Theodore II Lacaris

He died after a rather brief reign, only a few years before the Byzantine reoccupation of Constantinople in 1261. He appears to have inherited his father's epileptic condition, which probably accounted for his early death. But what if he had been healthier and reigned longer? How would he have dealt with Michael? Would he have neglected Asia Minor after the reconquest of Constantinople the way Michael did?
 
At this point in Byzantine history it doesn't matter what you change, all your doing is changing some bloodlines and maybe some details, but the Empire is toast and the Ottomans will become THE Ottoman Empire regardless.
 
At this point in Byzantine history it doesn't matter what you change, all your doing is changing some bloodlines and maybe some details, but the Empire is toast and the Ottomans will become THE Ottoman Empire regardless.
Untrue. Ottomans by that time were only a bunch of sheeplovers that could be easily beaten into goo. Also, Byzantines weren't doomed to lose western Asia Minor - actually, considering the weak turkish states of that time, it is suprising the way things turned in OTL. All Byzantines needed was to keep their primary focus in Asia, not Europe. And that's where Laskaris come through - one of the reasons that Paleologi left Byzantine Asia Minor to fend for itself was because that area was Laskaris-supportive...
 

trajen777

Banned
I always wondered if instead of recapturing Constantinople the Byz had went East and solidified things up to the Taurus mts – reset the Themes – then went West – the Nice an empire was doing quite well esp after the Mongols wiped out the Seljuk’s.
 
Untrue. Ottomans by that time were only a bunch of sheeplovers that could be easily beaten into goo. Also, Byzantines weren't doomed to lose western Asia Minor - actually, considering the weak turkish states of that time, it is suprising the way things turned in OTL. All Byzantines needed was to keep their primary focus in Asia, not Europe. And that's where Laskaris come through - one of the reasons that Paleologi left Byzantine Asia Minor to fend for itself was because that area was Laskaris-supportive...

Indeed.

If we would have been talking about John V Palaeologos, then Matthais would have been right, but the situation was very different during the reign of Theodore II Lascaris.

And in fact, the Ottoman state didn't even exist at this point, and especially at this point in history in the Turkish parts of Anatolia, even the slightest changes in the local political situation could easily result in butterflies that have serious effects on future political developments.

At this point, the Byzantines could easily have played the Turkish frontier principalities off againest eachother and made sure that none of them became powerful enough to become any kind of serious threat - if they would have at least tried to do so.

What's more; if the Laskarids remain in control of Byzantium at this point, then the absolutely disastrous reign of Andronikos II will be butterflied away, which will make *a lot* of difference, even if the successors of Theodore II Laskaris are mediocre at best.

Andronikos wasn't just a bad emperor - he was a spectacularly bad and uncapable emperor, who also ruled for no less than 46 years.

During Andronikos' reign, the empire was basically ruined by a combination of civil wars (that could have been avoided), overtaxation, general mismanagement, and various solutions that turn out to be even worse than the original problems.

Andronikos also dismantled the Byzantine fleet and army, and decided to rely on the Venetians, Genoese, and European mercenaries like the Catalan Company, instead - which really paid off, I might add, as the Catalan Company soon rebelled, resulting in yet another civil war.
 
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