Quote:
Originally Posted by
Midgard
There was sufficient talk about a Crusade around 830s or so in OTL, after the Muslims inflicted a major defeat on Emperor Theophilus. Of course, we know that it came to nothing, and that the Empire managed to not only recover, but also to fight back with some success, but technically, a Crusade two and a half centuries earlier could have been plausible, even if its ultimate success would have been in doubt.
So have Theophilus be killed in one of the many battles he fought against the Arab Caliphate in Anatolia? With his death a time of chaos (ala post-Manzikert) occurs, and the Empire loses central Anatolia to the advancing Arabs.
The Eastern Empire sends urgent pleas for aid to the West, where feuding Carolingian princes are busily destroying Charlemagne's Empire. So lets say that the timeline is exactly post-Manzikert, and the West finally decides to send a major crusade in about 860.
The Crusade is an attempt to staunch the blood that three decades of near-constant warfare have released. Various Carolingian princes set off to fight in the East, and the exit of these princes from the scene eases the violence in the West.
I don't know if people think this is all that plausible, but I would think that under these conditions the Franks might actually fight as allies of the Emperor, rather than as a totally independent force (ala OTL Crusaders). I don't know if the Arabs would have been able to settle into Anatolia as the Turks did OTL, so its possible that central Anatolia is open for settlement. Even if it isn't and the Franks just march into the Holy Land, there was a breakdown of central authority at this time in the Middle East as the Abbasids began to decline, just as there was a similar breakdown of authority OTL as the Seljuk Turks fell apart.
So how does a Frankish Syria, 200 years early sound?