What would ERE attack first in their reconquests?

I'm thinking about them in the borders of 11th century, more precise as at the start of Crusader Kings 2 ( hate me:D ).
What would their first target be;

1) Stabilization of Balkans
2) Taking their part of Italy from the Normans and Saracens
3) Simply pushing further into Armenia or Syria
 
I'm thinking about them in the borders of 11th century, more precise as at the start of Crusader Kings 2 ( hate me:D ).
What would their first target be;

1) Stabilization of Balkans
2) Taking their part of Italy from the Normans and Saracens
3) Simply pushing further into Armenia or Syria


I'd do things in the following order:
a) Stabilise the Balkans - eject the Serbs and push the Bulgarians north of the Danube.
b) Stomp the Seljuk Turks. Repeat as often as possible - then invade Syria and take Damascus.
c) Send an assassin to make sure that The Guiscard doesn't wake up one morning. To be really thorough then send another assassin to kill off Bohemund. Then retake all of Sicily and start looking thoughtfully in the direction of Carthage.
d) Conquer the world.
 
Sicily first, push back into Southern Italy to reassert themselves to the West and the Papacy. The ERE would still have occasional wars in the Balkans to maintain their Danube frontier, either with Serb or Bulgarian potentates, or to tribal foes fresh from the steppes.

The ERE would have to defeat the Seljuk Turks a number of times to either extinguish them as a force, or to discourage them from further attacks on Anatolia. Then, maybe further into Syria and down into Palestine, where the ERE still in the 11th century has cultural, political and religious aspirations. Egypt, Palestine and Syria still had substantial Christian populations that any Roman Emperor would try to claim protection and worldly supremacy over.
 
With the gift of hindsight the muslims should of course be top priority. They're more of an immediate and much more of a long term threat. The Turks need thoroughly sorting.
 
With the gift of hindsight the muslims should of course be top priority. They're more of an immediate and much more of a long term threat. The Turks need thoroughly sorting.

I fully agree. Then the Balkans need to be conquered, and the native population needs to be resettled. Every "Greek" village should get a Serb, a Bulgarian plus other minority families. Instead, "Greek" families need to be relocated into the Balkans. With hindsight, one should be able to "Byzantinize" the Balkans south of the Danube as well as the Levante.

Southern Italy, OTOH, I'd try to let go as much as possible. Better not to get too much involved with the Western Christians. It might be better to claim Wallachia and settle it and then develop an alternative trade route to Germany by the Danube that competes with Venice and Genoa.
 
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