DBWI: improve the Eastern Roman Empire

The Eastern Roman Empire, the direct successor state of the Roman Empire, and one of the most important states of the middle ages, is today a weak country compared with the northern european ones, with a huge debt, a populist government and various separatist groups in its territory (i'm looking for you, kurds and armenians!). So, how could the Empire of Constantinople remain or return to their position as a power?
 

Albert.Nik

Banned
There really many. Instead of persecuting other Christians and Jews,focus on strengthening of the Empire. Take in Slavs who invaded and assimilate them well. Reduce the Civil Wars and instead,focus on these. Reduce or eliminate conflicts with Sassanid Empire and rather befriend them,more strategically planned retake of the Western half are some I can think of right now.
 
Yah... @Albert.Nik kind of hit the nail on the head. Constantinople's biggest mistake goes far back in alienating virtually all their neighbors through their adoption of a policy of Roman cultural purity and trying to enforce Orthodoxy by the sword. Sure, it helped her stay powerful and fill the ranks of her army during the Medieval ages while there really wasn't any alternative to the Eastern Med. trade that gave her the income to fund it all, but once you had Tartary reunify and stabilize the centeral Asian trade and open up the Baltic Sea routes when Muslim traders started getting punatively taxed that Seige mentality just meant they could never adapt and only created a self-feeding cycle of ethnic xenophobia.
 
@Albert.Nik already said it but you need to have less internal conflicts and persecution of religious minorities. But also a less messy gothic war would really help them out. The war and the plague robbed the Romans of money manpower. It also left Italy wide open to invasion by the lombards making the whole war pointless.
 
Reduce or eliminate conflicts with Sassanid Empire and rather befriend them

It doesn't help that the Sassanids went so far out of their way to cater to the Empire's foreign policy demands, especially when they pretty much gave over control of Armenia. The Sassanids were pretty much the least belligerent power ever to occupy the Iranian plateau

OOC EDIT: Totally missed the DBWI, my b folks, fixed it
 
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Well, Rhomania really had been a minor power ever since the Second Social War, when the Empress had to run to her uncle in Vienna to save her from the Syndicalists who had seized Constantinople. So the easiest solution would be to prevent the Revolution; but of course the Revolution had a huge amount of varied causes that it would take a whole essay to cover them all.
 
Have them commit to defending either Russia or Mesopotamia and not both. The two-front war meant that the Byzantines lost both oil-rich territories, and in the midst of the industrial revolution this meant they fell behind.
 
Have them commit to defending either Russia or Mesopotamia and not both. The two-front war meant that the Byzantines lost both oil-rich territories, and in the midst of the industrial revolution this meant they fell behind.

I think this would require a very different internal policy for the empire, as they were trying to forceful assimilate the russians (even if the empires were together as a personal union, Rhomania treated Russia as a colony ). In the mesopotamia is worst, as there was religious persecution to. Personally i think the empire should have focused in controlling the Middle Eastern and north African possessions (having both Suez Channel, Constantinople [the only they still have] and Gibraltar is not bad) and made a mand-ccarro-and-less-stick muslim conversion policy.
 
What's up with people calling them EASTERN Roman Empire? I don't see any othern Roman Empires around in the west. Is it just Italian nationalists doing that?
 
What's up with people calling them EASTERN Roman Empire? I don't see any othern Roman Empires around in the west. Is it just Italian nationalists doing that?
It's mostly because of that biased Edward Gibbon who favored the term "Eastern Roman Empire" against the more accurate "Byzantium"
 
What's up with people calling them EASTERN Roman Empire? I don't see any othern Roman Empires around in the west. Is it just Italian nationalists doing that?

It's mostly because of that biased Edward Gibbon who favored the term "Eastern Roman Empire" against the more accurate "Byzantium"

It's the more used term in my country. Almost all the romance languages (and countries where they are majority) still use the term "East Rome" for Constantinople (it's a archaism).
Also, anyone here likes the idea of hellenism? I am personally not a republican, but my friends from Constantinople praise the idea of the "Hellenic Politeia" and the return to the classical and liberal values ( this part is kind of historically inaccurate, but i leave them with their naive dreams). They even refuse to be called "romans" and like to be called "hellenics".
 
Also, anyone here likes the idea of hellenism? I am personally not a republican, but my friends from Constantinople praise the idea of the "Hellenic Politeia" and the return to the classical and liberal values ( this part is kind of historically inaccurate, but i leave them with their naive dreams). They even refuse to be called "romans" and like to be called "hellenics".

Your friends are part of an extremely tiny minority that's only managed to become viable in the age of the social media bubble. Even those polls done by reliable, as unbias as can be expected international organizations show the Greek-speaking population only has 15-23% (In the margin of error) folks who identify as left of center, and of that barely a quarter have active political engagement. Thinking there 's some kind of suppressed Northern-thinking majority just yearning to get out from under the jackboot of a few bad apples is a delusion the media just loves perpetuating about the autocracy of the Global South so they can pretend our values are somehow universal. Not every society has its base in individualistic, tolerant, Tarto-Germanic values: not a value judgement, just a fact
 

Vuu

Banned
Less internal issues, and a much steadier expansion, not "try to annex everything at once" like Rome initially, thinking everyone around them are still backwards primitives
 
Your friends are part of an extremely tiny minority that's only managed to become viable in the age of the social media bubble. Even those polls done by reliable, as unbias as can be expected international organizations show the Greek-speaking population only has 15-23% (In the margin of error) folks who identify as left of center, and of that barely a quarter have active political engagement. Thinking there 's some kind of suppressed Northern-thinking majority just yearning to get out from under the jackboot of a few bad apples is a delusion the media just loves perpetuating about the autocracy of the Global South so they can pretend our values are somehow universal. Not every society has its base in individualistic, tolerant, Tarto-Germanic values: not a value judgement, just a fact

Yes, i understand your opinion and kind of like it.

Returning to the original premise, and the territory?
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Anatolia, parts of South Balkans and some islands (OOC:Basically the territories of OTL Greece, Albania, Turkey and Cyprus) are everything that remained from the old big Rhomania. In my (very unpopoular) opinion, i tthink the empire needs less territory, not more (perhaps independece for West Armenia and autonomy for the kurds).
 
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What's up with people calling them EASTERN Roman Empire? I don't see any othern Roman Empires around in the west. Is it just Italian nationalists doing that?
No love for the HRE? It's true that during the Nationalist Revolution the "of the German nation" part was emphasized over the "Holy Roman Empire" part but the fact is that the Habsburg still rule over the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation, probably the most powerful country in Europe. I mean, sure, with the exception of the Rhineland, parts of Austria, Hungary, and Dalmatia they don't actually control any Roman territory, but still.
 
No love for the HRE? It's true that during the Nationalist Revolution the "of the German nation" part was emphasized over the "Holy Roman Empire" part but the fact is that the Habsburg still rule over the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation, probably the most powerful country in Europe. I mean, sure, with the exception of the Rhineland, parts of Austria, Hungary, and Dalmatia they don't actually control any Roman territory, but still.

Well, as you said, people generally don't see the Holy Roman Empire as "Roman" since the Nationalist Revolution. In fact, in my country we just call it "Germany". It's just like the Kingdom of New Phoenicia and Mount Lebanon, that people just calls "Lebanon".
 
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