A very late Byzantine resurgance

Tyr

I've been playing EU3 again lately. Doing the old fun thing which every EU fan likes to do of bringing back Byzantium from the brink and creating a new super Roman empire.
This of course is just a game. History doesn't work anything like it. Nonetheless, it has got me reading a little on the dying days of byzantium and the history of the Turks and...well. The rise of the Ottomans was in itself a crazy fluke on a par with Byzantium rising again.
Rum collapsed, a bunch of little Turkish states popped out and the Ottomans rose to the top of the pile.
In the first days of the 15th century however history looked to be repeating itself. Huge civil war amongst the Turks, they were threatening to break apart, Byzantium even briefly grabbed Thessaloniki again.

So....WI....
The Ottomans do fall apart and the Turks once again become a bunch of petty statelets. The Byzantines get a fit of good luck and decent leaders and manage to reclaim a lot of lost territory.
They're never going to get the empire back but nonetheless, the big Islamic-Christian battle remaining a rather small scale local squabble in the Balkans and Anatolia rather than the epic war of civilizations it once again became with the Ottoman advance makes for quite an interesting thought. It could really change quite a lot in Europe....
 
Cuāuhtemōc

Cuāuhtemōc

Banned
That would require Timur crossing the Hellespont and finishing off the Ottomans before Bayezid's sons are able to take power in their respective territories and it's not like Constantinople (an over glorified village by then) was going to be spared by a fervent ghazi like Timur. Constantinople gets captured and sacked and the Balkans are left in a mess.
 

Tyg

Cuāuhtemōc said:
That would require Timur crossing the Hellespont and finishing off the Ottomans before Bayezid's sons are able to take power in their respective territories and it's not like Constantinople (an over glorified village by then) was going to be spared by a fervent ghazi like Timur. Constantinople gets captured and sacked and the Balkans are left in a mess.
Click to expand...

el t said:
It would only delay the final downfall.
Click to expand...

This gives me an idea. Constantinople seems doomed with a POD involving Timur, but might it not (permanently) fall to a state other than the Ottomans or another Turkish successor?

Suppose the Balkans are indeed trashed by the Ottoman civil war and/or Timur crossing the Hellespont. Constantinople isn't in a good position to gain from this, even if it hasn't been sacked and burned by Timur. But is that true of Hungary?

Serbia and Bulgaria have been beaten by the Ottomans and Timur, but the Hungarians are probably spared the same losses. With the Balkans left in chaos, would Hungary try once more to evict the Turks (in this case, Turkic statelets/Timurid vassals) from Europe? If so, what keeps Hungary from marching to Constantinople, to its "rescue"?
 

Dalmighty

It depends how far Timur goes. Does he leave Constantinople alone, raze Constantinople and leaves or goes for the whole Balkans?

The last scenario might lead to Timur heading up to Hungary, bypassing Macedonia and Greece. After a few more butterflies, the King of Hungary dies in combat against the Timurids, Austria and Poland come and help stop the Timur advance, and while everyone is preoccupied with the fate of Hungary and the devastated Balkans, the surviving Byzantines retake the coast up to Constantinople and Anatolia, while slowly expanding back up into the Balkans.

Fanciful, but not impossible.
 

el t

Byzantine Resurgance

Asia Minor is already largely Turkified at this time period. It would be very difficult for a Byzantine government to attempt a resettlement and reconquest.
 

eliphas8

Cuāuhtemōc said:
That would require Timur crossing the Hellespont and finishing off the Ottomans before Bayezid's sons are able to take power in their respective territories and it's not like Constantinople (an over glorified village by then) was going to be spared by a fervent ghazi like Timur. Constantinople gets captured and sacked and the Balkans are left in a mess.
Click to expand...

Well but the city was still defenseable, in order to truly siege Constantinople you need a navy in the Mediterranean to stop them from from getting food from elsewhere. He would probably just abandon the siege after awhile.
 

cimon

It can be done,centred in Peloponnese,capturing Athens and making it the capital of the new empire,occupying Greece to the north,and while already holding some of the islands, extend sovereignty over the rest and go on from there,
 
Last edited:

CandyDragon

They'd probably lose Anatolia forever, but I can imagine them occupying Greece, Macedonia, and southern Thrace for quite a while, if they play it well enough.
 

freethinker

I guess this sounds dumb..

but what if they last until say 1480 because of the maneuvers just mentioned
any kind of chance of a Russian intervention?
 

Fredrick II Barbarossa

Cuāuhtemōc said:
No, not at all.
Click to expand...
Wait wasnt the reason why the romans lost the support of the Russians because Ionnas converted to Catholicism. So I thought due to this the rus felt betrayed and abandoned the romans and it caused thousands of people to be jailed or killed as dissidents.
By the way Im wondering would it have been possible for an alliance to be made between Timur and the romans. Say like a royal marriage or something like that to goad TImur into attacking and ravaging the ottoman land completely. THen while this is happening Serbia seizes the opportunity and invades Ottoman balkans while Hungary moves its forces against Ottoman Bulgaria to seize it. I believe this multi front war would cripple the ottomans but at the same time say the serbs and Hungarians suffer terrible casualties leading to their offensive capabilities completly crippled as do the ottomans whose Balkan possestions get completly destroyed while Anatolia is depopulated by timurids and then Timur dies leading to the collapse of his Khanate. I can slightly see Byzantium picking up pieces in the balkans from the great mess that has crippled all the major powers in the area. In this scenario Byzantium basically can slightly survive mainly because all its rivals have completely crushed each other and broken themselves fighting each other. Thought. I know its unlikely but still slighlty possible.
 

scholar

Banned
Timur, in spite of popular opinion, didn't raze cities to the ground for fun. He razed them to the ground for cold calculated reasons that were done so often it only makes him appear to thrive off of death. Much Like Genghis Khan, many cities and powers could surrender. Trebizond, the non-Nicean Byzantine Empire that outlasted the Niceans by a good few years, actually enjoyed favorable relations with Timur and sided with the Timurids against the Ottomans without ever being struck. Only after the Timurids no longer had any power over the region, and the ottomans regained control of their enterprise, was Trebizond in peril. Even then it is arguable that Trebizond could have continued to rule as exist for quite a while should they have not abused their relations with neighboring Muslim states.
 

Tyr

I wasn't thinking about Timur being more successful actually, I was thinking more after that, perhaps with PODs towards the end of it.
I was thinking the Timurids keep their ravaging to Anatolia whilst the Ottomans scrap amongst themselves and their empire breaks apart leaving Byzantium free to 1: Not be conquered by a big neighbour with designs on Constantinople and 2: Maybe take back a few cities from an ex-Ottoman faction or two.


As to Constantinople being a village....on that I am really really unsure. I've read some sources which seem to suggest it had become rather Gormenghastesque, an empty shell with only isolated sections inhabited. Other sources meanwhile seem to suggest it remained a pretty significant and important place despite virtually being a city state.


And yeah, Timur was pretty calculating in deciding where to slaughter for maximum effect. However..assuming we're going down the route of him getting into Europe...the question then is....would the value of the prestige of holding the seat of the Roman empire outweigh the terror torching it would cause?


It would only delay the downfall- not necessarily.
I don't see it being too likely that the Byzanytines would ever become the major power they once were again (but...stranger things have happened- as mentioned with the Ottomans and then with the initial Arab break out for two relevant examples), but...if things stay fragmented in the area I could well see them managing to secure a solid little Greek state.
Even once that is done of course they're not out of the woods. All sorts of things could happen, some ATL Napoleon-analogue could well come along and crush them or Hungary could fill the void as some big all conquering empire or anything. But even if it only delays the fall a century or so the changes could be pretty major. Perhaps I've mistitled this thread here, the major effects will be more from no ottomans than from Byzantium hanging on; the latter just has a coolness factor.
 
Last edited:

frozenpredator

For some reason, i quite like the idea of Hungary taking Constantinople in this scenario and becoming a new Roman Empire centered on the Balkans
 

Don_Giorgio

frozenpredator said:
For some reason, i quite like the idea of Hungary taking Constantinople in this scenario and becoming a new Roman Empire centered on the Balkans
Click to expand...

Indeed... Constantine XI pleaded for help against the Ottomans John Hunyadi in exchange for some territorial gains in Thrace... But the deal didnt work out or it didnt complete in time to save Constantinople (many city defenders reported that they show some lights behind the turkish camp and thought that these lights were Hunyadi's army coming for the rescue but in reality it was just a natural phenomenon).

However after 1300s-340s Constantinople is doomed to fall... Any TLs after these dates simply delay the inevitable...
 

Dalmighty

Don_Giorgio said:
However after 1300s-340s Constantinople is doomed to fall... Any TLs after these dates simply delay the inevitable...
Click to expand...

Not really. If Constantinople falls to a European nation before the Ottomans get around to it, then there's a chance of some Byzantine successor state reforming.

But yeah, if the Ottomans take it, it's over.
 

Tizoc

WI we speed up Timur's attack on Anatolia - maybe Tochtamysz is killed earlier, i.e. during the battle of Kunduzcz (1391) - with TTL battle of Ankara taking place in 1395 or early 1396. And then you have Nicopolis crusade (1396-) into Ottoman Europe...
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top
Top