Byzantine Empire Enduring

The Mongols were not entirely unreasonable, i dont see them as blood thirsty primatives, they were no more or less brutal than any other society was in those days.

Oh no, they were a lot more brutal. And in the absence of a strong Egypt to bond the Mongols and Byzantium, it's going for Byzantium.
 

Sang

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that is a good idea, but are the Byzantines truly sadistic enough to basically ally with the mongols, for the purpose of destroying Islam?

Why not? The Romans were pretty sadistic will all the torture, crucifications and brazen bulls. Thus, the Romans were notorious for betraying their allies simply because they were too weak and the Romans wanted to annex them.

The Byzantines would probably do the same.
 
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Why not? The Romans were pretty sadistic will all the torture, crucifications and brazen bulls. Thus, the Romans were notorious for betraying their allies simply because they were too wake and the Romans wanted to annex them.

The Byzantines would probably do the same.

well, i feel sorry for the Islamic governments. they wont know what hit it.
 
but they did in this timeline. im not exactly sure why though.

You mean this TL? You would need an explanation. You can't just go ahead and say 'because I can'. The problem with a strong Byzantium and Mongols allying is that the only examples of the Mongols allying anyone is when they find them a useful assistance in conquering another state. Once that state is finished, the Mongols can turn to their 'allies'. The Byzantines do not have an advantageous arrangement where they can play off the Mongols against their enemies since they are the main power in the Levant.
 
You mean this TL? You would need an explanation. You can't just go ahead and say 'because I can'. The problem with a strong Byzantium and Mongols allying is that the only examples of the Mongols allying anyone is when they find them a useful assistance in conquering another state. Once that state is finished, the Mongols can turn to their 'allies'. The Byzantines do not have an advantageous arrangement where they can play off the Mongols against their enemies since they are the main power in the Levant.

i meant the real timeline. and it was useful, they destroyed the Islamic states (that they can reach) and dealt a serious blow to islam. then when the mongols collapsed into four khanates or so, Byzantium, quite powerful due to havign restored their old frontier, conquered the Persian khanate.

...and lost all of it by 1422. over extension of resources, non natives resenting Greek rule are the primary reasons.
 
i meant the real timeline. and it was useful, they destroyed the Islamic states (that they can reach) and dealt a serious blow to islam. then when the mongols collapsed into four khanates or so, Byzantium, quite powerful due to havign restored their old frontier, conquered the Persian khanate.

...and lost all of it by 1422. over extension of resources, non natives resenting Greek rule are the primary reasons.


Yeah, that never happened.
 
For the last time, Byzantium will not ally the Mongols.

In case you hadn't noticed this is an alterate history forum. :rolleyes:
A place for way out ideas, if you think Byzantium and Mongols allying under any circumstances then you have missed something about uman history.
99% of it was never going to happen.


Some people are missing the point, the idea is the Turks or mongols have converted to Christianity, under such circumstances some sort of working relationship wih Byzantium is possible. i also suggest again maybe either one takes Byzantium with the aim of being Roman Emperor.
 
In case you hadn't noticed this is an alterate history forum. :rolleyes:
A place for way out ideas, if you think Byzantium and Mongols allying under any circumstances then you have missed something about uman history.
99% of it was never going to happen.

There is an annoying assumption in this forum that history was for some reason 99%(or whatever arbitrary numbers you want to throw out) not going to happen. Not only are these numbers utterly arbitrary but the idea is fairly false. There are reasons why certain things happened in history. I am fully aware of the Byzantine and Mongol relations during this period, though it was mainly the Kingdom of Nicaea that did the diplomacy. Trebizond was under the Hegemony of Queen Tamar, so they had little to talk about. After Tamar's death it gained for autonomy, but the Mongols had little interest in such a petty state.

The Mongols are hungry men. They thirst for the conquest of new lands and the rape of their cities. Alliances the Mongols have made are always temporary, and generally, used only during the fighting of another state. For example, the Mongols allied Antioch and Armenian Cilicia so that they could assist the invasion of the Mamluks. Both knew that it was a life-or-death situation. had the Mamluks been defeated at Ain Jalut and Egypt been captured for the Mongols, barring any succession crises, these states would be utterly doomed. The Mongols treat allies as disposable. They will not hesitate to break alliances once the state in question that they are fighting is destroyed.

My stern belief is that in the absence of a state to challenge the Mongols in the middle east, the Mongols would invade Byzantine Anatolia. The Nicaeans had several several comfy buffers such as the Ayyubids, Georgia, and the Seljuks. A strong Byzantium, I would assume, has none of these. Thus, one will realize that the way for a Byzantine-Mongol alliance is not very open, especially since the Mongols will have more time to campaign solely against Byzantium, what with Georgia and whereabouts being weakened by Byzantine power. I do not expect the Mongols to take Constantinople; it is across a strait, and it is very well defended. I do however think that they can do horrible damage to the manpower reserves of the state, cripple its Anatolian possessions, and depopulate Asia minor. In all, they would destroy an extremely vital part of the empire. This is even discounting Mongols attacking from the north after having defeated the Kings of Bulgaria and Hungary.

In short: a Mongol-Byzantine alliance in such a situation where the Byzantines are the main power in the Near east is extremely far-fetched. Nowhere did I say that they wouldn't ally under any circumstances. I've simply proposed that under the current circumstances an alliance is negligible for the Mongols.

Some people are missing the point, the idea is the Turks or mongols have converted to Christianity, under such circumstances some sort of working relationship wih Byzantium is possible. i also suggest again maybe either one takes Byzantium with the aim of being Roman Emperor.

The Turks are not going to convert to Christianity. As early as the 650s Muslim missionaries had been penetrating the Turkish steppe in search of converts. The Samanids especially prided themselves on the great achievement of converting the great majority of the Seljuks, and most of the Oghuz were Muslim by their arrival in Anatolia and the Caucasus. For them to convert to anything else is really doubtful.

As for the conversion of the Mongols: It will do little to stop their fighting against others of various faiths. They could have converted to Nestorian Christianity, which was possibly the most likely religion for the Khan to adopt, but even then, it's a heresy in the eyes of Byzantium and the crusaders. Ghazan converted to Islam, yet his primary achievements were about fighting the Mamluks, other Muslims. Mutual religion may cool off relations but it will not stop fighting. Most of the Mongol armies and generals are indifferent to religion. This can be positive, in the case of Mongol tolerance, but it also means they care little for relics and sacred customs(unless they have a special spiritual side to them, such as the shedding of the Caliph's blood).
 
if i had the mongols act as barbarians, i might as well kill off Byzantium, as the mongols will undoubtedly try their very best to capture Constantinople. that means hundreds of thousands of men, lots of catapults, or trebuchets, or cannons, plus a navy of some sort.

and, assuming they came from both Anatolia and mongol Bulgaria, where else can they go? and when mongolia collapses, who is there to free Byzantium from their rule?

therefore, i had them allied to take care of the existing Muslim nations, for the purpose of destroying them.

well, im going to try and make a timeline where the Byzantines and the mongols slug it out, it necessitated deleting everything past 1252. i kept the original timeline in another copy.
 
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if i had the mongols act as barbarians, i might as well kill off Byzantium, as the mongols will undoubtedly try their very best to capture Constantinople. that means hundreds of thousands of men, lots of catapults, or trebuchets, or cannons, plus a navy of some sort.

And you don't think the Byzantines can face that?

Constantinople has been besieged over and over again. This is just another time for the walls to show that nothing short of the very best the Mongols have can dent them.

and, assuming they came from both Anatolia and mongol Bulgaria, where else can they go? and when mongolia collapses, who is there to free Byzantium from their rule?

therefore, i had them allied to take care of the existing Muslim nations, for the purpose of destroying them.

well, im going to try and make a timeline where the Byzantines and the mongols slug it out, it necessitated deleting everything past 1252. i kept the original timeline in another copy.

No one needs to free Byzantium from their rule. The Mongols will be hellaciously tough, but they're not invincible.
 
so you say that cannons are roughly equal or worse than the medieval counterparts? works for me then.

will the mongols do it the easy way (capture Constantinople from Mongol Bulgaria, or the more destructive way (through Anatolia) or both?
 
so you say that cannons are roughly equal or worse than the medieval counterparts? works for me then.

will the mongols do it the easy way (capture Constantinople from Mongol Bulgaria, or the more destructive way (through Anatolia) or both?

Any siege weapons the Mongols have will be weaker than the cannons that took down the walls in 1453, so its good.

As for how they do it: Depends.

If you want something where the Mongols cut up the empire badly, you probably want them to go through Anatolia. If you want them (the Mongols) to find out how bad a siege of Constantinople is as the most memorable part, Bulgaria.

If I was a Mongol, and I had the troops to do it, I'd split them in two - one to take Anatolia and the other to deal with Thrace+Bulgaria+etc.
 
Any siege weapons the Mongols have will be weaker than the cannons that took down the walls in 1453, so its good.

As for how they do it: Depends.

If you want something where the Mongols cut up the empire badly, you probably want them to go through Anatolia. If you want them (the Mongols) to find out how bad a siege of Constantinople is as the most memorable part, Bulgaria.

If I was a Mongol, and I had the troops to do it, I'd split them in two - one to take Anatolia and the other to deal with Thrace+Bulgaria+etc.

well at least it will give the rest of Europe and many parts of Arabia a break. (i seriously doubt they have more than 500,000 soldiers in those areas in total) its likely to be a descive battle.
 
well, i've completed the Mongolian war part of the timeline. please tell me if theres anything wrong, particularly about the size of the armies.


1254: Byzantine tries to get peace with the mongols, offering a fairly substantial bribe. the Mongolian diplomat (or equivalent) rejected it, saying that Byzantium is, oddly enough, the strongest, richest state in this side of the world, and Mongolia needs money and slave labor to survive.

...he was thusly executed. the reason is that the Diplomat was already in Constantinople, and therefore cant afford to let any secrets out of the capital.

less than 2 months later, Mongolia invades Byzantium, with 196,000 troops with the best artillery that the mongols has to offer, from Bulgaria, directly to adrianople. the city, already fortified because of the obvious mongol presence, takes a while to fall. the 50,000 Byzantine soldiers there were killed, wounded or simply retreated to Constantinople after a two month battle. they inflicted serious casulties on the mongols, forcing them to stop their advance and regroup.

in the meantime, another 250,000 mongols invaded Anatolia in two places. the north, from Armenia (which the mongols conquered earlier) going through the northern plains, and the south, from Syria, to the cilica mountain pass. this was, of course, predicted by Byzantium, and is heavily defended.

1255: after a year in fighting... Constantinople is under siege by an impressive number of mongols, 200,000. too bad that the capital was well defended. and supplied from the sea. and more reinforcements brought in. plus militia drafted from the civilians.

in Anatolia, the mongols are making progress. sort of. they defeated the north Byzantine army with serious casualties, over 12,000, but they still won, and advance to trebizond.

in the south, they are having problems. the Byzantine army there was led by an intelligent general, and fully used the region to Byzantium's advantage. they manage to repulse the mongols with heavy casualties. but the Mongol reserve smashed right through them, and they won the battle.

1256: the Battle for Constantinople is won. the mongols never stood a chance. with the mongol threat from Europe removed for the time being, sent some soldiers to take care of the Anatolian situation.

the various eastern and central European countries, seeing that the majority of the mongol troops were focused on Byzantium took the advantage, and pushed back the front lines. they were successful.

In anatolia, the situation is getting worse for the Byzantines. despite the reinforcements, the mongols show no signs of letting up. they were eventually pushed back to the eupherates river, and a long line of fortifications.

Byzantium seemed to be making a good stand there, with Mongolian troops failing to break the Euphrates line, and suffers heavy casualties on the way. then the attacks stop, giving both sides a chance to regroup.

1258: two year later, 240,000 Mongolians, apparently freshly sent from other regions, invade from Bulgaria to attack Constantinople again. the defenders number about 115,000, with some major artillery on the walls.

but this time the mongols pressed their attacks on the northern wall, which eventually crumbled in two or three places. the mongol troops forced their way in, but the bottle neck just serves to harm them as the Byzantine land army fought them head on, and managed to force them out of the walls, killing thousands of Mongolians. they promptly repaired that wall.

even more heartening for Byzantium, various troops from several countries, including the the Caliphate in Egypt, arrive in Constantinople, and helped destroy the mongols that were camping outside of Constantinople. the Byzantine Emperor is pleased by this turn of events.

when asked, the Egyptian commander said this: "If Constantinople is captured, they would raze it and kill everyone, including the Emperor. that would make this "wonderful" state collapse or splinter, and surrender to the mongols. then they would pursue other nations that would be rich and powerful after the fall, including Egypt."

these troops were sent to Anatolia to deal with the mongols there.

in Anatolia, Byzantium were having serious problems keeping the line from a staggering 300,000 Mongolians. fortunately some of them seemed to be poorly equipped and trained. reinforcements arrived in the form of Byzantine and allied troops, which thusly helped to surround the mongol troops, and destroyed every last one in a great battle.

1259: the mongols, made yet another attempt at invading Byzantium with fewer troops of a lower quality. these were taken care of rather nicely at Adrianople, which Byzantium liberated, and at Trebizond, which the mongols attacked.

1260: utterly humiliated, and with the mongol military smashed (at least, in the region), and facing revolts from the region bordering Byzantium, the Khan of the mongols personally came to Constantinople to make peace.

...Byzantium humiliated them more by forcing them to agree to pay for their arrogance. apparently the diplomatic convoy carried some gold with them, evidently to bargain with.

lets just say, the convoy were never heard from again. the Mongol Empire was horribly unstable, even when a different [person took the leadership. then Mongolia suffered setbacks, mainly in Europe and middle east because the mongol soldiers there were greatly reduced in number. never again will the mongols threaten Byzantium.
 
i also slightly changed the timeline in the 11th century. the Byzantine Empire has some transition pains when Basil II died, and the turkish Empire actually did invade the Byzantine Empire. once in 1071, again in 1090. both failed pretty badly for them, and they had to seek out weaker targets.
 
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