From - Thu Mar 08 15:14:04 2001 Path: sn-us!sn-uk-post-01!supernews.com!corp.supernews.co.uk!not-for-mail From: "Fabian" Newsgroups: soc.history.what-if Subject: A Crescent in the Med Date: Mon, 5 Mar 2001 17:19:23 -0000 Organization: Venturas Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="Windows-1252" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Priority: 3 X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Newsreader: Microsoft Outlook Express 5.50.4133.2400 X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V5.50.4133.2400 X-Complaints-To: newsabuse@supernews.com Lines: 49 Xref: sn-us soc.history.what-if:317202 In 1530, The Knights of St John took control of Malta and Tripoli. In 1537, Khair ed-Din (aka Barbarossa, aka Redbeard) unsuccesfully beseiged Corfu. Earlier, in 1534, he captured Tunis, only to lose it to Spanish/Austrian forces a year later. In this ATL, Khair ed-Din takes and holds both of these. 1546 - Khair ed-Din dies. He is succeeded by his son as the Bey of Algiers. 1547 - Henry VIII dies. 1551 - Moslem forces capture Tripoli. At this point, Turkey controls The Balkans clear up to Hungary and all points south and east; all the greek islands; and has effective control over the entire Mediterranean coast of Africa. Only Malta, Sicily, Sardinia, Corsica, and the Balaerics are still Christian-ruled. 1565 - Great Seige of Malta in OTL. 1569 - Turks take Tunis from Spain in OTL. The centrepiece of this ATL is that, in 1565, Suleiman the magnificent decides that Malta is just too damn powerful to take directly. Instead, he successfully invades Sicily, the main breadbasket for Malta. This is coupled with a piracy campaign by the Bey of Algiers aimed at intercepting any food supplies heading for Malta. The following Spring he invades Malta with his OTL forces. European reinforcements (which never came in OTL) would now need to avoid Sicily, making the supply lines that much longer, while conversely, the Bey's raiders have Tunis and Sicily as nearby safe ports. In addition, Malta has now been denied an effective food supply for almost a year. OTOH, the Italian states would be highly motivated to kick the Turk out of Sicily. The Sicilian conquest won't have motivated Elizabeth I or any other European rulers however. Can he succeed? What implications does it have for history if he does? -- -- Fabian Someone once said: What goes around comes around. Work like you don't need the money. Love like you've never been hurt. Dance like nobody's watching.