Slavs/Avars take Thessalonica in 615/617?

Vinization

While the Sasanians were running amok in Syria and Anatolia during their climatic final war against the Eastern Roman Empire, the Slavs (615) and later a combined force composed of them and the Avars (617) tried to capture Thessalonica, probably the empire's second most important city in the Balkans, the first obviously being Constantinople. Both of these attacks failed.

What if they were successful and Thessalonica was stormed and sacked? While I doubt this would do much to change the war against the Iranians and Heraclius' eventual victory (Khosrau II was an awful Shah, and the great initial conquests happened in spite of, not because of him) it would still be a substantial blow to Roman prestige and revenues.

Could the (likely Umayyad) Caliphate eventually capture Constantinople during one of its sieges of the city?
 

Nivek

Vinization said:
While I doubt this would do much to change the war against the Iranians and Heraclius' eventual victory (Khosrau II was an awful Shah, and the great initial conquests happened in spite of, not because of him) it would still be a substantial blow to Roman prestige and revenues.
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Why? if anything put more pressure to go against the avars, troops vs avars means less vs Iranians, meaning they would loss worse.
 

Vinization

Nivek said:
Why? if anything put more pressure to go against the avars, troops vs avars means less vs Iranians, meaning they would loss worse.
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Khosrau II was a paranoid and envious fool who would find a way to screw things up somehow. He would probably try to have Shahin and Shahrbaraz (his two best generals) killed, just like he did with the uncles (Vinduyih and Vistahm) who saved his life from Bahram Chobin, which would probably cause a civil war. He was that bad.
 

Nivek

Vinization said:
Khosrau II was a paranoid and envious fool who would find a way to screw things up somehow. He would probably try to have Shahin and Shahrbaraz (his two best generals) killed, just like he did with the uncles (Vinduyih and Vistahm) who saved his life from Bahram Chobin, which would probably cause a civil war. He was that bad.
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Regardless if Salonika is sacked, that is panic for ERE, and a breathing room for Sassanid, regardless if you say is truth, the iranians would be beaten by muslims later on them as OTL .
 

Silver01

Nivek said:
Why? if anything put more pressure to go against the avars, troops vs avars means less vs Iranians, meaning they would loss worse.
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it could be fixed like it was under Heracluis when he was ambushed give them money and hostages to piss off.
 

Vinization

Nivek said:
Regardless if Salonika is sacked, that is panic for ERE, and a breathing room for Sassanid, regardless if you say is truth, the iranians would be beaten by muslims later on them as OTL .
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There would probably be more devastation since the war would probably last longer. The Caliphate might actually have an even easier time in its initial conquests ITTL.

@John7755 يوحنا knows more about Khosrau II than I do.
 

Nivek

Vinization said:
Could the (likely Umayyad) Caliphate eventually capture Constantinople during one of its sieges of the city?
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A genuinely depends...how the Roman-Iranian wars ends and how, we could see muslim here pushing more against an emboldened Iran or maybe focus earlier a weaker ERE, if anything with some butterflies, the Muslims would Win the 674-678 siege and focus more on Europe than Central Asia..but again butterflies.
 

Vinization

Nivek said:
A genuinely depends...how the Roman-Iranian wars ends and how, we could see muslim here pushing more against an emboldened Iran or maybe focus earlier a weaker ERE, if anything with some butterflies, the Muslims would Win the 674-678 siege and focus more on Europe than Central Asia..but again butterflies.
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Now that is a very interesting WI right there,
 

TyranicusMaximus

The Roman expedition into Persia was done on shoestring resources and in conjunction with the Gokturks invading the Sassanian realms. The former would only be more evident but I doubt it does much for the latter, and that was ultimately the larger intervention.
 

Nivek

Vinization said:
Well, this is a bit far from my area of "expertise". I was just speculating, really, I don't know much about the Caliphate. Besides, there's already a bunch of threads discussing an Arab Constantinople.
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All threads fall into nothing or roman fanboys vs islam one figthing, Still the point if the ERE is weaker the big winner will be the rashidun/ummayad, heck with luck HRE would fall early and stay in rashidun era longer
 

Silver01

Nivek said:
All threads fall into nothing or roman fanboys vs islam one figthing, Still the point if the ERE is weaker the big winner will be the rashidun/ummayad, heck with luck HRE would fall early and stay in rashidun era longer
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Depends on what happens loosing the city can have drastic measures like an earlier siege of Constantinople being in 620 most likely ending in failure
Heracluis being overthwoned and the sassanids taking the ere
Or the Romans paying the avars to momentary leave and nothing changes
Depending on this could the caliphate take the ere.
 
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