Ok, I have made up a story which hopefully answers your questions. Feel free to add and modify things in it of course, it´s only an idea.
The Ottomans were Turkish settlers that had fled from China to settle in the Seljuk empire around ~1230. However, after the Il-Khanate defeated the Seljuk and Byzantine armies in Anatolia in 1250, they were evicted and forced to emigrate to Macedonia, where they were used as mercenaries to raid the small remaining parts of the Byzantine empire and other small countries like Bulgaria, Serbia and the Epirote principalities.
In the beginning, the Il-Khanate did their best to control them and to keep them away from Golden Horde possessions, however, as tensions began to rise between the Il-Khanate and the Golden Horde, the Il-Khanate gradually gave them a free hand to raid whatever they liked. When finally an all-out war erupted between the GH and the Il-K, the Ottomans were more or less free to do as they liked. As the two mongol hordes were so busy fighting each other, their grasp on the far-away parts of their realm was quickly fading.
When the Black Death wiped away most of the European population, the Ottomans quickly ran out of resources for their raiding armies, and thus had to find new lands to raid, to get more plunder. This is when they broke out of the southern-balkan region to ride north and to loot Galicia and Poland, then turning west, because the Golden Horde still had some troops to spare to oppose them at some points, and turned to Germany.
However, when they learned that the Il-Khanate was collapsing, they turned around and set out through Hungary to Anatolia, to plunder former lands of their former masters. However, when they entered Hungary, they were faced by troops from the 'Khanate of Moldavia', a former part of the GH, which had set themselves to the task to re-establish mongol control over Europe. The Ottomans managed to defeat this army and punished the Moldavians by plundering their realm, which did not only consist of Moldavia, but also of Lithuania, which they had recently conquered.
After this, the Ottomans turned south again and entered Anatolia. All went well with the plundering of the western part of this land, but when they turned east, they faced the army of the recently forged Empire of Timur, by whom they were finally defeated in 1402. Because the lands they occopied were very poor and depopulated, the Ottomans did not manage to get over this crisis and lost all their territories except for Macedonia, where they now (1419) still live.
EDIT:
The Ottomans were Turkish settlers that had fled from China to settle in the Seljuk empire around ~1230. However, after the Il-Khanate defeated the Seljuk and Byzantine armies in Anatolia in 1250, they were evicted and forced to emigrate to Macedonia, where they were used as mercenaries to raid the small remaining parts of the Byzantine empire and other small countries like Bulgaria, Serbia and the Epirote principalities.
In the beginning, the Il-Khanate did their best to control them and to keep them away from Golden Horde possessions, however, as tensions began to rise between the Il-Khanate and the Golden Horde, the Il-Khanate gradually gave them a free hand to raid whatever they liked. When finally an all-out war erupted between the GH and the Il-K, the Ottomans were more or less free to do as they liked. As the two mongol hordes were so busy fighting each other, their grasp on the far-away parts of their realm was quickly fading.
When the Black Death wiped away most of the European population, the Ottomans quickly ran out of resources for their raiding armies, and thus had to find new lands to raid, to get more plunder. This is when they broke out of the southern-balkan region to ride north and to loot Galicia and Poland, then turning west, because the Golden Horde still had some troops to spare to oppose them at some points, and turned to Germany.
However, when they learned that the Il-Khanate was collapsing, they turned around and set out through Hungary to Anatolia, to plunder former lands of their former masters. However, when they entered Hungary, they were faced by troops from the 'Khanate of Moldavia', a former part of the GH, which had set themselves to the task to re-establish mongol control over Europe. The Ottomans managed to defeat this army and punished the Moldavians by plundering their realm, which did not only consist of Moldavia, but also of Lithuania, which they had recently conquered.
After this, the Ottomans turned south again and entered Anatolia. All went well with the plundering of the western part of this land, but when they turned east, they faced the army of the recently forged Empire of Timur, by whom they were finally defeated in 1402. Because the lands they occopied were very poor and depopulated, the Ottomans did not manage to get over this crisis and lost all their territories except for Macedonia, where they now (1419) still live.
EDIT:
You could also have the Saracens first conquer southern France and then later have the mongols kick them out again...bombshellboi said:
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