Great Mediterranean War

The Great Mediterranean War (GMW) collectively refers to a series of conflicts taking place in Europe, North Africa and the Middle East between 1509 and 1517 in Alternate History of Europe - Season 1: "Varna", in Episode X: "Mare Nostrum". The GMW is a grouping-together of these regional conflicts.
The main theatre of the war saw the Maghrebi League, an alliance led by the Mamluk Caliphate which was later known as League of Cairo, fighting against a coalition of European nations, later organised as the League of Varna once the war turned in their favour. The war broke out in November 1509, when the Mamluks launched a surprise attack against Byzantium. This triggered a chain of events which would eventually lead to one of the largest conflicts in world history, with an estimated 2.5 million deaths in total.
== Background ==
Tensions between the Italian and Maghrebi Leagues had been rising for decades, leading to a series of wars waged by both, aiming to increase their influence in relation to the other. Information about a planned Mamluk attack on Byzantium had been uncovered by the Venetian spy network since at least 1460:"A certain Islamic country is planning something very large for later. His religion was shaken by the fall of the Timurids, after all." - Venice, 1460 (Alternate History of Europe - Episode III: "Collapse")As a consequence of such findings, the Italian League was founded between Venice, Naples and Sardinia in 1460.
Byzantium and Rum had been exchanging diplomats in the early 1470s, as both became concerned by the expansion of the Mamluk Sultanate. Then in 1474, when the Sultanate was reorganised into the Sixth Caliphate, Byzantium and Rum finalised their pact. In 1478, the Maghrebi League was founded by the Mamluk Caliphate to counter the Italians, Iberians, and Anatolians; it consisted of them, their vassals, Tlemcen, Morocco, Oman and the Usfurids. 
In the early 1500s, direct escalation began, as the Moroccans attempted to stop Iberian-Italian smuggling of products, which was a countermeasure against the Mamluk ban on the Indian spice trade in 1487. An incident occurred off the coast of Africa, in which Morocco sent a fleet to investigate the illegal activities, only to be sunk by a pirate fleet funded by Venice.
Then the long-awaited conflict broke out on November 8th, 1509, when the Mamluk army in Erzincan launched a surprise attack against Byzantium. Rum was quick to honour their pact with Byzantium, declaring war on the Caliphate, but then the latter called the entire Maghrebi League into the war. 
The odds were made even with the entry of Castile, Portugalicia, Aragon, and the Italian League against the Maghrebi League, and the war began.
Category:Wars