Challenge: Tunisia just as Italian as Sicily

Make Tunisia and Sicily be in possession of the same amount of "Italian-ness"

Based one three prime factors:

1- Italian Culture (Including Italian Language)
2- Italian Religion
3- 'Politically Italian'
 

Straha

Banned
Easy: The Christians never retake sicily so Sicily becomes cultrually like Tunisia. Voila both are at the same degree of being Italian(read: none at all).
 
Easy: The Christians never retake sicily so Sicily becomes cultrually like Tunisia. Voila both are at the same degree of being Italian(read: none at all).

Damn! you figured out the loophole that I built into it! :p I was hoping that it would go a few posts before someone did that...
 

Straha

Banned
Damn! you figured out the loophole that I built into it! :p I was hoping that it would go a few posts before someone did that...

You just said both had to be of the same amount of italian-ness. You didn't say that both had to actually BE of Italian culture. :p ;)
 
You just said both had to be of the same amount of italian-ness. You didn't say that both had to actually BE of Italian culture. :p ;)

Thats what we call a built in loophole! :p You really should have waited a few posts to point that out, though... ;)
 
Well, had that French King, Louis XII I think, managed to retain Tunisia as one of his holdings during the XIIIth century, and managed to keep it from Arabs taking it again, we have quite a few possibilities open. Eventually, a (Christian and Catholic) Tunisia revolts from France, or is set up as a separate kingdom ruled by, let's say, one of the sons of a king of Sicily that takes on the French holdings while the French are distracted elsewhere. Therefore, we shall have a kingdom of Three Sicilies, which, when (and if) Italy forms out of proto-Italian states, will add Tunisia/Carthage (which might be the name used) to the eventual Italian state.
 
In Muslims Win At Tours, Sicily, as part of the Sicilian Roman Empire, ends up more in the Greek sphere of influence, though with many Italian elements in culture as well. Meanwhile, "Carthage" was reconquered by the Italian Western Roman Empire, and has a Italian-Arabic culture (the best analouge could be Malta). So neither are politically Italian, and both have some elements of Italian culture and language.
 
Would it actually be possible to colonize Tunisia to this degree in the 13th century? Or would Muslim pressure be too great? For some reason I always thought the Berbers would raid too much for Europeans to cope.
 
I'm just curious if they'd be a net importer of everything. Do They have enough to offer in return? Grain? I know they have a bit of oil, but that wouldn't manifest itself till later. Seems like it would be a money pit:l
 

HueyLong

Banned
I'm just curious if they'd be a net importer of everything. Do They have enough to offer in return? Grain? I know they have a bit of oil, but that wouldn't manifest itself till later. Seems like it would be a money pit:l

Dates were quite profitable, and commerce could be well controlled from Tunisia.
 
Dates were quite profitable, and commerce could be well controlled from Tunisia.

So what about Venice or another Italian Trading City taking up the task?

A more powerful Venice could be more successfull in building up its empire and adding Tunis to it. Maybe in alliance with the Johannites, who resettle Christians there, and sometimes with help of a minor crusade.
 
After his victory in Lepanto, Don Juan of Hapsburg was appointed by some to be assigned a throne that could be Tunis. Let's suppose Philip II is able to divert resources to the conquest of Tunis and decides to cede it as independent kingdom to his half-brother. The new kingdom is populated by italians, and with the help of Spain, the Papal States and Venice manages to survive to the XIX century. When the Napoleonic wars erupt, thousands of italians flee to Tunisia. By the end of the century, when Italy is reunified nobody is surprised when Tunisia is claimed as integral part of Italy.
 
The ony possibility is that the Arabs are stopped outside, or chased only after a brief domination. Then, to "Italianize" Tunisia, requires an Italian kingdom, possibily centered in the south, to exist already around 1000 A.D.
In my Interference TL Ifrigia (i.e.Tunisia) is mostly Neo-Latin, but not Italian; it speaks a neo-Latin language heavuly influenced by northern Berber dialects and with significant Arab borrowings, despite being usually under the Sicilian-based Western "Roman" empire, which in turn has evolved an own highly Grecized Sicilian language for ceremonial and court literature.
 
Would it actually be possible to colonize Tunisia to this degree in the 13th century? Or would Muslim pressure be too great? For some reason I always thought the Berbers would raid too much for Europeans to cope.
Well, Carthage isn't all of OTL Tunisia, just the city itself and a hinterland that expands and contracts depending on how powerful the state in charge in.
 
well then, What do you think would be the most likely effects if a Crusader State were set up in Tunisia around say, the mid 12th century, and kept in Christian hands until the present?
(possible, I'd say, considering that its most likely base of support, the Italian maritime states, are much, much closer then to the Levant)
 
I mean you could have it as a part of Mussolini's italy, either by a POD where it is claimed for italy or where he is on the winning side of a war..and then colonizing it..
 
Easy: The Christians never retake sicily so Sicily becomes cultrually like Tunisia. Voila both are at the same degree of being Italian(read: none at all).

I was just going to write something like this... I am italian and for some italians Sicily and part of the southern Italy already have the same italianity of Tunisia and northern Africa in general, being it zero, without the need of any history alteration... :)

but this may be a sensitive issue.

anyway, let's say that Frederick II furtherly consolidate his reign toward the african coast...
 
The ony possibility is that the Arabs are stopped outside, or chased only after a brief domination. Then, to "Italianize" Tunisia, requires an Italian kingdom, possibily centered in the south, to exist already around 1000 A.D.
In my Interference TL Ifrigia (i.e.Tunisia) is mostly Neo-Latin, but not Italian; it speaks a neo-Latin language heavuly influenced by northern Berber dialects and with significant Arab borrowings, despite being usually under the Sicilian-based Western "Roman" empire, which in turn has evolved an own highly Grecized Sicilian language for ceremonial and court literature.

I agree that an Italianized Tunesia is only plausible if the Arab conquest of the area is somehow prevented or short lived.

However, IMHO there are three good opportunities for an Italianized Tunesia:

1) prevent the Barbarian invasions and the fall of the Western Roman Empire, so that Northwest Africa remains under Roman (i.e. Italian) influence for much longer.

2) have the Barbarian invasions proceed, but prevent the Vandal invasion of North Africa, so that at least a remnant of the Western Roman Empire survives in at least southern Italy, Sicily, and North Africa. (maybe it's even possible to transfer the Western Roman capital from Ravenna to Carthage)

3) make Theodoric the Great of Ostrogothic Italy even more succesful, and let him carry out his plans of invading the area of Tunesia (in OTL, this didn't happen because he died before he could start such an invasion).
 
well then, What do you think would be the most likely effects if a Crusader State were set up in Tunisia around say, the mid 12th century, and kept in Christian hands until the present?
(possible, I'd say, considering that its most likely base of support, the Italian maritime states, are much, much closer then to the Levant)

That's a rather interesting idea, actually.

However, I doubt wether such a state would become completely Italianized.

Assuming that this state would be a pretty large, stable and succesful Crusader kingdom, then at least during the first century, the Christian population would mainly consist of merciants, soldiers and colonists that are maily from Italy, France and Spain. There will be a number of local converts during that first century, but their numbers will not be large enough to make a real difference.

The Christian population would be very mixed, and the main language of the Christian population would propably be Lingua Franca or a similar mixed language, and this language would then most propably become the official language of the kingdom at some point.

And in case this kingdom survives and manages to hold on to a significant part of Tunesia until the modern age, then in time, a good part (propably the majority) of the Arab/Berber Muslim population would convert.

But these converted Muslims would either assimilate and adopt the official language of the kingdom (Lingua Franca, or a language that is derived from that), or they would continue to speak an Arabic or Berber dialect, not unlike the Maltese.

And if the majority of the converted Arabs and Berbers assimilate into the colonist population (which is quite likely), then this will lead to an influx of Arabic, and to a lesser extent, Berber loanwords into the language of the colonists, which will make the local Christian culture even less Italian (even though it was never completely Italian to begin with) and more uniquely Tunesian.

On the long therm, the result would be very interesting, as the kingdom would most propably have develop its own unique language and culture. But the odds are that the kingdom would not become Italianized.
 
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