How wealthy would a surviving Byzantine Empire be?

The two things a surviving Byz would need is an agricultural revolution like the British of the 1700s and others later and an Industrial revolution. That these things didn't occur IOTL isn't an indication that they can't occur. IIUC first the Byz and then the Ottos changed Anatolia from mixed farming to livestock ranching, if this can be changed back to mixed farming then perhaps an agricultural revolution is possible. As for the industrial revolution, hydroelectric power is an acceptable way to generate electricity in lieu of coal fired power plants, what is the chances of that in the territory held by the Komnenos?

As for a PoD, more successful Crusaders mean the Islamic powers concentrate on them for another century or so, leaving time for the reconquests of the Komnenos to stick.

According to wiki, Turkey produces 23Gw of hydroelectric power, and consumes about 200Gw (2700Kw hours per capita, population of 75 mil). So, presently, 10% of their power comes from dams. Call it 11% from dams. The US is 6% for comparison.
 
So a bigger Greece ? Little different than OTL Greece I'd think.

Except that Greece, along with the rest of the Balkans was under Ottoman control and cut off from the intellectual development of the Christian world during the Renaissance and Enlightenment. It would probably be a little bit better in this timeline.
 
The two things a surviving Byz would need is an agricultural revolution like the British of the 1700s and others later and an Industrial revolution. That these things didn't occur IOTL isn't an indication that they can't occur. IIUC first the Byz and then the Ottos changed Anatolia from mixed farming to livestock ranching, if this can be changed back to mixed farming then perhaps an agricultural revolution is possible. As for the industrial revolution, hydroelectric power is an acceptable way to generate electricity in lieu of coal fired power plants, what is the chances of that in the territory held by the Komnenos?

As for a PoD, more successful Crusaders mean the Islamic powers concentrate on them for another century or so, leaving time for the reconquests of the Komnenos to stick.

You really need a temperate climate to get the sort of agricultural surpluses that Britain had, which fuelled the industrial revolution. You also need more than just electricity: most notably, you need a system of limited government where the ruler won't confiscate capitalist profits. I don't think the Eastern Roman Emperors were too big on limited rule.
 
How much of an effect would an existing Byzantine Empire in its 1204 borders have on European oceanic exploration? One spur to the Age of Discovery was the steady Ottoman conquest of the Byzantine Empire, which eventually limited the possibilities of European overland trade. With an existing medium-sized Byzantine state, the overland trade routes to Asia would be more secure.
 
How much of an effect would an existing Byzantine Empire in its 1204 borders have on European oceanic exploration? One spur to the Age of Discovery was the steady Ottoman conquest of the Byzantine Empire, which eventually limited the possibilities of European overland trade. With an existing medium-sized Byzantine state, the overland trade routes to Asia would be more secure.

The trade routes might be more secure, but I reckon the prospect of being able to cut out the middle man and get your spices direct from source would be incentive enough for exploration.
 
You really need a temperate climate to get the sort of agricultural surpluses that Britain had, which fuelled the industrial revolution. You also need more than just electricity: most notably, you need a system of limited government where the ruler won't confiscate capitalist profits. I don't think the Eastern Roman Emperors were too big on limited rule.

It wasn't, but it could develop a State Capitalist system, like in Soverihn's TL, Renovation.

And that's all I'll contribute, because people are going to either shill or bash State Capitalism, then shill/bash China and its system, and the thread will be diverted from its original purpose.
 
The trade routes might be more secure, but I reckon the prospect of being able to cut out the middle man and get your spices direct from source would be incentive enough for exploration.

So the Byzantines may end up in a similar situation as the Italian Maritime Republics, whose trade went into decline when international trade moved to the Atlantic and away from the Mediterranean.
 
With a surviving theme system and small scle farmers rather than large scale magnates I think an agricultural revolution can occur.

Except...the places where the agricultural revolution originated IOTL involved large scale commercial farming...

Subsistence based small-holders are not going to be investing huge amounts of resources in dramatically increasing yield. Commercial farming requires scale. The 'small' commercial farmer is a phenomenon of the 19th century, after the major innovations had already been made and subsistence farming was fading, not of the 17th and 18th centuries when agricultural productivity got its 'bump'.

Of course, the theme system wasn't just made up of subsistence farmers. The infantry would barely qualify as such (they probably had the scale to be very small commercial farmers at the height of the Macedonian period), the cavalry would probably actually qualify as good small-holding commercial farmers (a hundred acres or so was the minimum, IIRC, for the same period). Since they would often have dependent laborers, their landholdings would look something like a microcosm of the large estates of the magnates.

This is where you'll find the promise. The problem is that I'm not entirely sure it's enough. What's the minimum efficient scale of a rotating farm with all the crops used during the 18th century Revolution? Can things like turnips grow well in the Byzantine climate? Are the thin soils of the area going to benefit from the kind of plows that were invented in the 18th century Revolution?
 
So the Byzantines may end up in a similar situation as the Italian Maritime Republics, whose trade went into decline when international trade moved to the Atlantic and away from the Mediterranean.

Yes, but unlike the Maritime Republics, the Byzies can produce shitloads of silk and other luxury goods; granted, that was true for Venice as well - the latter had good glasswork - but Byzies have more manpower and resources to manufacture with.

Yeah, I came back, but that's because my mention of State Capitalism hasn't caused the thread to degrade yet.
 
Yes, but unlike the Maritime Republics, the Byzies can produce shitloads of silk and other luxury goods; granted, that was true for Venice as well - the latter had good glasswork - but Byzies have more manpower and resources to manufacture with.

And yet their economy went into a decline in the 13th century, and even though it expanded in the 10th-12th, you didn't see the takeoff you did in Italy, say. This should give everyone going "rah rah Byzantium" pause. Especially given the Byzantine tendency to give Italians chunks of the economy to raise military and fiscal support. These are not signs of a state that cares about protecting its merchants.


As for Egypt why not. By 1050s Most of the Levant had been recaptured. The Fatimids were utterly weakened by this point while Byzantium was at the height of its epogee military and economically.

The Byzantine state was so awesome at this point that by the 1080s, Normans were threatening Thessaly and the Turks had reached the Aegean. I think this should give everyone pause. Manzikert was just a military defeat; but that one weakness led to decades of civil war. This doesn't sound like a strong state with a firm footing to me.

Especially if it's "decent" emperor was the one in charge around Manzikert. Imagine if it had been a bad one!

Prevent manzikert and you prevent the feudalization of the Byzantine state and can probably see the small soldier farmers retaining their landholdings and the theme system probably survivng.

Decline in themes predates Manzikert by a good margin.
 
So the Byzantines may end up in a similar situation as the Italian Maritime Republics, whose trade went into decline when international trade moved to the Atlantic and away from the Mediterranean.

Well, in an ideal world, Byzantium maintains close and profitable relations with one or more of the Maritime Republics. Things soured pretty quickly leading up to the Crusade, but Venice had maintained excellent relations with the Empire for centuries after the fall of the West.
 
The Byzantines playing a game of catch-up with northern and western Europe seems likelier than them being an Early Industrializer. However, if Italy or Spain managed to do so, it's hardly inconceivable that the Byzantines would do so. Spain after the 1500s was hardly a land of flourishing mercantile traditions either.

And Faeelin, agree with you about the relatively flaccid state of the late Byzantine economy, but saying "they went into decline in the 13th century" is a bit of a cheap shot; might just have something to do with it being after the 4th crusade. :p The fact they managed to drag out their collapse until 1453 has to give them point for sheer cussedness, if nothing else. The assumption that they manage to hold onto the better parts of Anatolia implies that in this TL they're doing something smarter than OTL.

Edit: although, for the sake of making predictions, it would be good to know what.
 
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I think there would have to be an early POD for several reasons, mainly because if they want to conquer back of of their former land, they have to deal with native populations who have been thoroughly islamized and arabized. That means that the land is hard to control, and more trouble than it's worth. Even Egypt, though I know it pains people (byzantophiles) to hear that their beloved Rumania doesn't have the ability to conqueror, let alone hold, Egypt post-Muhammad.

For most of Byzantine existence, Anatolia was the border to the Muslim world. This meant the hallway for muslims looking to conquer into Eastern Europe, be it the Arabs, Persians, Seljuks, Turks (I know the Seljuks technically were Turks but they were a different wave than the Ottomans and their group), or whoever else. On top of that, the Mongols will very often be a problem, since they can come through the Caucus or Persia, and I imagine that they, like the turks, are a hard group to prevent from blobbing like in OTL. This means that the land (already mountainous) will be hard to work thanks to fairly common invading armies, and lack the infrastructure from the same said armies, will make industrialization hard, if they manage to get that far.

Another point is that, even if the Byzantines make it Renaissance in a better shape than OTL, they'll still have the problems that they had OTL, but on a larger scale, as well as typical eastern European problems. By the 1400s the byzantines were a system that was already struggling to keep up, and if they still control all of Greece and bits/all of Anatolia, this is going to be even harder to keep together, but with an early POD this can be relatively easily rectified. On top of that, They're in eastern europe, meaning that they'll be less developed because they have an overall lower population density, and don't have the centralization that the nation-states of the west have because they didn't have the hundred-years war or suffer from the plague near as bad, and neither of those are easy fixes, no matter the POD.

Outside of that, even if they manage to survive to the 1700s or so, the Byzies are in no position to participate in the ever globalizing world. Their position as the bridge between Europe and Asia is no longer an issue as going around is the norm now anyway, the blacks ea is pretty much useless to the westerners (who have all the important money) because its just got a bunch of russians, turks, and in this case greeks, living around it, and is out of the way to get goods they don't even really want/need. Because controlling Egypt is pretty much out of the question without the pre-700-ish POD, the Red Sea to the Far East suggestion is out of the question, especially since the Byzies wouldn't have been able to get a good fleet there anyway, because Egypt lacks any major ports on the sea I can think of at the time, so holding Arabia would be beneficial for the ports, specifically down the coat to Yemen, though that's even more impossible that Egypt, and if they did manage to get a large fleet in the Red Sea, they then have to get a sizeable amount of troops to it (large enough to conquer land from either the Indians or Chinese, who have large populations, even then), which is hard considering its all desert around there. To top it off, a hostile navy from the non-Byzie controlled Yemen could pretty easily destroy a fleet in the Red Sea, since it's narrow and has a chokepoint exit. Going through the straits of Gibraltar is unlikely, since they would first have to conquer it from the west, a task improbable in and of itself, as well as prevent someone stronger still from taking it again. If they don't control Gibraltar, then whoever does control it can just decide it doesn't want Greeks in the atlantic, and blow their fleet to Timbuktu, though that might be what the greeks want...

So to summarize, I think any surviving Byzantine Empire, Rumania, Rhomaion, whatever, would most likely be a slightly larger greece with a slightly larger economy to match.
 

Deleted member 67076

Let's assume they manage to keep most of Western Anatolia and Trebizond, along with Greece sans Corfu, Crete, and a few of the Aegean islands FPotS.

Those borders aren't sustainable. The state would have long since been conquered by another power. At minimum one would need either all or most of the Balkans and/or all of Anatolia up to the Tarsus. (Irene's borders)

With those it could be a decently wealthy place. Maybe not G20, but certainly first world. With Basil IIs borders it can be an Italy tier economy if everything goes well. (Highly doubtful on that)

With the Levant and Iraqi Kurdistan attached to Basils borders and you can bet that state could be in the top 5 economies if properly managed with a very high GDP per capita.

Of course, this is assuming that te state is run at the minimum like im the Macedonian era; tight control over the Dynatoi, efficient law codes, well salaries officials to curb corruption and a powerful army. Now, should the 'Middle'- the merchants and bureaucrats- ever gain dominance in the state the way the Dynatoi did during the Comnenids, and you've quite the potential for something like the PRC model to develop.

I should note that the Byzantine empires development can go in so many different ways depending on what factors shape its development; therefore one could see Romania become a corrupt communist oligarchy or a mixed market empire whose economic model mirrors that of Kenya or anything in between.
 
Those borders aren't sustainable. The state would have long since been conquered by another power. At minimum one would need either all or most of the Balkans and/or all of Anatolia up to the Tarsus. (Irene's borders)

With those it could be a decently wealthy place. Maybe not G20, but certainly first world. With Basil IIs borders it can be an Italy tier economy if everything goes well. (Highly doubtful on that)

With the Levant and Iraqi Kurdistan attached to Basils borders and you can bet that state could be in the top 5 economies if properly managed with a very high GDP per capita.

Of course, this is assuming that te state is run at the minimum like im the Macedonian era; tight control over the Dynatoi, efficient law codes, well salaries officials to curb corruption and a powerful army. Now, should the 'Middle'- the merchants and bureaucrats- ever gain dominance in the state the way the Dynatoi did during the Comnenids, and you've quite the potential for something like the PRC model to develop.

I should note that the Byzantine empires development can go in so many different ways depending on what factors shape its development; therefore one could see Romania become a corrupt communist oligarchy or a mixed market empire whose economic model mirrors that of Kenya or anything in between.

I tried to make borders, but it's late, and I'm on a tablet.

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Deleted member 67076

I tried to make borders, but it's late, and I'm on a tablet.

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Yeah these borders are unsustainable. Very vulnerable to being choked navally due to lack of control of the Ionian Isles, Naxos and Crete while Anatolia has no frontier to defend the wealthy and exposed western coast. Central and Eastern Anatolia along with the Tarsus mountains provide excellent defensive terrain against raids and invasions due to the semi Arid climate, high elevation, and alpine nature.
 
The problem with guessing the wealth of a surviving Byzantine Empire and what its borders would be quite obvious: Byzantium's borders were constantly in flux. Without a POD that leads to a surviving Byzantium it makes this even harder to guess.

However, sense the best PODs would be a surviving Macedonian line or a continuing Komnenian POD, I'd say that realistically the Empire's borders could be modern Turkey, Greece, Bulgaria, Albania, Macedonia and parts of Serbia. But even then its hard to figure out. After all we can't know how Byzantium would develop technologically over the centuries. We could see an Industrial revolution begin in Constantinople instead of Britain, just for example. Another thing to consider is a surviving Byzantium would potentially mean that the trade between the far east and Europe wouldn't be interrupted, meaning that the shipping lanes around Africa might be less important. This means Byzantium remains wealthier longer.

Another thing to consider is the Renaissance. While I believe it would still happen it might be on a more limited scale. With Byzantium remaining a strong country there would be little reason for Scholars and monks to flee to Italy with the works of antiquity and Byzantium. This means that the Renaissance will either exist on a smaller scale (limited to the works already in the west and books/texts brought over by trade) or will take longer to take root.

While I love the idea of a Byzantium surviving into the modern era and remaining at least at a first world level of wealth, without a proper POD this is next to impossible to guess at. But I will say that the idea that Byzantium would automatically decline thanks to their geographical position is just stupid. The Ottomans controlled similar territory and remained a great power well into the 19th century. So clearly Byzantium could manage to survive and thrive as well.
 
It wasn't, but it could develop a State Capitalist system, like in Soverihn's TL, Renovation.

And that's all I'll contribute, because people are going to either shill or bash State Capitalism, then shill/bash China and its system, and the thread will be diverted from its original purpose.

State capitalism only happens because states with the ability to confiscate private profits look at systems where states do not have that ability, see their success, and counter intuitively forego the short term gains for the government for long term betterment. It can thus only ever happen after about 50 years of seeing a constitutional nation benefit.
 
State capitalism only happens because states with the ability to confiscate private profits look at systems where states do not have that ability, see their success, and counter intuitively forego the short term gains for the government for long term betterment. It can thus only ever happen after about 50 years of seeing a constitutional nation benefit.

Renovation, Soverihn's timeline, actually dealt with that possibility, and it almost happened IOTL, with the Second Palailogoi Civil War, where a faction attempted to copy Italy's maritime states.
 
And yet their economy went into a decline in the 13th century, and even though it expanded in the 10th-12th, you didn't see the takeoff you did in Italy, say. This should give everyone going "rah rah Byzantium" pause. Especially given the Byzantine tendency to give Italians chunks of the economy to raise military and fiscal support. These are not signs of a state that cares about protecting its merchants.




The Byzantine state was so awesome at this point that by the 1080s, Normans were threatening Thessaly and the Turks had reached the Aegean. I think this should give everyone pause. Manzikert was just a military defeat; but that one weakness led to decades of civil war. This doesn't sound like a strong state with a firm footing to me.

Especially if it's "decent" emperor was the one in charge around Manzikert. Imagine if it had been a bad one!



Decline in themes predates Manzikert by a good margin.
the normans threatened Byzantium because Manzikert destroyed Byzantine army the country fell into civil war that devastated it and Alexius barely managed its recovery and even then a blunder at Dyyrachium screwed the pooch.

Even under the shitty emperors like Michael Rangabe or Constantine Doukas the state still held it own in the east, west was different I will give you that but nothing canged in the east prior to the advent of the Turks. IN the west it lost Southern Italy to arguably one of the most noted commanders of that period Giuscard and one easy way to stymie the norman conquests is have him and his brother Roger killed or captured.

As for Romanus well he was unlucky that he had alienated the court faction lead by the Doukidis and Michael Psellus and subsequently was betrayed at Manzikert. Thus dont compare the byzantium pre manzikert with post because the situation was completely different and incomparable.

As for a bad emperor well then the byzzies would have probably won because he would probably be of the court faction and Doukids would in that case not betray him. Romanus like I said was a super unlucky emperor.

Simple PODs are needed but Byzantium at least in 1056 was a force to be reckoned with if you look at the data and figures whcih do not lie. Once again I repeat 1050s-60s Byzantium is not equal to 1080s Byzantium.

As for merchants you are right the state started losing interest in merchants which is why it started suffering ad declining but based on Angolds recent excellent research as well as other Byzantine Historiograhers like Treadgold it appears that Byzantine merchants even into the 12th century were doing quite well and the percentage of state revenues lost to freign merchants wasnt actually all that high.

Also 13th century decline was due to Komnenoi system. It had lots of issues lead to lots of internal problems. Essentially Byzantium from 1081-1170s was lucky. It had strong capable emperors and thus the system established by Alexius did not collapse but unlike Theme system it was unstable and the moment a weaker or even average emperor take charge everything falls to shit. Not to mention by that point Byzantium was at Venetian and western mercies.

The 11th century decline was due to infighting beetween the courtly and military factions as well a lots of internal troubles and losing battles due to betrayal and infighting as in Italy or against the Turks.
 
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