AHC: Most successful-plausible crusades

Without any ASB, have the crusades be as successful as they can be.

You must:
  • Have at least the Levant, including the cities of Acre, Jerusalem, Tyre, Tripoli and Antioch remain permanently in Christian hands
  • Have Constantinople remain permanently Christian throughout history
  • No Islamic invasion of Europe post-reconquista (so no Islamic invasion of the Balkans)

Bonus point for every one of the following you manage to achieve:
  • A united Kingdom of Georgia survives throughout history
  • The Byzantine Empire survives
  • Egypt is conquered by crusaders
  • Damascus is conquered
  • Central Anatolia is taken back by the Byzantines
  • Crusaders take Mosul
  • Teutonic State survives to the present day
  • Christian Turkish states exist north of the Caucasus and in Eastern Anatolia

Good luck :)
 
What if the Catholic and Orthodox churches were able to overcome their differences? That is no schism. The Crusaders would not attack Constantinople. Maybe, by a marital alliance you could even get an alliance between Constantinople and Venice? I guess this would help.
 
not sure how long it could stay around, but the Kingdom of Jerusalem would certainly live longer if they didn't suffer from prehaps the most scheming nobility surrounding the later weak kings.

More healthy kings, and more control over what the nobles do should go quite a way
 
What about encouraging more European (that is Christian) settlers to emigrate to Palestine?

Treating the local Christians better would probably also help. As far as I understand they were treated as heretics as they belonged to a different branch of Christianity.
 
I'd think a succesful captre of Damascus, and a subsequent succesful conquest of Egypt, are a minimum necessity.

With this done, Anatolia is the only real base for a muslim reconquest (Aleppo is pretty isolated and might fall after Damascus does). This means the crusaders and Byzantines are much more likely to align if things go badly for either (since it'll strengthen their shared enemy). It's also likely to butterfly the fourth crusade with all the associated damage to christian unity and the Byzantines.

Now, your stretch goals are still tricky. The byzantines might still collapse into a different state, but IMO less likely to be a Turkish muslim state. Mosul is still a long way away. The crusaders still have no strong interest in a bigger Byzantines.


The how of my two prerequisites I leave to others, for now :)
 
Have Saint Louis successfully take Egypt. That will certainly do the trick and get all the territories you want and more. A few years later Baghdad will probably fall to the Mongols.

End of the Muslim world, probably.
 
When's the PoD? Let's say after Manzikert.

Okay, this is doable. Let's say a PoD in the second crusade, where Conrad is able to defeat the Turks in Central Anatolia and Manuel moves in afterward to take over that territory.

Then, the second crusade as a whole is more successful, retaking Edessa and capturing Damascus and then Aleppo. The Zengid are broken, and Saladin never rises to power.

Several Crusader States form, which are eventually attacked by states in Mesopotamia. The fall of Damascus triggers the Third Crusade, which retakes Damascus and ravages several muslim areas before making peace. By now, the Kingdom of Jerusalem is full of Franks and other Latins, who have intermarried with the locals creating a trusted Jerusalemite identity.

Meanwhile, because of the help of Conrad the Byzzies have Ankara and Konya, securing their control over the central Anatolian Plateau. They expand into Eastern Anatolia and the only crusader state they take is Antioch, which the Crusaders accept. They try to exert soft power over the crusaders, but Jerusalem can do the same thing.

Now, it's near the end of the 12th century and all the crusaders have to do is wait for the Mongols. These guys will wreck what's left of the muslim world, and you can decide what happens next.
 
What if the Catholic and Orthodox churches were able to overcome their differences? That is no schism. The Crusaders would not attack Constantinople. Maybe, by a marital alliance you could even get an alliance between Constantinople and Venice? I guess this would help.

Hard to do with a PoD in the Crusades. The Schism is already too late to end.

Even so, it's easy to not have a disaster like the 4th crusade happen, or have it be tried but fail. The Orthodox and Catholics were already willing to work together, but as soon as the muslim threat is defeated, they will turn on each other.
 
Hard to do with a PoD in the Crusades. The Schism is already too late to end.

Even so, it's easy to not have a disaster like the 4th crusade happen, or have it be tried but fail. The Orthodox and Catholics were already willing to work together, but as soon as the muslim threat is defeated, they will turn on each other.

I wouldn't say it's too late. 1054 is just a convenient year used by historians for a tidy and neat picture. The concept of outright schism would probably be foreign to crusade participants.
 
I wouldn't say it's too late. 1054 is just a convenient year used by historians for a tidy and neat picture. The concept of outright schism would probably be foreign to crusade participants.

I agree that 1054 is a fairly arbitrary date, but the two churches had been growing apart for centuries and I don't think it's possible to reverse this trend. Catholicism and Orthodoxy are too seperated geographically and culturally to stay the same without a gigantic effort on the part of both the Byzantines and the Pope, which isn't going to happen.
 
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