WI: Charles, Prince of Viana survives?

Finally back, was busy all Holy Week. Without further ado...

Charles, Prince of Viana is one of those historical characters who is little known to the public, but whose fate was massively important to the development of late medieval and early modern European history. The only son of John II of Aragon and his first wife Blanche, Queen of Navarre, Prince Charles' relationship with his father turned bitter after John remarried to the Castilian noblewoman Juana Enriquez (who hated Charles, considering him a threat to the prosperity of her own son Ferdinand, and did everything she could to turn John against him) and then tried to deny Charles his rightful inheritance - the crown of Navarre - following Blanche's death in 1441. Charles was unwilling to let go of his maternal inheritance without a fight, so fight they did, and eventually father triumphed over son: Charles was defeated and imprisoned by John in 1452, eventually released (but denied the Navarrese crown) and jailed again in 1459 for attempting to marry the Castilian princess Isabella, who would eventually become Queen of Castile and wife to his half-brother Ferdinand.

Alas, there was no happy and glorious ending for Charles himself. In 1461, his father was forced to release him from prison to satisfy the demands of Catalan rebels who resented his efforts to expand his royal prerogative at the expense of Catalonia's traditional autonomy. However, not long afterwards, Charles was poisoned - likely by his stepmother - and Ferdinand became the undisputed heir to the Aragonese throne. Ferdinand would go on to marry Isabella and become one half of the Catholic Monarchs who united Spain, complete the Reconquista by destroying the last Muslim state in Iberia, and oversee the dawn of the Spanish Empire 'on which the sun never sets'.

But what if...Charles does not die at his stepmother's hands? Perhaps he prevails over his grasping father in the Navarrese civil war and forces John to recognize him as Charles IV of Navarre, or John never bothers to infringe on his son's succession rights in the first place. Either way, with an independent power-base and stronghold secured in Navarre, Charles becomes much safer from his stepmother.

Even more interestingly, Charles was originally married to Agnes of Cleves, a niece of the Burgundian duke Philip the Good: sadly, Agnes died childless at the age of 26 in 1448, and Charles would eventually get into hot water with his father again when he pursued Isabella of Castile, who would eventually marry his half-brother Ferdinand after his death. Of course, if Agnes still dies on schedule and Charles lives long enough to marry Isabella, then a Castilian-Aragonese Spain will still be born, just with a different father. But if Agnes lives longer and bears an also-longer-lived Charles children, then the unification of Castile and Aragon is butterflied away. Instead, Aragon will unite with Navarre and remain independent of Castile, allowing Charles and his successors to focus on Mediterranean ventures: uniting with their distant Trastamaran kin in Naples and battling the Muslims of the Barbary Coast.

So, what happens to Castile in this scenario? Well, they had a succession crisis of their own brewing at the same time that John and Charles were fighting. Isabella's uncle was the weak king of Castile, Henry IV 'the Impotent', who had only one child of dubious parentage with his infamously unfaithful wife Joan of Portugal: this daughter, also named Joan, was nicknamed 'La Beltraneja' after a rumor that she was actually the child of Beltran de la Cueva, Duke of Albuquerque and one of her mother's many lovers. After Henry died in 1475, Castile fell into civil war between the supporters of Joan and Isabella (who claimed that Joan was a bastard, and so Henry should be succeeded by his indisputably trueborn niece), with Joan being supported by her uncle and husband Afonso V of Portugal and Isabella being backed by her own husband Ferdinand, by then King of Aragon. Of course, historically, the 'Isabelino' party and Ferdinand defeated the 'Juanistas' and their Portuguese backers, solidifying Isabella's hold on the Castilian throne and paving the way for the formation of Spain.

But without Aragon's help, Isabella's chances of victory grow much dimmer. Thus, we could very well see a different Spain formed by the unification of Castile and Portugal. This alternate Spain would still destroy the Sultanate of Granada, the last Islamic kingdom left in Iberia at the time: by the late 1400s, the situation for the Spanish Moors had grown hopeless, and Granada is too heavily outnumbered and outgunned to have a prayer against any Spain regardless of whether it is comprised of Castile-Aragon or Castile-Portugal - their defeat is only a matter of time. However, after the Reconquista is complete Alt-Spain would be free to focus on colonial ventures abroad and wars against the Muslims in the Maghreb with no other major European commitments to bog them down: this means a unified Spanish-Portuguese colonial empire, and the availability of far more resources for a crusade into Morocco and beyond. Thus, while Aragon-Navarre focuses on Mediterranean ventures, Castile-Portugal would be free to dominate the New World to an even greater extent than the historical Spanish Empire and conquer the western Maghreb, in the process saving the Songhai Empire from conquest by the Moroccans. Given enough time and resources, they might even expand into what is now modern-day West Africa (particularly Mali).

WI: The Ottomans are defeated at the Battle of Nicopolis?

In 1396, the penultimate true crusade against the Muslims had crossed the Danube and was on course to clearing the Turks out of Bulgaria, which they had conquered from the native Orthodox Shishman dynasty only three years prior. The crusader army - a mixture of Germans, Hungarians, Frenchmen, Croats and Italians with a supporting contingent from Wallachia (modern-day southern Romania) and Bulgarian exiles led by the Holy Roman Emperor Sigismund - had taken the fortified towns of Vidin and Oryahovo without much of a fight, though that did not stop the especially reckless and bloodthirsty French contingent from massacring the unfortunate inhabitants of the latter, when they reached and laid siege to Nicopolis. Due to its stronger walls and their lack of siege engines, the crusaders could not take Nicopolis by storm, and while they were trying to starve the city into surrender an Ottoman relief force (including a contingent of Christian Serbs, whose ruler Stefan Lazarevic was a Turkish vassal) led by Sultan Bayezid I emerged to their south.

After learning of the Ottoman approach, Sigismund called a war council to form up the crusaders' battle plan. With the support of other senior commanders such as Lord Enguerrand of Coucy, he advocated sending the Wallachian contingent in first to combat the lightly-equipped Turkish vanguard, after which the French knights would follow them to smash through the weakened Turkish center and his own forces would keep the Turks on the flanks occupied. The plan was rejected by the younger French commanders, chiefly Count Philip of Eu and Count Jean of Nevers (the future Duke of Burgundy), who believed that having to follow the Wallachian infantry into battle would be an insult to men of their noble stature. In the resulting battle, the French launched into a reckless charge that went through the Turkish infantry, lines of stakes, and up a hill - only to be countered and crushed by the Sultan's reserves. The Wallachians, believing the battle to be lost, retreated, and the rest of the crusader army was promptly crushed.

But what if...the crusaders had prevailed instead? Perhaps the French crusaders exhibit better discipline, and D'Eu & Nevers calm down enough to accept Sigismund's battle plans. The Wallachians engage the Turks first, trading volleys of arrows and battling the Turkish infantry to soften up their lines before the French charge in to break through the Turkish center. When they advance up the hills to face the Turk reserve, the crusaders are better prepared and organized - instead of facing just the exhausted and (thanks to the Turkish stake traps) mostly dismounted French knights, the Turks are forced to face the entire crusader army - and win the day. Bayezid, who personally commanded the Turkish reserve, is killed and his forces routed utterly.

So what happens? Well, for starters, Bulgaria will be freed from Turkish control. Sigismund recognized the claim of Prince Fruzhin, the second son of the last Bulgarian Tsar Ivan Shishman (the eldest son, Alexander had accepted Ottoman rule and converted to Islam), to the Bulgarian throne and would have proclaimed him the Tsar of the Third Bulgarian Empire. From Bulgaria, the crusaders will surely try to expel the Turks from the Balkans in their entirety. That means battling through Macedonia and Thessaly, an endeavor in which they might be joined by the opportunistic Byzantine Empire if the latter feels that closing off the Gallipoli straits and fighting the Turks in the field once more is worth the risk of losing what remains of their lands. The best-case scenario for the Christians is that they succeed in evicting the Turks from the Balkans entirely, the Byzantines regain Thrace, and most of Macedonia becomes a new crusader kingdom likely ruled by D'Eu or one of the German, Hungarian or Croat nobles in Sigismund's service.

The Turks on the other hand, may or may not pull together in time to face off with the crusader threat. Bayezid I had two sons of age to succeed him by the time of Nicopolis: Prince Suleiman, the elder, and Prince Isa, the second son. (he had many more sons but the third-oldest of them and his eventual successor in real life, Prince Mehmed, was only 7 at the time of Nicopolis) Historically, when Bayezid was taken prisoner by the Timurid Empire and the Ottoman sultanate thrown into chaos in 1402, his sons clashed with one another for the throne; here, if Suleiman and Isa fight one another while the crusaders are still bearing down on them, an Ottoman defeat is all but guaranteed and Isa, being based in Anatolia and thus further away from the crusaders, will most likely win. If either brother rallies behind the other however, they have a chance at averting disaster and containing the Christian advance to just Bulgaria.