WI: Huns earlier in europe

RousseauX

Donor
The Romans historically inflicted military defeats on the Huns, I'm not sure why everyone here equates the Huns with the Mongols of the late era. The latter was simply a much better and more cohesive force than the former. "They had Horse archers" isn't magical invincibility.

Depending on the exactly when they show up the effects would obviously be different, showing up pre-235 and you had an empire which more or less have being able to defeat/reach settlement with the Goth and other barbarians pushed into the empire by the Huns. There might have being some serious defeats Ala Abritus but even in the 5th century the western empire was not toppled directly through barbarian military action, but rather due to political instability within the empire. At this point the Roman armies would still have being largely Roman and would not allow any Ricmers or Alaric or Odoacers to assume senior military ranks which gave them power over the Roman imperial court. The Huns themselves might have won some victories against the empire when they show up but as is historically their tribal confederation is at the risk of falling apart permanently any time their leader dies. And even leaders have a pretty high mortality rate when they catch this disease or that.

On the other hand if they do invade during the crisis of the 3rd century then it's all up in the air and depend on exactly when they invade. The crisis was really when the empire -should- have fallen apart and held together by some miracle. I could see both the western and eastern halves of the empire being overran by the barbarians and Sassanid respectively (or end up under the dominion of Palmyra), and the central part might fall too as the Danube frontier is breached, or it might hold on under an Aurelian figure. But I could easily see Adrianople moved up by a century.
 
If the Huns show up at the wrong time earlier they might well find themselves defeated by such as the Marcomanni and driven back to whence they came.

If they clash with Dacia at its height, I don't think you're going to see Huns on the borders of the Roman empire

Best Regards
Grey Wolf
 
that still leaves us with the fact: where did they come from and iff we can get them to rome, lets say, a hundred years earlier then OTL, what effect could it have

would they invade Roman Dacia??

would they stay in "Scythia"??
 
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