Historical rulers that might have undertaken random faraway conquests

What are some historical rulers that could have decided to leave their homeland and go conquer some faraway land?

The more arbitrary it is and the less likely they are to return to their former country, the better.

Frederick Barbarossa and most of the other high-ranking Crusaders would count. Any others?
 
One of the sultans of Delhi ( though I can't remember his name) fancied himself the second Alexander and wanted to conquer the other way around, but his divan talked him out of it.
 
Are there any cases where they would abandon their homeland entirely? Abu Bakr II of the Mali Empire might count since if he arrived in Brazil he would have had to conquer it from the peoples already there--and there's no way he would have returned.

I figure Alexander the Great is almost too obvious.
Well yeah but he actually succeeded at going on a chain of faraway conquests.

Frederick Barbarossa for example had the chance but failed.
 
Are there any cases where they would abandon their homeland entirely? Abu Bakr II of the Mali Empire might count since if he arrived in Brazil he would have had to conquer it from the peoples already there--and there's no way he would have returned.

Well yeah but he actually succeeded at going on a chain of faraway conquests.

Frederick Barbarossa for example had the chance but failed.

Some nations of history moved around totally as warriors as well, the Eastern germanic peoples as Goths may have been this.
 
Vikings decide to leave Scandinavia (climate change?) and settle in England, Normandy.....

If Greece loses Greco-Persian wars Athenians could use their fleet to abandon Greece and settle elsewhere (Sicily, North africa)

Goths first moved from modern Germany/Poland south, settled there, then were pushed into Roman Empire, once settled there they again moved inside Empire, entire people moving as a whole body.

During migrations various groups moved as one, abandoning their homeland to settle elsewhere (OK, it's debatable if entire community moved but it's more or less true).

Huns moved in this fashion as well, though being nomads one can debata what their homeland actually was.
 

Anaxagoras

Banned
In 1798-99, Napoleon gave at least passing thought to abandoning the French Republic altogether and setting himself up as the ruler of Egypt.
 
On the subject of US presidents, I think Teddy Roosevelt would be just about the best bet. I have a hard time seeing him running out a-conquering and being president at the same time, though.
 
hideyoshi could have aimed for anothe target than Korea maybe, but the choice is limited...

He did: Hideyoshi was aiming to conquer China when he invaded Korea. He also talked about conquering India and then the whole world, but this could have been just arrogant boasting. At the very least, he did want to conquer China, and move his capital to Beijing (not sure about whether he was going to move the Japanese Emperor out of Kyoto though).
 
Henry V's dying words were that he regretted not having the chance to rebuild the walls of Jerusalem. I doubt he would ever have been able to achieve that, though.
 
Top