WI: No Lombard invasion of Italy?

In OTL, the Lombard invasions delivered the final blow to Roman Italy, and cut off the Papacy from being under the thumb of Constantinople. What if the Lombards either never entered Italy, or better, were defeated by the Roman garrisons in northern Italy. What would be the consequences on Roman, Frankish, and Arab history?
 
In OTL, the Lombard invasions delivered the final blow to Roman Italy, and cut off the Papacy from being under the thumb of Constantinople. What if the Lombards either never entered Italy, or better, were defeated by the Roman garrisons in northern Italy. What would be the consequences on Roman, Frankish, and Arab history?

IMHO I'm not too knowledgable on the subject, however I believe failing to migrate and establish a stable control of Northern Italy would mean an effective end of the Lombards as they can't head back East as they'd been pushed out of there. Similarly this would have massive long term butterflies like no Charlemagne, similarly it means that the East-West Roman split is butterflied or at least prolonged
 

Valdemar II

Banned
IMHO I'm not too knowledgable on the subject, however I believe failing to migrate and establish a stable control of Northern Italy would mean an effective end of the Lombards as they can't head back East as they'd been pushed out of there. Similarly this would have massive long term butterflies like no Charlemagne, similarly it means that the East-West Roman split is butterflied or at least prolonged

I'm not so sure, we could see the Langobards ending up trapped in Austria and Slovenia between the Bavarians in Bavaria and Tyrol, the Avars in Hungary and Romans in Italy. Of course with the entire Italy under Roman control things are going to be interesting.
 

wormyguy

Banned
It should be noted that the OTL inhabitants of Italy considered themselves the "real" Romans and the Byzantines as Greek invaders. (Indeed, the invasion that resulted in the most foreigners settling in Italy was the Byzantine one). This will have to be confronted eventually.
 
I'm not so sure, we could see the Langobards ending up trapped in Austria and Slovenia between the Bavarians in Bavaria and Tyrol, the Avars in Hungary and Romans in Italy. Of course with the entire Italy under Roman control things are going to be interesting.

Intresting, what would a Lombard Austria look like?
 
Intresting, what would a Lombard Austria look like?

That would depend on how much of the Roman infrastructure survives I assume: Austria was an area where Imperial rule simply melted away, rather than being conquered by force. I suspect though that the Lombards would become a client state of either the Franks or the East Romans, and then be absorbed into the Avar Confederacy.
 
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