The main question is just the title. The way I see it, post-manzikert, the Byzantines were more or less doomed to decline (feel free to correct this if you see it as wrong) but without the ottomans, they would not have done so as quickly and, of course, if they did decline, would be replaced by another power (or possibly a few more, one filling the void in the Balkans & others or one other filling their role in the middle east.
The Serbs, Bulgars, Hungarians, and others had the potential to become the successors to Byzantium (with more of a cultural connection to their predecessors than the Ottos had, some of them could arguably be considered a "foreign dynasty" of the same empire) if the Ottomans had not steamrolled the whole Balkan peninsula.
So yeah who replaces the Byzzies if not the turks?
Now, this question is actually for a tl with a much smaller pod with huge butterflies, so if you want to be extra helpful, when answering assume that the 4th crusade either doesn't happen at all or is for all intents and purposes not the same crusade that we got.
If you answer, thanks for the help.
The Serbs, Bulgars, Hungarians, and others had the potential to become the successors to Byzantium (with more of a cultural connection to their predecessors than the Ottos had, some of them could arguably be considered a "foreign dynasty" of the same empire) if the Ottomans had not steamrolled the whole Balkan peninsula.
So yeah who replaces the Byzzies if not the turks?
Now, this question is actually for a tl with a much smaller pod with huge butterflies, so if you want to be extra helpful, when answering assume that the 4th crusade either doesn't happen at all or is for all intents and purposes not the same crusade that we got.
If you answer, thanks for the help.