alternatehistory.com

This is an Idea I thought of today and I really like it. While I feign to call it a "Byzantine Survival" scenario, it is contingent on it lasting for longer than IRTL.

Essentially, the Greeks became much more isolationist from around the 12th century and made a number of interesting political and militaristic moves.

With the arrival of the Slejuk Turks, all notions of a cross-Mediterranean empire (Particularly Norman-held Italy, Fatimid Egypt and Tunisia) were abandoned for the time being, and even much of Anatolia was condemned as lost land (though a tribute was exacted on the Beyliks in Eastern Anatolia), save for the logistically sound lands around Nicaea and perhaps some fringe around Ionia. This was a political move that that along with relatively open communication and travel between the Turks and Greeks and low animosity, was able to distract them long enough for the mongols to arrive and make any move against Greece unable to them. Instead of choosing to make a move against the Turks while their attention was focused on the east, they decided to remain centralized for protection in the likely case of Turkish fall.

Being such open and excellent traders, the Greeks were quick to secure the recipes and means to produce a dangerous alchemical powder from the east, and by the mid fourteenth century, managed to outfit the walls of Constantinople with an early bombard system, further cementing their position. Within a century, they had a formidably well-trained infantry contingent armed with powerful arquebuses which they integrated with pike formations (This was a neo-classical notion reminscent of the Phalanx formations that Greek propagandists used to their advantage). Units of the Kataphractoi Corps also began to be equipped with pistols and eventually became their own cavalry unit: The Gavalari (Rider) Corps, a light cavalry group that was used to great success as skirmishers and raiders

By now, the Greek Vassals of Bulgaria and Serbia have essentially turned into border provinces with autonomy only in the slightest sense. The Venetians hold many Coastal territories in Illryia, as well as influence over the inland Croats. The King of Hungary titles himself "Holy King of the Magyars and Dacians, as he asserts dominance over the duchies of Transylvania and Wallachia.

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The timeline would go on to detail the burning of Nicaea, the first, second and third failed sieges of Constantinople, the conversion of the Magyars and Romanians (and mayhaps the Lithuanians) to Orthodoxy, the territorial acquisitions of a Renaissance Byzantium both brief and longstanding, a period of Holy wars between Catholic West and Orthodox East (that the Reformists in Germany and Scandinavia take to in a very mercenary manner) and the linguistic ramifications including the almost complete disappearance of the South Slavic language family and the existence of the Hellenistic branch of languages and dialects.

Please tell me where I may run into some problems and maybe some sources I could look at to get started. I have a better feeling about this one than either of the two I'v started.
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