What if the Byzantine empire still existed? - Page 5 - Historum

**sturm** · March 18th, 2010, 01:36 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Efendi

Balkan was Union only in Roman time and Ottoman time.

If you would give Nato and EU, I would say:

Nato doesn't completelly put the member in unions. It is some kind of weak alliance.

Purpose of EU is union, but it is purpose only. EU haven't proved hershelf completelly. It is difficult for them to be union. It is umbrella to save them from Global economy. You don't get unionized because you feel like or you love each other so much. EU and NATO is not a love story.

As to the Balkan the name of whic is the inspiration of another word "Balkanization" has much thing to level up to have a claim to be a union.

See you later in Skype Sturm

The Balkans or at least part of them were united when they had enemy in the face of the Ottoman empire, im speaking about the First Balkan War 1912-1913, when the alliance was called "The Balkan League" and Bulgaria, Greece, Serbia and Montenegro, fought against the a lot stronger Ottoman Empire.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sylla1

After Caligula's death, there's to my best knowledge not a single hint that the Romans ever pretended to return to any significant level of democratic rule.

Yeah in the middle ages democraticy was equal to anarchy in the views of the people. The slavic tribes have been living in a significant democracy, it was closely observed by the byzantine chronists who claimed that this is barberism.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sylla1

Strictly speaking, what the Turks destroyed was some remnants left by the Latins from the defeated Roman Empire; they were already in the process of being fragmented and absorbed by both local and maritime powers.
Under such conditions, it's hard to imagine how the Roman Empire would have been able to survive for more than five additional centuries, even in the absence of the Ottomans.

What do you mean? The Empire of Nicaea conqured back Constantinople at 1261, and officialy the Latin Empire sized to exist, except some minor despotates and smaller countries made by some of the leaders of the fourth crusade. Of course the Empire was a shadow of its former glory, and never managed to actually be powerful again. It was nothing more then a small empire in medieval Europe.

**Efendi** · March 18th, 2010, 02:14 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by sturm

The Balkans or at least part of them were united when they had enemy in the face of the Ottoman empire, im speaking about the First Balkan War 1912-1913, when the alliance was called "The Balkan League" and Bulgaria, Greece, Serbia and Montenegro, fought against the a lot stronger Ottoman Empire.

You mean unity under notion that "enemy of my enemy is my friend"?

At those time there were politics conflicts and fight between Ottoman lords. Today there are reason why military persons are not allowed to be a member of any party and politic movement.

**Efendi** · March 18th, 2010, 02:20 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by sylla1

There are actually many obstacles here for following any line of coherence, even for the Speculative History forum standards.
Strictly speaking, what the Turks destroyed was some remnants left by the Latins from the defeated Roman Empire; they were already in the process of being fragmented and absorbed by both local and maritime powers.

Economical sources of Byzantine wasn't bad also compared to Rome, they had mesopotamia perfect agricultural land, and Anatolia where is higly productive land in the terms of infrasutructure, craftmanship on many kind.

and Trade.

**sturm** · March 18th, 2010, 02:33 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Efendi

You mean unity under notion that "enemy of my enemy is my friend"?

At those time there were politics conflicts and fight between Ottoman lords. Today there are reason why military persons are not allowed to be a member of any party and politic movement.

All those countries which i mentioned, who made the "Balkan League" Bulgaria, Greece, Serbia, Montenegro, had there own personal interests.
For example the reason why Bulgaria fought in that war, in that union, and rised the biggest army in that union, was to get back territories which were taken away with the Peace treaty of Berlin in 1878.
Territories in Thrace (Edirne was considered by the bulgarians bulgarian city) Macedonia of course was the ultimate goal.
However the goals and ambitions of the other allies, were contradicting, i mean both Serbia and Greece had the same ambition, toward Macedonia. It is a good thing for the Ottomans that this confrontation between Bulgaria Greece and Serbia happened, because the Ottomans managed to took back territories which they lost in the First Balkan war.

Most of the pictures in the video i posted in my signature are of this war, the First Balkan war.

Irnik · March 18th, 2010, 04:37 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Perix

In general, peoples are refractary to changes. A long term succesful empire, imply changings in people culture, language...In the case of the bizantines, different peoples simply prefered the domination of different barbarians, because this doesn't imply culture&language changings.
The bizantines fallen, practically, long before Constantinople. They failled to motivate different nations, to be part of this empire. Compeling by force is not realistic for long time-is too expansive. A succesful empire should replace force compeling with prosperity and culture. This two factors should be stricly equilibrated, because too much culture, without prosperity, is useless for ordinar people, and too much prosperity, without culture, means the risk of taking-over of the rullership of the empire, by the others. Here, intervene the third factor: the ideology. The ideology act as a liant, or a supplement, between prosperity and culture. The ideology of the bizantines was the ortodoxism. But this ideology failed to be perceived as a state force ideology. On the other hand, an ideology should be genuine. Ortodoxism was not genuine to greek-bizantines, it was perceived as a former Roman Empire inheritage, and very similar to western chatolicism. Practically, the bizantines didn't bring a succesful, genuine formula, to motivate the populations to remain stick around Constantinople.

Very well described! I can't believe I agree with you.

The time of the big empires (the "Age of Empires") has just gone by. The time of the nation states has still not but the EU might be the beginning of its end.

If the Balkans had evaded the Ottoman conquest, they would remain much more on par with the rest of Europe in all aspects - culturally, economically, etc.

Volkov · March 26th, 2010, 11:30 AM

By still existed, do you mean it still retained all of it's territory and if so, what period? If we are talking about it during the peak of the Macedonian dynasty, firstly the Ottoman empire would be missing a head, and may never have gotten close enough to be much of a threat to the Western world. Or it may not have formed at all.

I could see this form of Byzantium being a great power throughout history at this state.

Now if Byzantium never declined from it's peak under Justinian (i.e no justinian plague and no losses of territory), firstly there would never be an Italy, and it is quite likely Fascism would either start elsewhere or never form at all. And during the age of colonialism, I could see this empire becoming even larger than the british empire. It would undoutbly be a Great or perhaps even a super power.

purpleguy89 · June 23rd, 2012, 08:47 AM

The Byzantines could have further developed their culture as much as their power. Architecture would have flourished. And I think Greece would have been in better shape than it is now.

**emperor of seleucid** · June 25th, 2012, 03:56 PM

It would have been a weak vassal city since the crusades.

nirthidum · July 27th, 2012, 07:45 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by sturm

I don't know how many of you know that, but at the time Greece was gaining independence from the Ottoman empire, there was that "Megali Idea" about restoring the Byzantine Empire. The Greek Orthodox Church was especially active into influancing christians from other countries on the Balkans, to fight for the restoration of the Byzantine Empire.
So that Empire could have been restored.

That would make the cold war even more interesting as this Byzantine 2.0 (balkan, greece and parts of turkey and Cyprus), Byzantine could have been used like turkey and Greece in real live for strategic sites for rockets and defense against the sovjet union. but unlike real live timeline, the Balkans would make the advance of the sovjects in Eastern Europe more difficult after WW2 and would prevent the killing maybe in Cyprus and maybe even in the Balkan (altough this one is tricky). as far as WW2 concern, Byzantines would be part of the allies and this would make Italy wait a longer before entering the war as well, maybe more like 1942 and how this would effect on the first part of the war i am not sure, but this would make the war in Mediterranean sea and in north Africa and around transjordania more interesting. the Germans would properly tried to keep with the Byzantines along they could or would gone into the middle east instead of Operation operation barbarossa perhaps?

if that last thing did, what about Stalin who might created a third front by declaring Hitler the war in 1941-1942, as response to that, Italy would enter the war on the side of the Germans and Spain might as well.

how further process of WW2 and the cold war would take i have no idea, but one thing is sure, things would get a lot more interesting if Byzantine 2.0 either as republic or empire was created. Constantinople would be the jewel of the world.

Qianlong · July 27th, 2012, 08:24 AM

It would be a declining Empire without the territorial lost.