Islamic victory in the Siege of Constantinople (674-678)

And possibly like OTL how iranians contributed to the Islamic golden age, Greeks might in this ATL after being conquered by the arabs. You could see more Islamic Hellenic architecture and Islamic hellenic scientists. And similar to how the Abbasids used Iranian style administration, in the Greek regions and anatolia, you could see an Islamic administration similar to that of the Byzantines.

Well part of the reason that you have Persian architecture in the Abbasid period Baghdad is that the city was built by tearing down Cteshipon and using the material to build Baghdad. To this day, you can see the remains of this.
 
Mohammedan? Thats a insulting term so we can see that your whole argument is bias.
Everyone's biased, though. It's a question of whether their bias renders their argument less valid. The term aside, would you say that his argument is invalid, had he used Muslim instead?
 
Everyone's biased, though. It's a question of whether their bias renders their argument less valid. The term aside, would you say that his argument is invalid, had he used Muslim instead?

Not the poster in question but yeah. The terminology is but one aspect of his bias - referring to Rome in the 7th century as a "Medieval Superpower" strikes me as factually inaccurate and chauvanistic.

I agree it's unlike the Umayyads conquer Europe. However the argument underestimates why the Arabs had such successes in favor of "luck" the favorite argument of Byzantophiles everywhere. Ironically, there's something of a prejudice there. Luck rarely is used to describe the successes of Alexander the Great or the Mongol conquests, or something like the British Empire, even though all had profoundly fortunate circumstances. Viewing the Muslim conquest as an implausible, out of the blue event is conveniently overlooking facts.

In short, his use of an outdated slur is but one marker of a bias that not only renders the argument less valid but defines it.
 
What if the Umayyads had won the Siege of Constantinople (674-678 AD), defeating the Byzantine navy and looting and completely occupying Constantinople?

Would this pincer movement have spelled the beginning of the end for a free and independent Christendom? Would the Umayyad's have had a chance to not only conquer all the Byzantine Empire after this, but also move into the Balkans like the Ottomans did centuries later?
How far to the north can the Muslim conquest of Europe go?
Could it be that the second Islamic civil war would be ruled out?

The result would certainly be, at minimum, the reduction of a free Christendom to a mostly Germanic rump. The real limitations on Arab forces would really only be logistical and terrain-related. The Balkans and most of Italy would be very reachable, though expansion farther into northern Europe would become more challenging. What survived of Christianity would perforce be more Germanic and tribalistic, more tenuous in its retention of its Greco-Roman roots and knowledge for any future renaissance, if it survived long enough and with enough vibrancy to have any. The Papacy would almost certainly have to relocate, first to northern Italy and then north of the Alps.

It's worth noting how the Ottomans struggled in their campaigns to take Vienna in 1529-1683. Upper Austria really was at the limits of their logistics; they were far from the main support, the terrain and infrastructure slowed progress in a way that the deserts of Africa and the Levant, the plateaus of Anatolia, and the plains of Spain did not. The climate was also going to be a struggle for the Umayyad armies to adapt to.

As important as the victory of Tours was for Christendom, repelling the siege of Constantinople was even more critical.
 
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Not the poster in question but yeah. The terminology is but one aspect of his bias - referring to Rome in the 7th century as a "Medieval Superpower" strikes me as factually inaccurate and chauvanistic.

I agree it's unlike the Umayyads conquer Europe. However the argument underestimates why the Arabs had such successes in favor of "luck" the favorite argument of Byzantophiles everywhere. Ironically, there's something of a prejudice there. Luck rarely is used to describe the successes of Alexander the Great or the Mongol conquests, or something like the British Empire, even though all had profoundly fortunate circumstances. Viewing the Muslim conquest as an implausible, out of the blue event is conveniently overlooking facts.

In short, his use of an outdated slur is but one marker of a bias that not only renders the argument less valid but defines it.

But the Islamic conquests were insanely lucky.
 
This is not the Roman Empire of the Last Emperor's days; and seeing as this has not been stressed yet; conquering Constantinople does not conquer Rome. Rome the city fell and was sacked many times, Rome the state did not. The same applies to Constantinople. The city may fall, Rome will (and indeed, did) persevere. The rest of the Roman Empire is still there, and presumably now enraged that the Mohammedans just sacked their capital. The Roman Navy isn't going to mass-defect to sworn enemies, the Roman nobility isn't going to stop fighting either. At best they just pissed off a medieval superpower, well done guys, bravo.

I disagree.

Constantinople was more important to the Roman Empire in its Byzantine form than old Rome was to the Empire in its earlier periods. Constantinople really was, in many ways, the heart of the empire, a city which only grew in importance, in contrast to Rome, which steadily declined in importance to the governing and maintenance of the empire during the Republic, Principate, and Dominate. A lot of that had to do with its much more strategic location.

In any event, Rome survived in the 5th century despite the fall of Rome and even Ravenna because there was plenty of empire left, an entire eastern half virtually untouched and even growing more prosperous. But where does a Byzantium of the 670s that has lost Constantinople fall back on? Initially, probably Thessalonica, but that's much less defensible than Constantinople, and with less resources in its hinterlands, and isolated by Slavic war bands... It has lost not only its Semitic realms but also Anatolia, its prime recruiting ground; the Balkans are largely overrun by Slavs and Avars. North Africa is about to be overrun by the Arabs, too. It retains Sicily and the islands but these are now highly vulnerable to Arab sea raiders. The Exarchate of Ravenna holds on, barely, against the Lombards, but that would hardly form much of a base for the Empire to survive as anything but a weak local successor state, like Trebizond was in the 14th-15th centuries.

They're magically going to conquer Europe now? After this miraculous victory the likes of which people will tell horror stories about for generations? The Merovingians may have more than one thing to say about that, as well as a substantial part of the Christian (and indeed, pagan!) kings and chieftains of Europe. No, it's not the Battle of Tours yet but that could very easily come to a head a generation early. In my opinion; No, you're not going to see Suddenly, Mohammedan Rome. No, you're not going to see it in Lombardy, either, nor anywhere else really as welcome to logistical woes the likes of which can't really be described because they had this problem with trying to quite literally conquer the entire world all at once and were stretched so thin as for it to be considered downright laughable, if the Mohammedan Conquests didn't happen because of downright incredible luck more than any sort of political or military savvy, they'd be regarded as fantasy today at best. Is it plausible for the Mohammedans to have won in 678? Perhaps it is. Is it plausible for them to then go on, and conquer most of an entire continent while conveniently ignoring all the already extant problems they faced now compounded by even more? No.

If the Umayyads overrun Constantinople, most of Greece and the Balkans are almost certainly forfeit within a few generations; and no longer standing in the way of Arab attentions on Italy, which faced plenty of attacks in the 8th-10th centuries as it was. I think the odds are against keeping Rome; the Papacy likely relocates to Ravenna, which is more defensible; and if the Franks still rise to power here, the popes might even move to Aachen. There's a limit to what the Arabs can reach, but at the least, I think Italy, the south of France, and the middle Danube become war zones, and Frankish resources more heavily diverted to dealing with the new threat from the south. This might make campaigns against the Saxons and beyond the Elbe infeasible.
 
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Not to mention that, by conquering Constantinople and holding it for a long enough time, they'd also be able to convince the Rus to convert to islam, as, practically, he who controls the straits controls the russian religion.
Also, the concept of "being stretched thin" does not immeidately apply to the Ummayyad caliphate, as its military was comprised of autonomous regional armies.

I don't know if the Rus would convert to Islam so readily. But it would butterfly away what success the Macedonian dynasty achieved there in the late 900's.

One might still see the advent of Sts Cyril and Methodius, and this might lay the ground for a possible Latin Rite conversion of the Rus down the road (it might take longer and be more tenuous, since communications would be more difficult than they were from Constantinople), if the Franks hold on long enough. But the history of Eastern Europe would look far different, and considerably less Christian, at any rate.
 
Is it plausible for them to then go on, and conquer most of an entire continent while conveniently ignoring all the already extant problems they faced now compounded by even more? No.

A good timeline would be that the Arabs spend immense resources on conquering Constantinople and then, due to their exhaustion, are soon overthrown in other regions. The victory would be Pyrrhic. I would read that timeline, assuming it doesn't drift into ASB.
 
A good timeline would be that the Arabs spend immense resources on conquering Constantinople and then, due to their exhaustion, are soon overthrown in other regions. The victory would be Pyrrhic. I would read that timeline, assuming it doesn't drift into ASB.

That would be interesting, and plausible.

It would likely accelerate the fragmentation of the Umayyad Empire.

On the other hand, whatever remained of the Byzantine Empire would be in much more parlous shape, hanging on to isolated strongholds in Greece, the Balkans, Ravenna, and so on... It might possibly retake Constantinople, perhaps, but it would likely be a desolate pile of rubble. The Macedonian dynasty recovery would be far, far more in doubt, and even recovery of Western Anatolia would be a struggle, to say nothing of anything beyond it; and the cultural renaissance of the Byzantine renaissance of the 9th-11th centuries would have far more modest bases on which to build. The real danger is that it would be too weak to resist Slavic threats in subsequent decades, especially from the Bulgars. It would likely push the Papacy into Frankish arms more quickly, and the Venetians more speedily into independent status.
 
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A good timeline would be that the Arabs spend immense resources on conquering Constantinople and then, due to their exhaustion, are soon overthrown in other regions. The victory would be Pyrrhic. I would read that timeline, assuming it doesn't drift into ASB.

I think more likely would be that the Ummayads see conquering Constantinople being one of the last things they do before coalition of Persian/Arab groups rise up a la the Abbasids.

In general conquering Constantinople wouldnt weaken the Arab conquests - there's no seesaw effect in real life. Defeating the Roman Empire would be a positive in the long term - bringing in wealth and not using any more soldiers than constant war does.

What it would do is ultimately complicate the pattern of the Islamic world and introduce potent other cultural strains that would have a profound effect on the religion and culture of the near east much as Persia did to the Arab Caliphates.
 
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