AHC: Keep Islam out of North Africa

[Basileus Giorgios]

So do you think it would be fair to say that Heralclius is partially responsible for the Byzantine decline?

Over the past few years, I began to see Heraclius less as a hero that just received a bit of bad luck, and more as a guy who really turned a bad situation into something much, much worse by his hubris.

Yes, I think it is indeed fair to say- though I think it's going too far to blame him entirely- Heraclius was a man limited by his time, and, really, once he got into his stride, he proved to be a very effective Emperor. He also can have had no idea whatsoever about the Arabs being just round the corner.

 

[Elfwine]

Of course, while no Heraclian revolt may change the situation in regards to Persia, it means either a) Phocas remained emperor (which is a horrible thought), or b) someone else takes the throne.

Which is likely to be problematic.

I wouldn't say Heraclius did everything right, but I'm not sure the ERE would have benefited from the alternatives to his usurpation.

 

[Colin]

Can I put in a bid for a much earlier POD which stops of minimizes the Donatist controversy which caused a deep schism within the North African church that was never healed. This could have enabled Tunisia, Algeria & Morocco to have retained a substantial Christian minority a la Egypt.

 

[Basileus Giorgios]

I wouldn't say Heraclius did everything right, but I'm not sure the ERE would have benefited from the alternatives to his usurpation.

I don't know. Phocas remaining on the throne means, in all probability, a bad and humiliating defeat for the ERE, but not the catastrophic rout of OTL. In any case, he was an elderly and unpopular man, and wouldn't have been able to hold out for more than a few years longer than OTL- in all probability, he gets succeeded by his militarily-experienced son in law Priscus.

 

[Elfwine]

I don't know. Phocas remaining on the throne means, in all probability, a bad and humiliating defeat for the ERE, but not the catastrophic rout of OTL. In any case, he was an elderly and unpopular man, and wouldn't have been able to hold out for more than a few years longer than OTL- in all probability, he gets succeeded by his militarily-experienced son in law Priscus.

Possibly. And how old was he (Phocas)? You say elderly, if I've seen his age anywhere I can't remember.

But even if losing less-than-devastatingly to Persia, he's still a horribly bloody ruler.

On Heraclius:

If the Arab conquest had never happened, Heraclius would look completely successful against Persia instead of beating Persia only to lose against the Arabs.

 

[Basileus Giorgios]

Possibly. And how old was he (Phocas)? You say elderly, if I've seen his age anywhere I can't remember.

But even if losing less-than-devastatingly to Persia, he's still a horribly bloody ruler.

On Heraclius:

If the Arab conquest had never happened, Heraclius would look completely successful against Persia instead of beating Persia only to lose against the Arabs.

And now, typically, I can't find anything to back this up. I think Phocas was in his fifties at the time of his coup, though- he had a grown up daughter, by this point, so can't have been anything less than forty.

Agree on the Arabs and Heraclius though.

 

[Elfwine]

And now, typically, I can't find anything to back this up. I think Phocas was in his fifties at the time of his coup, though- he had a grown up daughter, by this point, so can't have been anything less than forty.

Agree on the Arabs and Heraclius though.

Seems to be a potential what if scenario. I don't know Priscus from Adam I'm sad to say, but there's nothing about Heraclius that suggests He and He Alone could save things if they went bad regardless of that revolt.

 

[Xeal II]

The best POD for this is Maurice remaining on the throne for a longer period, either by eliminating Phocas or by not forcing the army to winter north of the Danube.

Any point after this, the ERE is going to be screwed. Keep Phocas on the throne, and the Persians are still going to cause a lot of damage. They have the initiative, Phocas destabilized the regime pretty badly. Even if we have a son of his (the example of Priscus) as a competent Emperor, he'd have a lot of damage to repair.

Basically once Phocas comes into power and Chosrau II has an excuse to invade, it's all going to go to pot no matter who is at the helm. Chosrau II was kind of an idiot too, bankrupting his Empire to fight Rome when, in many ways, Rome was the source of his income in the first place. Persia and Rome, no matter how bad of enemies they were, did quite a lot of trading together. Destroying that economy with large scale invasions was a dumb idea to begin with. Maybe the guy was filled with dreams of Achaemenid glory, but whatever his reasons, it was unlikely Persia was ever going to hold on to those regions for any real length of time anyway.

I disagree, Giorgios, about Heraclius, by the way. I don't think it's his fault that events spiraled out of control. It's my opinion that he was the best the ERE had any right to expect during that era, and it'd be very unlikely anyone could have done much better, short of some sort of military genius like Belisarius or Narses suddenly showing up and miraculously driving off the Arabs.

Fact is, even if Phocas never came to power, the ERE might still have lost Egypt, Syria and Palestine. The religious controversy was tearing the Empire apart longer before the Persians or even the Arabs showed up. The fact that every Christian sect thought they could and should force their opinion on everyone else was ultimately self destructive, destroying the syncretism that made the Roman Empire possible in the first place.

 

[Snake Featherston]

Challenge is easily answered:

Constantinople falls in 717. Absorbing the entirety of the ERE and Sassanian Empires occupies the Caliphate and it starts pushing into the steppes and into Europe proper pushed by the momentum of easy conquests of a bunch of petty collapsing states. Millennia later from the Muslim dominion of Al-Khabir comes a man named Ibn Khuldun who contacts the Taino people having sought a more rapid link with the spices of the far eastern fringe of the Muslim world.....

 

[MNP]

If you're okay with having Cyrenaica and Egypt Islamic, then my own TL provides one way.

 

[Pachac]

Given the fact that they managed to lay siege on constantinople in 626 before Heraclius counterattacked (the situation was so desperate that even Heraclius briefly considered to abandond the city - especially because the awars ravaged the balkans at the same time), an invasion of Anatolia would not appear to "waste" so much resources.
Additionally after his coup Phocas slayed the family of the previous emperor Maurikios, and established a reign of terror and was universially disliked (when Heraclius toppled him he was hailed as a liberator).
Now Chosrau II. had produced a heir (theodius) which he claimed had escaped the massacre and wanted to help him to regain the throne in exchange for territorial compensation.
As the reverse had happend with Chosrau himself - he was evicted by the nobels and regained the power with the help of byzantine emperor Maurikios who received territorial gains in Armenia - this plan may have worked.

But wether it would or not the romans were unable to offer resistance against Anatolia as OTL proved.

This is a fair bit of Gibberish. Our faithful Khosrow Parviz was a man who drained the coffers beyind relief just getting money to invade Egypt. Invading Anatolia made him sell crown lands to the provincial landlords to get more money, which basically decentralized the state.

 

[Elfwine]

This is a fair bit of Gibberish. Our faithful Khosrow Parviz was a man who drained the coffers beyind relief just getting money to invade Egypt. Invading Anatolia made him sell crown lands to the provincial landlords to get more money, which basically decentralized the state.

That answers a question of mine on how he managed to be doing so well and yet Heraclius was able to push things into a position where his successor agreed to "this was all a completely useless war" peace terms.

"He wasn't doing so well."

Why didn't he stop while he was ahead, though? Take Syria and maaaaaybe Egypt, but leave it there?