alternatehistory.com

I've been reading Charles Oman's books on war in the Middle Ages and was struck by the fates of the armies that crossed Anatolia to get to Palestine. The 1st and 3rd seemed to do alright, despite the starvation issues both faced, but some 5 armies in the Crusade of 1101 and the 2nd Crusade were virtually destroyed.

Oman lays some blame on the Byzantines, who attempted to use the crusades for their own ends. He also lays some blame at the unfamiliar type of warfare that these westerners faced, against highly mobile horse archers that they were most not equipped to deal with. But he lays most of the blame at the crusaders themselves; their impetuos stupidity, lack of discipline, inability/unwillingness to make adequate supply arrangements and an unwillingnees to take advice and learn from the mistakes of others.

But what if this wasn't the case, WI the 1101 crusaders learned some of the lessons from the 1st crusade, took advice from Byzantines, 1st Crusaders and other knowledgeable locals and did what they could within their means to withstand the Slejuk Turks as the crossed Anatolia. I thinking of; choosing the best route, keeping the disparate armies together, concentrating the available infantry archers to keep horse archers at arms length, using the non-combatant pilgrims as laborers to entrench camps, that sort of thing.

Similarly WI the 2nd crusade learnt from both earlier crusades about crossing Anatolia and dealing with the Seljuks? They had the Grand Master of the Templars with them and Byzantine guides as well as having Byzantium in control of considerably more of the route in 1147, so in my mind have less excuse for their failure.

Could these 2 crusades have crossed Anatolia succesfully (without the stroke of luck that Dorylaeum provided for the 1st crusade) if they did what else they could with the information and resources available to them, or are they bound to harried into oblivion during their long transit? By successfully I mean as an intact fighting body of at least half of the original fighting strength, although perhaps minus a lot more horses in proportion.

If these 2 crusades did arrive in strength in Outremer what would be the result?
Top