WI: Greco-Turkish ERE

[Plmd]

Could the Turks and Greeks unite and reform the ERE after the 4th crusade? By that I mean a state in which the majority of people are either Turkish, Greek or a mix of both (all these groups living mostly peacefully with each other) conquers Constantinople and revives the Roman Empire. The religion of such a country doesn't matter, you just have to make it work.

The best scenario I could think of that happens before the Ottomans (I don't know much about them) is that the Latin Empire wins a pyrrhic victory at Poimanenon but due to a defeat against Epirus aren't able to further advance, and then the Mongols also experience a pyrrhic victory at Kose Dag, allowing them to conquer Eastern Anatolia, but not much else. The two groups would then be forced to cooperate, after a bloody war that is.

 

[Analytical Engine]

The Sultanate of Rum's name derives from the Roman Empire and its history. Not to mention the Ottomans also claimed to be a successor to the Roman Empire.

What's tougher is getting other countries to recognise them as such. It would almost have to be an Orthodox Turkish dynasty taking over the Byzantine Empire to do that.

 

[Plmd]

Orthodox Turkish dynasty taking over the Byzantine Empire to do that.

That's in line with what I meant. A turkish dynasty taking over the Byzantine Empire/marrying with the ruling dynasty so much they become indistinguishable.

 

[Red_Neptune]

The Sultanate of Rum's name derives from the Roman Empire and its history. Not to mention the Ottomans also claimed to be a successor to the Roman Empire.

You're confusing a few things, I think. The romantic pretensions of Mehmed II aside (who certainly constituted an exception amongst Ottoman Sultans; he was well-versed in Christian theology and had designs on Italy), the Ottoman rulers never considered to be advancing Roman civilization, and neither did their Seljuq predecessors. In Perso-Arab historiography, Rum represented one of the seven climes of the world, spanning a distance from Spain to Armenia; when the Seljuqs claimed to be masters of Rum, therefore, they were not literally claiming to continue Roman civilization, but simply establishing the fact that their state was geographically located in Roman lands.

For the Ottomans, they were rulers of Rum as much as they were masters of Persia or the Arab lands; it was more-less another jewel - however valuable and large - in the crown for the Sultan. Yes, the dynasty had roots in Rum and its heartland in Rumeli; but they ultimately held themselves distinct from these lands. An apt analogy, I think, would be with Britain and India. Victoria, and all British monarchs until George VI, claimed to be 'Emperor(/Empress) of India.' This by no means meant they claimed themselves to be Indian, however; similarly, the Ottomans never saw themselves as Romans in itself, preferring to attach a universality to their dynasty. One could make the claim that this universality was a product of the tradition of rulership in the lands they ruled (rulers since Alexander had claimed to be masters of the world), but it is very contentious to claim that in itself constitutes a claim to civilizational heirship...

 

[Hugh Third of Five]

Wouldn't this require either having a Turkic tribe convert to Christianity or having the Byzantines convert to Islam?

 

[Umbric Man]

In Perso-Arab historiography, Rum represented one of the seven climes of the world, spanning a distance from Spain to Armenia; when the Seljuqs claimed to be masters of Rum, therefore, they were not literally claiming to continue Roman civilization, but simply establishing the fact that their state was geographically located in Roman lands.

Fascinating. What are the other six "climes"? Did they have a name in general for this concept?

 

[Sarufiyyun]

I heard somewhere the founder of the Ottoman dynasty converted to Islam due to a battle where the Muslim side ended up victorious. The Ottomans end up as vassals of the Roman Emperor, slowly subverting the Emperor.

 

[Red_Neptune]

Fascinating. What are the other six "climes"?

The other six climes consisted of:

1. India, which included most of the "Eastern lands" from the Sunda islands in Malaysia to the Eastern coast of Africa
2. The Hejaz, which included Abyssinia, Aden, Yemen, the Arabian desert, and Lower Mesopotamia (what was known to early mediaeval Arab geographers as the Sawad)
3. Egypt, which consisted of all of North Africa, Sudan, and lands inhabited by the Berbers
4. Babylonia, which had a central role in Persianate geography; it consisted of the lands from the Taurus Mountains to what was called Zabulistan, including Persian Iraq, Fars ("Persis", e.g. birthplace of the Achaemenids), the Khorasan, and Bactria
5. The land of "Gog and Magog," e.g. the lands around the Caspian Sea, parts of the lands of the Turks, Northeast Persia, Rus, and the lands of the Slavs
6. China, including Tibet, Transoxiana, Balkh, the rest of the lands of the Turks, and most of Central Asia

Did they have a name in general for this concept?

Yes, they were called climes (Greek klimata). The origin for this is probably Babylonian, transmitted to Persian literature from the Greeks, and thereafter adopted by the Arabs and Turks (although the Arabs modified it to make it more conservative).

I heard somewhere the founder of the Ottoman dynasty converted to Islam due to a battle where the Muslim side ended up victorious.

I'm not sure where this is from, though I doubt it's authenticity. Osman was by all sources already Muslim when he defeated the Byzantines at Bapheus, and indeed I believe most of the Oghuz Turks had "converted" to Islam already (their actual religious beliefs were a hodgepodge of Tengrist and Islamic teachings, owing to the lack of central authority in their homelands).

The Ottomans end up as vassals of the Roman Emperor, slowly subverting the Emperor.

This is definitely not true - by the time the Ottomans had begun expanding in the 14th century, Byzantine authority in Asia Minor was extremely weak, to the point where most cities practically functioned independently with only nominal ties to Constantinople. I believe the Seljuqs had paid tribute to the Byzantines in Komnenian times, but by Ottoman times the Byzantines lacked the power to project power onto their own lands, much less onto the Ottomans.

 

[Dominic]

Any Imperial recovery will almost by definition be this if it occurs after the 4th Crusade. The Roman Empire is going to struggle enormously from this point out to even survive and only Michael VIII even came close to returning the Empire to a stable position. If it does scrape through though, the sheer number of Turks in Anatolia means that a large percentage of the population will be ethnically Turkish if the Romans can recover Anatolia, or even just the Kommenian borders.

 

[Plmd]

Any Imperial recovery will almost by definition be this if it occurs after the 4th Crusade. The Roman Empire is going to struggle enormously from this point out to even survive and only Michael VIII even came close to returning the Empire to a stable position. If it does scrape through though, the sheer number of Turks in Anatolia means that a large percentage of the population will be ethnically Turkish if the Romans can recover Anatolia, or even just the Kommenian borders.

You're right but what I'm asking for is a recovery like this, but spearheaded by the Turks.

 

[Osman Aga]

Could the Turks and Greeks unite and reform the ERE after the 4th crusade? By that I mean a state in which the majority of people are either Turkish, Greek or a mix of both (all these groups living mostly peacefully with each other) conquers Constantinople and revives the Roman Empire. The religion of such a country doesn't matter, you just have to make it work.

The best scenario I could think of that happens before the Ottomans (I don't know much about them) is that the Latin Empire wins a pyrrhic victory at Poimanenon but due to a defeat against Epirus aren't able to further advance, and then the Mongols also experience a pyrrhic victory at Kose Dag, allowing them to conquer Eastern Anatolia, but not much else. The two groups would then be forced to cooperate, after a bloody war that is.

Somehow Nicea is never formed and the Seljuks conquer their realm. The Greek nobles ask the Seljuks to conquer the city from the Crusaders qnd by a sheer of luck find an open gate... the city falls and most things prior to 1204 are restored. The Mongols are forced to stop any Anatolian Campaign in the 1240s and 1250s.

Or Latin Empire lives longer and the Seljuks fragment in mini beyliks after Kösedağ, which Nicea subjugates, and still takes Constantinople but by the 1290s. The Niceans heavily use Turkmen units in the Campaign and thus later on.

 

[Dominic]

You're right but what I'm asking for is a recovery like this, but spearheaded by the Turks.

It's easy to imagine an ethnically Turkish Emperor/other significant forces post-recovery, but before? That is harder. The Turks became increasingly disunited in the 13th century, and I don't think it's likely for the Seljuks to stave off their decline post-1204. The Romans were still rather too powerful in Western Anatolia for any one group to take them over, but far too distracted to retake much of the rest of Anatolia. Perhaps if Constantinople is very solidly controlled by a non-Roman entity, say Bulgaria or Serbia (or some other non-naval power which is neither Roman nor capable of advancing into Nicaean territory), the Nicaeans could find themselves pushing east for lack of other outlets and gradually retake the Kommenian Anatolian borders. This nets Trebizond, but also considerable populations of Turks. Plenty of Turks would convert to Christianity under these circumstances, and while it would be very difficult for any to ascend quickly into the Roman administration martial prowess talks and with the right twists and turns a Turk could lead the Empire, perhaps back into Europe around c.1300 or so.

The hardest part is to get the Romans to stop obsessing over Constantinople the entire time. Almost impossible IMO, but not necessarily preclusive of making Anatolian gains so long as they struggle to actually expend substantial energy at all...

 

[Plmd]

It's easy to imagine an ethnically Turkish Emperor/other significant forces post-recovery, but before? That is harder. The Turks became increasingly disunited in the 13th century, and I don't think it's likely for the Seljuks to stave off their decline post-1204. The Romans were still rather too powerful in Western Anatolia for any one group to take them over, but far too distracted to retake much of the rest of Anatolia. Perhaps if Constantinople is very solidly controlled by a non-Roman entity, say Bulgaria or Serbia (or some other non-naval power which is neither Roman nor capable of advancing into Nicaean territory), the Nicaeans could find themselves pushing east for lack of other outlets and gradually retake the Kommenian Anatolian borders. This nets Trebizond, but also considerable populations of Turks. Plenty of Turks would convert to Christianity under these circumstances, and while it would be very difficult for any to ascend quickly into the Roman administration martial prowess talks and with the right twists and turns a Turk could lead the Empire, perhaps back into Europe around c.1300 or so.

The hardest part is to get the Romans to stop obsessing over Constantinople the entire time. Almost impossible IMO, but not necessarily preclusive of making Anatolian gains so long as they struggle to actually expend substantial energy at all...

What if the Nicaeans really need soldiers for a war they're fighting and the Turks go further west in hopes of escaping the Mongol Horde. Could the Nicaeans allow them to settle there as long as they converted to Christianity/paid a higher tax and served in the military?

 

[Fabius Maximus]

Could the Turks and Greeks unite and reform the ERE after the 4th crusade? By that I mean a state in which the majority of people are either Turkish, Greek or a mix of both (all these groups living mostly peacefully with each other) conquers Constantinople and revives the Roman Empire. The religion of such a country doesn't matter, you just have to make it work.

You'd probably need the Turks to convert to Orthodox Christianity: and Muslim state is going to have a hard time being accepted as a continuation of the Byzantine Empire, no matter how much Greek culture it adopts in other respects.

 

[Dominic]

What if the Nicaeans really need soldiers for a war they're fighting and the Turks go further west in hopes of escaping the Mongol Horde. Could the Nicaeans allow them to settle there as long as they converted to Christianity/paid a higher tax and served in the military?

Possibly, I mean the only real issue this scenario has is the timing. A successful Nicaea is going to be extremely difficult to dissuade from trying to retake Constantinople, and the Latin Empire is very much on borrowed time. Nicaea is terribly vulnerable to attack from the West if Constantinople is in the hands of virtually anyone else, so if Nicaea can't take it it is very likely that Nicaea ends up getting sandwiched between east and west. Alternatively, it's very easy to imagine a more successful early Palaeologun Empire integrating the Turks into the Empire (Charles of Anjou falling off his horse is probably enough for that), but that comes after Constantinople is retaken. The Turkish migrations didn't really kick off until Nicaea almost had Constantinople in OTL, so I'm just not sure how this scenario could get the timing right.

 

[Plmd]

Possibly, I mean the only real issue this scenario has is the timing. A successful Nicaea is going to be extremely difficult to dissuade from trying to retake Constantinople, and the Latin Empire is very much on borrowed time. Nicaea is terribly vulnerable to attack from the West if Constantinople is in the hands of virtually anyone else, so if Nicaea can't take it it is very likely that Nicaea ends up getting sandwiched between east and west. Alternatively, it's very easy to imagine a more successful early Palaeologun Empire integrating the Turks into the Empire (Charles of Anjou falling off his horse is probably enough for that), but that comes after Constantinople is retaken. The Turkish migrations didn't really kick off until Nicaea almost had Constantinople in OTL, so I'm just not sure how this scenario could get the timing right.

Maybe the Latin Empire stays a threat for longer or Epirus takes Constantinople first and then takes control of the marmaran coast and the Turks and Nicaeans aren’t powerful enough to take each other out. The Turks could be persuaded to migrate east if the Mongol are feeling especially bad.

 

[Dominic]

Maybe the Latin Empire stays a threat for longer or Epirus takes Constantinople first and then takes control of the marmaran coast and the Turks and Nicaeans aren’t powerful enough to take each other out. The Turks could be persuaded to migrate east if the Mongol are feeling especially bad.

If the Epirotes take Constantinople the authority of the Nicaean Emperor will be massively undermined. Quite likely large parts of Anatolia fall into Epirote hands. The Mongols will certainly put that pressure on the Turks, again though it's a matter of timing. Almost certainly need Constantinople to remain in non-Roman hands for a lot longer.

 

[Plmd]

So from what I can understand, to have a Byzantine/Roman restoration spearheaded by the Turks, something like this would need to happen:

• The Latin Empire gets taken over by Bulgaria/some non-naval non-roman power
• The Mongols force the Turks out of Eastern and (most of) Central Anatolia but are stopped before taking all of it.
• The Nicaeans and Turks duke it out but eventually the Nicaeans win, though they are forced to give the Turks equality as long as they convert to Christianity
• A turk becomes Emperor and retakes Greece around the 1290s
• And a bit of luck and handwaving so it all happens with at least near perfect timing.

What happens next? Would they be recognised as Romans by not only the rest of the world but also their own subjects? Assuming they have Anatolia and Greece, where would they expand next? Italy? Levant? Balkans?

 

[penquista]

maybe you coul real An Age of Miracles from Basileus444