Varus Dies Before Battle of Teutoburg Forest
- Thread starter Anaxagoras
- Start date
Imagine when that empire finally breaks up it will spinter east, west and south rather than just east and west.In a century or two:
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A permanent division of this empire into an European "Carolingian" WRE and a Middle Eastern "Byzantine" ERE is quite plausible, following the Latin/Greek cultural divide (although a political fragmentation of Europe due to barbarian invasions is ASB; there are not enough unassimilated barbarians left). I'm somewhat skeptical that a third African "Egyptian" half could survive rebasorption by the other two stronger splinters.
It just seems like to much land for the eastern empire to control for any long period of time.
Maybe a four-way division that actually holds: The far west (Britain, France, Spain, Morocco), Balkans (more or less), Anatolia and the Levant, and then Egypt.
A bit less, to my eye, although that is a rough guess.
But the Achaemenid Empire isn't the greatest example of a centralized state, now, is it?
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Insufficient manpower base to accomplish anything more than putting the occasional barbarian dynasty on the imperial throne at the very most. Finns and Ugrians were much less populous than Germanics, depending on which theory on the Slavic homeland you listen to, Slavs may be left largely Romanized and assimilated within the boundaries of this empire, Mongol and Turkish breakouts are not scheduled for many centuries and by then the empire or its successor states are going to be far too strong. (with the possible exception of Genghis Khan, assuming he's not butterflied away and that Roman successor states have not by then perfected the weapons and doctrine to counter nomad warfare effectively, which is quite likely).
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Eurofed
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Why the Balkans should remain a different block, instead of being assimilated by its stronger European or Levant counterparts ? It has not gone that way the last 1600 years, all the way to the nation-states.
Remember that the map projection distorts the Egyptian-Nubian area into looking much bigger than the rest.
Roman administration was much better.
In OTL, yes but maybe if they border the advanced and powerful Roman empire, wont they begin to pick up agricultural techniques and such, like the Germanics did in OTL?
Yeah, the Slavic ethonogenesis may even be butterflied away by this POD. But somebody is going to be living on the Empire's borders...
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Quite possible, but would they manage to grow enough to become a worthwhile threat for this empire, or its European successor, which would tap all the european manpower and economic base, instead of getting vassallized ? I'm quite dubious.
Living on the Empire's borders and breaking them through at large are different things.
I doubt anyone but Genghis Khan (maybe) has the resources to do it.Getting back to the original POD...
Who would replace Varus? And could Arminius schnooker him like he did Varus in OTL?
Who would replace Varus? And could Arminius schnooker him like he did Varus in OTL?
The economic and military importance of Byzantium means that the Balkans and Anatolia are a unit.
Eurofed
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This could be a fairly plausible breakup model of the succesful Roman Empire. The weaker "Egyptian" third may be able to remain independent if it manages to be a buffer between its two stronger siblings. It is a geopolitically and culturally stable and coherent enough setup which I can see remaining essentially intact up to modern times (although colonization patterns when the three empires hit the Age of Exploration may destabilize the setup, esp. when the European empire manages to colonize most of the New World and pull on its resources). Some border areas like Greece and Syria-Palestine almost surely get traded back and forth in wars endless times.
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Eurofed
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In all likelihood, the Hun shall not be any worse than a big, decades-long border headache. All the Germanic/Slavic tribes that were the spearhead of the Hun are loyal Roman citizens ITTL (and the Finnougric tribes won't have time to grow enough and become their TTL equivalent) and make the WRE much stronger instead. Hence, there won't be any "Migration", only yet another Central Asian nomad border clash.