What would the governor, or the larger Fatimid regime have done differently if they'd realized the Crusaders were bound and determined to get Jerusalem?
Well, they did tried to make an agreement with Crusaders earlier in mid-1097 to congratulate Byzantines for their reconquest of Anatolia, and proposing them to share Syria.
They didn't exactly understood that Latins weren't Byzantine mercenaries but a force of their own, while they adressed to the offer to them which was neither answered positively or negatively. Eventually they just took Jerusalem from Turks from themselves.
Offer to trade it for some other territory the Crusaders had and an alliance?
Giving up Jerusalem would have been a terrible demonstration of weakeness that Fatimids couldn't have made. They already lost Northern Syria, Ifriqiya, and known a succession crisis.
If al-Afdhal complied this much to what was seen as a bunch of misfits, his position would have been perillous.
Furthermore...Trade it for what? Antioch? Would have been extremely risky to let Jerusalem (that was close to Egypt and its ressources) for a further and isolated places that was more cut from their cores and more prone to fall to Turks.
Did the governor neglect defenses because he thought he could talk the Crusaders out of attacking?
No, he didn't. Jerusalem was one of the hardest sieges the First Crusade had to make, comparable only with Antioch in term of Latin losses.
Not to mention he expelled all Christians from the city (as many cities did to prevent treacheries at the benefit of Crusaders), which kinda backfired (basically, it's one of the things that made Eastern Christians pro-Crusaders to begin with).
Altough he may have neglected to properly clean the countryside around : a Crusader leader, trying to do what bears does in woods, recovered the wood from the siege engines Fatimids used some months ago to take the city.
And that's interesting about the Crusader alliance with Sunnite leaders, what was the benefit and justification for each side in that alliance?
Kick Shi'a Fatimids out of Syria and keep balance with Turks, mostly, but also not antagonize Crusaders. Better be their friend than not.
Which kinda worked, until Latins decided they wanted a bigger tribute (after the Crusade tough) which ended with all coastal states being defeated and integrated to the diverse Latin states.
I suppose those were local Sunni Arab leaders, not tied to the Seljuks?
In the case of Tripoli, it was an Egyptian family set up by Fatimids, which they broke from to treat with Turks.
If attempted, could the Fatimids really have been convinced to align with the Crusaders and Byzantines against the Ottomans, yielding Jerusalem to the Crusaders but otherwise terms favorable to the Fatimids?
I suppose you meant Seljuks?
Anyway...That's gonna be really hard. For the diverse reasons listed in the previous posts and above, I don't think it would really be doable, not unless having Fatmids being screwed around more, not representating much of a threat, which would have mean Latins attacking them sooner or later.
I know there was poor Latin knowledge of local geopolitics, but I would have thought that possibly some Papal reps, or at least some Italian merchants, could have come up with the idea.
Italian merchants weren't exactly doves : while the Crusaders usually demonstrated some restrain (Yes, I know that's an hard pill to swallow when it comes to their advance in Syria and the capture of Jerusalem, but they were ususally so more than others), Genoese didn't really gave a flying relic of St. Copros, as pointed out by how they did in the Siege of Tripoli.
Sure, they would have tried to compromise if Crusaders threatened their commercial interests in Egypt, but they didn't. Even Byzantines, that were more or less allies with Fatimids, just looked away ("I wonder what Rus' is doing right now")
Of course from a rhetorical point of view the fact that the Fatimids, rather than the Seljuks who arguably provoked Crusader actions, controlled Jerusalem when the Crusaders took it undermines the argument about the Crusades being a defensive war or a restorative, counter-offensive war, rather than aggression.
I'm not really sure what you mean there. For what matter, in Crusader view point (because that's what we're discussing right now), the difference between Fatimids and Turks wasn't clearly established. For all they know, they did the very same thing than the latter, if not worse with al-Hakim (on which persecutions had an echo in the West).
I may have missed sources, but the whole background for the First Crusade was being a counter-offensive war, not only against the recent Turk advence in Anatolia, but to recover as much from what was lost from the previous Arab conquests.
I'm not too sure that capture of Jerusalem is the best ground to pull a
"Aha! So you weren't about religious war from the beggining!
- Damn, you! And I would have gotten away with it, too, if it weren't for you meddling kids!"
That's simply loosing the point by miles : Crusades weren't armed pilgrimages, weren't only against Turks, but mixing the milites mentality with a re-evangelised western society in order to counter what was seen as one new wave of Islamic advance since the VIIIth century.
“Self-defense,” in the sense of an imminent threat, was not a reason for going to war against the Muslim powers that held the Levant. In that sense, the oft-repeated trope that the Crusades (i.e., the Jerusalem campaigns) were defensive is disingenuous, to say the least.”
Which trope, unless you're discussing XIXth century historiography, is rarely invocated, the reasons usually pointed out being extremly multiple.
I'm sorry, but that's not even close of what is Crusader historiography since decades.
