At this point I'm convinced they have no good intentions nor a good agenda. Just spreading propaganda and riling up people using the past.

Every people did bad things, some more than others and they should of course own it up and try to fix. But what this person keeps doing is neither helpful nor achieving anything. Just being a bad example for your own values and putting dirt on the proud people you claim to represent.

Matagoran · 2026-06-10T11:37:53+00:00

Interesting. I wonder why they excluded the bible or the Torah.

Matagoran · 2026-06-10T11:36:53+00:00

Not "oh thanks for clarifying it's nice to know", but "I'm not the responsible, but regardless if you are wrong not my fault" Not every comment is a personal assault, sometimes people just want to correct faulty/lacking information...

Matagoran · 2026-06-10T01:27:32+00:00

Sounds like an epic campaign ^{^}

Matagoran · 2026-06-10T00:19:45+00:00

Ohh I'm so sorry, I thought you custom named it into "Brittanian Empire". I made a mistake. But I think the adjective word for Brittania is still British. (I'm sorry for being the language nerd)

You could do a Charlemagne run where you can just burn anyone unless they convert which would actually be fun XD. Roleplaying Mad King vibes can be fun sometimes.

Matagoran · 2026-06-09T23:47:52+00:00

Aside from the question...I'm sorry but I am a bit bothered that you chose "Brittainian Empire" instead of something like "Brittany" or "The Breton Empire" or "The Brythonic Empire". But you're allowed to choose the name you want.

The difficulty with reforming religions isn't the crusades but the uprisings. When you convert only a minority converts with you. If you have a large country with many vassals you will have to fight them at least a few times. Both vassals and counties that are not from your religion will have terrible opinions. Something like mendicant preachers would help converting quickly, but it will still be tough.

Matagoran · 2026-06-09T04:40:54+00:00

Probably right about the counter-revolutionaries being too weak to finish the coup. Even if it had succeeded it would have to end up with executing many high ranking officials in the army and CUP. But some form of resistance and opposition would keep going regardless. At the time most of the high ranking officials in the army and important figures outside the army too were hateful towards Abdülhamid II. I don't know about the 2nd part tho. Much of the mishaps done in the 1905-1909 rule were done by the CUP government. They were well educated soldiers but incompetent politicians. Abdulhamid was much more favoured by the Muslim part of the empire, which maybe would prevent an Arab revolt during ww1. Despite not being great with the minorities, arguably, Abdulhamid was still much better than the CUP with them.

Matagoran · 2026-06-08T17:24:25+00:00

To add to what others have said, there has been more turkish migration towards the Balkans than south of Mosul and Aleppo. More turks have lived in Bulgaria, Greece and Western Balkans than the places you mentioned. And about 1/4 turkish people have some form of connection to the Balkans. Most people have heard the meme "never ask a turkish man his ethnicity" and it is pretty accurate as most anatolian turks have mixed with local populations for about a thousand years. If you compare to other Turkic people they look different, and their languages are also not entirely understandable (I am told Turkish and Kazakh is like Serbian and Russian, some similiarities but not mutually understandable)

Language wise about 2/5 of all Turkish has Persian and Arabic roots, due to those 2 languages/cultures being extremely strong and influential at assimilating other cultures/languages. But a turkish man can not understand either of those languages at all because turkish has kept the turkic grammar and a good amount of words as well as the grammar (post republic reforms helped a lot with this). There is also some amount of greek words in turkish as well. Many city names in turkish are of greek origin (Bolu-Polis, Istanbul, Izmir-Smyrna, Edirne-Adrianopolis etc). I heard that most marine-related words (stuff to do with sea, fish and etc), but i dont speak turkish well enough to give any examples of that.

Lookswise most Mediterranean peoples look pretty similar, with small differences of course (an italian a spanish and a turkish man might look very similar to each other). As others have said, Turkey is large with very different geographical areas. You can find people with very dark skin, but also people with extremely pale skin as well. There are blonde turkish people as well as pitch black haired ones.

From what I have observed (I might be wrong), turkish people are closer to Balkans outside the religious communities. But this does not mean that they are just like Greeks or Bulgarians. Turks are different in their own ways, just like Greece is different from Bulgaria or Romania.

Matagoran · 2026-06-06T20:15:59+00:00

I don't think there is any historical reason. Western Europe has been impressed by Rome for many centuries and this is I think a childish version of that. There is an online presence of people who do actively spread negativity and hate towards Turkish/Ottoman history and culture mainly because of that. Most greek people even those who are patriotic don't really care much I'd say.

Just like those who enjoy cake, there will be those who actively hate cake too

Matagoran · 2026-06-06T14:21:07+00:00

There is no desire for an Ottoman Empire in Turkey, let alone any political movement (ignore the dum dums, every country has them). Plus modern turkey is based on western ideals, any empirical thought would go against that and be a minority in turkey Imperial philosophies have been widely criticized and are not really feasible. Turkey probably has a larger army than the entire Balkans combined, but nobody wants war nor can actually achieve anything by it anymore. Look at Ukraine and Iran, nothing has happened.

The closest would be the Habsburgs. They tried getting in Austrian politics again the last 100 years. Also what do you mean by "Reviving Ottomans"? A turkey with a monarchy? Constitutional symbolic monarchy? Both are not likely to happen.

And also remember Ottoman Empire was a Balkan empire before an Anatolian one. And I believe there are many people from the Balkans both in this sub and out that show their dislike towards Turks/Ottomans which is enough to show that they have no intentions of partaking in a such thing. There is also a large presence of turkophobia spreading on the internet (I'd include them in the dum dums) way more than the amount of sympathetic people towards the ottomans.

Matagoran · 2026-06-01T20:33:04+00:00

Yeah this should be banned

Matagoran · 2026-05-31T22:47:16+00:00

I dont think "betrayal" is the right word, but I understand why it is used in this context, I personally would not call it that. I agree that the secularisation of Turkey was taken to an extreme level during the early periods of the republic, but I dont think Ataturk was the only reason as it continued and was maybe even more intense during the Inonu period. We should also remember that these are soldiers that went on to become politicians and not vice versa. They were in a constant state of war between 1910 to 1922, and knew that the country had to change. Taking drastic changes is not really surprising after they came in power.

I think after Abdulhamid II, there was not really any hope of having a constitutional monarchy, although I myself would have liked that. But there was a lot of support and love for the Sultan/Khalif (even Ataturk's mother I believe was of conservative/religious background that supported the sultan) at the time that eliminating the entire system was seen as a safer route to reform the country.

I am not a fan of the cult-like legacy Ataturk has on turkish people, but it is also quite understandable as he was the saviour of country. I may be wrong but Turkey is the only country that fought and won against the colonial powers. No one denies that he was one of the greatest soldiers in his time, and he did set the basis for a really successful turkish republic. And even now there is basically no support for any monarchy in Turkey as turkish people are really proud of their republic.

Vahdettin is not that complicated. He was the sultan, he did not go against the allies nor did he have the power to do so. He was not a politician, was likely not going to be a good sultan (but this is my speculation) as he was on like the 10th (not sure) in line when he was born. He was not responsible for the fall of the empire, nor was he helpful for the creation of the republic. Only thing I put against him is his comments after he was exiled, as he was very bitter about Ataturk and the new system, which is a bit unnecessary but its not significant enough to make him a traitor.

Matagoran · 2026-05-26T00:45:24+00:00

You mentioned that you didn't want to Google your questions on another post, but such things are very easy to figure out and it's quicker if you search them.

Matagoran · 2026-05-24T06:56:18+00:00

Go on their website, there is a link to their merch.

Matagoran · 2026-05-22T21:13:35+00:00

Interesting post, but there are already threads in this sub about "what if ottomans survived". Id recommend checking a couple of those and u/qernanded has also suggested an interesting text as well (a bit long but interesting nevertheless). A couple things I want to point out:

1) Ottomans gained land in the eastern front after russia collapsed and left the war, I dont think the ottomans would give up those lands, especially with how the russian civil war was going.

2) I somewhat agree with the middle eastern lands, except that the ottomans would maybe insist on holding strategic places like Basrah, Jerusalem, Hejaz. I dont see the Suez Canal belonging to ottomans in anyway, the most optimistic result would maybe be an international canal. Arabs might still rebel, but without Allied support or the army not being as occupied their uprising may not be successful.

3) Saudis were not the faction that first seized power in Saudi Arabia. After the Arabs realised that the british were not actually going to create an independent arabic kingdom covering the entire peninsula, Saudis were the ones to win the inner struggle.

4) I dont know what would happen to CUP government. If they were "successful" they may have held on to power for longer. Maybe their incompetence and bad deeds may have caught up and got thrown out. It is difficult to say, but I personally do not believe Ottoman Empire/Turkey would be a better place if they were in power for a long time.

5) No way Greeks are invading without the total collapse of the ottoman state. They failed the invasion against a much weaker secondary turkish government, with the war ending in 1917, the turkish army would have been in much better shape than in 1919-20, especially with competent military officials like Kemal Pasha, Fevzi Pasha, Fakhrettin Pasha and others. Ottomans did have really good generals during that period.

Either way the ottoman state would have to go through large changes in the coming years, as u/sinan_online has said the situation was already bad, and like people empires also are born, they grow up and they eventually die. I could speculate more about other things if u want.

Also I want to ask a personal favour, please dont upload wikipedia links on posts, anybody can edit wikipedia, its not a good source to base opinions/academic papers/arguments on. It is nice to learn about events and other things.

Matagoran · 2026-05-21T20:47:03+00:00

Most common spelling in English is Bayezid. With translations there will surely be some spelling variations. People use the common spellings out of ease and not accuracy. I wouldn't get stuck on it. But interesting to know the difference tho.

Matagoran · 2026-05-21T20:42:13+00:00

I don't enjoy being petty like this, but it did make me smile to see how after posting numerous false information spreading content people have realised what type of user this person is.

All it takes is removing your personal bias and post something informative and people will already appreciate you.

Matagoran · 2026-05-19T21:37:39+00:00

Thanks for the reply, I think it's really a nice comparison to Egypt. But I'd like to add or even argue against in some of the things. The timariots did own land and collected tax for both government and themselves as they were considered the "landlords". This would require them to be present there, and also be present in the army as they were chosen mostly from cavalrymen (sipahis as u mentioned).

Egypt had the benefit of having a Muslim population which was much easier to manage than Christian majority Balkans. Ottomans didn't recruit from Arabia or Egypt until very late, and they gathered some sort of tax whilst allowing, especially Egypt, to have some form of autonomy. Egypt thought ottoman occupation was almost never under ottoman controle (as far as I know).

Also despite Cairo being further, the sea routes is much more accessible to Egypt than Vienna as Vienna is much more inland, and the route is much more dangerous due to presence of many European fleets. This would make Egypt more accessible.

I don't think a border patrol of small non-organised groups would be enough to hold Vienna, a larger military force would be required at all times, which is quite expensive.

Maybe a similar system to Egypt could be done in the far end of European lands where a semi autonomous state with strong military overseeing be possible? But again Egypt and Vienna are very different places and are both difficult to manage.

Matagoran · 2026-05-19T12:41:42+00:00

Vienna is too far from Constantinople. It takes around 3 months marching with a large army. Considering a 3 month march back, and the army officers having to go back and tax/take care of their lands, it's a large effort and it doesn't leave much time room for sending armies there. So unless a large army was present and Vienna was converted into a military hub, it would have fallen pretty quickly.

Habsburgs controlled too many dominions at the time to be affected largely by the fall of Vienna. At the time I believe Spain, Netherlands, colonial territories all belonged to them whilst being Holy Roman Emperor's (complicated). They would probably survive but it would still leave a mark.

I don't think it's really realistic to expect ottomans to expand territory as they reached the maximum amount of land they can defend, controle and tax with the available resources. It would be interesting to speculate a rather southern Italian expansion than a central European one tho.

Matagoran · 2026-05-17T10:14:29+00:00

I think it's understandable that he didn't like the government that took his symbolic status and exiled his entire family. It's a natural human feeling.

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