Crusades Fail

While the Crusades had enormous significance for the European middle ages, nobody alive at the time of the first crusade had any way of knowing they would. So, what would the consequences be if the First Crusade is wiped out by Kerbogha under the walls of Antioch, or even better, by a Fatimid army on the plains below Jerusalem?

The first thing I'd expect would be a bit of demonstrative beating of breasts followed by audible mutterings of "Serves the idiots right... harebrained scheme, that..." from nobles who stayed at home. How much face would the papacy lose over this? Could it kill the whole 'divine war' idea in the cradle, as it were? Or is this already too late a POD? I'm envisioning a more hard-nosed realpolitik increasingly marginalising the popes once it turns out that their great call to arms led to unmitigated disaster (without the first crusade showing it could be done I doubt there would be more to follow up the success)
 
The 2nd etc Crusades would go elsewhere, and likely the Reconquista in Spain would be quicker, and may spread to North Africa. I read that OTL part of Portugal was liberated from Islam by a Crusade that on its way to the Middle East found work for itself sooner and stopped there.
 
I'm not sure there woud be a second crusade if the first one failed. It's not like the idea had much of a tradition at the time. Sure, there'd be the usual brutal wars along the frontiers, but if the first crusade (an unprecedented military effort by any standard of its day) fails to capture Jerusalem, would the whole thing not be filed under 'Bad idea. Let's not do that again.'?

How many people would be willing to follow the call for a new crusade if they knew the first wave were all slaughtered or enslaves?
 
carlton_bach said:
How many people would be willing to follow the call for a new crusade if they knew the first wave were all slaughtered or enslaves?

ACtually, the first one ( the one of the peasents and a few poor knights and clergy) was.

It was the second wave ( the one of the warrior nobility ) who succeeded.
 
fhaessig said:
ACtually, the first one ( the one of the peasents and a few poor knights and clergy) was.

It was the second wave ( the one of the warrior nobility ) who succeeded.

Yes, but they're really still the same crusade, sent out by the same preachers with the same promises. Now, if in 1104 the pope decides to give it another go, what will the preachers tell the crowds:

"Remember how your brothers and sons went out to do battle with the infidel and all got killed? They're in heaven now! And I want you to go and do as they did. No, wait, except I want you to succeed! Free Jerusalem!"

I can't see how that pulls the masses. The First Crusade was wioldly successful, the second triggered in response to the loss of marginal territories, and by the time the conquest of Jerusalem becomes an issue again, there has been a tradition of a Christian kingdom in Outre Mer for over eighty years. Too much pride and capital invested to quit. Plus, every crusader after the first knew it could be done because it had been done, and the first were the first to try (except for Heraclius). I think a failure on the first try can be quite dispiriting.
 

Faeelin

Banned
Of course, do the italians still get as heavily involved in the eastern trade if they can't have crusader kingdoms which depend on them?
 
Any idea what the Arab/Turkish reaction would be? Might the Turks get enough of a self-confidence boost that they decide to go after Constantinople itself some 400 years early?
 
Faeelin> Yes, I'd expect the Italian cities still to be heavily involved in the Eastern trade. THere was the well-known phrase 'First a Venetian, then a Christian' which went for all of them. There may be shifts in power (Amalfi tied its fate strongly to the crusaders and fell with them), but generally the cities traded with the East when it was in crusaderhands as well as when it was held by the Seljuqs, the Ayyubids, or the Mamluks. They were fairly impartial, and they knew they could get good prices for weaponry, lumber, raw materials, and slaves.

Alasdair> I really don't know. I'd expect the invasion would look to the Fatimids like the Mother of all Border Raids, and their victory only confirm their low opinion of Western militaries. It might actually lead to greater fragmentation of the Muslim world as there is no outside threat to unite them. Liberating Jerusalem from the Infidel was a big boost to Muslim unity, too. Of course, if sopme leaderemerges from the conflict (as did not happen OTL), he might take offense at the way the Byzantines used the crusaders to stab him in the back and go for the throat. I can't see any figure of such magnitude around, though, and the likeliest victor - Fatimid Egypt - had no following worth speaking of among the muslims of Syria or Anatolia.
 
If the POD is Kerbogha winning at Antioch then he'd be ruler of Mosul, Antioch and Edessa (he took it on the way to Antioch). Whilst this doesn't place him in a position to go after Byzantium it would leave him arguably th emost powerful figure in teh Muslim middle east.

Let's say the Fatimids took Jerusalem as in OTL, the SUltan, wary of Kerbogha's power decides to send him against the Fatimids to keep him focused on the West. This effort goes much better than anticipated however, and Kerbogha ends up conquering Egypt (not necessarily the most probably outcome, but certainly plausible).

Thus we have an analogue to the Ayubid hegemony almost a century early.
 
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