Falling of the byzantine empire

It's really never that simple. Are mercenaries better than a regular army. Well it depends on what you mean by regular armies. If you include feudal systems then mercenaries are clearly superior. Since then are quicker, more professional, and generally speaking more loyal to the states. Also, standing armies are much more expensive unless you are in the constant state of war. Also, standing armies are much more likely to turn against you in civil war.

While a good hindsight point (how can you tell someone is a legend while you're their contemporary?), the main problem with manzikert was the mass desertion of the byzantine mercenary forces. Their Turks and Norman Knights just up and vamoosed before the big fight

Real life isn't Total War

Well, I keep thinking is just too expensive, at the end they didnt have any money.... but that might be a product of 1000 years of getting raided

>But a regular army is more reliable, mercenaries are expensive and not that useful
No.

t. Gustavus Adolphus

The Byzantines were actually quite rich because of the the central location of Byzantium. It was the political structure of the Byzantines that was their undoing. Civil wars were too common

They were literally the richest people around by a wide margin.

In the past, as the centuries went, their treasure dissapeared, most of it went for the sassanid wars

Well yeah there were moments of financial strain, but with the exception of the Arabs they were generally much richer than their enemies.

The death of Andronikos III and the following succession war was the final nail in the coffin. Andronikos lost pretty much all of Byzantium's Anatolian territory but was pretty successful in reclaiming large swaths of Greece and centralizing the state. If there had been a peaceful transition to a strong ruler, it's likely Byzantium could've stabilized into a territory contiguous with modern Greece + Thrace and kept the Turks in Asia. But the war between Andronikos III's son John V and his right hand man John Kantakouzenos pretty much annihilated everything the Romans had left.

Actually it's likely that there was to be lasting peace between the two empires, I forget their names but the Byzantine emperor Phocas deposed had just helped a Persian ruler reclaim control of the Sassanid Empire and on a personal level the two were bros. Not saying this peace would persist forever, but it'd certainly be a huge help in fighting off the soon-to-arrive Muslim invasion.

I was just about to write this. I agree absolutely. The Turks weren't that strong and they could have been easily stopped if the Byzantines had made a pact with the Serbs and the Bulgarians. Hell, I believe they could have even stopped them alone with the right amount of trickery. Honestly, the only reason that the Turks managed to drive so deep into Europe was because they couldn't have picked a better moment to attack.

The Bulgarians were ravaged by constant infighting and the kingdom was split into three parts.

The Serbs themselves quickly disintegrated after Dusan's death

And the Byzantines were just way too much into fighting themselves than their enemies.

The Turks just picked them up one by one while they were all fighting themselves until finally they could no longer resist even if they wanted to.

This is just sad to read

Mercenaries worked wonderfully.

Put it this way:
Thematic troops: Good for defence. Not that professional. Loyal to their local officers.
Mercenaries: Elite, multirole, professional, loyal to the Emperor who controls the treasury.

A Serbian-Bulgarian-Byzantine alliance was an impossible dream until the early 15th century though. They were three regional powers bent on fighting each other for local hegemony, and didn't really give a shit about the Turks. Besides, how were they ever going to cross the Bosporus?

letting the population fall and not uniting with the west more, like giving all italian possesions to the pope

>How could it be prevented? when was the last nail in the coffin?

By abndonning cuckstianity and monogamy

Byzantine weren't numerous enough to face the polygamous muslim hordes and were every times inferior in number, as for cuckstianity it is a cuck religion who tell you to forgive and turn the other cheek(btw the military who killed mudslim had to do penance in byzantium)

The byzantine empire was a cancerous cuckstian empire, they should have done like the Westerners and merely LARP as christian while doing their own thing

Basil the Bulgar Slayer should have allied himself with the Bulgars and became Basil the Seljuk Slayer.

Even though the Christian Revelation is one huge set battle, the laws of men =/= the laws of war.

it's difficult to pinpoint a single moment were things went beyond fixing, but for me it's when the reforms of Andronikos I Komnenos failed and he was killed
His effort to reform the taxation system and his war against the dynatoi were in the right direction (against the decentralisation due to the feudal system)
his reign was followed by the destructive rule of the Angeloi and the loss of land, prestige and Constantinople

alternatively you can say that the politics that the macedonian dynasty after Basil the Bulgar Slayer implemented was the cause for the concentration of farming land to the hands of the few, leading to lower tax collecting, decentralisation of power, weaker militaries based on mercenaries etc

...

Seljuks weren't a thing until about a hundred years after his reign. The greatest threat of his time was the Bulgars and the security of the Balkan frontier since it is too near Constantinople + they're on the same side of the Bosphoros.

The Byzantine Empire went through several different declines, but largely recovered from most of them.

But starting in 1185, you had the final decline. In 1185, you had the demise of the Komnenos Dynasty. In 1204, the 4th Crusade sacked Constantinople, dissolved the empire, and proclaimed the "Latin Empire". Even after the empire was restored, it was a weakened rump state plagued by civil wars. In the 1300s, Western European states were unwilling or unable to send another large crusade to help.

>How could it be prevented?
two things could've extended their existence at least into the 18th century IMO:
>the fourth crusade not happening
>islam not happening
islam sparked caliphates which gobbled up a shit tone of their previous clay, and the 4th crusade knocked their teeth out and allowed anatolian islamic kingdoms to take their last bits