WI Crimean Khanate destroyed in 17th century

[alexmilman]

Have you really not seen the word "if"? If Bernadotte pushed the Swedes into wars against France, it would be like when Sigismund III Vasa pushed the PLC into wars against Sweden.

This is not what you wrote. Your text is “like... if Bernadotte lost his position in France, and decided to regain it by pushing the Swedes into wars against France.” I asked you which position are you talking about. Bernadotte, as the Crown Prince of Sweden, was neither King or Emperor of France nor Marshal of the Empire so what could he try to regain with the Swedish help? Sigismund, OTOH, remained at least titular King of Sweden so analogy escaped me and I asked for the clarifications (hence the question marks).

Aluma asked for historical context, so I provided it. And I find as odd that you mock me alone for expanding someone else's comparison.

Actually, she (a) asked which Sigismund conversation was about and after I explained that he was one kicked out of Sweden she (b) commented that he was opposite to Bernadotte (being kicked out as opposite to being invited). Edit: After which we exchanged couple posts about Bernadotte. Nobody was mocking you.

 

[The Link]

Your text is “like... if Bernadotte lost his position in France, and decided to regain it by pushing the Swedes into wars against France.”

If already-made-a-king-of-Sweden Bernadotte suddenly decided "I want to be Marshal of the French Empire once more", it would be like when Sigismund decided to once again become king of Sweden (truly, not just through an empty title). And we would have another story about a foreigner who found himself in a foreign for him country, to use it to regain something in his original homeland, whether the title of the marshal or the title of the king.

Well, the analogy didn't seem to escape you when you wrote "did he use the Swedes to became, again, a marshal of the French Empire?".

 

[DJ03]

If already-made-a-king-of-Sweden Bernadotte suddenly decided "I want to be Marshal of the French Empire once more", it would be like when Sigismund decided to once again become king of Sweden (truly, not just through an empty title). And we would have another story about a foreigner who found himself in a foreign for him country, to use it to regain something in his original homeland, whether the title of the marshal or the title of the king.

Well, the analogy didn't seem to escape you when you wrote "did he use the Swedes to became, again, a marshal of the French Empire?".

honestly, this discussion seems a personal matter between you and alex and not related to the thread topic
you two may want to move it to dms?

 

[alexmilman]

honestly, this discussion seems a personal matter between you and alex and not related to the thread topic
you two may want to move it to dms?

I simply don’t have any intention to continue it in any place.

 

[Domrémy-Scorniçesti Axis]

So, in his final years, King Wladyslaw IV of Poland dreamed of a great war with the Crimea and Turks, there were some alliances and foreign funding organized, Cossacks have been roused (which had very unfortunate results very soon) and the like. But Sejm was not interested in war, particularly with OE or the Khan, and the whole affair had to be called off. Afterwards the king said that he would have done better if he had spent those money on his whores.

So what if it wasnt. Suddenly the king's fatasy begins realizing. Let's say there is some sheep plague or other famine hitting the Khanate, and in result they increase raiding to the point it cannot be ignored. In effect the whole thing escalates to the point Sejm agrees for war and even some moderate taxes, the Venice and Pope provide subsidies, Danube princedoms rise in rebellion, Cossacks raid and burn everything flammable around the Black Sea coasts, especially Ottoman navy bases and shipyards (as promised to Italians), Mediterranean states began nibbling Turks at sea, royal army supported by 50 thousand strong force of Zaporozhians and borderlands magnates invade the Crimea while Moscow strikes towards Azov. Tatars are defeated in the field, their fortresses taken, herds captured and eaten, townspeople massacred (and otherwise abused typically for the period warfare), slaves liberated, Khan's family escapes to Istanbul, the whole package, the khanate basically unravels. What now?

The war would likely be a bloody stalemate and end up with a white peace treaty.

 

[alexmilman]

The war would likely be a bloody stalemate and end up with a white peace treaty.

Quite agree with your assessment.

Above is the map which may help to make situation and related problems more clear (it reflects borders of the late XVII, prior to the mid-XVII both banks of the Dnieper were Polish). The light green is the Khanate and the dark green are the Ottoman territories. The blue arrows - OTL Golitsyn’s campaigns, the red - Tatar’s operations. The brown lines - the “standard” routes (not to be confused with the real roads 😉). Short lines crossing the Dnieper are the Rapids.



Problems for any invader:

• Territory directly to the north of the peninsula and to the west of it is an open steppe and stretch to the north is a waterless steppe.
• Territory (pink) directly north of the Dnieper river (pink) is a vaguely defined Zaporizhie Sich with few settlements, very little of the infrastructure and no agriculture (when it became Tsardom’s dependency, it was supplied by bread). Which means that the invading army would have to carry food, fodder (at least for the high quality horses) and even water supply in a luggage train all the way from a “settled” part of Ukraine (dotted on a map) with a total route amounting to few hundred kilometers (from starting point to the Perekop). The Dnieper rapids were making passage of the large barges pretty much impossible so there would be a need of unloading, portage and reloading. Which would still leave 70-100 km of carrying in the best possible scenario, with a need of taking fortifications guarding the Dnieper (aka, you’d need a reasonably heavy artillery).
• The Tatars could raise 50-60,000 of a light cavalry. Admittedly, this cavalry could not stand up to a direct attack of a heavier Polish cavalry but the Tatar tactics was not the suicidal attacks but rather harassment of the enemy to slow down his march. As an effective tool, weather permitting, they could put steppe on fire (as happened during the 1st Golitsyn’s campaign). And a slow march in a scorching heat with no adequate water supplies along the road was going to exhaust the people and horses. In Golytsyn’s case, by the time his army reached Perekop it was running out of the supplies and too exhausted to push forward. And this army was to a great degree the regular troops, many of them Western-style. Neither did the accompanying Cossacks managed to produce any miracles.
• A planned Wladislav's army would be composed of the Polish troops (predominantly cavalry) and the Cossacks. With the greatly increased number of those, probably majority was going to be an infantry. While being reasonably good, this infantry was not an equivalent of the regular troops of the early XVIII and its standard field tactics, especially against the cavalry, was to circle the wagons. So, if the Tatars would keep harassing the invaders along the route, the march would be slow and exhausting for the people and horses. And, short of having an enormous baggage train, the supplies would be critically low by the time Perekop is reached. Arranging for the XVII century version of the Red Ball Express seems (to me) a very questionable scenario due to a need to allocate a considerable part of the army to a task of protecting the supply trains and to the difficulty to organize such trains.
• Let’s, however, assume that they reached Perekop. Formally, its fortifications were formidable but realistically the earthworks 10 km long probably could be breached at some point. The problem was that the only crossing suitable for the baggage train was defended by a reasonably good stone fort with the artillery (garrisoned, IIRC, by the Ottomans). But, let’s say it just capitulated. The invaders are entering the peninsula. What’s ahead? Tens kilometers of a dry steppe: pretty much all sedentary areas are along the coast.
• But let’s assume that the invaders keep pushing ahead reaching the coast, burning Bakhchi-Sarai on the way and, seemingly, being overwhelmingly successful. As were fieldmarshals Munnich and Lacy in 1730’s. What’s next? Nothing: the Tatar forces are still in the field and invader is out of the food and is forced to abandon the area (you can find description of the Russian-Ottoman War of 1734-39 on wiki): for the Tatars loss of the geographic points was not critical and, unlike the armies of the 1760s, the realistic armies of the first half of the XVII century, had a very small chance of nailing that jelly to a wall.
• It could be argued that the Polish cavalry of that period was superb, which is true. But the army in question would not consist exclusively of the cavalry and even the best cavalry had its limits as was demonstrated by the Cossack Wars and the later events. And the theaters of the successful operations tended to be quite different from one in question.
• An additional question is for how long the Sejm would be willing to finance a war which was of a very limited interest to the Polish nobility?