WI: The Roman Kingdom is never overthrown?

In 509 BC, the monarchical government which had ruled the city-state of Rome for over 200 years since its founding by Romulus was ousted and a republic proclaimed. The usurper Lucius Tarquinius Superbus, also known as 'Tarquin the Proud', was deposed in a coup led by his nephew Lucius Junius Brutus (legendary ancestor of the very same Marcus Junius Brutus who dealt the deathblow to Julius Caesar many centuries later) after his son Sextus raped the virtuous noblewoman Lucretia, wife of his friend Lucius Tarquinius Collatinus. Soon after Lucretia's suicide, Tarquin the Proud and his clan were banished from Rome; Brutus was offered their crown but refused it; and ultimately the patricians (nobility) and plebeians (commoners) of Rome jointly voted in favor of ending the monarchy and establishing a republican government, with Brutus and Collatinus elected as its first Consuls.

Tarquin, as may be expected of someone with the epithet 'The Proud', did not accept his deposition gracefully. He first tried to reach out to royalist elements within the newborn Republic (including two of Brutus' sons), but when this 'Tarquinian Conspiracy' was squashed before the end of 509 BC, he turned to building alliances with the nearby Etruscan and Latin petty-kings. However, he was defeated by the Republicans at the battles of Silva Arsia (509 BC) and Lake Regillus (496 BC), and even in 508 BC the attempt where he got closest to regaining his throne was foiled when his ally, the Etruscan king Lars Porsenna of Clusium, negotiated a peace treaty with the Republic that didn't include Tarquin's restoration. After Lake Regillus, Tarquin evidently gave up on trying to win back his throne and died in obscurity in Cumae a year later.

But what if...Tarquin succeeded in reclaiming the Roman throne? It doesn't particularly matter whether the Tarquinian Conspiracy is successful, or he leads his royalists and allies to victory at Silva Arsia or Lake Regillus, or Lars Porsenna restores him to kingship in 508 BC. The important thing is that Tarquin is once more reinstated as King of Rome, strangles the dream of the Roman Republic in its cradle, and almost certainly undertakes a brutal purge of anyone he deems even remotely suspicious.

What are the long-term effects? Far too many to count, really. First and foremost, Tarquin was an incompetent and unpopular tyrant, and his three sons Titus, Arruns and Sextus do not appear to have been much different; thus, Rome is unlikely to become particularly successful under their rule. Most likely, it remains one of many small squabbling Italian city-states and falls under Etruscan influence (the Tarquinii themselves were an Etruscan clan). Unless an Etruscan king of great ability & ambition steps up, Italy will thus likely remain a disunified morass of minor kingdoms, tribes and (in the south) Greek city-states well into the foreseeable future.

Rome never becoming a great power means tremendous and unpredictable changes in the course of the Mediterranean Basin's history. Carthage, which by 509 BC had gained control of Sicily and Sardinia, is likely to become the dominant power in the western Mediterranean: however, as a maritime republic dominated by mercantile interests, the Carthaginians are unlikely to be as insistent about total conquest and direct rule as the Romans were, and instead settle for ruling their hinterland possessions through client monarchs while only colonizing and directly governing the coasts. The Celts would still have free reign across much of northern and western Europe, until and unless they are displaced by the Germanic peoples. Iberia would remain a battleground between the Carthaginians in the south/east and the native Iberians and Celts in the north/west.

Out east, as of 509 BC the Persian Empire has yet to invade Greece proper. It is, however, nearing its maximum territorial extent under Shah Darius I, and has already absorbed Macedon two years before the fall of the Tarquinii. The butterfly effect may result in the Persians conquering Greece after all, which would change the course of Western civilization in so many ways that a hundred-page paper wouldn't provide sufficient coverage. Alternatively, they could still fail before the combined strength and determination of the Greek city-states...in which case, the future remains extremely unpredictable. Perhaps the Athenians and their Delian League will prevail over the Spartans' Peloponnesian League in this timeline's equivalent of the Peloponnesian War, if one even happens? Perhaps Alexander the Great will never be born, or fails to defeat Persia utterly? Or if he is and still manages to repeat his conquests, the East would remain divided among the Diadochi with no Rome to crush them all, unless by some miracle he leaves behind a strong heir capable of holding together a realm stretching from Corfu to Pakistan. Only one thing is certain about a world where Rome never becomes a major power: it would look completely unrecognizable to modern eyes.

WI: Germany loses the Franco-Prussian War?

Had to get my braces tightened last Friday. Wasn't expecting it to be too bad (this is the second time and I already took an Advil in preparation for it) but although the tightening itself didn't almost leave me in tears like the first time around, it did leave me with a much more persistent pain and soreness in my teeth/jaw. Were it not for that, I'd have posted something Friday...but, no use crying over spilled milk. The pain's mostly faded by now, so have a new post.

In 1870, the Second French Empire was provoked into declaring war on the Prussia-led North German Confederation by the latter's Chancellor Otto von Bismarck, who manipulated the Ems Telegram reporting French demands to his king in a way that deliberately insulted the French. Bismarck wanted this war to get the remaining German states (save for the Austro-Hungarian Empire) to fall in line behind Prussian leadership, making a united Germany a reality.

The Prussians and their German allies took advantage of their superior artillery, railroads and mobilization system to rapidly overwhelm the reckless and poorly led French, resulting in an utter victory capped off with their triumphant march into Paris nine months later. The House of Bonaparte fell from power for the last time, Germany was united, and the newborn Third French Republic would harbor a deep resentment over the annexation of Alsace-Lorraine by the German Empire that contributed to the outbreak of World War I 43 years later.

But what if...the French had been better prepared for the struggle, and thus managed to win? The smartest move Napoleon III could have undertaken would be to not respond to Bismarck's provocations at all, but that would be out of character for a man as vain and reckless in foreign policy (witness his ultimately disastrous attempt to make Archduke Maximilian of Austria into the Emperor of Mexico from 1864-67, which served no reasonable goal for France). Thus, assuming Napoleon still goes to war, his best chance would have been to use France's larger standing army to invade the Rhineland before the German alliance can fully mobilize its strength; historically, the French were too slow on the draw and the Germans mobilized in two weeks, after which the French high command lost its nerve and made the disastrous decision to fight defensively.

So, that is the point of divergence: the French move faster and more aggressively right out of the gate, with Napoleon III directing his forces from Thionville towards Trier in the Rhineland. The Prussians are unable to mobilize quickly enough to stop the French before they occupy the Rhineland, and their smaller standing army loses a few battles trying (and failing) to prevent this outcome. King Wilhelm I of Prussia loses his nerve and backs down, ending the war in a French victory.

So, what happens? A short, victorious war is exactly what Napoleon III needs to shore up his regime's crumbling domestic popularity after the debacle that was his Mexican intervention and amidst the growing strength of Republican conspiracies: with a major victory over the 'upstart Prussians' under his belt and French patriotic fervor spiking to new heights, his rule over France will become virtually unassailable. The Emperor would be giddy at his triumph and annex as much of the Rhineland as he can get away with (and likely Luxembourg too, as he nearly annexed it in 1867 before Prussian threats and British mediation got him to back down), to the fury of the German people and the great consternation of the rest of Europe. The conservative pro-war party in Paris, led by Napoleon's wife Eugenie of Montijo, would also be a beneficiary. Napoleon's son, the Prince-Imperial Napoleon Eugene, would succeed him either in 1873 when he dies or a little earlier than that if he abdicates (by 1870, Napoleon III was an old and sickly man well past his physical prime). The rump Papal States (consisting of Rome and its environs) would still survive under Bonaparte protection, making for a persistent sore point in Franco-Italian relations.

On the flipside, it would be Germany that develops a deep desire for vengeance on France, not the other way around. The unification of Germany would still likely occur (albeit more slowly), this time driven by fear and loathing of French aggression rather than a jubilant sense of triumph over the old Napoleonic enemy, even if Bismarck is sacked by King Wilhelm: by this point in time, Prussia has already consolidated northern Germany into a confederacy led by itself while only Baden, Bavaria, Hesse-Darmstadt and Wurttemberg remained nominally independent, and even they had effectively become Prussian vassals after the former's victory over Austria in 1866. An alternative possibility is that the southern German states remain independent, break their ties with Prussia over Bismarck's failure to deliver victory, and gravitate back towards Austria: however, the Prussia-led North German Confederation is here to stay. Whether as the head of a united Germany or just the NGF, the Prussians would pine after the Rhineland just as France historically did over Alsace-Lorraine.

The grand European alliance networks which historically built up to WWI would change quite radically in the world of a French victory over Prussia. France would pursue links with Austria-Hungary and Russia to contain the vengeful Prussians/Germans. On the other hand, Britain would continue to see France as its old enemy (as the Germans would not be considered a worthy rival for world dominance in a world where they lost the Franco-Prussian War) and align with the Germans and Turks, their old allies, instead of engaging in a diplomatic reversal to ally with long-time rivals France and Russia as they did historically. The Italians would naturally gravitate towards the Anglo-German/Prussian bloc, out of a desire to complete their own national unification by seizing the French-backed Papal States and Austrian-held Venetia & southern Tyrol.

Napoleon IV may opt to marry Princess Beatrice of Britain, Queen Victoria's youngest child, to cool tensions with the British, or the Austro-Hungarian Kaiser Franz Josef's eldest surviving daughter Archduchess Gisela to reinforce a Franco-Austrian alliance against Prussia. Either way, he was historically a hot-blooded and warlike prince (to the point of getting himself killed fighting the Zulus) - by 1870 he is 14, and thus it may be too late to change his personality - and if he chooses to follow in his father's footsteps & assert French power on a global scale, confrontation with Britain (regardless of whether or not he marries Princess Beatrice) becomes inevitable. World War I would likely still occur, if not from Austrian tensions in the Balkans then certainly from Anglo-French tensions in Africa or Asia and the lingering Franco-German rivalry: this time, it will pit a Franco-Russo-Austrian 'Entente' against an Anglo-Germano/Prusso-Turko-Italian 'Alliance'. As for who would win such a contest, there are too many variables between a French victory in 1870/1 and how & when this conflict will break out to answer such a question.

Hiatus over. WI: Atenism survives?

Finally back in the saddle, illness and job hunting have kept me away from this blog for far too long. As usual, I'll update every Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Without further ado:

The aten, or Egyptian sun disk

In 1353 BC, the throne of Egypt passed from Pharaoh Amenhotep III to his eldest son, also named Amenhotep. The first five years of Amenhotep IV's reign were uneventful, as the new Pharaoh occupied himself with building projects - including, though few would have found it questionable or guessed that it was a sign of things to come, temples to the 'Aten' or Egyptian sun disk. However, in his fifth year, Amenhotep renamed himself 'Akhenaten' ('effective for Aten') and abandoned the traditional Egyptian pantheon in favor of worshiping Aten, built a new city called 'Akhetaten' to serve as his capital, and disbanded the priesthoods of the other gods.

However, Akhenaten died after seventeen years on the throne of Egypt, and the cult of Aten waned soon after. The royal succession that followed his death was chaotic: he was first succeeded by a woman called Neferneferuaten, whose identity is unclear - she was either his Great Royal Wife (principal spouse) Nefertiti or one of their daughters - and then by his son Tutankhaten, the famous King Tut, who was only nine or ten at the time of his ascension to the throne and who spent his reign under the thumb of powerful advisers. It was due to the influence of these powerful conservative statesmen, such as the Grand Vizier Ay and the general Horemheb, that Tutankhaten reversed his father's efforts to establish an Atenist religion in favor of restoring the traditional Egyptian faith. Tutankhamun died young and the throne was eventually usurped by Horemheb, who mounted a campaign to erase as many traces of the Atenist period as he could.

But what if...Atenism had not faltered? Perhaps Akhenaten does not die while his son Tutankhaten is still underage, but instead lives another decade: thus, by the time he dies Tutankhaten is not approximately seven years old (as he was nine or ten when he took the throne two years later) but seventeen or eighteen, old enough and sufficiently indoctrinated into the Atenist faith that he will not simply do whatever the Amunist Ay and Horemheb ask of him. Then, Tutankhaten living longer (perhaps he never contracts malaria nor breaks his leg, both of which led to his historical death) and managing to father an heir with his sister-wife Ankhesenpaaten (historically renamed Ankhesenamun) would solidify the place of the Atenist faith in Old Egypt.

What are the medium to long-term effects? Well, most obviously, we are likely to get a reversal of Horemheb's campaign to erase all traces of Atenism and Akhenaten as well as his successors. Instead, the priesthood of the old Egyptian gods would still be suppressed and their objects of worship destroyed in favor of new Atenist replacements. Instead of a diverse extended family of gods and goddesses, Egyptians would now direct their prayers and hymns to the great sun disc alone in temples.

Politically, a longer-lived Atenism would reinforce the process of centralization in Egypt that was already going on at the time of Akhenaten's reign. Under Atenist belief, nobody could directly worship the Aten except the Pharaoh and his wife: everyone else was still supposed to worship the Pharaoh as an intermediary between them and the Aten, in a continuation of the traditional worship of the Pharaoh as the intermediary between the divine and the Egyptian people. Akhenaten also centralized control of the army, national administration and religion (priestly goods and estates were confiscated for the state in his reign) into his new capital at Akhetaten, a process which was reportedly open to corruption among royal officials but would have continued unimpeded in a world where Atenism lasted longer.

Akhenaten reigning longer would also have positive implications for Egypt's foreign policy. Despite the initial laxness of his foreign policy where it concerned the stability of the Egyptian sphere of influence in the Levant - among the cache of Amarna Letters, archived correspondence between Akhenaten's government and their Levantine vassals, were sixty letters from the vassal-king Rib-Hadda of Byblos in Lebanon begging for Akhenaten's aid against the encroachment of the rival kingdom of Amurru, which Akhenaten replied to with increasingly annoyed refusals until Rib-Hadda was ultimately killed - Akhenaten did ultimately manage to preserve Egypt's hold over most of the Levant in the face of the growing Hittite Empire to the north. Should he live longer and Tutankhaten avoid an early death, Egypt may have been able to keep most of the Levant under its influence rather than lose Syria to the Hittites, as Tutankhaten/amun's successor Ay did after he provoked a Hittite invasion by assassinating a Hittite prince who was en route to marry Tut's widow Ankhesenamun.

Cold

I've recently come down with a nasty cold, so there won't be updates for a bit. (this is also why I didn't post anything new yesterday) Hopefully this clears up over the weekend at the absolute latest.

WI: The Tokugawa are defeated at Osaka, 1615?

Historically, the Siege of Osaka in 1615 marked the conclusion of Japan's Sengoku (Warring States) period by re-affirming the dominance of the Tokugawa clan over the entire country. The Toyotomi clan which preceded the Tokugawa, established by the peasant-turned-warlord Toyotomi Hideyoshi, was wiped out when their seat of Osaka Castle finally fell - Hideyoshi's son Hideyori, whose authority had been usurped by the Tokugawa shogun Ieyasu while he was still a child, committed suicide with his mother Yodo-dono as the Tokugawa forces overran their fortress after a seven month siege, while Hideyori's eight-year-old son Kunimatsu was captured and ruthlessly beheaded by the Tokugawa soon afterwards.

However, things did not have to end that way. The first half of the siege (November 1614-January 1615) concluded with a negotiated peace settlement, where the Toyotomi swore allegiance to the Tokugawa and destroyed Osaka's outer defenses, most notably filling in their own moat. Historically, this just made it easier for the Tokugawa to finish them off when they broke the peace agreement three months later. Even then, Ieyasu was badly wounded by a spear thrust in a desperate Toyotomi sally late in the second half of the siege.

But what if...these two events proceed in the Toyotomi's favor? Say, if Toyotomi Hideyori were to correctly see that Tokugawa Ieyasu's peace offering would just make it easier to finish his clan off in the next round, and spurns him - perhaps Ieyasu's powerful Western-style cannons kill Hideyori's mother, as opposed to just a few of her handmaids as happened historically, and this well and truly pisses off the normally timid and mild-mannered Hideyori. Instead of the first half of the Siege of Osaka ending in a three-month ceasefire where the Toyotomi's defenses are weakened, the siege continues and the Toyotomi accelerate their plans for a glorious last stand. Led by Hideyori himself and brave, competent commanders such as Sanada Yukimura and Gotou Motosugu, the Toyotomi forces sally forth in the dead of winter, catch the Tokugawa by surprise, and inflict significant casualties - including Ieyasu himself, felled by a lucky spear thrust. Though the Tokugawa army still greatly outnumbers the Toyotomi, they retreat in disorder from Osaka's environs, demoralized by their heavy casualties and the shock of their wizened leader's death.

So what happens? The Tokugawa clan is now led in more than just name by Ieyasu's oldest surviving son (and coincidentally, Hideyori's father-in-law) Hidetada, a mediocre leader who lacked his father's political savvy and military talent. Ieyasu had officially abdicated the office of Shogun to Hidetada in 1605, but still reigned as the power behind his son's throne until his historical death in 1616; here, Hidetada is suddenly forced to stand on his own without his father's guidance, in a time of renewed turmoil. Hidetada's position is further threatened by his younger half-brother Matsudaira Tadateru, Ieyasu's favorite son, who is popular with the eastern daimyo (feudal lords) and may well capitalize on the opportunity to challenge Hidetada for their father's legacy in this moment of vulnerability.

On the flipside, the Toyotomi faction will have gone from being dead men walking to the accidental masters of western and central Japan. Many of the western daimyo - the Mori, Shimazu and Chosokabe being among their most prominent members - had previously supported the Toyotomi against Ieyasu in the earlier Sekigahara Campaign of 1600 and were marginalized under the new Tokugawa order for it; presented with the opportunity to overthrow the Tokugawa entirely and regain what they lost under Ieyasu, there is little chance that they won't help Toyotomi. (indeed, the Chosokabe clan which dominated Shikoku had already sided with the Toyotomi at Osaka historically, and were destroyed for it) Thus Japan will likely regress into a sort of condensed Sengoku period pitting Toyotomi Hideyori in the west, Matsudaira Tadateru in the east and north, and Tokugawa Hidetada caught between them both in the middle against one another.

Foreigners, too, will have a role to play. The Catholic Spanish and Portuguese would see an opportunity to regain influence in Japan with Toyotomi, who historically enjoyed broad support from the Christian (in feudal Japan, universally Catholic) daimyo during the Sekigahara Campaign: at a minimum, they can expect him to lift the restrictions his father Hideyoshi had imposed on Catholics and to give them exclusive trade privileges at the expense of their Protestant, generally pro-Tokugawa Dutch and English rivals. Said Protestant powers, and particularly the Dutch who cared far more about trade than proselytizing, would naturally find it in their interest to side with Hidetada or Matsudaira. Firearms have become ubiquitous throughout Japan by this point in time, but not cannons: the Tokugawa famously fielded batteries of powerful Western-styled and built cannons at Osaka Castle, and so all sides' backers will likely furnish them with artillery at the minimum.

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Thank you for reading all the way to the conclusion! If you like what you've just read, then by all means, please leave a comment. For that matter, if you don't like what you read, leave a comment anyway. I would be happy to receive any questions, suggestions or (civil) criticism you might have.

WI: China is never united?

Going to try for a shorter format starting tonight, particularly cutting down the summary of the real historical events in every scenario...

The united Chinese nation first emerged in 221 BC after Qin Shi Huang, king of the petty-kingdom of Qin in modern-day Shaanxi Province, forcibly united the fragmented Chinese kingdoms of the Warring States Period (475-221 BC) and proclaimed himself the first Emperor of China, elevating himself above the previous nominal rulers of China from the Shang & Zhou dynasties who called themselves 'kings'.

Qin Shi Huang was a notoriously brutal ruler and the dynasty he established barely outlasted him (his incompetent son and heir, Qin Er Shi, ruled for three years before the Qin collapsed entirely in 207 BC), but the importance of his act of unifying China cannot be overstated. The Qin gave China a strong central government and bureaucratic administration, a standardized writing system and currency, and even lent China their name ('China' was derived from 'Chin', a corruption of 'Qin' in western lands). They made it possible for the Han dynasty to reunite the North China Plain within five years of their own collapse, and the Han would go on to use the consolidated resources and administrative apparatus of the Qin to fuel their own wars of expansion into Korea, across the Yangtze and westward as far as the Tarim Basin, spreading Chinese cultural influence across much of mainland East Asia.

But what if...China was never united? Perhaps Qin Shi Huang is defeated in his war with Chu, the largest of the Warring States and one of the most powerful - but he manages to hurt Chu badly enough that it, too, does not have the strength to fill the power vacuum left by his death and unite China under its own banner. Thus, 'China' remains a fragmented collection of petty kingdoms, all with their own customs and traditions, with no ability to expand far beyond the North China Plain.

What are the medium to long term effects? In four words: too many to count. A world without a united China would quickly cease to resemble our world at all. No united China means no Silk Road, no Great Wall, no Chinese influence pervading mainland East Asia from Korea to Vietnam and later into Japan, Taiwan and the Philippines.

What we recognize today as Han Chinese culture would be limited to the North China Plain (presuming the divided states of the Plain don't get destroyed entirely by northern nomads such as the Xiongnu with no Great Wall to stop them), while the lands south of the Yangtze would still be dominated by the tribes & kingdoms of the native Yue people. For that matter, there wouldn't be a single Chinese culture or writing system either: the Warring States all had their own dialects and scripts which reflected local influences, which were only eliminated after the Qin conquest.

Another result of Chinese disunity would be continued diversity in intellectual discourse in China. Qin Shi Huang infamously burned texts and purged scholars that failed to step in line with his government's official philosophy of Legalism (which supported his autocratic style of governance), ending a period of intellectual flowering known as the 'Hundred Schools of Thought'. Without Qin authority becoming supreme throughout China, or a united Chinese civilization emerging at all, many of these suppressed schools of thought and philosophy would not have been lost forever. Confucianism, Taoism and Legalism would still have many competitors, perhaps chief among them Mohism (a philosophy that promoted austerity, self-restraint and rationalism which was historically absorbed into Confucianism after the Qin came to power).

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Thank you for reading all the way to the conclusion! If you like what you've just read, then by all means, please leave a comment. For that matter, if you don't like what you read, leave a comment anyway. I would be happy to receive any questions, suggestions or (civil) criticism you might have.

WI: The Merovingians remained on the French throne?

The Merovingians were the founding dynasty of France, ruling from 486 to 751. Their founder and most prominent member was Clovis I, a king of the Salian Frankish tribe who united most of his people and destroyed a Roman remnant in northern-central France (the 'Domain of Soissons') in 486, conquered the Alamanni living in what is now Alsace-Lorraine, northern Switzerland and western Germany a decade later, and finally expanded Frankish power southward into Aquitaine by defeating the Visigoths of Spain at Vouillé in 507.

When Clovis died, his empire was partitioned between his sons, revealing a major weakness of the Merovingian dynasty - their tendency to divide a previous monarch's lands between his children (a practice which you might recognize as 'gavelkind' if you're an expert in land tenure and inheritance laws, or like me you play a lot of Crusader Kings II). This prevented the Merovingians from properly consolidating power and creating a permanently unified kingdom out of the Franks. Neustria and Austrasia, as the western and eastern halves of the Frankish kingdom were called, often warred with one another under rival Merovingian rulers, further weakening the dynasty.

Over the 7th and 8th centuries, the Merovingian kings became so feeble that they were reduced to being figureheads for their 'Mayors of the Palace' (majordomos). Known as rois fainéants ('do-nothing kings'), most of these Merovingians aimlessly wasted away on their thrones while their majordomos did all the real ruling: a few, most prominently Chilperic II (715-721), tried to reassert their authority but failed. Their atrophied dynasty was finally officially dethroned by Pepin the Short, the son of the Frankish war hero and Austrasian Mayor of the Palace Charles Martel who defeated Chilperic, in 751 with the support of the Pope, closing the Merovingian chapter of French history and beginning that of the Carolingians. The last Merovingian King of the Franks, Childeric III, was banished to a monastery with his son Theuderic and faded into obscurity there.

But what if...the Merovingians were able to retain their throne? A good point-of-divergence to enable this would be Chilperic II's war with Charles Martel. Unlike his roi fainéant predecessors, Chilperic was an able warrior and enjoyed the backing of the Neustrian nobility, led by Mayor of the Palace Ragenfrid. He had nearly completely defeated Martel by 716, only to be undone when the Austrasians ambushed his forces at Amblève while he was making his triumphant ride back from Cologne. But if Chilperic had been able to predict Martel's ambush at Amblève and crush him permanently, he would have bought his dynasty a new lease on life.

So what are the medium to long-term effects? Well firstly, Chilperic wouldn't even be close to finished with having overmighty nominal second-in-command figures in his life after Martel is dealt with. He needs to watch his back around Ragenfrid, who would now be the undisputed Mayor of the Palace of both Neustria and Austrasia. Fortunately for Chilperic, Ragenfrid's support among the Neustrian nobility was not ironclad, and he may find opportunities to isolate his majordomo with the support of rival Neustrian aristocrats. If Chilperic can achieve that, he will not have to fear being overthrown as Childeric III was historically.

Chilperic and the Merovingian monarchs after him, mindful of how their precursors had been reduced to irrelevance and were nearly utterly undone by Charles Martel, will do their damndest to claw back royal authority from the Mayors of the Palace (not just Ragenfrid but also those who come after him) and rule the Franks in more than just name. As the Merovingians will likely be focused on rebuilding their royal prerogative and countering Islamic aggression (see below), they are unlikely to embark on Charlemagne's historical wars of expansion into Italy and beyond the Rhine, at least not in the 8th or even early 9th centuries depending on how long it takes them to consolidate their authority. Finally, the pagan Frisians (living in what is now the northern Netherlands) may well remain independent for longer as well: Radbod, the most powerful Frisian ruler at the time of Charles Martel's struggle for Francia, was an ally-of-convenience of Chilperic & Ragenfrid against Charles Martel, and would have benefited from a Francia too busy with internal problems and the Muslims to meddle in his affairs just as the Lombards in Italy would have.

The Islamic invasion of the early 730s is likely to end the same way it did historically, with a defeat for the Umayyad Caliphate. Not only were their forces operating at the extreme end of the Islamic world's logistical tether (the Muslim army that historically invaded France lacked proper clothing to deal with winter weather and lived off the land), but the Muslims were already defeated once by Odo the Great, Duke of Aquitaine, in 721 - 11 years before the much better known confrontation at Tours. Chilperic and Ragenfrid, as reasonably competent generals in their own right, could well have fended off the Umayyad incursion just as Charles Martel did historically (especially if they fought the Muslims at Tours like Martel did, where they would enjoy a strong terrain advantage). Unless they are able to regain their domestic authority very quickly however, the Merovingians will most likely be slower than the Carolingians to counterattack and establish any sort of Frankish March in Catalonia.

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Thank you for reading all the way to the conclusion! If you like what you've just read, then by all means, please leave a comment. For that matter, if you don't like what you read, leave a comment anyway. I would be happy to receive any questions, suggestions or (civil) criticism you might have.