Bizzaro Roman Empire

In OTL the WRE collapsed and the ERE eked out an existence for another 1000 years. What are the minimal differences that would be required for the opposite to happen, if it ever could happen?

this is challenging. Idk why no one has contributed yet

So for the opposite to happen. Id say that the Germanics rather focus on conquering Persia, rather than rome, in which Byzantine is a legit threat and location for looting and raiding, thus eventually its fall.
but for the germanics to go that far east they would have had to be kicked out years before around say 100bc. They would have had to meet no resistance from other factors or by otherwise forced out from west to centeral west to eastern europe and then pushed to the steps where theyd face slavic tribes and horse raiders. from there the non christian arabs would meet a demise of unity from a people that would resemble the following people. Some type of Nors/germanic/slavic/mongol/asian/stepniggerish/hun like peoples.

> Id say that the Germanics rather focus on conquering Persia, rather than rome

Through direct invasions? Not a chance. They didn't 'conquer' the WRE in that way. They 'conquered' from the within by overthrowing the emperor. They had been living on Roman lands for quite some time prior to that. Ostrogoths were just as Romanized as the Franks. Same thing for the Visigoths and the Vandals that sacked Rome (which wasn't much of a big deal since it wasn't the capital anymore).

For instance, if the goths were Catholic, would that have been enough to make them an acceptable source of emperors on the West? The only way I see the east crumbling is if Constantine doesn't revamp byzantium.

no not direct invasion, series of campeigns, but lands of the middleeast were in a lot of disarray by 450ad. which is the time i was trying to see fit. also in this instance they arent germanics anymore they are mix of north central and eastern europe along with north western Asia minor.

honestly it was a shot in the dark. OP has a very imaginative mind.

not having a shit emperor

In general terms, the west would have to:

1. Secure Germania either through direct conquest or indirect political domination
2. Centralize the government and curb the rampant inflation that ruined the currency
3. Force the tribes living within the borders to Romanize

in the same breath the east would have to:

1. Lose a major war to the Sassanid Empire, this would result in at least arabia and palestine being annexed and depending on how big the loss was, maybe even Egypt and the Hellespont
2. Be invaded shortly after said loss by tribes along the Danube who would slide through and mop up Greece

opinions?

The problem with that is all the factors driving the migration come from the east. It's also easier to cross river frontiers than mountains. I think geography ruins the chances for a decent counterfactual.

true, didnt think about that part. Oh well I took a shot.

probably keeping their shit in Rome

emperors realizing that though there's less money in it it's much easier to protect their western flank if they stay in the west

Perhaps during the crisis one of the emperors says fuck it and allows the east to be taken by the Persians or even Queen Zanoba (though probably successfully keep Egypt for the grain) while focusing on genociding the Germans who keeps trying to rape Rome.

Most likely scenario is that the Senate gets redpilled about their situation of not having actual control of their army and empire, builds a new citizen army from scratch from the various free citizens laying around give the citizens actual equality use their money to supply, train, and pay their new army and take back their damn republic

the west needed to be economically viable, the east had all the access to the silk road and greater Asia, it had fertile Egypt and Syria, and it had the Bosphorus the west had fuckall, only raw metals from Iberia and some minor agriculture in North Africa, Gaul, Germania and specially Britannia were money sinks with no profitable options.

WE.

Well I think much like the Easterm empire I do believe a large amount of it would contract. Britain would be lost, Northern Gaul would be hard to keep but if they can keep the coasts on the Med. then rome could survive.
That being said keeping northern gaul is probably impossible by late empire which makes the rest of the Empire much harder to defend.

the west was poorer, more rural and had fewer cities and wealth than the east. its collapsing was more due to structural concerns rather than any single military defeat. besides, the east collapsing would probably make the west even more likely to fall itself

This, the west had less competent emperors, more destructive corruption, and was less wealthy and just prosperous in general.

An effective leader like Majorian could still fuck shit up, even on the WRE's last legs, but potentially great emperors kept getting fucked over and over again in the west.

Theodoric the Great's schemes prevail, but instead of keeping the Gothic and Roman peoples as seperate he goes full imperator and creates a Gothic Roman Empire with a Germano-Latin hybrid language like English

West also needs a wealthy trade source which East had to their east [well duh]

the thing is the WRE was not necessarily doomed

Under a competent commander their armies easily could have dealt with the invaders and even go on to reconquer lands(as Majorian did)

What doomed the WRE was its politics, it was far to unstable with people getting assassinated and intrigue all jostling to be emperor of a collapsing state

Had a strong emperor been able to rule for longer than a few years it wouldn't be the collapse of the roman empire but the 5th century crisis

If WRE and ERE would have reversed history, it would mean some kind of Orthodox Roman Empire in the south/east Europe (initially holding Constantinopole, later not necessarily) ruled by Slavs/Bulgarians or Georgians/Armenians.

Also, Muslim conquest would have to fail to conquer Holy Land, and Crusades being mainly to reconquer some other lands, that could need going through WRE, like conquering Egypt, Africa, and Spain, with Roman Emperor asking aid of Eastern Empire in defending of Gaul.

Either way, Turks and/or Arabs can't take over Caucasus and Anatolia for that to work, otherwise Orthodox Roman Empire would not last.

It was doomed from the moment it separated from Constantinople. The WRE had too many cultural institutions that held it back. If politics was its only problem, then the Roman Empire would have Crumbled every time an emperor was taken out. The failings of the WRE came from its reliance on Mercenaries, rather than regular soldiers, which devided the military between Germans and Romans, and bankrupted the Economy, since they promised too much to the troops, and paid them far more than the treasury could handle.

Lol, you fucking wish. If there was no eastern Empire then Pannonia would basically be an Arab Emirate in the Vein of Cordoba by 1000 AD

>Lol, you fucking wish. If there was no eastern Empire then Pannonia would basically be an Arab Emirate in the Vein of Cordoba by 1000 AD
Or collapse of ERE would prevent weakening Persians so much that Arabs wouldn't be able to succeed with their conquest, leading to Arabs never managing to get out of their Peninsula.

A weak ERE doesn't mean the Persians would expand to, and hold, Canaan. Even if they did, the Muslims could have still destroyed them, since the nature of the Persian empire at the time meant that ethnic conflict was common, and annexing a majority greek region probably wouldn't help much.

I wasn't positing an EXACT reversal, just the collapse of Imperial rule in the east, and an Empire existing in some form in the West for far longer. I would expect it would be a Catholic empire, but if it held together most of the West, I'd expect there would be no crusades, since the Pope wouldn't be trying to end fighting amongst Christian warlords.