Principality of Antioch

WI: The principality of Antioch had never been established. Byzantine Antioch never falls to the Turks, therefore the Crusaders had no need to besiege it. Instead the armies of the First Crusade go directly to Palestine after leaving Asia Minor. Does this mean that they are in a much stronger position, without being bogged down by the very long, difficult, and costly siege of Antioch?
 
Byzantine Antioch implies stronger Byzantines in general and weaker Selucids in Anatolia, which in turn makes it highly unlikely that the First Crusade as we know it happens at all, given that it was instigated by a call for help from the Byzantines as much of Anatolia was overrun.
 

Philip

Donor
Byzantine Antioch implies stronger Byzantines in general and weaker Selucids in Anatolia,

Certainly you mean the Seljuks.

which in turn makes it highly unlikely that the First Crusade as we know it happens at all, given that it was instigated by a call for help from the Byzantines as much of Anatolia was overrun.
Anatolia was overrun after Manzikert in 1071. Antioch fell in 1084. It is not difficult to image that Antioch could have held out another decade or so until the First Crusade. Perhaps the Turks' advances in Anatolia are slowed compared to OTL, but still steady and without effective Byzantine resistance.
 
Byzantine Antioch implies stronger Byzantines in general and weaker Selucids in Anatolia, which in turn makes it highly unlikely that the First Crusade as we know it happens at all, given that it was instigated by a call for help from the Byzantines as much of Anatolia was overrun.

Anatolia started being over run in 1071 with Antich surviving until 84 it is plossible for Philaretos Brachamios to hold off the Seljuks. This wouldn't really affect the first crusade because the Rhomans had been calling for Latin help since the time of Pope Gregory VII. When Urban becomes Pope he will still have his reasons for calling the crusade even if Suleiman doesn't conquere Antioch.
 
Note that in OTL the crusaders turned against Byzantium fairly early, Tancred taking Latakia and Tarsus from them during his first regency in Antioch. They would try to take Antioch eventually -- so there would be a siege -- although not until the other crusader states had been securely established.
 
Antioch in 1084 was not really "Byzantine" in any sense of the term. Philaretos Brakhomios was an Armenian, ruling an essentially independent Armenian state that paid very little lip service to claims of Constantinopolitan overlordship, especially after the rise of the house of Komnenos in 1081. The state that does best out of Brakhomios staying in power, is, funnily enough, Cilician Armenia, which has a good shot at dominating the Upper Euphrates too with Antioch as its capital.
 
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