What would be a theoretically maximum victory for the Crusades?

mad orc

Banned
What would be a theoretically maximum victory for the Crusades and how would this change for the middle east:
1)Demographics.
2)Culture
3)Religion
4)History of Europe

Etc etc
 
The Crusaders could theoretically form a Latin Empire almost a hundred years earlier by overthrowing Alexios Komnenos when he had become unpopular in the later years of his reign. After the First Crusade, Bohemond of Antioch tried to attack the Byzantine Empire for a second time (he first tried in the 1080s) with an army of 34,000 men. Though he didn't get very far IOTL, perhaps if the Venetians sided with Bohemond instead of the Byzantines, then Bohemond could conquer Byzantium. Albeit he might have to bestow the throne to someone else if he was not considered worthy of being elevated to emperor.

This could give the Crusaders a whole empire to work with, which makes any further conquests a lot easier. Additionally, the Schism would be less solidified, and this early Latin Empire would exist during the Second and Third Crusades and "benefit" (though also would be threatened of usurpation) by the Catholic armies they assembled. The Fourth Crusade would also, at worst, lead to the usurpation of an already existing Latin Empire by a pretender.

Most likely, this Empire of Romania would decline immediately after being formed by Bohemond, which would be the excuse for another crusade against the Seljuk Turks. This empire would be rejuvenated by the Second Crusade, decline again to Greek rebellion and Turkish invasion, rejuvenated by the Third Crusade, repeat. Perhaps the Fourth Crusade would actually go to Egypt depending on the chronology. But with enough "investment" the Catholic Byzantium might be strong enough to persist to the point when the Sultanate of Rum declines. Maybe we could see an Ottoman like expansion of the remaining, actually Catholicized Latin Empire, with Turcopoles as Janissaries and Frankish knights as Timariots?
 
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I'm not particularly knowledgeable about the Crusades, but I'd suggest that a maximum victory would involve the capture of everything between Edessa and Gaza, whilst keeping the Byzantines onside (which will lead to a Byzantine recapture of at least Central, and possibly Eastern Anatolia). Assuming the Mongols still come as IOTL, annihilating the Seljuks and far less motivated in the recapture of the Levantine cities esp. Jerusalem (content simply for indications of submission), the Franks, whether Normans, French, Italians etc. could mount a mass invasion of Egypt, which would result in the destruction of the only major existential threat to Outremer. Whilst the lack of a credible external threat will doubtlessly lead to internecine conflict between the Crusader lords (as is bound to be the case given feudal European political culture), eventually the situation will stabilise either as they are united by an ambitious and capable ruler (given the relative strategic merits of the territories, either the lord of Lower Egypt or that of Syria), or will settle into a confederation or Levantine League which minimises conflict between neighbours (although it still exists).

The ability of the Italian city states to directly tap into the silk trade (and other commercial enterprises in the Levant) will likely reduce the incentives for meddling with the affairs of the Byzantines, although the Genovese/Venetian rivalry will likely still play out over access to the Black Sea and relations between Byzantines and Franks will deteriorate rapidly. Whether a Latin League exists or not, whether Balkan princedoms side with Italians against the Byzantines, or whether the consolidation of Byzantine power leads to a resurgence and the rebuffal of the Italian cities that circled like vultures, who knows?

BTW, it is likely that the Crusaders will be unable to project power to Upper Egypt, which will likely fall under Makurian governance.
 
Battle of Hattin is considered the decisive battle of the crusades and ended in a major Crusader defeat, one from what the Crusaders never recovered. It could have been easily avoided by the crusaders. If so, it may be possible for the Crusader to survive until the Mongol invasion of Israel. Now, what happens God only knows but if the Crusaders survive that they will need to face the Mamluks who are quite a formidable enemy. If they survive that they are in a three-way battle between Napoleon, the British and Mamluks. Then if they survive that they have the Ottomans who with British support they can hold.

So with a lot of luck, the best case for the Crusaders is an earlier British mandate in the 1800s and with that, you would change much of post ww2 history.
 
Battle of Hattin is considered the decisive battle of the crusades and ended in a major Crusader defeat, one from what the Crusaders never recovered. It could have been easily avoided by the crusaders. If so, it may be possible for the Crusader to survive until the Mongol invasion of Israel. Now, what happens God only knows but if the Crusaders survive that they will need to face the Mamluks who are quite a formidable enemy. If they survive that they are in a three-way battle between Napoleon, the British and Mamluks. Then if they survive that they have the Ottomans who with British support they can hold.

So with a lot of luck, the best case for the Crusaders is an earlier British mandate in the 1800s and with that, you would change much of post ww2 history.
This is outright promotion of butterfly genocide o_O
 
A maximum victory for the Crusades means a radically different Crusader States. One of their vital issues was a dramatic lack of manpower, partially caused by (to my understanding) a general unwillingness and inability to recruit locally.

I actually think that a combination of a Janissary-style system on the muslim population, combined with recruiting the local Orthodox would allow the Crusaders to have a much more defensible situation. Especially if it commits to Christian Tolerance, which would I expect include Byzantine Patriarchs being part of Crusader Politics.

Don't get me wrong, I expect wholeheartedly that the Crusaders would want to, and may succeed, in maintaining their Catholicism, but that would be the first step. It'd allow them to field larger forces, supplementing their already impressive castles - allowing them to more readily go on the offensive. In fact, I'd suggest that as a PoD for Jerusalem to unite the Crusader States, and then begin the construction of fleets both in the Med and the Red Sea, which would lessen their dependence on the trade cities of Italy.

That could lead to a Crusader State that encompasses Egypt, Jerusalem, Syria, and potentially make inroads in Northern Mesopotamia - but I don't think they'd do well going past the northern Euphrates without finding their own way to defend against more desert-friendly troops.
 
If the Crusaders manage to get complete control of the Eastern Med(unlikely but possible with a hard enough wank) and break their naval dependence with the Italian states, that might cause greater Italian enthusiasm for finding a sea route to China and India, which could have interesting implications for the colonization of the New World
 
What would be a theoretically maximum victory for the Crusades and how would this change for the middle east:
1)Demographics.
2)Culture
3)Religion
4)History of Europe

Etc etc

I think OTL they stretched themselves to the limit. Thing is after the First Crusade there wasn't really a clear objective. Attempts were made to capture Egypt but I don't see this succeeding in the long run as the population is just too large to be held down and Crusader tactics merely generated further resistance. An attack was made on Damascus but it was too well defended. They might have achieved something in Anatolia (Third Crusade sacked Konya) but they weren't interested in this area and the Byzantines were too weak and disorganised to gain anything from it.

In fact given the number of unlikely things that had to go right for the First Crusade to succeed at all, and then for the Muslim world to remain disunited for so long afterwards, one can suggest that OTL is already at the unlikely end of the spectrum. If we were to run history again 100 times, I suspect that the OTL events would be unlikely and most scenarios would produce either an immediate failure or a quicker collapse of the Crusader states. Really, it's amazing that they lasted as long as they did (from 1099 to 1291, which is 192 years).

...Especially if it commits to Christian Tolerance, which would I expect include Byzantine Patriarchs being part of Crusader Politics...

The Crusaders weren't exactly known for their religious tolerance... a movement essentially based on religious bigotry isn't an ideal candidate for modern theories of secular humanism (despite what the movie Kingdom of Heaven anachronistically tries to portray). Plus the fact that the Crusaders appeared to hate the Orthodox Christians even more than the Muslim world, as evidenced by the Fourth Crusade in 1204, the massacre of Egyptian Coptic Christians at Bilbeis in 1168, not to mention the obstructionism of the Principality of Antioch in the face of Byzantine claims to the city in the 1140s...
 
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The Crusaders weren't exactly known for their religious tolerance... a movement essentially based on religious bigotry isn't an ideal candidate for modern theories of secular humanism (despite what the movie Kingdom of Heaven anachronistically tries to portray). Plus the fact that the Crusaders appeared to hate the Orthodox Christians even more than the Muslim world, as evidenced by the Fourth Crusade in 1204, the massacre of Egyptian Coptic Christians at Bilbeis in 1168, not to mention the obstructionism of the Principality of Antioch in the face of Byzantine claims to the city in the 1140s...

I appreciate that, hence why my suggested/inferred PoD would be to institute a policy of tolerance for Christians and effectively the kidnapping and brainwashing of Muslim children to bolster their forces (I know that Janissaries are largely considered not the same, but lets take the idea and add intolerance to the mix). I don't expect them to become hippies, but tolerant enough to raise Orthodox Levies and be less reliant on their small numbers and castles is key to making the Crusader States viable IMO.

As to the Orthodox? I don't rightly know if that is true. 1204 is almost certainly more political than out of hatred, even if it would rightfully inspire it. Bilbeis is Coptic rather than Orthodox, so I'm not proposing THAT much tolerance, only with the Orthodox.

As for Antioch - I'm discussing tolerance of the Orthodox population by Catholic lords - not a union of Orthodox and Catholic leaders - I don't see how Antioch, other than being land the Byzantines wanted, is relevant.

I'd counter with the fact that the Catholic World did basically respond to Alexios for help (even if it wasn't in the manner that he asked) so at least via the Papacy there are good enough relations.

Perhaps it isn't even truly tolerance - perhaps they institute a system of Janissaries for captured Muslim children, but for the Orthodox they have to either pay additional taxes, or they can forgo all extra taxes in exchange for a system of military service and corvee labour. The richer Orthodox pay up, the poorer ones work or fight, or convert and only have to fight when summoned
 

Skallagrim

Banned
Ignoring the fact that "theoretical maximum" goes right up to "they conquer the whole world just by being lucky again and again", I'd say that a long-lasting Crusader state holding the Levant isn't at all outside the real of the plausible. It does require fundamental changes to what occurred in OTL. The main requirement for viability is "no unnecessary conflict with Constantinople". The splendid timeline And All Nations Shall Gather To It by @Rdffigueira given a very good portrayal of what that would look like (in the early stages).

As I have mentioned in that TL's discussion thread, in the longer term, the Crusaders will only be able to exploit their better strategic position (thanks to more firm alliance with the ERE) if they solve their manpower problem. One way to do that is thanks to butterflies (the greater success of the Crusades attracts more people to try their luck over there). Another is to craft the TL so that less fruitful crusading ventures of OTL are never embarked upon and the energy and manpower goes to more useful campaigns instead

The third (and most important) way is to have the Crusaders realise that they will need at least a portion of the locals to like/accept their rule-- and then to act accordigly. This would, I imagine, involve creating a society where anyone who converts to Catholicism is accepted into the higher strata of society, while other Christians are second-class citizens, but still above Jews, Muslims and Druze, who would be the lowest classes with few to no options to climb the social ladder. Such an approach, though hardly enlightened, would further conversion rates (since conversion opens a lot of doors for you that otherwise stay closed: conversion to Catholicism would be, for many people, the only realistic method of acquiring upward mobility. This may suggest that the people belonging to the 'bottom' group may be most interested in converting to Catholicism, since they have it the worst as long as they don't, and conversely have the most to gain from it if they do. (I have also suggested that certain groups, such as the Druze, could get a special place in the social order by becoming particularly trusted or high-valued auxiliaries. It wouldn't be the first time in history that we see such a thing.)

If such developments were to occur in an ATL scenario, I find it very realistic that the ATL Crusader state and the ERE could fight side by side to their mutual benefit, and succeed in 'holding the line' against any invasion attempts.

When we speak of what's possible, however, we can go a bit beyond the aforementioned. It is far less certain that what I have already outlined, but given that same premise, a successful Crusader conquest of Egypt is hardly out of the question. As far as truly long-term strategy is concerned, I'd say that Egypt is indeed the logical target after you get your core territory secured. The reason simply being that controlling Egypt allows you to cut off (effective) trade between the (Islamic) East and (also Islamic) North Africa. Considering the substantial percentage of the Egyptian population that was still Coptic-Christian back in the day (a matter also discussed in the thread dedicated to the TL I linked above), Crusaders willing to treat the Copts with respect could find that Egypt can be added to their permanent holdings without any difficulty greater than that they'd encountered in the Levant.

In the case of both the Levant and Egypt, I can see the social pressures that would be at work there slowly working to whittle away the Muslim population to a rather slight minority, with no perspectives for re-asserting dominance. Or in other words: I think that in such an ATL as I have outlined here, there would by the present day be no more Muslims (percentage-wise) in the Crusader territories than there are Christians in Egypt in OTL. I can also see the Crusaders extending an olive branch and a proposal of mutual support to Christians to Egypt's south (Ethiopia!), to ensure that Islamic North Africa is well and truly cut off from Islamic Asia by a firm Christian 'wedge'. All this would greatly strengthen the position of Christendom vis-à-vis the Islamic World.

Now to get a bit more speculative. We may assume that these ATL Crusade gongs-on neither would nor should meaningfully affect the Reconquista of the Iberian peninsula. Which leaves us with an amalgamation of Christian realms that has, in essence, "locked its jaws" around the still-Islamic parts of North Africa. Those parts of North Africa are also, as suggested above, cut off from any meaningful support from the Islamic East. And historically, manpower was a serious issue for not just the Crusaders... but also for the polities of Islamic North Africa (and North Africa in general; Carthage already faced the same issue back in the day).

Based on such considerations, the most ambitious long-term goal of the encompassing "Crusading venture" then becomes quite clear: a Reconquista of all of North Africa. (By which I do not mean to say that this would be somehow easy, but rather that it would be the logical ambition, and could indeed happen -- in the long term -- if enough effort is dedicated to it.) This seems like a more realistic 'grand plan' than driving into Mesopotamia (which would be difficult to do and even more difficult to hold for the Crusaders), and also more sensible to a European mind (because a reconquista of North Africa would end Islamic piracy and restore the Mare Nostrum within the context of Christendom).

I think that just about sums up the ultimate bounds of what the Crusades could maximally accomplish-- and which can realistically ensue from the scenario I have suggested, if given enough time and a (still realistic) amount of good luck, with any truly implausable amounts of Crusader-wanking going on. All in all, this whole venture would immensely strengthen Christendom. This may cause further Christian victories over Muslim rivals (for instance, I could see follow-up campaigns in Armenia), but I won't include those matters here-- since I do not think that at that point we'll still be looking at "Crusades".
 
Battle of Hattin is considered the decisive battle of the crusades and ended in a major Crusader defeat, one from what the Crusaders never recovered. It could have been easily avoided by the crusaders. If so, it may be possible for the Crusader to survive until the Mongol invasion of Israel. Now, what happens God only knows but if the Crusaders survive that they will need to face the Mamluks who are quite a formidable enemy. If they survive that they are in a three-way battle between Napoleon, the British and Mamluks. Then if they survive that they have the Ottomans who with British support they can hold.

So with a lot of luck, the best case for the Crusaders is an earlier British mandate in the 1800s and with that, you would change much of post ww2 history.
It this some kind of cruel joke? :(
 
Battle of Hattin is considered the decisive battle of the crusades and ended in a major Crusader defeat, one from what the Crusaders never recovered.

I would not go that far. The Third Crusade was fairly successful and the Sixth even regained Jerusalem.
 
I would not go that far. The Third Crusade was fairly successful and the Sixth even regained Jerusalem.

I would argue that the Crusader state lost most of its population and never recovered. Yes, some parts survived for another hundred years fueled by outsiders but the great days of the kingdom were over.

It this some kind of cruel joke? :(

Probably it is very hard for a small state like the crusaders in the long-term to survive in a region of superpowers.
 
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