Its not only the poverty that makes Iraq such a poor base, but also the actually terrain. The only "easy" Iranian territory to take would be the plains near Khuzestan. Any offensives aimed at Hamadan or other areas of Iran would all be striking from flat plains into mountains, which is one of the things that stopped Iraq's initial offensive in the Iran-Iraq war, and if the Ottomans struck from Iraq, they would have similar difficulties.
What If: Ottoman conquest of;malta,vienna,(tahran)persia?
- Thread starter Don Grey
- Start date
Well, Anatolia is a roughly comparable area. Roughly, obviously the Iranian plateau is closer to worthless.
And Iraq is picked as an example of "nearby", as opposed to having to set up a base all the way back in Damascus, which makes the logistics that much more "fun".
Not saying its an ideal place for any other reason.
But interesting to know just how nasty all this is geographically. It makes certain Roman decisions a lot easier to understand as well.
ImmortalImpi said:
The Mongols seem to have been extremely effective at turning hard-won agricultural land into de facto desert.
And it doesn't sound like (not sure if this is a choice or a failure) the people who took over after them made up for it.
According to Empire of the Mind: A History of Iran, the Safavids are response for the change, but the initial presence seems fairly limited - it refers to "important Shi'a shrines like Qom and Mashhad", but "the center of Shi'ism had been the shrine cities of southern Iraq".
As opposed to mountains into mountains?
Iran seems pretty hard to take from the west whether that means Azerbaijan or Iraq.
This thread beg the question; how strong (or bad-whimpy) would it take for the Ottomans to rouse most or ALL of Europe against them, united or roughly so?
Strong enough and ambitious enough to threaten all of Europe, weak enough...did anyone ever do that to anyone? Even Poland only had three states ganging up on it.
Europe has too many divergent interests for a pan-European campaign against any given threat.
Someone will see it as an opportunity, with anything up to and probably including the hordes of the Antichrist.
Just pointing out... at the Great Siege of Malta, the Janissaries fought... and were held back by the significantly outnumbered Knights and their allies. Granted, this was a siege, against tenacious and well armed defenders (flamethrowers were being employed, as well as numerous firearms and occasionally crossbows; the Ottoman attackers in contrast were still employing bows in some of their units. Whatever problems the Christians had, I wouldn't put inferior weaponry among them by this point. I don't know enough about relative training, doctrine and morale to comment, but they obviously varied. The defenders of Malta, I'd argue, showed extremely high morale.) However, at the relief of Malta, the Janissaries also fought against the Spanish relief army (along with the rest of the Ottoman force) in open battle, and were defeated. Granted, their numbers were depleted from the siege, and they had been in battle for a long time... but the relieving Spanish had spent the morning recovering from heavy sea sickness; hardly top of the line troops themselves in terms of readiness.
Still, the relative battlefield effectiveness of the Janissaries against Christians is less important than the impression I get of the main Ottoman asset in warfare: massive resources, and logistics. I'm really not an expert, but they were for example capable of rebuilding their fleet after the heavy losses at Lepanto (remanning it was another matter, but building warships was pretty expensive.) Their siege engineering and ability to supply their armies during those sieges was also very effective.
Could the Ottomans have taken Malta? Quite possibly, with a bit more luck. It would have been bloody though.
Source for all this: half remembered bits of Empires of the Sea by Roger Crowley. I'll dig out the book at some point if pressed, because my memory is not perfect.
*looks for Empires of the Sea, finds it lying amongst his Patrick O' Briens*
-Right. The relief force was actually well fed, and it doesn't say whether they actually faced Janissaries or not. Sorry. However, it seems likely to me that the Janissaries probably would have been sent in for this important mission: stopping the relief force.
-Better weather would have allowed an Ottoman victory at Malta. However, squalls and rain in this area are described as being pretty common, making this at roughly the same level of those Axis fans who start wishing for better weather at Operation Barbarossa.
-The Christians' morale definitely seems to have lowered throughout the siege (one gets this imporession from the writings of Vincenzo Anastagi), but so did Ottoman morale. Records exist of something not far removed from a WWI Christmas truce breaking out at some points in the siege lines. The Christian leader, La Valette, is noted as being skilled at inspiring the men. Actual evidence of high Christian morale (I'm using Christian now because it's easier to use than 'The Knights of St John, their mercenaries, and the maltese') can be found from anecdotal evidence: for example, two disabled knights took up their swords and were strapped onto chairs in defence of the bastion of St Elmo, sitting just behind the main gate. Examples of Ottoman courage are also mentioned in the book, but this demonstrates that Christians didn't universally have poor morale.
Granted, this is only one engagement... but it shows that Ottoman troops weren't unmatched in all respects.
Still, the relative battlefield effectiveness of the Janissaries against Christians is less important than the impression I get of the main Ottoman asset in warfare: massive resources, and logistics. I'm really not an expert, but they were for example capable of rebuilding their fleet after the heavy losses at Lepanto (remanning it was another matter, but building warships was pretty expensive.) Their siege engineering and ability to supply their armies during those sieges was also very effective.
Could the Ottomans have taken Malta? Quite possibly, with a bit more luck. It would have been bloody though.
Source for all this: half remembered bits of Empires of the Sea by Roger Crowley. I'll dig out the book at some point if pressed, because my memory is not perfect.
*looks for Empires of the Sea, finds it lying amongst his Patrick O' Briens*
-Right. The relief force was actually well fed, and it doesn't say whether they actually faced Janissaries or not. Sorry. However, it seems likely to me that the Janissaries probably would have been sent in for this important mission: stopping the relief force.
-Better weather would have allowed an Ottoman victory at Malta. However, squalls and rain in this area are described as being pretty common, making this at roughly the same level of those Axis fans who start wishing for better weather at Operation Barbarossa.
-The Christians' morale definitely seems to have lowered throughout the siege (one gets this imporession from the writings of Vincenzo Anastagi), but so did Ottoman morale. Records exist of something not far removed from a WWI Christmas truce breaking out at some points in the siege lines. The Christian leader, La Valette, is noted as being skilled at inspiring the men. Actual evidence of high Christian morale (I'm using Christian now because it's easier to use than 'The Knights of St John, their mercenaries, and the maltese') can be found from anecdotal evidence: for example, two disabled knights took up their swords and were strapped onto chairs in defence of the bastion of St Elmo, sitting just behind the main gate. Examples of Ottoman courage are also mentioned in the book, but this demonstrates that Christians didn't universally have poor morale.
Granted, this is only one engagement... but it shows that Ottoman troops weren't unmatched in all respects.
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Abdul Hadi Pasha
Banned
Nobody has ever said Ottoman troops were unmatched in all respects. In the 16th c, they were the best army in the field, and nobody really attempted to engage them. Holding out in a gigantic fortress and withstanding a siege is a totally different matter. Here, it's not so much army strength as supply, distance, engineering skill, weather, the geopolitical context, and a bit of luck (for example, disease).
Abdul Hadi Pasha
Banned
There would never be a pan-European alliance against the Ottomans. Especially not in the middle of the Reformation. It's just too easy to divide the enemy. Also, much of Europe probably thought the Emperor was a much more serious problem than the Ottomans.
I was mentioning the relief force as an example of open battle, taking place outside the fortress walls. You also suggested that the Ottomans (especially Janissaries) had superior morale, as well as equipment, doctrine, and other qualities. I provided examples of Christian forces also demonstrating high morale, and good equipment. My argument is that you're slightly underestimating the Ottomans' enemies. I agree that the Ottomans were formidable, mind.
Abdul Hadi Pasha
Banned
Relief of a siege is not a field battle. The besiegers are in a poor position, especially in the case of a large city with a sizable garrison like Vienna.
In any case, you're moved on to a period where the Ottoman system was in relative decline, not the 15-16th c. By 1683 there's not much chance of the Ottomans deriving any benefit from attacking Malta or Vienna - that would be serious imperial overstretch.
In the 15th-16th, there is no European equivalent to the Ottoman army, which had a far more advanced logistical system, much better unity of command, and vastly superior discipline and training (for the regulars), as well as an organized artillery corps. It's not just the quality of individual troops, it's the entire socio-political organization that allowed the Ottomans to equip, supply, assemble, command, and move large armies of troops, whereas the greatest Western power at the time, the Hapsburgs, had a largely feudal polyglot empire where such an organization wasn't possible.
I think people too often forget that 16th century warfare was not about pitched battles or set ones. Sieges were preferred method and probably another reason the Ottomans had such an advantage. The levies of the Habsburgs stood little chance and as Abdul said, gathering up in a fortress to tire out those besieging it was the best method. The Spanish tercios were good... But even they didn't stand much a chance against the Ottoman military machine in the time of Suleiman. And any case, it was Ferdinand who was often bearing the brunt of the Ottomans in Hungary.
Most european armys of this period were not fedual, they were professional. That is why we see mercenarys play such an important role.
Will add more when i get home from work.
Abdul Hadi Pasha
Banned
The core of most European armies were "professional", but they were mostly militias or mercenaries, neither of which are as effective as a paid standing army of career soldiers which were largely trained from boyhood.
Mercenary armies were characterized by fighting by maneuver and avoiding bloodshed at all costs - hardy a recipe for success against the Ottoman machine.
It wasn't until the late 17th c that you could say Europe developed disciplined and politically reliable regular armies - which is not coincidentally when the Ottomans started to run into big trouble as the poverty of their lands in manpower and resources made it impossible to compete.
That's something that's often forgotten. The entire Ottoman Empire at its height in 1550, stretching from Morocco to the Caspian, and from Hungary to the Sudan, only had 50% more population than France, and much of that was nominally controlled vassals. Essentially the Ottomans were running a giant empire with resources, population and wealth inferior to any of the European great powers. They only succeed for a time because of their vastly superior organization and military organization. When Europe caught up, they were in deep doo-doo. Their strategic position was formidable while strong, but a massive liability when weaker than their neighbors.
I'd say that's is stretching a bit the thing.
Othman arrmy in 16th century had probably an edge in light cavalry (even if hussars were not much less behind), but both infantry and artillery had serious problems.
Infantry was still trained to fight in 14th-century fashion and had not ytr adopted the pike square formation while most of european armies were already beyond that into pike-and-arquebuse training.
Command system was shaky at best, and equipment was the same of 250 years before: good for a sword-and-bow fight, but really below par for a pike-and-arquebuse enemy.
Artillery -I'm sorry to say- was a mess: generally of low quality (captured turkish pieces were melt down instead of being re-used) and often directed by europeans.
The classical example which gives a comparison (both in artillery and in infantry terms) is he deck battle at Lepanto, where comparable units on janissaries and timarites fought against spaniard tercios and german infantry.
For massive efficiency the Spanish army had no rival. The Turks, whose discipline and morale had once been held up as a model, had declined as a fighting power. The Janissaries had fallen off in efficiency, and the quality of the feudal horse had worsened with the granting of fiefs to civilians who sent substitutes instead of fighting themselves, and as cavalry remained the predominant arm, the Turkish army was doomed to mark time in a war of sieges waged in the steep hills and valleys of the empire's eastern border.
In the Spanish army, which was in the field for generations rather than months at a time, and which was run on professional, mercenary lines, on the matter of command, lessons had been learned from the Italian Wars. Military leaders were less frequently shadowed by civilian commissaries.
In the Netherlands a solution was reached, where the captain general of the Spanish forces was also governor of the country. The captain general had, moreover, what the leaders of other national armies lacked: a general staff capable of keeping a firm control over the whole administrative and military structure of his force. The
chief of this staff, the camp-master general, disposed the army in camp, on the march, and in order of battle. He and his own staff were responsible for knowing where every man should be at all times. Under him was a quartermaster, in charge of a camp once established, and a provost who,
with his men, was responsible for justice, order, and the prices and sale of foodstuffs. The high quality of these men and their representatives in each tercio was a vital element in the success of campaigns that involved long periods in quarters, in winter and during sieges. The scope of their organising ability went as far as the prostitutes which accompanied the army. There should be eight for each hundred men, a Spanish writer, himself a maestro di campo, wrote, 'for, accepting the fact that well organised states allow such persons in order to avoid worse disorders, in no state is it as necessary to allow them as in this one of free, strong and vigorous men, who might otherwise commit crimes against the local people, molesting their daughters, sisters and wives'. Attached to the captain general's staff, on the more active side, was a corps d'elite of officers, some directly appointed for special merit, not merely for noble birth. These men were used for special duties, from holding reviews to leading a particularly hazardous reconnaissance. With this staff, and a flying squadron of cavalry to carry orders, the general could control, guide and repair the force brought into the field by the camp-master and his men.
Since the proved success of the pike and of firearms, armies had become increasingly specialised, as these weapons were only effective when employed in a strictly disciplined way and indeed with a certain temperamental predisposition which led certain nations to be identified with the best use of a given weapon. The ideal army, it seemed, was one that hired specialists in the various branches (light and medium cavalry, shock and missile infantry, artillery, engineers) to supplement their nation's own best arm. In practice, moreover, native troops showed to poor advantage when matched against mercenaries, and those countries which attempted to raise large numbers of native troops, as did Sweden and some of the German princes, were forced by administrative difficulties, and by the reluctance of the men to serve, to modify or abandon their plans.
As armies continued to grow in size, and steadiness became the crucial factor in tactics dominated by firearms, the hired specialist was found both more reliable and more capable of adjusting himself to change than the soberest conscript. Gustavus Vasa's successor, Eric, returned to using them, and 'perhaps the weightiest testimony of all against the conscript army was the experience of the Dutch: the great reforms of Maurice were carried through (and contemporaries believed that they could only have been carried through) by an army of punctually paid mercenaries.
And this was happening in the period between the end of the Italian wars and the start of the thirty years war.
Abdul Hadi Pasha
Banned
I have no idea what you're talking about. The Ottomans were not fighting in the style of 1300 during Suleyman's reign. The Ottoman command system was totally superior to the West's at this time, and the Ottomans were the most heavily gunpowder-armed army in Europe. They had an artillery arm that was well-trained and produced fine quality weapons - the monster cannon tended to be melted down if captured because they were too big to transport and supply without the central Ottoman administrative system and logistical train.
I'm not sure why you keep returning to Lepanto, a sea battle. The Ottomans were hobbled by a political decision, to have the two wings of the fleet commanded by rival admirals that hated each other and refused to cooperate, plus the presence of the Venetian floating fortresses. It has nothing to do with artillery or proficiency in field battles. And that's one single loss among a very long string of naval victories.
What is your theory as to why there was not one single significant field battle between a Western Army and the Ottomans between Mohacs and Second Vienna - a period of 157 years? Because nobody would engage them in battle because they knew they would be destroyed.
Abdul Hadi Pasha
Banned
I have no idea what any of you are talking about, but you don't seem to have any idea about the way the Ottoman army worked. What time period are you talking about? Are you honestly saying the Ottoman army under Suleyman was of lower efficiency that Western armies? That's just madness.
Europe was divided into nations that were at war but were unable to raise enough troops to wage it and nations that were at peace but had large numbers of men that were eager to fight. From the nations in the second category, especially Italy, Germany, and Switzerland, there was a steady flow into those in the first, especially France and the Netherlands.
The impatience of Gustavus Vasa with mercenaries did produced by mid-century an actual example of a national standing army in Sweden. It was composed for a short while of volunteers, then of conscripts, and this represents a tendency general in Europe to prefer the conscript to the small numbers and the unreliability of volunteers.
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This was happening in the period between the end of the Italian wars and the start of the thirty years war.
Source: The New Cambride Modern History; vol 3 1559-1610
Abdul Hadi Pasha
Banned
I'm not sure what your point is, because the Ottomans didn't have this problem. They were able to raise large numbers of native troops with little administrative difficulty. There's an advantage to having a meritocracy and no nobility or other established classes.
Also, it hasn't been mentioned, but you can't overlook the immense military advantage of no alcohol consumption. This was widely commented upon by contemporary Western observers.
The Turks used catapults in their attack on Malta, as well as artillery.