"Io Mihailŭ, Împĕratul Românilor" - A Michael the Brave Romania Wank
- Thread starter Zagan
- Start date
Here I go:
1) 1,230,001 sq km.
2) 11,500,000 sq km (18xx).
3) 200,000,000 (2016) assuming that comment about Troy early on in the TL, Romania may decide to annex Turkey in the 19th century.
4) 1,000,000,000-2,000,000,000 (2016) or 500,000,000 700,000,000 (18xx). Assuming Arabia, Sudan, Sinai, Holy land, Lebanon Somalia and (Good Morning) Vietnam are colonies. Egypt, Ethiopia, Hungary, and Croatia are protectorates. And Greece, Georgia, Armenia, India, Slovakia and Nippon (samurai legions, anyone?) are dynastic unions with Romania proper. Medina and Mecca will have to be razed on a biblical scale (no brick left attached to another) for this to work.
5a) 4th.
5b) 1st. Because India mainly.
5c) 1st.
5d) 3rd.
5e) Romania proper only:
Most Democratic.
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Zagan
Donor
There seems to be a mistake at point 3. (highlighted in red). I suspect you wanted to write 200,000,000 not 2,000,000. You may edit your post.
Competition entry valid and registered. Thank you.
Participants so far:
1. @fluttersky;
2. @Sir Omega;
3. @Amber;
4. @Grammar Kaiser.
The results of the competition will be available in the 19th century TTL / ~20 chapters from now / sometime this year OTL real time (or early next year due to this hiatus).
II.6. The War Against Islam
Zagan
Donor
The Century of Peace
The War Against Islam
The War Against Islam
Note: While the following events may seem extreme to us, we have to see them through a historical lens. Attitudes and morality were quite different even in the recent past and that kind of atrocities were sadly viewed by many as being normal.
Anti-Islamism in Europe (excerpts)
Paul Dragu, Constantinople, Romania, 1954
While Anti-Islamism is, unfortunately, still present in current populist political discourse, it is difficult to imagine how much worse the situation used to be a couple of centuries ago. [...]
Before the 17th century, one can argue that European Anti-Islamism was, in fact, entirely justified. For centuries, the Islamic Powers from Asia and Africa had attacked, invaded, raided, pillaged, conquered and settled vast swathes of the Christendom. Spain, North Africa, Egypt, the Holy Land, Syria, Asia Minor, Mesopotamia, the Caucasus, Crimea, Greece and most of Romania had been, at one time or another, under the Islamic yoke. Countless innocent Christians had been persecuted, raped, killed or abducted and sold as slaves in the Islamic Lands.
In the 17th century however, the tide had decisively turned against the Islamic invaders and the European Powers after liberating all of Europe went on to reclaim for Christendom all the former territory of the Ancient Roman Empire.
That was the moment when the former oppressed became the oppressors, the former conquered became the conquerors, the former invaded became the invaders. We must try and leave our biases away for a moment and realize that, during the last two hundred years, we have treated the defeated Mahommedans significantly worse than we had been treated by them when they had been victorious. We should really ask ourselves if this was what Christ would have taught us to do. Shouldn't we have rather shown a certain degree of Christian mercy to those we had overpowered? [...]
While the northern Powers had been more or less humane in their conduct towards the Mahommedans under their rule (France, Britain, Germany, Sarmatia) or did not have any Mahommedan subjects (Scandinavia), all the southern Powers are, in our opinion, guilty of major and sometime senseless atrocities perpetrated against the subjugated Mahommedan populations, ranging from common misconduct to outright ethnocide. [...]
Scandinavia
Scandinavia did never have any Mahommedan subjects under its rule.
France
France used to own several colonies in West Africa with a sizable Islamic population. The Mahommedans suffered some degree of discrimination compared to the local Catholics but there was never even a hint of ethnocide.
The former French African colonies still have a stable, though slowly decreasing, Mahommedan population to this day.
Britain
With their vast Colonial Empire, the British have always had many Mahommedans under their rule, mostly in Africa, India and the East Indies. While all natives suffered the usual colonial oppression, the Mahommedans were never treated worse than the adherents of any other religion, Christianity included. European superiority has always been promoted by the British to be of a racial not religious nature as in the Catholic countries. There were even a few instances in India, where the Mahommedans were positively discriminated compared to the Hindus majority due to the divide et impera principle.
The remaining British colonies still have their fair share of Mahommedans today.
Germany
The Germans have always treated all their colonial subjects equally bad, regardless of their faiths, so we cannot postulate the existence of any Anti-Islamic feelings there.
The Mahommedan population of the East Indies decreased proportionally with the overall population.
Sarmatia
The Sarmatian Mahommedans have, on average, fared better than the Orthodoxes, surely due to the menacing presence of Russia. Most of the Tatar nobility from Crimea and Transazovia has been fully absorbed into the Sarmatian Szlachta. While the number of Mahommedans has slowly decreased due to assimilation and conversion, there has never been any systematic discrimination against them.
Now, 1.18% of the Sarmatians are Mahommedans, a few still speaking the Tatar language in the highlands of central Crimea.
Spain
During the conquest of North-West Africa, the Spaniards killed about a quarter of the local population through warfare, massacres and famine, then proceeded to enslave all those who refused to convert to Catholicism and shiped them to their colonies in the Americas. The vast majority of the slaves perished, either on their way to the Americas or at the destination, due to a combination of malnutrition, tropical diseases, extremely hard work in torrid weather, neglect and abuse. Neither the public opinion nor the Spanish Catholic Church seemed moved by the colossal human suffering caused by their country.
Today, the initial Arab and Berber population of Spanish North Africa is almost completely extinguished. In Spanish North Africa there lives now an estimated population of 350,000 Berbers, their language being endangered. There are no Arabs anymore and everybody is a Catholic, at least in theory. In the Americas, the descendents of the freed slaves are now completely assimilated into the local population. All of them are fully enfranchised.
Italy
After receiving Italian North Africa at the end of the Second European War, the Italians engineered an even more devious plan of extermination than that of their Spanish brethren. The Mahommedan population was slowly expelled from the populated coastal areas, forced into the unforgiving Sahara Desert and left to wither away, unable to find sufficient water and food to sustain their numbers.
Today, Italian North Africa is home to no more than 830,000 nomadic desert-dwellers, most of them Mahommedan Berbers and Tuaregs. They are partially enfranchised.
Russia
Despite having no clear official organized policy against their Mahommedan subjects, life in the Russian Empire has always been harsh for them due to pogroms, expulsions, discrimination, forced conversions, abduction of children and other random acts of violence.
Today, there are between 1.5 and 2.5 million Mahommedans in Russia. There are no elections in Russia.
Greece, Armenia and Georgia
Almost all Mahommedan population from these countries has been expelled during the population exchanges with the former Ottoman Empire.
Today, there are less than one thousand Mahommedans in each of these countries. With the exception of Georgia, they have no political rights.
Romania Proper
After the incorporation of the former Ottoman Europe (the 1625 census), Romania had about 227,000 Mahommedans (Turks, Tatars, some Albanians and a few Slavs) amounting to cca. 3.7% of the total population.
15 years later (the 1640 census, which included recently annexed Eastern Thrace), the Mahommedans were less than 90,000 (cca. 1.3%) and at the end of the Second European War (the 1652 census), there were officially no remaining Mahommedans in Romania Proper (with the exception of the newly annexed Province of Marmara).
Unlike the other Christian Powers, Romania did not actively massacre its Islamic minority. What had happened then? How did those hundreds of thousands of people dissapear?
From the scarce documentary evidence available (see Annex B), we can break up their fate as follows:
- about 8,000 (2-3%) lost their lives in various pogroms perpetrated by the Romanian Nationalists with the tacit aproval of the authorities;
- about 120,000 (35-45%) were expelled to the rump Ottoman State in three successive waves (1626, 1632-1634 and 1648-1649);
- about 3,000 (~1%) converted to Catholicism (all of them Albanians);
- the rest converted to Romanian Orthodoxy and eventually merged into the Romanian Nation.
One frequently asked question is that of the faithfullness of those mass conversions. Although we do not have a definitive answer, there is sufficient evidence (see Annex C) to safely say that at least some of the converts were actually Crypto-Mahommedans who continued to practice their ancestral faith in secret for several generations. There are documents which suggest that, as recently as 1868, there was still a small Crypto-Mahommedan community in Southern Dobruja.
The converts, both the Crypto-Mahommedans and the true ones, suffered significant discrimination and occasional violence on the behalf of the Romanian Secret Service, Police and Gendarmerie as well as the Romanian Nationalists and the Romanian Society in general, having to live in a climate of fear, hatred and suspicion for many decades.
The Orient
If the Romanian treatment of Mahommedans was quite bad in Romania Proper, in the Empire it was worse by several orders of magnitude. Actually this mirrors perfectly the general status of the human rights in Romania Proper versus the rest of the Empire.
Romania Proper was, at least in theory, a democratic State, where the people had rights, the Rule of Law was more or less respected, the press was partially free, the Monarchy was constitutional and the power of the authorities was kept in check by laws, customs and powerful public opinion.
Neither of these constraints existed in the Orient, where the Romanian Emperor ruled as an absolute Monarch with no Rule of Law, no mass-media, no political parties, no separate Judicial Power and no checks whatsoever for the brutality of the Romanian Army, Colonial Authorities and Popular Militias who rampaged those lands with absolute impunity!
To be fair, not all anti-Islamic violence was perpetrated by Romanians. The Cossacks, who were expelled by the Sarmatians from their ancestral lands and were settled by the Romanian Authorities in Asia Minor, were probably the most savage in their actions against the almost defenceless Turkish civilians.
One often overlooked fact was that the organized violence against the Mahommedans was not always physical. Besides the usual massacres, rapes, expulsions, requisitions and so on, the authorities had painstakingly set up a vicious and massive psychological war against Islam and its followers:
- not content with merely demolishing the mosques, the Colonial Authorities turned many mosques into pigsties and forced the subdued Mahommedans to tend for the pigs;
- the Romanian Orthodox Church authored, published and disseminated fake Korans full of carefully inserted errors and blasphemous statements while the true Korans were confiscated and burned in public cermeonies;
- the Secret Service disseminated rumours regarding either fake conversions to Christianity or even demon or idol worshiping, thus nurturing strife and uncertainty in the midst of the Islamic communities;
- families were broken up with children separated from their parents and indoctrinated with Christian and European superiority versus Islamic and Asiatic backwardsness.
The decrease of the Mahommedan population in the various parts of the Empire is summarized in Table 7. [...]
Note: I will post the table and other statistical data in a separate post, as usual.
Prelude
In the span of just 31 years, the young Romanian State (Principality until 1625, then Imperium), under the rule of two monarchs (Saint Emperor Mihai I the Brave until 1641, then Empress Iulia the Warrior), fought three victorious wars against the crumbling Ottoman Empire, conquering it in the process.
1. The First Romanian-Ottoman War (1622-1625)
(see I.28 and I.29)
The recently (1601) united Lesser Romania (only the territory north of the Danube, i.e. the former Principalities of Transylvania, Wallachia and Moldavia), then still a nominally Ottoman Vassal, joined an Anti-Ottoman Crusade, contributed by far most the most land troops and liberated most of the Balkan Peninsula.
At the Peace of Alba Iulia (see I.30), the Principality of Romania was recognized as an Independent Country and almost doubled its territory by annexing most of the former Ottoman Europe (with the exception of Eastern Thrace). Soon afterwards, Romania became an Imperium and was accepted as a fellow Great Power at the Great Powers Conference.
2. The Second Romanian Ottoman War (1629-1630)
(see I.44 and I.45)
Only four years after the Peace of Alba Iulia, Romania was dragged by Greece into another war against the Ottoman Empire. After being invaded by the Ottomans, the Romanians regained the initiative and advanced to the walls of Constantinople, shelling it into ruins.
The Treaty of Adrianople (see I.46) saw the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire with some of its remains being loosely united into a weak Ottoman State. Romania annexed Eastern Thrace and three Colonies -- Cyrenaica (exchanged with Egyptian Sinai), the Holy Land and Lebanon.
That treaty marked the humble beginnings of the Romanian Colonial Empire which grew hundredfold in the following centuries!
During the following decades, the Romanians fought an on and off insurgency in the Holy Land and opened the Sinai Canal linking the Mediterranian to the Red Sea, a truly amazing feat of engineering for that time.
3. The Oriental Front of the Second European War (1645-1652)
(see I.63)
After returning from the Sarmatian Front, Empress Iulia led the Armies of Romania and its Allies into a protracted and vicious but ultimately victorious war against the Ottoman State, Turkey, the Levant, Mesopotamia and Arabia, conquering an area greater than Romania, covering herself in glory and finally dying heroically in battle.
A series of treaties led to the demise of the Ottoman State and the creation of the Empire of the Orient (a quasi-federal entity dominated by Romania), the small Principality of the Bosphorus (annexed one year later), the new Colonies of Sinope, Asia Minor, Syria, Cappadocia (Armenian), Cilicia (Greek) and the Protectorates of Turkey and Levant.
The end of the war pleased neither the Muslims who wanted complete freedom from Christian rule nor the Romanians whose endgame was total domination of the Middle East and the ultimate destruction of Islam.
The Colonial Wars in the Orient
After 11 years of incessant war all over Europe and the Orient with an enormous toll of young human lives, including their beloved Empress Iulia, the Romanians were both extremely war-weary and near the bottom of their financial and human resources. Thus, the long reign of Empress Maria (1651-1723) started with 18 years of peace.
That period of peace could not last any longer due to various factors:
- the increasing power, independence and restlessness of the Army (feeling that she is no longer able to control the Army, Empress Maria preferred to let it fight in the Orient instead of plotting against the fledgling Romanian Democracy);
- the real or imagined plans of the Turks and Levantines (with or without Arab, Persian or Egyptian help) to break free from Romanian rule and / or attack the neighbouring Romanian Colonies;
- the desire to help the irregular Cossack, Greek and Jewish Militias encroaching on Turkish and, respectively, Levantine territory, leading to skirmishes with the local Muslim defense units;
- the age old human desire to subjugate other peoples and take their riches and their lands;
- the new quest for prestige Colonies (after all the lucrative places have been already appropriated, the Great Powers wanted to simply paint the map in their national colour, so deserts, frozen wilderness, impenetrable jungles and remote desolate islands suddenly became attractive);
- the increasingly powerful Christian Romania could not tolerate any longer the presence of independent or autonomous Islamic countries anywhere near its ever expanding borders.
4. The Conquest of Turkey (1670)
At the end of the Second European War, a badly mauled Sarmatia decided to take no more chances and get rid of its troublesome religious minorities. One of those was the Russian Orthodox (and pro-Russian) Cossacks from the Black Sea Steppe and the Dniepr Valley.
Because simply massacring them was not palatable to the internal and international public opinion and expelling them to neighbouring Russia was not advisable due to fears of strenghening it, the Sarmatians decided to let Romania have the Cossacks.
That way, everybody was pleased: Sarmatia eliminated a potential danger to its territorial integrity and social cohesion, Romania gained hundreds of thousands of loyal and thankful citizens with a solid martial culture and the Cossacks themselves escaped persecution and settled new and rich lands full of Muslims whom they loved to fight with! The mandatory conversion from Russian Orthodoxy to Romanian Orthodoxy was a mere formality as the doctrine of the two churches was virtually identical.
Romania settled its Cossacks in the newly acquired Colony of Asia Minor, the stretch of land from the Aegean to the Black Sea on the Asian shores of the Sea of Marmara. The Cossacks simply killed or expelled the local Turks and took their land. There was one problem though -- the initially small number of Cossacks increased so much during the second and third waves of colonization that there was no more land available for them in the Colony!
Gradually, starting from 1660, the Cossacks began to cross the long and porous border with Turkey, raiding villages, killing and enslaving the Muslim population and stealing their lands. The very small Turkish army allowed by the Peace of Angora could not patrol the whole border and fend the brazen Cossacks. By 1668, small skirmishes had already turned into full-fledged battles.
The Turkish Government had issued numerous protests to the Romania, its Protecting Power, but obviously to no avail as the Romanian Colonial Authorities were actually colluding with the Cossacks, encouraging them in their acts of aggression. In 1669, the whole situation was already explosive and Turkey, deprived of any real Romanian Protection, decided to defend itself and began to levy soldiers to increase its army effectives.
In May 1670, Romania invoked the Angora Treaty, whose provisions, ironically, it had never respected, issued a strong Ultimatum and invaded Turkey shortly afterwards.
The 34,000 strong hastily assembled Turkish Army was no match for the 60,000 superbly trained Romanian Legionnaires. After three months of one-sided fights, Angora fell and the Turkish State was occupied, dissolved and merged into the Asia Minor Colony*. No treaty was ever signed. After hundreds of years of greatness and decline, the Turkish State simply ceased to exist.
*The term Asia Minor is ambigous, as it depends on the time period:
- in the Greco-Roman Antiquity, it represented the whole Anatolian Peninsula;
- between 1648 and 1670 it was the name of the small Romanian Colony on the Marmara Sea Asian shore;
- between 1670 and 1696, the name was extended to the annexed Turkish territory;
- after 1696, with the Marmara shore annexed directly to Romania Proper, it started to represent just the former Turkish Protectorate;
- today its old meaning from Antiquity appears to be once again in use.
The annexation of Turkey had several very important consequences:
- a century long low level insurgency with several massive outbursts of violence leading to a continuous and unpopular haemorrhage of troops and funds;
- the sudden end of the good bilateral relations with Persia and Egypt and the subsequent creation of the Islamic Alliance between Persia, Arabia, the Levant and Egypt with all its nefarious consequences;
- the delay of the start of industrialization [according to the study of Petrescu et al.], due to the availability of large amounts of arable land for the increasing population of Romanian peasants who were thus not forced into the industrial workforce.
5. The Romanian-Islamic War (1683-1711)
The extremely slow and protracted 28 years long war between Romania and its allies on one side and the Islamic Alliance on the other side is important enough to merit its own chapter.
Note: See the next chapter.
6. The African Colonial Wars (1703-1765)
This long series of poorly defined wars was fought as the Romanian Army and Colonial Administration advanced deeper and deeper into Africa. The Romanian conquests in Africa came to an abrupt end at the start of the Third European War.
By 1765, Romania had under various degrees of control (Colonies, Protectorates, Influence) large swathes of Eastern Africa, up to the border with German Africa in the south and the African Great Lakes and the Sahara Desert in the west. In 1721, the Christian Kingdom of Ethiopia became a full Member State of the Empire of the Orient.
Note: The accompanying maps (in a separate post) will help clarify the complex situation in Romanian Africa.
7. The Romanian-Persian War (1763-1766)
While some historians treat this war as part of the long series of Wars against Islam, we think that both its particularities and its timeframe support its inclusion in the Third European War, despite Persia not being a European country.
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This update was great! How is Ethiopia treated by Romania? Does Turkey ever regain it independence? I noticed some colonies don't have former in front of them. Do Germany, Spain, Italy, and Scandinavia maintain portions of theirs in some form?
I kinda feel bad for Iulia. Is that opinion expressed in a previous chapter universal? There are so few militaristic women in the world. It's a shame if her reputation is so tarnished.
I kinda feel bad for Iulia. Is that opinion expressed in a previous chapter universal? There are so few militaristic women in the world. It's a shame if her reputation is so tarnished.
Zagan
Donor
Thank you.
Ethiopia is treated just like Armenia or Georgia: "Yet another somewhat backwards little Christian country (with a rather peculiar version of Christianity), a country in serious need of guidance, help and support from its big brother, the all-enlightened and powerful Romania!"
I mean, there is almost no racism in TTL's Romania (at least in the 18th century). The Turks, the Arabs and others are discriminated against because they are not Christians, not because they are not Europeans! The non-Christians are considered "stupid" or even "mentally defective" because "they couldn't understand Christ and His Message", etc. Note that this mentality will lead to issues later, not with the (by then) very few and toothless Muslims but with the increasing number of Atheists / Agnostics!
At this moment I sincerely don't know if there will be ever again an Independent Turkish State in Anatolia but probably not.
Yes, most countries still have (at least some of) their colonies. Only take note that the author had published that book in 1954, not in 2017 (when the status of the colonies is thus far unknown, never mentioned anywhere in the TL):
Me too. I like Iulia very much. She is a flawed but romantic and tragic character.
No, that opinion is not universal, far from it. It is the opinion of a British author bitter because of the... (no spoilers) let's say "difficult relations between his country and Romania."
In fact, most TTL Romanians cherish her memory just below that of her illustrious grandfather!
Happy to see an update. Just one small thing I noticed that might need correcting...
It appears that you meant 1640 and 1652 instead of 1940 and 1952.
Zagan
Donor
Thanks. You are an excellent proof-reader. Few people can spot small mistakes such easily!
Corrected.
Nice to see you restarting work on this. What is the situation with the Far Orient trade? Is it dominated by probable Spanish or German Colonial outposts in South America / Oceania? Are the traditional land trade routes blocked by Persia, or do they still reach Constantinopole? In that period the spice trade was the most profitable trade for around 200 years, building the basis of Empires such as that of Spain and Britain.
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Zagan
Donor
Thank you.
The spices and other "Oriental" goodies are mainly from India, the East Indies (Indonesia) and China. Since the Second European War (cca. 1647), Britannia has had a monopoly on spices because both India and the East Indies had been assigned in its sphere of influence. China is mostly closed to outside influence in this period. More about China in future chapters.
The silk road was fully functional between cca. 1648 (the total destruction of the Ottoman Power) and 1670 (when the relations between Romania and Persia broke due to the Romanian annexation of Turkey). In 1683, with the start of the war between Romania and Persia, it was shut down completely. Naturally, this resulted in a decrease of revenue for Romania (the goodies from the silk road entered the rest of Europe through Romania and were taxed).
II.7. The Forgotten War
Zagan
Donor
The Century of Peace
The Forgotten War
The Forgotten War
Note: The construction "Century of Peace" refers to the period with no wars between European Powers. The Colonial Wars are not taken into consideration.
Anti-Islamism in Europe (excerpts)
Paul Dragu, Constantinople, Romania, 1954
In its seemingly neverending conflict with Islam, the fortunes of the Christendom varied in direct relation to the degree of unity and cohesion in the two warring camps.
During the early Caliphates, the fractured Christendom did not stand a chance against the Islamic onslaught. Palestine, Syria, Egypt, Northern Africa and Hispania were lost in a historical blink of an eye.
When the Western Christendom rised to the call of the Pope, the resulting selfless Christian solidarity lead to the superb phenomenon of the first Crusades and the temporary liberation of the Holy Land from the accursed Mahommedan yoke.
Later, the asinine infighting between our sisterly Churches led to the disastrous fourth Crusade which dealt a mortal blow to the Eastern Roman Empire from which it never fully recovered. The lack of a strong bastion of Christianity in the Orient allowed the catastrophic rise of the Ottoman Empire, the greatest scourge that had ever befallen this part of the Christendom.
The small countries of the Balkans, frequently quarelling with one another, were rapidly overrun by the mighty Turks united under the Ottoman banner. With the Ottomans on the Danube and deep inside the former Hungarian Kingdom, the disunited Romanians and Germans would have certainly shared the gruesome fate of their neighbours if not for the Providential Coming of Saint Emperor Mihai I the Brave.
We should never underestimate the impact our beloved Saint Emperor had upon the beleaguered Christendom. Almost singlehandedly, he united all Romanians in a single powerful Empire, was the catalist of Sarmatian and German Unity and engineered the 1622 Anti-Ottoman Crusade which forever curbed the Ottoman menace. [...]
The founding of the Great Power Council, this wonderful institution which allowed the European Powers to act together against their common enemies, heralded the unprecedented era of Christian domination in which we are living today. [...]
To be completely honest, the spectacular 17th century Christian victories against the Islam were greatly aided by the disunity of the Mahommedans and especially by the repeated treasonous Persian stabs in the back against the crumbling Ottoman power.
In the First Romanian-Ottoman War, the Persian entry into the war hastened the Ottoman capitulation and saved many Christian lives.
In the Second Romanian-Ottoman War, the destruction of the Ottoman Empire was aided by internal rebellions and defections in Egypt and Arabia.
In the Third Romanian-Ottoman War, the internal disunity of the weak Ottoman State, the neutrality of Egypt and cobelliberancy of Persia helped Romania strike a mortal blow to the Ottomans and include most of it into the newly formed Christian Empire of the Orient.
Conversely, when Romania was deserted by its erstwhile allies in the wastelands of Arabia, Empress Iulia the Warrior was killed, the campaign was hastily brought to a premature end and the conquest of Mecca had to be postponed indefinitely.
[...]
Unfortunately, the era of Islamic disunity was brought to an end by increasingly bold Romanian actions in the Orient. The total destruction of the Ottoman State, the ultimately aborted thrust towards Mecca, the continuous encroachments upon the sovereignty of the Turkish and Levantine Protectorates and the horrific abuses perpetrated against the helpless Mahommedan population by the irregural militias and Romanian Colonial Authorities made the remaining Islamic countries wary and resulted in increased political, economic and military cooperation between them.
The 1670 annexation of Turkey was only the proverbial straw that broke the camel's back. [...]
The Islamic Alliance
21 April 1671 AD (12 Dhu'l-Hijjah 1081 AH), Mecca, Arabia
In the last day of the Hajj, the leaders of the remaining Muslim States of the Middle East pledged to maintain peace among themselves and to fully support each other in case of war with a Christian State (which was understood to be Romania).
The founding document of the Islamic Alliance (التحالف الإسلامي / Altahaluf Al'iislamiu) included the following points (abridged):
1. The faithful peoples from the countries of the Dar al-Islam (Islamic countries) shall refrain from waging war among themselves and live in peace with one another just as Allah intended.
2. In the case one of the signatory countries wants to wage war against a country from the Dar al-Harb (non-Islamic countries), it shall first inform the other signatories and discuss the opportunity of said war. If a consensus is not reached about the opportunity of the war against the kafirs (infidels), the other signatories are not mandated to provide military help but should, in any case, provide moral support to the warring country while maintaining their neutrality.
3. In the case one of the signatory countries is attacked by an infidel country, the other signatories must immediately provide full military support to the attacked country until the successful conclusion of the war and the expulsion of the infidels from the Dar al-Islam.
Signed today, 12 Dhu'l-Hijjah 1081, in the Holy City of Mecca, by:
- the Shahanshah of the Persian Empire,
- the Sultan of Egypt,
- the Caliph of Arabia and
- the Emir of the Levant. [1]
[1] The Levant was not an Independent country but a de jure Romanian Protectorate within the Empire of the Orient. It was, nonetheless allowed to join the Islamic Alliance as a full Independent State by the other Muslim States.
1671 - 1681
The signing of Islamic Alliance had an immediate effect both in the Islamic countries and in Christian Europe, especially in the Empire of the Orient (as Romania, Greece, Armenia and Georgia used to be under Muslim domination for centuries).
Persia, Egypt, Arabia and the Levant began to prepare for what they saw as an inevitable war with Romania. All countries improved and expanded their armed forces while Persia helped the weaker members of the alliance with weapons and military instructors.
Romania protested the increase in the size of the Levantine Army, citing the 1649 Peace of Damascus and accusing the Levant of breaking its provisions. Enboldened by the support of its stronger neighbours, the Levantines disregarded the Romanian protests and continued to expand and modernize their army.
With a future conflict more or less certain, Romania and the other members of the Empire of the Orient began to prepare for war themselves. Armenia and Georgia were by far the most concerned because they were small countries which shared a border with the more powerful and suddenly hostile Persian Empire.
Italy was also concerned due to the presence of a difficult to defend Saharan border between Italian Africa and Egyptian Cyrenaica. Anticipating possible trouble, the Italians increased the number and quality of their colonial troops dislocated in Tripolitania.
German concerns were limited to a possible closure of the Sinai Canal which was already vital, providing them with a fast and secure connection between the Metropole and the Südreich.
Anticipating a revolt of the large Muslim population from Asia Minor (annexed Turkey) in the likely case of a war with the neighbouring Muslim States, the Romanian Colonial Authorities increased the pace of the colonization of Asia Minor with Romanians, Cossacks, Greeks and other Christians.
At the same time, the Romanian Army, as well as the armies of the lesser members of the Empire of the Orient, prepared for war with frequent military exercises, better conscription, partial mobilizations and various upgrades in military equipment and strategy.
The frequent clashes between the Levantines and the Jewish militias from the Holy Land encroaching upon adjacent Levantine territory were increasingly uneven in favour of the significantly modernized Levantine Army.
The Levant was always protesting the Jewish actions to the Romanian Authorities without receiving any answers. Romania, the nominally Protecting Power of the Levant, was not only not doing anything to curb the power of the Jewish militias operating from the safety of the Romanian-held Holy Land, but was actually encouraging the large number of Jewish settlers in their attempts to appropriate parcels of land from the Levantine side of the border.
The explosive situation had its roots in the Romanian decision to colonize the Holy Land, initially with thousands of Jews evicted from Romania Proper and then with an increasingly larger number of Jews expelled by the other Christian Powers. By the start of the war, the only Christian countries with extant Jewish minorities were Russia (~600,000) and France (~370,000).
The rest of the surviving European Jews (~480,000) immigrated to the small and agriculturally poor Romanian Colony of the Holy Land where they already constituted a comfortable majority of cca. 71% of the population. That massive demographic pressure had led to a steady influx of Jewish colonists into the less populated areas of the neighbouring Levant and the unavoidable clashes with the local population and the Levantine Army.
With more and more Jews coming every week from France, the Colonial Authorities of the Holy Land had no choice but to encite them to settle over the border in Levantine territory and join their brethren who were already in excess of 55,000. For the Levantines, the situation was completely unacceptable.
March 1682
The Levantine authorities decided to expel all the Jews squating on their territory. For Romania, which had no means to accomodate the expellees in the already overcrowded Holy Land, the only possible solutions were to prop up the Jewish militias or to invade the Levant and start the war with the Islamic Alliance. The Romanians chose the former.
April 1682 - January 1683
With the Levantine Army trying to eliminate all Jewish presence from the Levant, the previously isolated skirmishes with the Jewish militias turned into a full-fledged war, a war which the Jewish irregulars were clearly losing against the superior numbers and fire power of the Levantine Army.
By the end of the year, despite the generous caches of weapons, ammuniton and explosives received from the Romanian Army, the Jewish militias were largely defeated and the victorious Levantines were already expelling or murdering the Jewish civilians.
February 1683
After an Ultimatum which remained unanswered, the Empire of the Orient declared war to the Levant and the Romanian Colonial Army, augmented with Legionnaires from the Metropole, prepared to invade the Levant from the North (Asia Minor) and West (Syria, Lebanon, the Holy Land and the Sinai).
In quick succession, Persia, Arabia and Egypt declared war to Romania, Greece, Armenia and Georgia and mobilized their armies for the war they were preparing for over a decade.
The Levant terminated their already meaningless Protectorate status, quit the Empire of the Levant and proclaimed its full Independence.
The Romanian-Islamic War
The Islamic Alliance (pop. ~40 million, army 1,880,000 - 3,930,000)
- the Persian Empire (pop. 23 million, army 700,000 - 1,800,000)
- Egypt (pop. 12 million, army 300,000 - 800,000)
- the Arabian Caliphate (pop. 4 million, army 500,000 - 700,000)
- the Levant (pop. 1.8 million, army 230,000 - 350,000)
- Turkish rebels in Asia Minor (150,000 - 280,000)
The Empire of the Orient (pop. ~25 million, army 1,900,000 - 3,720,000)
- the Empire of Romania (14.5 million, army 1,000,000 - 2,300,000)
- Greece (3.2 million, army 200,000 - 310,000)
- Armenia (3.0 million, army 120,000 - 190,000)
- Georgia (1.4 million, army 30,000 - 100,000)
- Slovakia (0.9 million, army 1,000 - 15,000)
- Cossack irregulars in Asia Minor (140,000 - 160,000)
- Jewish irregulars in the Holy Land and the Levant (170,000 - 210,000)
- Italian Colonial Forces in Africa (200,000 - 400,000)
- Sarmatian Expeditionary Force in Asia Minor (25,000)
- German Volunteers (9,000)
- German Navy (5,000)
Theatres of War
- Caucasus (Persia vs. Armenia + Georgia + Romanian Expeditionary Force Caucasus)
- Asia Minor (Persia + Turkish rebels vs. Romania + Greece + Cossack militias + Sarmatian Expeditionary Force)
- Levantine (Levant + Persia vs. Romania + Jewish militias)
- Arabian (Arabia + Egypt vs. Romania + German volunteers)
- African (Egypt vs. Italy)
- Naval - Mediterranian (Egypt vs. Romania + Greece)
- Naval - Red Sea (Arabia vs. Romania)
- Naval - Indian Ocean (Persia vs. Romania + Germany)
1. The Caucasus Theatre of War (March 1683 - November 1687)
The bulk of the Persian Army (500,000 - 780,000) invaded Armenia and then Georgia from their exposed Eastern flanks.
The small Armenian and Georgian armies (150,000 - 290,000 combined) were not able to withstand the formidable force of the Persian attack and the Romanian Expeditionary Force Caucasus (100,000 - 200,000) was not enough to change the balance in the favour of the Christians.
Erevan fell in October 1683 and Armenia capitulated in July 1685. Tilfis fell in September 1685 and Georgia capitulated in March 1686. The battered remnants of the Romanian Expeditionary Force Caucasus retreated to Asia Minor during 1687, leaving Armenia and Georgia under Persian occupation for the duration of the war.
The main reason for the humiliating defeat of the Romanian Legionnaires was considered at that time to have been the difficult logistics in a far away mountainous region with a poor road infrastructure, few navigable rivers and little food readily available. Today, some historians suggest that the war had not been taken seriously in Romania where years of nationalist propaganda made everyone believe that defeating the Muslims would be a walk in the park. Regardless of the reasons, the defeat caused a significant furore in Romania and the subsequent fall of the Romanian Government.
The Persian occupation in Armenia and Georgia was rather light, with violence and atrocities being relatively rare and the requisitions bearable. The Persian Empire did not attempt to annex the occupied countries or change their existing laws and customs.
2. The Asia Minor Theatre of War (May 1683 - December 1710)
Of all the theatres of war, Asia Minor was by far the most complex and contested, with the most countries involved, the largest number of soldiers, a massive long term Turkish insurrection, the largest and most important battles and the longest duration of the hostilities.
The best Legions of the Romanian Army (600,000 - 1,000,000), the Romanian Colonial Forces (180,000 - 240,000), the Cossack militias (cca. 150,000), the Greek Army (130,000 - 250,000) and the Sarmatian Expeditionary Force (cca. 25,000) battled the Persian Armies (650,000 - 1,450,000) and the Turkish rebels (150,000 - 280,000) to a stalemate for an incredible 27 years.
The frontlines advanced Eastwards and retreated Westwards with a exasperating periodicity, leaving behind death and destruction. Angora changed hands eleven times and Sinope nine times, being almost completely destroyed in the process.
At the end of the War, the population of Asia Minor was halved (cca. 1.3 million dead or displaced) and the military casualties were enormous (about half a million on each side). The cost of the war is difficult to acertain but it was probably astronomic, with both Romania and Persia ending the war nearly bankrupt.
3. The Levantine Theatre of War (June 1683 - April 1699)
At first, the Levantine Armies (230,000 - 350,000) were alone against the Romanian Colonial Forces (80,000 - 130,000) and the Jewish militias (170,000 - 210,000) and neither side was able to make any progress.
The arrival of the Persian Armies from Mesopotamia (250,000 - 300,000) changed the balance of forces in favour of the Islamic Alliance and the Romanian and Jewish forces were quickly pushed over the Jordan river (1688).
When the enemy crossed the Jordan and threatened Jerusalem, Romania send its Legionnaires (cca. 330,000) to regain the initiative and drive the Persian and Levantine soldiers out of the Holy Land (1691).
The Romanians took advantage of their momentum and, in a brazen and unexpected attack, advanced rapidly in the Levant and captured Damascus (December 1691).
With their Capital in the hands of the enemy and their Emir in captivity, the Levantine armies started to disintegrate, leaving large gaps in the failing frontlines. Unable to contain the Romanian invasion alone, the Persian Armies began a fighting retreat towards Mesopotamia (1692).
By the end of 1693, most of the Levant was under Romanian occupation and the Romanian vanguard crossed the Persian border into Mesopotamia. The Levantine State was meticulously dismantled, partitioned and officially annexed to the Romanian Colonies of Syria, Lebanon, Holy Land and Sinai (March 1694).
The Romanian advance into Mesopotamia slowed down during the following years and, seeing that further progress in unlikely, the overextended Romanian Armies were called back and retreated into the Levant. The exhausted Persian forces did not pursue the Romanians and the Levantine Theatre of War turned silent.
4. The Arabian Theatre of War (January 1684 - August 1707)
A rapid Egyptian advance (120,000) captured the western half of the Canal Zone, reaching the Sinai Canal and blocking all naval traffic (1684).
The Romanian Armies from Sinai and the Canal Zone (140,000 - 270,000) were overwhelmed by the coordinated offensive from the South-East (230,000 Arabs) and the West (310,000 Egyptians) and had to retreat to the Holy Land, leaving the Sinai under Muslim occupation (1685).
The subsequent Muslim offensive in the Holy Land stalled and the arrival of the Romanian Legionnaires (100,000 - 460,000) turned the tide in the favour of the Romanians (1686).
The Sinai was liberated in an arduous campaign (1686-1688), pushing the Egyptians over the Sinai Canal and the Arabs in Arabia Petraea.
Despite the vaillant efforts of the Romanian soldiers, the Egyptian Army held the front on the Sinai Canal and an invasion of Egypt proved to be impossible at that moment (1689).
The Romanians turned to the battered Arab armies and, after capturing Arabia Petraea (1690), advanced southwards, until stopped by the desert heat, lack of water, impossible logistics and disease (1692), just like in the similarly doomed campaign of Empress Iulia from 1652.
After the Egyptian exit from the War (see below) and the reopening of the Sinai Canal (1701), the Arabian campaign was renewed with the massive logistical support provided by the Navy.
The Romanian southward advance was slow and difficult but implacable. Jeddah fell in November 1702, Medina in January 1704 and Mecca in February 1706.
The Caliph was poisoned in May 1706 and Arabia officially capitulated one month later. The Romanian Army vacated the holy cities of Islam during the following year, leaving an occupation force in Jeddah.
5. The African Theatre of War (December 1689 - September 1699)
The Egyptian capture and closure of the Sinai Canal, the Muslim unrest in Italian Africa, the fear of an imminent Egyptian attack and the solidarity with their fellow Christians were the four stated reasons for the Italian intervention against Egypt.
With the bulk of the Egyptian forces guarding the Sinai Canal, the Italian Colonial Forces from Tripolitania (200,000 - 400,000), supported by the Italian and German navies, invaded Cyrenaica against feeble Egyptian resistance (50,000 - 170,000).
With Cyrenaica captured (1690), the Italians stopped at the narrow passage between the Mediterranian Littoral and the Qattara Depression [2], where the Egyptians managed to hold the front for seven years.
A lucky Italian breakthrough (1697) led to the rapid collapse of the Egyptian defences. The Italians reached the Nile Delta in April 1698, captured Alexandria in September 1698 and Cairo in February 1699.
With more and more Egyptian soldiers removed from the defense of the Sinai Canal, the Romanian Colonial Forces from Sinai crossed the Canal, liberated the western half of the Canal Zone and invaded Egypt from the east (June 1699).
When the invading Italian and Romanian armies met on the Nile south of Cairo, the Egyptians realized that their position is untennable and sued for peace.
[2] The only bottleneck before the Nile Delta (the site of the OTL battles of El-Alamein).
6. The Mediterranian Naval Theatre of War (March 1684 - June 1684)
The combined Romanian and Greek Navies destroyed the Egyptian Navy in two completely one-sided battles. Afterwards, the Christian Warships enjoyed absolute supremacy in the Mediterranian and shelled the harbour of Alexandria damaging the portuar facilities.
7. The Red Sea Naval Theatre of War (July 1701)
After the damage to the Sinai Canal was repaired, the Romanian Navy entered the Red Sea and obliterated the Arabian Navy. Afterwards, the Navy continued to offer invaluable logistical support to the advancing Romanian Army for the remainder of the Arabian Campaign.
8. The Indian Ocean Naval Theatre of War (June 1702 - January 1711)
With the Sinai Canal open, the Romanian and German Navies sailed to the Indian Ocean to attack the Persian ships and harbours. Both sides lost a significant number of warships but, after a couple of years, the Christian Navies started to prevail, achieving naval superiority in 1705 and supremacy in 1707.
No longer fearing the feeble remains of the once mighty Persian Navy, the Christian warships entered the Persian Gulf and began to strike at the heart of the Persian Empire with impunity. The Persian harbours were damaged or destroyed and a large part of the Persian trade with India and the Far East was gutted.
The End of the War
After almost 28 years of war, the Romanians were nearing the bottom of both their coffers and of their manpower. The human and material losses were enormous and the rate at which both soldiers and money were lost was alarming.
March 1711
With the entirety of the Romanian civilian society adamantely against the hopeless continuation of the war, the Romanian Senate and the aging Empress Maria I urged the Army to accept a negotiated peace.
Faced with a possible revolt at home and a very probable future lack of material support, the powerful Romanian Generals conceded and let the Romanian Government sent its peace feelers to Persia.
2 May 1711
An Armistice ended the state of war between the Christian Coalition and the Islamic Alliance.
12 March 1712
Persia, Egypt, Arabia on one side and Romania, Greece, Armenia, Georgia, Slovakia, Italy, Sarmatia, Germany on the other side signed the Peace Treaty of Erevan in the Armenian Capital. Its main provisions are summarized below:
- Armenia and Georgia were excluded from the Empire of the Orient and placed under Persian Protection.
- The Romanian annexations of Turkey and the Levant were officially recognized.
- Western Mesopotamia (part of the Levant since the Second European War) was annexed by Persia and reunited with Eastern Mesopotamia.
- Romania was allowed to keep a garrison in the Arabian port of Jeddah.
- Arabia recognized the Romanian annexation of Socotra.
- Arabia ceded the port of Aden to Romania.
- Egypt ceded Cyrenaica to Italy.
- Egypt ceded to Romania an additional buffer along the Canal Zone border and its Red Sea Coast south of the 19th parallel. [3]
- Egypt was placed under Romanian Protection.
- Romania was allowed to keep a garrison in Alexandria.
- All prisoners of war were to be exchanged.
- No reparations were to be paid.
- The Islamic Alliance was terminated.
- All signatories pledged to refrain from interfering in the internal affairs of the others.
Conclusions
- While Romania gained some territories in Arabia and Africa, annexed most of the Levant and gained influence in Egypt, it lost control over Armenia and Georgia which were detached from the Empire of the Orient and placed under the Protection of Persia. After a 28 years war which had led to the deaths of more than half a million Romanian soldiers, that was certainly not a good deal!
- Armenia and Georgia exchanged their Christian Protector (Romania) with a Muslim one (Persia).
- Greece, Slovakia and Sarmatia fought for nought.
- Italy gained Cyrenaica.
- Germany helped maintain the route to its Colonies open through the Sinai Canal.
- The Cossacks retained a free hand in parts of Asia Minor.
- The Jews gained a free hand in parts of the Levant.
- Persia gained Western Mesopotamia and influence in Armenia and Georgia.
- Arabia ceded Aden and the control of Jeddah.
- Egypt lost its peripheral territories and its full sovereignty.
- Turkey and the Levant vanished from the map.
Whether Romania lost the War or not was debatable but its biggest winner was clearly Persia. That is the reason why the Romanian-Islamic War was rarely mentioned in Romania and slowly faded into obscurity until it became the forgotten war. The proud Romanians hate being reminded of their failures.
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Zagan
Donor
And here it is: Romania had actually lost a war! Hard to believe that in a Wank, I know. Well, it had not lost the war catastrophically but still... It was a setback. Don't worry though, Romania will have its comeback. It's still a Wank after all. The greatest Romania-Wank of them all as far as I know.
And yes, I know, maps are badly needed at this point. Don't worry, they are on their way! Starting today, probably.
Thank you for your support and sorry (again) for the slow pace of updates in TTL. At this time, my other ongoing TL is the fast paced one. You may give it a try if you haven't already. Just click on the second link in my signature.
And yes, I know, maps are badly needed at this point. Don't worry, they are on their way! Starting today, probably.
Thank you for your support and sorry (again) for the slow pace of updates in TTL. At this time, my other ongoing TL is the fast paced one. You may give it a try if you haven't already. Just click on the second link in my signature.
Zagan
Donor
Thank you. I will never let it die.
I hope to write one or two chapters per month until we get to the present day.
Map #57. The Romanian-Islamic War (Military Alliances)
Zagan
Donor
The Romanian-Islamic War
Military Alliances (1683)
Military Alliances (1683)
Link
Key:
- Pale Red: Christian Coalition
- Pale Green: Islamic Alliance
- Pale Yellow: Neutral States
- Pale Blue: Water (duh)
Notes:
- Germany only sent volunteers and part of its navy.
- The contributions of Sarmatia and Slovakia was limited.
- The Turkish rebels in Romanian annexed Turkey / Asia Minor are not shown.
- It is unknown whether Somalia (de jure an Egyptian Protectorate) contributed any troops.
- The Saharan Claims of Spain, Italy and Egypt were internationally recognized. They are marked as "Claims" simply because there were no "boots on the ground" and a very limited population.
- The borders in the interior of Africa and in Central Asia are approximative.
- The German Colonies are not shown on this map (should be coloured Pale Red).
- Check the Legend in the lower-right corner of the map for the meaning of the numbers shown on the map.
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Map #58. The Romanian-Islamic War
Zagan
Donor
The Romanian-Islamic War
(1683-1711)
(1683-1711)
Link
Numbers:
- Italy
- Italian Africa
- Italian Claim (Sahara)
- Qattara Depression (Egypt)
- Canal Zone (Romania)
- Holy Land (Romania)
- Lebanon (Romania)
- Syria (Romania)
Letters:
- A. Cyrenaica (ceded by Egypt, annexed by Italy to Italian Africa)
- B. Most of the Egyptian Claim in Sahara (ceded by Egypt, annexed by Italy to Italian African Claim)
- C. Buffer Area (ceded by Egypt, annexed by Romania to the Canal Zone)
- D. Alexandria (Egypt, Romanian garrison)
- E. Jeddah (Arabia, Romanian garrison)
- F. Part of the Levant (Arabia Petraea, annexed by Romania to the Sinai)
- G. Part of the Levant (annexed by Romania to the Holy Land)
- H. Part of the Levant (annexed by Romania to Lebanon)
- I. Part of the Levant (annexed by Romania to Syria)
- J. Part of the Levant (Western Mesopotamia, annexed by Persia to Mesopotamia)
- K. Armenia and Georgia (Persian Protectorate)
- L. Asia Minor (Turkey, Romanian annexation recognized)
Note: Aden (ceded by Arabia, annexed by Romania as the Colony of Aden), not shown on the Map.
Lines:
- Blue: Coastlines
- Red: Borders
- Pink: New Borders after the Peace of Erevan
- Grey: Alexandria and Jeddah (Romanian garrisons)
- Purple: Maximum advance of the Islamic Alliance in Asia Minor, Greek Cilicia, Syria, Lebanon, Holy Land (Georgia, Armenia, Sinai, Canal Zone were completely overrun)
- Cyan: Maximum advance of the Christian Coalition in Armenia, Persian Mesopotamia, the Levant, Arabia, Egypt from the East (Romania), Egypt from the West (Italy)
- Orange: Frontlines at the time of the Armistice in Asia Minor and the Levant
Note: The most important battles of the War are marked with a Battle Symbol and the name of the battle.
Another map with the final borders will be available soon.
Map #59. Romania after the Romanian-Islamic War (1712)
Zagan
Donor
Romania after the Romanian-Islamic War (1712)
Link
Note: The map is scaled to 75% in order to fit into the 500 KB file size limit for attachments. Download Full Sized Map
Key:
- The Canal Zone (Romanian)
- Egyptian Alexandria (Romanian garrison)
- Arabian Jeddah (Romanian garrison)
- Berenice (Romanian, to the Canal Zone)
The Empire of the Orient:
- Constantinople (de facto Romanian)
- Romania and its Dependencies (see below)
- Greece (Dynastic Union with Romania)
- Slovakia (Dynastic Union with Romania)
- Egypt (Romanian Protectorate)
- Somalia (Romanian Protectorate)
- formerly also Armenia and Georgia, now under Persian influence
Romanian Dependencies:
- The Canal Zone (External Province, expanded with territory from Egypt and the Sinai, part of Romania)
- Constantinople Area (Empire of the Orient, de facto part of Romania, not visible at this scale)
- Socotra (Territory, no permanent civilian population)
- Lebanon (Autonomous Province, expanded with territory from the former Levant)
- The Holy Land (Autonomous Province, expanded with territory from the former Levant)
- Hungary (Autonomous Province, de jure Independent Country)
- Croatia (Autonomous Province, de jure Independent Country)
- Dalmatia (Autonomous Province, de jure part of Croatia)
- The Sinai (Colony, expanded with territory from the former Levant)
- Asia Minor (Colony, former Turkey)
- Syria (Colony, expanded with territory from the former Levant)
- Aden (Colony)
- Erythrea (Colony, tenous control)
- Romanian Somalia (Colony, tenous control)
- Egypt (Romanian Protectorate, with its own national colour)
- Somalia (Romanian Protectorate, not enforceable, with its own national colour)
- Alexandria (Egyptian territory, Romanian military presence, with the Egyptian colour)
- Jeddah (Arab territory, Romanian military presence, with the Arabian colour)
Nice Romanian control of the Red Sea, isn't it?
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Zagan
Donor
Something like that. If you take everything light pink (Romania and its dependencies), purple (Greece, in Dynastic Union with Romania) and Beige (Protectorate of Egypt) you have a very nice ERE (actually larger than at any other time in its history except under Justinian). The thing is that it is dominated by the Romanians, not the Greeks, and it is called "the Empire of the Orient".