WI: Surviving Vandal Kingdom?

[AltoRegnant]

The vandal kingdom is a rather intriguing part of history to me. An Arian Christian state in north Africa, centered around Rome's old enemy city of Carthage, it met its end due to a loss to then-Christian Berbers that prompted a revolt against religious freedom being given to Trinitarians and the intervention of Justinian I. But that is a very specific situation that did not need to happen. So, assuming Hoemar beat the Berbers, and was able to purge the more revolt happy parts of the royal family, what are some broad-strokes that we might see ttl? would there be a major araian power speaking African romance (which i imagine would become known as Vandallan or something), or would it eventually catholicize? what might this Mediterranean power mean for surviving Visigothic Spain?

side note: there's probably a decent chance Islam would be butterflied ttl by sheer luck, but i can't see any political impacts that might prevent it from at least uniting arabia, so let's assume that at least. other people more knowledgeable might have comments about the rise of the rashudin caliphate.

 

[Silver01]

View attachment 608844
The vandal kingdom is a rather intriguing part of history to me. An Arian Christian state in north Africa, centered around Rome's old enemy city of Carthage, it met its end due to a loss to then-Christian Berbers that prompted a revolt against religious freedom being given to Trinitarians and the intervention of Justinian I. But that is a very specific situation that did not need to happen. So, assuming Hoemar beat the Berbers, and was able to purge the more revolt happy parts of the royal family, what are some broad-strokes that we might see ttl? would there be a major araian power speaking African romance (which i imagine would become known as Vandallan or something), or would it eventually catholicize? what might this Mediterranean power mean for surviving Visigothic Spain?

side note: there's probably a decent chance Islam would be butterflied ttl by sheer luck, but i can't see any political impacts that might prevent it from at least uniting arabia, so let's assume that at least. other people more knowledgeable might have comments about the rise of the rashudin caliphate.

Simple it would be conquered in the late 6th century or 7th century by the mauro roman kingdom which would gain more power and it took some major effetor to defeat one that the vandals would not recreate while at the end the mauro king managed to defeat Byzantine armies so yeah the kingdom gets conquered which sparks some instresting butterflies

 

[Sarufiyyun]

Interestingly, the Vandal population was well on their way to adopting the cultural norms of their Roman subjects while simultaneously tying themselves to the Theodosian dynasty and crafting a post-Roman African identity. How did they craft? The Vandal royal family would mint coins using Punic symbols, harkening back to pre-Roman times while patronizing poets to write epic literature speaking of Africa's distinction. Nonetheless the Vandalic language would go the way of the dino, contributing some words here or there to the local Vulgar Latin dialect. If not conquered by Constantinople, it likely gets swept by the Berbers.

 

[An Thuong]

I like how both replies to 'What if the Vandal Kingdom survived?' are just: 'It wouldn't survive'.

 

[AltoRegnant]

Interestingly, the Vandal population was well on their way to adopting the cultural norms of their Roman subjects while simultaneously tying themselves to the Theodosian dynasty and crafting a post-Roman African identity. How did they craft? The Vandal royal family would mint coins using Punic symbols, harkening back to pre-Roman times while patronizing poets to write epic literature speaking of Africa's distinction. Nonetheless the Vandalic language would go the way of the dino, contributing some words here or there to the local Vulgar Latin dialect. If not conquered by Constantinople, it likely gets swept by the Berbers.

are the vandals at a significant demographic disadvantage to the other kingdoms? you and @Goldensilver81 both think it would wind up conquered by someone else, but they're in what was one of the breadbaskets of Rome and in a prime position to get filthy rich off western Mediterranean trade. while the Berbers were almost certainly strong, it also looks like that the Vandals are in a better position geographically if they can sort out some of the religious issues

 

[Silver01]

are the vandals at a significant demographic disadvantage to the other kingdoms? you and @Goldensilver81 both think it would wind up conquered by someone else, but they're in what was one of the breadbaskets of Rome and in a prime position to get filthy rich off western Mediterranean trade. while the Berbers were almost certainly strong, it also looks like that the Vandals are in a better position geographically if they can sort out some of the religious issues

this not the first century ad africa has declined it was still much beter than later centuries but still , vandal control was always really weak the romans nearly conquered them before had it not been for their clever leaders they would have fallen , the berbers where getting stronger raiding and attacking deep in the provinces when the byzantiens conquered even afte the destruction of the roman mauro kingdom the petty kingdoms that came from it where not so petty as once belived as they where consolidating fast and stood up for a couple of decades to the caliphate (one can think if they had not arrived how much more centralized would they have been seeing as to how the berber revolt occurred after not that far away from the conquest )

 

[Aghasverov]

I think the problem with Vandal survival is the same as with the survival, as a recognizable cultural identity, of most of the other tribes/peoples during the "migration period" - too few Vandals. Sure, in a time of chaos, it's easy enough to sweep in and impose yourself on top of the pecking order... what's harder is to avoid is getting assimilated into the culture, religion and linguistic strata of the (probably much more numerous) native inhabitants that you've imposed yourself upon.
If I'm not mistaken, even in places like France there are surnames and place-names that are thought to be descended from Alan or Avar/Pseudo-Avar antecedents... all lost in the mists of time and subsumed into the local and largely pre-existing cultural milieu...

 

[Sarufiyyun]

The problem with Vandal survival is that much work produced during that period was likely lost. From what little we do, the Vandals were literate in Latin and patronized the arts much like their Roman predecessors and subjects. Had Belisarius not landed on North Africa, even if the Vandals disappeared, they wouldn't have had that infamous reputation of being savage barbarians.

 

[AltoRegnant]

What would the fate of arian christianity be ttl? would it be accepted, or would it be seen as a dangerous force? Hell, would there even be enough arians after a point for Rome/Constantinople to care?

 

[GuildedAgeNostalgia]

What would the fate of arian christianity be ttl? would it be accepted, or would it be seen as a dangerous force? Hell, would there even be enough arians after a point for Rome/Constantinople to care?

If they do survive, we would see the Vandals controlling the Sahara trade routes, Which most likely means Arian Christian west africa.

 

[Gloss]

I like how both replies to 'What if the Vandal Kingdom survived?' are just: 'It wouldn't survive'.

This is what you get when some weird ideas get popularized, on its face there is no reason to believe the fall of the Vandal kingdom is inevitably doomed, but apparently it's a common trope for just about any topic to make it as if everything was pre-determined.

are the vandals at a significant demographic disadvantage to the other kingdoms? you and @Goldensilver81 both think it would wind up conquered by someone else, but they're in what was one of the breadbaskets of Rome and in a prime position to get filthy rich off western Mediterranean trade. while the Berbers were almost certainly strong, it also looks like that the Vandals are in a better position geographically if they can sort out some of the religious issues

Yes their unfortunate demise completely circumstantial. Simply having them winning against the berbers during the reign of Huneric would solidify their control.

I think the problem with Vandal survival is the same as with the survival, as a recognizable cultural identity, of most of the other tribes/peoples during the "migration period" - too few Vandals. Sure, in a time of chaos, it's easy enough to sweep in and impose yourself on top of the pecking order... what's harder is to avoid is getting assimilated into the culture, religion and linguistic strata of the (probably much more numerous) native inhabitants that you've imposed yourself upon.
If I'm not mistaken, even in places like France there are surnames and place-names that are thought to be descended from Alan or Avar/Pseudo-Avar antecedents... all lost in the mists of time and subsumed into the local and largely pre-existing cultural milieu...

None of the barbarian peoples had to impose everything of their culture unto the inhabitants, so really that's a non issue insofar as the survival of the state is concerned. Also given how barbarian identities spread and became dominant over Iberia, France and Italy by 700 CE shows that something akin to this could happen easily in "Vandalia"

In terms of religion, there are 2 main ways that could see a successful Vandal kingdom, one is simply conversion to Niceanism like happened OTL with Visigoths and Lombards eventually and Franks from the start, the second is having Homoeanism/Arianism win, this might be more tricky because we have no example of what it could look like, but really it requires just that the Franks become Homoean and then have the Western Barbarian kingdoms survive as such and all be strictly Homean which means everything in the Western Roman empire is under Homoean rule, which to me means eventually Homeanism will win, just like most other state favoured religion was able to win, even within Christianity(the religious border of the reformations show how strong state support was)

If they do survive, we would see the Vandals controlling the Sahara trade routes, Which most likely means Arian Christian west africa.

Eh maybe, by itself it's not obvious a Vandal Christian kingdom would be in the position or be inclined to have as much contact with Saharan Africa compared to OTL Arabo-Berbers.

 

[Jurgen Wullenwever]

Nonetheless the Vandalic language would go the way of the dino, contributing some words here or there to the local Vulgar Latin dialect.

But I want to see another Germanic language! 😢 And an East Germanic one. It would be interesting to see its spelling conventions and its vowel system and its consonants, and its vocabulary, and its set of very old texts and ... 🧐

 

[AltoRegnant]

But I want to see another Germanic language! 😢 And an East Germanic one. It would be interesting to see its spelling conventions and its vowel system and its consonants, and its vocabulary, and its set of very old texts and ... 🧐

wasn't afro-romance already becoming a thing though?

 

[Umbral]

A surviving Vandal Kingdom means a buffer state for the Visigoths versus the Byzantines and whatever muslim power butterflies allow. It also will be interesting for the Garmantes, who are declining at this time but with a few centuries to go before their final fall. The Garmantes control access to the sub-Saharan and Sahel polities.

 

[Silver01]

This is what you get when some weird ideas get popularized, on its face there is no reason to believe the fall of the Vandal kingdom is inevitably doomed, but apparently it's a common trope for just about any topic to make it as if everything was pre-determined.


Yes their unfortunate demise completely circumstantial. Simply having them winning against the berbers during the reign of Huneric would solidify their control.


None of the barbarian peoples had to impose everything of their culture unto the inhabitants, so really that's a non issue insofar as the survival of the state is concerned. Also given how barbarian identities spread and became dominant over Iberia, France and Italy by 700 CE shows that something akin to this could happen easily in "Vandalia"

In terms of religion, there are 2 main ways that could see a successful Vandal kingdom, one is simply conversion to Niceanism like happened OTL with Visigoths and Lombards eventually and Franks from the start, the second is having Homoeanism/Arianism win, this might be more tricky because we have no example of what it could look like, but really it requires just that the Franks become Homoean and then have the Western Barbarian kingdoms survive as such and all be strictly Homean which means everything in the Western Roman empire is under Homoean rule, which to me means eventually Homeanism will win, just like most other state favoured religion was able to win, even within Christianity(the religious border of the reformations show how strong state support was)


Eh maybe, by itself it's not obvious a Vandal Christian kingdom would be in the position or be inclined to have as much contact with Saharan Africa compared to OTL Arabo-Berbers.

1) i do believe so they where in bad position in a province do to nature and mismanagement was already declining with the Roman empire and berber states solidifying in to stronger political entities the vandals are in bad position.

And heck you can even argue that there is a trend that the eastern germanic states didn't survive in the long run whether it be the ostrogoth , vandals , Visigoths etc none of their states made it pass the early middle ages .

3) huneric would change that much unless he completely as the mauro roman kingdom manged to defeat them after him (unless he some how kills the state before forming which still leaves him with many berber tribes ) if we use a later pod it's worse .

 

[Gloss]

1) i do believe so they where in bad position in a province do to nature and mismanagement was already declining with the Roman empire and berber states solidifying in to stronger political entities the vandals are in bad position.

And heck you can even argue that there is a trend that the eastern germanic states didn't survive in the long run whether it be the ostrogoth , vandals , Visigoths etc none of their states made it pass the early middle ages .

3) huneric would change that much unless he completely as the mauro roman kingdom manged to defeat them after him (unless he some how kills the state before forming which still leaves him with many berber tribes ) if we use a later pod it's worse .

Given the territories the Vandals controlled they were in a good position to reverse their fortunes up to the Byzantine conquest, they had more resources, better land, better connections to the rest of Europe than the Mauri.

The Ostrogoths were conquered forcibly after years of bitter warfare. The Visigoths were conquered quite late and survived as a independent state for more than 2 centuries, longer than many states can claim. Plus using that logic the Berber kingdoms were weak themselves as they were conquered by the same Arabs that conquered the Visigoths.

Yes Huneric lost to the Berbers, I don't see how reiterating what happened OTL proves that OTL is inevitable. Not only the fact that the Byzantines readily deal with the Mauri in of itself disprove that the Mauri were ascendant or particularly stronger than say the Ostrogoths or Vandals, on top of that the fact that multiple Mauri kingdom existed over even small regions(especially after the quick collapse of the Mauri kingdom after the wars against the Byzantine) shows their political decentralization, the Vandals don't need to do much, the reign of Gaiseric already shows that under good leadership they can prosper.

 

[Silver01]

Given the territories the Vandals controlled they were in a good position to reverse their fortunes up to the Byzantine conquest, they had more resources, better land, better connections to the rest of Europe than the Mauri.

The Ostrogoths were conquered forcibly after years of bitter warfare. The Visigoths were conquered quite late and survived as a independent state for more than 2 centuries, longer than many states can claim. Plus using that logic the Berber kingdoms were weak themselves as they were conquered by the same Arabs that conquered the Visigoths.

Yes Huneric lost to the Berbers, I don't see how reiterating what happened OTL proves that OTL is inevitable. Not only the fact that the Byzantines readily deal with the Mauri in of itself disprove that the Mauri were ascendant or particularly strong, on top of that the fact that multiple Mauri kingdom existed over even small regions(especially after the quick collapse of the Mauri kingdom after the wars against the Byzantine) shows their political decentralization, the Vandals don't need to do much, the reign of Gaiseric already shows that under good leadership they can prosper.

Again as mentioned none of these states survived and more than bitter figthing the ostorgths where good figthers and she lucky breaks as the romans had infigthing and plague that dealt with the romas them we saw what the romans did with a proper army under narces and how fast the goths where beaten up .
And yeah you can make the claim that the berber where weaker than the caliphate .

2) huneric was defeated by them before the state was formed and lets see if your byzantine example holds water.
the byzantines lost the battle of Thacia went they sent a smaller force to deal with them , then the romans won the berbers by using 150 000 troops with the berbers (exageration of the historian Corippus but even then the romans and their allies did out number the berbers)



yes the byzantine empire defeated them because Garmul raided to their territory and killed 3 roman generals in succesive order theodore , the magister militum Theoctistus both in 570, and the next magister milituim Amabilis in 571)
yes so much so that emperor tiberuis had two apoint to men who had to prepare years to defeat him (which they did in a year) and Gennadius was using terror tactics against Garmul’s subjects to defeat him.

so your saying that the kingdom who defeated the roman empire and destroyed 2 byzantine armies whos king was only defeated after a long planed preparation that one of his comanders was forced to use terrors tactics etc , that means that the vandals would not need to much to defeat them....
yeah unlike the empire reinforcments for the vandal king are not comming from anatolia or other parts of his empire the best he can hope for is allying with other berbers tribes who dont like the mauro kingdom in fact the romans migth even help in some way the berbers as they disliked the vandals do their piracy.

and speaking of the kingdoms that proceded ...you do know that despite that some of the kingdoms again where rising like altava or aurales but then again first the vandals would have to defeat the mauro roman kingdom and if took the byzantines time and effort how will the vandal kingdom do it?
unless they get an amazing king that is so good that he can assure roman neutrality and prepares well and figths so good that he destroys the muaro roman kingdom.

 

[Gloss]

Again as mentioned none of these states survived and more than bitter figthing the ostorgths where good figthers and she lucky breaks as the romans had infigthing and plague that dealt with the romas them we saw what the romans did with a proper army under narces and how fast the goths where beaten up .
And yeah you can make the claim that the berber where weaker than the caliphate .

You can make the same exact argument for the Vandals in Africa. Of course you can cherrypick and say the "Romans were momentarily weak", I can make the same argument for the Vandals, their weakness was temporary and a issue of leadership.

2) huneric was defeated by them before the state was formed and lets see if your byzantine example holds water.

the byzantines lost the battle of Thacia went they sent a smaller force to deal with them , then the romans won the berbers by using 150 000 troops with the berbers (exageration of the historian Corippus but even then the romans and their allies did out number the berbers)

Nothing needs to hold water, you are making the claim that it was inevitable, not me, the burden of proof is entirely on you to make a strong case.

yes the byzantine empire defeated them because Garmul raided to their territory and killed 3 roman generals in succesive order theodore , the magister militum Theoctistus both in 570, and the next magister milituim Amabilis in 571)
yes so much so that emperor tiberuis had two apoint to men who had to prepare years to defeat him (which they did in a year) and Gennadius was using terror tactics against Garmul’s subjects to defeat him.

None of this even remotely helps your argument, you can always bring up historical anecdotes, they do not prove inevitability.

This kind of headless in the context of alternate history. "They won OTL so it's inevitable they will win again", what's the point of even participating in this kind of discussions? One could bring this argument everywhere to shut discussions.

so your saying that the kingdom who defeated the roman empire and destroyed 2 byzantine armies whos king was only defeated after a long planed preparation that one of his comanders was forced to use terrors tactics etc , that means that the vandals would not need to much to defeat them....

So you are saying that the kingdom who defeated the Roman empire, seized one of the biggest cities in the empire, seized singlehandledly large portions of the Roman navy, sacked the symbolic capital of the entire empire, seized virtually all major islands in the West Mediterranean would inevitably fall to an array of divided small berber states of unclear stability?

Fact remains that most individual Berber kingdoms were small, had fewer cities than the Vandals, had a smaller population, had worse land and had worse economic connections to mainland Western Europe.

yeah unlike the empire reinforcments for the vandal king are not comming from anatolia or other parts of his empire the best he can hope for is allying with other berbers tribes who dont like the mauro kingdom in fact the romans migth even help in some way the berbers as they disliked the vandals do their piracy.

The Vandals just need to win militarily which is ultimately highly variable, again there is no reason to believe that the Berbers have to have the exact same kind of circumstantial luck with their engagements or leadership. Any cursory reading of many battles shows how many independent variables exists that can't be handwaved.
Also the Vandals contrary to the Byzantines didn't have to deal with Lombards, Visigoths and Sassanids all on their borders.

and speaking of the kingdoms that proceded ...you do know that despite that some of the kingdoms again where rising like altava or aurales but then again first the vandals would have to defeat the mauro roman kingdom and if took the byzantines time and effort how will the vandal kingdom do it?

Altava and Aurales were shadow of the former Mauri kingdoms and again compared poorly to Africa Proconsularis.

unless they get an amazing king that is so good that he can assure roman neutrality and prepares well and figths so good that he destroys the muaro roman kingdom.

Again this is a discussion within the context alternate history, not "let's pretend somehow history is static and any change is enormous and unbelievable".

Yes Vandals having a good king is totally impossible and the Berbers are obviously invincible, you should tell Geiseric when he crossed the Strait of Gibraltar that the local Berbers couldn't be fought off and that his own existence was impossible.

 

[Mario]

In my opinion, in 100 parallel universes, the Vandal Kingdom would fall before the rise of Islam in 99 of them. As it happened with other ephemeral Roman-Germanic kingdoms like the Gepids, it lacked of a solid social-political ground to make it strong enough ot resist both internal dissent and external pressures.

 

[Gloss]

In my opinion, in 100 parallel universes, the Vandal Kingdom would fall before the rise of Islam in 99 of them. As it happened with other ephemeral Roman-Germanic kingdoms like the Gepids, it lacked of a solid social-political ground to make it strong enough ot resist both internal dissent and external pressures.

This internal dissent was in fact not that strong, Peter Heather shows that despite the brief persecution by Huneric the Vandals were already able to make 90 bishops become Arian in 6 months, that's 20% of all bishops in the region.

Also Byzantine's attempts at invading the Western Barbarian states largely depend on its security at home, their wars with the Sassanids in the Caucasus and their Danubian frontier remained pressing problems.

Also a lot of their late problems simply came from the fact that Hilderic converted to Nicean Christianity while most Vandals remained firmly Arian. The fact he ruled until 3 years before the Byzantine invaded hardly created the best scenario for Vandal resistance.