Sargon
Great to see this back and a good update.
Sounds like a costly but big victory for the Roman fleet. A lot depends on how much of the Muslim fleet and army went down but they could find out that their hold on Septum is very shorted lived. Also sounds like Justinian is planning to follow up fairly quickly against Carthage.
Presume the relative pacifist Caliphate is an historically accurate one? Sounds like he's going to have a hell of a problem on his hands.
Steve
Cheers for the comment Steve.
Costly for both sides. I guess you could call it an Arab tactical victory, but possibly a Roman strategic one at the same time. We wouldn't want things to be too easy for them would we? Battle plans have a habit of not going quite the way people plan after all.
Justinian will be heading off to North Africa, stopping off at Crete and Sicily on the way. Don't forget Alexander has orders to take Septum and his fleet will be hoping to turn up and meet with Nicholas. That still leaves considerable forces in Sicily though.
I've made efforts to make the depiction of the Caliph pretty accurate. He was indeed a very cultured man who spent a lot of time and effort improving the social and cultural aspects of his Empire. He was also the Caliph to preside over the period when the Caliphate was at its height in territorial terms.
I wouldn't necessarily label him pacifistic seeing as he was responsible for reforming the army and navy during his reign, making them more effective, but you are right that where the Roman Empire is concerned, he'd rather avoid war. After all, he knows their power, and he knows what Justinian can be like, an Emperor who by and large has a pretty successful record in battles so far - only losing against the Arabs in the past because 30,000 Slavs defected to them at a critical moment in battle and Leontius hadn't obeyed his orders. Al-Walid is quite happy to pursue aggressive policies elsewhere. For example, he thought Spain would be doable without too many problems attached since he didn't think the Romans would be there. In OTL the Arabs never expected resistance to collapse as fast as it did when Roderic was annihilated in the first big battle there, but the Caliph certainly had the intent of getting Spain if possible and doubtless would have allocated more resources to secure the place if necessary had Roderic not lost that battle. He had peace with the Romans, so it was a golden opportunity to do it whilst he didn't have to worry too much about them.
You are quite right that he's going to have a lot of his hands. In OTL he didn't have to deal with Justinian.
Good to see this back, one of my favourite TLs. Nice balance between character stuff and events as always, with the narrative moving along at a good pace but nicely fleshed out bits of characterisation. I liked the brief sketch of the Caliph.
It looks about to go all pear-shaped in Iberia, very finely balanced at the moment......
Appreciate the comment very much old chap!
I'm glad you are enjoying the characterisation and whatnot. I've been trying to add more to this story as it develops, and if people are liking that aspect, then that aim is coming along nicely!
Actually, I wanted to introduce the Caliph as a character and observe things from his point of view since we'll be seeing more of him later. The more I read about him, the more he fascinates me - he's certainly someone, just like Justinian, I would have liked to have met and find out what they were really like. I have a feeling conversations with either of them would've been fascinating.
Things in Iberia are going to become complicated...the show's not over yet.
Sargon
