How long could Crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem Survive If...

Possibilities: Lets say Saladin dies young in some accident. Muslims remain divided for a while. Mongol invasions rattle Baghdad, 4th crusade is butterflied away etc... Crusaders never ever get themselves in a situation where their heavier armor can't win. etc...

What is the longest the Kingdom of Jerusalem survive? What possible scenario could make that happen?
 
If Jerusalem survive into renaissance he will never fall before Protestantism come, great part of the population will be Christian, gun powder will be present and the Ottoman threat will be a pretext to be protected by European powers.
Jerusalem.jpg
 
So if the Muslim world remains divided and the Crusaders adopt a careful Military strategy, with perhaps an increasing Christian population to draw on. I can see the Crusader states surviving for a while. However if the Ottomans come along as usual OTL, eventually with muskets and cannon fire it seems the Crusader military advantage of fortresses and heavily armored soldiers won't work any more and it all comes to and end around 1500. Certainly the Venetians and Spanish could help a bit but it still seems they lose (the Ottomans being able to take Cyprus, Rhodes, etc.. OTL).

However perhaps without the 4th Crusade the Greeks can remain a potent force longer and maybe in the aftermath of Tamerlane could reverse the situation more significantly than OTL and no significant military force comes along to take the Crusader states who then survive but become Spanish vassals eventually.
 

Red Orm

Banned
If Jerusalem survive into renaissance he will never fall before Protestantism come, great part of the population will be Christian, gun powder will be present and the Ottoman threat will be a pretext to be protected by European powers.

You best dig a grave for all them butterflies, son.
 
One of the main troubles of the kingdom of Jerusalem was the lack of European inmigration. How can anybody change that?

It would have to be in the form of subsidies. The Church and the Knights Templar raise money and move it to the east to build castles and hire mercenaries and such. One would have to offer a free trip, some cash and a plot of land, the church could promote it as penance as well.

The Kingdom of Jerusalem did have a decent size army at Hattin. One would suppose that with time the people staying would reproduce and you do have indigenous Christian population that can be promoted as well.

The Crusaders are going to have to rely on crossbows, heavy horse and armor, fortified strong points and prudent strategy to survive regardless.
 
It would have to be in the form of subsidies. The Church and the Knights Templar raise money and move it to the east to build castles and hire mercenaries and such. One would have to offer a free trip, some cash and a plot of land, the church could promote it as penance as well.

The Kingdom of Jerusalem did have a decent size army at Hattin. One would suppose that with time the people staying would reproduce and you do have indigenous Christian population that can be promoted as well.

The Crusaders are going to have to rely on crossbows, heavy horse and armor, fortified strong points and prudent strategy to survive regardless.

They did but it was, in many way, a glass canon: once they get one army like that destroyed they just didn't have the demographics and the infrastructure to rebuild them. That's precisely the trouble: a state will suffer massive defeats, from time to time, it need a margin of error to be able to sustain them and recover. Witch Jerusalem didn't have OTL.

While its by no mean enough, two things could make for a good beginin toward an actually sustainable Jerusalem:

1. Have this succeed: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crusade_of_1101. Thousands of commoners where coming with them and if the crusaders where to guide them to safety it could be the beginning of a solution of the manpower problem of the kingdom, especially if the crusaders relax on the exclusively catholic thing and also make policies to gain support from the local Christians. The second part is improbable but not unrealistic, especially if its a long term process.

2. Have another chunk of the muslim world fail into their hands, Egypt during Amaury I reign would be the prime candidate but Baudoin II had a moment where he seemed about to have a shoot at conquering Damas and Manuel I of Byzantium once came close to launch a big attack on Alep on the account of the crusaders in exchange for Antioch.

Those things are not, by all means, enough but they would give Jerusalem bretting space during witch more permanent solution could be found.
 
There are geo-strategic tipping points; if they succeed in Egypt, that's huge fo example. But conceptually, I think the best way to address the manpower shortages is the way the Normans/Sicilians did in Italy/Sicily where they faced the same issues of religious variety and severe lack of manpower, especially in Sicily.

Apply constant but low-level pressure via raiding and castle-building, intermix the occasional big blow, play on Muslim rivalries with strategic alliances...all this is pretty OTL, though a bit more cautious....but be a lot more elastic in terms of religious and cultural tolerance while at the same time funding religious centres that will draw paying/staying pilgrims. Don't really think in terms of huge leaps but rather steady, heady progress towards the kind of hybrid state that all neighbours can at least learn to live with. If you pull that off, consolidation of Muslim states around you has much less fuel and is therefore much more fragile even if it gets off the ground.

It sounds a touch too modern, I know, but it's pretty much how things went down in southern Italy. I also think that Antioch might make a better overall capital for the Crusader States (barring Egyptian conquest) but that's not quite in the OP's question.
 
There are geo-strategic tipping points; if they succeed in Egypt, that's huge fo example. But conceptually, I think the best way to address the manpower shortages is the way the Normans/Sicilians did in Italy/Sicily where they faced the same issues of religious variety and severe lack of manpower, especially in Sicily.

Apply constant but low-level pressure via raiding and castle-building, intermix the occasional big blow, play on Muslim rivalries with strategic alliances...all this is pretty OTL, though a bit more cautious....but be a lot more elastic in terms of religious and cultural tolerance while at the same time funding religious centres that will draw paying/staying pilgrims. Don't really think in terms of huge leaps but rather steady, heady progress towards the kind of hybrid state that all neighbours can at least learn to live with. If you pull that off, consolidation of Muslim states around you has much less fuel and is therefore much more fragile even if it gets off the ground.

It sounds a touch too modern, I know, but it's pretty much how things went down in southern Italy. I also think that Antioch might make a better overall capital for the Crusader States (barring Egyptian conquest) but that's not quite in the OP's question.

While this may make allot of sense there is one central issue: the normans where, and I'm sorry if I caricaturise a bit, amoral adventurers who wanted to carve themselves fiefs, for them to go in that direction isn't too much of a stretch, its just pragmatism. Jerusalem, on the other hand, has religious extremism and Clash of Civilisation impended into its DNA because of its very origins. By stretching it you might have them collaborate against the muslims but a cosmopolitain place ala Sicily of Roger II just can't work with their very mental framework, at least for a long while.

As for the capital you have the same problem: Antioch might make more sense from a purely rational level but the symbolical and importance of Jerusalem make her the unavoidable capital (it also make the muslims far far far less likely to just became cool with it then with Sicily).

While what you propose might be matterialy in the realm of possibilities it just wasn't conceivable in the mental state that was inherent to the crusaders states.
 
While this may make allot of sense there is one central issue: the normans where, and I'm sorry if I caricaturise a bit, amoral adventurers who wanted to carve themselves fiefs, for them to go in that direction isn't too much of a stretch, its just pragmatism. Jerusalem, on the other hand, has religious extremism and Clash of Civilisation impended into its DNA because of its very origins. By stretching it you might have them collaborate against the muslims but a cosmopolitain place ala Sicily of Roger II just can't work with their very mental framework, at least for a long while.

As for the capital you have the same problem: Antioch might make more sense from a purely rational level but the symbolical and importance of Jerusalem make her the unavoidable capital (it also make the muslims far far far less likely to just became cool with it then with Sicily).

While what you propose might be matterialy in the realm of possibilities it just wasn't conceivable in the mental state that was inherent to the crusaders states.

I agree with these points in the main, and I agree it's a steeper climb, but remember a couple points;

1) the Norman conquest of southern Italy also started out, nominally, as a kind of crusade CS. Muslims and/or Byzantines.

2) As in Italy, a lot of the conquerors were, well...conveniently religious when it came to conquest. But like Tancred early on showed that Norman adventurism was very much alive in the Holy Land as well. Suppose that essence had remained dominant even after Antioch split off, or supposing an early consolidation?

But one thing that often gets overlooked whe discussing how pragmatic the Normans could be was the fact that they were also, largely, very very sincere in their religion. Things like bending the knee to a Pope they'd just beaten, begging for forgiveness....and then holding him for ransom when they got it. It's hard for us to combine these two elements, and indeed it was somewhat hard for non Normans at the time to comprehend, but they were genuinely motivated by both faith and pragmatic ambition at the same time. I think it was the secret for how/why they were able to superimpose their structures so broadly across the map, because they were relentless but often wouldn't demand more than their enemies could afford to give.

And I think it could have possibly worked in Jerusalem. But your points are valid and do, I agree, make it a tough go. That said, in anything but hindsight the odds would seem heavily stacked against what the Normans pulled off in Italy, too.
 
Last edited:
I guess it would be tricky for the Crusaders to adopt a cautious military strategy over a period of time, as a leader there is always going to be someone challenging your manhood, whether a rival, a wife, someone with special interests, even an enemy, or just stupidity, so there will be someone who takes the bait and puts their army in a situation where it is disadvantageous position considering its equipment and composition.

However I think the Crusaders were decent rulers of their people in practice anyway for the times, perhaps better than the other options, so it is possible they could keep the loyalty of a relatively diverse population over a long time period.

And they did have the advantage of considerable European fund raising and regular pilgrims.

Seems like just another 40 years to "lock in" success might be all it takes to survive a major defeat.
 
Keeping any of the Crusader States, let alone the Kingdom of Jerusalem, alive is going to require massive amounts of aid from Western Europe or a friendly-ish Byzantine Empire to the north. The reasoning behind the first is fairly obvious, as that's where the majority of your manpower and funding is going to come from, along with the occasional Crusade to help shore up any disasters that befall the various states. The second is less so, but makes sense in context: The entire purpose of the First Crusade was to restore territory to the Byzantine Empire. When this didn't exactly happen, the Byzantines were understandably angered by the results, and several emperors spent their time and resources attempting to either retake those states or to subordinate them to the will of the Byzantine Emperor. In particular, the Byzantine emperors had it out for the Normans in Antioch, forcing them to submit to imperial authority at least once.

A lot of comment mention the Crusaders needing to adopt a defensive/cautious strategy in dealing with their neighbors, and I have to agree with those points. You could read the history of the Crusader States as various Crusader leaders squandering their resources and manpower, leading to increasingly desperate situations. This lead to more crusades, but these rarely aided the Crusaders States in any meaningful fashion.
 
Outremer's primary problem was demographic, by 1187 there weren't enough poulains to sustain a decent army. The crusade of 1101 could give Outremer 1) a big boost in numbers in the early stages of Outremer to build a bigger Frankish population 2) consolidate the land route across Anatolia which would allow a steady trickle of pilgrims/immigrants who IOTL couldn't afford the fares the Italians were charging. The side benefits of this are a) the Komnenos are strengthened in the east giving Outremer a power Christian country to counterbalance the likes of a Saladin b) taking some of the power away from the Italians to the benefits of the rulers of Outremer.
 
I guess it would be tricky for the Crusaders to adopt a cautious military strategy over a period of time, as a leader there is always going to be someone challenging your manhood, whether a rival, a wife, someone with special interests, even an enemy, or just stupidity, so there will be someone who takes the bait and puts their army in a situation where it is disadvantageous position considering its equipment and composition.

However I think the Crusaders were decent rulers of their people in practice anyway for the times, perhaps better than the other options, so it is possible they could keep the loyalty of a relatively diverse population over a long time period.

And they did have the advantage of considerable European fund raising and regular pilgrims.

Seems like just another 40 years to "lock in" success might be all it takes to survive a major defeat.

A cautious strategy isn't just dangerous: its suicidal when your enemy around you are ridiculously more numerous then you. OTL the only reason they even survived that long was their capacity to exploit the division of the muslim world by sustaining whoever happen to be weak at the time against stronger rivals.

The opinions that the crusaders where inherently benevolent rulers came from pro-Christian apologists who dominated pre-Runciman historiography and had absolutely no base in reality. They weren't especially horrible either but whatever difference witch might exist are more then dwarfed by the simple fact that the region was already predominantly muslims and its habitants would naturelly prefer a ruler of their own faith, as would the Jews who where far better threated in the muslim world back in the day then in christiendom. Combine that to exclusion of eastern Christians to area of power and you have a population where the overall majority as absolutely no reason to help the crusaders, even if they admittedly didn't revolt outright.

You just have too look at the actions of the crusaders themselves: apart from the Armenians to a very very small degree they never tried to make anyone apart from the Catholics fight for them.

The pilgrimages did help but they never where massive enough in a constant fashion to truly make the difference since those guys usually came in small numbers at a time and where only there for a quarantaine.

So no, just hanguing on for 40 years won't due and, as the posters pointed out, you need to either make the crusaders have more success early on and or drastically change the way they saw themselves and the nature of their kingdom.
 
They can't without aligning the Coptics of Egypt to their Banner which in turn means Egypt has to be taken.

I see the latter happening, but the former is dicey at best.
A cultural shift needs to take place in the Kingdom to coincide possibly with a PoD leading to some other non-French crusader taking the throne after the First Crusade
 

ben0628

Banned
Keep in mind that without a unified Muslim state during this time, you butterfly away the Mamluks of Egypt which means holy land most likely gets sacked by the Mongols.

As most people said although keeping Syria and Egypt divided would help but the Outremers main problem is a small population. This must be solved by either conquering Egypt or somehow increasing European immigration whether it be Greeks from the Byzantine Empire or Western Europeans.
 

Deleted member 97083

The overland route through Anatolia is also important. If it survives, the Kingdom of Jerusalem survives. If it doesn't, Jerusalem eventually falls.
 
Here is a précis of Runciman's bit on the demographics of Outremer, and I haven't come across any other description in detail.

Runciman says that in the KoJ there were not 1000 knights, barons etc resident and their non-combatant relatives not much more than 1000, so the entire lay upper class was about 2-3000. Antioch, Edessa and Tripoli probably had about the same in total. In the north there was some intermarriage with Greek and Armenian aristocracy but further south there was no local Christian aristocracy but there was a strain of Komnenes in the royal family bloodlines.

The sergeants settled on their lords fiefs and by 1150 were beginning to form the class of poulains, by 1180 there were about 5000 of them and they were intermarried with local Christians. Runciman considers Turcopoles were probably recruited from 'half-castes' who spoke their mother's language, so they were part Frank as well.

There were colonies of Italians in virtually every coastal city and town, but apart from Acre these were only a few hundred strong and didn't mix with their neighbours.

The majority of the population was composed of native Christians. In KoJ almost all were Orthodox and CoT had some Maronites. Further north the Christians were mainly Jacobites with large colonies of Armenians and large groups of Greek Orthodox in Antioch, Cilicia and Lattakieh.

In the 1st Crusade large numbers of Muslims emigrated, including virtually all the large landowners, but there were Muslims around Nablus. In many districts conquered later the Muslims didn't leave, this is important since much of the coast wasn't incorporated until many years later, Sigurd of Norway helped capture Sidon as late as 1110 and Tyre didn't fall until 1124. In northern Galilee the locals were Muslim and further north heretical Muslims acknowledged Frankish rule.

Runciman says that the crusade of 1101 affected the whole crusading movement. The road across Anatolia remained unsafe, even the Byzantines had to operate at the end of long and exposed communications. Instead of the thousands of useful colonists this crusade should have bought only quarrelsome and discredited leaders arrived, and Outremer had plenty of quarrelsome leaders already. Pilgrims and potential immigrants were afraid to travel by land but couldn't afford the fares to come by sea, and those who could strengthened the Italian maritime states.
 
Top