| September 13 |  |
Editor says, what if the Byzantine reconquest of the West had failed at the outset? Please note that the opinions expressed in this post do not necessarily reflect the views of the author(s). This story was published in the September 2012 edition of Changing the Times Magazine.
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In 533, on this day the Vandal army of King Gelimer defeated a larger force of Romans and Hun mercenaries under the command of Byzantine general Belisarius (pictured) in a battle fought at Battle of Ad Decimum, the ten mile post near the city of Carthage.
Vandals win the Battle of the Ten Mile PostThe triumph was the result of a bold decision1 to divide his forces, sending two thousand men under his nephew Gibamund across a salt pan to flank Belisarius' army, which was advancing in narrow columns along the road. Another Vandal force, under Gelimer's brother Ammatas, initiated a holding action at a defile near Ad Decimum. Gelimer's seven thousand-man main body followed Gibamund around the Roman left flank and cut off their retreat.
It was a shattering defeat for the Byzantine Emperor Justinian I who was hoping to use the defeat of his rival to launch a reconquest of the Western Empire.
Entry posted by Todayinah Editor
© Alternate Historian, 2004-.Story Tags
Permalinks: Post, Day. Browse Thread: Generals Source: Wikipedia Labels: Ad Decimum, Belisarius, Justinian I, Gelimer, Vandal. Editor says, in authoring this post we have repurpose content from Wikipedia which reports ~ this event and events in the following year are sometimes jointly referred to as the Battle of Carthage, one of several battles to bear that name. The Roman victory marked the beginning of the end for the Vandals and began the "Reconquest" of the west under the Emperor Justinian I. [1] Gibamund failed to accomplish his mission, as a force of Romans and Hun mercenaries drove his 2,000-man force off and killed him. Ammatas also failed; he arrived at the defile with his men still strung out along the road back to Carthage, and he too was killed. The Romans pursued his men all the way to the gates of Carthage itself.
~ Then L, Sprague de Camp never gets to write "Lest Darkness Fall" and both the Vandal and the Ostrogothic kingdoms last until the Arabs come out of Egypt, which means big trouble for the Saracens.
~ I don't know how stable the Vandal kingdom was; as I understand it, the Vandals and their Roman subjects never did see eye-to-eye about religion.
~ If Justinian is checked here, the Empire may not end up so badly overstretched and impoverished as it was when he dies in OTL (Italy wrecked, the treasury empty, and the Balkans badly stripped of men). Plague would have done some damage though. Of course there are also those who claim that Arian Christianity was close enough to Islam for an easy jump....
~ Continued Vandal rule might be enough to stop Arab expansion. That'd be a very different world for Spain and the rest of the western Mediterranean.
© Today in Alternate History, 2013-. All characters appearing in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
