PC: Eastern Roman Empire Collapses Between 5th to 8th Century

They would be overstretched, and the Latin Empire barely lasted past fifty years. One of my TLs had the Latin Empire taken by the Golden Horde.

Irrelevant to my point. The Crusaders took Constantinople, and they didn't have the Ottoman city-busting cannons, or the Ottoman numbers. There were only about 8,000-10,000 Crusaders total, so we're not talking about an army remembered throughout the ages for sheer force of numbers. It amuses me that people in this thread are shaking their heads saying "Oh it can't be done, they don't have the cannons." Um, the Crusaders did it, almost 250 years before the Ottomans.
 
Irrelevant to my point. The Crusaders took Constantinople, and they didn't have the Ottoman city-busting cannons, or the Ottoman numbers. There were only about 8,000-10,000 Crusaders total, so we're not talking about an army remembered throughout the ages for sheer force of numbers. It amuses me that people in this thread are shaking their heads saying "Oh it can't be done, they don't have the cannons." Um, the Crusaders did it, almost 250 years before the Ottomans.

The Crusaders were already helping another Byzantine Emperor when they sacked Constantinople.
 
Irrelevant to my point. The Crusaders took Constantinople, and they didn't have the Ottoman city-busting cannons, or the Ottoman numbers. There were only about 8,000-10,000 Crusaders total, so we're not talking about an army remembered throughout the ages for sheer force of numbers. It amuses me that people in this thread are shaking their heads saying "Oh it can't be done, they don't have the cannons." Um, the Crusaders did it, almost 250 years before the Ottomans.

Like I already said, they were let into the city...
 
They were even let in as well. They also had a sack of shit as Emperor.

Are you talking about Alexios III, Alexios IV, or Mourtzophlos? Because I'd like to point out that the Crusaders didn't move into Constantinople and get cozy after Alexios III high-tailed it out of town. They had to stay in their camps at Galata, even after Alexios IV became co-emperor with his father (Niketas Choniates castigates Alexios IV for spending so much time in the Crusader camps with his friends, drinking and dicing). It was only after Mourtzophlos had Alexios IV whacked that they entered the city and tore it apart, and they accomplished that by having a few dozen guys climb over the walls, knock holes in it, and let others squeeze through. Aleaumes de Clari (brother of Robert) was the first man through into the city, and came popping out of a hole swinging a sword like a madman, sending the Byzantines fleeing "before him like cattle". With sheer numbers the Byzantines should have overwhelmed the Crusaders but they were so disorganized that they didn't. Pierre of Amiens' men then busted open the Petrion gate with axes so that the Venetian transports could release the remaining Crusaders into the city.

When Mourtzophlos pussied out, that was pretty much it for any organized resistance to the Crusaders. It wasn't as though anyone met the Crusaders at the front gate, handed them a key, and said "Have at it, boys!"
 
Are you talking about Alexios III, Alexios IV, or Mourtzophlos? Because I'd like to point out that the Crusaders didn't move into Constantinople and get cozy after Alexios III high-tailed it out of town. They had to stay in their camps at Galata, even after Alexios IV became co-emperor with his father (Niketas Choniates castigates Alexios IV for spending so much time in the Crusader camps with his friends, drinking and dicing). It was only after Mourtzophlos had Alexios IV whacked that they entered the city and tore it apart, and they accomplished that by having a few dozen guys climb over the walls, knock holes in it, and let others squeeze through. Aleaumes de Clari (brother of Robert) was the first man through into the city, and came popping out of a hole swinging a sword like a madman, sending the Byzantines fleeing "before him like cattle". With sheer numbers the Byzantines should have overwhelmed the Crusaders but they were so disorganized that they didn't. Pierre of Amiens' men then busted open the Petrion gate with axes so that the Venetian transports could release the remaining Crusaders into the city.

When Mourtzophlos pussied out, that was pretty much it for any organized resistance to the Crusaders. It wasn't as though anyone met the Crusaders at the front gate, handed them a key, and said "Have at it, boys!"

The whole point is, they werent considered an enemy army attacking the city. In a siege scenario, Constantinople is nigh impossible to take. This was far from a siege scenario.
 
Irrelevant to my point. The Crusaders took Constantinople, and they didn't have the Ottoman city-busting cannons, or the Ottoman numbers. There were only about 8,000-10,000 Crusaders total, so we're not talking about an army remembered throughout the ages for sheer force of numbers. It amuses me that people in this thread are shaking their heads saying "Oh it can't be done, they don't have the cannons." Um, the Crusaders did it, almost 250 years before the Ottomans.

Yes but the crusaders had the advantage of possibly one of Venice's best doges and Romes worst emperor. Ever. Seriously, Alexios III was worse then everyone else in all of romes 1500 years.
 
The whole point is, they werent considered an enemy army attacking the city. In a siege scenario, Constantinople is nigh impossible to take. This was far from a siege scenario.

???

I wonder what your definition of 'enemy army' is. The Byzantines despised the Crusader army. They threw refuse at Alexios IV when the Crusaders presented him on a galley to them, beseeching them to surrender the city to him. They were historically suspicious of foreign armies in their environs (see Choniates' account of Isaakios II's mishandling of Barbarossa's army, a much less belligerent force whom he harried and hampered so utterly that he nearly caused them to turn on Constantinople). The pilgrims complained of the chilly reception they got when they tried to enter the city (pre-conquest) to marvel at the holy relics. Even Alexios IV, who owed everything to them, was telling the Crusaders to stuff their demands and get out by December 1203. Hell, Mourtzophlos took power mostly by playing on the populace's distrust and hatred for the big, dirty, diseased, hungry, violent ruffians camped across the Golden Horn.

Yes, of course the Crusader army is going to be a different animal from a gigantic force of, I dunno, Persians or Huns or whatevers. For one thing, it wasn't that big an army. Gregory Bell's best estimate of the numbers of the Crusading army that rendezvoused at Venice in 1202, based on Venetian records, is between is between 14,500-18,250. Of that, a substantial number were women, children, the elderly, and the sickly whom the papal representative had to command to go home. Further unknown numbers died of disease in the months before the army shipped out, and then some more at Zara. After the disaster at Zara, at least another thousand deserted. Simon de Montfort quit in disgust and took his host with him. Villehardouin claims that the number that deserted the Crusader army at Venice or Zara was greater than the number that arrived in Constantinople. By the sack in April 1204, I'd be impressed if the Crusaders had a force of 10,000. Hell, the Varangian Guard in the city by itself numbered about 6,000, according to Donald Queller and Thomas Madden. The Crusaders were partly dependent on Alexios IV's goodwill to feed them for much of their stay in Galata. A bigger and better organized army would be in a different position.

Bell, Gregory. "Unintended Interruption: The Interruption of the Fourth Crusade at Venice and its Consequences", Journal of Medieval Military History, Volume 6, 2008.
 
And they would actually have to siege a prepared and ready Constantinople...Something the crusaders didn't have to do...

Well, it was sort of prepared... Alexios III had ordered repairs of the rotting warships in the harbor when word of the Fourth Crusade's approach reached him.
 
Well, it was sort of prepared... Alexios III had ordered repairs of the rotting warships in the harbor when word of the Fourth Crusade's approach reached him.

Mmm, but even then his maintenence of the imperial defenses was dreadful. The guy basically pissed away the entire budget, army, and navy through incompetence and corruption to an almost absurd degree.
 
I love how everyone keeps trying to redirect the point I'm making to Alexios III or the Latin governing. My point stands. Constantinople DID fall to a foreign army centuries before the Ottomans took the city.
 
I love how everyone keeps trying to redirect the point I'm making to Alexios III or the Latin governing. My point stands. Constantinople DID fall to a foreign army centuries before the Ottomans took the city.

True, though they got it back. Eventually.
 
I love how everyone keeps trying to redirect the point I'm making to Alexios III or the Latin governing. My point stands. Constantinople DID fall to a foreign army centuries before the Ottomans took the city.
As a matter of fact you are right. Your point stands.
There is no such a thing as impregnable city.
ANY siege has a chance. Though sometimes this chance is dramatically close to nil.

Well if this happened Europe has just gone to eternal darkness. With out the knolledge of the acient era safe in the hands of fellow chrisians that the Eastern Roman empire represent, the Dark ages would just continou and europe would be screwed.
Some say it was Justinian to blame for the dark ages in West Europe - he destroyed the system of heavily Romanized German successor states on the territory of the former WRE.
And as a result the Romanized 'civilized' Germans were replaced by 'wild' Germans and the Western Europe was screwed.
 
I love how everyone keeps trying to redirect the point I'm making to Alexios III or the Latin governing. My point stands. Constantinople DID fall to a foreign army centuries before the Ottomans took the city.

Yes, its just that it happened under extreme circumstances, and Alexios III is important because his complete bungling of Imperial defense is what ultimately empowered the crusaders onto victory.
 
So with regards to a war that involved the Avars, the Sassanids and the Byzantines, how long would it last in a situation where Heraclius is taken out of the picture early?
 
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