?Norman Africa Question?

I was intriqed by the idea of an earlier United Italy, in the underrated superpower thread, so have been doing some research,
{If I had worked this hard on my homework back in school ......... ;)}

I came across the Republic of Pisa.

Between 1030 and 1035 Pisa went on to successfully defeat several rival towns in Sicily and conquer Carthage in North Africa.
In 1051-1052 the admiral Jacopo Ciurini conquered Corsica
In 1060 Pisa won their first battle with Genoa
In 1063 admiral Giovanni Orlando, coming to the aid of the Norman Roger I, took Palermo from the Saracen pirates.
At this time the Pisan Navy was allied with, and acting almost as the Norman Navy
By 1072 The Normans take control over Sicily, and start on Tunisa,
Pisa took the Tunisian city of Mahdia in 1088.
In 1092 Pope Urban II awarded Pisa the supremacy over Corsica and Sardinia, and at the same time raising the town to the rank of archbishopric
A Pisan fleet of 120 ships also took part in the First Crusade and the Pisans were instrumental in the taking of Jerusalem in 1099.the Pisan crusaders were led by their archbishop Daibert, the future patriarch of Jerusalem.
Everything is going good for the Pisans and the Normans.
1135: Jerba comes under Norman control.
One of the last cities resisting the Normans
1148: When Mahdia is conquered, the Normans bring an end to the Zirid dynasty.
At this point the Normans control all of Tunisia.
Then only 11 years later
1159: Almohads conquers Tunis.
1160: Mahdia comes under Almohad control, and central Tunisia is with this governed from Marrakech.
And
End of 12th century: Almohads establishes themselves in Tunisia under the leadership of Ibn Ghaniyya.
70 years of steady takeover and expanding control crashes to a end.
And I can't find anything on the Web explaining what happened.

?Anybody Know? ?Any speculation on what would have happened if Norman Sciliy had kept Tunisia.? ?Any other Comments.?


And Pisa's winning streak ended in 1284
The power of Pisa as an international power was destroyed forever by the crushing defeat of the navy at the Battle of Meloria against Genoa (1284), in which most of its galleys were destroyed and many of the mariners were caught as prisoners. In 1290 an assault of Genoese ships against the Porto Pisano caused its destruction.
 
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If I remember correctly, the losses were due to a number of factors. Bad kingship, overstretched resources, invasions by the Holy Roman Empire, and general incompetence and scheming. If you gave William I a better base, and maybe kept Mario of Bari alive, then possibly it could have been saved. Keep the HRE out of Italy would help too.
 
Thanx helps a lot,

So I Butterfly away Robert III of Loritello fleeing to the HRE, instead he gets caught, and killed for treason.
Robert III of Loritello never goes Contantinople, this butterflies away the Byzantine invasion of 1155 under General Michael Palaeologus.
This keeps the Kingom of Sicily stronger, helps keep Mario of Bari from being assisinated,

As for Willian the 1st
In 1148, barely thirty, Duke Roger died an unknown death in an unknown location. He was mourned by the Arab poet Abu ed-Daw, who said, "the arms of the brave have fallen . . . and the eloquent seek for words in vain." Roger was buried in the chapel of Saint Mary Magdalene next to the old Cathedral of Palermo. He was later transferred to an eponymous chapel now in the barracks of San Giacomo. His successor was his only surviving brother, William, later king.
This usally means Poison. but if there is no reason known, then Butterflying it away is possible.

I've gone from looking for a reason to reverse the Pisa defeat at the Battle of Meloria against Genoa, to Changing the Sucession of the Kingdom of Sicily.

I've now got the problem of Sicily being Vassal to Fredrick Barbarossa.
Homework:( Homework:( Homework:(
 
I don't think your answer lies in the kingdom of Sicily. The place is fairly fragmented and difficult, but a reasonably competent cat-herder on the throne can easily turn it into a power to be reckoned with. Its vassalage to the HRE means nothing unless the Emperor can make it stick (France was technically a vassal to the HRE, ask the Capetians about that sometime). You can make them more powerful, but I'm not sure it would matter all that much.

The point IMO is that the Almohads are not the Zirids. Their motivation is high, their military resources much greater than that of a local dynasty, and they're not going to be stopped by Christian pirates. You have to deflect or end them, probably best around the beginning of the movement by discrediting their founder or havingt then descend into internecine struggle.
 
Did the Normans have access to really good assassins? If a few Almohad leaders are strategically killed, that might fragment the movement, at least temporarily.

Are the Assassins still around at this time? Perhaps the Normans in the East can do a deal with them...
 
Did the Normans have access to really good assassins? If a few Almohad leaders are strategically killed, that might fragment the movement, at least temporarily.

Are the Assassins still around at this time? Perhaps the Normans in the East can do a deal with them...

The assassins are around, but I'm not sure the Almohads in the early stages look like enough of a threat. Or that the Norman kings would do this, frankly. It goes too much against their traditions.
 
Ok I have Robert 3rd captured for treason around 1135, he doesn't get to go north and spread visious rumors about Sicily to poison the well with the HRE. and he doesn't get to the Imperial Court in Constantinople, so there is no invasion in 1145-1148,
This mean that Sicily doesn't pull troops out of Tunisia, to repel the invasion.

My reading of the Almohads, is that they were focused on the Almovids, who had slipped from the path of the Prophet, and it was up to the Almohads to fix them, this makes their invasion of Tunisia in 1148 an oppurtunistic Grab,
As there is no pullout of troops and no ongoing chaos in Sicily, The Almohads stay away.

so whe get to 1160's
Roger didn't get poisoned in 1150, Mario of Bari, doen't get stabed to death, so Sicily keeps Tunisia. Pisa still holds Carthage.
Pisa is the largest Trading pardner with Contantinople , larger at this time than Venice, Pisa is also involved with Sicily.
Problem Sicily and Constantinople are sworn eniemies,

?So should Pisa give up Sicily and The north african/levant trading Posts, or give up Constantinople and the Black Sea trade,?
 
Why either? The Italians were extremely skilled at playing one side off the other. I can see them continuing to do this.
 
so whe get to 1160's
Roger III didn't get poisoned in 1150, Mario of Bari, doen't get stabed to death, so Sicily keeps Tunisia.
Roger III becomes king in 1154 with the death of his Father. Roger cares more for the Land and power, than for the Religilion,
This continues Siciliy's troubles with the Pope. But allows Normon rule over Sicily and Tunisia to be relitivily Peaceful.
The only kid I can find for Roger III is his Bastard Tancred of Lecce, dispite having been married for 8 years to Isabella of Champange.
Tancred of Lecce became king of Sicily in 1189 after William II died childless.

?So should I make up a Kid - Roger IV- or just let Tancred of Lecce become King like OTL?


Pisa still holds Carthage.
With the Almohads and the Almovids going tooth and Claw at each other in Morocco and Spain, Carthage is the main termuis of the trans Sahara trade routes.
Pisa continues to hold Corsica, Sardinia, and the Baleric Islands,
Butterflies from the Normans holding Tunisia, allow the continued Pisian hold on the Balerics.
?Any Ideas for where Pisa can get people to help hold this territory?

Pisa is the largest Trading pardner with Contantinople , larger at this time than Venice,

Pisa is a independent city [Granted by the HRE V] in the Marquis of Tuscany, with two Consuls and a Council of Elders.
They are locked in a rivalry with the trading city of Genova, Florence the capital of Tuscany, resents their independence,
The Pope is unhappy, with their Trade with the Orthodox Byzantines, and Muslim North Africa.
Pisa is also balancing their intrests in Byzanitine, and Sicily,
Thro If the Imperials in Constantinople stop trying to retake South Italy, that problem would go away.
 
OK i'm up to the 1190's
The fourth cursade is being called.
the Kingdom of Sicily controls Italy south of the HRE [which includes Rome], Tunisia [including Tripoli], Malta, Sardinia, & the Balearics.

Genoa has taken and lost Corsica, and Sardinia, and appears to be permanently in third behind Pisa & Venice

Pisa came out of the war with Corsica returned, and by degree of HRE Fredrick I, capital of the new Duchy of Tuscany [which includes Corsica]
But they lost Carthage to Genoa, who then lost it to the Sicilians.

King Roger III Died in 1186, leaving the Kingdom to Tancred.
?How much difference in Charater would growing up the reconized Heir, raised by his Father, as opposed to
Growing up fatherless, & the inconvenent Bastard Nephew-- Make?

Willian II dies childress on his personal Crusade,
He never is king, He nevers Marries Joan of England, so no Dowery to return. No selling Sicily to the HRE to finance his dream of Helping defend the Holy Land.

When Richard lionheart, and Philip Augustus of France arrive in 1190 onroute to the Crusade, they find a strong well ordered Kingdom, busy settleing Sardinia, and Fighting the Al Morahads, in Algieria.

Richard and Phillip proceed on to Eygpt, No staying 6 months and forcing Tancred to release Joan, and cough up the Dowery.
The Crusaders arrive earlier in Eygpt, with the support of Norman Sicily/Tunisia behind them.
?What difference will this make in the Crusade?
Frederick Barbarossa drowns in Cilicia.
However, on 10 June 1190, Frederick died while crossing the Saleph River (now known as Göksu) in Cilicia, south-eastern Anatolia. The exact circumstances are unknown. It is likely that he was jumping in when the shock of the cold water caused him to have a heart attack at the age of 64. Weighed down by his mail armour, he drowned in water that was barely hip-deep, according to the chronicler Ali ibn al-Athir. The armour of the day, designed to be as light as possible, was probably not heavy enough to cause a healthy man to drown in hip-deep waters; however, some reenactors and living historians argue that, in light of Frederick's advanced age, the weight of the armour plus the difficulty of struggling through water (not something many armoured men would be accustomed to), could have forced him under before reaching shore.
?How likely would this be in an ATL? ?Could I realistically butterfly him riding a horse that day across the river?
 
So Barbarossa fights his way thru the Turks [?Butterflies for the Ottomans?]
conquers Syria, and reestablishs the Crusader Kingdoms of the Levant,
Meanwhile Richard and Phillip take Eygpt, while Sicily extents its control farther east along Libya.
Salidain is out,
?how would the Crusaders handle the Copts, The Mulims are Pagans, But the Copts are Heritics:eek:.
 
There are a couple of problems here DQ. I'm not sure what Wikipedia (which should be used as a reference, never as a source) means by Cathage, but it was sacked and destroyed by the Romans. If it mean Tunis, that city voluntarily submitted to Roger's forces in 1148. Also, Palermo was taken by the Normans in 1072. 1063 was nothing more than an unsuccessful raid attempted by the Pisans at Palermo. They approached Roger I with the idea of a joint attack, but he refused, due to other commitments.

At this time the Pisan Navy was allied with, and acting almost as the Norman Navy
:confused:

The Normans had their won navy. And Pisan influence in N. Africa was done by the time the Normans arrived they in the 1130s-40s
By 1072 The Normans take control over Sicily, and start on Tunisa,
Everything is going good for the Pisans and the Normans.
Sicily wasn't fully conquered by the Normans until 1091. They didn't start on North Africa in earnest until Roger's raid in 1123 off the cost of Mahdia (which failed). Mahdia was in Saracen hands until it was taken in 1148 by Roger II
One of the last cities resisting the Normans
Actually one of the first islands in the region to submit to Roger, which later proved to be an excellent base for attacks on N. Africa
Then only 11 years later
The Almohads came like a bat out of hell, or , in this case, like mountain-people out of Morocco. Take them out of the equation and this should be better.

And
70 years of steady takeover and expanding control crashes to a end.
The Norman takeover lasted a bit over a decade.
And I can't find anything on the Web explaining what happened.
There are several print sources you should check out to clear up some of the confusion. Most of the details on Roger's N. Africa campaign I have is in Helene Wieruszowski's essay 'The Norman Kingdom and the Crusades', which is available in the hefty book 'Politics and Culture in Medieval Spain and Italy'. Also check out Herbet Houben's 'Roger II of Sicily: Ruler between East and West'. John Julius Norwich's books are also good reads, if a bit scholarly.

?Anybody Know? ?Any speculation on what would have happened if Norman Sciliy had kept Tunisia.? ?Any other Comments.?
The Kingdom certainly would be more wealthy than it already was, what with the trade routes from West-Central Africa going north, as well as controlling the two straits that split the Mediterranean in half. In general much more powerful.

So I Butterfly away Robert III of Loritello fleeing to the HRE, instead he gets caught, and killed for treason.
Robert III of Loritello never goes Contantinople, this butterflies away the Byzantine invasion of 1155 under General Michael Palaeologus.
There were bad relations between Sicily and the Empires, which would take a looong time to explain. Writing off that one little bastard (who wasn't a major player in the Mainland rebellions that took place in th 1130's) isn't going to change that fact.
This keeps the Kingom of Sicily stronger, helps keep Mario of Bari from being assisinated,
A continued Norman North Africa would butterfly away Maio of Bari's ascendancy to the admiralty. His successor, Philip of Mahdia, probably wouldn't have been killed if N. Africa stayed in Norman hands.
This usally means Poison. but if there is no reason known, then Butterflying it away is possible.
IIRC, Roger III was killed in one of the numerous border skirmishes bbetween his Duchy of Apulia and the Papal State.

I've gone from looking for a reason to reverse the Pisa defeat at the Battle of Meloria against Genoa, to Changing the Sucession of the Kingdom of Sicily.
Having Roger III alive would help quite a bit, considering William I wasn't trained to be King and was generally a sloth

I've now got the problem of Sicily being Vassal to Fredrick Barbarossa.
Homework:( Homework:( Homework:(
I doubt that would happen with someone like Roger III in command.

Ok I have Robert 3rd captured for treason around 1135, he doesn't get to go north and spread visious rumors about Sicily to poison the well with the HRE. and he doesn't get to the Imperial Court in Constantinople, so there is no invasion in 1145-1148,
This mean that Sicily doesn't pull troops out of Tunisia, to repel the invasion.
As I mentioned before, there was already bad blood between the three.
My reading of the Almohads, is that they were focused on the Almovids, who had slipped from the path of the Prophet, and it was up to the Almohads to fix them, this makes their invasion of Tunisia in 1148 an oppurtunistic Grab,
As there is no pullout of troops and no ongoing chaos in Sicily, The Almohads stay away.
It was a holy war, raged by religious fanatics against infidels. They wouldn't stay away for long.

so whe get to 1160's
Roger didn't get poisoned in 1150, Mario of Bari, doen't get stabed to death, so Sicily keeps Tunisia. Pisa still holds Carthage.
Pisa is the largest Trading pardner with Contantinople , larger at this time than Venice, Pisa is also involved with Sicily.
Problem Sicily and Constantinople are sworn eniemies,
On Pisan-Sicilian relations: According to D. Abulafia, the three of the great Merchant Republics remaining (after Roger II finally crushed and subsumed Almafi) Genoa, Pisa, and Venice politically and economically invested in Sicily, the H.R.E. and the Byzantines, respectively.

It is doubtful that Pisa could supplant Venice's place as trading parter to the Byzantines for geographical reasons (Venice being on the Adriatic, after all) and for political ones (Venice, which had been part of the Byzantine empire at one point, supported the mother country, and even fought with them against the Normans).

Pisa placed its allegiance with the German Empire, and was part of the Emperor's attack on Roger's Kingdom in 1137. They provided naval support to the Germans, so it is unlikely that the Sicilians would be in the best mood with them.

Genoa is the ally of Sicily among the merchant republics. It was they who invested most into Sicily.

so whe get to 1160's
Roger III didn't get poisoned in 1150, Mario of Bari, doen't get stabed to death, so Sicily keeps Tunisia.
Roger III becomes king in 1154 with the death of his Father. Roger cares more for the Land and power, than for the Religilion,
This continues Siciliy's troubles with the Pope. But allows Normon rule over Sicily and Tunisia to be relitivily Peaceful.
The Normans of southern Italy were some of the greatest supporters of the pope. Besides, it was political necessity to extend religious toleration to Muslims and Greeks.
The only kid I can find for Roger III is his Bastard Tancred of Lecce, dispite having been married for 8 years to Isabella of Champange.
Tancred of Lecce became king of Sicily in 1189 after William II died childless.
Having Roger III not die early, and be more proliferative, would go a great way towards extending the life of the Kingdom.

Pisa still holds Carthage.
With the Almohads and the Almovids going tooth and Claw at each other in Morocco and Spain, Carthage is the main termuis of the trans Sahara trade routes.
Catrthage is dead. The Sicilians control N. Africa entirely. Any merchant republic involved there would be the Genovans.
Pisa continues to hold Corsica, Sardinia, and the Baleric Islands,
Butterflies from the Normans holding Tunisia, allow the continued Pisian hold on the Balerics.
Reasonable, but it will piss off the Catalonians


Sorry if that seemed a bit nosy, but I would enjoy helping you cleaning up your TL, DQ :)
 
There are a couple of problems here DQ. I'm not sure what Wikipedia (which should be used as a reference, never as a source) means by Carthage, but it was sacked and destroyed by the Romans.
And it was rebuild by the Romans, by the time it was captured by the Vandals in 420's, it was the biggest trading centre in Africa.

There are several print sources you should check out to clear up some of the confusion
except I don't own a vehicle, so trips to the Library are very difficult. Gutenburg is very bad with history books, anyone know of other [library] E-Book Sites [the Virginia University one, only works with M$ Reader]

I started this becase of reading that Pisa was for a time in the mid 1100's a bigger trading pardner with Byzantine than Venice, and was more powerful than Genoa,

The power of Pisa as an international power was destroyed forever by the crushing defeat of the navy at the Battle of Meloria against Genoa (1284), in which most of its galleys were destroyed and many of the mariners were caught as prisoners. In 1290 an assault of Genoese ships against the Porto Pisano caused its destruction.
This all started as a attemp to have a good reason to reverse the 1284 battle between Pisa and Genoa
And to allow Pisa/Tuscany to continue holding Sardinia and Corsicia.

I am doing this by combining various timelines I find, so the inacurcies are their's.:p
 
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