DBWI West Roman Empire collapses in the 5th century

In the 5th Century, the West Roman Empire looked like it was as good as gone. But it surprisingly recovered and survived until a Frankish King overthrew him in 999 AD with the help of the Bishop of Rome.

What would Europe be if the Western Empire Collapsed in the 5th century rather than 1th century?
 
One could argue that the Western Empire did not truly collapse even in the 10th century. After the naval buildup in the 7th century, they retook most of North Africa and much of Iberia from the Vandal kingdoms. Even with the loss of Rome and the official emperor, their only rival of any note for maritime dominance was the Eastern Roman Empire. In my opinion, the reason there was no Western Roman resurgence after the 10th century was that the newly declared Despotates of Africa and Iberia became autonomous vassals of the Eastern Emperor, who was having trouble with Turkic and Arabic tribes raiding Mesopotamia and the Palaestina at the time.
 
Isn't there a Frankish empire centered around Mediolanum with pretensions of Imperium? Afaik they currently own Gaul, Francia (Northern Italy), and Allemania.

The Roman Federal Republic sees them as a strange Frankish Latins with disputes in Illyria and the former imperial heartland.

To answer the question, if it collapsed earlier, it would have just reformed with the latest set of invaders being thoroughly hellenized and latinized just like how the Eastern Empire thoroughly absorbed and integrated the Arabs.
 
One could argue - many of them do - that those Arabs who ended up settling in the ERE mixed so much with the Mesopotamians, Syriacs and Greeks that they effectively constitute an ethnicity as separate from the Arabs of southern Arabia as they are from the Greco-Latin-Germanic peoples of northern and middle-Italy.

By the same token, only the most ardent nationalists of either group would these days even attempt to draw a distinction between Turk and Persian - only the oldest noble families can maybe make any statements as to their 'blood purity'.
 
The Western part of the Roman Empire was actually less urbanized than the eastern part, so the government in the West seems to have had cash flow problems before thay banned the monastaries and confiscated their assets. Its true that had more agricultural land than the East (in an era when agriculture equalled wealth) and a much better army, plus though its hard to believe the East at the beginning of the fifth century was more ridden by religious conflict. But get enough weak emperors and you get a cash starved government that the Church, the wealthy landowners, and even the Germanic tribes that they incorproated into their army can push around.

My guess is what happens is that the Germanic tribal leaders just stop paying attention to Milan and eventually set up their own kingdoms, similar to what happened in northern China in the fourth century AD. You probably won't see so many reconstructions of the empire that have been a feature of European history. A potential wildcard would be the Arabs succeeding in adding a few provinces of the Western empire to the Caliphate.
 
You’d have to somehow make the Recovery of Africa a complete failure. Once it recovered Africa, the geographic position of the Empire was too strong to be overthrown. The other Barbarians had barely any navies to speak of, and the East was to preoccupied with other concerns.
 
One could argue - many of them do - that those Arabs who ended up settling in the ERE mixed so much with the Mesopotamians, Syriacs and Greeks that they effectively constitute an ethnicity as separate from the Arabs of southern Arabia as they are from the Greco-Latin-Germanic peoples of northern and middle-Italy.

You're forgetting the Hellenized Egyptians from the province of Aegyptus whose people are descendants from the initial wave of invaders. Though they mostly forgot a lot of their "Arabness"
 
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