The empire was fine under strong rulars like the Macedonian Dynasty. If they had a continuation of resolute leadership then their chances would be much better.
Pity they had some idiots
Pity they had some idiots
But on the other hand, a Basil II style iron autocracy with the nobility wedged under the thumb of the Emperor wasn't the right way to go, either. Not only was such a system doomed to fail as it soon did, but it stifled the productive output of the noble class and only made Byzantium even less capable of innovating and competing with foreign merchants and tradesmen.
I would say that what the Komnenans did (by trying to merge a bunch of the leading families into the Imperial clan to make them loyal) was really a botched, desperate attempt that created more problems than it solved.
While it may have been a step in the right direction to give them a stake in being loyal to the Empire, you have things spiraling out of control due to petty personality conflict and squabbles.
But on the other hand, a Basil II style iron autocracy with the nobility wedged under the thumb of the Emperor wasn't the right way to go, either. Not only was such a system doomed to fail as it soon did, but it stifled the productive output of the noble class and only made Byzantium even less capable of innovating and competing with foreign merchants and tradesmen.
Well if Basil's II successor was a strong Emperor instead of a weak sick Emperor he could have held firm grasp of the nobles...
All well and good but how is Byzantium going to defeat the Ottomans, it has to do it more than once, they're not going to go away. Is there anyway of an intervention against Muslim Persia from India, that draws Muslim and Ottoman attention away towards the East. Can Byzantium develop contats with India and have some sort of Alliance.
The Mongols are more likely to want to take Constantinople than help it.What of the Mongols, i know around this time they leant towards Buddhism and were pretty sympathetic towards Christianity. Some important Mongol figures were baptised. Can a situation develop where the Mongols intervene.
Maybe introduce a Christian figure who makes a pilgrimage to the Mongol leader/s at some point, pleads for their help, tells them Christianity is in danger, and convinces them to assist Constantinople. That could be quite a story. A similar thing happened with the Huns, was it Pope Leo ?.
Sorry i missed how the Turks are easily butterflied away![]()
Yes theres a difference, the reason i said Turks is because the Ottomans are just a one part of a cultural grouping, if they defeat the Ottomans, then they may well be faced by another grouping. but you didnt answer the question.
HOW ?
Up to somewhere between 1185-1204, the Byzantine state is stronger than any of the Turkish states in Anatolia by a considerable margin. And that decline was far from inevitable.
So..."The same way they beat any other opponent"?
Now, I need to preface this by saying that I see no problem with a greek state comrpising OTL Greece and Anatolia surviving up to the modern day.
The problem is that none of this is some special problem. Western Europe, somehow, managed to deal with being far more feudal than the Byzantines ever got, and well we all know how it did.That being said, I do have a problem with people saying "Well, what if Basil II had a strong emperor to follow in his stead." There were trends in the Byzantine state that dictated that, if a weak emperor emerged, that the state was going to go to seed. A form of feudalism was growing, the nobility were amassing more and more power, etc etc etc. Even if Basil was followed by a strong Emperor, there is no gaurentee that that emperor would be able to fix those problems; after all, the general trend amongst any organization, be they states or anything else, is to continue the path that has been set out and to only deviate so much.
The problem is that the Byzantine system basically worked. I'm not saying it was ideal and I'm not saying the aristocracy wasn't a problem, but assuming the state is reasonably well lead and assuming it weathers the crisis of 1185-1204, it doesn't need some kind of amazingly capable reformers to survive.If the Byzantines are going to survive, they are going to need a series of dynamic rulers who not only understand the problems inherit in the current system (which is hard, because the system, up to that time, was doing pretty well) but then have the energy and strength to institute real, lasting, reform.
It could happen, certainly, but its unlikely. Look at Russia, for instance. Even with a strong ruler like Peter the Great, they were only able to do so much. The same for the Ottomans in the 18th-20th century.
Maybe I'm reading the wrong timelines, but Isaac's Empire - which is about as rosy as you can get short of ASBs - hardly goes that far.I'd love to see a timeline where this basic fact is accounted for, rather than the Byzantines get Great Emperor X, and everything is rosy afterwards.
The real death-knell of the Empire was the Palaiologid civil war of 1341-1347. Have Andronikos III live longer and continue his reforms with John Kantakouzenos and you could see the Byzantines manage to hold Europe.
I always thought that the symbolic "Beginning of the End" for Byzantium was the Turkish capture of Kallipolis, which was their bridgehead into Europe.
Andronikos III was also working to reverse the disastrous gutting of the navy overseen by his grandfather, Andronikos II. If he continues the reforms, the Byzantine fleet grows and relations with Venice improve at the expense of the Genovesi and Aydınoğlu Turks that came to dominate the Aegean in the chaos of the civil war.
So long as the Byzantines can hold Kallipolis and just enough of western Bithynia (or even just the eastern shore of the Bosporos like Skoutarion) they can probably reconquer the rest of Hellas. The Palaiologoi had good relations with the Trapezuntine Komnenoi, who will be good allies against the Turkish beyliks.
Other than that, Asia minor is lost. Smyrna, Nikaia and Philadelpheia are gone. In the absolute best of all worlds, they may just be able to retake Nikomedeia.
Can the Empire hold on without any lnd East of the Straits?
So long as they (the Byzantines) control the straits, who cares who rules Turchia (if that's the right spelling)?
Yes theres a difference, the reason i said Turks is because the Ottomans are just a one part of a cultural grouping, if they defeat the Ottomans, then they may well be faced by another grouping. but you didnt answer the question.
HOW ?