What if the Crusaders would have managed to defeat Kerbogah's army and then would have managed to successfully capture Jerusalem in 1099?
What if the Crusaders would have managed to defeat Kerbogah's army and then would have managed to successfully capture Jerusalem in 1099?
This seems about as possible as a random bunch of Franks and Venetians capturing Constantinople-in other words, borderline ASB.
I agree with the above poster that a successful victory would have created an indefensible state doomed to fail while creating a short-lived belief that faith was enough to win wars. No amount of faith would allow them to takeover Egypt, and without that-Jerusalem would never be safe. The Romans were certainly in no position to help the Crusaders then (and didn't the siege of Antioch damage the relationship just a bit earlier?).
I do not however think the first crusade was a failure-it achieved its first (and in the long run, most important goal): help the Romans recover West Anatolia. The Komnenoi leveraged that base to reconquer the plateau gradually, assisted a lot by Antioch and Edessa (who saw alliance with the Empire as the best way to prevent ruin-a successful Jerusalem could actually change that and divert Roman attention away from Anatolia, which could be bad in the long run). The steppe hordes did slow the Empire down (though they also broke Islamic polities east of Egypt pretty badly), but they also brought knowledge of gunpowder-which the guilds of Constantinople eagerly put to good use.
The rest as they say is history, with the Roman march to Egypt under Emperor Solomon Bourtzes, which finally allowed the recovery of Jerusalem for Christendom. The set-up took 200 years, but the conclusion was written in two as the first Gunpowder Empire wrecked havoc on the Near East. Successive Persian dynasties tried to take on Rome for Jerusalem-but they all failed, as we all know.
To clarify--after their initial victory over the Muslims, the Crusaders would have been forced to fight an extremely-long lasting war of attrition on the Muslims' own turf. Then, after the Crusaders would have lost this war of attrition, Europe would be both financially insecure and demoralized due to its investment of a lot of money and resources into the Crusades. Then--seeing their victory over the Crusaders as a sign of God's will--the Muslims would have become extremely eager to spread Islam around the world--thus motivating them to build great sailing ships and to begin the Age of Exploration, correct?The logistics needed to make that venture a success simply did not exist at the time, the failure of the first crusade was in many ways a nessary failure for western civilazation. The Byzantine empire was able to recounqure antolia, and get more stable borders, the crusade while a failure taught the west the importance of logistics, of planing, and brought back the knowelege and know how of the anchent world.
Winning in the first throw of the dice would create a kingdom with pore logical support, poor insitutions and surrounded by hostle neighbors. That failure taught the west that this wasn't some thing that could be won with faith alone. You needed planning and to be ready for a long fight. The Gradualist approuch that marched the reconquest worked. It took 200 years but it worked. If we did win, my guess is you get a short lived kingdom and north africa remains under Islamic countrol, spain remains under islamic control. The Muslums then discover the New world instead of christians and with those resources they crush europe one and for all and take over the world.
Rather then just being limited to the middle east.
The Eurocentric view of history again.Successive Persian dynasties tried to take on Rome for Jerusalem-but they all failed, as we all know.
Ah Yes, nothing will ever dislodge China from its glorious place as the leader of the world!The Eurocentric view of history again.
I get that we want to try and shine a light on the most backward and culturally fractured continent, but let's not overstate the importance of the "Roman" Empire or any of its successor-states to world history, and let's not pretend that Europeans learned much from their failure.
The Muslim world learned a lot from the succession of invasions by the likes of the Khitans, Jurchen and Oirats. Europe - outside of the Turco-Slavic areas - never had much contact with the East, outside of the Romans - and even then, through Muslim intermediaries. That's probably why the world revolves around Asia while Europe just kind of dangles off the supercontinent like an overcrowded, perpetually feuding backwater. It's also why most of the artists and learned men in Europe speak Greek.
All this "glories of Rome" Eurocentrism pales next to glorious Zhongguo.
The Eurocentric view of history again.
I get that we want to try and shine a light on the most backward and culturally fractured continent, but let's not overstate the importance of the "Roman" Empire or any of its successor-states to world history, and let's not pretend that Europeans learned much from their failure.
The Muslim world learned a lot from the succession of invasions by the likes of the Khitans, Jurchen and Oirats. Europe - outside of the Turco-Slavic areas - never had much contact with the East, outside of the Romans - and even then, through Muslim intermediaries. That's probably why the world revolves around Asia while Europe just kind of dangles off the supercontinent like an overcrowded, perpetually feuding backwater. It's also why most of the artists and learned men in Europe speak Greek.
All this "glories of Rome" Eurocentrism pales next to glorious Zhongguo.
It's one thing to have glory and another thing to have a level of power and influence that essentially allows you to rule the world, though.Funny, because I find the glories of France, England, Hispania* and Aragon (all thanks to the riches of the New World) to be just as glorious as China, to say nothing of the splendour of the Roman Empire (who by the way, also learned a lot from the Turco-Mongol invasions as well)
*Basically TTL's counterpart to Spain, but united by Portugal instead of Castile
Sounds very cosmopolitan.Not to mention the multi-ethnic United Republic of Hesperia (trust me, I live in Ville-Hespérie*, the veritable mix of French, English, Dutch, Lenape, and Haudenousaunee and many immigrants there), perhaps the only nation that could give China a run for its money
*OTL Staten Island
Please. Zhongguo.China
Please. Zhongguo.
The Euro trend of insisting on using Graeco-Romanic placenames for places that already have names is actually quite sad. Another example of post-Roman nostalgia and the over-inflated sense of importance that comes with it.
How would you like it if I insisted on calling the post-Roman state Xila?
Take on Rome? Don't you mean take on Constantinople?
The Eurocentric view of history again.
I get that we want to try and shine a light on the most backward and culturally fractured continent, but let's not overstate the importance of the "Roman" Empire or any of its successor-states to world history, and let's not pretend that Europeans learned much from their failure.
The Muslim world learned a lot from the succession of invasions by the likes of the Khitans, Jurchen and Oirats. Europe - outside of the Turco-Slavic areas - never had much contact with the East, outside of the Romans - and even then, through Muslim intermediaries. That's probably why the world revolves around Asia while Europe just kind of dangles off the supercontinent like an overcrowded, perpetually feuding backwater. It's also why most of the artists and learned men in Europe speak Greek.
All this "glories of Rome" Eurocentrism pales next to glorious Zhongguo.
How would you like it if I insisted on calling the post-Roman state Xila?