Conrad IV of Sicily, also known as Conradin, was the last Hohenstaufen sitting on a throne. Something he intended to fix. In his thirties, he and his first cousin and wife Constance already had four children: two boys, and two girls. The first boy, Conrad, would inherit Sicily and Swabia. The second, two-year-old Alexander, Conrad was negotiating a betrothal to the young Margaret, Maid of Norway, who as the only surviving descendant of Alexander III of Scotland, was his de facto heir. Edward I of England also expressed interest in getting her hand for his son, Edward, however, Conrad had another power in his corner- Philippe IV of France. Philip wanted to see Edward marry his own daughter to smooth tensions between the Kingdom. Eventually, after a year of attempting to negotiate, this motive fell away for simply making sure England couldn’t obtain a personal union over Scotland and grow too powerful- even if, in all likelihood, it would only survive the reign of Edward and Margaret (at least, this is what the French believed at the time- incorrectly). However, eventually, other matters led to Philippe IV backing down to deal with his vassals. With this, Conrad lost his primary backer, and Edward lost his primary challenger.
As a result, the betrothal was agreed upon. While some details would remain unresolved at the moment, the move was celebrated among the wealthy of all sorts. For Scotland, the move helped secure some of their holdings in England and tied them to a more prestigious monarchy. In England, it secured their northern border, and prevented certain schemes from the French to ally with the Scots and force a two-front war upon London. This naturally led to various problems at home for King Philippe IV, including several nobles trying to force an English marriage of some form to secure a peace the King did not want. However, he was able to crush this dissent and prevent too much damage to his reign.
Out east, Conradin successfully arranged a betrothal between Conrad and Theodora, the daughter of Emperor Baldwin II (named for her aunt). While Emperor Baldwin was trying for a son and heir, he was having difficulties, and only had three young daughters. Not to be deterred, he educated her in all the ways of ruling as he would any son. Of course, the girl was barely eight, so there wasn’t much actual education, but regardless. His other daughters, the twins Catherine and Alexandria, were another matter. While Catherine, being slightly older, was receiving a diplomatic education, Baldwin doubted that Alexandria would need as much. This is not to say she was neglected, but as a means of dynastic protection, he was genuinely considering a convent for her. This brings up another matter- the actual succession. While there was no foundational document defining the law of Romanían succession (to be frank, most of the emperors prior to Charles had to be invited to the realm by the nobles, and after Charles’s birth the fact there had always been an eligible son first in line, making it unneeded), the French roots of the nobility and the Salic law of France might cause problems for Theodora.
There was also the Church. Baldwin was well aware of the fact that part of Charlemagne’s coronation was to spite Empress Irene, both as a heretic and a woman. While Baldwin was willing to make concessions to the Papacy, the fact of the matter was there could be problems with Theodora’s perceived legitimacy at home. Thus, the Emperor focused on getting his nobles to accept her first, so as to make sure that the Pope would not have as many pawns should a dispute arise. While the governors of the Aegean islands were amiable to the idea (mainly due to their territories not being hereditary so they needed to maintain the Emperor’s favor), the County of Larissa and the Duchy of Morea both wanted a distinct tax lean. This, Baldwin could reasonably grant. But Mathew, king of Thessaloniki, wanted Larissa as a vassal of his Kingdom again, which the Emperor could not accept due to it upsetting the internal balance of power and his Aegean territory. But, he offered Mathew a deal- an attack into Bulgaria under the pretext of revenge for a costly raid. This appeased Mathew, secured Baldwin’s most powerful vassal’s loyalty, and would hopefully weaken the powerful northern neighbor.
However, Baldwin did not want to put Mathew in a truly dominant position, and as a result, secretly reached out to Serbia, offering them much of western Bulgaria. Naturally, Stefan Milutin accepted, and in summer the next year (1287), the armies attacked Bulgaria. While the bolgars put up a remarkable fight, ultimately, the two armies proved too damning for the state to resist fully, and Tsar George I was forced to surrender swathes of the south and southwest to the Romaníans and Serbia. Even Tarnovo was taken and given to Mathew. In exchange, the King of Thessaloniki signed the Imperial Succession Act, laying out the succession of all landed estates in Romanía. Male preference primogeniture became the law of the land, but women could inherit before their cousins. If there were no available children or first or second cousins, then the Imperial Vassals would elect one of their own- this provision was seen as a way to keep the Empire able to focus on matters of the Balkans and Anatolia.
As the Pope was needed to crown an Emperor, the Act was then sent to Pope Honorius IV for approval. However, the Pope refused, due to the fears of the Hohenstauffens inheriting the Empire and perhaps even being elected Holy Roman Emperor again. This was the first major dispute between Romanía and the Papacy, and Baldwin wanted to avoid a true problem. When he asked what could be done, Honorius gave him a two-fold task: ensure that Swabia would be detached from the Sicilian inheritance, and invade Egypt with the Mongols. As it turned out, Honorius had received a letter from the Ilkhanate’s Arghun. While the Khan wished for an alliance with France, Romanía was in a more viable position to do so. While Baldwin had his reservations about allying with the Buddhist Persians and did not necessarily want to be simply a conqueror, this provided an opportunity as both a Christian and as a warrior that no one could pass up. Thus, it was secretly agreed with the Ilkhanate that while Baldwin would get Syria and Jerusalem, the Persians would be allowed to take most of the Mamluk Empire.
Conradin proved difficult, at least in the beginning. Like any king, he did not want to see his dynasty weakened. With his inheritance nearly being stolen from him, he also did not want to risk his son being deprived of his rights. However, luck seemed to favor Baldwin, and soon enough, Conrad announced his wife pregnant, and eventually a third son that he named Manfred. This birth changed things, and Conrad IV was willing to grant the new son Swabia if it meant his eldest would be the father of Emperors. More than this, when he heard of the Romanían plan with the Mongols, he offered Sicilian support, which would soon see financing from France.
Thus, the eleventh crusade was launched in 1290, with combatants from the Seljuks, Mamluks, and hafsids on one side, and Romanía, Sicily, France (mostly mercenaries), and the Ilkhanate on the other. The Mongols were naturally the first army to cross into the Mamluk territory, however, their progress was slow. This was deliberate, as they had been defeated here before and did not wish to repeat it. However, they did begin to ravage and lay siege to Mosul, one of the most important cities in the region. Soon enough, the Romanían forces would land in Syria and cut off most of the Mamluk army sent to relieve the city, however, the victory was costly in manpower, and Mathew (the commander of the initial forces) was killed in pursuit of the retreating mamluks. Despite this, the Empire was able to reinforce the siege, and after a year of siege, Mosul was forced to surrender on January 7th, 1291.
The Seljuks were effectively launching what was hoped to be a revolt against the Mongol power in the region. However, this would prove disastrous for the Turkish state. Mesud II took personal command of the army, hoping to join up with the Mamlukian forces to relieve Mosul (this happening before it fell). Unfortunately, he met with Mongolian reinforcements on the way to the siege, and as a result, he was killed. This proved the end of the Seljuk sultanate, and the remains of what was once the greatest empire in the world fell into total and utter ruin. However, despite the anarchy and infighting as various governors started competing for the remains of Anatolia, the Romanían and Ilkhanate forces were not able to push deeply into Anatolia from the south without risking their gains in Syria and Iraq. As such, they took their small border concessions and refocused south.
The Romanían conquest of Syria wound up effectively a simple conflict. With Mathew dead, Baldwin finally arrived with the remainder of the Latin army. This force was able to quickly take hold of the coast, with a naval blockade securing Beirut with relatively few casualties on both sides With the fall of Mosul and the Romanían navy making communication between the heartland and the levant difficult, most of Syria fell in quick enough order. Only Aleppo and Damascus provided any serious resistance, however, while Aleppo refused to negotiate, the governor of Damascus would. Baldwin, who was not nearly as zealous as his father or grandfather had been, had offered a simple deal: accept Romanían authority, and not only would no one be hurt, but the governor of Damascus would be made governor of the southern region of Syria as a whole- albeit non-hereditary. This worked out and soon Romanían had a strong, native, hand in the region. Aleppo would be… more difficult.
With no negotiation, Aleppo was placed under siege. However, once the city had endured a winter, Baldwin ordered an assault that went horrendously. While the emperor nearly gave up, the failed attack gave the city’s garrison hope, and importantly, time. With the Seljuk state destroyed, her armies had either declared for one beylik or another or, offered themselves as a mercenary company. Aleppo reached out to one such army that the city felt could be advantageous. The First Battle of Aleppo would prove one of the worst short-term defeats of Romanía to that point, routing much of the army. However, the chaos left by the retreating cavalry and the destroyed farmland would eventually break Aleppo’s back and ability to pay their mercenaries. When the Turks turned on the city, the Empire was able to return to Damascus and resupply. From there they launched another campaign for Aleppo, with more Damascite aid than prior. This time, the tired, impoverished city surrendered to the Catholics without much effort.
With Anatolia fractured and out of the war, Egypt stood alone against the joint army. The Hafsids were there, of course, in an attempt to stand against the onslaught, they were still in a vulnerable state as the Duchy of Carthage had not yet quite collapsed and remained somewhat wealthy. Knowing that the Romanían fleet, while large, was not large enough to securely invade all of Egypt proper, the sultan decided to block the invaders at Sinai. However, this would prove to be ultimately disastrous, as the Mongols had learned from Ain Jalut, and this time, were able to secure that they were the ones to outflank the Egyptians. This was aided due to the Romanían Cavalry, which, while it used the heaviest armor of the three armies involved in the Battle of Sinai, also had longer lances and were able to apply fierce pressure to the desert cavalry of the Mamluks. This opened the floodgates, and the joint Latin-Mongol army would ravage Egypt for some time before Cairo would surrender, with the Ilkhanate subsuming almost the whole sultanate, bar some that Tunis snuck in the collapse.
After the battle of Sinai, Constantinople would withdraw much of their martial investment while Baldwin finally got the pope (now the dying Nicholas IV) to accept the Imperial Succession Act. Frankly, the Emperor thought launching a crusade was a bit much for a succession act, but he also knew that this was a crusade that needed to happen. Jerusalem was back in Catholic hands, and now it was not held by a tiny kingdom with a hostile population, or across the Mediterranean from an overstretched dynastic core with corruption running rampant. Now, the Holy Land was in the hands of a powerful empire with the navy to secure the territory.
The Ilkhanate Banner would fly over Cairo, at least for a time.
With his succession as secure as he could get it and his conquests done, Baldwin returned to his Empire’s heartland. From there, he would oversee a cultural golden age. New plays and poems were written (mostly in French, but Greek was working its way up to the nobility by now, much faster than the inverse). The middle eastern conquest saw trade with Mongol Persia rise quite quickly, bringing in new stories as well. Soon, a man named Marco Polo arrived in court, apparently having spent much time in Yuan China and the Ilkhanate. While the man was Venetian, and Baldwin had some of his fathers’ grudge baked into him, he was still very impressed by the man’s accounts and indeed, the correspondence between Romanía and the Mongols verified much of what he said. As a result, Baldwin sponsored transcriptions of the explorer’s accounts.
The emperor also sought to undo the damage to Syria that had befallen it from the conquest. To this end, he hired several architects and engineers- some from Persia due to the amicable relations between the two empires, and many from France. Over the next ten years, they would rebuild much of the province under its new governor’s eye. While it would take longer for it to recover, it was the start of something.
In 1300, however, Baldwin’s wife, Anna, bore a son, who the pair named Constantine. Records from the period show that Baldwin had…. Complex feelings about the boy, given that while he cared for all his children, the Emperor had waged an expensive and deadly war in order to secure his sister’s right to inherit. Which was… irritating, now. Especially as Theodora was a bright, energetic girl whose reign would’ve brought southern Italy into the Empire and secured it on nearly every side but Anatolia.
I promise that will be th easter boundary of the Empire. But yeah, do you guys want the sicilian union i was thinking of or emperor constantine?
). However, this doesn't mean that everything would go well for a conspiracy and in fact, it might plunge the Nicaea into civil war, which in turn would create a whole bunch of opportunities for Charles, from simply weakening one of his empire's main rivals to reclaiming the lands Henry had conquered on the Asian side of the Hellisponte to actually trying to make territorial gains in Asia Minor - which had been alotted to the emperor after all when the lands of the Byzantine empire were divided. Also, if Trebizond has reclaimed Sinope and borders the empire, they could try to coordinate their actions with Constantinople and try to reclaim Heraclea from Nicaea, as it had previously belonged to it.
