Manuel Komnenos

WI Manuel Komnenos had managed to have a son with his first wife, Bertha of Sulzbach? Let's say that, for whatever reason, things go differently and the Maria Komnene of OTL is born a boy, who we'll call *Alexios II; assuming Manuel dies in 1180 as in OTL, *Alexios II will be 28 in this scenario.

What will the effects of this be? Obviously the butterflies are going to be immense, but I imagine that the Byzantines are going to fare far better with a capable adult on the throne.

By the way: I am in no way an expert on the subject of the Byzantine Empire, so please, be merciful if I am assuming too much with such a POD.
 
With an adult heir for Manuel, Andronikos Komnenos almost certianly doesn't take power, and without his radical purges of the nobility the Angeloi don't take power, or even with those purges the Angeloi likely don't take power. No Angeloi, no Fourth Crusade destroying the empire.

Alexios II will need to attend to Bulgaria, which has plans for regaining it's independance at around this time, and I believe a small Norman invasion took place in Andronikos' OTL reign as well, and will quite possibly still happen for Alexios. The Norman invasion will in and of itself be easy, but the situation in southern Italy must be stabilized in some way to prevent further attacks. Anatolia is still very posible to reunite, as is reabsorbing some of the crusader kingdoms. Bulgaria will be a tough situation, but if Alexois is capable I imagine he can hold it. After that the empire is in good shape, and I would be surprised if it is dead by 1453 as OTL.
 
With an adult heir for Manuel, Andronikos Komnenos almost certianly doesn't take power, and without his radical purges of the nobility the Angeloi don't take power, or even with those purges the Angeloi likely don't take power. No Angeloi, no Fourth Crusade destroying the empire.

Alexios II will need to attend to Bulgaria, which has plans for regaining it's independance at around this time, and I believe a small Norman invasion took place in Andronikos' OTL reign as well, and will quite possibly still happen for Alexios. The Norman invasion will in and of itself be easy, but the situation in southern Italy must be stabilized in some way to prevent further attacks. Anatolia is still very posible to reunite, as is reabsorbing some of the crusader kingdoms. Bulgaria will be a tough situation, but if Alexois is capable I imagine he can hold it. After that the empire is in good shape, and I would be surprised if it is dead by 1453 as OTL.

Depends if this Komnenos is a capable ruler, as the Empire needed strong rulers.
 
Depends if this Komnenos is a capable ruler, as the Empire needed strong rulers.
Yes, but 1204 was a near absolute worst case scenario, and the empire still lasted another 250 years. I find it hard to believe that even the worst of the Komnenoi could do worse than the 4th crusade. A corpse would have been a better ruler than Alexios III Angelos. A corpse can't spend all the state's money foolishly and flee a battle it should have won. It also cant then create the Despotate of epirus, blind its ruler for being too capable, and call the Turks to invade to put him back on the throne. To get an emperor worse than Alexios III would border on ASB.
 
Yes, but 1204 was a near absolute worst case scenario, and the empire still lasted another 250 years. I find it hard to believe that even the worst of the Komnenoi could do worse than the 4th crusade. A corpse would have been a better ruler than Alexios III Angelos. A corpse can't spend all the state's money foolishly and flee a battle it should have won. It also cant then create the Despotate of epirus, blind its ruler for being too capable, and call the Turks to invade to put him back on the throne. To get an emperor worse than Alexios III would border on ASB.

Well it happened and probably could get worse. Also, challenge accepted.
 
Bulgaria isn't necessarily planning anything - but it is feeling sore, and the Asens (OTL) took advantage of it. Serbia is more of a definite problem.

One thing *Alexius II needs to do - the situation that Andronicus tried to fix with his purges and so on is a real problem.

How to solve it will occupy a lot of imperial energy.
 
It's hard to do worse than Alex III, yes. I don't see any particular reason for Alex II to be particularly worse than the others. Manuel had decent relations with the West and people weren't plotting to overthrow him actively.

I am not expecting them to do any better in Anatolia, though.
 
It's hard to do worse than Alex III, yes. I don't see any particular reason for Alex II to be particularly worse than the others. Manuel had decent relations with the West and people weren't plotting to overthrow him actively.

I am not expecting them to do any better in Anatolia, though.

Why not?

The Seljuks are seeing the beginnings of a period of internal problems as Killij Arslan gets older (not until the late 1180s, I think).
 
Why not?

The Seljuks are seeing the beginnings of a period of internal problems as Killij Arslan gets older (not until the late 1180s, I think).

That could help but Manuel had a very hard time making any meaningful advances, and he already strained the treasury.

Plus there WILL be more crusades, of course, and potential troubles there. Basically, I am afraid the Empire will never be able to amass a large enough force that could spend several seasons focusing on Anatolia.

Maybe "not any better" is too strong; no better than Manuel at best would be more accurate.
 
That could help but Manuel had a very hard time making any meaningful advances, and he already strained the treasury.

Plus there WILL be more crusades, of course, and potential troubles there. Basically, I am afraid the Empire will never be able to amass a large enough force that could spend several seasons focusing on Anatolia.

Maybe "not any better" is too strong; no better than Manuel at best would be more accurate.

Manuel barely spent any time trying to make meaningful advances in Anatolia, thanks to wanting to do something everywhere.
 
That could help but Manuel had a very hard time making any meaningful advances, and he already strained the treasury.

He also had ADHD when it came to conquest and abandoned his anatolian ambitions wheneve he got a new silly idea. A more directed focus on anatolia could allow it to be retaken from divided turkish beys.
 
That could help but Manuel had a very hard time making any meaningful advances, and he already strained the treasury.

Plus there WILL be more crusades, of course, and potential troubles there. Basically, I am afraid the Empire will never be able to amass a large enough force that could spend several seasons focusing on Anatolia.

Maybe "not any better" is too strong; no better than Manuel at best would be more accurate.

I would say (in addition to EW's points) that it is much easier to face a weaker Turkish threat than it is to make the empire strong enough to beat them while they're strong. Whether a nation is conquered depends far more on its internal situation than on the might of the conquerors, since it is by nature far easier to defend then to attack.
 
The marriage of this son to a western princess could have provoked anti Latin nationalsim which could have led to his over-throw.​
 
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