Continuing overview of the Empire during the early 18th century
Following the war with Russia, the Empire refocused its efforts on consolidating its colonies, taking advantage of the lull in hostile mainland politics during the 20s. India was of particular interest to Emperor Mikhael XI Palaiologos.
While the Imperial colonies in India were prosperous and relatively stable, the rest of the Indian subcontinent was in chaos. Following a brutal succession war, the Mughal Empire, the dominant power in India, began to crack at the seems. Rebellions swept over the once mighty empire, pushing its once mighty armies to their limits just trying to control the population of the country.
Muhammad Shah, the ruler of the Mughals during this period was an ineffectual leader, and was unable to hold his enflamed empire together following the death of Aarangzeb, the last “good” Emperor of the Mughals.
Aarangzeb’s extremist policies had caused a major rift between the empire’s Muslim and Hindu populations, as he introduced Sharia laws into the Empire, ending the tolerant reign of the Emperors who came before him. Though as a personal individual Aarangzeb was competent and skilled, his successors were not, and unable to handle the unstable situation that he left the empire in.
Following his death, several successive Emperors took the throne before Muhammad Shah was finally able to secure the throne on a more permanent basis. By now however the Mughal Emperors and their Empire were but a shadow of their past glory.
The Emperors were largely the puppets of powerful court officials, princes and other such men of importance within India, and this, combined with rampant rebellions caused their Empire, which at its height under Aarangzeb covered nearly all of India, to lose power and territories at a shockingly rapid rate considering the strength they wielded only decades earlier.
Though the Emperor in Constantinople did not wish to conquer large tracks of India, seeing the population as rebellious and unruly, he was able to exploit the chaos by further tightening his grip over the colonies, without having to fear Mughal retaliation.
The British however were the ones who really benefited from the collapse of the Mughal Empire, expanding their holdings throughout the subcontinent greatly. Though the Empire and Britain were allies, their growing influence in India was beginning to cause tension between them.
However, though the British had more raw territory in India than the Empire, the Romans were more consolidated in what they had. The majority of Mangalore’s population was Greek, while no British colony could claim such for the Anglo-Saxons.
However, the British had seized important strategic provinces from the collapsing Mughals, and were growing increasingly wealthy at the Empire’s expense. However the British and the Empire remained on good terms throughout the early 18th century, as for the time being their mutual interests outweighed their differences.
Though the Empire had espoused religious tolerance on the mainland since the late 15th century, most of the Emperors were still staunch followers of the Orthodox Christian faith, and even more so, staunch lovers of Greek culture.
Though the Palaiologid Emperors were open to western ideas when it suited their purpose, they strove to preserve the Greek heritage of the Empire always. They relocated Greek peasants and lower-end bourgeoisie from Greece-proper and settled them in Western Anatolia, Southern Italy and Sicily, Alexandria and even the Palestine region (that is, stretching basically over the territory of the Crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem).
All of these regions had a majority population of Greek people by the early 18th century. Though they had granted a great amount of tolerance for the Turkish and Italian peoples, they never wanted it to be forgotten that the Empire had Hellenistic roots.
Greek was still the official language of the Empire, and at the Imperial Universities at both Constantinople and Beirut, Greek and Roman history were taught as one. Greek culture flourished throughout the world due to the Empire’s colonies, as Greek settlers were went around the word to help consolidate the Empire’s hold over their new colonies and exploit them to their full potential.
The Orthodox Church, in spite of the turmoil between Constantinople and St. Petersburg in the 1720s, was stronger than ever. The Empire ruled all five of the original Patriarchs, Constantinople, Antioch, Jerusalem, Alexandria and even Rome.
However, other than Russia, the Empire was the only major Orthodox Christian country in the world, making the Orthodox Church a distinctly different creature from the Catholic or Protestant denominations.
Because the greatest majority of its faithful were under two large empires, rather than a plethora of Kingdoms and duchies, it gave the Church far more real authority when it came to passing laws and doctrines, assuming they could gain the Emperor’s support.
In addition to Greek Orthodox Christianity, an extremely large minority of the population were followers of Sunni Islam. Despite being under Imperial rule for over or nearly 200 years depending on the region, much of the Muslim population of Egypt, Iraq, and north Africa had remained Sunni in spite of the missionary work.
Before the reign of Emperor Alexios VI, these populations had been highly rebellious, the most notable example being the Great Arab Revolt in the early 1650s. For centuries, the Islamic World’s supreme religious leader was known as the Caliph. Before the Empire’s conquest of Egypt in the early 16th century, the Mameluk Sultanate held this title.
Following its conquest by Ibrahim however, remnants of the Sultanate’s Aristocracy (the Beys of Egypt) as well as the Caliph himself, fled to the Hedjaz, making the Islamic Holy City of Mecca their new capital.
The Empire allowed them to do this as a part of the Treaty of Alexandria, which guaranteed the safety of the cities Mecca and Medina, and the Hedjaz in general in exchange for the Beys leaving Egypt and not encouraging rebellion in its populace. This treaty was upheld for over 100 years, until Emperor Alexios XI invaded the Hedjaz.
When the Caliph began promoting anti-Roman teachings in the 1620s, due to the short but oppressive reign of Regent Nikolaos Palaiologos (adopted uncle of the future Emperor Alexios) the Emperor, upon ascending the throne in 1623 decided that it was time to reign the Caliph in before he was able to inflame the large Arab population of the Empire to the point of armed rebellion.
After he defeated the Hedjaz, he made it a satellite of the Empire, knowing that directly annexing it, and Mecca in particular, would cause mass rebellions against the Empire, and likely incite a Holy War with its Muslim neighbors.
Following this, the Caliph became a puppet of the Emperor, who advocated peace with the Empire and the cooperation of its Muslim population. At first however, few Muslims acknowledged the Caliph in the Hedjaz.
Eventually the Great Arab Revolt broke out, and after the bloody conflict, the Muslim population was finally pacified, having suffered greatly in the conflict. They were also made more cooperative by the relatively merciful treatment they received by the Emperors following the conclusion of the war.
By the 1720s, most of the Muslims within the Empire’s borders accepted the Caliph in Mecca’s authority. It was also generally accepted by Morocco, another Imperial vassal. Al-Hassa and Persia, though also under the protection of the Empire were Shiite Muslims, and part of the terms of their vassalization following their defeat was that they did not have to acknowledge the Sunni Caliph.
Outside of the Empire and its Sunni vassals however, few accepted the Caliph’s rule as legitimate, claiming he lost his true claim to the title when he submitted to the “Christian Infidels”.
The Arabian states, as well as the Muslims in India and Indonesia did not acknowledge him in general, and the Mughal Emperor Aarangzeb attempted to claim the title of Caliph himself, and actually had the strong support of many influential Muslim leaders throughout the orient and beyond.
However with his death, the Mughal state began to collapse as stated before, and the following Emperors thought less about claiming the title of Caliph and more about just trying to survive. With no other realistic claimants to the Sunni Caliphate, the Roman Empire’s hold on its Muslim territories was secure.
The remaining Turkish population in western Anatolia were now in the minority to the resettled Greeks, though they remained the majority in central and especially eastern Anatolia. The Turks in western and central Anatolia were mostly Orthodox Christians, while those further east remained Sunni Muslim.
The Turks had never been particularly rebellious after the fall of the Ottomans however, and their conversion was mostly natural as Greek and Turkish cultures constantly interacted with each other over the many years.
Throughout the 1720s, Emperor Mikhael XI continued to reform the Empire’s government, something each previous Emperor had gradually done since the mid 15th century. He eliminated unused offices, merged those that he felt were redundant, and essentially continued the process of streamlining the Empire.
Though many Dynatoi lost their titles and offices in the process, they all mostly knew it would come sooner or later at point, as the streamlining reforms had been taking place for over 250 years. The Emperors generally tried not to introduce their reforms too quickly, in order to maintain stability, but by the early 18th century, the process was mostly complete.
As stated previously, while they remained staunch adherents of Greek culture and beliefs, the Palaiologid Emperors had shown themselves to be very open to new innovations and ideas from the west, and were more than willing to incorporate them into the state if they felt that they were superior to the preexisting system.
Many of the Dynatoi balked at these changes, feeling them too “un-Roman” and resented the presence of Latin teachers in the Universities of Beirut and Constantinople, educating their children to “act like French and Italian dandies”.
These reforms and the general openness of the Empire to foreign ideas lead to it gaining a notable lead on the west in many fields. While Britain had a similar openness and generally kept up with the Empire, this was not the case for the rest of Europe.
In France’s case for example, they were the equal of the Empire in terms of their army’s training, equipment and doctrine, but were far behind on the quality of their navy. The rest of Europe generally followed this pattern, but though the difference was certainly noticeable, it was not so overwhelming as to make the Empire invincible.
Emperor Mikhael XI was a great patron of the arts as well, and filled the Imperial Palace with many great works from the renaissance as well as more recent times. He loved French and Italian artwork in particular, much to the chagrin of the Dynatoi in his court, who much preferred to see the palace filled with Greek art.
The Emperor also promoted western Opera during his reign, paying with his own vast wealth for dramatic renditions of the most popular works of his time. He also made attendance free for all, encouraging both high standing Noble and lowly peasant alike to view the works, though the latter were more often confused than enchanted or enlightened.
Aside from the war with Russia, Mikhael’s reign was a peaceful one, where the Empire focused inwardly, finally throwing off the last vestiges of its bloated government from centuries past, and marching strongly forward into the Enlightenment.
However, more succession troubles were on the horizon, with Poland this time. Augustus II of Saxony’s health was starting to weaken, and his successor was the interest of several of the major players of Eastern Europe…
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There you go. Read and Reply. And yes Adrianos II you can use the Byzantine flag as you like, I don't own the rights to it or anything.
