Hi everybody! This is gonna' be my first post, so hurray! Anyways, the challenge I propose to you is a complete and utter Roman collapse I.E: Western Rome and Byzantium fall around the same time frame and if possible discussing the immediate and long term effects on Latin Civilizations.
AHC: Total Roman Collapse
- Thread starter SirSiggles
- Start date
Easy challenge: The Walls of Constantinople are not maintained to the impressive level that they were, historically. When Attila was ravaging the Empire, a massive earthquake damaged the walls severely, and only an all-out emergency effort by the city's population to repair them saved the day.
So, the effort is less successful and Constantinople falls in AD 447, opening the way to Anatolia, Syria, and Egypt. The Persians would likely take advantage of the opportunity presented. There's no reason to think the West would last much longer than historically (though who knows, perhaps there will be a longer string of puppet Emperors).
So, the effort is less successful and Constantinople falls in AD 447, opening the way to Anatolia, Syria, and Egypt. The Persians would likely take advantage of the opportunity presented. There's no reason to think the West would last much longer than historically (though who knows, perhaps there will be a longer string of puppet Emperors).
Abhakhazia
Banned
This was my first thought too.
I think the West can survive essentially until a major tribe gets to gumption to fully invade Italy if the Vandals manage to stay out of Africa, which is something that would need a POD further back, but since the goal is to collapse both at the same time, you can probably get that earlier from the East falling apart in the 450s.
Hmm now that's some interesting butterflies for the Middle East. The lack of the continuous power struggle between Byzantium and Persia has some pretty amazing knock on butterfly effects. Rise of Zoroastrianism as a major religion anyone?
Though I wonder who would end up filling the power vacuum in Greece and the Balkans?
Any assault on Consantinople by Atilla is certain to end in disaster. If he thought it wouldn't, he would have done it OTL. Even if the walls aren't repaired fully, he can't just simply assault the city and win immediately-and any attempt to move on the city will leave him hemmed in by the other field armies in the Balkans (who otherwise always avoided a field battle with him). He'd get destroyed.
You have to go back before the Theodosian Walls. The easiest would be the 3rd century Crisis, because you can have Gothic groups take the Balkans, you have other Gothic groups raiding Anatolia via the Black Sea, and the Sassanians in the east. The Juthungi and Alemanni had been able to invade Italy multiple times, and the Franks had made it as far south as Spain.
You have to go back before the Theodosian Walls. The easiest would be the 3rd century Crisis, because you can have Gothic groups take the Balkans, you have other Gothic groups raiding Anatolia via the Black Sea, and the Sassanians in the east. The Juthungi and Alemanni had been able to invade Italy multiple times, and the Franks had made it as far south as Spain.
If the Persians control most of North Africa and Asia Minor, how does this affect Islam?
Donald Reaver
Donor
We are going to see a totally different Europe from what we know, the butterfly's will be flapping hard.
Welcome to the board, good first post.
Welcome to the board, good first post.
As you surely know, these Franks, which made it to Baetica, were just a few men in 1 ship coming over the Atlantic. They have been prisoners in northern Gallia, who captured a ship and had to sail south, due to the roman fleet in the North Sea. Do not overestimate this raid. Nothing serious, but nervertheless they devastated a lot on their way back to the Rhine. I wonder why Hollywood never picked up this impressing adventure.
But I agree, the Roman empire could have easily collapsed during the later 3nd century. Actually it is rather a miracle, that it did not.
Or Attila sieges or bypasses Constantinople. The ERE payed a lot of gold every year to prevent this scenario.
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ManintheField
Banned
If the Eastern Roman government fails to extirpate the Germans that dominated the military and highest orders of government in the East the East would follow a path very similar to the West. Settle some tribes on the Persian frontier as wholes, have them essentially take over administration of those areas as happened in the West, and the Roman Empire could disintegrate into a tribally dominated fragments in general, rather than just in the West.
I do not remember exactly when, but once a gothic magister militum tried to usurp and most probably to implement a similar governement (puppet emperor) like in the west. Luckily the plebs of Constantinople has beaten the Goths in bloody street fights. The WRE was less lucky. Due to the move of the capital to Mediolanum and later Ravenna there was no plebs and no senate to support the emperor anymore and the foreign magistri had an easy job. One of many major differences why the East did not fall. The role of the plebs of Rome is widely underestimated.
But if these Goths win, you may get a greatly destabilized ERE.
Do you end up with a Ostro- Ostro-Gothic Kingdom of the Balkans then? Constantinople is a great site from the perspective of nailing down trade, security, and having a big fortified center close to Anatolia and Danube. Almost a shame not to have a polity there...
Yes, but I always like to mention it because it is a microcosm of how weak the Roman Empire was.
In both scenarios, he's a dead man. The ERE would have loved for him to siege Constantinople. It would drag on, he would be trapped in a bottleneck as the field armies converged on him from the Balkans, and his army would be destroyed. If he tries to cross the Hellespont, he's a goner too-he doesn't have a fleet and has 0 experience with one. He can't cross. It will just hold him up and, once more, give the ERE armies time to pincer him and hem him in. Attila was very smart-if he thought an assault on Constantinople would be successful, he would have tried it. But he knew it would be counterproductive and spell his ruin.
I am not sure.
The huns already desintegrated more than 2 roman armies on the balkan. Roman armies did just not work against the huns. That is at least what the romans thought after these terrible defeats.
Cavalry armies, especially light cavalry are indeed near to invicible, if you try to catch them. They simply run, if things go wrong. On the other hand, they are not that good in defeating an army, which is holding a position. So Attilas challenge would have been to destroy these roman armies on the Balkan first, before he sieges Constantinople. I am not sure, if that was impossible.
If Attila is catched by an roman army while sieging Constantinople, he is toast. No question about that. But I am afraid Attila knew that.
I have no doubt about the siege itself, because the Huns were pretty experienced in sieges. While the germans were lousy before they learned from the huns.
Regarding ships and the Huns. Nobody thought, that the Vandals would ever have ships. But they did it. And the Huns, at this point of time already had an empire with a lot of other tribes. They simply could have used a gothic fleet. I am not sure, that they could not have bypassed Constantinople. And afterwards? Who should stop them while raiding Asia, Syria, heck even down to Egypt? The magister orientalis? Honestly?
I repeat my opinion: without the gold of the ERE, history would have been different in the east.
PS: What I never understood with all thes steppe-tribe-armies from huns to mongols: Somewhere must be a kind of camp, with women, kids and all the nice loot and supplies. In the case of Attila somewhere in Pannonia. If you attack this point, they must defend. And light cavalry armies are terrible in defending a fixed point. Well, when Attila reached Pannonia, it was no pure cavalry army anymore.
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Yeah, but there's a reason Constantinople was only ever taken once by siege without cannons.
They had years of experience as pirate raiders before they attempted anything serious. They never truly became really good at naval warfare until they had secured control of N.Africa. And even then they likely only got to North Africa with help from Boniface. The Huns are in a completely different situation-they are a land empire who have to build a navy on the Hellespont on the spot. I don't see why they'd have much more success than the Avars.
The Huns could get into Anatolia by other means before Attila however-have them settle, say, on the Black Sea, and launch raids across the Caucasus into Persian and Roman territory.
Then it begs the question of why didn't they try? How weak was Attila's actual control that far north-east that he never attempted to raid the Sassanian Empire or attempt to raid Anatolia? As you said, it's a gold mine-why would Attila, for instance, choose the WRE over another attack on the ERE or one on the Sassanian Empire? Part of it has to do with the Romans were content to pay him loads of money, but it must hint that his control over the vassals to his east probably wasn't very strong. Then there's still the ERE fleet to contend with, which isn't as weak as its western counterpart. Even during the third century, after a few slip ups, the Roman fleet was up to the task of crushing the Gothic one in time.
Eventually, Slavs. IOTL, they got all the way to Greece and only continuous Byzantine efforts managed to "re-hellenize" the majority of it. Without Byzantium, Greece and most of the Balkans become fully Slavic. Who knows how far they go, maybe we can even have a Slavic nation in Anatolia.
I have a possible thought for long term-effects. With a stronger Persia and a weaker Islam, the Turkish tribes might stay cooped up in Central Asia.
You are getting wayyy ahead of yourself my friend. Islam doesn't happen here, period nor is the movement of the Turks at all predestined.