2nd Crusade Alternative Targets?

2nd Crusade Alternative Targets?

  • Constantinople

    Votes: 1 3.2%
  • Damascus (Longer Siege)

    Votes: 6 19.4%
  • Edessa

    Votes: 3 9.7%
  • Aleppo

    Votes: 6 19.4%
  • Hama

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Ascalon/Egypt

    Votes: 15 48.4%
  • Other

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • Total voters
    31
2nd Crusade Alternative Targets?

Recently I put up a thread on WI the 2nd Crusade attacked Constantinople but I was also thinking about other alternative targets. In OTL they went for Damascus and retreated after hearing about the approach of relief armies. I've listed few alternative targets and am curious as to your opinions. Which of these would have been best and yield the most success?

Any place I'm forgetting that you think would be better list in comment, thanks.:)
 
Edessa would be a good choice on the principle that the Crusaders would trying to recover. That though raises political issues such as should the former ruling family have it back.

On Egypt and Constantinople, the Crusaders would be trying to hold onto Outremer. Out of the box targets would be a no no at this point in time
 
Edessa would be a good choice on the principle that the Crusaders would trying to recover. That though raises political issues such as should the former ruling family have it back.

On Egypt and Constantinople, the Crusaders would be trying to hold onto Outremer. Out of the box targets would be a no no at this point in time

Thanks for the comment. I was thinking Edessa or Aleppo as well but I'm unsure as to the risks associated with it. The Crusaders don't have a good track record recently, the army might get wiped out like Sarmada, Dorylaeum or Inab.

Constantinople is definitely counterproductive, attacking Egypt though could draw some Arab attention away from Outremer. They attempted it in OTL but short of taking Ascalon not much progress.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crusader_invasions_of_Egypt
 
Taking Damascus severs the route between Syria and Egypt which means that it will have to be recovered before these two countries can be united. Given the time trajectory of Nur ad Din and Saladin taking Damascus may be one too many jobs to complete within their lifetimes/reigns so the disaster at Hattin may not occur.

Of course a better PoD would be the German and French transits of Anatolia, if they were successful then the entire 2nd Crusade would be very different. Then again this is the case with the 1101 and 3rd Crusades as well.
 
Of course a better PoD would be the German and French transits of Anatolia, if they were successful then the entire 2nd Crusade would be very different. Then again this is the case with the 1101 and 3rd Crusades as well.

The French could have gone by sea if they allied with King Roger of Sicily. The Germans however are out of luck due to their bad relations with the Sicilians. So maybe we could get a scenario where at least the French army arrives intact.
 
The Germans however are out of luck due to their bad relations with the Sicilians.
Would/did a German crusader army ever go to Outremer by sea? Even if you met at Hamburg to embark it would still seem more logical to march across the Balkan then pick up ships at a Byzantine port.
The French could have gone by sea if they allied with King Roger of Sicily.
The catch here is Roger's attack, or rather his minion George of Antioch's attack on the Byzantine Empire. This is because it diverted the Empire's attention from supporting any crusader army.

If George had attacked North Africa (Roger had already conquered parts of Tunisia) then the Byzantines would not have been diverted. Thus they could support any land based Crusader armies. That would get both the Germans and the French to say Antioch. Internal Outremer politics could then take over whether to go east to Aleppo and Edessa or move on south.

Actually my reading of the 2nd Crusade is not the choice of target that would be an issue, but the leadership of the Crusaders. It would not matter which city they hit. They were perfectly capable of screwing up an attack on any on the list. It is just that on OTL it was Damascus.
 
Would/did a German crusader army ever go to Outremer by sea? Even if you met at Hamburg to embark it would still seem more logical to march across the Balkan then pick up ships at a Byzantine port
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Germans units that ended up fighting in Second Crusade did go by sea. They went the long way around Spain and helped with the siege of Lisbon. So this is an option for Conrad but It will delay his arrival considerably. I believe the German lead 6th Crusade also went by sea.

The catch here is Roger's attack, or rather his minion George of Antioch's attack on the Byzantine Empire. This is because it diverted the Empire's attention from supporting any crusader army.

If George had attacked North Africa (Roger had already conquered parts of Tunisia) then the Byzantines would not have been diverted. Thus they could support any land based Crusader armies. That would get both the Germans and the French to say Antioch. Internal Outremer politics could then take over whether to go east to Aleppo and Edessa or move on south.

Actually my reading of the 2nd Crusade is not the choice of target that would be an issue, but the leadership of the Crusaders. It would not matter which city they hit. They were perfectly capable of screwing up an attack on any on the list. It is just that on OTL it was Damascus.

William of Tyre believed the Crusade was sabotaged, Melisende had ever incentive to help it fail just to screw up Baldwin. As far as command ability Conrad seems incompetent but both Baldwin and Louis I think were adequate. The main issue seems to have been the decision to shift the siege to the eastern part of the city and what seems to be the purposely engineered withdrawal.
 
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The failure to open the land route to outremer was a reason for its failure as it limited immigration to only those who could afford the fare. It's been a while but I think the best way to get the 2nd crusade across anatolia would be if the armies swapped routes. The early arriving Germans staying within byzantine territory and going due south to the coast and the late arriving french cutting across anatolia by the fastest route. I think the Turks would struggle to deal with two armies in the field within a couple of months of each other.
 
I personally think that the best way to follow up on the 1st Crusade is to take Ascalon, and then push to control over Ayla/Eilat - As soon as the Crusaders can get access to the Red Sea, and begin to fund a fleet - the game changes. Fleets can isolate the African and Arabian Islamic worlds, and if desired, any trade on the Red sea can be looted and pillaged to fund Jerusalem.

If it can go to take Sinai, that is fantastic. The initial success should embolden more crusaders, which should encourage more people to come along to provide the forces needed to take Damascus - whilst being able to deny the Fatamids and Damascus the ability to co-ordinate.

This hypothetical 3rd Crusade taking Damascus, combined with the remnant forces of the Second and First crusades could create long-term stability for Jeruasalem - add in access to the Red Sea for trade - and Jerusalem could make efforts towards accessing Indian ocean trade - even it if means calling a Fourth Crusade against Adal or Yemen. As soon as Jerusalem has access to Indian Ocean trade, they can be the main gateway for European-Indian Trade.

Short of this, simply having access, the possibility of trade, the chance of opening contacts with Indian traders means Jerusalem can begin to make a fortune.
 
Damascus or part/all of Egypt. Outremer was never going to be secure unless either or - ideally - both are secure. Taking one of the two would allow them to remain separate, which is a start.
 

ben0628

Banned
A conquest of Aleppo would increase the strength of of the Principality of Antioch and secure it's eastern flank.

A conquest of Damascus would split Syria and Egypt in two and secure the Kingdom of Jerusalems eastern flank.

However the smartest choice (yet most definitely the hardest) is to conquer Egypt. Access to the Nile and Red Sea would provide huge amounts of wealth to the Crusaders. More importantly though Egypt at this time still has a significantly large Christian population.
 
So many things to do so little time. Basically the KoJ needs all of the cities listed for one reason or another.

Edessa is nice to have, mostly for preserving their army of Armenians and Christians. It wasn't a very good army, but the kingdom needs all the help it can get. Problem is Edessa the county isn't a sustainable state without capturing the fortress cities, since the Muslims can keep marshalling armies at Aleppo, Raqqa, and Mosul. So helping Edessa probably means trying to capture Aleppo.

Which is going to be great if it works out, but there's no indication it might go any better than the siege of Damascus (which the kingdom is still going to need sooner or later anyways).

Ideal would be if they can kill Nur-ad-din and rout his army in a field battle outside Aleppo before a siege, then capitalize that on to take the city itself. Unlike Mur-ad-din, he never shyed away from battle so I think that's plausible. There's other possible invasion points still, but it's a start, and more importantly killing Nur-ad-din removes the single most dangerous person to the kingdom at the time, as well as the most vocal anti-crusader.

After that the crusade probably has one shot left to shoot (they were able to try and attack Ascalon after the failed siege of Damascus historically), so maybe a short campaign against Hama or Edessa proper. Cause again, it would be nice to have.

Now yes, Ascalon is vital to the kingdom, but it historically falls to the crusaders in 1153 anyways. By closing the northern front via Aleppo, this allows Amalric to focus fully on his campaigns to turn Egypt into a tributary, and removing Nur-ad-din prevents the disastrous Battle of Harim if we presume the presence of the crusade in the north also has some knock off effects on the long term strength of the lords in the region. The dude haunted the crusaders for the next 28 years after the Second Crusade, and he also gave rise to Saladin. It's worth it just to kill him. And then you get Aleppo, Hama/Edessa, a peaceful northern front for about a decade, Ascalon, and Egypt as a tributary on top of that. It's a good position for follow up campaigns against down the line, maybe even scare Mur-al-din in Damascus into re-allying with the kingdom since both Egypt and Syria will be undergoing succession woes and leave him with no alternative source of aid.
 
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