Crusader Mecenaries

Arkocento

Donor
The plan of Alexios 1 Komnenos with the First Crusade was to simply use the crusaders as mercenaries. OTL, they acted more way too independently for his plans to work.

My question is: What if the First Crusaders were more subservient to Alexios? Would the First Crusade be more or less successful? How?


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Postumus: Call of the West

https://www.alternatehistory.com/discussion/showthread.php?t=317829

Define Successful.
Make it less about taking the holy land, and more about saving the Eastern Empire would make fewer come to his aid.

If that happens, then they will be more subservient to Alexios, but their reach is drastically reduced.
Imagine that the crusades end after Dorylaeum, or instead pursue Kilij Arslan Alexios does have a far stronger position in Anatolia, but the Holy Land is far out of reach.
 
If you want to consider Alexios' goal as simply reconquering the Anatolian peninsula, then the Crusaders did their job just fine. If you want to consider his goal as taking back everything up to and including Antioch, then they only are... mostly effective.

But, for a little while, the Crusader states provided useful buffer states for the Byzantines.

Now, if they were directly employed by the Byzantines, remember that that carries with it some burdens on the Empire. Such as pay. And the Empire had plenty of instances of underpaid mercs causing trouble. It wasn't exactly all that long ago that Roussel de Bailleul carved out his own little kingdom in the Empire.
 
If you want to consider Alexios' goal as simply reconquering the Anatolian peninsula, then the Crusaders did their job just fine. If you want to consider his goal as taking back everything up to and including Antioch, then they only are... mostly effective.

But, for a little while, the Crusader states provided useful buffer states for the Byzantines.

Now, if they were directly employed by the Byzantines, remember that that carries with it some burdens on the Empire. Such as pay. And the Empire had plenty of instances of underpaid mercs causing trouble. It wasn't exactly all that long ago that Roussel de Bailleul carved out his own little kingdom in the Empire.

This would be my thoughts for the 1st Crusade as well, although Big Al and Manny K would have been well served to provide more forces and firm direction to the Crusades of 1101 and the 2nd Crusade as they crossed Anatolia.
 
Pre-Manzikert would be tough, but more than the western third of Anatolia would certainly be possible. The transit of the Crusades through Anatolia is an interest of mine, I think it is AH gold.
 
Komnenoi

Pre-Manzikert would be tough, but more than the western third of Anatolia would certainly be possible. The transit of the Crusades through Anatolia is an interest of mine, I think it is AH gold.

I agree! I know that in American classrooms, the east during medieval times is severely overlooked. I too think that it's AH gold, but I keep thinking that there's already enough Byzantine Timelines.

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Postumus: Call of the West

https://www.alternatehistory.com/disc...d.php?t=317829
 
There are many byz tls and many crusader tls but not many combination tls. Working with the interactions between them is lumped in the too hard basket I think.
 
It's possible but difficult.

I think part of the problem is that the most brilliant and capable Crusaders - Boehmond, Tancred and to a lesser degree Baldwin of Boulogne were looking to carve out there own states while the most pro-Byzantine Crusader, Raymond of Toulouse was pretty ineffectual.
 
If Big Al did get a large number of western knights and men at arms would his circumstances allow him to do more campaigning in Anatolia, or would they be busy taking care of his other problems? If there was no mass movement Crusades to burn off western energy would he have even more problems?
 
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