AHC/WI: Byzantium holds onto all of Anatolia until at least 2018

With a POD no earlier than 1000 AD, make sure Eastern Roman Empire keeps Anatolia until modern day. What would this development change elsewhere in Europe, Middle East and the world?
 

ar-pharazon

Banned
Decisive Byzantine victory in the Byzantine-Arab wars.

For the Byzantines to hold Anatolia for another millennium they probably need to hold Egypt, the levant, the Balkans, and at least the Crimean peninsula if not even more of the Black Sea region.

So you have a decisive collapse of the Bulgarians and maybe have the Kievan Rus declare some sort of fealty to Byzantium.

With the collapse of the Abbasids the Byzantines sweep down from Anatolia and reach the Nile by 1100 AD.

They then begin conquering eastern Libya and securing Mesopotamia.

Maybe have a Byzantine emperor seize Baghdad. Thus decisively breaking Islamic power in the near east.

Have the Byzantines repulse the Seljuk Turks and perhaps even convert a large number of them to Christianity.

Then have them whether the Mongol invasions.

By 1500 the Byzantines hold in the eastern Mediterreanean is iron tight and wealth is pouring in from the east.

Anatolia is the richly developed, prosperous and happy-supplying the empire with troops, taxes, and a vastly improved strategic position.

By this point the butterflies have already wildly shifted things.

But if the Byzantines can maintain cohesiveness in this alt age of exploration maybe through a decisive conquest of Venice and southern Italy then the Byzantines endure to the current date.
 
The biggest thing the Byzantines needed was stable succession. Not necessarily hereditary. Just peaceful transfers of power so that they aren't regularly gutting themselves with civil war and preferably not having all a good Emperor's accomplishments undone by a incompetent successor.

I've always thought that the best choice would be for them to take advantage of the fact that their succession wasn't necessarily hereditary and institute a kind of meritocratic system. Though I haven't figured out the particulars of how that would work.
 
Have Manuel I's forces scout better so that his army is not ambushed at Myriokephalon and instead fights the Rum sultanate on more favorable terrain, where his superior army wins. The Seljuks withdraw in disarray and Kilijj Arslan II faces a major revolt. During the Seljuk civil war, Manuel I continues the offensive and captures additional territory. The victor of the Seljuk civil war is forced to accept a peace with the Romans that leaves him only a rump vassal state in the eastern third of Anatolia.

Although the Romans face some unrest following the death of Manuel I, the Rum sultanate is in no position to profit from it. Then the Mongols invade in the next century, destroying what is left of their state. When the Mongol thread recedes, the Romans take the initiative and conquer the remainder of Anatolia in the early XIV century. There is the occasional raid into Roman territory thereafter, but no serious Turkish or Arab attempt to retake the peninsula.
 
The biggest thing the Byzantines needed was stable succession. Not necessarily hereditary. Just peaceful transfers of power so that they aren't regularly gutting themselves with civil war and preferably not having all a good Emperor's accomplishments undone by a incompetent successor.

I've always thought that the best choice would be for them to take advantage of the fact that their succession wasn't necessarily hereditary and institute a kind of meritocratic system. Though I haven't figured out the particulars of how that would work.

They could always go back to the older Roman practice of adopting qualified successors.
 
They could always go back to the older Roman practice of adopting qualified successors.
Exactly. The problem would be getting rid of the idea that if you have an army, you can fight for the throne.

You'd need some sort of written constitution, some way to enforce it and keep it from just being thrown out, a way to keep the officers and soldiers of the army loyal to that constitution, etc etc. It's not an impossible task but still difficult.
 

trajen777

Banned
Easy one : Basil 2 the hard ones would be Manices takes over in the 40's -- Alexios more patient vs the Normans in the first battle and starves them into submission -- and then does not have to withdraw forces from the east for the next 5 years -- but keeps Nicia
1. In 1015 vs 1025 he invades Sicily (the Bulgarian wars were basically over in 1014) He captures Sicily and Naples (this does not allow the Norman rebellion of the Byz forces in 1030 (Normans gone) -- Western flank covered
2. Basil forces Constantine's daughters to be married to a competent general (lets say Theophylact Dalassenos )
3. Constantine lives 2 years and turns over the running to Dalassenos

4. The army was not screwed by the disastrous emperors after Basil
5. George Maniakes is the domestic of the east and keeps the army active and perhaps he takes Aleppo, Damascus (perhaps Syria and Palestine) or at the least stabilizes the east
6. The possibility of the same occurrence as in the real time of a completely incompetence run of emperors from 1025 - 1071 (dismissing the 50,000 eastern army who in 1054 defeated the Seljuks ?? )
7. Lets assume then take the northern ports down to Acre and over to Damascus (they always had decent relationships with Fatimid (as they begin to decline in the 1080 - 1120 time frame)
8. With the eastern army not dismisses they hold off the Seljuks (the Byz have 50,000 trained troops their now) and stop infiltration
9. The next great challenge would be the Mongols (here you have perhaps diplomacy to keep them in Persia or out of Anatolia)
10. After the steady decline of the Fatimid you would take Egypt in the 1120 time frame
11. The last great challenge would be the Timur and you would his focus was always India - North - or China -- More of a raid / destroy and with draw person
 
Last edited:
With a POD no earlier than 1000 AD, make sure Eastern Roman Empire keeps Anatolia until modern day. What would this development change elsewhere in Europe, Middle East and the world?

"How" seems to be already answered more than once so I'll concentrate on the changes.

This change more or less implies an absence of the Ottoman Empire as we know it: if there is some analog, then its conquests are limited to Asia and Africa (and perhaps some islands on the Med).

The consequences are enormous:

1. No Ottomans on the Balkans, which means survival of the states like Bulgaria, Walachia, Moldavia, Serbia (in whatever modifications).
2. Hungary is never conquered by the Ottomans and may remain independent from the Hapsburgs. Anyway, most probably it remains an elective monarchy: the Hapsburgs became the hereditary rulers (1st time in Hungarian history, IIRC) as a "reward" for liberating the country from Ottomans.
3. The Crimean Khanate is much less powerful and can lose its independence earlier than in OTL (either to the Commonwealth or to the Russian state). Quite a few extra possibilities there including an earlier Russian conquest of "Novorossia" (areas to the North of peninsula) and access to the Black Sea.
4. No Ottoman Wars in Europe between XVI and late XIX century. Austria, Commonwealth, Russia have much fewer wars to fight with an open question: what are they going to do with their free time.
5. It is reasonable to assume that the "Issue of the Straits" is different from OTL if they are in the hands of the Christian Orthodox state.
6. Prince Eugene has a much lesser chance to make his military career by the time of the War of the Spanish Succession, which means that France has a very realistic chance to win it on land. :)
7. Most probably, no "Bosnian crisis" which shaped Russian reaction to the Austrian ultimatum to Serbia in 1914.
 
"How" seems to be already answered more than once so I'll concentrate on the changes.

This change more or less implies an absence of the Ottoman Empire as we know it: if there is some analog, then its conquests are limited to Asia and Africa (and perhaps some islands on the Med).

The consequences are enormous:

1. No Ottomans on the Balkans, which means survival of the states like Bulgaria, Walachia, Moldavia, Serbia (in whatever modifications).
2. Hungary is never conquered by the Ottomans and may remain independent from the Hapsburgs. Anyway, most probably it remains an elective monarchy: the Hapsburgs became the hereditary rulers (1st time in Hungarian history, IIRC) as a "reward" for liberating the country from Ottomans.
3. The Crimean Khanate is much less powerful and can lose its independence earlier than in OTL (either to the Commonwealth or to the Russian state). Quite a few extra possibilities there including an earlier Russian conquest of "Novorossia" (areas to the North of peninsula) and access to the Black Sea.
4. No Ottoman Wars in Europe between XVI and late XIX century. Austria, Commonwealth, Russia have much fewer wars to fight with an open question: what are they going to do with their free time.
5. It is reasonable to assume that the "Issue of the Straits" is different from OTL if they are in the hands of the Christian Orthodox state.
6. Prince Eugene has a much lesser chance to make his military career by the time of the War of the Spanish Succession, which means that France has a very realistic chance to win it on land. :)
7. Most probably, no "Bosnian crisis" which shaped Russian reaction to the Austrian ultimatum to Serbia in 1914.

Also, Islam (presumably) never reaches the Balkans, so the religious picture there is simpler. OTOH, perhaps the Greeks become viewed as the great oppressors of the Slavs.
 
Also, Islam (presumably) never reaches the Balkans, so the religious picture there is simpler. OTOH, perhaps the Greeks become viewed as the great oppressors of the Slavs.

Not necessarily. The Slavs in the Balkans were only present 400/500 years from Slav invasions with a pod 1000 ad. by 1800, balkans would be Roman control for 800 years. Enough time to convert back to Roman culture. And the Ottomans turned Anatolia majority Turk in less than 800 years. And the Ottomans start point of reference in OTL is 1400/1500 of controlling Balkan Slavic population, while successful rebellions happened in 1800. In ATL assuming Roman continued complete control from 1000 ad, the Balkans could have converted to Roman culture by 1500 to the point that Balkan Slavs we know in OTL could be non existent in a wanked ERE.
 
Also, Islam (presumably) never reaches the Balkans, so the religious picture there is simpler. OTOH, perhaps the Greeks become viewed as the great oppressors of the Slavs.

The whole region was a bloody (literary) mess with everybody fighting everybody so an issue of the "worst guy" at each specific moment was rather fluid.

There was a prolonged fighting between Byzantine Empire and Bulgarian Empire(s) but by the end of the XIV century the 2nd Bulgarian Empire was split into 3 tsardoms and a number of semi-independent principalities that fought each other, along with Byzantines, Hungarians, Serbs, Venetians and Genoese. In OTL the whole mess ended with Ottoman conquest but here there is a chance of a later reintegration into the 3rd Bulgarian Empire.

The Byzantines also had been trying to subdue the Bulgarian Orthodox Church to their own by making it subordinate to the Patriarch of Constantinople, installing the Greek priests, etc. However, if the independent Bulgarian state will exist for a long time, chances are that they end up the same way as the Muscovite state by having their own patriarchy.

Not sure what was religious situation in Serbia but at least part of the time the Northern part of it, Vojvodina, was ruled by the Kingdom of Hungary.
 

Deleted member 67076

Plenty of ways to do this:

-Basil's Niece Zoe is born a Nephew: The result is ensuring another 30ish years of stability that would aid during the rather shaky years of the middle 11th century.
-The Seljuqs migrate into India instead, and the status quo of Fatimid/Byzantine/Abbasid Cold War continues until the Fatimids implode.
-John II doesn't die of a poisoned arrow, lives another 10-20 years and takes Konya, pushing the balance of power in Anatolia decisively toward the Byzantines (even more so than historically). Manuel follows this trend as the peace treaty that he signed during his ascension wouldn't be there, and mops up resistance after a few decades.
-George Manaikos manages the armies longer during his tenure of the 1050s.
-Charles of Anjou dies shortly after the Sicilian Vespers.
-The Epirotes take Constantinople and block Nicean expansion into Europe, letting them focus more on Asia where the reformed smallholder army was more than a match for the various Turcomen Ghazis.
-Manuel Palaiologos doesn't ascend the throne and focus imperial energies towards Europe (and you lessen the feudalization tendencies of the time period)
 

trajen777

Banned
Plenty of ways to do this:

-Basil's Niece Zoe is born a Nephew: The result is ensuring another 30ish years of stability that would aid during the rather shaky years of the middle 11th century.
-The Seljuqs migrate into India instead, and the status quo of Fatimid/Byzantine/Abbasid Cold War continues until the Fatimids implode.
-John II doesn't die of a poisoned arrow, lives another 10-20 years and takes Konya, pushing the balance of power in Anatolia decisively toward the Byzantines (even more so than historically). Manuel follows this trend as the peace treaty that he signed during his ascension wouldn't be there, and mops up resistance after a few decades.
-George Manaikos manages the armies longer during his tenure of the 1050s.
-Charles of Anjou dies shortly after the Sicilian Vespers.
-The Epirotes take Constantinople and block Nicean expansion into Europe, letting them focus more on Asia where the reformed smallholder army was more than a match for the various Turcomen Ghazis.
-Manuel Palaiologos doesn't ascend the throne and focus imperial energies towards Europe (and you lessen the feudalization tendencies of the time period)


Well done ... Like the last one a lot. With epirotes take const. Have not considered that ..
 
Top