WI: Byzantine Africa Doesn't Fall to the Calliphate

B-29_Bomber

Banned
What would be the affects of having the Byzantines maintaining such a major holding outside of Anatolia?

I don't know how you would go about it, but would such a situation make it seem like the loss of Egypt and the Levant a temporary set back and put the Byzantines on a trajectory towards recovering those territories in the 8th, 9th, and 10th centuries once the Balkans front stablizes?
 
It is not outright impossible, but certainly requires that the Caliphate collapses quite early on. In purely geo-strategic terms, North Africa is difficult to supply and support from Anatolia if there is a powerful opponent in the Levant/Egypt with the capacity to interdict shipping and to project power into the Anatolian heartland. If the Caliphate is united and strong, IMO Roman North Africa will certainly fall to them. If it is disunited however, and the Islamic world is focused inwardly on local squabbles, the Romans have an excellent chance to retake their lost territory over time. Certainly if North Africa remains Roman and is not being threatened either from the east or west it would be a very valuable source of wealth and strength to reestablish Roman control over the Balkans and maybe even Italy, and from there reconquering Egypt/Levant would only require decent and consistent leadership, which the Romans did have at certain points in their history.
 

Pellaeon

Banned
Perhaps if the Umayyads collapsed into early civil war then the Byzantines could hold the position.

If the Byzantines can regain control of Italy or at Sicily then reinforcing it would be a lot easier.
 
Most obviously, North Africa remains Christian, as does Iberia. The retention of North Africa will serve as a nice boost for the Byzantines, due to its grain supplies and it's ability to support an invasion of Egypt; entirely possible here that the Empire gets restored to its old borders later on.
 
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TruthfulPanda

Gone Fishin'
How does holding "Tunisia" help in attacking Egypt? There is a whole lot of desert between the two - first the gap between "Tripolitania" and Cyrenaica, and then between Cyrenaica and Egypt.
IMO unless the Romans reverse engineer "desert warrior" from the Arabs, attacks on Egypt must be seaborne.
And it simply is a fucking long way from Carthage to Alexandria ...
Keeping NA, Sicily and not having Italian holdings ravaged is, of course, a shot in the arm for Constantinople.
 
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trajen777

Banned
You can do this :

1 have Christian moors and byz defeat several invasions in Libyan desert. Have Arabs figure not worth it and focus on Turkish tribes to north .
2 the extra wealth would be massively beneficial to byz
3 have romanious ii live for 35 more years, he died at 24.
4 nicophorus phocus and john Tzimisces were 2 of the greatest byz generals. They both became emperors in the future, however in this timeline they stay as generals ( romanious died naturally ). Without theses distractions (963) they continue their conquests over the next 25 years.
5 phocus and john had taken Aleppo and Damascus before the died prematurely. With another 20 plus years of war they should have taken control of Syria, Palestine, and egypt.
6. Basil follows romanious but with out the civil wars .

Also as an aside Sicily is never lost
 
How does holding "Tunisia" help in attacking Egypt? There is a whole lot of desert between the two - first the gap between "Tripolitania" and Cyrenaica, and then between Cyrenaica and Egypt.
IMO unless the Romans reverse engineer "desert warrior" from the Arabs, attacks on Egypt must be seaborne.
And it simply is a fucking long way from Carthage to Alexandria ...
Keeping NA, Sicily and not having Italian holdings ravaged is, of course, a shot in the arm for Constantinople.

Berbers and Numidians make rather good Desert Warriors. Any Byzantine Africa would have to involve them. Include them as auxiliaries and you've got the core force that can take say Cyrene, where the remainder of the troops can land. Much shorter route to march then.
 
Berbers and Numidians make rather good Desert Warriors. Any Byzantine Africa would have to involve them. Include them as auxiliaries and you've got the core force that can take say Cyrene, where the remainder of the troops can land. Much shorter route to march then.

Which is true, like the Laguatan who migrated from what is now the Egyptian/Libyan border to modern Tunisia, and during Late Antiquity are reported as raiding both Cyrenaica and Byzacena--though subdued by the Byzantines in the 6th century, they persisted for centuries more since the Arabs recorded them as well. The problem is that eventually the Berbers will want more and more from the Byzantines which is a good way to get North Africa independent under Romano-Berber rule. Granted, a large part of the Roman military in North Africa (including the Third Augustan Legion) had since the Severan dynasty been locally recruited from Berbers and Punic speaking people so North Africans defending their homeland on behalf of a distant Roman government isn't anything new.
 
Which is true, like the Laguatan who migrated from what is now the Egyptian/Libyan border to modern Tunisia, and during Late Antiquity are reported as raiding both Cyrenaica and Byzacena--though subdued by the Byzantines in the 6th century, they persisted for centuries more since the Arabs recorded them as well. The problem is that eventually the Berbers will want more and more from the Byzantines which is a good way to get North Africa independent under Romano-Berber rule. Granted, a large part of the Roman military in North Africa (including the Third Augustan Legion) had since the Severan dynasty been locally recruited from Berbers and Punic speaking people so North Africans defending their homeland on behalf of a distant Roman government isn't anything new.

The "Wanting More" part is possible to mitigate over time. (Heck, an Egyptian reconquest does help with that) - probably simply by doing a Bismark and just making sure peoples lives are getting better, integrating the Berbers into the Roman state, etc. I've always suspected a way is to give all the Berber leaders Senator status, or go further and include a Senate of Rome in Africa - giving those Senators a voting position there.

Honestly, having some weaker Berber leaders amongst the stronger ones in such a Senate may be deeply valuable - if there are enough Senators to outweight a subset of Berber Senators. On votes like "We vote to hand over control of this oasis to the Exarchate, blah blah blah" the Berbers can undermine each other if worked by the right people.
 
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