AHC: Roman Sicily and Naples

Your challenge is to make it so that the Eastern Roman Empire survives in southern Italy after the fall of Constantinople to the Ottoman Empire.

What needs to happen to make this possible? and would the Ottoman try and invade Italy to capture this last vestige of the Roman Empire?
 
Well you could have Manuel Komnenos be a little bit more successful in his battles against the Normans in southern Italy though with a early POD, who's to say that the Ottomans would even become much of a factor?
 
Well you could have Manuel Komnenos be a little bit more successful in his battles against the Normans in southern Italy though with a early POD, who's to say that the Ottomans would even become much of a factor?

The point is kind of to have the ERE in Greece and the Balkans get conqured but still survive in southern (or even all of Italy). So it doesn't have to be the Ottomans who conquere Constantinople just as long as it is conquered, but a Soman State survives in Italy.
 
Basil II reconquers the whole of Sicily.

Sicily was, truly, a bastion of Greek/Byzantine/Orthodox culture. Remember, it took the Arabs a century of continuous warfare to push the Byzantines out, and even then the island continued to revolt and host Byzantine armies of reconquest.

If Basil reconquers Sicily, it will be a bastion of power for the empire in the central Med that can help support/maintain any Byzantine presence in Italy.
 
How bout they managed to reconquer sicily but the fourth crusade goes as it does OTL, Alexios Komnenos instead of taking trebizond he is instead closer to Sicily and takes that. Then you have a relatively safe Byzantine successor state far enough away that the Ottomans could never get there.
 
Would be Interesting a Greek, Orthodox Sicily under the Komnenids. but as as said before the Rise of the Ottomans would be butterflied away and the 4th Crusade as well
 
Would be Interesting a Greek, Orthodox Sicily under the Komnenids. but as as said before the Rise of the Ottomans would be butterflied away and the 4th Crusade as well

Their OTL versions at least. As long as the Crusades are going and the Venetians have a rivalry with the Byzantines, something resembling the Fourth Crusade could still happen.

The rise of the Ottomans could get trickier...
 
Would be Interesting a Greek, Orthodox Sicily under the Komnenids. but as as said before the Rise of the Ottomans would be butterflied away and the 4th Crusade as well

Owning Sicily wont make the Empire much more powerful than it was OTL and it would give Venice even more of a reason to attack the Byzantines now that they have wealthy ports in the middle of the mediteranian. The rise of the Osmali dynasty in particular may be gone but a turkish attack into Byzantine territory and the attack on constantinople seem inevitable after the fourth crusade.
 
Owning Sicily wont make the Empire much more powerful than it was OTL and it would give Venice even more of a reason to attack the Byzantines now that they have wealthy ports in the middle of the mediteranian. The rise of the Osmali dynasty in particular may be gone but a turkish attack into Byzantine territory and the attack on constantinople seem inevitable after the fourth crusade.

Wasn't the Byzantine Empire greatly weakened by the loss of Sicily and Southern Italy and this caused a faster decline?

I think one of the Byzantine timelines mentions this
 
How bout they managed to reconquer sicily but the fourth crusade goes as it does OTL, Alexios Komnenos instead of taking trebizond he is instead closer to Sicily and takes that. Then you have a relatively safe Byzantine successor state far enough away that the Ottomans could never get there.

That sounds awesome. Would the rest of the empire reunify as it did OTL (Trebizond being the exception)?
 
Wasn't the Byzantine Empire greatly weakened by the loss of Sicily and Southern Italy and this caused a faster decline?

I think one of the Byzantine timelines mentions this

Sicily benefits the empire more in terms of strategic and cultural terms.

In Sicily, the empire gains the prestige of defending the boot of Italy (and subsequently, the Papacy) against the threat of Islam, as it did IRL. Additionally, Sicily had a great deal of value as a cultural repository of Greek culture, allowing greater intermingling of intellectual and cultural exchange with the west. Maybe the empire would tend to be less conservative in its later days, with a few Sicillians in it's ranks.
 
Sicily benefits the empire more in terms of strategic and cultural terms.

In Sicily, the empire gains the prestige of defending the boot of Italy (and subsequently, the Papacy) against the threat of Islam, as it did IRL. Additionally, Sicily had a great deal of value as a cultural repository of Greek culture, allowing greater intermingling of intellectual and cultural exchange with the west. Maybe the empire would tend to be less conservative in its later days, with a few Sicillians in it's ranks.

If holding Sicily makes the Empire be seen as a defender of Italy then Venice would not get away with the 4th Crusade if it still happens
 
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