There are no "
Germans" in political sense until 19th century by which time Ottomans no longer matter. Before then it is the
Habsburgs that fight against the Ottomans.
The peak of Ottoman power falls in the 16th and 17th centuries between the reigns of
Selim I (1512-1520) who conquered the Mamluk Sultanate and gained the Caliphate and
Mehmed IV (1648-1687) who lost the Great Turkish War in battles of Vienna in 1683 and Mohacs in 1687 allowing Habsburgs to capture Hungary.
The only reason why Ottomans managed to reach so far into Europe was the relative weakness of Europe following the disastrous 14th century (Great Famine 1315-17, Black Death 1347-1351) which allowed them to consolidate power on former Byzantine lands. The 15th century in Europe was filled with internal instability and wars and then almost immediately came the Reformation and violent divisions in Christendom which coincided with the peak of Ottoman power.
Suleiman I, boosted by high population (25 million) led a very aggressive expansion and laid siege to Vienna in 1529 but lost. The Ottomans had a natural defensive barrier in the Danube but were limited by geography of the Balkans for moving large armies is involved. This is why Ottoman northern campaigns are limited to warm months in constrast with longer campaigns in the Middle East.
The religious strife in Europe peaked with the Thirty Years' War (1618-1648) in which the Holy Roman Empire lost as much as a
third of its population. This conflict and related wars leads to the Great Turkish War which again ends in Ottoman defeat.
However as soon as Ottomans stopped expanding their
aggressive political culture turned inward and began to stifle growth and progress so the usual engines of economic prosperity never have the opportunity to show results. At the same time Europe recovers from the consequences of the Thirty Years' War and at the start of 18th century Ottomans face both Austrian and Russian imperial expansion, as well as increasingly active British and French naval presence in the Med and the Indian Oceans. Europe enters the Enlightenment and reforms aggressively while Ottomans falter with their modernisation for cultural reasons. They can either modernise or retain the empire and they choose the latter which is why they lost it.
1789
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1840
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1914
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The reason why nobody attacks the Ottomans directly in 18th century is because they're still strong enough to weaken whoever does it so they're useful for various alliances, but at the same time
they're made completely irrelevant in the era of geographical discoveries. By prioritising conquest and plunder over trade they lock themselves out of the benefits of having the most profitable geographical position in the Old World and are superseded by colonial expansion in Europe. And then comes the 19th century and industrialisation of Europe flips the global balance of power on its head.
Germany cooperated with Ottomans in WW1 because Ottomans were the only thing that separated Britain and France from their colonies and Russia (Gallipolli!). Ottomans cooperated with Germany because they were fighting for survival and Central Powers were the only possible ally.
Turkey joined NATO in 1955
together with Greece to prevent Soviet naval expansion into the Med and the Middle East, as well as to provide bases e.g. for missiles - which led to the Cuban Missile Crisis.
As for the EU, Turkey is a "perennial candidate" because they obviously have no interest in conducting the type of reform that is necessary to join. Turkey is an artificial nation state that would immediately collapse if deprived of tools of repression.
Ultimately Ataturk was wrong and Turkey is a failed experiment. We're just seeing the consequences. The current political or economic crisis is not the
problem but the
result.
The
alt-right is a name used by
racists and
ethnic chauvinists to disguise themselves. They use "late stage Rome" to describe the
internal demographic shift caused by migration rather than any political, economic or military crisis.
"
Late stage Rome" is a cultural idiom that began with Edward Gibbon and his "
Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire" (1776-88) but the idea behind it is also
fallacious and
ahistorical.
Rome did not end in 476 because Western Roman Empire wasn't "
the" or even "
the more important" Roman Empire since Diocletian established the tetrarchy.
Before Diocletian for over a century the "imperial capital" resided physically with the emperor, which meant wherever the fighting was at the time. Rome lost its administrative function in imperial government by late 2nd century which was one of the causes of the "
crisis of the third century" (230-284).
Currently "Later Rome" refers to the period between 284 (Diocletian becomes emperor) and 641 (Heraclius I dies) as during that period the Eastern Roman Empire is viewed as "Rome" by the
bishop of Rome i.e. the pope. Roman emperor Justinian I
recaptures Rome in 538 and retains it.
Only after the pope crowns Charlemagne as
Holy Roman Emperor in 800 solidifying the political split between Rome and Constantinople the Eastern Roman Empire is referred to as "
Empire of Greeks" and only after fall of Constantinople in 1453 as "
Byzantium". Holy Roman Emperor is "Holy" because the title is given by the pope, rather than derived from temporal authority.
However the citizens of Byzantium kept referring to themselves as "
Romans" and their state as "
Roman Empire" until the 4th crusade in 1204.
Ultimately Rome did not fall because it is a civilisation, and not a culture or a state. Rome evolved into Holy Roman Empire and the Roman Catholic Church in the west and the Byzantine Empire and the Orthodox Church in the East. Currently Rome is the European Union, symbolically founded on the Treaty of Rome or in a broader sense it is "the West" with "Rome" in Washington and "Constantinople" in Brussels.
It's like the current
Mao dynasty in China presently referred to as "
People's Republic of China".
There's noting wrong with the West that isn't wrong with China i.e. demographics, culture or environment. What you mistakenly view as weakness is a natural trend of the West returning to its natural place after a temporary disruption caused by industrialisation and resulting population boom. See here:
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The only people in the West who panic because of that one trend are those who don't know history and are invested in exploitation which was enabled by past trend.
I know history which is why I'm not worried about relative weakening of the west understood as a civilisation but I am terrified of the other, more dangerous trends that affect our entire human civilisation. When cooperation is required all I see is duplicity.
On all sides.
