It's been past the point that I can edit the original posts in this, so I'm reposting the edits here (but not starting a new thread).
Questions & comments on the changes welcome. Will resume the story once this is squared away.
Chapter I, Part I.
On October 23 1183, Manuel I died of a lingering illness. His only son, the seventeen year old Alexius, took the throne without conflict.
On the surface, with Roman armies in both Anatolia and the West having been largely successful in their endeavors, the state looked stronger than it had been since Manzikert, just over a century previously.
But with the treasury depleted and relations with the Holy Roman Empire and Papacy grown chilly, the Empire that the young basileus had inherited could easily lose more than it had gained from his father's conquests.
Worse, the dynatoi had taken advantage of Manuel's foreign adventures to strengthen their position, some even at the expense of the state. While the Komnenoi were closely allied to the Empire's military aristocracy, that did not make the growth of the powerful less worrisome - if anything, it offered the opportunity for those who saw the young emperor as a puppet to use the situation for their benefit and further undermine imperial control.
In an effort to head off the more pressing external problems, Alexius chose to abandon some of Manuel's western conquests, establishing western Serbia as a mostly autonomous Roman client state as well as returning control of Dalmatia and eastern Croatia to King Béla of Hungary. King Béla, who had maintained friendly relations with Manuel even after losing his claim to the imperial throne in favor of the emperor's own son, promised his friendship to the young Emperor, considerably lightening the burden of defending the Empire's western territory.
But even with foreign affairs running smoothly, internal problems could still bring down the Emperor. Even Isaac Comnenus, great nephew of Manuel I, would be part of the problem, taking advantage of his newly founded freedom to seize control of the island of Cyprus and proclaim himself emperor, a situation which would trouble the empire for three years before a combination of an Imperial fleet and Isaac's own overconfidence would see him overthrown and the island returned to imperial control.
And then there was the imperial bureaucracy. Corrupt, unsupervised, and cruelly grinding down the peasantry - which by coincidence would only serve to further the problem of the dynatoi, as the only ones able to resist the pressures of the tax collectors. It is not surprising that between all of these problems that the Frankish states in the Levant - nominally Imperial vassals but de facto independent - would be ignored almost entirely until it became clearly that the usual squabbles between Frank and Saracen had become dangerously tilted in favor of the latter.
In October 1187, the great Muslim leader Saladin had taken the city of Jerusalem, and most of the Frankish kingdom. Had this been all, it would have been startling but hardly unpleasant - better an honest Saracen than a Frank who couldn't be trusted as far as one could throw a fully armored cataphract. Unfortunately and most inconveniently for the young emperor, the West disagreed. And as the Roman Empire stood between the kingdoms of the West and the Holy Land, Alexius's response would be crucial to the Empire's fate.
The First Crusade had been bad, though not disastrous - the Empire had even recovered some of its territory in Anatolia as a consequence. But the the Second Crusade had been worse, with the Franks loudly blaming "Greek treachery" as the source of their failure rather than their own incompetence. If things continued to decline, how long would it be until the so-called warriors of Christ turned on the Empire, heading not for Jerusalem but for Constantinople? When news arrived that Frederick Barbarossa, Emperor of the so-called "Holy Roman" Empire, had taken the cross, it seemed almost inevitable. Bad as Sicily was, the Sicilians weren't nearly as powerful. Or ambitious.
Something would have to be done to reverse the trend of increasing hostility between Rhoman and Frank. Attempts at religious union in his father's day had certainly not helped, and even if they could help the likelihood would be that it would increase tensions internally against the emperor - hardly more desirable than a foreign invasion, which could at least be bought off. Or could it? Frederick's formidable temper and an ability to hold grudges made the prospect of dealing with him at the head of an army most unpleasant, and it seemed rather more likely that he would take offers of gold as a sign of Roman weakness and grow more demanding rather than less.
Chapter 1, Part II.
The Crusaders had entered the Empire towards the end of June in the year 1189, and trouble began almost immediately. Despite Frederick's strenuous efforts to keep control of his army and to punish those who "behaved more like brigands than soldiers of Christ", incidents of some sort or another were just about inevitable with an army the size Frederick was leading, and especially on foreign soil. Nor were the Rhomans were entirely comfortable with the idea of a Frankish army, with its strange accents and stranger customs marching through their lands, and even the efforts of Alexius to ensure that things ran smoothly were often undermined by neglectful or incompetent officials who were more concerned about their interests than the Emperor's commands.
Had Frederick not been more concerned about the recapture of Jerusalem than causing his eastern rival difficulty in revenge for Manuel's support of the Lombard League three decades earlier, the Roman Empire could have been dealt a severe blow at this time, both by the crusaders themselves and those who would eagerly have allied even with the Franks in order to undermine the rule of Constantinople. But Barbarossa's attention was fixed on the crusade, and those who saw him as a chance to weaken the East were turned away. He had sworn to not lift a sword against fellow Christians, and would not listen to those who claimed that the Greeks were "no true Christians" at all. So long as their Emperor did not stand in his way, he would treat him with all the respect due a fellow Christian monarch. For now. The crusade was more important.
For Alexius, this could not have been better news. Those who lay in the path of the German crusaders in the summer and fall of 1189 might not have been so quick to agree, but most grudgingly recognized that the German army was better disciplined than expected - faint praise, but preferable to the tales of barbarians whose chieftains had encouraged the savagery of their followers rather than checking it that they had heard from those who remembered the Second Crusade forty odd years previously.
Despite the efforts of both Emperors - and the eagerness of the crusaders to reach their destination - it was not until late October before the full crusading army had reached Thrace, and the weather had become problematic for a continued advance. Despite his eagerness to press on - the sooner they crossed Anatolia, the sooner they would reach Jerusalem - the prospect of marching through actively hostile territory in winter was daunting, and the crusaders would settle down to wait until March before heading onwards.
Spring would not come a day to soon, and as soon as March began, the Germans would cross to the Hellespont (at Alexius's request), and enter Anatolia. Along with the Germans was a contingent of Roman troops lead by Baldwin of Antioch, a Frankish general who had served since the 1170s. Numbering only a fraction of the size of the German host, the Romans - while not the equals of the armies lead by Basil II over a century and a half ago- were still among the best soldiers in Christendom.
Soon the two armies had entered the lands of the Seljuks, and it had become clear that the Turks were not interested in keeping their word to let them pass unhindered. In response, the two armies turned towards Iconium, capital of the Seljuk Sultanate. If the Turks would not keep their word, then the Romans and Germans would be more than pleased to take advantage of the opportunity to punish them for their treachery.
When the news reached Alexius in Constantinople, it was notable how the ordinarily grim emperor was pleased, as if he had planned this all along instead of merely improvising to take advantage of Frederick's presence conveniently coinciding with his goals. While Barbarossa saw Iconium as insignificant compared to Jerusalem, it meant nothing less than the chance to shatter the most significant Turkish polity for Alexius. And then it would be merely a matter of picking up the pieces.
Chapter I, Part III
Despite the harsh weather of the past two months and the repeated Turkish attacks, the core of the two armies, Roman and German, remained intact. Surprisingly, they had managed to keep the all-but-inevitable bickering down to a low rumble - something that most attributed to the Emperor's overriding concern for the crusade, and refusal to accept any quarrels that would interfere with the much-appreciated assistance Alexius was providing. The Greek troops he could do without, but the ready preparation of supplies was another matter.
But if Frederick had managed to restrain his followers when it came to their fellow Christians, no man could have restrained the desire of the crusaders to strike against the Turks. When an offer came from the Sultan to call off the attacks in exchange for gold and an alliance against the Romans, the Emperor's temper exploded. In the words of later chroniclers, the Emperor told the Turkish envoys that "With the help of our Lord Jesus Christ, whose knights we are, we shall open the road with iron, not gold.”[1]
The German army would be divided into two groups, one under the Emperor himself and the other under his son (also named Frederick), the Duke of Swabia. Baldwin and the Roman troops would be with the former, partially due to the Emperor's desire that his son gain the glory of taking the city, partially to keep the not-completely-trusted Roman forces somewhere he could watch them.
As it turns out, the division of the German army could easily have gone disastrously wrong. While the Duke of Swabia was battling to enter the city, the main army of the Turks faced off against the Emperor's own forces and the Romans. Only the greatest efforts of the Emperor and the steadiness of the Roman troops saw the Turks first repulsed, and then finally routed, leaving Iconium to its fate - a fate nearly as bad as the city had suffered in wars over two centuries earlier between the Romans and Saracens.
But it really didn't matter. Not to the Romans, not to the Germans. The Turks, on the other hand, were terrified. Proposals begging for peace on any terms were sent almost immediately. Frederick agreed to leave with no further destruction in exchange for twenty distinguished hostages and an guarantee that that supplies would be provided and the attacks stopped. Additionally, Iconium - or what had survived the sack of the city - would, along with the surrounding countryside - be turned over to the Romans. The exact details would have to be worked out with Alexius, however, as five days after the city was taken, the Germans were once more on the move.
A week after leaving the city, they would reenter Christian territory - the lands of Cilician Armenia, a semi-independent principality within the Byzantine Empire. After the Turks and the grueling journey itself, surely the worst was over?
Chapter I, part IV
The relief of the Germans at having entered Christian territory again was short lived, despite the warm support of the Armenian prince, Leo II. The rugged Taurus mountains were a formidable barrier to the progress of the army, and the alternative route suggested by the local guides was preferable only by contrast.
At the Saleph River, disaster nearly struck.
Frederick Barbarossa, the Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire, was thrown from his horse and nearly drowned.
At first, rumors spread word that the Emperor had drowned. Strong men, who had grown up in a world where the sixty-eight year old emperor had been emperor longer than they had been alive, wept and bewailed his supposed demise as if the Christ himself had deserted them. How could the army, bereft of the man who had held the Holy Roman Empire together by the strength of his will alone, possibly continue? [1] They were doomed to die in a strange land, far from home. Some chroniclers would later claim men even committed suicide, as even the promise of salvation for taking the Cross was overcome by unendurable grief.
But ultimately, the truth spread. While he had been thrown from his weary horse, he had survived. And as news spread that the earlier rumors had been false, those who remained regained lost hope. Nothing could stop them now. They were not being punished by God, but rather, tested. Were they worthy of liberating the Holy City? The city where Jesus had died for their sins over elven centuries ago? The army felt it was. They would not let either their Emperor or their God down.
Fiat voluntas tua, sicut in caelo et in terra. [2]
Note: All footnotes are explained in the original posts here: https://www.alternatehistory.com/discussion/showpost.php?p=4843515&postcount=29 and https://www.alternatehistory.com/discussion/showpost.php?p=4847051&postcount=36
There's not enough for a part V, but before continuing to the next step, I should note: Manuel, first child of Alexius II, was born on May 13th (For the reader's convenience, the battle and fall of Iconium were on the 18th). The basileus is a daddy.
And something I'd like to take the chance to note right about now, as we're entering the Muslim world for real: Most of this timeline is going to be written from a western perspective. As I can't read Arabic, Saladin for instance is probably going to be seen through western eyes.
English language sources doing justice to him and other characters of the Muslim world would be enormously appreciated.
Questions & comments on the changes welcome. Will resume the story once this is squared away.
Chapter I, Part I.
On October 23 1183, Manuel I died of a lingering illness. His only son, the seventeen year old Alexius, took the throne without conflict.
On the surface, with Roman armies in both Anatolia and the West having been largely successful in their endeavors, the state looked stronger than it had been since Manzikert, just over a century previously.
But with the treasury depleted and relations with the Holy Roman Empire and Papacy grown chilly, the Empire that the young basileus had inherited could easily lose more than it had gained from his father's conquests.
Worse, the dynatoi had taken advantage of Manuel's foreign adventures to strengthen their position, some even at the expense of the state. While the Komnenoi were closely allied to the Empire's military aristocracy, that did not make the growth of the powerful less worrisome - if anything, it offered the opportunity for those who saw the young emperor as a puppet to use the situation for their benefit and further undermine imperial control.
In an effort to head off the more pressing external problems, Alexius chose to abandon some of Manuel's western conquests, establishing western Serbia as a mostly autonomous Roman client state as well as returning control of Dalmatia and eastern Croatia to King Béla of Hungary. King Béla, who had maintained friendly relations with Manuel even after losing his claim to the imperial throne in favor of the emperor's own son, promised his friendship to the young Emperor, considerably lightening the burden of defending the Empire's western territory.
But even with foreign affairs running smoothly, internal problems could still bring down the Emperor. Even Isaac Comnenus, great nephew of Manuel I, would be part of the problem, taking advantage of his newly founded freedom to seize control of the island of Cyprus and proclaim himself emperor, a situation which would trouble the empire for three years before a combination of an Imperial fleet and Isaac's own overconfidence would see him overthrown and the island returned to imperial control.
And then there was the imperial bureaucracy. Corrupt, unsupervised, and cruelly grinding down the peasantry - which by coincidence would only serve to further the problem of the dynatoi, as the only ones able to resist the pressures of the tax collectors. It is not surprising that between all of these problems that the Frankish states in the Levant - nominally Imperial vassals but de facto independent - would be ignored almost entirely until it became clearly that the usual squabbles between Frank and Saracen had become dangerously tilted in favor of the latter.
In October 1187, the great Muslim leader Saladin had taken the city of Jerusalem, and most of the Frankish kingdom. Had this been all, it would have been startling but hardly unpleasant - better an honest Saracen than a Frank who couldn't be trusted as far as one could throw a fully armored cataphract. Unfortunately and most inconveniently for the young emperor, the West disagreed. And as the Roman Empire stood between the kingdoms of the West and the Holy Land, Alexius's response would be crucial to the Empire's fate.
The First Crusade had been bad, though not disastrous - the Empire had even recovered some of its territory in Anatolia as a consequence. But the the Second Crusade had been worse, with the Franks loudly blaming "Greek treachery" as the source of their failure rather than their own incompetence. If things continued to decline, how long would it be until the so-called warriors of Christ turned on the Empire, heading not for Jerusalem but for Constantinople? When news arrived that Frederick Barbarossa, Emperor of the so-called "Holy Roman" Empire, had taken the cross, it seemed almost inevitable. Bad as Sicily was, the Sicilians weren't nearly as powerful. Or ambitious.
Something would have to be done to reverse the trend of increasing hostility between Rhoman and Frank. Attempts at religious union in his father's day had certainly not helped, and even if they could help the likelihood would be that it would increase tensions internally against the emperor - hardly more desirable than a foreign invasion, which could at least be bought off. Or could it? Frederick's formidable temper and an ability to hold grudges made the prospect of dealing with him at the head of an army most unpleasant, and it seemed rather more likely that he would take offers of gold as a sign of Roman weakness and grow more demanding rather than less.
Chapter 1, Part II.
The Crusaders had entered the Empire towards the end of June in the year 1189, and trouble began almost immediately. Despite Frederick's strenuous efforts to keep control of his army and to punish those who "behaved more like brigands than soldiers of Christ", incidents of some sort or another were just about inevitable with an army the size Frederick was leading, and especially on foreign soil. Nor were the Rhomans were entirely comfortable with the idea of a Frankish army, with its strange accents and stranger customs marching through their lands, and even the efforts of Alexius to ensure that things ran smoothly were often undermined by neglectful or incompetent officials who were more concerned about their interests than the Emperor's commands.
Had Frederick not been more concerned about the recapture of Jerusalem than causing his eastern rival difficulty in revenge for Manuel's support of the Lombard League three decades earlier, the Roman Empire could have been dealt a severe blow at this time, both by the crusaders themselves and those who would eagerly have allied even with the Franks in order to undermine the rule of Constantinople. But Barbarossa's attention was fixed on the crusade, and those who saw him as a chance to weaken the East were turned away. He had sworn to not lift a sword against fellow Christians, and would not listen to those who claimed that the Greeks were "no true Christians" at all. So long as their Emperor did not stand in his way, he would treat him with all the respect due a fellow Christian monarch. For now. The crusade was more important.
For Alexius, this could not have been better news. Those who lay in the path of the German crusaders in the summer and fall of 1189 might not have been so quick to agree, but most grudgingly recognized that the German army was better disciplined than expected - faint praise, but preferable to the tales of barbarians whose chieftains had encouraged the savagery of their followers rather than checking it that they had heard from those who remembered the Second Crusade forty odd years previously.
Despite the efforts of both Emperors - and the eagerness of the crusaders to reach their destination - it was not until late October before the full crusading army had reached Thrace, and the weather had become problematic for a continued advance. Despite his eagerness to press on - the sooner they crossed Anatolia, the sooner they would reach Jerusalem - the prospect of marching through actively hostile territory in winter was daunting, and the crusaders would settle down to wait until March before heading onwards.
Spring would not come a day to soon, and as soon as March began, the Germans would cross to the Hellespont (at Alexius's request), and enter Anatolia. Along with the Germans was a contingent of Roman troops lead by Baldwin of Antioch, a Frankish general who had served since the 1170s. Numbering only a fraction of the size of the German host, the Romans - while not the equals of the armies lead by Basil II over a century and a half ago- were still among the best soldiers in Christendom.
Soon the two armies had entered the lands of the Seljuks, and it had become clear that the Turks were not interested in keeping their word to let them pass unhindered. In response, the two armies turned towards Iconium, capital of the Seljuk Sultanate. If the Turks would not keep their word, then the Romans and Germans would be more than pleased to take advantage of the opportunity to punish them for their treachery.
When the news reached Alexius in Constantinople, it was notable how the ordinarily grim emperor was pleased, as if he had planned this all along instead of merely improvising to take advantage of Frederick's presence conveniently coinciding with his goals. While Barbarossa saw Iconium as insignificant compared to Jerusalem, it meant nothing less than the chance to shatter the most significant Turkish polity for Alexius. And then it would be merely a matter of picking up the pieces.
Chapter I, Part III
Despite the harsh weather of the past two months and the repeated Turkish attacks, the core of the two armies, Roman and German, remained intact. Surprisingly, they had managed to keep the all-but-inevitable bickering down to a low rumble - something that most attributed to the Emperor's overriding concern for the crusade, and refusal to accept any quarrels that would interfere with the much-appreciated assistance Alexius was providing. The Greek troops he could do without, but the ready preparation of supplies was another matter.
But if Frederick had managed to restrain his followers when it came to their fellow Christians, no man could have restrained the desire of the crusaders to strike against the Turks. When an offer came from the Sultan to call off the attacks in exchange for gold and an alliance against the Romans, the Emperor's temper exploded. In the words of later chroniclers, the Emperor told the Turkish envoys that "With the help of our Lord Jesus Christ, whose knights we are, we shall open the road with iron, not gold.”[1]
The German army would be divided into two groups, one under the Emperor himself and the other under his son (also named Frederick), the Duke of Swabia. Baldwin and the Roman troops would be with the former, partially due to the Emperor's desire that his son gain the glory of taking the city, partially to keep the not-completely-trusted Roman forces somewhere he could watch them.
As it turns out, the division of the German army could easily have gone disastrously wrong. While the Duke of Swabia was battling to enter the city, the main army of the Turks faced off against the Emperor's own forces and the Romans. Only the greatest efforts of the Emperor and the steadiness of the Roman troops saw the Turks first repulsed, and then finally routed, leaving Iconium to its fate - a fate nearly as bad as the city had suffered in wars over two centuries earlier between the Romans and Saracens.
But it really didn't matter. Not to the Romans, not to the Germans. The Turks, on the other hand, were terrified. Proposals begging for peace on any terms were sent almost immediately. Frederick agreed to leave with no further destruction in exchange for twenty distinguished hostages and an guarantee that that supplies would be provided and the attacks stopped. Additionally, Iconium - or what had survived the sack of the city - would, along with the surrounding countryside - be turned over to the Romans. The exact details would have to be worked out with Alexius, however, as five days after the city was taken, the Germans were once more on the move.
A week after leaving the city, they would reenter Christian territory - the lands of Cilician Armenia, a semi-independent principality within the Byzantine Empire. After the Turks and the grueling journey itself, surely the worst was over?
Chapter I, part IV
The relief of the Germans at having entered Christian territory again was short lived, despite the warm support of the Armenian prince, Leo II. The rugged Taurus mountains were a formidable barrier to the progress of the army, and the alternative route suggested by the local guides was preferable only by contrast.
At the Saleph River, disaster nearly struck.
Frederick Barbarossa, the Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire, was thrown from his horse and nearly drowned.
At first, rumors spread word that the Emperor had drowned. Strong men, who had grown up in a world where the sixty-eight year old emperor had been emperor longer than they had been alive, wept and bewailed his supposed demise as if the Christ himself had deserted them. How could the army, bereft of the man who had held the Holy Roman Empire together by the strength of his will alone, possibly continue? [1] They were doomed to die in a strange land, far from home. Some chroniclers would later claim men even committed suicide, as even the promise of salvation for taking the Cross was overcome by unendurable grief.
But ultimately, the truth spread. While he had been thrown from his weary horse, he had survived. And as news spread that the earlier rumors had been false, those who remained regained lost hope. Nothing could stop them now. They were not being punished by God, but rather, tested. Were they worthy of liberating the Holy City? The city where Jesus had died for their sins over elven centuries ago? The army felt it was. They would not let either their Emperor or their God down.
Fiat voluntas tua, sicut in caelo et in terra. [2]
Note: All footnotes are explained in the original posts here: https://www.alternatehistory.com/discussion/showpost.php?p=4843515&postcount=29 and https://www.alternatehistory.com/discussion/showpost.php?p=4847051&postcount=36
There's not enough for a part V, but before continuing to the next step, I should note: Manuel, first child of Alexius II, was born on May 13th (For the reader's convenience, the battle and fall of Iconium were on the 18th). The basileus is a daddy.
And something I'd like to take the chance to note right about now, as we're entering the Muslim world for real: Most of this timeline is going to be written from a western perspective. As I can't read Arabic, Saladin for instance is probably going to be seen through western eyes.
English language sources doing justice to him and other characters of the Muslim world would be enormously appreciated.
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