War elephants and an intact Byzantine Italy

545

In Africa, the Moorish rebellion is getting worse with each passing day. By now, they had come under the leadership of the king of the Ifuraces, Carcasan. Starved of reinforcements, Narses is barely able to control the area around Carthage, having suffered two narrow defeats during the year.

In Gaul, Belisarius once again tries to go on the offensive, now that his rear in Burgundy is secured. Unfortunately for him, he has under his command mostly Barbarian forces, a large part of which are subject to their own kings, be they Goth or Burgundian. Coordination is difficult and success is rare. The general spend most of his time relieving towns and fortresses under siege, only to hear of others to his rear being besieged in turn. Mutual raiding is commonplace and central and south-western Gaul is being steadily depopulated, with the plague only making things worse. South-eastern Gaul and, to a lesser extent northern Italy, see an influx of Gallo-Roman refugees seeking a new life.

In the east, Khosrau finally makes peace with the Romans. He cedes the important fortress of Nisibis, several elephants and grants Roman merchants extensive trade privileges. He also promises an annual tribute once he deals with the rebels. Unfortunately for him, there is no swift end to the civil war in sight, as it continues to spread from province to province, with the Hephtalites backing the rebels in return for a promise of hefty tribute. By years end, excluding small isolated pockets, Khosrau only controls Northern and Central Mesopotamia.

Justinian meanwhile decides to send most of his eastern force to Africa to settle matters there once and for all.
 
546

Germanus arrives early in the year in Africa at the head of a huge army and decides it’s the best place to make a name for himself. Over the next months, region after region and town after town fell to him without much of a fight from Carcasan, who feared engaging the superior force and preferred a more indirect approach of harassing the enemy. Unfortunately for the Moorish king, morale was dropping as hard-won gains had to be abandoned again and again, while Germanus’ army grew ever more accustomed to the climate and conditions. Forced by circumstance, Carcasan engaged in a pitched battle at the very edge of the desert, where he had lured the Romans. The Romans however had brought along a supply train of camels, and were by no means short on water, while their adversaries had maneuvered themselves into a corner. Germanus’ victory was overwhelming, and his treatment of the Moors brutal. Whole-sale massacres and enslavement of settlements and communities followed over the remainder of the year, comparable in brutality to Caesar’s Gallic conquest. This led to a great number of Moorish tribes to flee westward, towards the small Romano-Moorish kingdoms situated there.

In Gaul, Belisarius continued to be stuck in a meatgrinder with no foreseeable end, as both sides continued to raid and harass each other, and with no noteworthy Roman force to speak of. Twice did bigger engagements take place, but on both occasions the result was inconclusive. The underlying trend though was one of the Franks slowly pushing back. The one good news he receives is from Spain, where the Visigothic King, frightened by Germanus’ success in Africa, had agreed to campaign against his old enemies, the Franks the following spring, in return for peace and trade with the empire.

North of Italy, the Lombard regent Audoin kills the infant king Wacho and takes his place. He agrees to an alliance with the Byzantines, primarily directed against the Gepids, with the attack to be undertaken the following year. He also continues and expands the practice of sending mercenaries to fight in Gaul as foederati.

In the east, Khosrau campaigns with renewed vigor, enjoying some early success. Nothing good lasts forever though, and by December he is forced to seek shelter with the Byzantines. The new Shah is basically a puppet of the wealthy magnates, who now have to find ways of paying the hefty tribute they promised their northern backers, the Hephtalites, in return for their support.


EDIT: So, any thoughts ? At all ?
 
It seems like North Africa and Gaul will need to be resettled or repopulated after all this is over, the long grinding campaigns there must have been devastating to large parts of the population.

If land is handed out to the right people, it might stabilize things for the next generation or so.
 
The expenses will be adding up. A grinding campaign in Gaul is not going to be any easier than one in Italy, even if Italy is a source of income to some extent (Justinian seems like he'd be in a building frenzy for old Rome TTL).
 
It seems like North Africa and Gaul will need to be resettled or repopulated after all this is over, the long grinding campaigns there must have been devastating to large parts of the population.

If land is handed out to the right people, it might stabilize things for the next generation or so.

Definetly. I should note though that, compared to OTL, the war in Africa has been a bit milder and a bit shorter, so, in theory, I expect them to actually do a little bit better better. The slave trade will probably help too.

Regarding Gaul, I'm thinking that all of this fighting and depopulation might lead one or other tribe to move in to what is basically empty land, regardless which side(s) comes out on top. However, I haven't quite decided, and am still looking for good candidate(s). Do you guys have any tribe(s) in mind that might do this ?


The expenses will be adding up(1). A grinding campaign in Gaul is not going to be any easier than one in Italy(2), even if Italy is a source of income to some extent (3) (Justinian seems like he'd be in a building frenzy for old Rome TTL (4)).

1 - absolutely
2 - definetly not easier. Personally, I feel the Franks were a bit inferior, technology wise, to the Goths (am I right in my assumption ?). However, this is upset by the fact that, other than paying for the odd mercenaries, Justinian has basically stopped sending Belisarius men and money, even withdrawing most of what he had, unlike in OTL Italy, where reinforcements kept being poured in. Basically, two barbarian coalitions are battling it out. One of them just happens to have a Roman in command.

Also, I figured that, in a lot of cases, mercenaries would be paid with loot, simmilarly to what happened in Germany at the time of Gustavus Adolphus, where mercenary armies basically paid for themselves.

3 - it is, and with war at their border, they're even making a profit form it. Plague still kills hundreds of thousands, but the fact that there is almost no destruction, especially to the rural estates producing food, would mean people are better fed and generally healthier than OTL, which, coupled with refugees from Gaul, means Italy's economic decline due to the plague is much, much less severe. This than translates into more taxes, which help fund more projects. Nice, hugh ?

4 - Yeah, I figured he would go all the way to restoring Rome's greatness, whatever the cost. Still, a lot of those projects will be helping the local economy immensely.
 
I figured that, even if they're useless statues, they're still providing jobs and income for people up and down the supply chain.

True. Although I'm not sure if Italy needs projects like that.

Still, it's better than OTL.
 
547


In Africa, the Moorish exodus westward continues as more and more of their people are enslaved by Germanus’ forces. At first, most of the slaves are used in the area around Carthage. Soon however, a minor revolt breaks out among them, which threatens to spiral dangerously out of control. As a result, Germanus orders that all Moorish slaves are to be sold outside of Africa. While some arrive to places as far-away as the Crimean Peninsula, most end up in nearby Italy, where wealthy magnates buy them up in the thousands in order to do agricultural work.


In Gaul, the Franks finally manage to win a large engagement against Belisarius’ Burgundian-Gothic coalition, nearly capturing the general in the process. Their success however is short-lived, as the Visigothic King Theudis finally marches north after finally managing to extract one last concession from the Romans, namely overlordship over a small strip of land south of Spain, including the city of Ceuta.

Theudis, besides campaigning and ravaging Frankish Gaul, also pays for the construction of a small fortified monastery at Chalons, at the site of the famous battle his ancestors and the Romans had fought against the Huns of Atilla. In a further attempt to ingratiate himself to his new neighbors in the east, he codifies Visigothic law, quoting numerous Roman authorities.

In the east, there is a period of peace, as the new Sassanid regime goes about solidifiying its position. Khosrau meanwhile arrives in Constantinople and meets Justinian. While at first wanting nothing more than to parade him through the streets and then have him killed, Justinian is eventually persuaded to use Khosrau to further his own gains. Promising the Persian King to support his bid for the throne, the Emperor begins planning yet another invasion of the east, with mercenaries and native troops being gathered from across the eastern provinces.

Throughout the Mediterranean, trade begins to slowly pick up as the plague temporarily subsides and piracy as well becomes an extremely rare occurrence, even in the west. Italy begins turning up a surplus in taxes and Carthage also starts bearing some of its expenses, with fighting there havng ceased alltogether. Even so, the decline of the Empire's budget surplus is only slowed down, mainly due to the massive build-up for a renewed war in the east.

------------------------------

So, any thoughts ?
 
Theodora

So, does anyone habe any special requests regarding Empress Theodora ?

She's going to kick the bucket soon and I was hoping to give her some sort of role in events, it's just that I have absolutely no idea regarding what.
 
548

Germanus begins disbanding his army. Most of the mercenaries head for home in the north and east. A few of them though, along with a large part of the native troops, are given grants of land throughout the western Mediterranean, from the still peacefull area of southern Gaul along the coast, to the various Islands in the region, and even as far east as Cyrenaica. A sizeable portion though also obtain land grants in the new prefecturate of Africa. Germanus travels back to Constantinople.
Preparations for the planned Persian campaign are in earnest when two, nearly simultaneous events occur that derail the whole plan.

The first is the news that the Moors that fled west had taken over or coopted the local Romano-Moorish Kingdoms and that they had united into a single coalition and were raiding deep into Roman Africa.

The second event was the death of the Empress Theodora, as a result of what many future scholars would describe as cancer. Justinian is deeply affected by the loss of the woman he loves, and experiences a severe depression. When he agrees to an enraged Germanus’ request to take half the army to Africa, statesmanship is the last thing on his mind.

Justinian is so affected by the loss of his beloved wife, that, in future years, he will fund both great works of art commemorating her as well as stave off any attempts to roll back legislation regarding women’s rights that Theodora had championed, viewing them as an attempt to tarnish her memory, often going so far as to have a particularly vocal senator sent as ambassador to Britain, from where he is never heard from again and having all of his possessions confiscated . He also heads the creation of a special fund used to help poor soldiers' widows who had lost their husbands to war, as well as other, small charitable projects.

Germanus meanwhile takes his army to Africa, effectively putting a stop to Moorish raiding. The Moorish coalition soon after collapses, as several nobles kill their overlord, delivering his head to Germanus in return for clemency. The heir to the Roman throne however has, in his heart, no intention of showing mercy to any Moor anymore. His words however tell a different story, as his policy of divide et impera soon leads him to the shores of the Atlantic ocean, having vanquished any who opposed him, whilst appearing to favor those siding with him. Then, in an act of supreme vengeance, he and his Visigothic allies fall upon those very Moorish tribes which chose to submit, turning the whole region into a huge wasteland.

In Gaul, the withdrawl of the Visigothic force to Africa puts a halt to any offensive Belisarius had hoped of continuing, and gives the initiative back to the Franks, who are basically fighting for their very survival at this point.
 
hmm, judging for the overwhelming lack of responses, I guess I'm doing something wrong. I did rush the the last update as I had only limited time. Did it feel rushed ? Is there something unrealistic about the whole thing ? Should there be something different in the style etc ?

One of these days (probably in a week or two when I get vacation), I plan on rebooting the story of Nikolaos Kanabos and his fight to save Constantinople from the crusaders. Untill then, I had originally planned to write a couple of more updates on this story. Should I continue with it or just drop it ? (which would be quite sad, since I kinda like it)
 
Ok, I've decided I'm probably going to drop this story. I'll probably write an epilogue sometime next week wrapping everything up and then let it rest in peace.
 
Epilogue
or
How I planned things to end



The East

In Sassanid Persia, the burden of paying tribute to the Hephtalites becomes so great that, eventually, there is a revolt against them and their puppet regime. While the fighting is still ongoing, the Romans decide they also want a piece of the pie and invade Mesopotamia, ostensibly to reinstate Khosrau. Eventually, the Hepthalites and their local allies defeat the rebels, only to leave much of the countryside in ruins, with entire regions in the south only nominally subdued, and Mesopotamia in Roman hands .

The fortunes of the white Huns then plummet as they find themselves unable to stop the migration of Turkic peoples into their homeland, since they were seriously overstreched holding down Persia. They linger on for a few years as the ruling class of Persia, only to be overthrown in a native rebellion (sponsored by the Romans) and thus cast into the dustbin of history.

This second civil war again causes much destruction to Persia’s urban culture, which then receives yet another blow when a combined Turkic and Roman invasion takes place. The northern nomads manage to establish themselves as overlords with Roman support, but this only lasts for the lifetime of the King who held his coalition together, so no more than a decade. Just like the Hephtalites, they too are ousted in a native revolt, which sees particularly heavy damage dealt to the Mesopotamian countryside (with Ctesiphon being sacked a number of times by opposing armies) as well as any remaining large cities in Iran.

In the coming decades, Persia finally manages to pick itself up, unite its disparate provinces and occupy the buffer states the Romans had set up in Mesopotamia. It is to no avail however, as the exhausted state is invaded and occupied by a coalition formed by the booming Arabian tribes to the south. Even though said coalition dissolves to infighting a couple of decades later, Arabs manage to hang on as the Persian ruling class, more concerned with ruling over their subjects or resisting invasions by central Asian nomads than aggressive territorial expansion. In the long run though, they eventually get “Persianised”.

In the initial outburst in the middle of the VII century, the Arabs also temporarily take Judeea from the Romans and intensively raid Syria, whilst to the west a civil war had been raging between the Romans. Unfortunately for the Arabs, the Roman civil war ends and Constantinople floods the area with troops, expelling them.


The Balkans


In the Balkans, the slow and steady process of recreating the area’s urban culture and infrastructure grinds forward. Occasional raids and invasions still happen, like the one in 559 by Huns and Kutigurs, but overall, these fail to disrupt imperial policy in the area. Constantinople gets to enjoy the benefits of a friendly hinterland populated by Latin-speaking Romanized Thracians.

Many years later, during the great Slavic migration, the area will get to see some particularly heavy fighting. While militarily the Slavs are eventually defeated after a two-decade-long war, demographically they still leave their mark of the Balkans south of the Danube, with numerous groups mixing with the local Romanized population. Though eventually assimilated, they still leave considerable influences. Many of them are also settled as slaves throughout the Empire.

North of the Danube, the Slavs completely assimilate the local Daco-Roman populations, and, with time and given the proximity to their advanced southern neighbor, they create powerful states. On few occasions, they pose existential threats to the Byzantines, other times they act as buffers between the Empire and the various steppe peoples advancing west: Bulgars, Magyars etc. Sometimes they resist these invaders, other times they are temporarily conquered only to expel them and, on occasions, they assimilate their conquerors.


Gaul

The Romans would never get to fully conquer Gaul again. The province is extremely far from the main centers of wealth and power and also truly devastated by the war Justinian initiated. While the Franks are temporarily subdued, and even a small scale expedition to Britain takes place, the power vacuum the war created draws in peoples from far and wide. Moreover, whenever there is a crisis, troops from northern Gaul are the first ones to be pulled back.

Goths, Burgundians, Bretons, Franks, Frisians, Saxons, various Germanic tribes (especially Lombards) come to settle Gaul and rule over bits and pieces of it. None of them manage to achieve any kind of hegemony that lasts more than the lifespan of the king that tried to establish it.

Only to the south, along the coast, does a thriving Gallo-Roman community develop.


Spain

Soon after the conquest of North Africa by the Romans, a succession crisis and civil war ensues among the Visigoths. Justinian decides to take advantage of this and sends an expedition. Some ground is gained, particularly along the coast, although victory continues to elude the Romans. However, instead of continuing a long and devastating war, a political solution is reached. Germanus, Justinians cousin and heir would marry the Gothic princess with the greatest claim to the throne, the Visigoths would submit but enjoy considerable autonomy (much like almost happened in Italy with the Ostrogoths OTL before Germanus unexpectedly died). The arrangement lasts for the lifetime of Germanus, and of that of his heir, Justinian II. Thereafter, the Visigoths break free. Sometimes their realm will be centralized under a strong ruler, other times divided amongst multiple claimants. In time, they merge, together with the local Hispano-Romans to create a new people.

Meanwhile, the eastern coastal regions of Spain (which will evolve into a much more “Latin” character) would remain a point of contention between the Visigoths and the Empire, much like Armenia was between the Byzantines and their eastern rivals, with both powers constantly trying to assert their religion and puppets over those of their opponents.


The Mediterranean and Religion

Places like Italy, Greece, Egypt, Anatolia and Syria go on to form the core of the Empire, and evolve a common identity, whose bedrock will be their common religion, and strengthend by strong trade links and tradition. While civil wars will still flare up on occasions, they will be more about control of the whole Empire rather than local independence

The ruling class will, in most cases by adept in two or three languages: almost all will know Greek, and many of them will also know Latin and the local language (should that be different from the first two). Legislation will continue to be published in Latin and Greek, and Church services would be performed in either one of these two languages.

Monothelitism will emerge as the dominant doctrine among these places, its place assured after its victory in the civil war that took place at the time of the Arab invasion of Judeea. The Pope will be just another of the main Patriarchs and will not enjoy supremacy over them.

Spain, Gaul, Britannia, Germania and Slavonia will adopt versions of Christianity that oppose Monothelitism, and develop independent Church structures, often subordinate to their local King.
 
Finally, here's a map of the Empire I drew while bored at work today. Red is the Empire, Pink are is various puppet regimes.

Conquests in Gaul are rolled back by the arrival of the Lombards and others, a political settlement with the Visigoths has been reached and Persia is imploding while the Arabs and Slavs have yet to strike.

romans3.jpg

romans3.jpg
 
Thank you it was a most enjoyable thread.


thank you very much. I had lots of fun writing it.

I'm thinking about writing a couple of phrases about how the world turns out a thousand years from the POD, creating a small little utopia, but that wouldn't be very proffesional of me, would it ? Then again, its my thread so I might do it anyway...

EDIT: I'm surprised there wasn't much criticism regarding plausabilty etc. I would have loved a discussion on a number of issues. If this would have been about WW2, I'd be willing to bet people would have disected every little detail and pointed out even the tiniest inconcistency. Too bad the Before 1900 forum doesn't get as much love. Although, to be fair, most of the love it does get goes to either the Byzantines or the ACW.
 
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I enjoy the period by don't know enough about it to defend myself for the masters. You have some interesting areas to go if you do write the future update.
Will islam appear?, what languages will be spoken in both Gaul and north Africa. You have set the stage for the continued existance of the east germanic languages as part of the mix.
Good luck.
 
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