Papa Clement wrote:Stuart Bailey wrote:Ref the ever interesting role of brown water campaigns up and down the Danube. As well as the Danube Delta the other major problem area blocking navigation on the lower Danube is the Iron Gates gorge. Like the Delta any Ottoman Government which puts in the time effort and trouble to make the Iron Gates suitable for navigation is very unlikely to neglect the defence of the Danube, Straits of Kerch or the seaward approaches to Constantinople so any outsiders thinking about mounting a naval attack up the Danube as outlined by Papa Clement had better pay some really big bribes or hold blackmail worthy material on the the Grand Vizier/Sultan before they try and humiliate Ottoman authority by foreign sailing warships past Constantinople or up the Danube.
Subtle as ever, Stuart! In my outline I did state that the feasibility of such a plan depended in part on whether various Ottoman positions had been active and their attitude. However, it would be somewhat naive to imagine that an inactive Ottoman position would block such an attack. Indeed, it would likely be of benefit to the Ottomans if they were looking at some point to recover lands only recently (in game terms) lost to Austria. They may prefer to not officially give permission, but not impede any progress of such a fleet, thereby if the expedition was a success they could deny their involvement, or later join in by declaring war on Austria themselves. Bribery or blackmail may be the method of choice for some players, but not at all necessary when the proposed action coincides with Ottoman self-interest or the preservation of good trade relations with 3rd parties.
It was precisely to maintain those good trade relations that the Ottomans did not tend to block ships from sailing through the Dardenelles.
Clearly if such a campaign had the (official or unofficial) support of the Ottomans then the supply position for any invading force would be made much easier. Indeed, it could be a good money maker for the Ottomans, hiring the invader artillery or other troops, ensuring they were well supplied, etc. It is a shame that Ottoman positions do not seem to be played as frequently in games as some European positions since it would change the dynamic for Austria considerably. It would certainly be interesting to see more game campaigns in which barges, galleys, bomb ketches and other small river craft played a much more important part than ships of the line and frigates.
Agree 100% that a game of Glori needs Ottomans to give it a more historic balance and without them Russia, Austria, Venice and the other Italian states inc Spain, Persia and if played the Polish positions get a easier ride and fewer worries and concerns than was historic.
Somewhat confused by the fact that so many troops were local Cossacks and Grenzer types who got paid mostly with lands and tax concessions to guard frontier think even at the height of the Great Northern War, War of the Spanish succession, Persian invasion of India around a third of the Russian and Austrian military were still in the south and the east. While in games of Glori with no active Ottomans you sometimes see the one man and his dog approach and the whole Russian, Austrian and Persian armies a very, very long way way from the Ottoman frontier.
Even if they had really good relations with the Sultan because these frontiers were so "miltarized" on both sides if you had done this in the C18 it would have been a open invite to the Serbs, Tarters etc, etc on the Ottoman side to start raiding their historic foes for cattle and slaves. And the ministers of the Czar and the Emperor would have been buried in complaints and perhaps even local revolts about them not going their job and breaking the basic agreement as to why the Hapsburgs were Kings of Hungary and Croatia in the first place - to provide protection from the Ottomans.
Notice in RIB if you over-recruit and take too many people off the land this can either famine in own province or a reduction in food supplies to Rome. Probably over complex but if military strength on frontier drops below a certain level feel perhaps this should lead to low level raiding and complaints.
Also agree that the Ottomans allowed ships to transit the Dardenelles and the Bosporous and visit Constantinople etc but they had to stop and pay a toll. Also this was either individual merchant shipping and sometimes merchant fleets escorted by war ships for anti pirate protection. How the Ottomans would have reacted to a full war fleet sailing through their waters is unknown but usual position of Ottoman NPC's is normally a "No". Certainly in G7 the Ottoman NPC have allowed merchants to use the Red Sea canal but banned the transit of war ships.
Player character Ottomans tend to be a lot more flexible but if you allow a load of infidals to transit without so much as a bye your leave expect to get it in the neck from religious athorities, Sultan etc, etc and suffer a major loss of honour due to being shown up as weak, feeble etc etc. Partly due to this and partly due to a healthy paranoid approach to life this humiliation never happened in G2 as my lads shot first and would worry about after effects later. At sea its was different as harbour pilots would check first and a warning shot would be fired if still unhappy before all hell broke out. But on land or on the Danube it was a whole different story.
Though it has to be admitted that an unfortunate side effect of this was Richard deciding to cause major diplomatic incidents by having various Russian, Austrian and Venetian commanders as diectionally challenged and either taking short cuts across Ottoman territory or just a really odd route home. One Venetian commander marched across Rumelia rather than sail round it and got into a running fight due to the "by sea" part of his orders getting missed by player but it remains a total mystery to this day to both the Czar and Ottomans why a 45,000 strong Russian Army heading home from god knows where got off hired merchant ships in Sinope and started to march into the Empire getting into a running fight with Ottoman mounted riflemen who skirmished with it all the way while screaming Russian invasion. It is thought that two locations in Russia have the same name and the Russian "invasion" may have been caused by the Russians trying to get to some one horse fly speck east of the Urals rather than a major Russian city.
That and the very unexpected and rapid destruction of a Russian Army in Anatolia due to no more than skirmishing and starvation had of course nothing at all to do with the chaos Gods on Mount Agema deciding that the Czar and the three active Ottomans were getting much too comfortable and needed a major diplomatic incident to deal with.
If anyone is planning on playing either a Ottoman or wants to help their campaigns against Austria historically they got help from the French and their Hungarian rebel allies got help from the French and the Poles (family links). In G2 the Ottoman Rumelian Army had a French exile as its inspector General of Artillery and Fortresses and one of its leading commanders (later elected King of Hungary) was a Hungarian Protestant exile. Not sure if this had any game effect but some fortresses did seem to be more willing to surrender to a French General than an Albanian. Though this may have been due to earlier attempts to use "Turkish terror" tactics from the Agema table top rules and use them in Glori which did not seem to go that well.