How did they conquer all those Slavs?
And who's in charge of the British Isles?
And why does the WRE exist?
Wait, are we talking about pagan or Christian Saxons here? If pagans, I think the Christian population of Western Europe would hardly accept a foreign domination by unbelievers. Besides the Saxons were a demographic minority compared to the Franks in Neustria or Burgundy, for example. The fact that they gave so much work to Charlemagne owed more to local guerrilla warfare, but I don't think they can simply "counterattack" and reconquer Frankia - divided as it may be.
If Christians, that's sort of what happened IOTL. The Ottonian dynasty was Saxon, after all (ok, they descended from Frankish nobility). Perhaps if the Carolingian conquest of Saxony is a bit less violent, and the Saxon nobility survives intact, they will in the future be able to make their own bid for power. I imagine this more as dynastic takeover than simply a populational conquest.
If Christians, that's sort of what happened IOTL. The Ottonian dynasty was Saxon, after all (ok, they descended from Frankish nobility). Perhaps if the Carolingian conquest of Saxony is a bit less violent, and the Saxon nobility survives intact, they will in the future be able to make their own bid for power. I imagine this more as dynastic takeover than simply a populational conquest.
No need to conquer them, maybe the Slavs just didn't migrate as far west as IOTL.How did they conquer all those Slavs?
No need to conquer them, maybe the Slavs just didn't migrate as far west as IOTL.
What interests me much more is how the Saxons in the eighth century manage to take over the Empire and govern it. What's the political structure enabling that? Saxony, by what little we know, seems to have been all but incapable of governing itself in before it had Carolingian institutions imposed on it. This doesn't look like the work of a loose confederation of tribal nobility.