Oh, you can take the cities and valleys, but you will never have peace nor totally suppress the guerillas. In the long run, it simply won't be worth the effort of keeping it.
Even that is not true, afghanistan literally had greek colonies and its super multi ethnic, everyone who conquered it spread their religion,culture and even people.Can people actually read a history book for once instead of getting it from memes or noam chomsky a fucking linguist lol
And once again, you are missing the point (intentionally, it seems to push your agenda). Holding ALL of Afghanistan is extremely difficult and eventually all empires just give up.
I clearly wrote that you can control and cities and valley's. Or did you miss that part?
had greek colonies and its super multi ethnic, everyone who conquered it spread their religion,culture and even people.
That has nothing to do with holding all of Afghanistan. Its also a ridiculous argument to make that the people who inhabited the regions 2200 years ago are the same as the people today. Today's Afghans have an extra 2200 years of experience living in those mountains..They are also a fundamentally different people.
Are today's Greeks the exact same as Ancient Greeks? Not in the slightest.
The Mughals held afghanistan for 300 years...... and before the the persians held it for like 500 years. And before that the Mongols, and before that the persians again.
Everyone had their turn holding afghanistan lol.
Are today's Greeks the exact same as Ancient Greeks? Not in the slightest.
What makes you say that. Sure population won't be exactly the same but what makes you belive that we are not related to them not even in the slightest?
You clearly showed hear that you dont know shit about history, afghanistan has been fully conquered multiple times in its history and its not hard to control, thats just pseudo historians trying to create a myth that supposedly afghans are a fierce independent people which is not backed up by any historian whatsoever
This is not true. Persia governed Afghanistan for centuries just fine. Cultural background, if there is a shared border and aims are way more important than geography.
What do you mean? The Persians conquered Afghanistan and governend it. How does resistence have anything to do with it, especially since they did resist at times.
Let's look at the last 3 times. The Afghans could not be conquered by the British Empire, the USSR, and NATO..Why? Because the Afghans largely unified and retreated to the mountains and started a guerilla campaign..
Not true at all. Of course they could have been conquered each time. It’s just that the invading force looses the will due to financial or political pressures. Or due to public pressure like Vietnam, the USA simply gave up. You make it sound like Afghanistan couldn’t be conquered militarily but this is simply not true. Had Afghanistan been worth it, as in had ton of oil, you can bet it would be conquered. The cost benefit simply wasn’t there.
Afghanistan far more often ruled and conquered than not. It's not particulary hard if you don't attempt to establish a new system as a war aim. All those militaries failed because they wamted to impose their urban rules and order on a tribal society. Give the tribesman some land and play by his rules and he'll be obedient, but that wasn't the goal.
What do you mean? The Persians conquered Afghanistan and governend it. How does resistence have anything to do with it, especially since they did resist at times.
Afghanistan has been conquered by everyone in the region. The Turkic people, the persians, Mongols, mughals... pretty much everyone. They haven't really ever put up a fight.
Afghanistan as a country has really only existed in modern times.
One of our bigges defeats indeed but claim that few medieval Serbian princes could mobilize 70k men is ridiculous i mean all of France and England together couldnt do that, as well as the claim that there were only 800 Turks, i think the most realistic numbers are 15-20k Serb against 2-4k Turks.
Ottoman number for 800 is most likely true. It was reconnaissance unit and commander of reconnaissance unit was poisoned by his supreme commander because he didn't like that his subordinate won such a big victory.
Yes, but the Balkan sources are at a crazy level on this issue, The Ottomans would lose tens of thousands of soldiers in some wars and then return the next year with a larger army. And they would do this for dozens of years.
+Ottoman soldiers were not peasants were given weapons. almost all were either professional (janissaries and raiders) or semi-professional ( tımarlı sipahis ).It took between 1 and 3 years to make the bows used by Ottoman archers.
Its possible that the sources also include the non soldiers in the camp too, like building bridges alone to pass certain places requires significant amount of people, theres tons of people escorting these camps
Ottoman army was the first army in the Europe with a proper central command with professional standing army like modern armies today and it had professional soldiers for every class you can think of. There used to be soldiers similar to combat engineers of today that were supposed to built Turkish bathes in military bases for comfort of the soldiers for example. It was no different than American army bases today spending billions only to have HVAC service for soldiers. Or Ottoman logistics, terrific tradition that had being able to move hundreds thousands of soldiers in Balkan forests or Caucasian mountains or Middle Eastern deserts at the same time etc.
It is not wrong that Ottoman armies contains large number of peasants, irregulars in their army. Sources mentions these troops. However, Ottoman numbers in European sources is bullshit, their numbers exaggarated 2-6 times regularly. Problem is that Ottoman sources rarely mentions their army numbers until 17th century. In 17th century, Ottoman sources started to mention their numbers, from that, we understand that European sources exaggarated Ottoman 2-6 times and casualties as 3-10 times.
Nope, the Ottomans professionalized military logistics quite early on, which is actually one of the key reasons they were so dominant in the Balkans. The bridges were built by professional military engineers, and the army had cook units that cooked specially planned rations.
lol, this was a very early stage, before the balkan conquests. During the reigns of mehmet the first and murat the first, the army was largely professionalized, and of course volunteer units were recruited when needed but these troops were rarely sent on long expeditions.
Yeah, I choose to trust actual Osmanists that studied the period and know what they are saying,
https://youtu.be/Rfx3OrbBkMY?si=hmEpEIRHxFjg_xtN
This guy is a better source, ofc you could call him biased on account of being romanian, but he went through all the academic hoops to mitigate that, his videos are a mix of romanian or english, but he has subtitles in english or talks in english for most of the videos
There is a reason why Hitler never invaded Switzerland..Because the entire country is made up of mountains and narrow passes. The Swiss were legendary marksmen who also knew their own terrain.
20 sharpshooters on high ground, overlooking a narrow pass, can go toe-to-toe with an entire battalion..
You don't know what you are talking about. You are clueless and you do an epidermic analysis of the matter.
If you think that Switzerland stayed neutral because of terrain and geography you are ignorant
The Germans had contingency plans to invade Switzerland if need be, but they didn't want to exercise them because it would have been a strategic nightmare.
This was a general uprising in the northern Mountains of Albania. The rebels were supplied with weapons mainly from Montenegro. Each clan had its own leadership but the leader of the Gruda clan Sokol Baci was a former Ottoman General who returned to his tribal lands and helped organize and lead the rebellion, in hopes of immediate Autonomy and leading to a free independent Albania.
Ottoman conquest in the Balkans went in these two general scenarios:
Buy off a local noble, then use him to defeat his own rivals, then defeat him and take the province
Attack with a big army, get obliterated by a smaller army because you have shit tactics, make him pay a tribute. Come back two years later with 5 gajilion Anatolian bashibuzuks. Fail. Repeat two years later, succeed, burn the whole province and sell half of its people into slavery.
I doubt Albanian slaves would fetch a high price. The ottomans had an obsession with Slavic blond hair blue eyed people, hence why many of their mistresses in the harem were from Ukraine, Poland, or somewhere in between.
Are you joke ? They were an empire within imperial dynasty , ottoman army is based on Roman one, so it was a regular army vs bandits in Balkans , so who is civilized ? An official imperial army or mountain raiders,Peasants, bandits ?
Just read about the Ottomans attempts to invade Montenegro, at point it just becomes dissapointing. They cannot do mountains
The refusal of high-spirited Montenegrin clans to pay tax any longer was the cause of the Pasha's invasion during the reign of the HadjukBishop Rufim, when the Turks were driven back with heavy loss in Battle of Lješkopolje in 1604. About 1500 Montenegrin warriors attacked the Turkish camp on Lješkopolje field during the night, which counted 10.000 Ottoman soldiers.
In 1613, Arslan Pasha gathered army of over 40,000 men to attack part of Old Montenegro. Ottoman soldiers were twice as numerous as whole population of Old Montenegro. On 10 September the Montenegrins met the Turkish army, on the same spot Skenderbeg Crnojević was defeated nearly a century ago . The Montenegrins, although assisted by some neighbouring tribes, counted 4000 and were completely outnumbered. However, the Montenegrins managed to defeat the Turks. Arslan Pasha was wounded, and the heads of his second-in-command and a hundred other Turkish officers were carried off and stuck on the ramparts of Cetinje. The Ottoman troops retreated in disorder; many were drowned in the waters of the Morača. Others were killed by Montenegrin pursuers.
August 1768, they thus prepared to invade Montenegro to put an end to his rule.^([16]) The Ottomans assembled an army of 50,000 soldiers and invaded Montenegro from three different directions.^([15]) At the same time, the Montenegrin coast was blockaded by the Venetians, meaning that the country was effectively surrounded by enemies.^([16])
Šćepan himself appears to have momentarily fled his responsibilities due to the prospect of the Ottoman invasion.^([5]) The Montenegrin clans, united due to Šćepan's rule, managed to rally together an army of perhaps as many as 10,000 soldiers to defend their homeland. Miraculously, the outnumbered and quickly assembled Montenegrin force won the initial battle against the Ottoman invaders.
It's really hard to conquer mountains. A similar case to Montenegro was true for some other mountainous regions within Balkans, like Maniots had been an hassle for Ottomans since forever.
A parallel case can be told for North Caucasus as well, for example, as it took Russian Empire a 101 years long war in Northwest Caucasus to capture it totally and a long decades long war in Vainakhia. Even when some empires declared that they control the place, mountains were out of their control.
I'm glad we failed. It's one of my favorite countries to visit. We definitely would've ruined it and tourism would be monopolized by Kurdish gangs like it is here.
Yes, the situation is fucked up. I wouldn't say "monopolized", but definitely largely taken over. It's either the Kurdish mafia or the ultra-rich conservative Turkish elite close to Erdogan.
Yes, the entirety of the western beaches are run by the Kurdish mafia. Although laws state beach fronts are public property and citizens are allowed to use any beach free of charge, they will beat you up if you show up without paying.
After late 17th century, Ottoman army was not keeping up whit modern standards, and also they still had very old “government/society structures” which were not very well equipped to handle modern ways of war for that period of history.
Indeed They had the same choice as Roman Empire or try to reform and fracture, or don’t reform and get conquered and devoured by your enemies.
At that time the Ottomans were basically on life support. It lost almost everywhere. IMO it infact overperformed and punched above it's weight in WW1
On the other hand many Albanians used mountains as a base. The mountains were nightmares for foot soldiers. There is a reason Inner Montenegro (around Cetinje) was never entirely subjugated
In general, Ottomans starting going downhill with the Treaty of Karlowitz (1699). They started going very rapidly downhill with the Treaty of Balta Liman (1838) right after the conflict with the Governor of Egypt. The Russo-Ottoman war of 1877-1878 was a breaking point. By the time there were uprisings in the Balkans and the Balkan Wars happened, the Ottoman state was already weak and war torn.
Oppressing the minorities and lack of cooperation.
They have oppressed Arabs and plus Romanians(I don’t know about others) and because the oppression it lead to nationalism. But heck, they’re not the first state.
I mean irregular in the sense that they didn't had permanent garrison consistency for their standard troops, so whenever the Sultan issued a raid or a siege it was up to the various self-sufficient Warlords to show up and aid the elite forces that ware working on the task for monetary gain.
Quite the opposite buddy. If what you said were true, how could a single state win major battles against coalitions(Crusaders, Holy League) made up of dozens of states and survive for centuries?
Extremely corrupt leaders moment, like every single empire and kingdom in history, eventually living in luxury means extremely bad leader will take over and fuck the empire up,
it's how ottoman was supposed to be Islamic and ended up even allowing lgbt while banning newspaper and printing, or how they sometimes hard lose battles
GoodZealousideal5922@reddit
Mountainous regions have always been very tough to conquer, especially during times in which weapons were not as developed as they are today.
roctac@reddit
Afghanistan? Part 1 & 2.
Interesting_Snow7781@reddit
Afghanistan has been conquered 17 times through history, them being unconquerable is just a historical myth
Warlord10@reddit
Oh, you can take the cities and valleys, but you will never have peace nor totally suppress the guerillas. In the long run, it simply won't be worth the effort of keeping it.
Interesting_Snow7781@reddit
Thank you for agreeing that its still conquerable!
Warlord10@reddit
Conquering in general isn't the hardest part. Holding it is.
Interesting_Snow7781@reddit
Even that is not true, afghanistan literally had greek colonies and its super multi ethnic, everyone who conquered it spread their religion,culture and even people.Can people actually read a history book for once instead of getting it from memes or noam chomsky a fucking linguist lol
Warlord10@reddit
And once again, you are missing the point (intentionally, it seems to push your agenda). Holding ALL of Afghanistan is extremely difficult and eventually all empires just give up.
I clearly wrote that you can control and cities and valley's. Or did you miss that part?
That has nothing to do with holding all of Afghanistan. Its also a ridiculous argument to make that the people who inhabited the regions 2200 years ago are the same as the people today. Today's Afghans have an extra 2200 years of experience living in those mountains..They are also a fundamentally different people.
Are today's Greeks the exact same as Ancient Greeks? Not in the slightest.
localworldwide28@reddit
The Mughals held afghanistan for 300 years...... and before the the persians held it for like 500 years. And before that the Mongols, and before that the persians again. Everyone had their turn holding afghanistan lol.
gjdubdu8@reddit
And false
Effective_Director43@reddit
What makes you say that. Sure population won't be exactly the same but what makes you belive that we are not related to them not even in the slightest?
Interesting_Snow7781@reddit
You clearly showed hear that you dont know shit about history, afghanistan has been fully conquered multiple times in its history and its not hard to control, thats just pseudo historians trying to create a myth that supposedly afghans are a fierce independent people which is not backed up by any historian whatsoever
TastyTestikel@reddit
This is not true. Persia governed Afghanistan for centuries just fine. Cultural background, if there is a shared border and aims are way more important than geography.
Warlord10@reddit
You just contradicted your own point. The Afghans didn't resist the Persians, so it's a moot point
TastyTestikel@reddit
What do you mean? The Persians conquered Afghanistan and governend it. How does resistence have anything to do with it, especially since they did resist at times.
Warlord10@reddit
They did not resist on a mass scale.
Let's look at the last 3 times. The Afghans could not be conquered by the British Empire, the USSR, and NATO..Why? Because the Afghans largely unified and retreated to the mountains and started a guerilla campaign..
johneracer@reddit
Not true at all. Of course they could have been conquered each time. It’s just that the invading force looses the will due to financial or political pressures. Or due to public pressure like Vietnam, the USA simply gave up. You make it sound like Afghanistan couldn’t be conquered militarily but this is simply not true. Had Afghanistan been worth it, as in had ton of oil, you can bet it would be conquered. The cost benefit simply wasn’t there.
TastyTestikel@reddit
Afghanistan far more often ruled and conquered than not. It's not particulary hard if you don't attempt to establish a new system as a war aim. All those militaries failed because they wamted to impose their urban rules and order on a tribal society. Give the tribesman some land and play by his rules and he'll be obedient, but that wasn't the goal.
TastyTestikel@reddit
What do you mean? The Persians conquered Afghanistan and governend it. How does resistence have anything to do with it, especially since they did resist at times.
localworldwide28@reddit
Afghanistan has been conquered by everyone in the region. The Turkic people, the persians, Mongols, mughals... pretty much everyone. They haven't really ever put up a fight.
Afghanistan as a country has really only existed in modern times.
Effective_Director43@reddit
I hope you are referring to the greek Macedonian empire and the greek Alexander the great
Interesting_Snow7781@reddit
I am
OODNflow@reddit
Conquest was never a thing its historical sugar. Holding and ruling is what counts
jinawee@reddit
The region overall was conquered, but the Hindu Kush and other parts were not conquered. It wasnt a centralized region/state.
roctac@reddit
Dat kush. Just like modern day Macedonians are from Alexander the great times. Lolololol
Interesting_Snow7781@reddit
Im albanian but nice try
Lord_Hector_of_Ostia@reddit
Not always 😂😂😂
jebac_keve_finalboss@reddit
One of our bigges defeats indeed but claim that few medieval Serbian princes could mobilize 70k men is ridiculous i mean all of France and England together couldnt do that, as well as the claim that there were only 800 Turks, i think the most realistic numbers are 15-20k Serb against 2-4k Turks.
Emotional_Charge_961@reddit
Ottoman number for 800 is most likely true. It was reconnaissance unit and commander of reconnaissance unit was poisoned by his supreme commander because he didn't like that his subordinate won such a big victory.
Suifuelcrow@reddit
Woah ngl always thought the ottoman win were purely due to the numerical advantage, that's a crazy win, imma read about it
DusanAnd@reddit
Long story short. The Serbs got drunk and the Ottomans snuck in at night and killed most of them.
shaj_hulud@reddit
Slavs and alcohol.
Street-Selection2516@reddit
Do you know who sold them alcohol and made them drunk? Gypsies 😂 no joke
Own-Singer6901@reddit
As a Serbian Gypsy myself i need sources asap.
altahor42@reddit
Ottoman numbers should always be viewed with suspicion, Both Western and Balkan sources grossly exaggerate Ottoman numbers and losses.
outlanderfhf@reddit
Im sure Ottoman sources do too
altahor42@reddit
Yes, but the Balkan sources are at a crazy level on this issue, The Ottomans would lose tens of thousands of soldiers in some wars and then return the next year with a larger army. And they would do this for dozens of years.
+Ottoman soldiers were not peasants were given weapons. almost all were either professional (janissaries and raiders) or semi-professional ( tımarlı sipahis ).It took between 1 and 3 years to make the bows used by Ottoman archers.
outlanderfhf@reddit
Its possible that the sources also include the non soldiers in the camp too, like building bridges alone to pass certain places requires significant amount of people, theres tons of people escorting these camps
DranzerKNC@reddit
Ottoman army was the first army in the Europe with a proper central command with professional standing army like modern armies today and it had professional soldiers for every class you can think of. There used to be soldiers similar to combat engineers of today that were supposed to built Turkish bathes in military bases for comfort of the soldiers for example. It was no different than American army bases today spending billions only to have HVAC service for soldiers. Or Ottoman logistics, terrific tradition that had being able to move hundreds thousands of soldiers in Balkan forests or Caucasian mountains or Middle Eastern deserts at the same time etc.
Emotional_Charge_961@reddit
It is not wrong that Ottoman armies contains large number of peasants, irregulars in their army. Sources mentions these troops. However, Ottoman numbers in European sources is bullshit, their numbers exaggarated 2-6 times regularly. Problem is that Ottoman sources rarely mentions their army numbers until 17th century. In 17th century, Ottoman sources started to mention their numbers, from that, we understand that European sources exaggarated Ottoman 2-6 times and casualties as 3-10 times.
altahor42@reddit
Nope, the Ottomans professionalized military logistics quite early on, which is actually one of the key reasons they were so dominant in the Balkans. The bridges were built by professional military engineers, and the army had cook units that cooked specially planned rations.
maria_paraskeva@reddit
"Saar, I promise you saar, they were not peasants, they were professionals, sar!"
altahor42@reddit
lol, this was a very early stage, before the balkan conquests. During the reigns of mehmet the first and murat the first, the army was largely professionalized, and of course volunteer units were recruited when needed but these troops were rarely sent on long expeditions.
maria_paraskeva@reddit
A day doesn't pass on the internet without a turkish person depicting ottoman fanfics
No-Job-3494@reddit
even your very credible "ai overview" clearly states "early periods"
Effective_Director43@reddit
What in the word "particularly" is hard to understand?
No-Job-3494@reddit
I could ask you the same thing, as it is you that has a hard time understanding the connotation the word "particularly" has in this specific context.
Effective_Director43@reddit
Are you illiterate?
outlanderfhf@reddit
Yeah, I choose to trust actual Osmanists that studied the period and know what they are saying,
https://youtu.be/Rfx3OrbBkMY?si=hmEpEIRHxFjg_xtN
This guy is a better source, ofc you could call him biased on account of being romanian, but he went through all the academic hoops to mitigate that, his videos are a mix of romanian or english, but he has subtitles in english or talks in english for most of the videos
ViolinistOver6664@reddit
the ottomans had no levies you doge
Many-Rooster-7905@reddit
Examples?
Pristine_Loss6693@reddit
There are several wars in great turkish war with overwhelming ottoman numbers but they lost.
However to give a better example, georgians report 100k seljuk soldiers and they won. For comparison seljuks won against ERE with 40k man
Many-Rooster-7905@reddit
Eastern cosplay empire
Classic-Exit4189@reddit
Not to mention its one battle not a war and you can catch a general or a battalion unprepared once but eventually the larger force will win.
KojaKuqit@reddit
Multiple battles and skirmishes.
Deciqi (Most notable) Bratila, Koplik (second largest concentration of troops), Tuzi, Podgorica, rrethina Shkodres, etc.
Warlord10@reddit
There is a reason why Hitler never invaded Switzerland..Because the entire country is made up of mountains and narrow passes. The Swiss were legendary marksmen who also knew their own terrain.
20 sharpshooters on high ground, overlooking a narrow pass, can go toe-to-toe with an entire battalion..
Effective_Director43@reddit
So why did he invade greece?
Warlord10@reddit
Greece is not Switzerland. Are you kidding?
Effective_Director43@reddit
Greece is a mountainous country are you kidding. If you don't know geography why are you commenting?
Warlord10@reddit
Not like Switzerland. The Swiss literally have Alps that are made up of narrow passes and that are blanketed in snow during the winter.
If you dont know that why are you commenting?
Bro thinks all mountainous terrain is the same.
Effective_Director43@reddit
You don't know what you are talking about. You are clueless and you do an epidermic analysis of the matter. If you think that Switzerland stayed neutral because of terrain and geography you are ignorant
Warlord10@reddit
Its one of the reasons
tortikolis@reddit
Lol, Hitler never attacked Switzerland because he needed its "neutral" banks and I'm sure they would have joined him anyway if he was victorious.
Warlord10@reddit
The Germans had contingency plans to invade Switzerland if need be, but they didn't want to exercise them because it would have been a strategic nightmare.
jeune_cycliste@reddit
Collaboration economically with Nazi Germany also helped a lot to not get invaded
devoker35@reddit
If they go as close as toe to toe they will get killed very fast
Waste_Associate_401@reddit
cause they suck
Warlord10@reddit
Bruh!
lesalesa23j@reddit
they where shit after 16 c
Warlord10@reddit
I wouldn't say 16th century (1500's). By the late 17th century, they certainly did decline, though. That is true.
_barbarossa@reddit
Did you ever consider that the Albanian’s were just really strong?
KojaKuqit@reddit
Albanian Perk - "Our Only Friend" = Mountain Defence in Core Territory + 50%
_barbarossa@reddit
Also Luc Mark Gjeloshi was a BEAST
AlbHighlander@reddit
This was a general uprising in the northern Mountains of Albania. The rebels were supplied with weapons mainly from Montenegro. Each clan had its own leadership but the leader of the Gruda clan Sokol Baci was a former Ottoman General who returned to his tribal lands and helped organize and lead the rebellion, in hopes of immediate Autonomy and leading to a free independent Albania.
TheRatzingerian@reddit
Sokol Baci deserves our respect! Many have a wrong idea about him.
cosmic_joke420@reddit
True.
Just better tactics on shqip part.
vllaznia35@reddit
Ottoman conquest in the Balkans went in these two general scenarios:
StudyDemon@reddit
I doubt Albanian slaves would fetch a high price. The ottomans had an obsession with Slavic blond hair blue eyed people, hence why many of their mistresses in the harem were from Ukraine, Poland, or somewhere in between.
realgarit@reddit
Pretty much
zminky@reddit
The right question to ask is: why Albanians so stronkk?
Only-Dimension-4424@reddit
Civilized ones always destined to lose mountain raiders , check asymmetric warfare...
Effective_Director43@reddit
Come again?
Only-Dimension-4424@reddit
?
Effective_Director43@reddit
Ancestors when where the ottomans considered civilized ?
Only-Dimension-4424@reddit
Are you joke ? They were an empire within imperial dynasty , ottoman army is based on Roman one, so it was a regular army vs bandits in Balkans , so who is civilized ? An official imperial army or mountain raiders,Peasants, bandits ?
Effective_Director43@reddit
You prove my point with your shit English. Get your priorities straight, first you learn how to speak and then you spread propaganda
Consistent_Course413@reddit
Albania very strong!!!!
Ok_Hamster_1690@reddit
Just read about the Ottomans attempts to invade Montenegro, at point it just becomes dissapointing. They cannot do mountains
The refusal of high-spirited Montenegrin clans to pay tax any longer was the cause of the Pasha's invasion during the reign of the Hadjuk Bishop Rufim, when the Turks were driven back with heavy loss in Battle of Lješkopolje in 1604. About 1500 Montenegrin warriors attacked the Turkish camp on Lješkopolje field during the night, which counted 10.000 Ottoman soldiers.
In 1613, Arslan Pasha gathered army of over 40,000 men to attack part of Old Montenegro. Ottoman soldiers were twice as numerous as whole population of Old Montenegro. On 10 September the Montenegrins met the Turkish army, on the same spot Skenderbeg Crnojević was defeated nearly a century ago . The Montenegrins, although assisted by some neighbouring tribes, counted 4000 and were completely outnumbered. However, the Montenegrins managed to defeat the Turks. Arslan Pasha was wounded, and the heads of his second-in-command and a hundred other Turkish officers were carried off and stuck on the ramparts of Cetinje. The Ottoman troops retreated in disorder; many were drowned in the waters of the Morača. Others were killed by Montenegrin pursuers.
August 1768, they thus prepared to invade Montenegro to put an end to his rule.^([16]) The Ottomans assembled an army of 50,000 soldiers and invaded Montenegro from three different directions.^([15]) At the same time, the Montenegrin coast was blockaded by the Venetians, meaning that the country was effectively surrounded by enemies.^([16])
Šćepan himself appears to have momentarily fled his responsibilities due to the prospect of the Ottoman invasion.^([5]) The Montenegrin clans, united due to Šćepan's rule, managed to rally together an army of perhaps as many as 10,000 soldiers to defend their homeland. Miraculously, the outnumbered and quickly assembled Montenegrin force won the initial battle against the Ottoman invaders.
lasttimechdckngths@reddit
It's really hard to conquer mountains. A similar case to Montenegro was true for some other mountainous regions within Balkans, like Maniots had been an hassle for Ottomans since forever.
A parallel case can be told for North Caucasus as well, for example, as it took Russian Empire a 101 years long war in Northwest Caucasus to capture it totally and a long decades long war in Vainakhia. Even when some empires declared that they control the place, mountains were out of their control.
Itsgxl@reddit
I'm glad we failed. It's one of my favorite countries to visit. We definitely would've ruined it and tourism would be monopolized by Kurdish gangs like it is here.
drjet196@reddit
Tourism is monopolized by Kurdish gangs? First time I‘m reading such a claim. Is it a thing in Turkey?
vincenzopiatti@reddit
Yes, the situation is fucked up. I wouldn't say "monopolized", but definitely largely taken over. It's either the Kurdish mafia or the ultra-rich conservative Turkish elite close to Erdogan.
Itsgxl@reddit
Yes, the entirety of the western beaches are run by the Kurdish mafia. Although laws state beach fronts are public property and citizens are allowed to use any beach free of charge, they will beat you up if you show up without paying.
MehmetTopal@reddit
Western beaches, but also all nightclubs and luxury restaurants on the Bosphorus Coast are also in the hands of Kurdish mafia or clans(aşiret).
JimbosBalls@reddit
Well that kinda sucks tbh...
tortikolis@reddit
Dude, Montenegro was one of Balkan regions that was under the ottoman rule the longest along with Kosovo and middle Bosnia.
admiralbeaver@reddit
Damn, Montenegro is basically the village from Asterix and Obelix?
outlanderfhf@reddit
They cant do forests, swamps, general ambushes, foggy weather, nights and scorched earth, ominous sharp sticks in the ground are also a deterent.
Substantial_Yak6327@reddit
🤣🤣🤣
Gadot369@reddit
After late 17th century, Ottoman army was not keeping up whit modern standards, and also they still had very old “government/society structures” which were not very well equipped to handle modern ways of war for that period of history. Indeed They had the same choice as Roman Empire or try to reform and fracture, or don’t reform and get conquered and devoured by your enemies.
herhangibirperson@reddit
At that time the Ottomans were basically on life support. It lost almost everywhere. IMO it infact overperformed and punched above it's weight in WW1
On the other hand many Albanians used mountains as a base. The mountains were nightmares for foot soldiers. There is a reason Inner Montenegro (around Cetinje) was never entirely subjugated
vincenzopiatti@reddit
In general, Ottomans starting going downhill with the Treaty of Karlowitz (1699). They started going very rapidly downhill with the Treaty of Balta Liman (1838) right after the conflict with the Governor of Egypt. The Russo-Ottoman war of 1877-1878 was a breaking point. By the time there were uprisings in the Balkans and the Balkan Wars happened, the Ottoman state was already weak and war torn.
FunKooky4689@reddit
“Albanian Tribesmen” be like
Atilla-The-Hon@reddit
Maybe don't fight against Albanians in the mountains?
ViolinistOver6664@reddit
wikipedia battles*
SnooWoofers7603@reddit
Oppressing the minorities and lack of cooperation.
They have oppressed Arabs and plus Romanians(I don’t know about others) and because the oppression it lead to nationalism. But heck, they’re not the first state.
Snirion@reddit
* Honestly, don't know.
Turbulent-Debate7661@reddit
turks actually never really conquered any mountainous region.
devoker35@reddit
Because it was a 6vs1 match
BetImaginary4945@reddit
Same reasons why 10 small stones separate 10000 grains of sand
LibertyChecked28@reddit
Irregular army as opposed to standard one.
Longjumping-Bee-6977@reddit
Ottomans were the only force who had regular troops, such as Jannisaries and Sipahis
LibertyChecked28@reddit
I mean irregular in the sense that they didn't had permanent garrison consistency for their standard troops, so whenever the Sultan issued a raid or a siege it was up to the various self-sufficient Warlords to show up and aid the elite forces that ware working on the task for monetary gain.
Former_Bake4025@reddit
Amazing! Romania also proved difficult for the Ottomans.
FirmConcentrate2962@reddit
Amazing! And now let's quickly get all our cuisine and music to be Ottoman in nature.
2neuroni@reddit
Well he said that it was difficult, not that we didn't get conquered in the end
outlanderfhf@reddit
Wars and culture arent always conflated, theres such a thing as soft power too, and exposure to a different culture for a very long time,
maria_paraskeva@reddit
Quality > Quantity
Literally 90% of the ottoman battles looked something like this. At least in terms of KD ratio
volcano156@reddit
Quite the opposite buddy. If what you said were true, how could a single state win major battles against coalitions(Crusaders, Holy League) made up of dozens of states and survive for centuries?
Latter-Explorer-5301@reddit
Nice 🇦🇱💪🏻💪🏻
TestingAccountByUser@reddit
After Suleiman the country became much weaker
AST360@reddit
Corruption
Educational-Rip-5572@reddit
Is this tuff in Turkey?
antiantimighty@reddit
Extremely corrupt leaders moment, like every single empire and kingdom in history, eventually living in luxury means extremely bad leader will take over and fuck the empire up,
it's how ottoman was supposed to be Islamic and ended up even allowing lgbt while banning newspaper and printing, or how they sometimes hard lose battles
CraftAnxious2491@reddit
17th century was also far away from their military /political peak.