If the Second Rome falls…
…You can always return to the First one
A Eastern Roman Empire’s tale of exile in Italy
Prologue
Modern reconstruction of the siege of Constantinople in the Autumn of 717, when the Imperial supplies of Greek Fire where still high...
In 717 AD, the capital of the Eastern Roman Empire, Constantinople, was subject to a harsh siege by the Umayyad army leaded by Maslama ibn Abd al-Malik, willing to take the most rich and important city of Europe and to gain a second foothold in Europe after Spain.
To lead the Byzantine forces was the new elected Emperor Leo III, of the Isauric dynasty. Leo counted on various factors to save the city: the reliability of the Theodosian walls, the disposal of the “Greek Fire” in adoption on the Roman galleys, and the support of the Bulgarians.
However, various problems made so the siege went farther than expected from the defenders: in the early winter of 717, harsh for the Arabs, provoked however into Constantinople a fire in its arsenals (attributed to the negligence of some soldiers which wanted to warm up themselves) which burned or damaged various weapons and most of the supplies of the Greek Fire, which prevented the Byzantines to wipe entirely the Umayyad navy (1); while the Bulgarians under the rule of their Khan Tervel hesitated to intervene asking for more and various concessions from Leo III, despite he was tied with promises of intervention after the stipulation of a treaty just made in 716 (2).
In the end however the Bulgarians arrived in the summer of 718, albeit in minor measure as expected, as Tervel gave his son part of his troops to secure the western borders of Bulgaria along the province of Moesia Inferior, which started at that time to be known as “Serbia” from the Slavic tribes here located. In fact Leo III conceded the Tzar the right to rule over that region (albeit as formally into the Eastern Roman Empire) in exchange of his intervention: the 15th of August of 718 the joint Byzantine-Bulgarian forces attacked the Arabs. The siege was broken forcing the Arabs to flee and return in Asia, mostly under the impetus of the Roman forces than the Bulgarian ones: however, as the Byzantines were forced to sustain the major effort of the assault, they pushed way further into the enemy lines.
The charge was leaded by Leo III in person, who pushed himself into the first lines; at that point a tragedy of unexpected proportions struck the Byzantine when a random Arab arrow hit the neck of the Emperor, who felt to his horse. Despite his guard brought him to the camp medics, they failed to save him so the thirty-third Eastern Emperor died (3).
Despite the 15th August became later the main national feast for the Empire, as the end of the siege was seen as a direct divine intervention under intromission of the Virgin Mary, however that day signed the start of the lowest period of the Empire: Leo managed to have in time a son, Constantine, born just in the first days of August by his wife Maria, which fifth of his name was promptly declared new Eastern Emperor in Hagia Sophia, but now the Byzantine were ruled by a council of regency serving an infant, while they lost a valiant commander and leader and at the doors of the “City of men’s desire” stood the Khan of the Bulgars (present at the ceremony of incoronation of Constantine V), which surely along with Kormeisy was more than intentioned to capitalize from the actual outcome of the battle of Constantinople, considering also the war was far from being over: albeit escaped from the Balkans, the Arabs still roamed into an Asia Minor in full disarray…
(1),(2): minor PODs
(3): main POD
A/N: As actually I'm rather sloppy with my Italy TL, I decided in the meanwhile to start this another project of mine. I didn't deny the original idea came from my roleplay in
https://www.alternatehistory.com/discussion/showthread.php?t=294982, where I played an ERE established in Italy, but also for seeing other threads and maps ventilating about the possibility of a ERE resilience in the peninsula. Wanting to make this TL more plausible possible, it will not be probably a Byzantine/Roman wank, more an Italian one of sort across the middle ages (arriving to an alternative 1453 could be already a success for my narration). Reviews, suggestions and criticisms of sort are highly apreciated.