A Mighty Fortress is Our God; A Kingdom of Jerusalem Timeline

Brightflame

Banned
Interesting Tl,but a bit confusing:I would be obliged if you were to clarify few issues for me:

1) the Sinclairs are obviously the ones to have revived the bloodline;but the Sinclairs are the house of Saint-Clair,the leading house of Lorraine with the cross of Lorraine in their coat of arms,ascendants of the Templars and Prieur de Scion and I cannot see what they have to do with the Royal Arms of England? they are primarily connected to the Hapsburg clan and certain Italian houses.Can you clear that please?

2) who are the Adamic races?

3) The crusaders came from many parts of Europe(speaking about first Crusade) with many Italians from the leading nobles down to a simple and the Pope being Italian,how do they have the Italians as a different caste
to Covenanter Crusaders?

4) The Haute Cour is in charge of so many functions that I wonder where they are going to find the personnel from the Crusaders to carry out all those duties within such a large state,and have armed forces at the same time? population shortage should be a difficult problem to solve...

5) Do you think a map would help?

1. The Sinclairs are the descendents of the Norman Saint Clares, who eventually gained extensive lands in Scotland and became the progenitors of the Sinclair Clan. Pardon the comments on the English Royal Arms, that was meant to be OOC.

2. The Adamic Races is a vile term used by adherents to Christian Identity to describe all peoples of purely European descent. The Covenanters see the Southern and Eastern Europeans as descendents of Japheth, while the Celts and Germanic peoples are the Israelites and of the House of Shem. All Israelites are Adamic, not all Adamics and Israelite.

3. The original Crusaders who obtained wealth and land have generally become a single ethnicity, with certain cities having stronger ties to certain languages and nations, for example, Antiocheans still speak a Frankish dialect. The Italian "race" is almost entirely descended from the merchants of the city states who had their own quarters in the coastal cities, and later dissidents (mostly alt-Protestant) from Papal Italy.

4. The Crusaders aren't some tiny minority; indeed, they make up majorities in the Levant. But they rely very heavily on their allies, particularly the Martial Races and the Adamic Races. Together, the Crusaders and their allies are well over two hundred million people. They also have the aid of Indian Princes and African tribal monarchs.

5. I am awful at mapmaking. I have one from about 1880, but it is hopelessely drawn.

Thank you for your questions, much appreciated.
 
Thank you for answering my points,but I must make my first question more specific:

The kingdom was established in the first crusade,the acquisition of lands in Scotland (and the building of the Rosslyn church later?) by the Saint-Clairs took place in the 14th...I had better look better into it since I did that reading sometime ago....

...I am wrong and I apologize for that,you are right that the Norman Saint-Clairs acquired lands in Scotland very early,I could not find the exact year of the acquisition...not that it is pertinent to the present story....continue though because it is interesting!
 
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Brightflame

Banned
Thank you for answering my points,but I must make my first question more specific:

The kingdom was established in the first crusade,the acquisition of lands in Scotland (and the building of the Rosslyn church later?) by the Saint-Clairs took place in the 14th...I had better look better into it since I did that reading sometime ago....

...I am wrong and I apologize for that,you are right that the Norman Saint-Clairs acquired lands in Scotland very early,I could not find the exact year of the acquisition...not that it is pertinent to the present story....continue though because it is interesting!

Thank you! I'll have an OOC post about ecology up in the next hour. The Bretel Saint Clair mentioned is historical, he's in the Domesday Book.
 

Brightflame

Banned
The Crusaders, while certainly more evil than almost any regime throughout history, have one little area in which they greatly surpass OTL. Their treatment of the environment is almost loving (even if they do class Africans, the more tribal Asian peoples and Indigenous Australians as fauna).

The Crusaders take the Biblical covenant of dominion over all living things extremely seriously; from the late 18th century onwards, an alternate form of environmentalism became part of the dominant political thought in Jerusalem.

The Crusaders were heavily involved in desert greening from their very earliest days, doing their best to make the land bloom. The Middle East in TL is extremely different from OTL. From the Mediterranean to the Persian Gulf, there are only a few remnants of deserts. Vast artificial wetlands have been created over hundreds of years, inhabited only by Marsh Arabs and a plethora of animals and birds. Asiastic, African and Australian animals, usually carefully selected, know dwell in Western Asia, with lions, tigers and elephants the most significant introductions. There are hippos on the Nile, Tigris, Euphrates and Indus. Hunting is forbidden to all but the upper crust of the Crusaders, native rulers, and carefully selected tribal groups.

The major ecological disasters of OTL have been largely averted in the territories of the Crusaders and their allies, including the Aral Sea disaster, the draining of the Mesopotamian marshes, and the desertification of Sub Saharan Africa. A series of butterflies involving a seagoing Mongol empire prevented New Zealand from being settled from by the Maori, which means that the moa and Haasts eagle (eagerly sought in falconry) survive in the wild. The Tasmanian Tiger survives. The earlier discovery of oil helped to keep whale populations much larger than OTL, but they are becoming an increasingly appreciated source of food in Europe and the Americas. Any whaler found in Crusader territorial waters (almost all the Indian Ocean, much of the South Pacific, part of the South Atlantic) are shot.

The one attempt to significantly artificially change the landscape was in Australia, where an attempt was made in the fifties to make the centre of the continent into a breadbowl (credit to this thread for the idea: https://www.alternatehistory.com/discussion/showthread.php?t=294086). Nuclear power (in its first major use) was utilised to desalinate sea water, which was then used to wet the soil. This failed completely, creating the largest dust bowl in history. The soil was very significantly damaged, the cost was ruinous, and now the great system of irrigation in Australia is used to water native grasses used for cattle grazing.

While all the Crusader care for the environment was excellent (at least compared to what else they did), the horrifying aspect of it is their treatment of Native peoples. Pacific Islanders, Indigenous Australians, Papuans, Pygmies, Negritos, Bushmen, Andaman Islanders and other “cultural curiosities” are kept in a state of stasis, for tourism and to prove Crusader claims of White superiority.

The environmental situation in the rest of the world is pretty awful. Starved for resources out of the control of the Crusaders, vast amounts of wilderness have been destroyed, particularly in the warlord torn Russia and China and the still largely lawless area west of the Mississippi. The oil fields of Texas (which in TL were discovered after the Arabian fields and seen as a godsend by the non-Crusaders) have caused numerous wars, particularly between Avalon (a former colony of the Celtic Union), Andalusia and New Galicia (a former colony of Galicia). The New Galician’s burnt any wells they lost control of, poured oil into the sea, and engaged in terrorist attacks on offshore oil rigs in the Gulf of Mexico.

A series of nuclear meltdowns in the Slavic Union (a alt-Communist state that was made up of most of European Russia) which affected millions of people completely discredited nuclear power. There is no Pacific Garbage Patch, but chemical disasters mar most of Europe. Global warming is more pronounced, thanks to a small scale nuclear exchange, increased space programs and a lack of industrial pollution laws in most countries. The Crusaders and a few Eastern European nations are the only forces acting against climate change, as there are no significant international organisations. The irony of the Christian fundamentalists as the main defenders against global warming does not escape me.

So, in short, Europe, North and East Asia, and the Americas are crapsack in regards to the environment (and a lot of other things), Africa, Oceania and Southern Asia are environmental paradises (with millions of people seen as animals), and the whole world is falling to pieces.

If there is anything here that makes no sense whatsoever, I am very open to advice. Ecology is not my strongpoint.
 

Brightflame

Banned
Alternative Religions Amongest the Crusaders

For all their self-righteous Christianity, the Kingdom of Jerusalem is crawling with occultists. From the 19th century until the Second Restoration, certain occultist movements threatened to overtake the power of the Church itself. Only a revived Inquisition quelled the prospect of civil war. Even their continuing efforts are confounded by significant amounts of mysticism within the Church of the Holy Covenant.

There are dozens of cults, sects and secret societies in the Kingdom. Perhaps the most prominent (and certainly the best known) is the Order of the Peacock Angel, which is believed to have originated in the late 17th century with mystics who studied with the Yazidis. They combine Gallician Satanism and Yazidi beliefs, worshipping the Peacock Angel, Melek Taus, who has many traits typical of Lucifer. The object of their devotions is a great blue egg shaped stone, which they believe will hatch into the eartly incarnation of the Peacock Angel. They engage in wild orgies and dances beneath ebony idols of Melek Taus, and they have bred black peacocks that they adore as the earthly servants of their master. The Order is particularly common in Hindustan, seen as a major hotbed of unorthodoxy. Members of the Order are believed to wear blue robes in their rituals, and can be identified by a special sign, the laying of the three middle fingers on the right hand over the heart. Many Crusaders have also adopted the Hindu religion, and claim to be Fakirs, descended from the Indo Europeans who settled the twin continents of Europe and Hindustan.

Neo-Paganism has also been embedded in some sections of the ruling classes. Some worship Woden, the Anglo Saxon major god who is seen by them as the ancestors of the House of Wessex and all the peoples of England. Violently racist and English supremacist even by Crusader terms, they were almost completely wiped out in the 1950’s, and now only survive in the most isolated pockets of Syria and the colonies. Another neo-Pagan belief was in the Celtic pantheon, which likely evolved from the reverence that the Crusaders have for nature, their belief in many pre Christian gods as a class of spiritual being between angel and demon, and the pan Celticism that the Kingdom of Jerusalem supported before the Twenty Years War. In particular, they worship the great ancient heroes of Wales and Ireland. Rhiannon and Prydain are extremely venerated, and seen as an analogue to the Madonna and Child. They became Saints in the Church of the Holy Covenant largely thanks to the efforts of the royal mistress of King Arthur XIX, who came from family with deep pagan roots. Most of them fled to Ireland, claiming shared cultural heritage (and taking with them assets worth hundreds of millions of bezants) where they now form one of the largest ethnic communities. The final major pagan belief is neo-Hellenism, which entails the worships of the Olympians as the personifications of certain natural phenomena and philosophical concepts. They are greatly committed to the classical philosophical texts and the great thinkers of the Classical period, to the detriment of unity. Bitter schisms between the Platonists and the Aristotleans have sundered more than one symposium.

Even more hated by the Church than the occultists and the Pagans is the various mystical Christian sects. Some of them are avowedly monarchist and establishment; some in favour of a Republic of Heaven and a completely personal Christianity. The most well-known, though not the largest, schismatic sect is the Children of the Chalice of Christ, who believe that the line of the House of Sinclair is descended from Sarah, the daughter of Jesus Christ and Mary Magdalene. They allege that He had two sons as well, one of whom died childless (Joseph), while the other (Jesus II) founded the House of the Merovingian’s. Eventually the male line of Jesus was destroyed, and the Sinclair’s became the heads of the House of Jesus. They are rumoured to be protected by the Knights Templar and the Priory of Zion, who discovered the Holy Grail and the Treasure of Solomon beneath the Temple.

Another sect is the extremely egalitarian, sexually free Essenes, who sell their property and dwell in communes in the north of Arthuria. If they do not keep themselves hidden from the BOSS, they are either machine gunned or, if the members of prominent families, re-educated. A few Christians in the Kingdom have also adopted an apocalyptic religion, which shares many similarities with Christian sects in the Russia’s and China.
 

Brightflame

Banned
December 13th, 1324
The Red Sea

Anna had loved the sea since she was a little girl. Her father had been and old man when she was born, eight children and three wives already in the grave. He preferred to tend his garden in Galilee quietly. He loved the land. Not so Anna. She still remembered the first time she had seen the sea. She was only six, escorted by a force of knights up the coast road to Antioch. The first time she had swept the salt air into her lungs, the first time she had seen the sweeping crystal ocean, the first time she had put her feet into the foaming sea, these were her fondest memories. She visited the ocean every moon thereafter, swimming with her maidens. Father had humoured her, building her a palace of silver and pink marble outside of Acre. Even after her marriage she had dwelt there with only her ladies and the most loyal and zealous of the Templars.

When her father had died, she had made the creation of one of the strongest navies in the Mediterranean her first priority. She had three hundred galleys in Cyprus and Acre, and another sixty here in the Red Sea. Her flagship, the Boadicea, had been taken apart, transported across the Sinai, and rebuilt in Eilat. They had spent three hours sailing down the Red Sea, a cool autumn wind doing the rowers work for them. Anna was going to do what no man had ever done. She was going to burn Mecca to the ground. For two years she had built a fleet in the Red Sea, almost bankrupting the Kingdom to pay for the new navy. But it had been worth it, oh yes. She had already skirmished with the Sicilians and the Byzantines at sea, and won decisively. And the little Emir who held the Mohammedan holy cities had no ships at all, only an unorganised force of desert cavalry. Her scouts had told her that Muslims from all over the world had flocked to Mecca once the Pope had called a Crusade there at her behest. No matter. She had twenty thousand men with her, on the galleys and the massive, unwieldy transports. A further fifteen thousand cavalry marched south along the coast road, under her husband’s command.

They were the finest men in her Kingdom, men of the Holy Orders, hardened from years protecting the pilgrim roads and launching punitive raids against the Greeks, Tartars and Arabs. She had a guard of Circassians, the finest riders in the world, who looked distinctly queasy at sea and hot in their long robes. And there was her personal bodyguard, four score Sudanese, wearing silken loincloths and carrying long spear and shields of shining bronze. Anna had commissioned a hauberk of silvered mail and a blade of Damascus steel, which lay inside her cabin. For the nonce she was dressed in a simple robe of purple silk, adorned only with a few pearls, laying beneath a great golden canopy. Ladies and slave boys fanned her with ostrich feathers, and she had her wine mixed with ice to keep cool.

Above her fleet, thousands of flags and banners streamed. There was the Papal Banner, presented in solemn ceremony to her husband when he visited Rome, the flags of the Holy Orders, white, black, and red crosses in their hundreds, her personal arms, the triple crescent and the Jerusalem cross, quartered with the white hawk of her husband, and, given pride of place, the great Royal Standard, the Jerusalem Cross sewn with golden thread onto the purest white silk.

They leisurely sailed down the Red Sea, stopping to loot the coastal towns and villages and to resupply the column led by her husband. Her army said Mass every day, the priests liberally showering them with holy water, and prayers were lifted up to God, praying for a swift victory. By the time they reached Jeddah, her army’s purses were already fat with gold. Jeddah had been home to some of the richest men in Islam, who now marched as slaves north to Jerusalem.

Just over a few mountains and ridges was Mecca, the source of the cancer that had spread across half the world. It was dawn, and Anna could almost hear the drone of the Mohemmedans. She was dressed in battle array, a sword at her side, mounted on a white charger. Her husband Augustine was beside her, wearing some of the thickest plate she had ever seen. To her right was the Royal Banner, to her left, the Papal, and marching to the fore was the True Cross, born by twelve bishops. They would march for two days, then make camp within sight of the Kaaba. She felt uneasy, but put her feeling purely to nerves. Her scouts had surveyed the land just a week before, and found nothing overly important. There was simply a small force at the city itself. A few hours of battle, a round of looting, and the Black Stone would be carted away.

But slowly her scouts started to disappear, picked off one by one. Wells were poisoned, stragglers were picked off by bandits, and the heat caused some men to go insane, though she had chosen January to attack because the temperature would be milder. Irreplaceable horses were lost, fodder was non-existent, and the flocks that she had brought with her were being consumed quickly, many stolen. Her army was tired, hungry and hot by the time they reached the site her scouts had selected as camps, one day behind schedule. She trotted to the head of her army, giving encouragement to her men. But as she rode to the highest point of their camp, and glanced over the ridge, she saw a site out of the Book of Revelation. A mass of darkness shrouded the earth, thousands of fires burned, and ominous clouds cast black shadows over her foes. This army was far, far larger than the paltry force of tribesmen who had dwelled here a few weeks ago. She gave a silent prayer for victory. She would need it.
 

Brightflame

Banned
January 16th, 1325
Jerusalem Tent of State, Outside Mecca
Queen Anna’s Council of War had been amassed for hours, poring over the maps made by her scouts and debating strategy. The more cautious members of her council advocated either pulling back or sending for a more substantial force of infantry. Her own husband had begged her to withdraw, and spend the rest of the winter plundering the Yemen. But she would not back down. Her beloved Elizabeth had marched on Mecca, but been forced to pull back after a difficult childbirth. She would not make the mistakes of her ancestress; she would raise the cross over the Kaaba if it was the last thing she did. If she had to die in the attempt, she would receive that Stone.

Her Templars agreed with her. They were rearing for a fight. Already they had raided the Saracen camp, taking heads and prisoners. The Grandmaster, Lord Lorenzo d’Este, could well desert if she decided to fall back. She would have to fight, thirty five thousand men against the multitudes of Islam. Besides, it was becoming arduous transporting water from her fleet, and the surrounding wells were all poisoned.

Mecca lay between two mountains. To her camps south lay a wide, sandy valley. It was there that she would meet her foes in battle. She would divide her army into three parts, her own knights on the left, commanded by her husband, the Holy Orders and unreliable foreign knights on the right, commanded by d’Este, and a solid bulk of infantry in the centre, which she would command herself. Her tent was set up on the ridge behind her troops, surrounded by a palisade rand protected by the Order of the Holy Sepulchre and her own bodyguards. Dozens of priests, her ladies, and the True Cross were within the palisade with her. Her troops glinted like the sea in the hot sun, shining like stars. They began to grow impatient, dismounting and eating.

It was nearly midday before the Saracens began to appear. Anna was in shock. She had never seen so many men. There were hardly any cavalry, which surprised her. The scouts had assured her that thousands of horses and camels were within Mecca. They milled like insects, covering the other side of the valley, until they suddenly ceased. They fell prostrate as their muezzein gave his chant, tens of thousands of voices crying out as one. As it ended, one of her knights gave that most sacred of Crusaders war cry’s. “God wills it!” The entire right flank of her force charged, their pennons flying high above them. She could have strangled the bastards. She had agreed with d’Este that they would wait for the Saracens to fire a few volleys before they charges, which both flanks would do as one. She sent a rider to her husband, commanding him to stay where he was. Her longbowmen had not even had the opportunity to soften the enemy before some idiotic knight decided to win this battle for her.

Anna bit her lip as her knights galloped towards the enemy, who were trying to fire as many arrows as possible before the armoured fist reached them. A few horses went down, but for the most part the knights shrugged them off. Time seemed to slow as the armies met, before the deafening sound of screams and steel reached her. The knights were truly an ocean, sweeping their enemies before them. The Saracen right suddenly collapsed, running into the swords and spears of their comrades. As her knights swept onwards, they left lines of bodies, some clad shining white and black, but most in the dull robes of the Arabs. She let a smile play on her lips as she ordered the flag signalling a general advance raised. Her husband quickly galloped into the fray, and the infantry marched steadily onwards.

This battle was going extremely easily. The Saracens began to retreat into the pass to the south, and her men followed them, thousands of knights riding down their foes. They filled the pass, before the advance suddenly ceased. Suddenly her armies began to quaver, and she could see her men try to pull back. A cry went up from the Arabs, and out of dozens of hidden crevices horseman charged. Black arrows filled the air, bringing down men in clumps. Her eyes went wild, as she sent a messenger to command her men to halt. The infantry, confused, ceased their march, but her horsemen were never reached. A wall of fire sprung up, separating them from the rest of the army. The flames engulfed her men, driving them further and further into the pass. Smoke blocked her vision, and she couldn’t see any of her cavalry. But she could hear the screams. The screams seared themselves into her soul.

The flames began to consume themselves, taking over an hour to die. A few stragglers began to make their way back to the army, covered in burns and wounds. They all told the same story, of victory within sight, then a raging holocaust of fire. Anna felt numb. Thousands of knights had been killed, wounded or captured. Her husband was gone.

As night fell, stories began to circulate amongst her men, that Satan himself had joined the Muslims. A few men started to trickle away, and those caught were hanged before their brothers in arms. But it was no use. None but Anna had hope of victory. She had a restless sleep, full of tears.

She was woken by her ladies at the crack of dawn. They were coming.
 
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