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Mehmed II lives

Ricardolindo

Well-known member
Location
Portugal
What if Mehmed II had lived a few years longer? Would the Ottomans have captured Rome? They were advancing in Italy when he died and Mehmed wanted to take Rome, as he considered himself Roman Emperor.
 
Rome I think is unlikely, the Ottoman army was on the east coast of Italy and would have had to march through all of Naples to reach Rome but the Ottomans were planning a serious campaign in Southern Italy and the Pope was planning a serious crusade to dislodge them from both Italy and Albania, Christian forces from Portugal, Hungary and Aragon were gathering,

In OTl it was a bit of a damp squib, the Ottomans didn't reinforce the city they'd captured, the garrison surrendered in 1481 and the Christians just went home, in the Portuguese case having missed the fighting entirely.

If Mehmed doesn't die then the reinforcements do arrive and it becomes a major campaign against Naples.

I don't know exactly who I'd favour in that but it'll probably be a long campaign either way.

Which perhaps then delays their advances elsewhere and so prevents their expansion North and so their war with the Poles in the late 1480s or the Ottoman-Mamluk War of 1485.

If you go further with that and they've reached some kind of peace with naples by 1487, then Mehmed is likely to still be in charge, he was quite young when he died and was possibly murdered. And that means the Ottomans and Mamluks are possibly in a position to launch a joint expedition to Spain when the Nasrids ask them for help in the Granada War.

Or alternatively, Mehmed loses decisively in Italy and then still turns against the Mamluks to try and make up for it with victories elsewhere and the war is still happening when the Nasrids come.
 
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