How plausible is the destruction of the Byzantine Empire btwn 400 AD and 1200 AD?

How plausible is the destruction of the Byzantine Empire btwn 400 AD and 1200 AD

  • A) Not plausible at all

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    112

raharris1973

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In the era from 400 AD to 1200 AD the Byzantine empire waxed and waned several times and survived several invasions and sieges.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sieges_of_Constantinople

Some of this is chalked up to the impregnability of the Theodosian Walls (Theodosius d. 395 AD), only ultimately overcome by siege cannon in 1453.
(The fall to the 4th crusade is often attributed to treachery and infiltration rather than overpowering conquest).

The preservation of the control of the capital always seemed to leave a base from which important hinterlands could be recovered.

So for the 800 year period, 400-1200, how plausible is the destruction of the the Byzantine Empire?

A) Not plausible at all
B) Unlikely in the extreme, but barely plausible
C) Medium plausibility
D) Probable enough that it is surprising the empire survived those 800 years
 
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Constantinople's position certainly helped, but I think it's prestige both helped and worked against it. It earned it alot of respect in the west, but in it's last centuries as it grew weak other powers percieved the title of successor to Rome as easy prey. Also, I think the defensibility of it's territories helped. Sicily, Anatolia and the Balkans have few land entry points, and that helped in comparison to the East where there are more points and those were lsot quite early on. There are more factors, but I don't know much of them, or atleast if trends were present through the whole Empire's timespan. I voted medium plausibility.
 
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The Byzantine Empire was incredibly resilient, changing and adapting to the times like steel. It held the richest city west of India, an incredibly powerful army tradition that only rotted with very specific circumstances OTL, a refined sense of diplomacy and warfare, and economic and cultural development that rivaled the Arab world at its worst.


.... That being said, all empires fall, eventually. I'd say medium plausibility, but not because I think it was inevitable it would fall. I just think that nothing lasts forever.
 
The trick would be taking Constantinople and holding the territory (I.e contiguous with a non-greek base of power) once it's clear that the city is truly lost, that's it I suspect.
 

raharris1973

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How about ranking the sieges from best chance to worst chance -

clem attlee's favorite is the Avaro-Persian siege (which was used in a GURPS alternate history scenario IIRC). What's your odds on favorite?

Persian and Arab Sieges of Constantinople[edit]
Main articles: Roman–Persian Wars and Arab–Byzantine wars
Siege of Constantinople (626), by Avars, Slavs, and Sassanid Persians, unsuccessful
Siege of Constantinople (674–678), by Arabs, unsuccessful
Siege of Constantinople (717–718), by Arabs, unsuccessful
Sieges by Bulgaria and the Rus'[edit]
Main articles: Byzantine–Bulgarian wars and Rus'–Byzantine War
Siege of Constantinople (813), by Krum of Bulgaria, unsuccessful
Siege of Constantinople (860), by the Rus', unsuccessful
Siege of Constantinople (907), by the Rus' in 904/907, unsuccessful
Siege of Constantinople (941), by the Rus', unsuccessful
 
Easy. The Arabs, the Slavs, and the Persians barely were stopped from conquering Constantinople. The Arabs were stopped only because of Greek Fire. get rid of Greek Fire and the Byzantines are a goner. the Persians had most of Byzantium's Asian territories under Khosrau II and were aiming for Constantinople. However their siege failed due to heathen Avars and Slavs fighting on their side and zealous peasants.
 
Particularly towards the later end of this spectrum, the Byzantine Empire's greatest strength is also its Achilles's Heel: Constantinople itself. It was likely the hardest city to conquer in the late classical/medieval world... but if it had been conquered, it's hard to see how the empire could have survived. If one of the many sieges of the city had managed to succeed, there's a good chance it would have destroyed the empire. But even that's not a guarantee, mind you, given that the empire nominally survived the Latin conquest in 1204.
 
Wasn't it the 4th Crusade, the crazy one, where the crusaders were invited to the city?

And the emperor promised troops or food or something, and he didn't come through and the crusaders sacked the city. I think some historians viewed this as the big weakening of Byzantium and then it fell two centuries later. Two centuries? Yeah, it sounds like a long time to me, too.
 
Here's a University of Michigan webpage:

"The crusaders captured Constantinople in 1203 and put Alexius IV on the throne. In late January 1204, Murzuphlus soon seized the throne and named himself Alexius V; he subsequently ordered the crusaders to leave. The crusaders responded by retaking Constantinople, this time plundering it as well. They then founded the Latin Empire out of territory conquered from Byzantium. Byzantines formed a government in exile and managed to retake Asia Minor by 1235. In 1261 they recaptured Constantinople, ending the Latin Empire. The fighting, however, further weakened the Byzantine empire, and in 1453, the Ottoman Turks took over region, capturing Constantinople on May 29, 1453."

http://www.umich.edu/~eng415/timeline/summaries/fourth_crusade.htm
 
Medium Plausibility. They could well have gone under in the Avaro-Persian siege under Heraclius.

Easy. The Arabs, the Slavs, and the Persians barely were stopped from conquering Constantinople. The Arabs were stopped only because of Greek Fire. get rid of Greek Fire and the Byzantines are a goner. the Persians had most of Byzantium's Asian territories under Khosrau II and were aiming for Constantinople. However their siege failed due to heathen Avars and Slavs fighting on their side and zealous peasants.

I'm intrigued to know how you think that this could have been done in 626. The Avars lacked a fleet to transport the Iranians across, and the Iranian detachment was operating in hostile territory at the very end of an enormously long supply chain. In 626, despite what Byzantine chroniclers of later generations claim (and it should be remembered they're overwhelmingly concerned with praising the Emperor Heraclius), Constantinople wasn't under serious threat.

As for the Arab sieges, possibly that's the case. On the other hand, Byzantine possession of Greek fire didn't stop notable Arab naval successes such as the conquest of Crete and Sicily in the ninth century, or the sack of Thessalonica in the early tenth, so again I wonder how large a part this supposed wonder weapon played in the 670s. The Arabs operating well outside conquered territory seems a more satisfactory explanation for this defeat, to me.

All in all, I'm of the opinion that East Roman/Byzantine collapse before 1204 isn't impossible (1204 proves that, after all) but it's bloody difficult: 1204 required a very special set of circumstances. Any invading power certainly needs naval supremacy, and ideally territory around the City, as the Greek reconquerers in 1261 and the Ottomans in 1453 did. Some support from inside the walls is also important, as there was in 1204 and 1261. Without at least two out of three of these factors in place, Constantinople is almost certainly going to stay impregnable, no matter how scary the warlord at the gates is.
 
I'm intrigued to know how you think that this could have been done in 626. The Avars lacked a fleet to transport the Iranians across, and the Iranian detachment was operating in hostile territory at the very end of an enormously long supply chain. In 626, despite what Byzantine chroniclers of later generations claim (and it should be remembered they're overwhelmingly concerned with praising the Emperor Heraclius), Constantinople wasn't under serious threat.

Sorry that it has taken me so long to reply to this. I was reading Theophylact Simocatta on the Avars this weekend - and damned purgatorial it was too - as part of my prep for a Byzantine course I am teaching. He catalogues a long list of cities the Avars took: Sirmium, Singidunum, Viminacium, Athens, Corinth. He also explains how the Avars acquired siege techniques. Now admittedly they failed to take Thessalonica and Constantinople herself was on a much different order of magnitude than these other cities, but the city was still vulnerable. Had the Persians defeated Heraclius' field army, a several year siege by the Avars could have been successful. As regards the Persians and ships, many an army has slipped over straits or across rivers through makeshift measures and, quite fortunately, not been intercepted, as in the case of the Romans at Messana in 264 BC, Suetonius Paulinus at the Menai Strait in AD 61, ktl. It isn't likely, but it could happen. So, I do think that Constantinople could have fallen in 626.

I was taught Byzantine/Balkan history by Barisa Krekic who was a student of Ostrogorsky's at Belgrade in the 50s.
 

Zlorfik

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The (latter) arab siege is a much, much better bet than the combined avar/persian one.

For it to have succeeded, it needed only naval supremacy. It's been said here before, but if we dismiss greek fire (or else allow the arabs to steal it), then they have a chance at establishing a blockade around Constantinople and at resupplying their titanic army.

Nobody can really save the Romans at that point. Most of their remaining forces are stuck in Anatolia, and are in any case dwarfed by the Arab army in Thrace. The Bulgars IOTL did inflict some damage, but that was on a demoralized, starving army that wouldn't be such ITTL.
 

raharris1973

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If the Muslims did take Constantinople either in the 600s or 700s AD, how much further in the Balkans would they have gone?

HG Wells speculated that had the Muslims concentrated on Constantinople and won, nothing after Constantinople would have stopped them, and the pagan Slavs, Avars, Bulgars and maybe even Saxons would have converted to Islam.

But that touches on a problem with conversions of these tribal peoples and empires to Islam, that in Omayyad and Abbasid times non-Muslim rulers could not just "convert" their domains. Conversions were only considered genuine if they subjected themselves to Caliphal political rule, at least that's how this poster described it:

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John7755 يوحنا John7755 يوحنا is offline
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I doubt that the Khazars would convert to Islam within the timeframe, mainly do to the facts of Abbasid influence and would be more likely to convert to Orthodox Christianity. At this time the Arab caliphates (Abbasid and Umayyad) would claim sovereignty over all believers and would fight to force the said believer to join the caliphate, it was only till the Turks cane on the scene plus enormous social upheaval (Shia and Khawarij revolts) did the Caliph stop this policy. At the same time Byzantium did not claim such power and attempt to gain it, this is shown through the example of Russia, which would be an example of how Khazaria would look.

So in short, the Khazara wished to keep themselves independent from both polities (hince conversion to Judaism) but if he has to choose they would either stay Tengri or would have a Russian style conversion to Christianity.
So this would seem to indicate that, at least until the Abbasid decline (late 800s, or 900s or 1000s) even an Islamic empire that had taken Constantinople limited its prospects for converting large territories to the north of the Mediterranean, because self-respecting Avar, Bulgar, Magyar and Rus khagans, would be opposed to converting as it meant giving up their temporal authority.

So then the Muslims after Constantinople would only convert populations that they literally conquered themselves. So effectively this might mean southern Thrace and and the Aegean littoral, with people's to the north clinging to paganism, or still becoming Christian (or perhaps going for the Khazar Judaism approach) for a lengthy interval before local rulers would feel comfortable converting to Islam.

Excluding conversions of the states set up by the steppe or norse nomads, how much of the Balkans would the Arab Caliphate be able to conquer and how much would it even be able to conquer. Are the Danube, Morava and Drina rivers actually a stretch?
 

FrozenMix

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I think it was very plausible. Sieges of Constantinople are good places to look, but they are not the only places to look. There were periods where an invader controlled Asia Minor but not really Greece, and there were periods where invaders had Macedonia and a good part of Greece locked down, but not Asia Minor. There was not a period where both really happened, and if someone could have done it, it would be the Arabs. Holding both heartlands of the empire likely makes it not last, regardless of what happens in Constantinople.

Also, lack of imperial unity at almost any point to the point where the breakups and rebellions got as bad as those under the first Roman Empire, combined with a strong external threat that does not unify the warring factions, might also cause a collapse.
 
Yes, at the time it was extremely uncommon for any person to convert to Islam outside of either the Abbasid or Umayyad realms. It was not until the incredible upheaval in Samarra (Anarchy of Samarra 861-870) coupled with continuous Zoroastrian, Khawarij and Shia rebellions (Zanj rebellion 869-883, Yahya ibn Umar's rebellion 864-865, Qarmatians 899-973, Khurramite rebellions 816, Kharijite rebellion 866-896) and conversion of Turks working with the Abbasid Caliphate used as warriors, bodyguards and bureaucrats gained power, did the Islamic persian states get full independence and the conversion of people outside of the caliphate became possible.

Hence the following Hadith recorded by Musnad Ahmed.

"Prophethood (meaning Muhammad himself, SAW) will remain with you for as long as Allah wills it to remain, then Allah will raise it up whenever he wills to raise it up. Afterwards, there will be a caliphate that follows the guidance of prophethood remaining with you for as long as Allah wills it to remain. Then he will raise it up whenever he wills to raise it up. Afterwards there will be a reign of violently oppressive (the reign of muslim kings who are partially unjust) rule and will remain with you for as long as Allah wills it to remain. Then, there will be a reign of tyrannical rule and it will remain for as long as Allah wills it to remain. Then, Allah will raise it up whenever he wills to raise it up. Then, there will be a caliphate that follows the guidance of prophethood".

This was the belief of the Ummah during the Abbasid rule, that the house of Abbas was the caliphate ruling under the guidance of prophethood (today there are different views, however not really at this time amongst the Sunni). Thus, the Abbassids and the Islamic community considered it imperative to have all believers within the realm of the caliphate under the guidance of prophethood. This is a religious reason for why the Abbassids believed it was necessary to have all muslims bow before the caliph at Baghdad. Which is not good for the conversion of people outside of their realm and who are not their subjects.

This does not count the surviving caliphate in Al-Andalus, who considered themselves the caliph under the guidance of prophethood. This does not apply to the Shia, who disagreed with the caliph from day one whenever Abu Bakr became the caliph and the Khawarij, who rejected the Al Bayht (the house) and claimed that anyone could be caliph not just a Quryash.
 
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There was an absurd amount of time spent really as city-state, meaning that it was just about the fortifications and best position in the world, maybe.
 
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