Europe--perhaps Eurasia in general--maybe dodged a major bullet in 1462, when Sultan Mehmet II himself invaded Wallachia to deal with an uppity local named Vlad Tepes. Technically Mehmet's invasion was a failure, since he really did little other than burn a couple of cities and failed to get hands on Vlad. But it could have gone much worse.
This is the TL where the "much worse" occurred.
Vlad's celebrated "Night Attack" on June 17, 1462 failed to kill the Sultan and cost Drac many of his men, but it was after this point that the Turkish campaign began to falter. While moving deeper into Wallachia to apprehend Tepes, Mehmet and his men ran into a successful bit of psych-ops planted by Vlad: the remnants of the previous Turkish army that tanged with Vlad, 20000+ soldiers impaled. In a moutain pass not far from Târgovişte, Mehmet made his decision to turn back to Constantinople.
But that stuff happend in OTL. What if Vlad managed to ambush Mehmet in that mountain pass?
A cornered army fighting for its life is probably the most dangerous kind, but for the purposes of this scenario it doesn't matter--Vlad wins, and wins big. That horrific forest of impaled corpses grows by 70,000 or more men, including Sultan Mehmet, whose attempts to reason with and/or bribe Vlad with "wealth beyond imagination" are met by sarcastic cackling. Before Mehmet goes on the stake, Vlad promises him that his harem and all of his sons will meet the same fate.
News of Mehmet's death has scarcely made it to Constantinople when the city finds the Wallachian army bearing down upon it. Vlad wasted no time in pressing his advantage, his army rushing across Bulgaria and Thrace to make a crushing surprise attack on the Ottoman “mainland.” (Vlad met little opposition in Bulgaria because the land was still recovering from him ravaging it the year before—the very reason the Turks invaded Wallachia in the first place!). One of the gates experiences “technical difficulties,” fails to close properly—and it’s all over for Constantinople. Vlad, in his usual way, simply kills everyone inside the city who fail to take shelter in Christian churches.
The retaking of Constantinople wasn't Vlad's only victory in his blitzkreig campaign through Bulgaria--he also defeats the janissaries commanded by his Muslim brother, Radu (Radu commanded only a measley 4000 or so troops). Brother Radu joins 50,000 or so others on a forest of stakes outside Constantinople, including--as he promised--most of Mehmet's harem. He fails to capture any of Mehmet's sons, however, who escape into Anatolia.
Vlad crosses into Anatolia and re-enacts the "scorched earth" policies he pursued in Bulgaria, slaughtering every Muslim in sight (and more than a few Christians as well, since who lives and who dies mostly depends on his mood for the day) and burning what his army doesn't take. The Ottoman forces mostly attempt to regroup at the old capital of Bursa, and then retreat east of the Sakarya River when it becomes obvious that Vlad is moving faster than they thought. Vlad sacks Bilecik, then Bursa, and finally gets as far as Eskisehir before he turns back to Constantinople.
So, what happens next?
This is the TL where the "much worse" occurred.
Vlad's celebrated "Night Attack" on June 17, 1462 failed to kill the Sultan and cost Drac many of his men, but it was after this point that the Turkish campaign began to falter. While moving deeper into Wallachia to apprehend Tepes, Mehmet and his men ran into a successful bit of psych-ops planted by Vlad: the remnants of the previous Turkish army that tanged with Vlad, 20000+ soldiers impaled. In a moutain pass not far from Târgovişte, Mehmet made his decision to turn back to Constantinople.
But that stuff happend in OTL. What if Vlad managed to ambush Mehmet in that mountain pass?
A cornered army fighting for its life is probably the most dangerous kind, but for the purposes of this scenario it doesn't matter--Vlad wins, and wins big. That horrific forest of impaled corpses grows by 70,000 or more men, including Sultan Mehmet, whose attempts to reason with and/or bribe Vlad with "wealth beyond imagination" are met by sarcastic cackling. Before Mehmet goes on the stake, Vlad promises him that his harem and all of his sons will meet the same fate.
News of Mehmet's death has scarcely made it to Constantinople when the city finds the Wallachian army bearing down upon it. Vlad wasted no time in pressing his advantage, his army rushing across Bulgaria and Thrace to make a crushing surprise attack on the Ottoman “mainland.” (Vlad met little opposition in Bulgaria because the land was still recovering from him ravaging it the year before—the very reason the Turks invaded Wallachia in the first place!). One of the gates experiences “technical difficulties,” fails to close properly—and it’s all over for Constantinople. Vlad, in his usual way, simply kills everyone inside the city who fail to take shelter in Christian churches.
The retaking of Constantinople wasn't Vlad's only victory in his blitzkreig campaign through Bulgaria--he also defeats the janissaries commanded by his Muslim brother, Radu (Radu commanded only a measley 4000 or so troops). Brother Radu joins 50,000 or so others on a forest of stakes outside Constantinople, including--as he promised--most of Mehmet's harem. He fails to capture any of Mehmet's sons, however, who escape into Anatolia.
Vlad crosses into Anatolia and re-enacts the "scorched earth" policies he pursued in Bulgaria, slaughtering every Muslim in sight (and more than a few Christians as well, since who lives and who dies mostly depends on his mood for the day) and burning what his army doesn't take. The Ottoman forces mostly attempt to regroup at the old capital of Bursa, and then retreat east of the Sakarya River when it becomes obvious that Vlad is moving faster than they thought. Vlad sacks Bilecik, then Bursa, and finally gets as far as Eskisehir before he turns back to Constantinople.
So, what happens next?
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