Byzantium (AMPU)

The Byzantine Republic, officially the Roman Republic of Greece, or commonly known as Byzantium or sometimes Greece, is a transcontinental republic in Eurasia, mainly in Anatolia in Western Asia, and in the southeastern part of Europe. Byzantium was restored by Greece in 1923 after achieving victory over the Ottoman Empire.

The idea of the restoration of new Roman state has dated back to the Megali Idea. The Megali Idea was an irredentist concept of Greek nationalism that expressed the goal of establishing a Greek state that would encompass all historically ethnic Greek-inhabited areas. The term appeared for the first time during the debates of Prime Minister Ioannis Kolettis with King Otto that preceded the promulgation of the 1844 constitution. This was a visionary nationalist aspiration that was to dominate foreign relations and, to a significant extent, determine domestic politics of the Greek state for much of the first century of independence. The expression was new in 1844 but the concept had roots in the Greek popular psyche. It long had hopes of liberation from Turkish rule and restoration of the Byzantine Empire.

The idea became realized during the early stages of the Great War in what was known as the Asia Minor Campaign (OTL: Greco-Turkish War). If it wasn't for the full help of the allies, being in conflict with the Ottomans at the time, the Greeks would have lost the campaign.

In 1916, the British offered Cyprus to Greece, ruled by King Constantine I of Greece, on condition that Greece join the conflict on the side of the British. The Greeks accepted and declared war on the Ottoman Empire. Greek and Ottoman forces were at a stalemate since the beginning of the war. It wasn't until late 1921 when Greece, with allied help from the British and French forces, had made a decisive victory at the Battle of Gallipoli that surrounded the majority of Ottoman forces. Since then, the Ottomans struggled to rebuild most of their army, allowing allied forces to storm the Anatolian peninsula via Izmir finally capture Constantinople in May 1923 (roughly 470 years after the fall of Constantinople). The Ottomans, facing a revolution, surrendered later that year in what was known as the treaty of Lausanne, where Ottomans are forced to give up their territories in the Balkans along with most of Anatolian coastlines.

The rest of the Allied forces promised to give Greece Constantinople on the condition that they continue the war on the side of the allies and restore Eastern Rome as a republican state (taking in mind the Megali Idea), fearing imperial ambitions could risk Greece falling under fascist influences of Russia. However, Greece violated the treaty by declaring themselves an Empire shortly after declaring the restoration of the Roman state. During the rest of the Great War, and the early Cold War, the Byzantines carried out purges of the Turkish population throughout its territories as the allies saw the new Roman state became increasingly fascist throughout the Cold War.

It wasn't until a revolution in 1973 which resulted in a referendum that abolished the imperial monarchy in favor of a Republic. Russia, fearing its grip slip on the Balkan peninsula, attempted to intervene to establish a fascist state, but was pushed out by guerrilla forces and finally backed off when the West threatened retaliation and the newly declared Roman Republic of Greece joined the West, showing the first cracks in the Russian side in the Cold War.