Plausibility of a Byzantine Egypt...

[Sassanid Saxon]

I know this has been discussed before but I was wondering what the best POD for a continuing or reconquered Byzantine Egypt would be. Some good ones I've found on the forum:


Maurice I surviving and leaving the Empire stronger in the 7th century to face the early caliphate (due to less intense wars with the Sassanids and no Phocas).

Basil II having an heir who continues the conquests of the Macedonian dynasty.

Issac's Empire. Enough said.

Manuel I not losing to the Seljuks in 1176, being more focused on the east and being successful in his Egyptian expedition of 1169.

Thanks for your feedback, I'm not looking for a Rhomania wank, but the idea of the Romans having an state similar to that of the classical Ottomans fascinates me!

[Derek Pullem]

Originally Posted by Sassanid Saxon

I know this has been discussed before but I was wondering what the best POD for a continuing or reconquered Byzantine Egypt would be. Some good ones I've found on the forum:


Maurice I surviving and leaving the Empire stronger in the 7th century to face the early caliphate (due to less intense wars with the Sassanids and no Phocas).

Basil II having an heir who continues the conquests of the Macedonian dynasty.

Issac's Empire. Enough said.

Manuel I not losing to the Seljuks in 1176, being more focused on the east and being successful in his Egyptian expedition of 1169.

Thanks for your feedback, I'm not looking for a Rhomania wank, but the idea of the Romans having an state similar to that of the classical Ottomans fascinates me!

First option is most likely in my opinion - or even better Germanus / Theodosius actually conspring to remove Maurice as he suspected and succeeding (and boosting the pay of the army too)

[CandyDragon]

Not murdering Nikephoros Phokas, perhaps. He was an effective general, and as was the man who succeeded him, his OTL murder John Tzimiskes.

[Grumpy young Man]

This is interesting scenario. Anyone has ideas about the progress of assimilation in Egypt? I presume only big cities would experience thorough hellenization in the centuries to come.

[Sassanid Saxon]

If the Macedonian dynasty had not collapsed and the 50 year morass in between them and the Komnenoi hadn't happened, it would have been easier for the Romans to take additional territory in the Eastern Med (though admittedly still difficult because of religious differences in the region). Manuel I's expedition in 1169 was very ambitious, if it had been more successful, would a religiously tolerant Empire emerged (due to Egypt's Muslim and Coptic population)?

[pieman3141]

Religious tolerance too. Egypt was pretty fed up with the ERE by the 600s.

[Basileus Giorgios]

Originally Posted by pieman3141

Religious tolerance too. Egypt was pretty fed up with the ERE by the 600s.

No, it was not. See Whittow's book for a more thorough analysis of this, but basically, despite exceptionally good records for Egypt in the sixth and seventh centuries, there are almost no mentions of religious persecution. There were certainly grievances, but these were mostly around the eternal politics of land, agriculture, and taxation. Ideas by the Egyptians that they were religiously or otherwise separate from other peoples in the Roman Empire are pretty much never mentioned.

The best POD is, obviously, to avoid the chaos of the seventh century, probably by avoiding the coup against Maurice, or somehow preventing Heraclius' revolt against Phocas. There'll still probably be some sort of war with Persia the moment Maurice dies, be it by coup or naturally, but without the civil war of 608-610 to throw the empire off balance, it'll probably be at worst a repeat of the Persian breakthrough of 540.

Conquest in the tenth or eleventh century is just about plausible, but it requires a lot of luck on the part of the Byzantines- the Fatimids were a very formidable power, after all. In Isaac's Empire, after all, the Byzantines were only able to occupy Egypt after the Mongols had thoroughly destroyed the Egyptian army and bureaucracy first. The Empire in IE was simply opportunistically moving into a vacuum of power, rather than making an aggressive conquest of a powerful independent Egyptian state.

Anyway, Merry Christmas y'all.

[TyranicusMaximus]

Originally Posted by pieman3141

Religious tolerance too. Egypt was pretty fed up with the ERE by the 600s.

To expand on BG, I posted the relevant excerpts from that book in another thread.

[Horgus]

Maurice I surviving and leaving the Empire stronger in the 7th century to face the early caliphate (due to less intense wars with the Sassanids and no Phocas).

This is easily the best POD here.

Maurice's murder and the subsequent civil war by Phocas really did such damage to the empire that it never recovered. Even Heraclius, as brilliant as he was, could only temporarily (and through almost superhuman effort) hold the empire together.

[Sassanid Saxon]

I agree, Maurice is a greatly underrated Emperor. On Egypt though, it does seem like the ERE of Basil II's day and afterwards was very cautious about conquest to the east and south beyond Antioch. Indeed, Roman armies could have marched upon Mosul, Damascus, Jerusalem or even Baghdad during the early 11th century. Indeed, before dying Basil, having subjugated Bulgaria, was planning an invasion of Sicily instead. Without Manzikert, I could see the ERE coming to encompass the Balkans, Anatolia and parts of Italy, but the riches of Egypt would be difficult to reach after the rise of Islam.

[Sassanid Saxon]

After reading some more about Basil II's policies towards Muslims in the Empire though, I really don't see why the Romans would not have been able to conquer Egypt/the Levant and rule it in a manner similar that of the crusaders/Ottomans. Without the 60 year hiatus in between Basil II dying without an heir and the Komnenians, I could see a sort of "Byzantine" Ottoman Empire ruling over a substantial Muslim minority. If Manzikert does not happen and the Seljuks make less of an impact (lets say they remain in Mesopotamia and Persia), it will be interesting to see who claims the weakened Fatimid Caliphate.


Just some thoughts, I was working on a timeline idea in which the transition between the Macedonians and the Komnenians was smoother...

[Sassanid Saxon]

http://www.deremilitari.org/resources/pdfs/holmes.pdf

This article in particular inspired some of my thinking. I'm sure alot of you guys have already seen it though, sorry if I'm posting really old news!

[Basileus Giorgios]

Originally Posted by Sassanid Saxon

I really don't see why the Romans would not have been able to conquer Egypt/the Levant and rule it in a manner similar that of the crusaders/Ottomans.

In short, Fatimid Egypt is as powerful and wealthy as eleventh century Byzantium, and so will be a much, much tougher nut to crack. The Empire could do very well in periods where there was a vacuum of power in the Islamic Near East, as there was between about 920 and 970, but when a sizeable Islamic power rose to prominence, expansion at the expense of small Muslim states would generally cease. Byzantium in the 1030s and 1040s probably could have conquered Palestine and Egypt, given a few lucky breaks. But it would have been a back-breaking campaign for minimal reward. Really, once the Empire had secured Crete, Syria and the upper Euphrates, it was happy to redirect its expansion in the East towards the Christian states of the Caucasus, instead of getting into long-drawn out and rather pointless wars with the Fatimids and Buyids.

[OS fan]

Even if there were no bigger uprisings in Egypt before the Arab conquest, this doesn't mean that people weren't unhappy with Constantinople and the Orthodox church. Otherwise, the Arabs would've met more resistance.

Of course, if the Byzantine emperors had tried to unite the Middle East from the very beginning instead of trying to reconquer the West, even if it was futile, then things would turn out in a very different way.

[Sassanid Saxon]

Good points from BG and OS above...

I've also been reading Paul Magdalino's book concerning Manuel I, and it seems that the expedition to Egypt in 1169 was A: intended to conquer as much of the region as possible and B: the crusaders and Romans would have split the Fatimid territories they had acquired up between them. Its fascinating that Manuel would attempt to conquer an area so heavily populated by Muslims and Monophysite Christians. A "Byzantine" millet system perhaps? Diplomacy between Constantinople and Makuria further down the Nile would have interesting too...