ALTERNATIVE HISTORY: WHAT IF ?
*The following articles are my personal opinions supported by facts, and have no historic certainty.
What if the Ottoman Empire had succeeded in the Second Siege of Vienna, commonly referred to as the Battle of Vienna, in 1683?
Vienna was sieged twice by the Ottoman Empire; with the first one being in 1529 and the second one being in 1683. Both of them resulted in the Ottoman Empire losing to the Holy Roman Empire (The Kingdom of Bohemia and the Polish Lithuanian Commonwealth sided with The Holy Roman Empire in the sieges, in that respective order), and triggered a chain of events that eventually led to the Ottoman Empire going into a period of stagnation. So what if the Ottomans had succeeded ?
Nothing much would have happened, basically. The main reason The Ottoman Empire failed to siege Vienna was their deficiency in arms. The Ottomans used arms and war technologies which developed in the start of the 16th century, and these were not enough to win over The Holy Roman Empire and its allies, who were highly up to date in their military strategies and arms. Even if the Ottomans had captured Vienna, they wouldn’t have been able to go further West because of the government’s attitude towards Western influence in their country, including arms. Whether The Holy Roman Empire would have been able to take back Vienna is debatable, but the Ottomans capturing Vienna would not have prevented the country from going into a period of stagnation, which was between 1579 and 1699, originally. The only possible effect would be the postponing of the period of stagnation and directly, the period of regression (1699 – 1792) which was the first step to the downfall of the Ottoman Empire.
Illustrations of the Battle of Vienna, 1683:
What if Australia had been discovered and colonized by the Japanese instead of the British ?
The colonization of Australia was due to an overcrowding in British prisons and the government’s search for a new colony. The two aims of the British government crossed over because many of the prisoners were farmers and tradesmen, so if they transported these prisoners to the new land, it would be easier to build proper infrastructure for a new colony and a new tradecenter of the British in Australia. On 1788, the First Fleet arrived at Australian soil and many came after. There were approximately more than a million Aborigines on the island when the British arrived, and they spoke about 300 languages amongst themselves. After British colonization, the million Aborigines were killed by the colonists and died due to diseases coming from the outside world, because they could not build the proper immune system, until there were at most a hundred Aborigines left, who were enslaved by the British settlements on the island. So what would have been different if the Japanese colonised Australia ?
First of all, Aborigines wouldn’t be in any better conditions than they are now. Looking at Japan’s colonies in the past and especially Manchuria, which was named Manchukuo after Japan’s invasion and ruled by the previous Japanese emperor, thousands of civilians were killed during Japan’s colonisation, before they withdrew their forces from the land in 1945, after losing to the Soviet Union. The Japanese followed similar colonisation policies as the British, which involved driving off the previous inhabitants of their newly colonised land with various techniques, which was usually killing or enslaving civilians. In addition, Australia probably would not be under Japan’s rule today even if it was colonised first by the Japanese. Japan was not as determined as the British as in keeping their colonies, since they withdrew from their colonies in Taiwan and Korea due to internal problems and other wars. If they colonised Australia and engaged in any other conflict during their rule, they would most likely withdraw their forces from the island to support their ongoing conflict, which would mean that Australia would either be colonised by another country or be in very poor conditions since there would be many complications with the government and the socioeconomic characteristics of the colony.
What if Henry VIII’s son from Catherine of Aragon had lived to adulthood and they did not have a divorce ?
Catherine of Aragon was Henry VIII’s first wife, in which he married to gain Spain’s alliance, since Catherine was a Spanish princess. They were married for 24 years, between 1509 and 1533. After giving birth to a still born daughter in 1510, King Henry’s first son was born in 1511. The son was named after his father, and was declared Duke of Cornwall due to automatical succession. Unfortunately, the baby only lived for 52 days, without a known cause of death. In the remaining years of their marriage, Catherine of Aragon gave birth to a daughter, Mary I of England, but failed to give Henry VIII a son. Henry was not pleased with Catherine of Aragon due to her not being able to give birth to a son, so he wanted to take another woman as a wife, a woman who could give him an heir to the throne and he chose Anne Boleyn, whom it is known that he had an affair with when he was still married to Catherine. England’s official religion was Roman Catholicism at the time, until Henry announced that he wanted to divorce Catherine of Aragon. The Roman Church did not allow him to do so due to strict rules about divoce in Catholicism, so Henry made England seperate from the Catholic Church and founded The Church of England in 1534, which is still the official church of England today. So what if Henry, Duke of Cornwall had lived to adulthood and was a suitable heir to his father’s throne ?
Catherine of Aragon and Henry VIII wouldn’t had got a divorce and England’s seperation from the Catholic Church would have been delayed. Although it is commonly known that Anne Boleyn was the love of Henry’s life and that she was the reason for their divorce, Henry’s courtiers would not have let him implement such a risky change, like changing a country’s religion, because of a woman, meaning it is safe to say that the divorce certainly happened because of Catherine’s failure to give birth to a son. But even if Henry, Duke of Cornwall lived up to adulthood and took over his father’s crown, the formation of the Church of England would have happened sooner or later due to various reasons. Firstly, the royal family had already started violating some of Catholicism’s rules before the divorce. The closest example to this was when Henry married Catherine of Aragon, who was his late brother’s wife, in order not to pay dowry for a new wife.
A man marrying his brother’s wife is considered “unclean” in Catholicism, and Henry’s first marriage had already caused unpleasant reactions in the Roman Church. In the following years of the kingdom, the monarchs violated many rules of the Catholic Church and participated in unpleasant actions, such as when Mary I of England killed approximately 300 people for not being Catholic by publicly burning them on stakes, which is prohibited and when Elizabeth I refused to get married, which is considered unpleasant because the Church strongly advises women to marry and produce children. Since the Kingdom of England and its monarchs were already violating rules of Catholicism because of the country’s or their personal benefits, the seperation from the Catholic Church would have to happen at some point, meaning the Church of England would have been formed anyway.
Eylül Göktaş