Alexander Empire
From Alternative History
Alexander the Great died at age 86 and unified most the known world including Rome Republic, Southern Gaul, Hispania, and Carthage. He solidified the political structures and undertook transportation constructions to cement the Hellenistic Empire that spanned from Atlantic Ocean to Indian Ocean. The fusion of Greek and Persian cultures was more successful than that in the OTL. His success resulted in almost two millenniums of an imperial dynastic system (similar to that in China) in a unified Europe, North Africa and Southwest Asia.
The unified political and cultural system strengthened the Empire to resist threats and rebellions. Economy was more active because trading was protected within the empire. However, the unipolar structure also diminished regional diversity and damped cultural development.
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[edit] Conquests of the east
As per OTL, Alexander the Great spent his early life unifying Greece, invading Persia, and generally conquering. Upon reaching India, during which time his troops mutninied and refused to go on, Alexander returned to Babylon to solidify control of his new empire. By 322 B.C., Alexander had solidified his empire and refurbished his forces. He, once again, led an army into India. This time, the army was made of mainly Eastern Persian forces, and thus they did not feel so far from their homes. Alexander successfully conquered all of India, winning the battle of the Yamuna River, and turned India into a province of the greater Macedonian Empire.
As with Persia, Alexander used his extensive lootings and other resources to construct great capitals from which his soldiers ruled in his name. Alexander also incorporated many captured Indian War Elephants into his forces, using their tactics to his advantage. In 314 B.C., Alexander continued march forward as it was his dream to get all the way to the Greater Outer Sea. He gathered a large army this was made up of thousands of Indians and eastern Persians, the Indians were skilled with survivng in the jungle and mountains. Alexander turned to the north invading the lands of the Proto-tibetan tribes crushing tribe after tribe and some did not even offer ressitance to the invader. Alexander now turned to the the jungles of what is now "Burma" and just like the Tibetan's met little oppostion except from some native tribal peoples. The Campaign was very successful due to the fact that Alexander was unstoppble aganist the mainly because they did not no about the successive warfare of the west. Soon Alexander was at the Greater Outer Sea. Alexander helped to develope the native tribes and their lifestyle, which helped Alexander to win them. Now he turned to the Arabian Peninsula overrunning it.
[edit] Conquests of the west
When Alexander the Great had conquered most of Asia, he controlled all he cared to rule, and would have been content to let his empire stay the way it was. However, in 315 B.C. a tribe of barbarians from Europe to the north raided and burned the Macedonian capital, Alexander's birthplace. Accordingly, in 313 B.C. an army under Alexander's command ventured into the unknown forests of Europe. Alexander's army was unable to make much progress tracking down elusive barbarians and Alexander was forced to return to Macedon, defeated.
Following the advice of Medius, the former king of Babylon, Alexander proceeded to spend lavishly to build cities in northern Macedon, thus "civilizing" southern Europe. His efforts were mostly successful, because, although barbarian raids still occured, they could not get close enough to attack core Macedonian cities. For the next 13 years, Alexander rested from continuous warfare and took the time to improve the defenses of his empire and eliminate the barbarian threat.
Alexander the Great's Macedonian empire finally began to expand once more in 299 B.C., when the growing Roman power attacked and attempted to usurp his empire. In response, Alexander led an army 85,000 strong in an amphibious assault on Rome itself. The army was successful, but Alexander was wounded and taken out of the action for a little while. By the time he was fit for combat again, his army had conquered northern Italy and the Roman exiles had put together an army of 65,000 in Sicily to face Alexander's force of 60,000. Alexander achieved a crushing victory and managed to push the Romans off of the Italian peninsula.
With the loss of Italy, the Roman empire collapsed into the Spanish, Carthaginian, and Western Egyptian empires. Although the Western Egyptian empire surrendered to Alexander in exchange for being united with eastern Egypt, the other two empires fought bitterly on. In 294 B.C. Alexander attempted an amphibious assault on Carthage, to quickly cut off the head of the Carthaginian empire, but his troops were beaten back and forced to sail away. Instead of sailing back to Italy, Alexander simply landed at the western border of his Egyptian possessions and began a ground invasion. This took significantly longer, but by 291 B.C. most of the Carthaginian empire was in his hands.
In 290 B.C. Alexander once again sailed his army into another country. This time he attacked Spain. The Spanish empire had little in the way of conventional troops, but with assistance from Gothic and Vandal tribes they maintained a guerilla warfare throughout the Pyrenees Mountain Range. This guerilla warfare continued until 288 B.C. when Macedonian troops from northern Italy defeated the European tribes in the area to the northeast of the mountains, thus cutting off the supply lines for the guerillas.
At this point, Alexander the Great had achieved his goal of controlling every port into the Mediterranean Sea, so he at first resisted attacking outside his borders, and concentrated instead of fortifying and securing his new empire. However, by 284 B.C. barbarian raids had gotten so bad, at one point threatening Pella itself, that Alexander mounted a campaign against northern Europe. In order to counter the guerilla tactics of the indigenous residents, Alexander built a network of forts throughout Gaul that quickly grew into small towns, thus urbanizing the area. The Gallic tribes saw the wonders of Alexander's empire and many tribes peacefully joined and provided soldiers to assist Macedon. Finally, in 279 B.C. all of Gaul to the Rhine river, as well as southeastern Europe to the Dnister river were under Macedonian control.
By the time Alexander had conquered all of this territory, he was 77 years old and in no shape to continue campaigning. Alexander returned to his capital at Pella and allowed his troops, under Hephaestion, to continue across the Rhine and into Briton without him. Although his troops were victorious, their performance in battle suffered without their general, and Alexander decided against future conquests. In 276 B.C., at the age of 80, Alexander the Great turned his empire over to his son, Alexander IV, then 39 years old. Alexander lived for 6 more years before dying in 270 B.C., as the creator of the greatest empire the world had ever seen.
[edit] Alexander's Dynasty
By installing his son on the throne, Alexander the Great ensured that his empire would endure and even expand. Alexander IV conquered the Celts in Briton, and expanded the Hellenistic empire until it controlled all of OTL modern Germany. Future heirs expanded on this empire until, by AD 19, it spanned from the Western border of Russia, south to Nubia, west to the Atlantic, and east to India. For the next 200 years the empire held steady, but the appearence of the Mongols in Asia created severe strains on the empire. Although the Mongols were defeated by AD 242, the empire had been badly shaken.
[edit] Division of the Empire
By AD 245, the dynasty that Alexander set up was declining. A succession of weak rulers combined with the drain of resources caused by the Mongol attacks plunged the empire into economic and political turmoil. In 257, the empire that Alexander the Great spent his entire life building was divided into three seperate states: the Kingdom of India, the Empire of Persia in the Middle East, and the European Empire in Europe and North Africa.
[edit] The Roman Dynasty
In AD 261, after several attempts by Rome, they were finally successful in establishing a Roman Dynasty over the Mediterranean Empire. The Romans first united Italy, Greece, and Spain in 262. By 279 Rome had landed in and conquered Northern Africa. At this point, the widely scattered Mediterranean Empire degenerated into Egypt, Gaul, Germania, and Briton. Rome conquered Egypt, Gaul, and Germania by 315, but Briton had consolidated most of the Mediterranean fleet before the empire broke up and was able to resist Roman attacks for several hundred years more.
[edit] Germanic invasion and rise of the Byzantine Dynasty
While the Romans were occupied with attacking Britain they did not realise that the Germanic tribes were mustering in Denmark to regain their lands lost to Alexander. Under the Visigothic leader Theodoric the Bloody-Handed they poured across the Elbe and took the Rhine garrisons by suprise, the Roman tenth legion made a heroic last stand at Castra Vetera but were annihilated, other legions were easily overcome, by 268AD they had reconquered Germany.
The Roman general Flavius Scipio was notified while preparing an amphibious assault on Londinium. He took a fleet away from Britain which landed at the mouth of the Rhine, already Theodoric was besieging towns across northern Gaul and had crushed the governor of Lutetia at Alexanderomagus in 269. Scipio attacked Theodoric from behind and chased him to Brittany where a Germanic navy picked the barbarians up and sailed offshore, preparing to land at Burdigala.
Scipio was presented with a choice whether to pursue Theodoric by sea or to march over land to fortify Burdigala. He chose to go by sea as it was quicker, this descision altered the course of the war. While sailing past Portus Namnetum Theodoric's admiral, Freawine appeared from a small bay and ambushed the Romans, Scipio won the day but was killed in action and without a good leader the Roman navy was easily destroyed by Theodoric himself later that year.
Theodoric landed at Burdigala in 270 and easily captured the town, Freawine pushed south and crossed the Pyrenees into Spain, he annexed it as part of the New Germanic Empire and it joined Gaul as a barbarian kingdom under the leadership of Theodoric. The Romans by now had abandoned their conquest of Britain and were planning to recapture Gaul and Spain under the new leadership of Alexander Byzantinus, a direct descendant of Alexander the Great.
In 272 after some serious planning Byzantinus landed at Alexapolis in north Africa, he gathered reinforcements from Italy and sent a spy ot Freawine who was ruling Spain on behalf of Theodoric. The spy turned Freawine against Theodoric and civil war broke out in the New Germanic Empire, hence Byzantinus got the name Propositumus or 'scheming'. The civil was dragged on until 275 when Byzantinus invaded Spain from the south.
The weakened barbarian forces were defeated at Gades, Corduba, Emerita Alexander and Castra Legionis at which Freawine was captured and executed. Due to his popularity with the people Byzantinus was proclaimed king by his troops in 276 against the present ruler Romulus Marcianus. Byzantinus sailed to the Balearic Islands where he defeated Marcianus' forces and then annexed Sardinia and Corsica where he caught the king and killed him. Byzantinus was crowned king of the European Empire in 277. He reinstated the Macedonians as the ruling class and began the Macedonian Byzantine dynasty.
In 279 Byzantinus invaded Gaul where Theodoric was ruling with an iron fist. He was beaten at Arausio but undeterred continued and wone two victories at Lugdunum and Lutetia where Theodoric was captured and imprisoned. By 281 Byzantinus had all of Gaul but let the barbarians keep Germany. He celebrated a great triumph at Pella in which he pardoned Theodoric to show he was merciful. He ruled until 329 and his dynasty continued long after that.
[edit] Mongolian invasion
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