The Crusader Princes - A Principality of Antioch Narrative

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Hail to all Alternate History Board members, may I introduce you to my current initiative in alternate history, here is my After Action Report on the Principality of Antioch, a Megacampaign. What is an After Action Report, and what is a Megacampaign? An After Action Report is a narrative of the games you've played on a strategy game; and a Megacampaign is a play on the Paradox Interactive forums, the range of historical strategy games allowing, with four different games (Crusader Kings, Europa Universalis, Victoria and Hearts of Iron) a long AAR who could go from 1066 to 1953. I have been deeply impressed by the Paradox Games, I've contributed in my times to the Kaiserpedia, an alternate Wikipedia on the Kaiserreich mod, of which you can have a taste if you follow Meadow's excellent Union of Britain AAR.

Here is thus my first take, beginning in 1187 with the principality of Antioch on Crusader Kings: Deus Vult, hopefully bringing me from 1098 to 1453, and carrying the glory of Bohemond of Tarento's descent to the XXth Century. Wish me good luck, excuse my poor English, and enjoy. Of course, Paradox games and historical video games being known for their inaccurencies and somewhat surrealistic developments, don't be amazed by some details of my AAR.
 
Bohemond I the Great
House of Hauteville
1054-1111

BohemondI.png


Prince of Tarento 1085-1111, Prince of Antioch 1098-1111
Son of Robert Guiscard, Duke of Apulia, Calabria and Sicily and Alberada of Buonalbergo
Married Constance, daughter of Philippe I, King of France
Father of Bohemond II, who follows

Although he was christened under the name of Mark, the future Prince of Antioch earned his name Bohemond after the legendary giant Buamundus, due to his distinct height (« He (Bohemond) was so tall in stature that he overtopped the tallest by nearly one cubit, narrow in the waist and loins, with broad shoulders and a deep chest and powerful arms » would write Anna Comnena in her Alexiad), and later to his own glory. A product of his times, son of Robert Guiscard, the conqueror of southern Italy, and coming from the Norman race, which conquered the throne of England when he was twelve.


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Bohemond of Tarento (XIXth Century painting)

Taking his first command in the Norman army at 25, Bohemond participated to his father’s attack on the Byzantine Empire, assuring the command when Robert Guiscard was absent, and pushing through as far as Larissa until the Basileus Alexios I repulsed him and the reinforcements led by Robert Guiscard arrived ; during the expedition, he had promised the throne of Constantinople to Bohemond. Alas, Robert would breathe his last while he was in campaign, in 1085 : Bohemond inherited his father’s positions on the Adriatic Sea, which were immediately overwhelmed by the Byzantines, and he would lost his claims on the ducal titles to his half-brother Roger Borsa and the latter’s mother, Sigelgaita ; thanks to a sympathetic revolt, Bohemond seized the cities of Oria, Otranto and Tarento, which were recognized as his property by the Pope.

Bohemond’s life would change in 1096, when he saw the troops of the First Crusade passing nearby the city of Amalfi, which he was besieging along with his uncle, Count Roger of Sicily : overwhelmed by the piety of the Crusaders or ambitiong to carve himself a demesne in the lands of his archenemy, Alexios. Along with his nephew Tancred, he gathered a large and fine Norman Army and participated to the Crusade, proving himself respectful to Alexios during an audience at Constantinople : if the First Crusade had no clear leader and if the tradition mostly remembered Godefroi de Bouillon or Raymond de Saint-Gilles, Bohemond was maybe among the most able, if not the finest baron of the Crusade.



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The Siege of Antioch (medieval miniature painting, date unknown)

Bribing one of the defenders of Antioch during the 1097 siege, Bohemond decided to settle there, having previously considered Cilicia as his principality : due to his role and later his successful resistance to the army of relief led by Atabeg Kerbogah, his rights on Antioch finally privaled on Raymond de Saint-Gilles’, and he stayed in the eastern city in order to consolidate his hold. Hoping to make of the Principality of Antioch a strong land that would dwarf the future kingdom of Jerusalem, he had to cope with the Byzantines and the Turks. Bohemond was captured in 1100 by the Turks, during a relief operation of the Armenian city of Malatia, and was to be detained until 1103, after much delaying by the Basileus. When he was back, Tancred had expanded the Principality, but all expansion was stopped : in the south by the newly established county of Tripoli, in the east by a defeat at Harran and in the north by a Greek breakthrough in Cilicia. In 1104, Bohemond had to go back to Europe in order to find help to his cause.



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Tancred of Hauteville (XIXth Century painting)


He managed to gather a large army and to marry the king of France’s daughter, Constance, but decided to use his army to attack Alexios : the attack was a terrible failure, and had to sign a humiliating peace in 1108 where he recognized himself as the Basileus’ vassal, installing a Greek Patriarch of Antioch and abandoning the disputed territories. He would die without returning to his principality, at 57, a broken man.


If the principality of Antioch was born in great pain, Bohemond had managed to enhance a new part of history…


-From
the Beginner’s Guide to the Crusader States, Charles Atkinson, Resurrection Press, 1998
 
I guess it will be very original a TL-AAR over Crusader Antioch, so that means it will be a story about divergent Syria...

Onwards to Damascus! :D
 
Bohemond II
House of Hauteville
1108-1130

BohemondII.png

Prince of Tarento 1111-1128, Prince of Antioch 1111-1130 (regency in Antioch by his cousin Tancred of Galilee 1111-1112, his cousin Roger of Salerno 1112-1119, King Baldwin II of Jerusalem 1119-1126)
Son of Bohemond I, Prince of Antioch and Constance of France
Married Alice, daughter of Baldwin II, King of Jerusalem
Father of Constance of Antioch, who follows

When Bohemond II ascended to the throne of Antioch at 3, at the death of his father in Apulia, he was also being raised in Italy. It was not until his eighteenth birthday that he would give finally go to the Levant to rule of his own, leaving his Italian inheritage to a relative ; Duke William II of Apulia or Count Alexander of Conversano, the sources contradict each other on this point. In the same time, the regency in Antioch was first assured by Tancred, who refused the vassality pact forced by the Byzantines but died about a year later of typhoid fever, and later Roger of Salerno, who was killed in the battle of Ager Sanguinis against the Aleppines ; when Bohemond arrived at Antioch, the King of Jerusalem, Baldwin II, had ruled the Principality for seven years, having been called in by the local nobles.

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Baldwin II of Jerusalem (from Guillaume of Tyre's Histoire d'Outremer)

Upon receiving the Principality from the King of Jerusalem, Bohemond married his daughter Alice, following the matrimonial policies Baldwin was pursuing, after marrying his first daughter Melisende to his would-be successor, Fulk of Anjou. The new reigning Prince engaged in a series of campaigns against the Arabs, eventually reaching Aleppo, but his disagreements with Count Joscelin of Edessa led to the defeat of the Crusaders ; the two Crusader barons conflicted each other on territorial disputes that had been settled by Roger of Salerno but contested by Bohemond II. Joscelin would eventually ally with the Muslims against Bohemond : Baldwin II finally settled the matter by 1128, but by that time, the Atabeg Zengi fortified and consolidated Aleppo so the Crusader couldn’t threaten it for some time.

The same year, his cousin, Duke Roger II of Apulia, who would soon become King of Sicily, invaded Tarento, and Bohemond II couldn’t do anything from Antioch. He accompanied Baldwin II in his campaign against Damascus, but were eventually defeated by the Seljuks. He lated turned against the northern territories that had been conquered by King Leo I of Armenia, allied by the Danishmend Emirs : Bohemond II would find himself ambushed with his army near Mamistra in February 1130. He was killed and beheaded, his embalmed head sent to Caliph Al-Mustarshid in a silver box. He was 22-two-years-old, and had ruled on his own for less than four years. He was succeeded by his only daughter Constance, who was the same age than him when he inherited the Principality, at 3.

-From the Beginner’s Guide to the Crusader States, Charles Atkinson, Resurrection Press, 1998
 
RyuDrago - Thanks for replying: for expansion, I'm planning to have a rather opportunistic approach, depending on the developments in the Holy Land.
 
Very interesting. I recall some discussions of Paradox games on this forum, but I don't recall seeing an actual AAR before. I'll definitely be following this. Out of interest, what versions of the other games (EU, Vicky, HoI) will you be playing? And what are your goals for the game? World conquest by Vicky, or a slow and steady, historically realistic expansion?

I don't know if you knew this before, or if you prefer your current style, but for the record, where French uses the «» symbols for quotes, English uses " " as quotation marks, i.e. «Bonjour», j'ai dit à mon ami --> "Hello", I said to my friend. It doesn't really make a huge amount of difference, just makes it slightly easier for those of us who haven't come across the French speech marksbefore to realise that they are for quotes.
 
Constance
House of Hauteville
1127-1163
Constance.png


Princess Regnant of Antioch 1130-1160 (regency by her grandfather King Baldwin II of Jerusalem 1130-1131, then her uncle King Fulk of Jerusalem 1131-1136)
Daughter of Bohemond II, Prince of Antioch and Alice of Jerusalem
Married :
-Raymond de Poitiers, son of William IX of Aquitaine
-Renaud de Châtillon
Issue :
-From Raymond de Poitiers :
-Bohemond III, who follows
-Marie, who married Basileus Manuel I Comnenus
-Philippa, who married Lord Onfroi II of Toron
-Baldwin
-Raymond
-From Renaud de Châtillon :
-Agnes, who married King Bela III of Hungary
-Jeanne, who married Marquess Boniface of Montferrat

Beginning her reign at age 3, Constance would have a rather tragic reign. First, in a time and a region where women, either daughters, wives or mothers, would succeed to a man, Princess Dowager Alice would try to retain the throne for herself, overpassing her father Baldwin II’s regency ; she tried to ally with Mosul Atabeg Zengi (who would later conquer Edessa), but she was stopped and exiled by the King of Jerusalem, who would die shortly after. A second attempt in 1135, seeking the support of the Byzantine Empire by offering Constance to Manuel Comnenus, was a terrible snub for Alice : French barons were wanting as Prince consort Raymond of Poitiers, an able knight, who had to come to Antioch disguised as a pilgrim ; the Patriarch of Antioch tricked Alice into believing the 20-years-old Raymond was coming to marry her, but he wed instead him and the 8-years-old Constance. Alice would leave humiliated and die the following year.

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Raymond I of Antioch

The joint rule of Raymond and Constance was plagued by the strained relations with the Byzantine Empire, which was claiming suzerainty over Antioch and disputed territories in Armenian Cilicia : to John II Comnenus, Raymond was forced to accept to relinquish Antioch as soon as he would find a new fief, joined him in a failed 1138 expedition into Cilicia : Raymond wasn’t too enthusiastic about purchasing new territories, as he would mean his retreat from the Crusader State. After deposing the pro-Byzantine Patriarch, Raymond successfully overcame the siege of Antioch made by John II. From the following Basileus, Manuel, Raymond obtained some Cilician cities, but only to renew his oath of homage to the Emperor. In 1149, Raymond was visited by King of France Louis VII, en route to Damascus, during the Second Crusade. Trying to obtain the King’s help against Aleppo and Caesarea, Raymond engaged into lengthy conversations and closeness to his niece, Alienor of Aquitaine, Queen of France (and later Queen of England) : some chroniclers rumored of an incest between Raymond and Alienor, but it was mostly due to Louis’ jealousy towards the effulgent manners of Raymond. The latter would die in the battle of Inab against Nur ed-Din Zangi : his head was sent to the Caliph.

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Renaud I of Antioch

Their son Bohemond being only five-years-old, Baldwin III of Jerusalem assumed the regency over Antioch, he and the Basileus proposing various husbands to Constance, who rebutted all of them, in the light of keeping Antioch’s independance from both Jerusalem and Constantinople. She finally decided to marry in 1153 Renaud de Châtillon, an obscure and upstart adventurer who proved to be rather unpopular. A fiery man (to use an euphemism), he invaded Cyprus in 1155 in order to claim a payment the Basileus hadn’t made to him, and after stripping and burning the Patriarch of Antioch. Then confronted to the huge army Manuel assembled, Renaud was forced to beg the Basileus’ forgiveness, barefoot and shabby, and to pay homage to him. He was to be captured in 1160 by the Muslims during a plundering raid against Syrian and Armenian peasents. He was to be confined for seventeen years, until Manuel paid his ransom, him being stepfather to her wife Maria.

Due to the marriage of her daughter Marie with the Basileus, Constance was widely accepted as regent of Antioch, even if she wasn’t gaining anymore her subjects’ approval, due to the furious rule of Renaud. In 1163, after asking the Armenian Kingdom of Cilicia support for her rule, she was deposed by a riot from the citizens of Antioch. She died later that year in exile, after being succeeded by her son Bohemond III.

-From the Beginner’s Guide to the Crusader States, Charles Atkinson, Resurrection Press, 1998
 
Real game - and alternate history - is to occur soon... :)

Falastur -
Well, I'm planning to use Europa Universalis III, Victoria 2 and Hearts of Iron III for the sequels, if I manage to go this longer. As of the style, well, as I'm writing on a French version of Word, both these forms can occur; however, both can work in French language.
 
Bohemond III the Stammerer
House of Poitou
1144-1206
BohemondIII.png


Prince of Antioch 1160-1206
Son of Raymond of Poitiers, Prince Consort of Antioch and Constance of Antioch
Married :
-Orgueilleuse d’Harenc
-Theodora Comnenos, daughter of John, Duke of Cyprus
-Sibylle
-Irene Comnenos, sister of Manuel, King of Armenia
Issue :
-From Orgueilleuse :
-Raymond
-Bohemond
-From Theodora :
-Manuel
-From Sibylle :
-Hubert
-Philippe
-Alix, who married Constable John
-Isabeau, who married Duke Guy of Bourbon
-Agnes
-From Irene :
-Foulques
-Cecile
-Marthe

Even if he could’ve assumed the rule over Antioch on his own from his father Raymond’s death in 1149, Bohemond III was recognized as the ruler of the Principality of Antioch after his stepfather’s emprisonment in 1160, with the help of King Baldwin III of Jerusalem. His mother’s exile in 1163 assured him as the sole ruler of Antioch. However, his early reign was plagued with defeats : following an offensive at Harim against Nur Ed-Din with Count Raymond III of Tripoli, he was captured and released under a ransom of 150,000 dinars, paid by Basileus Manuel Comnenus, his nominal overlord and brother-in-law ; Bohemond had to allow a Greek Patriarch to be installed in Antioch, much to the rage of the Latin Patriarch. He subsequently invaded Armenia in 1172, due to the alliance of the local ruler to Nur Ed-Din, and returned to besiege Harim in 1177 with Raymond III and Count Philip of Flanders, but without success. He also tried to convince the Leper King, Baldwin IV, to have his sister and heir Sibylla marry its ally Baldwin of Ibelin, without success. He was also excommunicated by Pope Alexander III for leaving his wife Theodora to a woman named Sibylla, « a practice of evil arts », but remained steady, persecuting the upper clergy, the mediators and remaining with Sibylla that would give him five children.

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The outbreak of the Third Crusade...

Bohemond also prepared for the awaited Arab assault on the Crusader States by Saladin, negotiating a peace treaty with the latter in 1883 and selling Tarsus to Armenia in order to make Antioch more easily defendible. The Arab finally occured in 1188, a few months before Saladin’s premature death, and Jerusalem immediately came under attack, and Pope Innocent III proclaimed the Third Crusade which had to conquer Egypt. Not taking part in the defense of Jerusalem, that felt in 1189, Bohemond besieged the Alamut Fortress, belonging to the Assassins’ Sect, close to the Antiochene state : the fortress, deemed as impregnable, would fall for Christmas 1189, a small compensation for the Crusaders. Due to his personnal success, Innocent III promised to reintegrate Bohemond into the Church if he took the Cross : which he did…But only in name.

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...And its consequences.

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The Antiochene expansion in Anatolia.

Bohemond took advantage of the collapse of the Sultanate of Rum to attack Metilene, one of the remnants of the past Seljuk Empire, along with the Kingdom of Georgia. The war would last from 1194 to 1195, but Bohemond was wounded while fighting, his beloved Sibylla died while he was in eastern Anatolia and his second son, Bohemond, actively plotted in order to take control of Antioch while his father was abroad. Thanks to the Latin Patriarch and other loyalists, Bohemond’s plot was thwarted and the pretender was to be killed while defending his life. However, the following year, during a skirmish with the Sheikdom of Erzurum, his eldest son and heir Raymond was killed.

However, Bohemond would make other gains during the last years of his long reign : taking advantage of the total weakness of the so-called Kingdom of Jerusalem, cut in two by the still powerful Arabs, Bohemond took over the former county of Tripoli after a short war against Jerusalem and the Knights Templar. He also acquired Damascus in 1203, as the city rebelled against the Ayyubid Empire, and an expedition against the Abbassid territories in Armenia proved quite ill fated, as Bohemond had to pay the Caliph to avoid retribution on his Principality. Having been wounded five times during his long reign, Bohemond III finally died peacefully on August, 26 1206, at 62. He was succeeded by his grandson Geoffroy, the son of Raymond. Due to his closeness to three successive popes (Innocent III, Stephen X and Clement III) and his effectiveness as a Crusader (in contrast to the faltering Lusignans), Bohemond III was beatified in 1348.

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The legend of the "Good Prince Bohemond" was maintained to these days

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-From the Beginner’s Guide to the Crusader States, Charles Atkinson, Resurrection Press, 1998
 
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Well, very scattered domains but at least Antioch managed to survive and expand even if Jerusalem was fallen... So that means it the Principate is the only Catholic player in the region. Keep up! ;)
 
Antioch

How do the native Christians factor in? Especially the Greeks, since they were always the majority and even ruled themselves to an extent by the commune of that city.
 
Scattered domains indeed. I do question his ability to maintain control over said domains, especially if he is surrounded by enemies who want to remove said christian presence from the Holy Land entirely.
 
Nice to see a Crusader AAR/alt-hist. :D

I hope this one turns out to have a better ending than the Kingdom of Jerusalem one.
 
*For reasons of reading, you got to click on the section's title to see the map. Thank you.*

INTERMISSION - Europe in 1200 :


France and England :

The Plantagenets are among the most powerful dynasty of Europe, but their power was at a large cost. Henry II had to deal with the revolt from his eldest son, Richard, and had almost succeeded in his conquest of France : but after the death of Philippe II without a heir at the battle of Poissy, one of his cousins, Robert de Dreux, took over the crown of France and finally repealed the Normans, at a large cost of lives. Now that Richard arrived at the throne with the demise of his father in 1195, he has to deal with revolt from his continental vassals and from his niece Constance in Britanny and his brother John in Ireland : for the King of England, who considers himself as the leader of Crusader Europe, it’s just a little matter…

Iberic Peninsula and Maghreb :


Reconquista was quite assured, the four Christian kingdoms making small but constant gains over the shaken Almohad Caliphate, with some independant crusaders making audacious raids in North Africa, shaken by revolts from the Berber tribes.

Central Europe :

Friedrich and his son, Heinrich VI, had made far better than any of their predecessors into maintaining the Holy Roman Empire, but the throne being taken by a child, Viktor, revolts had been multiplicating, most nostably in Italy and the Low Countries, but most of the great dukes remained faithful to the Emperor. Poland was also under the rule of a child-king : the only great state at the time was the Hungary of Bela III, which had most noticeably conquered Croatia in the 1190s.

Scandinavia :

Even if Finland and Baltic Europe still shelter the latest Pagan populations of Europe, Scandinavian kingdoms have begun to spread in the western shore of Finland ; Russia is a complete patchwork of rival princedoms, the most powerful being Novgorod and Vladimir-Suzdal ; however, the two great Rurikids don’t feel threatened yet by the Khwarezmid expansion…

Eastern Mediterrannean Sea :

Crusader raids have multiplicated in the southern shore of the Mediterreannean Sea, at the call of Pope Innocent III (1187-1199), but there is a problem that Christiendom hadn’t anticipated : the exceptionnal increase of the Khwarezmid Empire, which has now arrived to the Balkans, defeating Bulgaria in the process. Strong Hungary and broken Byzantine Empire are now supposed to repeal the Persian invader…

Middle East :

Even with the sudden demise of Saladin in 1188, the Ayyubid offensive against the Crusader States has proven to be successful, reducing the Kingdom of Jerusalem to a few castles in Palestine : only the arrival of the third Crusade in Alexandria, the reconquest of Jerusalem by Queen Sibylla (who lost his life due to the stress of the campaign) and internal turmoil have prevented the Ayyubids of going too far. Among the other Arab kingdoms, the Ayyubids and Azerbaijan managed to expand, while Khwarezm, under the already legendary Sultan Aladdin Tekish (which would be confounded with the Aladdin from the Arabian Nights), has passed the Caspian Sea to conquer most of southern Russia to the Balkans. Who would stop Islam ? Certainly not the Byzantine Empire, that has to deal with the various and powerful families, which do not recognize any longer the authority of Alexios Angelos…

From Le Moyen Age en Cartes, Marc de Boutigny, Editions La Découverte, Paris 2018.
 
RyuDrago - There is some Crusaders in Egypt, but yes, I'm basically the only Catholic left in the area.

el t - I don't know if it's taken in game.

JamesPhoenix - The ongoing trouble in the Ayyubid Empire gave me some relief.

Falastur - No, but neither for the Christian states.

SavoyTruffle - I hope so too!

DjBaraca - Thanks a lot!
 
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