Byzantine Reconquest of Egypt

during his reign, Basil II planned to campaing in the Levant all the way south to capture Jerusalem. let's say he manages to do that, and conquer much of the rest the Levant too, and hold it against the Fatimids, Abbaids, Emirs of Aleppo, and so forth.

would this be a good position to launch an invasion / reconquest of Egypt? Basil could raise a fleet and a massive army and attack across the Sinai and through a naval assault. the Fatimids were beginning to decline in the early 11th century I think, so might the Byzantines be able to successfully retake Egypt from the Fatimids and restore it as part of the Empire? or is it ASB by this point?

Egypt

I don't think that the Byzantines had the resources to attempt an undertaking on this scale. The Coptic Christian population would not welcome the return of the Greeks. At this point, Egypt is a very densely populated country, which would difficult to hold.

Not in Basils reign, no. If he lived say, a decade longer, he might have reconquered Sicily, and yeah, perhaps even Jerusalem, but not Egypt. Consequently, the Byzantines may have shown a substantially greater amount of tolerance towards the Muslim population of the region, and allowed wide Islamic access to the city for the sake of pilgrimages. This may have prevented the rise of Saladin or a similar figure.

Even if Basil lived for an extra decade or so however, he wouldn't have been able to take Egypt. The Empire would have its hands full just integrating the Levant into Byzantium. Now if he had a proper heir, then it MIGHT be possible once the Levant was fully pacified and made a productive Roman province.

Pretty much agree with what has been said so far. The Romans would expend a lot of resources for little return at this stage. It would take time over a number of (competent rather than the mostly OTL incompetent) reigns to be in a position to do so. And even then it's not a given.

And as for tolerance, it really depends who the Emperor and Patriarch are at the time. Religious relationships weren't all that smooth even with the Christians in Egypt when it was under Roman control. I am not entirely sure that even if it is retaken it'll be easy enough to control. There'll still be a lot of people there who'll just see the Romans as another unwanted ruler and thus they may well end up having a fair amount of restive activity to deal with.

Even if Basil lives for another decade, it is almost ASB that it'll happen in his reign. However, if someone can build on his sound foundation, and we get another Nicephorus I Phocas or John I Tzimisces or two (in terms of military prowess at least), then they could be cooking on gas with a fair shot of doing something. But I wouldn't hold my breath.


Sargon

well, I just said during Basil's reign because I didn't want to make it too complicated a WI.

so an addition: Basil has a son who is at least mildly as competent as he was (and his son has a son who is half-decent), so we avoid Constantine VIII and Romanos III. could one of them, or a future emperor, after integrating the Levant, possibly attempt to invade Egypt?

How about the Romans kick out the Arabs and Egypt rebels and rules itself ? An independent Christian Egypt in this period would be very interesting !

Best Regards
Grey Wolf

Grey Wolf said:

How about the Romans kick out the Arabs and Egypt rebels and rules itself ? An independent Christian Egypt in this period would be very interesting !

Best Regards
Grey Wolf

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Besides the "how?" question, it's really too late for this.

John was interested in retaking Jerusalem, but Basil was not. He was interested in Tripoli as the Southern anchor of Byzantine territory, but didn't have the resources to take it.

Trying to take the Levant and Egypt would have been overextention to the point of lunacy at this point - maybe a military genius like John could have done it, but I don't see how all this could possibly be held.

rcduggan said:

during his reign, Basil II planned to campaing in the Levant all the way south to capture Jerusalem. let's say he manages to do that, and conquer much of the rest the Levant too, and hold it against the Fatimids, Abbaids, Emirs of Aleppo, and so forth.

would this be a good position to launch an invasion / reconquest of Egypt? Basil could raise a fleet and a massive army and attack across the Sinai and through a naval assault. the Fatimids were beginning to decline in the early 11th century I think, so might the Byzantines be able to successfully retake Egypt from the Fatimids and restore it as part of the Empire? or is it ASB by this point?

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Abdul Hadi Pasha said:

Besides the "how?" question, it's really too late for this.

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Is it ? I read in the thread in Help that before the 14th century, the Copts were about 60% of Egypt's population. Seems it shouldn't be impossible for them to retake control if the Romans kick out the Arab rulers, army etc

As for how, well I don't know, its hardly my period I just thought it was possibly useful as a compromise option in the thread

Best Regards
Grey Wolf

Grey Wolf said:

Is it ? I read in the thread in Help that before the 14th century, the Copts were about 60% of Egypt's population. Seems it shouldn't be impossible for them to retake control if the Romans kick out the Arab rulers, army etc

As for how, well I don't know, its hardly my period I just thought it was possibly useful as a compromise option in the thread

Best Regards
Grey Wolf

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That population figure is impossible. The number of Copts rapidly declined and stabilized at 10% or so. I don't know what it was in 1025, but it was certainly lower than 60%.

In any case, the Byzantines showed no interest in conquering and/or ruling Muslim lands; there were exceptions for strategic purposes, but the Muslim population was invariably eliminated. That doesn't seem practicable in Egypt.

Abdul Hadi Pasha said:

That population figure is impossible. The number of Copts rapidly declined and stabilized at 10% or so. I don't know what it was in 1025, but it was certainly lower than 60%.

In any case, the Byzantines showed no interest in conquering and/or ruling Muslim lands; there were exceptions for strategic purposes, but the Muslim population was invariably eliminated. That doesn't seem practicable in Egypt.

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Well, I shouldn't take my evidence from other threads I guess !

https://www.alternatehistory.com/discussion/showthread.php?t=86130

I suppose I conflated the posts mentally and thought Leo was posting sources for the 60% figure, which is not necessarily the case as to what he was doing

Best Regards
Grey Wolf

Pasha has a point here, one of the biggest things I believe Byzantium would be lacking when it comes to conquering Egypt is simply the will to do so. They had achieved a good thing under Basil, and I don't see why they'd really risk ruining it on some extravagant campaign to reconquer the pre-Muslim Empire.

rcduggan said:

during his reign, Basil II planned to campaing in the Levant all the way south to capture Jerusalem. let's say he manages to do that, and conquer much of the rest the Levant too, and hold it against the Fatimids, Abbaids, Emirs of Aleppo, and so forth.

would this be a good position to launch an invasion / reconquest of Egypt? Basil could raise a fleet and a massive army and attack across the Sinai and through a naval assault. the Fatimids were beginning to decline in the early 11th century I think, so might the Byzantines be able to successfully retake Egypt from the Fatimids and restore it as part of the Empire? or is it ASB by this point?

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As others have pointed out, a Byzantine reconquest of Egypt is very unlikely at this point, even in a best case scenario.

A Byzantine conquest of the Levant should be possible in a best-case scenario (i.e. Basil's successor being a militairy genius, along with the neighbouring Muslim nations having a severe bout of bad luck and the rise of the Seljuks being butterflied away), but even then, a Byzantine conquest of Egypt would be unrealistic.

Sure, the Byzantines could severely weaken the Fatimids, and they might even vassalize them.

But a direct conquest? - no.

The Makurians could (and propably would) take advantage of the decline of the Fatimids by conquering parts of Upper Egypt.

And in a best-case scenario, the Makurians could conquer most or all of Egypt. Again, this is not a likely scenario - but a Makurian conquest of Egypt under these circumstances would certainly be a lot more likely than a Byzantine conquest of Egypt.

Unlike Byzantium, the Makurians didn't have major concerns elsewhere, and the Makurians were a lot more tolerant towards Muslims than the Byzantines usually were.

And Makuria was still going strong during the 11th century, and a Makurian conquest of Egyptian territories is not unprecedented; during the early 960's (shortly before the Fatimid invasion), they managed to conquer as far north as Akhmim.

And archeological evidence from Edfu suggests that, in spite of the Fatimid invasion, the Makurians managed to hold on to at least a good part of these territories for decades.

However, it appears that there is not enough evidence to determine exactly how far Makurian rule extended north, and how long Makurian rule lasted in Upper Egypt. (the Makurians might still have been in control of Edfu and nearby cities like Luxor, Qus and Qift in 1025 - but to my knowledge, there is not enough evidence to conclusively prove or disprove this)

Grey Wolf said:

How about the Romans kick out the Arabs and Egypt rebels and rules itself ? An independent Christian Egypt in this period would be very interesting !

Best Regards
Grey Wolf

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I agree with Abdul - it's really too late for an independant Christian Egypt at this point.

At best, the Makurians might conquer Egypt (which will only happen if the Muslims have the kind of bad luck the Byzantines had when they lost Anatolia to the Seljuks), but that's about it.

An independant Coptic Egypt should be doable in the 8th and early 9th centuries, when there were still major Coptic rebellions.

I'd say the latest realistic POD for an independant Coptic Egypt would be making sure that Ma'mun either horribly screws up early during his reign (which would be unlikely, as he proved himself to be a very capable ruler IOTL), or never becomes Caliph in the first place.

There were revolts throughout Egypt during Ma'mun's reign, and at some point, he even personally led his army to Egypt in order to crush the revolts and restore order there.

If a very weak and incapable Caliph would have ruled during this period and/or if the Abbasids would have been too caught up in a civil war to respond properly to the revolts in Egypt, then the revolts could become so serious that the Muslims could very well lose most of Egypt, at least temporarily.

And in this scenario too, a Makurian conquest of Egypt is not unlikely. (in fact, I'd argue that this is one of the most plausible scenario's for a Makurian conquest of Egypt)

sorry to bump this....

but I was just reading something, that said at one point the Komnenos emperors (John II to be exact) planned to invade and reconquer Egypt, he even laid siege to Damietta for three months. Would it have been possible for the Byzantines under Komnenos to conquer Egypt?

if not, what POD would be needed to make the Komnenos able to conquer Egypt?

The POD would be much earlier then Basil...think Justinian.

The thing is that even before islam, Roman rule over egypt was shacky at least it didn't have the constant berber attacks as the romans had in there other african provinces,

But resentment to roman rule was found every where especially with the Farmers! (they were taxed to hell)

Hence the widespread of christianity in Egypt and the religous discontent that was founded when the romans became christian. Leading to the founding of Donatism and or Monophysites, leading to religous and cultural disunity in Egypt.

The question is whether Egypt could not only stay under its rule but also benifet and become integrated into the empire


Note Egypt is now pretty islamified too so that is another threat too

No need In my Sig tl I am soon going to accomplish this feat after the battle of Manzikert, Ive already had the Byzzies retake the levant and Band Anatolia in a very plausable manner, except for one chapter where I went to far. anyway Most likely Egypt will become Byzantine in another century or two but it will happen in a plausable manner.


Basically my POD is that at the battle of Dyrachium the Byzantines under Alexius I Komnenos win a crushing victory killing Guiscard and his son, thus leaving Sicily open to invasion, next we turn to Anatolia and basically Alexius uses the Veteran 20k army to invade Anatolia, you see in that battle aproximatly 20k Byzantine soldiers participated, I had the seijuk sultan die in a battle and revolts which would rack the Suiejuks, thus allowing Alexius to advance through Anatolia. Think of it like Johns advance through Anatolia in otl or how the first crusade managed to accomplish this feat. I also relied a lot on luck. So in time you will have a Byzantion Egypt just need patience

Nymphaion said:

The POD would be much earlier then Basil...think Justinian.

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Justinian already had Egypt, or did you mean Justinian II?