ATL Challenge: A Great Power Greece

Well, if Byzantium simply does not collapse, than it may easily be GP that Ottomans once were. Hell- they don't need to become anything- pre- Manzikert Byzantium was a GP. If they (re)conquer Levant and Egypt (still housing significant Orthodox communities in middle-ages) they may reach Ottoman size before XIV century. Of course, question is whether or not they lag behind later like Ottos did.

After 1453 it's only plausible if Ottos collapse and fracture completely and some nobleman overtakes Greece and parts of Anatolia during chaos. Even later it becomes harder and harder. During war with Turkey Greece arguably could grab more land and population but it can't become GP at this point. Even with straits, coast (western) and Constantiople they'd have at best 30 millions of people. And plenty of minority problems.
 
More info on your scenario.

But realistically there are loads of plausible timelines on this.
Greece would need time to build up it's population, but the Ottoman Empire has to be weak enough that they can successfully rebel. The Ottoman Empire began to stagnate after their loss at Vienna and in the Morean Wars against Venice during the Great Turkish War. At the time, their had been attempts at revolt against the Ottoman Empire. Would they be able to successfully regain their independence then? A big problem for them is that even if they become independent, they still have the Ottoman Empire to deal with and if they did manage to beat it while it's weak, they'd have to deal with large slavic communities. I think it might be ASB, but I'm just checking.

If they manage to get Constantinople, would it become their capital? Or would they stick with Athens. Both would be of enormous cultural and historic importance to the Greeks. Would they name it Constantinople or Byzantium. They probably wouldn't want to all it Istanbul.
 
The latest possible scenario would probably be just before the Fourth Crusade. If you can remove the Angelos dynasty (A palace coup was always possible) and replace it with a military family that reforms the themes, Byzantium could easily survive until the modern era. It might be able to reconquer Bulgaria and recover parts of Anatolia (Reconquering the Anatolian plateau would be very hard, but not impossible. If you were smart and learned from Manuel I's mistakes, you could avoid an ambush and take Ikonion. Once Ikonion is gone, Rum is doomed).

Now, you said originally you wanted Greece as a great power, not Byzantium, but there was some overlap here. The philosopher Plethon advised Emperor Manuel II to relocate to Morea as the "Emperor of the Hellenes" in response to the Ottoman invasions. A Nicean PoD might be possible if you replace the post-reconquest emperors with a military family. If the themes were reformed and Constantinople rebuilt, there's no reason why the restored Byzantine Empire couldn't have reconquered Greece and the Anatolian coast. Anything after that is pure speculation, so I'll leave that up to you.
 
Heh, when I read the title I thought more as an alternative to Roman dominance.

Is it possible for Antigonid Macedon to triumph over Rome in their wars, or is it already too late by that point?
 
Is it possible? I know they'd need a population boost. Could they get Byzantium back? Or is it to late?

It would be interesting to see Greece as a Russian ally in a different Crimean war.

POD: France or Britain or both do worse in this war, maybe after Napoleon III didn't come to power in 1848, so Russia win the war.

1. Greece gets parts of the Ottoman Empire, and in a second war, with Russia seizing decisive points at the Bosporus, the Greeks conquer Constantinople and some other regions.

2. Greece, at the Ottoman's cost, grew larger getting big chunks of Anatolia, Crete and maybe even the coast of the Levante.

3. But around 1900, conflicts in the Balkans (Greece wants to stop growing Russian influence in the Slavic states) and in Armenia (Greek, orthodox, but Russian) lead to an disaffection of Greece and Russia.

4. Meanwhile, the British are pissed of by the Greeks since the Crimean war and fear now that Greece, building a strong fleet, challenges Britain's interests in the Mediterranean sea.

5. To balance the Anglo-Russian(-French) alliance against Hellas and its protectorates, Ethiopia and Turkey, the Greeks ally with the other naval power in the Mediterranean, Austria-Hungary (and thus with Germany). A sort of WWI begins around 1910/12/14 - the Austrians, Germans, Greeks and Ottomans fight against GB, France and Russia. Italy enters the war over Libya and Ethiopia.

6. A more capable ally in the south-east (Greece instead of the Ottoman Empire) helps the Central powers to win the war.
 
Heh, when I read the title I thought more as an alternative to Roman dominance.

Is it possible for Antigonid Macedon to triumph over Rome in their wars, or is it already too late by that point?

The Roman republic had the manpower to submerge Greece with legionaries...
 
Heh, when I read the title I thought more as an alternative to Roman dominance.

Is it possible for Antigonid Macedon to triumph over Rome in their wars, or is it already too late by that point?
The Macedonian phalanx by outdated by that stage. The Romans baited the Macedonians onto rough ground that broke up their lines, and that was it.
 
Heh, when I read the title I thought more as an alternative to Roman dominance.

Is it possible for Antigonid Macedon to triumph over Rome in their wars, or is it already too late by that point?
No, but it was possible for a powerful Macedonian Empire to conquer the Mediterranean before Rome unified the Italian peninsula. Philip II living would have been enough.
 

Deleted member 67076

Which Greece? Before or after the Ottoman conquest? Because if its before you just need a successful Byzantine Empire. If its after, perhaps the best route would be to have the Orlov Revolt succeed, and you get an independent Greece based around Crete, Naxos and the Peloponnese 50 years ahead of schedule.

Now not only do you get a Greece that's bigger than its OTL counterpart ahead of schedule (although it probably would be named "Romania" without the historical western influence during its independence war), it would be decisively allied to the Russians and you might get an 1877-esque treaty imposed on the Ottomans that paves the way for other ethnic revolts and separate bases of power within the empire to succeed, further weakening the Ottoman state.

Egypt is likely to go independent (same with most of North Africa), Mesopotamia would almost certainly conquered by the Afsharids (assuming they survive) or some other Persian dynasty, France might intervene, etc. Point is, the Ottomans are going to be far less of a threat than they used to be. And in all this chaos Greece has the chance to go conquering more and more territory along the way and hold it (this is before nationalism, but even then, demographics and ethnic perceptions were more fluid at this time, with Greeks both making up much more of a percentage of the empire and the idea of the various Balkan ethnicities not really being cemented yet, therefore making assimilation in the long run easier.)

Should Greece play its cards right, it can conquer most (or all, but that's unlikely) of the Balkans, Anatolia and Syria by 1900. If it doesn't, at least the Megali Idea will be fulfilled.
 
I'd say the ideal post-Byzantine situation would be having a POD during the Seljuk conquest of Anatolia that sees a Hellenization of the Turkish aristocracy while adhering to Islam. From there let the butterflies take off so that you ultimately see the fall of Byzantium be a struggle between Islamic and Orthodox Hellenes. If a dynamic power a la the Ottomans arises from this usurpation, then it's conceivable that this Greek Islamic state does a lot of conquering into the areas held by old Byzantium/the Ottomans and ensure a greater Greek populace throughout the Eastern Mediterranean and especially Anatolia.

An Orthodox Greek great power would probably require something along the lines of the Ottomans embracing the Greeks to a greater degree OTL, for example exempting Greeks from dhimmi status, making Greek and Turkish official co-languages of court and empire, etc. An overzealous sultan that decides to oppress the Greeks to a horrifying degree while overextending could see a revolt by the Greeks break out that results in a large, organized state with an established state apparatus that completely shatters Ottoman power.
 
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