The Late Roman Empire: Can a New Capital Save the Empire?

The Fall of the Western Roman Empire was the result of an inherent flaw in its grand strategy of military defence. The decision to prioritise the defence of Italia over that of the provinces effectively sapped the Empire of its economic and military strengths. The armies of Britain and particularly of Gaul, along with the grain of Africa, were the ultimate bases of strength for the Western Empire. Their defence was essential to the preservation of the Roman Empire in the West. In order to adequately defend the provinces, the Western capital and the strategic central reserve would need to be located outside of Italia.
The best military location from which to resist the barbarian assault, according to Arther Ferril’s The Fall of the Roman Empire, would have been Arles on the Rhone in southern Gaul. From the Rhone, it is quite possible that the barbarian invasion of Gaul, starting on the last day of the year 406, could have been prevented from penetrating Spain and southern Gaul. A more vigorous defence of the Rhine frontier would have prevented the rebellion of Constantine III in 407. To be sure, a government centred at Arles could not have prevented the invasion of Italia but the pressure on Constantinople to share in the defence of Italy would have been much greater.

Interestingly enough this relocation almost happened. In March 401 Alaric marched the Visigoths into Italy and up to the walls of Milan. The Visigothic leader had chosen an opportune moment for the invasion of the Po valley. Stilicho (the supreme commander of the West Roman legions at the time) was tied down in the Alpine province of Raetia to the north, dealing with an attack of Suevi, Alans and Vandals, so northern Italy was undefended against attack. Aquileia fell to Visigoths as well as other cities of northeastern Italy. Fear swept the Italian peninsula, and at Milan there was talk of moving the court to Arelate (Arles) on the Rhone. Repairs were hastily begun on the great walls of Rome while omens and prodigies foretold dire calamities.
In OTL Stilicho is able to persuade the court to hold out while he dealt first with the crisis on the Raetian frontiers and mobilised a field army for use against Alaric. So in the ATL he is unable to persuade the court (which has a strong anti-Stilicho faction anyway) and the Emperor and his extensive entourage move to the safer city of the Arles in 401. This unfortunately leaves northern Italy open to the ravages of the Goths).

Alaric abandons his plans to besiege Milan and marches south into central Italy where he threatens Rome herself. Stilicho assembles an army to meet the Visigoths, gathering legions from the Rhine and from Britain (weakening the borders of the Western Empire) as well as recruiting Alan and Vandal allies. Stilicho hopes to attack Alaric’s rear while he is still tied down to the siege of Rome but the barbarian leader refuses to be trapped by the approaching army and calls off the siege. Throughout 402, Alaric and Stilicho play cat and mouse throughout central and then northeastern Italy before a decisive is fought early in 403. Stilicho defeats the barbarian but is unable to destroy him and is in the end forced to make peace with the Visigoths, allowing Alaric to return to Illyricum (much like OTL but in the ATL Alaric is a little richer).

The 402 Gothic invasion of northern Italy reveals the weakness and impracticality of Milan as military base (just like in OTL). The court (based at Arles) debate moving the capital to another city in northern Italy (some favour the more impregnable and marshy Ravenna). But plans to return the capital back to Italia were muted after another Gothic horde (led by Radagaisus) pushed across the Danube and into Italy in 405.
Although Stilicho was once more able to marshal the dwindling armies of the Western Empire and defend Italy from the barbarians (massacring the Goths and bringing Radagaisus back to Rome in chains much like the OTL), the vulnerability of northern Italy was exposed. Despite some dissent, the court of Honorius decides to remain in Arles for the time being.
A new grand strategy was devised for the defensive of the West, the mobile army would remain in southeast Gaul (near the new imperial capital) while a smaller defensive force would stay behind in Italia. This defensive force would hold the invaders in a delaying action while the mobile army moved to the trouble spot. The whole plan was based on the resumption that northern Italy was not a defensible line against the new Gothic threat from the east (particularly Alaric in Illyricum).

In late 406, an alliance of Vandals, Suevi and Alans crosses the frozen Rhine and sweep through undefended northern Gaul. In OTL, Stilicho’s attention had turned towards the defence of Italy above all other pursuits (such as defending the frontiers) and he made no attempt to halt the invasion of Gaul. His inaction angered the legions in Britain, who appointed a usurper (Constantine) to the purple. Constantine crossed the channel to Gaul and became quickly gained control of over half the Western Roman Empire (ruling a large part of Gaul and Spain) for four years. In the same year Alaric marches west (again) from Illyricum towards Noricum, threatening northern Italy with invasion (again).
However in the ATL, Stilicho is committed to a new grand strategy that ranks the security of southern Gaul as integral. He is therefore forced to make provisions to defend Gaul. While he could just try and persuade Honorius to move the capital back to northern Italy, the threat from the Visigoths is at this moment too significant to makes this a viable proposal. So the Roman legionaries are summoned northward and Stilicho begins to gather an army to drive back the invaders.

A new chapter has begun in the history of the Western Roman Empire…
 

Typo

Banned
Very interesting!

However how would the western Empire deal with the fundamental fact that the western provinces of Gaul and Britannia having low amount of resources to work with?

Does anyone know how much Italia has compare to the rest during this period?
 
Part II

The decision of Honorius to relocate the Western Roman capital to the city of Arelate (Arles) in southern Gaul in 401, is already having diverged impact in the ATL. It is easy to believe in the inevitability of the Fall of the Western Roman Empire particularly after the sack of Rome in 410. Yet the fate of the western government had been shaped in the decisive (if not determinative) years 406-410 before that inauspicious moment. These fateful four years mark the beginning of the end for the provinces and in the end Rome herself. The historic OTL decision to establish the western court at Ravenna permanently put priority on the military defence of Italy, a mistake in the end impossible to rectify. However, in the ATL this mistake has not been made and the Western Empire can now conduct a proper defence of the provinces.


Part II: The Barbarian Settlements
In late 406, an alliance of Vandals, Suevi and Alans crosses the frozen Rhine and sweep through undefended northern Gaul. Seizing upon the opportunity suddenly open to them, the Burgundians invade northeastern Gaul (besieging the cities of Worms and Strasbourg). As all of Rome’s remaining military force is being marshalled against the invaders[1], Alaric marches west from Illyricum towards Noricum (just like in OTL). From here, he is able to hold northern Italy to ransom (and quiet dissenters who argue that the capital should be moved from troublesome Gallia back to Italia). The barbarian king is able to force the Empire to pay him four thousand pounds of gold in exchange for peace and promises of help against the invaders.

In 407, Stilicho (the supreme commander of the West Roman legions at the time) recalls the British mobile army to Gaul (he never had the defence of Britannia as a priority). The British legions cross the channel at Boulogne and deal a heavy blow to the barbarians, restoring the Rhine frontier (much as Constantine did in OTL). A counteroffensive across the Western Alps by Sarus (commander of Stilicho’s Gothic forces) has success on the Rhone[2] preventing the invaders from reaching the new capital.
Despite their victories on the frontier, the majority of Rome’s enemies are already inside the Empire. Large parts of northeastern and southwestern Gaul have been ravaged by the barbarians. Most of the towns of northern and western Gaul are sacked and plundered during the ensuing years and one chronicler wrote : ‘All Gaul went up in a single pyre’. However, Stilicho is able to recapture the southwest, moving the mobile army out to defeat the Vandals in pitch battle in early 408 (killing the Vandal king). Meanwhile, Alaric and his Visigoths wage bloody war against the Burgundians in northeastern Gaul (sparing Roman Gaul the some of the worst of the Burgundians incursions). Spain is safe against barbarian inclusion in this ATL, the Pyrenees Mountains are a natural military barrier and rather easy for Stilicho to defend (the only reason the barbarians were able to cross into Spain OTL was the rebel Constantine foolishly left the Pyrenees passes unguarded).

In the spring of 408, word reaches the West that Arcadius (the East Roman Emperor) has died. Stilicho turns his eyes eastward with the hope of establishing a regency over the new Roman Emperor Theodosius II (thus bringing together East and West again). He persuades Honorius to commission Alaric to suppress the Vandals, Suevi and Alans in Gaul while he travels to Constantinople. At this moment Stilicho’s enemies (in both the East and the West) conspired against him. Led by the recalled British legionaries, Stilicho’s army mutinies near Massilia (Marseilles) and lynches many high-ranking officers and civil servants. The revolt is decidedly anti-Germanic and quickly receives the support of the central government (which has a large anti-Germanic fraction). Following this mutiny, Stilicho is deposed and finally executed. His replacements (palace politicos rather than generals) discuss the problems facing the Empire. What measures were to be taken in regard to the barbarian invaders in Gaul? And more importantly, what policy was to be adopted towards Alaric?

In terms of the latter question, the ATL follows a course similar to OTL, the new imperial politicos refused to placate the barbarian and the Visigothic leader marches his army across the Julian Alps into Italy to besiege Rome. The Western army is spread thin on the ground in Gaul (and suffering from the barbarian desertions following the death of Stilicho) and even if an army could be assembled capable of challenging Alaric, it would mean abandoning the Gallic front. This would threaten Arles (the last vestige of civilised and central government in the West) and leave the rest of the Western Empire open to barbarian invasion. At the imperial palace in Arles, Honorius is overwhelmed by indecision and does nothing but call upon the East for aid against the barbarians (like OTL). After a few years of drama and failed negotiations, Alaric sacks Rome in 410.

In 412, Alaric’s successor Athaulf (Alaric dies as in OTL 410) crosses the Alps and moves to southern Gaul with his Visigoths. Instead of engaging Athaulf in battle, Honorius promises to grant the Visigoths ‘federate’ status as well as land, if they would join in the war against the numerous barbarian invaders in Gaul. But Athaulf soon breaks with Honorius when he refuses to return the Emperor’s sister (Gall Placidia) and attacks cities in southern Gaul. In 413 he besieges the Emperor at Arles in order to pressure Honorius to legitimise his claims over his captured territories in southern Gaul. After gathering barbarian auxiliaries from among the Frankish tribes in northwest Gaul, a Roman army arrives at Arles, forcing the besieging Visigoths to withdraw towards Raetia (the barbarian leader refuses to be trapped by the approaching army and calls off the siege).

At the end of 413, there had been a significant change for the better throughout the West for Honorius. Spain is safe from invasion, the northeast Rhine frontier is secure and Vandals, Suevi and Alans are on the contained in Gaul. Most of the Western Roman Empire still remains Roman and vigorous military action might stave off the impending collapse.

[FONT=&quot][1][/FONT] In OTL, the court at Ravenna made no attempt to halt the invasion of Gaul as the defence of Italy was sized above all other pursuits (such as defending the frontiers).

[FONT=&quot][2][/FONT] In OTL this happened but he was defeated soon after by the usurper Constantine’s magister militum Gerontius and withdraws but in the ATL he is secure in victory.
 

Deleted member 1487

Quite interesting. What will become of europe in TTL? Without the Germanic tribes running roughshod over the empire, we will see a more concentrated collection of Germans in Europe, which it looks like will control italy. Could we see a latin Gaul and Spain, while having a Germanic Italy and east France? I will be watching.
 
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