Territory Acquisition in late Medieval times

Marko

I am considering to do a Croatia-screw timeline with a PoD during the civil war around the year 1000. The result would leave Croatia reduced to her mountinuous regions that are of little to no value to anyone but the people living there. The PoD would result with the end of the royal line and the country becoming a Confederation of nobles on the road to becoming a republic by mid 12th century. What I am interested to know is how likely it is for this Croatia to keep a neutral spot like early Swiss confederacy and evade conquest by foreign powers. In the past with the exception of Turskish conquest land of the Croatian always came into possession of other power either through personal union, or because land right were sold to or passed on to foreigners by rulers of Croatia.

I mean this:
 

carlton_bach

The Ottomans may well be content with formal sovereignty and leave the place to its own devices. So might the Austrians later, and the Serbs earlier. Of course, this presupposes not only that the territory is relatively valueless, but also that it is had to subjugate. Remember, the Swiss originally kept their independence not by studious neutrality, but by slaughtering every army sent against them. ATL's Croats would have to be coveted mercenaries and dangerous foes as well as pig-headed individualists.

I admit it is hard to see how a Swiss-like attitude could fit into the broader context of a religious conflict, but if the Croats were indifferent to the religion of their paymasters the way the Swiss were to their confession, it might work.

Your main problem is coastline. Islands are by definition not valueless. Venice may well decide it likes them and grab, and I can's see the Alt-Croatians stopping them.
 

Marko

Thanks on the replies.


As far as fighting ability Croats were quite well known as daring and skilled soldiers in the middle ages and that reputation continued well into the modern age (especially during the 30 years war and Austrian succession war). I can't see them to be indiferent to religion in a Swiss way though being Catholic aligned mercenaries that is very likely and probably having very close ties with the Pope (after all Papal curia called Croats "Pope's Myrmidons" in the 12th century for a reason).

As far as Islands are concerned you can see on the map that only the two closest to the coast have been included but only potentialy. Venice was never particulary interested in those two because they were outside the "East Adriatic Lifeline" rute. They only decided to take Krk (the bigger one) when the local Croatian lord gave them the Island to prevent the Hungarian king from giving it to a different Noble.


Cheers
 

Tyr

A eastern Switzerland is an interesting idea.
The trouble is...here we're getting into cultural WIs and other hardness. Very hard to determine how to get the same attitudes that emerged in Switzerland to pop up out east.
I know nothing about Croatian history but...I somehow doubt it had the same history of city power that the HRE had and led to Switzerland.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top
Top