Disclosure: I copied this from Quora.
What chance did the Crusader states have of surviving into the 1400 s , were they just too outnumbered and disunited?
Helena Schrader, PhD History, University of Hamburg
Answered 12h ago
Alright, I generally don’t like answering speculative questions. The course of human history is very complex, and I have experienced at first hand how a single personality — a great leader, or a selfish fool, a minor miscalculation or a sudden discovery — can utterly alter the “equation” making the unthinkable possible, salvaging victory from the jaws of defeat … or vice versa.
But the temptation on this question was just too great.
As David Bonin points out below the disaster at Hattin was truly a turning point in the history of the Crusader states. They had been increasingly viable up to that point. A Christian victory at Hattin followed, as it was, by Saladin’s death within five years, would almost certainly have given the crusader states a very strong chance of long-term survival. But allow me to throw out another intriguing “what if.” (Even if it is a little against my principals as a historian….)
What if Richard the Lionheart could have been persuaded to do as his great-grandfather had done and renounce his inheritance in England and France, and taken the crown of Jerusalem instead?
As I note, his great-grandfather Fulk of Anjou had done exactly this in 1129. Since the High Court of Jerusalem elected the kings, there was not even an absolute need to marry the widowed heiress, although it had become tradition. Alternatively, an excuse could have been found for him to set aside his wife Berengaria. (It was done all the time for dynastic reasons.)
For England and the Angevin empire, the fate would ultimately have been the same: John would have killed his nephew, ruled England badly causing a revolt and giving England Magna Charta in the process. He would also have lost most of his father’s continental possession. The only difference is the whole process would have started five years earlier — and without England first having to pay for Richard’s ransom.
For the Holy Land, on the other hand, it could have been a Godsend.
Richard was a brilliant strategist and if he had agreed to stay in the Holy Land he would have united all the barons of Jerusalem behind him. He would have easily commanded the support of the Templars and Hospitallers, as well, and both Orders were at this time still very powerful and capable of recruiting substantial numbers of fighting men. He could have taken his time to build up defenses and forces, and when he was ready he could have gone on the offensive until the Kingdom was restored within defensible borders.
As for financing himself and his campaigns, Richard had all of Cyprus at his disposal, an immensely rich island which was going to be bread-basket of the Holy Land for the next hundred years anyway. Richard had conquered the island in just six weeks largely because he’d been welcomed as a liberator. (See:
The Conquest of Cyprus: Part 1 and
The Conquest of Cyprus -- Continued.) To be sure, he’d then sold it to the Templars, who had managed to make themselves so unpopular that they provoked an armed rebellion. This meant, however, they had given him back the island just when he needed it. (For more on this ignominious episode in Templar history see:
True Tales of the Knights Templar 7: A Lost Opportunity ) There can be little doubt that Richard would have been able to re-pacify the island and then use it as a power-base, bread-basket, recruiting ground, and treasury.
Just as Aimery de Lusignan did historically, Richard would have given land on Cyprus to those Frankish lords and knights who had lost land on the mainland. In doing so he would have: 1) thereby bound them to him as his vassals, and 2) given them the means to buy horses, armor, and raise men for the struggle on the mainland. Cyprus would have become the “aircraft carrier” from which to launch further assaults on the Saracens until enough territory had been won back on the mainland for it to become both self-sustaining and defensible.
If necessary (as he was already contemplating when he left), Richard could have launched a campaign against Egypt that would have forced Salah ad-Din to abandon comparatively unimportant Jerusalem and Palestine to defend his power-base. Or, if Saladin died when he did anyway, all Richard would have had to do was take advantage of the disarray in the enemy camp.
I think there is little doubt that, presuming Richard avoided getting himself killed at an early stage of the fighting, he would have eventually (I’d give him ten years at most) have recaptured Jerusalem and all the former territory of the Kingdom — if not more.
In my novel about the Third Crusade,
Envoy of Jerusalem, the proposal is put to Richard during the second assault on Jerusalem, which he is forced to break off. The novel, of course, follows the course of history and Richard turns the proposal down.