DBWI: Arabs won the Battle of Yarmouk

Year 636 AD, the Roman Empire won against Arab invaders at the Battle of Yarmouk. Most historians agree that the Romans were very close to losing the battle. What would the consequences have been for the Romans if they had lost? How decisive would such a defeat have been?
 
The Romans did lose the battle of Yarmouk.

No, I think you are thinking of the Second Battle of Yarmouk in the 9th century where the Emperor Leo VI was killed. Although that wasn't against the Caliphate, but one of its successors. We're talking about the First Battle of Yarmouk where Khalid ibn al-Walid was killed, and the Arab invasion of the Roman Empire was turned back.
 
No, I think you are thinking of the Second Battle of Yarmouk in the 9th century where the Emperor Leo VI was killed. Although that wasn't against the Caliphate, but one of its successors. We're talking about the First Battle of Yarmouk where Khalid ibn al-Walid was killed, and the Arab invasion of the Roman Empire was turned back.

Luckily the Empire won the Third Battle of Yarmouk since after that the Arabs didn't bother trying to capture the Levant or Egypt
 
Luckily the Empire won the Third Battle of Yarmouk since after that the Arabs didn't bother trying to capture the Levant or Egypt
No, but they did go south from there. Even if expansion into the Hellenistic world was blunted by the Yarmouks, the Arabs made enormous advances along the Horn of Africa and down the coast, and even east into the lands near the Indian subcontinent.

The thing we posit when we talk about an Arab victory here would seem to be a greater threat to the Christian world. Maybe that would be enough to promote some semblance of unity. As it is, the Great Schism was inevitably going to divide the church along military lines, and to this day you have loathing and armed conflict over hair-splitting doctrinal matters between the Orthodox, the Catholics and the Copts of Egypt and the Levant, even nearly a thousand years after the Eastern Roman Empire fell to the Serbs.
 
No, but they did go south from there. Even if expansion into the Hellenistic world was blunted by the Yarmouks, the Arabs made enormous advances along the Horn of Africa and down the coast, and even east into the lands near the Indian subcontinent.

The thing we posit when we talk about an Arab victory here would seem to be a greater threat to the Christian world. Maybe that would be enough to promote some semblance of unity. As it is, the Great Schism was inevitably going to divide the church along military lines, and to this day you have loathing and armed conflict over hair-splitting doctrinal matters between the Orthodox, the Catholics and the Copts of Egypt and the Levant, even nearly a thousand years after the Eastern Roman Empire fell to the Serbs.

Fell to the Serbs is an overstatement. All that ended up happening was the installation of a Serbian Imperial Dynasty on the throne of Constantinople. Eventually the Serbs were Romanized, just like all other invaders. Dynasties come and go, Constantinople is forever.
 
Fell to the Serbs is an overstatement. All that ended up happening was the installation of a Serbian Imperial Dynasty on the throne of Constantinople. Eventually the Serbs were Romanized, just like all other invaders. Dynasties come and go, Constantinople is forever.
And it wasn't even a real dynasty.The real empire survived in Antioch.
No, but they did go south from there. Even if expansion into the Hellenistic world was blunted by the Yarmouks, the Arabs made enormous advances along the Horn of Africa and down the coast, and even east into the lands near the Indian subcontinent.

The thing we posit when we talk about an Arab victory here would seem to be a greater threat to the Christian world. Maybe that would be enough to promote some semblance of unity. As it is, the Great Schism was inevitably going to divide the church along military lines, and to this day you have loathing and armed conflict over hair-splitting doctrinal matters between the Orthodox, the Catholics and the Copts of Egypt and the Levant, even nearly a thousand years after the Eastern Roman Empire fell to the Serbs.
You one of those 'Antiocheian' Empire wasn't the real Roman Empire people,right?After the Serbs captured and sacked Constantinople by treachery in 1204,a provisional government was established in Antioch under the son-in-law of the idiotic emperor who allowed the Constantinople to be captured.The empire eventually expelled the Serbs in 1261.
 
Last edited:
And it wasn't even a real dynasty.The real empire survived in Antioch.

You one of those 'Antiocheian' Empire wasn't the real Roman Empire people,right?After the Serbs captured and sacked Constantinople by treachery in 1204,a provisional government was established in Antioch under the son-in-law of the idiotic emperor who allowed the Constantinople to be captured.The empire eventually expelled the Serbs in 1261.
Spare me. Porphyrios I Dalassenos over in Antioch was never more than a figurehead for a bunch of power-mad old generals who picked him because he was married to Isaac III's daughter and didn't have the ambition to oppose them. The ERE was never a great power again even after his descendants moved back into Constantinople, and it never really reclaimed any of its territories in the Balkans.

If nothing else the Dalassenos emperors kept the Levant pretty solidly Hellenized.
 
Spare me. Porphyrios I Dalassenos over in Antioch was never more than a figurehead for a bunch of power-mad old generals who picked him because he was married to Isaac III's daughter and didn't have the ambition to oppose them. The ERE was never a great power again even after his descendants moved back into Constantinople, and it never really reclaimed any of its territories in the Balkans.

If nothing else the Dalassenos emperors kept the Levant pretty solidly Hellenized.

The ERE might not have recaptured the Balkans but that the Serbian Empire of the Balkans speaks Greek even to this day shows the true staying power of the Constantinople.
 
I'd say a good way to manage this is to have Heracliis the Great for whatever reason not be present at the battle. It was his strategy that managed to crush the Arabs under the heel of the Roman legions, like the Germans, Huns, and Persians before them.
 

Gian

Banned
No, but they did go south from there. Even if expansion into the Hellenistic world was blunted by the Yarmouks, the Arabs made enormous advances along the Horn of Africa and down the coast, and even east into the lands near the Indian subcontinent.

The thing we posit when we talk about an Arab victory here would seem to be a greater threat to the Christian world. Maybe that would be enough to promote some semblance of unity. As it is, the Great Schism was inevitably going to divide the church along military lines, and to this day you have loathing and armed conflict over hair-splitting doctrinal matters between the Orthodox, the Catholics and the Copts of Egypt and the Levant, even nearly a thousand years after the Eastern Roman Empire fell to the Serbs.

Well, don't forget the various Protestant groups as well. They often disagree with each other, as well as with the Catholics and Orthodox.

The Lutherans of Germany and Scandinavia, and the Hussites of Bohemia, Poland, western Ruthenia, and Hungary often don't really get along with each other (more to do with general German-Bohemian animosity, I guess). The Calvinists (aka the "True Reformed" faith) of southern France and Burgundy don't get along with pretty much anyone, and it's only the Guillemites of northern France that's chummy with the Catholic Church (and they've mostly kept the trappings of Catholicism) as well.

And let's not forget the Nestorians (who're not Protestant) of Japan, which some Christians don't even recognize as such, though that mainly has to do with the fact that they've adopted so much of the Shinto and Buddhist faiths that they've became virtually indistinguishable from each other.
 
Last edited:
Spare me. Porphyrios I Dalassenos over in Antioch was never more than a figurehead for a bunch of power-mad old generals who picked him because he was married to Isaac III's daughter and didn't have the ambition to oppose them. The ERE was never a great power again even after his descendants moved back into Constantinople, and it never really reclaimed any of its territories in the Balkans.

If nothing else the Dalassenos emperors kept the Levant pretty solidly Hellenized.
Just because they stop owning any lands in Bulgaria and Yugoslavia or project power in the West,that doesn't mean they ceased being a great power.They still own Greece,Anatolia,Armenia,Syria,Palestine,Cyrenaica and Egypt.The only post-Justinian regions that the empire didn't reconquer were Italy,Africa(which broke away during the crisis of 1204) and the various Slavic kingdoms in the Balkans.
 
Last edited:
Year 636 AD, the Roman Empire won against Arab invaders at the Battle of Yarmouk. Most historians agree that the Romans were very close to losing the battle. What would the consequences have been for the Romans if they had lost? How decisive would such a defeat have been?

The impact of such a defeat would not have been too bad. Heraclius was old and would die soon anyways, so him going down will not be a great loss. At worst one would see the Arabs holding parts of the Levant for a couple of years before the Empire sends an army out of Anatolia to push them out again. The early Caliphate was nowhere close to the threat Khosrow's Persia had been and could be pushed out fairly easily as long as the Empire maintained it's naval superiority (c'mon, it surely will not lose that to desert dwellers lol, despite some cray AH writers) and clung on to Egypt (no way in hell is that going to fall as easily, especially as the Navy can always be used secure the Delta in ways it could not have been wielded in the Inner Levant). Anatolia's climate makes it impossible for a realistic attack to happen.

But let's suppose our ASB friend is active and the Empire loses Yarmouk, loses its Naval superiority, loses Egypt and this trifecta leads to loss of Constantinople itself (it can become a close run thing if the sea lanes are closed and food supply is lost). In the long run, it would mean nothing. As Horace noted once before, Greece will conquer her conquerors again. In a generation the Arab elite will speak Greek, identify as Roman and their faith will be indistinguishable from another Christian heresy (some lunacy like Iconoclasm can't be ruled out) and though the remainder will take longer to assimilate, it will be done. Historians will merely note this as a heretic Saracen dynasty that came to power, and which would be down by 750 or so (800 at latest) as the plague ends making the rounds and the Aegean population recovers (not too unlike the Serbian Empire and such). Preventing hellenization here would take something stronger than ASB, maybe the so-called God/Allah himself.
 
Top