Interesting developments. Is there any chance of getting a map? Also, it would be quite interesting to see the demographic structure of the population
And All Nations Shall Gather To It - Volume I: The Abode of Peace
- Thread starter Ricard (i.e. Rdffigueira)
- Start date
The maps I have are usually from OTL, so they don't represent adequately the TL with the current divergences (also, I suck at maps). The demographic structure is complicated, because we even in regards to OTL have little information. Anyway, I ask you to bear with me, in time you'll see the we'll get to details about demographics, its just that at this moment, I think there is not really much we can work on.
If anyone here can give some help with maps or flags, please PM me. I'd appreciate very much.
23. The Summon of the [Sunni] Caliph (1105/1109)
Another not so big, but nonetheless relevant chapter. Hope you enjoy. Also, I've noticed some persons are starting reading the TL from the beginning; so, for the new readers, if you are keeping up, do give your opinion, suggestions, criticism, and questions. I appreciate the feedback.
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If the Crusaders somehow feared that Duqaq’s death might cause his successor to resume the systematic offensives against their instable and weakened agglomeration of forts and fiefs, they were mistaken. Duqaq’s son, Tutush II, made no moves against the Christians, even if he had solemnly sworn in face of his vassals to that he would retake al-Quds [Jerusalem] from the wicked hands of these western devils. Amusing as the scene might have been to his courtiers, a starry-eyed child describing in detail the vicious torments to which the “Franji” would be submitted, he would have no opportunity of doing it. His regent and tutor Toghtekin, who had been so loyal to Duqaq, despised Tutush II as a weakling, believing him to be too influenced by the palatine eunuchs, and, urged by his own relatives and by his colleagues among the Turcoman captains, executed a coup, establishing himself Emir of Damascus. Out of respect for his former liege Duqaq, however, Toghtekin had Tutush II imprisoned instead of outright assassinated.
The usurpation served as a convenient pretext for Tutush’s uncle Radwan to launch his long planned invasion of Damascus, even if with some delay, in 1105. By then, Radwan was the most powerful lord of Syria, ruling over Aleppo, Homs and Tripoli, as well as an ally of the Great Seljuks against the Artuqids of Mardin. Radwan actually had no intention of restoring his young nephew to power, but the casus belli was as good as any to get such a wonderful prize as Damascus, and so, waiting for a less tepid season, he marched into southern Syria with an army.
Toghtekin, aware about Aleppo's preparations for war, did not wait for Radwan to make the first moves, and instead mustered his veterans and travelled north to the border region. The soldiers from Aleppo and Homs, assisted by Kurdish auxiliaries, were certainly surprised to find the Damascenes waiting for them in a fortified camp near the village of Shamsin.
The Damascenes were overwhelmed by the numerically superior Radwanite host, and were expelled from Shamsin, but remained cohesive. Toghtekin changed his strategic and followed a scorched earth policy, making the trek of the army of Aleppo along the Orontes Valley much more arduous. Turkish horsemen and Bedouin raiders in Toghtekin's employ attacked them in day and night to make them sue for peace. In spite of the casualties, the Radwanites pressed forward, and reached Damascus itself after repelling some hit-and-run attacks by his foe. By the time they reached the “Jewel of Syria”, however, both parties agreed to discuss terms of truce. Toghtekin’s decision to keep Duqaq’s son alive likely saved his own, because Tutush II was a worthy bargaining chip. Now, having realized that he alone had no chance against Radwan, and after some negotiations, Toghtekin decided to accept Aleppan suzerainty, retaining a title as Iqtadi of Jableh [Ǧabla] – a place closer to Aleppo and Homs, so that Radwan could keep an eye on him – while Tutush II was established as Qadi of Damascus, now a vassal of his uncle. Thus, Radwan finally fulfilled his life-long purpose of becoming the sole Sultan of Syria, like his father Tutush I had done, with the ambitious Toghtekin “contained” for the time being.
Radwan’s successes caused uproar in Islamic Asia, either with metaphorical applauses, such as those of the enthusiastic Sunni Caliph, al-Mustazhir, who acclaimed him as the champion of the Jihad against the infidels, or by concrete fears, such as those of Ghiyath ad-Din Muhammad I Tapar, Sultan of Great Seljuk, the powerful overlord of Iraq and Azerbaijan, who had hitherto been allied with Radwan against the savage Artuqids of Mardin, but now became wary of Aleppo's expansionism. This fallout of their diplomatic relations explains why the Great Seljuks took no part in the subsequent wars of the Turco-Syrian polities against the Crusaders.
At behest (or insistence) of the Sunni Caliph, Radwan travelled with his court to Baghdad in early 1109 A.D., where he met with Najm ad-Din Ilghazi ibn Artuq, Bey of Diyarbakir [Amida], and patriarch of the Artuqid kin; with Sökmen el-Kutbî, a former slave of the Great Seljuks who had risen to become the ruler of his own beylik, centered in the Armenian city of Khlat [Ahlat] - whose dynasty would later be known as the Islamic princes of Armenia, the Shah-Armens [Ahlatşahlar]; with ambassadors from Cairo, representing the Shi'ite Caliph Manṣūr al-Āmir bi'Aḥkāmi’l-Lāh; and with the Seljuk Sultan himself, Muhammad I, son of Malik-Shah.
In this meeting - which apparently had been undertaken after Caliph al-Mustazhir received the embassy from the Fatimids, proposing an alliance of the Muslim faithful against the infidels in Jerusalem -, likened to Christian contemporaries to the Council of Clermont (1096), the Sunni Caliph implored and admonished to the Islamic princes, followers of the true words of the Prophet, peace be upon him, to cease their fratricide wars and join forces into a coalition to slay al-Franj.
Duqaq of Damascus had been one of the most enthusiastic adepts of this jihadist ideology, proclaiming himself a lifetime “mujāhid”, as well as the most faithful of the Caliph’s servants (somewhat ironic, considering that his grandfather Alp Arslan had effectively submitted the Caliphate of Baghdad into a de facto vassalage), but never actually threatened the existence of the Crusader state in the Levant. Now, the divine task was up to the grand conqueror of Syria and to the powerful beys of Armenia to destroy the Crusaders, according to Al-Mustazhir.
Depiction of the Turco-Syrian emirs meeting with Caliph al-Mustazhir, holding a black sword to represent the Abbasid dynasty. Left to right: Sökmen of Khlat (represented as red-head because accordingly to old legends, he originated as an Armenian slave, and thus seen as a non-Arab by his peers), Radwan of Aleppo and Ilghazi of Diyarbakir
The Caliph's summon in 1109 A.D. holds historical significance for two reasons: (1) it jumpstarted the first concerted reaction to the Crusades since the foundation of the Latin realm of Jerusalem, ten years previously, including an alliance between the Sunnis and the Shi'ites, something that had never happened since the foundation of the Fatimid Caliphate in Egypt; (2) it created a greater diplomatic approximation between the Abbasid Caliphated and the parvenu Turkic polities; after all, the Turks, in spite of their sincere devotion to Islam, were still seen as a type of foreign barbarians, bringing destruction and bloodshed to the established Arabic and Persian dynasties.
It has been argued by modern historiography that the Abbasid Caliph was less interested in recovering Jerusalem itself than he was in overthrowing the Seljuk dominion over Iraq and Persia. The expulsion of the Franks was but a very convenient excuse for him to employ whatever residues of spiritual authority that his dynasty still had in the Asian geopolitics to form a coalition that would counterbalance the power of the Great Seljuks. This thesis indeed explains why the Caliph seemed too willing to cooperate with the Turkic invaders of Armenia and Syria, and with his religious rivals, the Shi'ite Egyptians, against the Franks, who were an insignificant threat to his own presence in Iraq. Also, if we give it credibility, we can go as far as to believe that the Abbasid monarch in fact intended, after retaking Jerusalem, to mediate a partition of Palestine between the Fatimids and the Radwanites (something that would have appalled his predecessors, as it meant recognizing some legitimacy to the cursed Shi'ites), and then muster this very coalition against the Seljuk dynasty in Isfahan.
This theory, in fact, was originally forwarded by partisans of Muhammad I himself, who in more than a single occasion, expressed his fears about an Islamic alliance headed by the Caliph of Baghdad. For this reason, indeed, he worked all kinds of escuses to avoid giving any material assistance to the Jihad against the Franks, all while preserving the façade of subservience to the Caliph, proclaiming that his armies were invested in the wars against his hateful brother, Ahmad Sanjar, Sultan of Khorasan [Ḫurāsān] and Transoxiana [Farārūd], claiming that this one intended to destroy Baghdad.
This circumstance, usually called the "desertion of the Sultan", might have allowed the survival of the Crusader state, because an alliance between the whole of the Turkic monarchies with the Egyptians would do short work of the precarious kingdom established in Palestine.
In any case, the fact was that, during a brief period of Crusader history, some of the Islamic potentates of the Near East finally left aside their mutual antagonism to pursuit a nobler goal: that of destroying the Latin realm of Jerusalem.
The pact between the Sultan of Syria, the Emir of Diyarbakir and the Bey of Khlat seemed earnest at the time, and they moved quickly, mustering levies and convening their muqtis, fāris, sheikhs and ghilman to assemble in Ar-Raqqah upon the Euphrates. Their first venture consisted in a joint-strike against Edessa, and together they vanquished the army of Count Baldwin of Boulogne in 1108, forcing him to surrender Turbessel, while Edessa itself remained untouched.
Then, in July 1109, the Turkish, Syrian and Kurdish mujāhidīn finally marched to Lebanon, having received the communication they had been waiting since the previous year: the Fatimids were already on their way to besiege Jerusalem.
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Notes and comments: IOTL, Toghtekin deposed Tutush II (who was still a minor) not long after Duqaq's death, but, then placed Duqaq's elder son Baktash in the throne. Soon, however, he had Baktash exiled as well, and became the sole ruler of Damascus. ITTL, for the sake of convenience, I had him claim the throne for himself immediately, but Baktash is still alive and will appear in future updates.
It is important to note that, IOTL, the Islamic reaction to the First Crusade took decades. Only in 1144, almost 50 years after the conquest of Jerusalem, did an Islamic ruler - Zengi of Mosul - marched against the Crusaders, and destroyed the County of Edessa, much like TTL, sparking the Second Crusade. ITTL, I intended for the Muslims to operate a smaller scale, but nonetheless threatening, response against Jerusalem. It seemed to be a natural consequence of the divergences we have seen so far: due to a stroke of luck, Syria is almost united by a single ruler, Radwan of Aleppo (in spite of his self-designation as Sultan, he is still regarded as Emir, with the "sole" Sultan being the Seljuk king), and I have a hard time believing that he would tolerate the existence of the Crusaders for so long. The inclusion of the Artuqids and of the Shah-Armens was to give more diversity, IOTL the first ones were constant enemies of the Principality of Antioch, which is inexistent ITTL, so they won't risk becoming hostile to the Byzantine Empire right after the downfall of the Rûm Seljuks and of the Danishmends. The Crusaders, in these circumstances, seem a better fish to catch.
The participation of the Caliph is unlike anything that happened IOTL, where they seemed to lack not only the influence but also the will to intervene in the Levant. There are historical mentions about the Sunni Caliph summoning the whole of Islam to destroy the Crusaders - even if the modern perception of "jihad" has yet to be born, the term was already used in the sense of "holy war against the infidels" IOTL since that period, so I found convenient to use it (pardon if it seems like a bit of anachronism) - but he never went as far as healing the disputes between the Turkish polities (which hardly cared about the Abbasids anyway). Again, the events of the Alt-TL can be explained by Radwan's expansion and growth of power, which would turn him into a formidable opponent of the Great Seljuks that ruled Baghdad, which in turn means that the Caliph of Baghdad would be interested in finding a "champion" of his cause against the Seljuks, while Radwan would be interested in the veneer of legitimacy brought by the sponsorship of the Caliphate, allowing his branch of the Seljuk dynasty to gain proeminence in the Near East.
You see, Middle-Eastern politics were VERY complicated historically ever since the Middle Ages... and in any divergent TL, it could not be different. I hope this long explanation has been enough to make clear the point to which we have come, and also what will come next.
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If the Crusaders somehow feared that Duqaq’s death might cause his successor to resume the systematic offensives against their instable and weakened agglomeration of forts and fiefs, they were mistaken. Duqaq’s son, Tutush II, made no moves against the Christians, even if he had solemnly sworn in face of his vassals to that he would retake al-Quds [Jerusalem] from the wicked hands of these western devils. Amusing as the scene might have been to his courtiers, a starry-eyed child describing in detail the vicious torments to which the “Franji” would be submitted, he would have no opportunity of doing it. His regent and tutor Toghtekin, who had been so loyal to Duqaq, despised Tutush II as a weakling, believing him to be too influenced by the palatine eunuchs, and, urged by his own relatives and by his colleagues among the Turcoman captains, executed a coup, establishing himself Emir of Damascus. Out of respect for his former liege Duqaq, however, Toghtekin had Tutush II imprisoned instead of outright assassinated.
The usurpation served as a convenient pretext for Tutush’s uncle Radwan to launch his long planned invasion of Damascus, even if with some delay, in 1105. By then, Radwan was the most powerful lord of Syria, ruling over Aleppo, Homs and Tripoli, as well as an ally of the Great Seljuks against the Artuqids of Mardin. Radwan actually had no intention of restoring his young nephew to power, but the casus belli was as good as any to get such a wonderful prize as Damascus, and so, waiting for a less tepid season, he marched into southern Syria with an army.
Toghtekin, aware about Aleppo's preparations for war, did not wait for Radwan to make the first moves, and instead mustered his veterans and travelled north to the border region. The soldiers from Aleppo and Homs, assisted by Kurdish auxiliaries, were certainly surprised to find the Damascenes waiting for them in a fortified camp near the village of Shamsin.
The Damascenes were overwhelmed by the numerically superior Radwanite host, and were expelled from Shamsin, but remained cohesive. Toghtekin changed his strategic and followed a scorched earth policy, making the trek of the army of Aleppo along the Orontes Valley much more arduous. Turkish horsemen and Bedouin raiders in Toghtekin's employ attacked them in day and night to make them sue for peace. In spite of the casualties, the Radwanites pressed forward, and reached Damascus itself after repelling some hit-and-run attacks by his foe. By the time they reached the “Jewel of Syria”, however, both parties agreed to discuss terms of truce. Toghtekin’s decision to keep Duqaq’s son alive likely saved his own, because Tutush II was a worthy bargaining chip. Now, having realized that he alone had no chance against Radwan, and after some negotiations, Toghtekin decided to accept Aleppan suzerainty, retaining a title as Iqtadi of Jableh [Ǧabla] – a place closer to Aleppo and Homs, so that Radwan could keep an eye on him – while Tutush II was established as Qadi of Damascus, now a vassal of his uncle. Thus, Radwan finally fulfilled his life-long purpose of becoming the sole Sultan of Syria, like his father Tutush I had done, with the ambitious Toghtekin “contained” for the time being.
Radwan’s successes caused uproar in Islamic Asia, either with metaphorical applauses, such as those of the enthusiastic Sunni Caliph, al-Mustazhir, who acclaimed him as the champion of the Jihad against the infidels, or by concrete fears, such as those of Ghiyath ad-Din Muhammad I Tapar, Sultan of Great Seljuk, the powerful overlord of Iraq and Azerbaijan, who had hitherto been allied with Radwan against the savage Artuqids of Mardin, but now became wary of Aleppo's expansionism. This fallout of their diplomatic relations explains why the Great Seljuks took no part in the subsequent wars of the Turco-Syrian polities against the Crusaders.
*****
At behest (or insistence) of the Sunni Caliph, Radwan travelled with his court to Baghdad in early 1109 A.D., where he met with Najm ad-Din Ilghazi ibn Artuq, Bey of Diyarbakir [Amida], and patriarch of the Artuqid kin; with Sökmen el-Kutbî, a former slave of the Great Seljuks who had risen to become the ruler of his own beylik, centered in the Armenian city of Khlat [Ahlat] - whose dynasty would later be known as the Islamic princes of Armenia, the Shah-Armens [Ahlatşahlar]; with ambassadors from Cairo, representing the Shi'ite Caliph Manṣūr al-Āmir bi'Aḥkāmi’l-Lāh; and with the Seljuk Sultan himself, Muhammad I, son of Malik-Shah.
In this meeting - which apparently had been undertaken after Caliph al-Mustazhir received the embassy from the Fatimids, proposing an alliance of the Muslim faithful against the infidels in Jerusalem -, likened to Christian contemporaries to the Council of Clermont (1096), the Sunni Caliph implored and admonished to the Islamic princes, followers of the true words of the Prophet, peace be upon him, to cease their fratricide wars and join forces into a coalition to slay al-Franj.
Duqaq of Damascus had been one of the most enthusiastic adepts of this jihadist ideology, proclaiming himself a lifetime “mujāhid”, as well as the most faithful of the Caliph’s servants (somewhat ironic, considering that his grandfather Alp Arslan had effectively submitted the Caliphate of Baghdad into a de facto vassalage), but never actually threatened the existence of the Crusader state in the Levant. Now, the divine task was up to the grand conqueror of Syria and to the powerful beys of Armenia to destroy the Crusaders, according to Al-Mustazhir.
Depiction of the Turco-Syrian emirs meeting with Caliph al-Mustazhir, holding a black sword to represent the Abbasid dynasty. Left to right: Sökmen of Khlat (represented as red-head because accordingly to old legends, he originated as an Armenian slave, and thus seen as a non-Arab by his peers), Radwan of Aleppo and Ilghazi of Diyarbakir
The Caliph's summon in 1109 A.D. holds historical significance for two reasons: (1) it jumpstarted the first concerted reaction to the Crusades since the foundation of the Latin realm of Jerusalem, ten years previously, including an alliance between the Sunnis and the Shi'ites, something that had never happened since the foundation of the Fatimid Caliphate in Egypt; (2) it created a greater diplomatic approximation between the Abbasid Caliphated and the parvenu Turkic polities; after all, the Turks, in spite of their sincere devotion to Islam, were still seen as a type of foreign barbarians, bringing destruction and bloodshed to the established Arabic and Persian dynasties.
It has been argued by modern historiography that the Abbasid Caliph was less interested in recovering Jerusalem itself than he was in overthrowing the Seljuk dominion over Iraq and Persia. The expulsion of the Franks was but a very convenient excuse for him to employ whatever residues of spiritual authority that his dynasty still had in the Asian geopolitics to form a coalition that would counterbalance the power of the Great Seljuks. This thesis indeed explains why the Caliph seemed too willing to cooperate with the Turkic invaders of Armenia and Syria, and with his religious rivals, the Shi'ite Egyptians, against the Franks, who were an insignificant threat to his own presence in Iraq. Also, if we give it credibility, we can go as far as to believe that the Abbasid monarch in fact intended, after retaking Jerusalem, to mediate a partition of Palestine between the Fatimids and the Radwanites (something that would have appalled his predecessors, as it meant recognizing some legitimacy to the cursed Shi'ites), and then muster this very coalition against the Seljuk dynasty in Isfahan.
This theory, in fact, was originally forwarded by partisans of Muhammad I himself, who in more than a single occasion, expressed his fears about an Islamic alliance headed by the Caliph of Baghdad. For this reason, indeed, he worked all kinds of escuses to avoid giving any material assistance to the Jihad against the Franks, all while preserving the façade of subservience to the Caliph, proclaiming that his armies were invested in the wars against his hateful brother, Ahmad Sanjar, Sultan of Khorasan [Ḫurāsān] and Transoxiana [Farārūd], claiming that this one intended to destroy Baghdad.
This circumstance, usually called the "desertion of the Sultan", might have allowed the survival of the Crusader state, because an alliance between the whole of the Turkic monarchies with the Egyptians would do short work of the precarious kingdom established in Palestine.
In any case, the fact was that, during a brief period of Crusader history, some of the Islamic potentates of the Near East finally left aside their mutual antagonism to pursuit a nobler goal: that of destroying the Latin realm of Jerusalem.
The pact between the Sultan of Syria, the Emir of Diyarbakir and the Bey of Khlat seemed earnest at the time, and they moved quickly, mustering levies and convening their muqtis, fāris, sheikhs and ghilman to assemble in Ar-Raqqah upon the Euphrates. Their first venture consisted in a joint-strike against Edessa, and together they vanquished the army of Count Baldwin of Boulogne in 1108, forcing him to surrender Turbessel, while Edessa itself remained untouched.
Then, in July 1109, the Turkish, Syrian and Kurdish mujāhidīn finally marched to Lebanon, having received the communication they had been waiting since the previous year: the Fatimids were already on their way to besiege Jerusalem.
____________________________________________
Notes and comments: IOTL, Toghtekin deposed Tutush II (who was still a minor) not long after Duqaq's death, but, then placed Duqaq's elder son Baktash in the throne. Soon, however, he had Baktash exiled as well, and became the sole ruler of Damascus. ITTL, for the sake of convenience, I had him claim the throne for himself immediately, but Baktash is still alive and will appear in future updates.
It is important to note that, IOTL, the Islamic reaction to the First Crusade took decades. Only in 1144, almost 50 years after the conquest of Jerusalem, did an Islamic ruler - Zengi of Mosul - marched against the Crusaders, and destroyed the County of Edessa, much like TTL, sparking the Second Crusade. ITTL, I intended for the Muslims to operate a smaller scale, but nonetheless threatening, response against Jerusalem. It seemed to be a natural consequence of the divergences we have seen so far: due to a stroke of luck, Syria is almost united by a single ruler, Radwan of Aleppo (in spite of his self-designation as Sultan, he is still regarded as Emir, with the "sole" Sultan being the Seljuk king), and I have a hard time believing that he would tolerate the existence of the Crusaders for so long. The inclusion of the Artuqids and of the Shah-Armens was to give more diversity, IOTL the first ones were constant enemies of the Principality of Antioch, which is inexistent ITTL, so they won't risk becoming hostile to the Byzantine Empire right after the downfall of the Rûm Seljuks and of the Danishmends. The Crusaders, in these circumstances, seem a better fish to catch.
The participation of the Caliph is unlike anything that happened IOTL, where they seemed to lack not only the influence but also the will to intervene in the Levant. There are historical mentions about the Sunni Caliph summoning the whole of Islam to destroy the Crusaders - even if the modern perception of "jihad" has yet to be born, the term was already used in the sense of "holy war against the infidels" IOTL since that period, so I found convenient to use it (pardon if it seems like a bit of anachronism) - but he never went as far as healing the disputes between the Turkish polities (which hardly cared about the Abbasids anyway). Again, the events of the Alt-TL can be explained by Radwan's expansion and growth of power, which would turn him into a formidable opponent of the Great Seljuks that ruled Baghdad, which in turn means that the Caliph of Baghdad would be interested in finding a "champion" of his cause against the Seljuks, while Radwan would be interested in the veneer of legitimacy brought by the sponsorship of the Caliphate, allowing his branch of the Seljuk dynasty to gain proeminence in the Near East.
You see, Middle-Eastern politics were VERY complicated historically ever since the Middle Ages... and in any divergent TL, it could not be different. I hope this long explanation has been enough to make clear the point to which we have come, and also what will come next.
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I'll not leave you waiting too much, don't worry!
*Electric Jihad Boogaloo, indeed.
Numbers are always based in educated guesses. Radwan, controlling most of Syria, including Damascus, does has a larger manpower base to draw upon, while his Turkish "colleagues" have in reality somewhat of personal warbands and access to some enslaved or enserfed levies form Armenia and Kurdistan. The Caliph is actually the weakest link of the chain, as the Seljuk suzerainty effectivelly ended the Abbasid Caliphate as a military power, and so he won't be able to give so much of a reinforcement to the invaders.
The Fatimids are by far the most formidable member of this alliance, but they have been suffering episodes of political and religious instability, we have to take this in consideration.
Thanks!! The next few installments will be dramatic, indeed.
They reacted so fast only in comparison to OTL, in which they were delayed for 50 years. I can't stress this enough: the Muslim polities of the Near East were calling for "jihad" ever since the massacre of Jerusalem, and only failed to do so because they were concerned with their own civil wars, especially among the Seljuks. Nonetheless, there were few isolated advances against the Crusaders ever since 1099, namely by the Fatimids in the KOJ and the Artuqids in the Principality of Antioch, which demonstrates that they were willing to war when they found it convenient to their own interests.
ITTL, however, the unexpected "unification" of Syria in the hands of Radwan precipitated a much earlier war against the Crusaders. Even so, as I pointed out in the last part of the chapter, this is a rather "localized" affair, even if it has the Caliph's blessing, its basically Aleppo+Damascus, some bunch of Turks and Egypt, while the whole rest of Islam, from Lebanon, Persia, and Arabia, simply ignore all the big stuff.
You know that I strive for plausibility above anything else, but I do believe that simply replicating a parallel of OTL, with a much delayed Muslim invasion of Jerusalem, would be much more implausible considering the circumstances we have addressed so far. For example, after obtaining the control of Syria, from Aleppo and Damascus, effectivelly surrounding the Holy land, I can see no way why Radwan (or any other Muslim emir) would stop there. And in any case the Fatimids would enter in the game, so, in any event, we might plausibly have a joint Syrian/Egyptian invasion during the first 10 or 20 years of the foundation of Crusader Jerusalem. Whatever allies more they had are variables.
Now that I think about it, this does seems a bit similar to the creation of Israel... but let's not delve into this matter.
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Could you elaborate on that? I'm afraid that i don't see the similarities.
Created due to outside influences. Arabs not having that launch a war (with Palestine), lose and so on.
It is possible that any gains that are made, so long as they are limited, might perhaps spur the launch of another crusade, although it has only been a few years since the last one.
He was competent enough to not sink the boat,but his reign was fundamental to sinking the ERE.His reputation as a great ruler was propped up by excessive taxation which he spent on vanity projects,extravagant lifestyle and largess to the Crusader states.His relationship with the Kingdom of Jerusalem was a complete waste of money. He kept on lavishing money on the Jerusalemites and all he got was lip service from them.
Yeah,but at the end of the day the crusader states are gonna need the ERE far more than the ERE needed them.They were a liability on the long term.Unless Egypt's taken,the crusader states can't really afford to antagonize the ERE.For the newly arriving crusaders,this would be a totally different matter of course.With the exception of the rulers of Antioch,the 'native' rulers of the Crusader states generally tried to avoid outright antagonizing the ERE.
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I really think that in order to ensure the survival of the Crusader states TTL Byzantium really can’t do that amazingly well. If they took Damascus and held it, it would only be a matter of time before they marched an army into Palestine. Byzantium needs to do well enough to defeat the Turks but not well enough to pose an existential threat.
That is true as well.The point is that whatever the true feelings of the Frankish lords may be,they cannot really outright antagonize the ERE because they needed the ERE’s cooperation and support on a lot of things.For example,even though the Jerusalemites distrusted the ERE IOTL,they went ahead with the joint invasion of Egypt following such a proposal by Manuel out of courtesy.They purposefully delayed the invasion so that the ERE would run out of supply and leave on their own accord.
At any rate,given the system the Komnenoi set up,I don’t think ERE success will last that long.There’s most likely gonna be another crisis some time in the future given the volatile nature of ERE politics.
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I didn't know these details about Manuel Komnenos. Interesting stuff, I'll have this in mind, because he will surely appear ITTL, even if he never becomes Emperor.
Your assessment about the Crusaders is entirely correct. The Crusaders so far know fully well that their survival depends largely on the goodwill of "Byzantium". ITTL, this will be even more evident, because Constantinople will take a more active role in supporting the military adventures of the Crusaders.
Don't worry, they won't go as far as taking Damascus. Without securing central Anatolia, they have a hard time controlling their own piece of Syria, which is restricted to the coast of Antioch, basically. The Turks might be disunited still, but even on their own they are can jeopardize the Imperial objetives in Syria. Only after Alexios' death and the consolidation in the reign of John II Komnenos can we talk about a larger role of the "Byzantines" in Syria... and even so, they will be more concerned with using it as a stronghold to secure their possible reconquest of Armenia.
Yes, that's correct. A joint Byzantine-Crusader campaign against Egypt will still take some time to materialize ITTL, considering that they are still preoccupied with securing Palestine and Lebanon.
My thoughts exactly. We can't treat as if the matter is all or nothing. Anyways, suffice to say, the pattern will continue for we to have Palestine and Lebanon regions controlled by the Crusaders, and (northwestern) Syria by the "Byzantines", with the rest of Syria for the dispute with the Muslims, mainly from Armenia and Iraq.
trajen777
Banned
I think that with where you are with Byz currently their success in retaking Anatolia is a hi probability. During Johns reign the Dash. collapsed into warring fiefdoms, and i cant see this changing in the near future under your TL. John used this opportunity to try and retake Antioch and even made an offer to help conquer Aleppo to "swap" for Antioch. But the crusaders paid him lip service in this attempt. In this case John most likely would have focused on destroying the Dash fiefdoms (Antioch was his) with the Crusaders closely aligned with him and the reputation is now one of heroes vs villains of the Crusades. So with John not having to worry in the west, (still has the Hungary and Serb issue to the North) his main focus would be Anatolia.
As to Manuel the interesting part is in the first couple of years of his reign their was a critical decision. Marry the German princess and have an alliance against the Normans or accept the Normans offer of a marriage alliance or at least a peace. After deliberation he chose the Germans and war with Normans. If at this juncture he chose neither and peace with the Normans (what they wanted) he would have moved against the Turks. While he was debating this he heavily defeated the Turks in Anatolia. Here their is no Norman war, the west is peaceful,and if John had not conquered Anatolia in whole a natural focus would be on taking the rest of Anatolia. A border at the Taurus mts would have been of enormous import for Byz. This would have led to
1. elimination of raids in to the valuable coastline
2. This leads to more production in these areas and more taxes.
3. This leads to more profitable Anatolia in general
4. This leads to more military forces
So the Byz valued land. Profitable land would be Egypt, Sicily, and the lost provinces of southern Italy.
I think the crusaders needed the Byz. Especially if they were at the Taurus mt. I can see a joint operation against Egypt. Take Egypt as part of the crusader kingdom and you now have the resources that the Crusaders never had, and this will take away the vast majority of the Arab wealth. Also remember with the Byz to the north and involved at Antioch and the Crusaders holding Ascalon IF you captured Egypt you would have a very defensible province of massive wealth.
As to Manuel the interesting part is in the first couple of years of his reign their was a critical decision. Marry the German princess and have an alliance against the Normans or accept the Normans offer of a marriage alliance or at least a peace. After deliberation he chose the Germans and war with Normans. If at this juncture he chose neither and peace with the Normans (what they wanted) he would have moved against the Turks. While he was debating this he heavily defeated the Turks in Anatolia. Here their is no Norman war, the west is peaceful,and if John had not conquered Anatolia in whole a natural focus would be on taking the rest of Anatolia. A border at the Taurus mts would have been of enormous import for Byz. This would have led to
1. elimination of raids in to the valuable coastline
2. This leads to more production in these areas and more taxes.
3. This leads to more profitable Anatolia in general
4. This leads to more military forces
So the Byz valued land. Profitable land would be Egypt, Sicily, and the lost provinces of southern Italy.
I think the crusaders needed the Byz. Especially if they were at the Taurus mt. I can see a joint operation against Egypt. Take Egypt as part of the crusader kingdom and you now have the resources that the Crusaders never had, and this will take away the vast majority of the Arab wealth. Also remember with the Byz to the north and involved at Antioch and the Crusaders holding Ascalon IF you captured Egypt you would have a very defensible province of massive wealth.
I don't think the crusaders would survive past the rennaisance era even if they sacked egypt. Why?
1. Disunity. Even if they are united for now, as they are surrounded by many sides. But once they destroy egypt, it's primary enemy, they would compete on who is getting egypt, and may start to see their own knights as a bigger enemy than the saracens.
2. It's going to be a relic of the past. Once the rennaisance inevitably happens, the papal states and other european countries will be focused on wars of their own, and crusading will be less appealing to funders. Plus, crusading will look barbarous for people who are going by the renaissance indivisualism and simply be left behind in terms of culture in their western european cousins, which means rich people won't support the crusading culture anymore. Sure they can rely on Byzantium, but Byzantium will sooner or later start seeing crusader states as a nuisance.
If we want the crusader polities to survive, renaissance era is where they would probably end.
1. Disunity. Even if they are united for now, as they are surrounded by many sides. But once they destroy egypt, it's primary enemy, they would compete on who is getting egypt, and may start to see their own knights as a bigger enemy than the saracens.
2. It's going to be a relic of the past. Once the rennaisance inevitably happens, the papal states and other european countries will be focused on wars of their own, and crusading will be less appealing to funders. Plus, crusading will look barbarous for people who are going by the renaissance indivisualism and simply be left behind in terms of culture in their western european cousins, which means rich people won't support the crusading culture anymore. Sure they can rely on Byzantium, but Byzantium will sooner or later start seeing crusader states as a nuisance.
If we want the crusader polities to survive, renaissance era is where they would probably end.