What if the Byzantine Empire Survived?

you all gave me suggestions for an alternate history scenario as a part of the humankind what if contest a new upcoming strategy game and so i felt no error was more fitting for this type of game than the eastern romans in 1453 the roman empire came to an end what we now call the byzantines saw themselves as that continuation of rome that had lasted for a millennia and a half but then it was gone the eastern roman empire had been fading in and out of relevancy for the last 300 years so what if in an alternate timeline the eastern roman empire never collapsed not only simply surviving but remaining a competent player past the 15th century this is kind of a double whammy question one where the byzantine empire survives and the ottomans never exist but i'm not going to focus too much on the ottomans for this as that's an entire video by itself and this video is long enough already if i ever do talk about the ottomans think of that as a companion piece if we want to imagine keeping the byzantines in our mortal plane we need to go back even before the fall of 1453 centuries back to the start of the nomadic migrations by central asian turks into anatolia technically we could just say constantinople never falls in 1453 and called a day but look at those borders that's no way to live so i have to make it clear what territory do the byzantines still hold that are core to the empire not collapsing greece and anatolia with perhaps some territory in the balkans for good measure anything post-arab invasions but pre-turkic invasions but cody if you want to be really thorough why don't you just say the arabs never invade and the byzantines keep the levant in north africa because jimmy the arabs after their initial invasion kinda just stopped after the borders got settled the caliphates had their own pressing matters after the islamic invasions ended and their presence in the region didn't threaten the byzantines like the seljuks did if the eastern romans can settle then so can we when imagining a scenario where the byzantine empire doesn't die first we have to ask well what killed it turks are certainly a prominent factor in the later years but pick your poison we got lombards hungarians normans iranians okay i'll cut that out but also slobs arab serbs and the two biggest factors crusaders and the turks everyone wanted a bit of the empire and its entire existence post-400s was a defensive war to stop that from happening even the normans took over sicily and came to try to sack constantinople on occasion because why not there need to be two main factors that gotta be changed so the empire doesn't outright die one no turkic migration in anatolia how this happens can be from multiple different changes perhaps persia remains politically stable and isn't taken over by the turks perhaps there is never a need to go south due to more favorable climate conditions in central asia the main proponent of whether the turks settle anatolia is really up to whether the turks are forced to migrate their movement in anatolia was mainly because of how turbulent central asia had become and this led to conflicts with the romans winning one battle like manzakurt wouldn't have stopped such a large migration and as soon as they came eventually they would be so numerous that the byzantines just wouldn't hold influence in anatolia anymore so the situation in central asia would need to be better so the turks don't need to migrate now i know this is flimsy and isn't the best excuse but it's really the best chance the byzantines would have at survival two no fourth crusade this is pretty much assured if point one didn't happen but i'll go into that in a bit both were the killing blows that it couldn't come back from especially you fourth crusade we begin in an alternate 11th century anatolia the demographics of the region is a mix of greeks in the west armenians in the east and kurds and syrians in the south not much of an alternate land as this is just anatolia before the seljuks the seljuk spread into anatolia kicking the eastern romans all the way back to constantinople so fast that in desperation the emperor called on the pope in the west for aid and in response pope urban ii declared a crusade to form an army that would march into anatolia and take the land back so if one main facet for the byzantines to continue to thrive is there is no turkic migration a side effect from this is there's never a reason for the byzantine emperor to call for help and therefore the crusades never actually happen as much as the crusades in the middle east have stayed relevant in western history be it from old legends of knights and armor it really isn't that relevant in global history yes for a century or two there were crusader states in the levant but these were undone after the third crusade in many ways they didn't change that much in the middle east be it socially or politically for both sides but in europe they certainly did pope urban ii calling for a holy war set a precedent and this had side effects because while we often think of the crusades going in the holy land this wasn't the only theater the crusades formed many orders and factions one of which was the teutonic knights in livonian order who after the crusades you know kind of failed they had to go back to europe the last patch of paganism in europe resided on the baltic sea and a crusade was called to christianize the region by force the great northern crusades and the knights that had taken place in the war carved up the region and settled it as their own kingdom the teutonic order took root in this land and grew so one of the effects of the turks never entering anatolia is the teutonic order is never created booted up to northern europe and doesn't create the kingdom of prussia a germany centuries down the line if it did want to unify would unify under a state like austria or perhaps some alternate northern kingdom that was able to take the place of prussia but either way germany is not unified by a militarized state that has a lot of ramifications but is not important to the byzantines at hand while that is a big ramification that's an entirely other scenario that isn't that important to the byzantines the main crusade the byzantines care about is the fourth going through the 12th and 14th centuries there might be a chance for the byzantines to slowly rebuild without both worrying about the turks and worrying about their empire being split by the latins so it would remain not only alive but a decisive competitor in not just the east but the european world alongside their rivals the holy roman empire and the catholic world it's often overlooked considering it's been 500 years but while it was still alive the byzantines were rarely friendly to the latin west and vice versa during the times of justinian they had tried to retake italy from the lombards and other tribes only for it to end in failure and the crown of the roman emperor had been given to the franks by the pope which was a slap in the face to a state that was still roman the continued resentment only grew over the centuries when the great schism occurred this chasm only became whiter eventually greeks would purge latins in the street of constantinople or latins would force conversions of orthodox churches in southern italy it was even so bad when the fourth crusade burned constantinople to the ground the church was horrified but if you ask the average person they would say the greeks deserved it this alternate europe sees the tensions that were growing between the catholic west and orthodox east before the ottomans manifest into various conflicts and competition not unlike what the protestants and catholics had transcending not just theology but into secular politics and land grabs as the byzantines can actually enforce their claims especially in italy whether or not they would succeed to reclaim any of this land perhaps southern italy i don't really know this would be a running theme as the western latins proclaim they're the rightful heirs of rome and the byzantines encroach at any opportunity to take back a land that they saw as rightfully theirs moving forward a few hundred years with the mongols gone the empire would soon find itself not alone in this competition with the west because now we have the russians that historical fear in the west of the russian horde morphs over the centuries as not just anti-russian sentiment but anti-eastern mostly between the holy roman empire austria hungary and occasionally russia or poland joining in just as the ottomans taking vienna was a terrifying prospect for the austrians this doesn't change much just because it's the byzantines say we continue on past the 15th century and the struggle between the east and west has dominated european politics then suddenly a monk in germany nails a piece of paper to a door or someone else considering how much of butterfly effect the teutonic order not existing and byzantine's continuing would have on this timeline i can't imagine the reformation would go detail for detail like in our timeline more the general strokes many by this time did have problems with the church and the inevitable invention of the printing press would spread local languages of the bible so protestants or at least christians in the north would rebel in the same form the ramifications of this however would make the complexities and cluster truck that was the reformation in 30 years war even more of a mess as now we also have an orthodox state technically two of them already rivals to latin europe taking advantage of the situation the church found themselves in europe during the renaissance and reformation is a wacky three-way battle between protestants catholics and orthodox i'd say it'd be less of a three-way battle and more everyone just teams up against the catholics byzantine's using this opportunity to move in on austria and considering this is a timeline without prussia brandenburg who knows who unites germany it's all up in the air the ottomans were considered the sick men of europe in the last 200 years of their life and it wasn't really because of some major battle it was because europe at least the west just became far more wealthy the ancient silk road routes across asia were no longer needed the mediterranean which was once the entire world became just a small lake in the middle of a vast ocean and slowly that prestige of their geographic position fell away as nations naturally bordering the ocean flourished exploiting the new world in asia the byzantines despite existing since the time of rome would find themselves in the exact same position became immediately devalued because of this the caravel it's true the ottomans did block europeans except venice out of trade with china when they took power encouraging the iberian states to look for new routes to asia but this wasn't the only factor the iberian kingdoms with the invention of the caravel for the first time could navigate deep into the atlantic ocean while the ottomans did help with that little push it's likely had the byzantine still been around the portuguese would have gone down the african coast anyway creating their own forts down the continent on their way to india before one day being accidentally blown off course landing on a continent that nobody knew existed it may not be 1492 with columbus finding the ocean blue but news of another mass across the sea has pretty much the same results that we saw in our timeline the spanish jump on board then the british dutch you get the point the byzantine prestige whatever it had left would dwindle down eventually be it colonization and the riches that it brings to its competitors or the rise of nationalism that may strike in the following centuries the state relied heavily on foreign mercenaries and most decisions were top down from the emperor in a growingly complex world this mentality would have to change or the empire couldn't survive the byzantines ironically by a time of mercantilism and colonization would be the sick man of europe and may be seen as an outdated relic of a bygone era they might have to eventually reinvent themselves and even if it wasn't as drastic as turkey or china did all empires do eventually come to an end whenever a nation or empire collapses far back in history we often imagine that had it continued on it would have remained the same type of entity that it was the eastern romans were remarkable and more or less keeping the same tradition alive for a thousand years but compared to a world after columbus they would have to change they would never reunite rome but they at least culturally would continue the tradition into the 16th and maybe 19th centuries until it's eventually reorganized as greece even if it's not by name this is very much one of those butterfly type scenarios without prussia the dynamic of eastern europe is entirely shifted the baltics may become orthodox instead of catholic or maybe poland without the prussians is able to become a superpower in its own right entirely alternate conflicts spawn houses and states that transform europe in ways none of us can even predict as they're based in history that simply never happened because the byzantine no roman empire held firm this is cody of alternate history hub special thanks to humankind for sponsoring this video they're having a what if contest right now where you the community can create your own content be it memes scenarios or stories around the theme of a particular what if scenario it's still going on right now with multiple winners chosen each week so click the link in the description for more information on how to participate before the grand finale [Music] you

Channel: AlternateHistoryHub

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Keywords: Byzantine Empire, What if the Byzantine Empire Survived?, AlternateHistoryHub, alternate history, byzantine history, what if byzantine, humankind what if, what if, alternate history hub, byzantine alternate history, byzantine empire history, eastern roman empire, fall of constantinople, ottoman empire, what if the byzantine empire never fell, roman alternate history, humankind game, humankind strategy game, humankind, constantinople, why did the byzantine empire fall

Id: 9psC8ae18lw

Length: 15min 8sec (908 seconds)

Published: Mon Aug 31 2020