Alternate History Byzantine Empire
The Byzantine empire survives as a balkan empire after repelling the islamic invasion of europe and the fourth crusade. The Byzantine empire survives in it's form after Basil II's effective leadership thanks to a victory at manzikert, a lack of the fourth crusade, and a series of highly effective heirs. Agent of Byzantium is a collection of short stories by Harry Turtledove, centred on the exploits of Basil Argyros, a Byzantine secret agent. The stories are set in an alternate 14th century, where Islam never existed and the great ancient empires of Byzantium (the Eastern Roman Empire) and Sassanid Persia survive.
Welcome to, the alternate history subreddit! Here you can discuss matters, whether they be books, essays, TV shows, movies, or podcasts.Common Acronyms and Phrases:. AH stands for Alternate History. WI stands for What If. OTL stands for Our Time Line, history as it happened.
ATL stands for Alternate Time Line. POD stands for Point Of Divergence or the point at which a fictional timeline diverges from OTL. ASB stands for Alien Space Bats, referring to alternate history so implausible it would have required the intervention of 'alien space bats.' . ISOT stands for Island in the Sea of Time, the S.M. Sterling novel which popularized the idea of transporting people and places to a different time period. ISOTs are, by their nature, always ASB.
DBWI stands for Double-Blind What-If, where OTL history is examined from an AH perspective. Ex: 'What if the Soviets put the first man in space?' Asks a character from a timeline where the USA put the first man in space. The butterfly effect, where small changes accrue over time to significantly alter events. Counterfactual histories, the scholarly version of alternate history.
Wank, refers to when a nation is made unrealistically powerful. Scew, the opposite of a wank.Related Subreddits:.: An alternate history subreddit dedicated exclusively to answering traditional what-if questions.: Direct any questions about actual history to this excellent sub. An idea I'm currently formulating sees the Byzantine Empire as a reformed sort of republic fighting in the first world war.
They control Greece, Bulgaria and around the southern half of the Balkans as well as the southern half of Italy they presumably took from Spain at some point in the 18-19th century, citing historical claim to Italy in the process. The only ideas I have for historical divergence are the fourth crusade never resulting in the sacking of Constantinople and the subsequent inability of the Ottoman Empire to really break into Europe in any meaningful way, instead opting to forge an empire into Persia (Kind of recreating the lands of Achaemenid Persia).What are your thoughts? What kind of events would I have to change or nix altogether to have this idea be at all plausible and interesting?
What effects would it have on renaissance era Europe? Any changes would be very helpful as long as they get some remnant of the Byzantines into the 1900s.
Adding some more food for thought for your timeline, what about not a remnant, but a resurrected empire? There were many points in history in which the Empire of the Romans, for real or in name only, could have been restored. Those are all really solid suggestions, thanks! The first idea about Rhomania does sound very interesting. That might put them in a very similar spot to Germany, an upstart country that the established powers of Europe want to bring down.
A Greek/Byzantine Kingdom in the Balkans could even be what ignites World War 1 in that scenario. Rhomania becomes an ally of Germany in that big old web of Bismarckian diplomacy and when tensions are at their highest in the early 1900s something (maybe having to do with territorial concession or pro entente rebellion?) sparks a war that drags in all the powers of Europe. Perhaps the Ottoman Empire joins in on the side of the Entente to recapture Constantinople and the New Byzantines are forced to deal with Russia on one front and their age old enemy on the other.At any rate, real nice food for thought dude!.
If you want a challenging scenario, but one that is by no means impossible (if you ask me), then you should start with a post-1204 timeline. While many will tell you the Byzantine Empire was finished after the 4th crusade, I would strongly beg to differ. The problem is not that Constantine didn’t want Urban’s cannon he did the problem is that he simply couldn’t afford it. Even more to the heart of the matter though as others have posted is at this point Byzantium is for all intense purposes already dead someone simply hasn’t come along and buried it yet. Consequently if the Byzantines do manage to hold off the Turks in 1453 they’ll be back since Constantinople sits on too important of a site both economically and strategically to simply ignore and will eventually they will likely succeed.Furthermore if by some quirk of fate the Ottoman state happens to fall apart and splinters into a hundred little petty entities someone else will take the city at some point. The empire had neither the money nor the manpower any longer to fend off its other neighbors indefinitely all who would be looking to take such a valuable prize if the Turks happen to falter. Click to expand.The Turks weren't in the Levant in the seventh century; it was the explosion of the (Arab) Caliphate that took the Levant and Egypt.Even after that, the Romans certainly weren't on the verge of collapse.
Alternate History Byzantine Senate
They remained a powerful entity in the region long after and despite the rise of Islam. The Empire (at least in its Byzantine form) was at its most powerful under Basil II, even though he controlled less land than any of the emperors (rebels and Augustus/Caesar splits aside) prior to the Islamic conquests. And the Empire was defeated by Seljuk Turks at Manzikert, not Arabs.
If you stop the defeat at Manzikert, and get rid of the internal issues that brought it about (Basil II has a son, Isaac I stays healthy and keeps the throne, Romanus IV doesn't become emperor.) by making the state's structure more stable, with mildly competent Emperors, the empire shouldn't have too much trouble. IMO after 1204 the Byzantine Empire was dead, it was just the Mongol invasion which caused it to survive as long as it did. With Muslim Turks populating Anatolia the best Greek source of manpower is gone, and filled with hostiles.Your best bet is to have the Turks lose at Manzikert (or better yet, lose at Ghazni in 1037, which happens in my timeline). That means no Turks in Anatolia, and the only threat really is the decaying Arab caliphate, which by the 1040s was looking pretty weak. With a very competent emperor (think Basil II on steroids), the Byzantines could take a great deal of land from the Arabs, and their future looks much more secure than post-Seljuk.
The reason I think the empire was doomed after 1204 is largely geographic. The Western part of Anatolia is totally defenseless against a power on the plateau. If you want a challenging scenario, but one that is by no means impossible (if you ask me), then you should start with a post-1204 timeline. While many will tell you the Byzantine Empire was finished after the 4th crusade, I would strongly beg to differ. The problem is not that Constantine didn’t want Urban’s cannon he did the problem is that he simply couldn’t afford it. Even more to the heart of the matter though as others have posted is at this point Byzantium is for all intense purposes already dead someone simply hasn’t come along and buried it yet. Consequently if the Byzantines do manage to hold off the Turks in 1453 they’ll be back since Constantinople sits on too important of a site both economically and strategically to simply ignore and will eventually they will likely succeed.Furthermore if by some quirk of fate the Ottoman state happens to fall apart and splinters into a hundred little petty entities someone else will take the city at some point.
The empire had neither the money nor the manpower any longer to fend off its other neighbors indefinitely all who would be looking to take such a valuable prize if the Turks happen to falter. Click to expand.Exactly my point.What did Basil plan to invade in the east?The problem with a victory at Manzikert, it doesn't mean the Turks will never attack again. As AHP has pointed out in other threads, they are basically horse nomads, who are extremely hard to decisively defeat. So even after Manzikert they would just come back, sooner or later, with a new army.Your best bet is that the Turks never invade at all, which could be accomplished at many different places. That would mean only hostile Arabs, not Turks, and the Seljuks wouldn't re-invigorate Islam ITTL. On the other hand, the Seljuks were not interested in Anatolia, and tried to make peace with the Byzantines before Manzikert.
A victory wouldn't have stopped raids, but it would have given the empire a couple of years of breathing space to get the army in order, and after that, I think they could probably have held their own.While horse nomads are difficult to defeat decisively, it is possible to establish an effective defense against them especially in mountainous terrain, and the Byzantines were probably more capable of this than anyone else. Exactly my point.What did Basil plan to invade in the east?The problem with a victory at Manzikert, it doesn't mean the Turks will never attack again.
As AHP has pointed out in other threads, they are basically horse nomads, who are extremely hard to decisively defeat. So even after Manzikert they would just come back, sooner or later, with a new army.Your best bet is that the Turks never invade at all, which could be accomplished at many different places. That would mean only hostile Arabs, not Turks, and the Seljuks wouldn't re-invigorate Islam ITTL.