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Description
The basic POD is that the Crusades are that much more successful for the Christians. Saladin takes an arrow to the knee, it gets infected, and his days as a conqueror (let alone a living, breathing person) are over. The Crusaders retake Jerusalem and things go better for them, all round. This snowballs into better attempts to retake Egypt.
Now, all of this is still pretty tentative for the Crusaders. Things really change when they get hit by the sack of hammers that is the Mongols. Of course, in going with the nature of the scenario, these aren’t your grandma’s Mongols, no sir. No, these are your aunt’s Mongols. You know, the classic alternate history Nestorian Mongols. Or at least, Mongols with Nestorian sympathies.
Anywhoooo, there is no Ain Jalut equivalent in this world. The Mongols lay the smack down all the way to Egypt, and establish a Khanate in the Middle East. Now due to their Nestorian sympathies, and the dominant Christian position along the coast, the Mongols eventually opt for Christianity as the dominant religion among themselves in their Middle Eastern Khanate. Of course, as was common with the Mongols, the Muslim majority and Jews and other minorities are mostly left alone, but their conversion to Christianity rankles.
The coastal Christian holdings are absorbed as tributaries to the Khan.
A little under a century later, things take a turn for the worse for the Christian Mongol Khanate. Increasingly listening to Christian fanatics, some Khan or another takes a more hardnosed turn against the Muslim population. It predictably blows up in his face, and a bunch of shit goes down.
And it goes down for a while.
The eventual end result is a rump Khanate in Egypt and the Levant, and a brief Muslim state in opposition. The rump Khanate continues to decay, and eventually the Christian tributaries along the coast (now rather established) appeal to the only authority they think can save them.
If you are thinking it’s the Byzantines, shame on you. Thinking this would be another Byzantine Empire survives and prospers timeline. It would be so stereotypical that…
OK, I can’t go on. Of course it’s the Byzantines. What more do you want from me?
The Romans have done well by themselves, having successfully avoided anything close to the 4th Crusade, and are ready to reform the Empire of Justinian. And for the most part, they kinda do.
They retake the Levant, then Egypt, and give the smack to the large Muslim state on their border which collapses into feuding sultanates and emirates. The Bizzies are quite content with that, as their business is now elsewhere. Namely Italy and North Africa.
By the middle of the 15th Century, Muslims in the Mediterranean world are beginning to feel the squeeze. The Spanish Reconquista goes more or less apace, though with a few more setbacks than OTL, and the Byzantines continue to make inroads into North Africa.
The discovery of the Americas is delayed by about 40 years, what with a Christian power still in control of the routes to the Orient. But as Byzantine conquests continue, they decide to jack up taxes (conquest is expensive don’tcha know) and economics forces force the western Europeans to look for other routes.
That and religion. The 15th and 16th centuries end up being a bit of a rough bit batch between the Byzantines and the Roman Catholic Church. The Eastern Roman emperor’s authority returning to Italy in force comes at a rather delicate time for Western Christendom.
Needless to say, it eventually gets resolved peacefully (for a rather generous definition of peacefully… what’s a few dozen thousand dead between friends eh?) with “auto-cephalous Churches for everybody!” (And heresy for others… damn Scandinavians and Scots).
But during that period of intra faith “discussion”, the Western Europeans go out exploring. The first ones to do so are the Portuguese, ala OTL. The second, and bigger power to do so, are the Anglo-French Empire (though the Burgundians do challenge the claim of ruling all of France).
It’s the English who stumble into Mesoamerica and again (like OTL’s Spanish), luck their way into conquest.
Of course, it’s not just Christians doing exploring. The Granadans (a bit bigger than OTL), replete with exiles from Egypt and North Africa, also sends out some explorers to try and counteract Christian expansion.
They briefly make a go of contesting some of the Carribean, but they really luck out when of all things, one of their more astounding adventurers conquers the Incas. He kinda blows everyone’s minds (the English conquest of Mexico was more complicated and involved more compromises with the native ruling class). Unfortunately, the Granadans still get fucked royally when Portugal and Castile unite, and they are conquered. This bleeds off even more refugees to head to the Americas and the Muslim empire there. Muslim Beru, as it is eventually called, proves a harder nut to crack and the Europeans never subjugate it.
Eventually, all of North Africa is conquered by Christian powers, and Muslims are eventually expelled or choose to leave. Many try their hands at heading South across the Sahara, where Muslim kingdoms still exist (others again head to Beru). This leads to interesting developments with the Songhai Empire, who get a bit of a naval tradition started themselves.
…
And the world spins madly on.
