western roman empire

[Antonius_X]

What do you all think what would´ve happened if the western roman empire wouldn't´t have fallen, what do you think would be different TODAY?

[Robert Vermaat]

OK, I'm not sure if this is OT, I mean, it's pure speculation.
It's nigh impossible to say 'this or that would've happened', but there are certain trends that can be spotted. Much would have depended on individual rulers, too.

Why did the West go down? Could this have been prevented? Let's look at some factors.

From an economic point of view, hardly. Climate and sea levels were unfavorable and would remain so for a long time. The East would have been stronger, so maybe they would have tried to dominate the West. That should give us the first trend:
1 - that the Western Empire would have been poorer than the Eastern Empire seems to be a given, so there would be population pressure, a lack of recruits, less taxes and hence less income. Hugh Elton describes in his book (Elton, Hugh (1996): Warfare in Roman Europe AD 350-425, (Oxford).) the loss of the provinces as a direct result of a loss of revenue.

Another problem was of course the Germanisation, or the diminishing identification of the Roman citizens with the Empire. This is very well described in Drinkwater, J.F. and Hugh Elton eds. (1992): Fifth-century Gaul: a Crisis of Identity?, (Cambridge). Citizens who saw themselves as Romans and aiding Goths as collaboration at the start of the 5th century, happily worked and fought against the Roman Emperor by the second half of the 5th century. Personally I see this as one of the main causes of the fall of the West, the loss of this identification combined with the failure to assimilate the new Germanic groups. And on the other hand we have the Germanic groups that are settled in part of the West but fail to properly assimilate, contrary to similar group before them. So, another trend:
2 - that it would have taken very different circumstances to turn around the loss of this identification and stem the development of Germanic kingdoms.

The cause most cited is of course the military one. Some authors think the Late Roman army was powerless to defend the Empire in the 5th century. Others think that the Army was good enough, but too much restrained by lack of numbers and equipment. Another trend:
3 - that the army needed to have been stronger (in either sense) to defend the dominion and superiority of the Roman state.

Wow, that's a lengthy post.
OK, supposing that all three of these trends would somehow have been favorable to the West, what would have been possible?
I just can't see the political trends of warlords dominating weak Emperors change, but maybe the Franks and Goths could have become Romanised, as the Romans themselves Germanised. Maybe, if no big wars would have torn that tender fabric asunder, maybe in the 6th century there could have been a trend towards a Charlemagne-like Roman-based state? Rome nor Ravenna could be a capital of such a state, which center of gravity would have to be to the north, south of Gaul maybe.

But these are big ifs. Personally, I'd say that if you would run this in a computer model, the West would go down in most of the simulations. maybe even sooner than it actually did.

[FAVENTIANVS]

I like the last 2 sentences! Brilliant!

[Philhellene]

"OK, I'm not sure if this is OT, I mean, it's pure speculation."

It's not entirely. There were possibilities to recreate Eastern Empire in the end of 18th century (and there were high hopes), when Russian empress was trying to crush Turkey and take back Greece and to appoint grand prince Constantine the new Byzantine emperor. She wasn`t successful, as we know.

[Robert Vermaat]

Maybe there would have been some 'Greater Greece' (under Russian 'protection') but no chance of an eastern Empire.
a) What group of citizens would have 'defended this 'Empire' reborn? Most Greeks were gone from Anatolia (compared to Byzantine times, of course, I know that large groups remained), but especially the The Turks and the inhabitans of the Balkans would not have liked the idea.
b) What sort of powerbase would there have been? Russia would no doubt have secured the control of the straits for itself.
c) The Orthodox Church would have been in real trouble, with the powerbase firmly in Russia...

[hoplite14gr]

After Great Katia lost her chance-Russia lost the Balkan coastline for ever
After Greece as part of the Byzantine Empire lost control of the water ways, it still atracted the attention of the maritime power of the time.
The Central Empires and Great Britain allowed the creation of Greek state basicaly because they had interest in the commerce and also because thet thought it would be a good idea for a NON- slavic state to keep the Russian fleet penned in the Black Sea away from their colonial lines that is. The Patriarchat in Konstadinopol was indirectly suporte so the Russian Patriarch would not be the sole Orthodox Authority
Evans report (the archaologst remeber?!!) proved the existence of Greek population in what is today Makedonia Ipiros and Western Thrace.
Greece had its greater military success in the 1st Balcan war in 1912. How convenient that that the ports of Thessalonici and Kavala were under the control of Greece which was in the Adant sphere of influence!!
Greece made the mistake to upset Adant after WW1 and instead of occupy the Dardanelles and have Konstadinopole as a free city -thus annulling the Turco-Russian treaties, tried to conquer Anatolia.
Suppored by Lenin after re-ratifing the russian free shipping access treaties ,Kemal was allowed to expell the Greeks from Asia Minor.
Could the next Balcan war be fought because the current Maritme power wouldn´t want to leave the Dardanelles in Muslim control?
In other side of the Aegean they dread such possibility. Time will omly tell and I am still a reservist
Hope I gave some insight.
Kind regards
Stefanos

[Viventius]

Romanitas by Sophia McDougall is a novel about a world where the Roman Empire did not fall:

http://www.romanitas.com/

I haven't read it yet, so have no idea if it's a good read