The Romans win adrianople spectacularly

Even Gaul might be saved, provided the Roman Empire never demilitarizes the Rhine Frontier (as it was forced to do when Radagasius invaded); it's been a while since I really looked into this period, to be honest, so I'm a little rusty.
Though the problem is still the prioritization of field armies over border forces, and the quartering of field armies inside cities rather than separate military camps.
 
Though the problem is still the prioritization of field armies over border forces, and the quartering of field armies inside cities rather than separate military camps.
If we go with a PoD in the earliest years of the Fifth Century, would it be possible for the WRE to institute these kinds of border reforms?
 
Why were the field armies inside cites again?
From what little I remember, it was sold as part of a "defense in depth" strategy, in which the frontier troops would patrol and slow any mass incursion as the field army counterattacked, when in reality was to ensure loyalty of the provinces to the emperor and for this reason they were better equipped, payed, quartered and more numerous than the limitanei.
 
From what little I remember, it was sold as part of a "defense in depth" strategy, in which the frontier troops would patrol and slow any mass incursion as the field army counterattacked, when in reality was to ensure loyalty of the provinces to the emperor and for this reason they were better equipped, payed, quartered and more numerous than the limitanei.
That is stupid.
 

Towelie

Banned
Having good internal lines of defense is not particularly stupid. Mobile field armies of the late Empire were actually really powerful, well equipped, and able to handle a good variety of tactical challenges. What was stupid was their use in political nonsense and the civil wars.

Frontier defenses needed to be better, sure, but the frontier truthfully was a blended concept in many areas with more or less friendly tribes being used to watch over more or less friendly exterior tribes and all vying for Roman resources and affection. The breach of the "hard" Rhine frontier, made irrevocable because of the failure of the field armies to head off the enemy, was because of political bullshit from the civil wars and the need to do something about Alaric. Take away one issue in Alaric with Adrianople, and the other still probably exists.

Italy was still to some extent the population bomb that it was a few centuries ago, but less so after the plagues and breakdown of the economy. To make the recruiting drives work, I think you need the Roman elite to take public offices and duties seriously. Moral decline is a favorite target of Gibbon, and perhaps overly so, but the tendency to shirk public duty, shirk taxes, shirk military service, and the huge upsurge in divorces and the drop in birthrate were a real issue. If you get the elites to buy into the state more, the pay increases will make recruitment of natives much easier.
 
With all due respect, if you think that being stupid is enough to stop something from happening, you clearly haven't been studying history closely enough.
Or I know that. That still doesn't make it not stupid
Having good internal lines of defense is not particularly stupid. Mobile field armies of the late Empire were actually really powerful, well equipped, and able to handle a good variety of tactical challenges. What was stupid was their use in political nonsense and the civil wars.

Frontier defenses needed to be better, sure, but the frontier truthfully was a blended concept in many areas with more or less friendly tribes being used to watch over more or less friendly exterior tribes and all vying for Roman resources and affection. The breach of the "hard" Rhine frontier, made irrevocable because of the failure of the field armies to head off the enemy, was because of political bullshit from the civil wars and the need to do something about Alaric. Take away one issue in Alaric with Adrianople, and the other still probably exists.

Italy was still to some extent the population bomb that it was a few centuries ago, but less so after the plagues and breakdown of the economy. To make the recruiting drives work, I think you need the Roman elite to take public offices and duties seriously. Moral decline is a favorite target of Gibbon, and perhaps overly so, but the tendency to shirk public duty, shirk taxes, shirk military service, and the huge upsurge in divorces and the drop in birthrate were a real issue. If you get the elites to buy into the state more, the pay increases will make recruitment of natives much easier.
what do you mean by population bomb?
 

Towelie

Banned
Or I know that. That still doesn't make it not stupid

what do you mean by population bomb?
Part of what made Rome so strong to begin with was that Italy was extremely densely populated and Rome had a huge base to recruit soldiers from. It was so huge, that they were able to build armies with over 90,000 troops several times in the Punic Wars despite their ridiculous property classifications. After the Republican Civil Wars, there were over 40 legions roaming around the empire, almost all men from Italy.

Rome never had an issue with demographics and population issues until the plagues and economic collapses started setting in, and the Crisis of the Third Century really sapped Italy of a lot of its strength. Italy was still a powerful region however afterwards, and it was only Alaric's invasion that finished it off.
 
The troops were stripped from the Rhine specifically as a result of Western forces being decimated in the two civil wars with Theodosius. You butterfly away Theodosius here, and maybe as a result you also keep Gratian around (Valens coming to his aid). This in itself causes a massive change in direction, not even counting the fact that the Visigoths, perhaps the biggest player in Roman politics between 376-410, won't exist. With no troops stripped from the Rhine, the west keeping the fertile recruiting grounds of Illyricum, etc. etc. you've just completely altered the direction of Roman history.

Isn't betting against a Roman civil war pretty... unlikely?
 
Nothing much happens. You get Valens around a little longer. Eventually some other "barbarian" tribe either gets settled within the frontier as federates, as the Franks had already been, or is allowed to enlist in the Roman Army en masse as a tribe, and not necessarily as a result of a defeat. The arrangement with the Franks was made after the Romans beat the Franks in a big battle near Strasbourg.

You still get civil wars, and its only a matter of time before some general thinks its expedient to make an alliance with one of the barbarian tribes.

There are some effects as not having the Goths around as a contender, but then they could come back. The Ostrogoths spent the century as lackeys of the Huns, and then seized Italy. The Lombards later came pretty much out of nowhere. Someone else, likely the Vandals or the Gepids, will grab Span if the Visigoths don't.

The big break, the crossing of the Rhine in 406, came after troops were taken from there to be used against Italy. They happened to be used against Alaric, but any group of out of control federates or a civil war contender will do.

The problems with the Roman Empire at that stage, namely constant wars and plots around the Emperor, a long term demographic decline, a breakdown of the machinery to recruit natives into the army, and a series of barely competent Western Emperors, don't go away just because the Goths do.

Well, I not completely agree that experienced the Empire in the fourth century economic crisis. Peter Heather convincingly demonstrated that it was just the opposite: almost all the provinces at this time developed. What was the real problem is widespread evasion of the Romans from military service and as a result barbarisation army. So when the barbarian invasions to Gaul in 406 there was a conspiracy against Stilicho, his murder and pogroms Germans serving in the Roman army and their families, thousands of them joined the group Alaric. It was a decisive blow to the Roman army, because it prevented the rapid counteroffensive against tribes that invaded Gaul, allowing them to penetrate the Roman territory with impunity, plunder it and trim it with your own domain, depriving the Empire of income from these areas. Emboldened by the Visigoths also become a serious threat.
 
It seems to be a general pattern with empires. In their early years they're fighting for survival against hostile foreigners, which tends to foster a high level of cohesion and intra-group co-operation. Then they get so strong that their supremacy is evident and unchallenged, and in the absence of external threats they gradually get more complacent and social capital starts to decline. Eventually it gets to the point where enough people put their own interests above that of the empire as a whole that the empire is no longer able to mobilise its resources properly, and it ends up falling to other groups with higher levels of social capital.

This is the pendulum of history identified by Ibn Khaldun in the 11th century. It holds a lot of validity until the rise of world spanning seaborne empires in the 1400s broke this land empire paradigm and created a sea power paradigm.
 
Part of what made Rome so strong to begin with was that Italy was extremely densely populated and Rome had a huge base to recruit soldiers from. It was so huge, that they were able to build armies with over 90,000 troops several times in the Punic Wars despite their ridiculous property classifications. After the Republican Civil Wars, there were over 40 legions roaming around the empire, almost all men from Italy.

Rome never had an issue with demographics and population issues until the plagues and economic collapses started setting in, and the Crisis of the Third Century really sapped Italy of a lot of its strength. Italy was still a powerful region however afterwards, and it was only Alaric's invasion that finished it off.
How devesting was Alaric invasion to make Italy so weak?
 
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