Interesting. Sounds like Gyranos isn't quite prepared to fully defect to Athena's side....unless of course a certain Megas Tzaousios a bit too overzealous. Would be a shame if he takes an entire guard tagma with him still in Constantinople.
An Age of Miracles III: The Romans Endure
- Thread starter Basileus444
- Start date
It's interesting to see Gyranos advocating for that civic unity. It's a pragmatic rationale for fixing the damage done by the various religious purges, but also creates a political rationale outside of "POWAH" to tighten in the Despotates long-term. What has me curious is how it'll be done - if imposed top-down it might be clumsy, but if places like Sicily and Egypt are reached out to in 'learning exercises' that could be a meaningful tone-change for the Empire, one that is compatible with the sale of territories to Sicily too. Probably the first steps to an active policy of uniting a 'Roman' or non-Latin Mediterranean culturally (Eastern Med Nationalism?)
Maybe the initial step to general federalisation too. It does have me continue to be curious as to how this policy would address Serbia. It could be easily conquered (as an exercise) but that would probably cause issues, but I guess Serbia and Vlachia are the real testing grounds of how that would work outside the Despotates.
Maybe the initial step to general federalisation too. It does have me continue to be curious as to how this policy would address Serbia. It could be easily conquered (as an exercise) but that would probably cause issues, but I guess Serbia and Vlachia are the real testing grounds of how that would work outside the Despotates.
I feel like a kind of federalism in the eastern Mediterranean won’t be a very difficult legal principle to create. If the emperor still retains certain legal powers, just establishing that they are also emperor of the despotates as well as the core seems sufficient, especially if the despotates are reluctant to submit to a legislature in Constantinople.
Somebody's going to come up with nationalism I see.
To be fair civic, cultural, nationalism has been a thing in the Greco-Roman world for a long time, which is what it seems Gyranos is advocating rather than the more narrow ethnic nationalism that got championed later in European history post-Revolutionary France.
It actually seems unlikely that it would be termed nationalism in universe as a result. This will be in contrast to potential nationalist movements in Germany, the constituent kingdoms of the Triunes and maybe breakaway movements in the Empire of the North (particularly Scotland).
Evilprodigy
Donor
It's pretty clear to me that this concept he's talking about is what we would call patriotism, which is loyalty to the country, not nationalism, which is a loyalty to one's Nation. This is a very important distinction when it comes to a multi-ethnic Empire, especially one which has been split up into its core, colonies, despotates, and other regions.
Until after the first attempt, when the leadership of the countries around them see exactly what the Romans are doing and intervene themselves. This is how you end up with the Romans at war on every frontier (again) without even any kind of moral high ground in defending themselves against an external king trying to push his claim for the throne.
I don't know. within the century Europe is going to be way too busy worrying about united Russia to worry about what Rhomania is doing. I think it's going to be a lot harder to ignore their growing power and play colonial games than in OTL.
Wonder how the Scandinavian vinland colony is doing and what it's prospects are. I hope it doesn't go the way of French Canada of being severely outpopulated and eventually conquered by another imperial polity that puts in far more effort into its colonies. Norse America is extremely cool I hope it survives
thats my thinking. at the end of this century europe is going to be world focused and less euro focused, at least those with colonies. And Rhomania isnt in the new world. I could see spill over war coming from colonial holdings, but thats really it. Its empire building time
I'm definitely betting on the Russian royal family to get one of its own married into the Rhomanian one and use Rhomania as a good shield against its own enemies.
We’re moving toward a TTL variant of that.
The key is to create a common identity. To see oneself as Roman, and someone else as a fellow Roman, has to mean something. And it does have to be more than just ‘we’re not X’. That might help start the process, but it’s not enough by itself. To be French means more than just being not-German. After all, the Chinese or Paraguayans are also not-German, but they’re hardly French.
The issue is to how to create that common identity. Roman-ness at this point ITTL is based on 1) use of the Greek language in public, 2) Orthodox religion, and 3) loyalty to the Emperor in Constantinople. Number 2 is a hang-up for many, such as Copts or Armenians, but religion hardly can be hand-waved away.
The key is to create some kind of secular identity, perhaps based on a shared appreciation of aspects of Greek culture and a common belief in a ‘Roman way of doing things’ (whatever that is). While I did it to be silly and to inject some light-heartedness, the concept of ‘we Romans don’t put fruit or vegetables on pizza but only eat them on the side’ might be a good example of this. ‘That’ is something Romans do, and it is something that devout Armenians, Copts, and Orthodox could all agree upon.
I feel that this response is vague, but I admit a lot of this is me thinking out loud. I absolutely do not have a clear idea of what this ‘secular Roman identity’ would entail. I know that it can’t be ethnically-based and that it needs to be secular (because of the religious differences which will not go away). But that’s only a kernel. Probably going to lean heavily on a ‘Roman way of doing things’, but what exactly that means is the million dollar question.
Federalization could work here, much easier than a centralized unitary state. There needs to be some recognition and allowance and understanding that the likes of the Copts and the many Syrian minorities are different, even if they might be willing to be part of a broader ‘Roman’ category.
Ethnic nationalism would be bad. Turning the Empire into a Greek nation-state would be extremely damaging. It would have to be some form of civic common identity, of shared values and beliefs and customs that can be adopted by anyone, and accepted as such by others in the group (this is key). To be Roman here needs to be like being Roman in the classical Empire, rather than being British or French or Russian or whatever in modern times.
Indeed. That’s the issue I have with most proposed expansionist plans, the “and then what?” stage. There seems to be an assumption that non-Roman powers will be completely passive and just let the Romans do whatever and the Romans will suffer no long-term consequences or ill effects. Louis XIV can keep on conquering border provinces and somehow will not face larger pan-European coalitions set on curbing him.
The tragic irony is that the Tourmarches (and Romans in general) fear broad Latin coalitions, and they have good reason. Such coalitions are incredibly dangerous and destructive. But in their ham-fisted efforts to guard against them, the Tourmarches are more likely to trigger them. (With its paranoid aggressiveness, the closest OTL parallels I can think of are Germany pre-WW1 and Japan pre-WW2, which are not encouraging examples.)
That though depends on geography. If you’re in western Europe, Romans rampaging in Italy takes priority over Russians rampaging in Poland.
I am planning down the road, once Rhomania’s General Crisis series is over, and then a segway to India, to have a ‘Terranova Tour’. Vinland has similar issues to French Canada. Scandinavia doesn’t have the numbers by itself to power up a strong settler colony, and Canada isn’t an attractive location for settlers. It is a cool idea but it does have some inherent disadvantages.
To be fair, Scandinavian Canada, especially if centered around the OTL St. Lawrence, might actually have better demographics than French Canada, if for no other reason than Scandinavia is less hospitable than France so more emigrate. Granted Scandinavia has at best a third of OTL England's population but the St. Lawrence valley is also a smaller area than the entire Atlantic seaboard.
I have finaly caught up after months of reading and wanted to thank you for the supreme story you wrote up until this point. Despite the fact that the divergence from OTL happened so long ago, you still manage to ground yours in reality to such an extent that I don't even know of another timeline that I can compare it to. Set my expectations about alternate history real high lol.
Damaging or not the reality of the thing is that the empire IS a Greek nation state and this hasn't been exactly a new development, you can date it back to the time of the Arab conquests. When the population of the core empire is 75-80% Greek with assimilation continuing inexorably, then what you end up with is with Roman equaling Greek and vice versa with Romios and Hellene used interchangeably by the population... just like OTL one might note,
Does this mean that say an Albanian or a Helvetian would be excluded from said Greek identity? One might note that many of the leading proponents of Greek nationalism in OTL were Vlach and Albanian speaking, they both considered themselves Greek and were considered as Greek by the Greek speaking majority, with none bothered over the distinction. What would make Greek TTL nationalism exclusionary to differentiate it from the OTL path? If you speak Tagalog at home TTL but claim to be Greek, as described above, why you won't be accepted as one? You will be. Much to the horror of TTL Western Europeans who will be likely claiming the TTL Greeks aren't really Greek since they are not pure bred descendants of the ancients but who cares?
Are there possible breakdowns in the above? I'd say there is an obvious one... that proves the concept that the core empire is a strongly assimilationist, Greek nation state with a strongly inclusionary identity on whom it considers as Greek. The Despotates of course. What are the despotates if not the areas where the assimilationist model of the core could not work due to a strong local identity that could not be readily assimilated unlike the core empire? So the Egyptians were effectively given their own autonomous nation state to play with... while in Sicily how is Sicily breaking down at the moment? In rebellion of the Italian catholic population that does not feel part of the core identity against the Italiote Greek populations that do...
Weighing in on Greek nationalism, most ethnic groups are ignorable enough with some exceptions. Doesnt mean its preferable to a wider Roman identity.
Albanians as far as I am aware are barely not Greeks, while Bulgarians are also a small minority in rural villages. Syrians also took a significant hit and the coast is getting more and more Greek. The elephant in the room is the Armenians, who are not only a big minority, but also make up a significant part of the upper ranks of the army. They are by far the most important, and if they are not kept happy it can mean significant issues for the state. Overall, the problem is that Armenians are not only not Greek, but are also not Orthodox so neither religious or ethnic nationalism will work for them.
Albanians as far as I am aware are barely not Greeks, while Bulgarians are also a small minority in rural villages. Syrians also took a significant hit and the coast is getting more and more Greek. The elephant in the room is the Armenians, who are not only a big minority, but also make up a significant part of the upper ranks of the army. They are by far the most important, and if they are not kept happy it can mean significant issues for the state. Overall, the problem is that Armenians are not only not Greek, but are also not Orthodox so neither religious or ethnic nationalism will work for them.
Rhomania's General Crisis, Part 10.1: On a Single Heartbeat
Fair enough, although 'better demographics than French Canada' is a low bar. Another aspect that might help is if German immigrants can be encouraged to go there instead of the TTL equivalent of the 13 Colonies, possibly on religious grounds.
Good points; I agree. I think the issue is the terminology I'm using and not being clear on. When I use the term 'nation-state', I default to the nation there being defined ethnically. So in this I was thinking of an ethnic-Greek nation-state. And ethnic nationalism is not well-known for its assimilationist abilities. In this case, said Vlach or Albanian or Helvetian or Tagalog-speaker can never be a Greek.
If Greek though is defined as a cultural/civic identifier, and not a biological one, then you're absolutely right. Many Byzantine nobility were Armenians by ethnicity, and the Laskarids themselves were probably Kurds. When it's defined that way, then all of your examples can be Greek with no issues.
Rhomania is closer to China (think Greek=Han) than Austria-Hungary. But even if the state can deal with such things, it would be nice to not have any TTL equivalents to Uyghur or Kurdish issues.
* * *
Rhomania’s General Crisis, part 10.1-On a Single Heartbeat:
Rhomania’s General Crisis, part 10.1-On a Single Heartbeat:
Roman efforts to outflank the Line north of Baghdad have failed, leading Domestikos Manuel Doukas to reluctantly decide to try and punch straight through it. He has spent a great deal of thought into how to break Ottoman field fortifications and his preferred solution is the use of massed artillery. The objective is not to blast the fortifications apart. For that he would need modern high explosives, as black powder cannons firing solid shot are not good earth movers. The goal is to pin the enemy troops down and allow the Roman infantry to advance close without being shot down on the approach.
Training exercises had shown some promise, but under battlefield conditions that promise breaks down. The bombardment needs to be close enough to mask the infantry approach, but to not fall on the infantry. Communication between infantry and artillery, done with flags and musical calls, breaks down quickly in the smoke and noise of a black-powder battlefield, while unlike the training exercises, here the Roman artillery is subjected to fierce counterbattery fire.
The Romans attack the forward redoubts first, the independent forts masking the Line itself, to prevent them from laying down enfilading fire. The artillery bombardment does some masking, but still the Roman attack columns have to eat a lot of musketry before they storm the ramparts. After a brief melee, the Romans succeed in taking four bastions, the Ottoman defenders fleeing back to their main line.
However, the redoubts are open-faced on the back, making them worse than useless for defending occupants from fire coming from the Ottoman lines. Ottoman artillery is pre-positioned to blast the areas, with the Roman assault troops, massed for the storming assault, crowded in like fish in a barrel. Losses are horrific before reinforcements come up, giving the Romans the weight they need to attack the line itself. This attack also manages to breach the Ottoman line, but again at extremely high cost.
The Romans breach the Line, but that is all they can do. The assault forces are too exhausted and blooded to do more and by the time more troops can be sent forward to try and exploit the situation, the defenders have rallied and reorganized. They are already hard at work building up a new line of fortifications behind the old one, expanding on preliminary work done before the Romans had arrived.
The next few days hold ferocious skirmishing that is little short of a full battle, with the Romans trying to disrupt Ottoman fortification-building while they prepare for another attack. With some reworking, the portions of the original Line the Romans hold can be used to shelter their own troops, unlike the redoubts. With this protection, Doukas resumes his efforts to outflank the Ottoman position. But the constricted terrain, littered with ditches and canals even before military construction comes into play, makes movement hard. In addition, while the Ottomans are getting reinforcements, admittedly green Mesopotamian levies, that is more than can be said for the Romans.
By this stage, all of the Ottoman troops (but not the Mesopotamians) are armed with a new-pattern musket, modeled after the Roman D3. It copies the design of interchangeable parts (mostly-there is usually some adjustment needed given that everything is made by hand, but this applies to the D3 as well). But it varies in that it is bigger and heavier. This is a pain when being carried around a battlefield or campaign, but the Ottoman model also has a longer range, hitting power, and better accuracy due to the longer length of the barrel. It pairs perfectly with Ottoman tactics of defending elaborate field fortifications.
The mood on both sides is grim. The Romans are horrified at the level of casualties they’re taking, with no possibility of replacement, while the Ottomans are dismayed that the Romans managed to break through the Line at all.
The casualty list hits Doukas personally hard. At the start of the campaign, the Roman army included two cousins of his, a brother-in-law, a pair of nephews, and his two sons. His brother-in-law had already been killed in the first effort to flank the Line. The breaching and the battling that followed sees one each of his cousins, nephews, and sons killed or wounded. In this, he is in a similar situation to Shahanshah Iskandar. His second son Siavash, during the retreat from the Line, is shot in the face, the blow ripping off nearly all of the left side. He is expected to die from such a horrific injury but instead survives, eventually to wear a silver mask to cover his grievous scars, giving him the moniker Siavash the Faceless.
The strain is telling on both commanders. Whatever drug cocktail Doukas has been using to keep going, the dosage is going up. And while the Shah seems imperturbable at first glance, he is furiously chain-smoking the Lotharingian cigars that are the new and popular import into Persia.
Four days after the attack on the First Line, Doukas attacks the second. While he still uses artillery heavily, he has shifted tactics. Squads of heavily armed and handpicked troops lead the charge, attacking and isolating strongpoints, causing mayhem at positions along the Line to disrupt reinforcement, with the main body following up to exploit the opportunities. The attack is a success, but again the Ottomans rally and retreat, beginning work on a Third Line.
The new tactics did succeed in somewhat limiting the casualties to the main body, but at the cost of horrific losses to the squads themselves, and these were composed of some of the dedicated, skilled, and experienced soldiers, including veteran dekarchoi. These are the backbone of Roman army units, the equivalent of sergeants, and their losses are keenly felt. Among the casualties are Doukas’s previously uninjured nephew and son, both of whom are wounded, his son losing his right leg from above the knee.
After this attack, Doukas surveys the scene and decides the game is up. A quarter of his army is on the casualty list. One more big push might break the Ottomans, whose morale is weakening and who are running out of space before Baghdad. But then they could just retreat into Baghdad. And the Roman supply situation is nearing disaster. To succeed in his current position, Doukas would have to break through the Ottoman lines, without another bloodbath that will break the army altogether, AND keep the Ottomans from retreating to either another Line or Baghdad itself, AND capture enough Ottoman stores to maintain the Roman army long enough to secure Baghdad and head south where a more sustainable supply system might be available with help from the Marsh Arabs. AND if he tries and fails, the effort will have used up the remaining supplies, meaning a nightmare retreat back to Roman territory without provisions.
Doukas is not going to risk it. The withdrawal is carefully organized, with extra campfires set up to give the illusion of vacant forces still being present. In addition, some abandoned weaponry is set up with clockwork mechanisms to make them fire off at scattered intervals, further giving the impression that Roman soldiers are still around. Other weaponry that cannot be withdrawn given lack of transport (fodder for horses is an extreme concern) is wrecked as much as possible, although hampered by the need for secrecy. One item that is emphatically not to be abandoned are the wounded; Doukas trusts the Ottoman soldiery to respect the (unwritten and custom-based) conventions regarding wounded soldiers, but for good reason expects that the Mesopotamians would just as soon butcher them in their beds.
The immediate withdrawal works out flawlessly, but that hardly means the retreat will be easy. The Romans are retreating through already-stripped territory and with a large train of wounded are in no position to maneuver much or rapidly. The supply situation is also deteriorating markedly. Even when provisions are available, sometimes they cannot be moved as the rapidly deteriorating store of draft animals is tied down moving the wounded. The overworked and underfed equines dry in droves, even while they gnaw each other’s tails in a desperate effort to still their hunger. Meanwhile the wounded are in agonies of their own as they are carted along on rough terrain in spring-less vehicles.
To make things even worse, the lack of wine means the Romans resort to drinking local water, and clean water is a rare thing. Canal and ditch water is resorted to, with the unsurprising result that dysentery rages furiously through the Roman ranks. With tired and malnourished soldiers with an extreme need to evacuate bowels, combined with the heavy losses of dekarchoi and junior officers who are key to maintaining order, ensuring normal sanitation discipline becomes difficult at the best moments.
One common treatment for dysentery at this time is to take a freshly boiled egg and to insert the narrow end into the anus. Once it has cooled down, the egg is replaced with another freshly boiled egg and repeated as needed. [1] The Romans don’t have the eggs for this.
One silver lining is that Ottoman pursuit is minor. Their forces have been badly mauled by the fighting and Iskandar does not want to take his own forces in bulk into the stripped areas, where he would have similar problems of supply. Thus, the Roman force, while in poor condition, makes it back to Mosul on September 5 relatively intact.
Strategos Sarantenos has been stationed here in the rear echelon because he is a hesychastic lodge brother of the Shah and so cannot, in good conscience, fight him. He has been alerted to the condition of the Roman army and has been preparing to succor them. Makeshift hospitals have been constructed, extra latrine trenches and cesspits have been dug, and stockpiles have been set aside to feed the Roman soldiers and animals when they arrive (including thousands of eggs). The city’s bakeries have been working night and day, lubricated by financial inducement, making mountains of bread. Some of the earlier outlay is getting a bit stale when the Roman army arrives, but the soldiers do not mind.
The next day, September 6, is spent seeing to the needs of the army. On the morning of September 7, the Domestikos is meeting with his staff and senior commanders over breakfast, a usual practice, to discuss the army’s next moves. The war has certainly not gone the way Doukas would’ve liked and as a finale for a long military career, is not what he had in mind. For this he blames the clique in Constantinople, whose too-clever-by-half opening gambit deprived him of material resources that would’ve been extremely useful. And he feels they also could’ve provided him more support in his main campaign; he has noted the lack of European or guard units. While there is an element of blame-shifting happening, it is clear that Doukas’s resentments against the Tourmarches have grown.
It is entirely possible that these have grown to the point that Doukas is willing to turn the eastern army on the Tourmarches, Persian war notwithstanding. Yet this temptation also rages fiercely against his duty not to leave the eastern frontier exposed to a foreign invader, a duty which weighs especially heavy on his conscience given the history of his family. This inner battle is exacerbated by Doukas’s condition, his health problems prior to the campaign, the only-partially-recovered response from his surgery, and the substance abuse in which he has been engaging to keep going so far. Added to this is the emotional strain of seeing many of his close relations killed or horribly wounded.
No one knows which way the mind of Domestikos Manuel Doukas would go, but the body finds another way. The Domestikos enters the chamber, greets the gathered men, and then pauses. Suddenly grimacing in pain, he clutches the side of his chest and collapses on the floor. The Archiatros ton tagma [2] of the Syrian is at his side within moments, but it doesn’t matter. Domestikos Manuel Doukas is already dead.
All is confusion. The suddenness of the death, believed to be from a massive heart attack, especially in a place and time of expected safety, stuns everyone. The seniormost after Doukas is Strategos Sarantenos, who would normally take command. Except he can’t command an army that is fighting Shahanshah Iskandar, but he can’t be ignored because he is literally in the room.
In the confusion, an agent of the Tourmarches, placed to keep an eye on the Domestikos, manages to get a close look at his papers. The late Doukas was a soldier, but clearly not a conspirator. The agent sees all manner of correspondence, amply documenting his connection with Athena and their plans against the Tourmarches and much of the extent of the web Athena has been trying to weave around them. He immediately gathers the evidence and rushes to send warning to his masters. But at the same time, an agent of Athena, there for the same reason, realizes what is happening, and urgently sends a warning of his own.
[1] This is an OTL treatment from this time period.
[2] Chief physician of a tagma, commanding all medical support personnel.