Reynald and his pirates.

[Mooks]

As we all know Reynald de Chatillion in the crusader times was lord of Al Kerak (A massive and almost impregnable castle). He once went on a pirating spree...well ill let this article explain it.

"In the course of the hostilities, Raynald launched ships on the Red Sea, partly for piracy, but partly as a threat against Mecca and Medina, challenging Islam in its own holy places. His pirates ravaged villages up and down the Red Sea, before being captured by the army of Al-Adil I only a few miles from Medina. "

I was thinking about this a while ago..What would have happened if Reynald did capture medina and perhaps mecca with his pirates and leveled this both to the ground? Would the religion of Islam still exist?

Anyway, the book im reading is "Warrios of God". Richard the Lionhart and saladin is the Third Crusade" By James Reston. Good book, I reccomend it.

[Watchman]

Query: how many times has the Temple of Jerusalem been looted, leveled and/or converted to something else ?

Query two: how much did all that endanger the continued existence of the Judaic faith ?

[Stig]

Did Christianity stop with the mass murders of Christians by the Roman emperors? mmm not really

The Islam would still exist all right. It might be completely different from what it is now, but it will still be there.

[Watchman]

Given that Muslims so inclined still hold a grudge over the Crusades though, just imagine how pissed they'd be if ole Reynard the Asshole had gone and sacked Mecca to top everything off...

[edyzmedieval]

If he razed off Mecca and Medina, then hmm...let's see...

Israelis would have been wiped out, Christians mass massacred, The Twin Towers would have been down from their construction....

[Watchman]

I don't see where the Jews get involved here. Muslims had no issues with them before around 1918...

But yeah, I'd imagine there'd been some pretty fervent volunteering for a big-ass Jihad to drive the damn infidels into the sea.
...after certain internal issues were settled first. Who was the bunch in charge of the holy places at the time ? The kind of loss of confidence and prestige that'd have resulted from letting some smelly Franks raze Mecca is the sort that'd have cost them their rulership but good...

[Subedei]

Let´s try it on TW The Crusades....

Just kiddin´, but he was one evil bastard.....mercenary-esque 110%. Is there a good read about Raynald? Biography or smth. like it?

[Randarkmaan]

I don't see where the Jews get involved here. Muslims had no issues with them before around 1918...

But yeah, I'd imagine there'd been some pretty fervent volunteering for a big-ass Jihad to drive the damn infidels into the sea.
...after certain internal issues were settled first. Who was the bunch in charge of the holy places at the time ? The kind of loss of confidence and prestige that'd have resulted from letting some smelly Franks raze Mecca is the sort that'd have cost them their rulership but good...

I think Saladin controlled Mecca at Reynald's time...

[Mooks]

I think Saladin controlled Mecca at Reynald's time...

Correct. The religious were ridicules Saladin for not sending help (He was invading the crusader states) fast enough.

[Kraxis]

Islam would not have been hurt as a religion, in fact it could very well have been strengthened.
Just like the Exile for the Jews created a 'personal' and universal (geographically universal) religion, the Muslims might very well have been pushed to a more personal relationship with Allah instead.

Of more immediate results would be a huge scrappy invasion of Crusader states, as well as the fall of Saladin (I can't imagine him being able to remain in that very position after such an event).
The Crusader states could very well have been snuffed out even without a Hattin, and much much earlier...

That culd have been a benefit for Europe perhaps... As it wouldn't be drained in continual crusades, where the previos wave of idiots had just learned the ropes before the next came along and ruined it for everyone else.

In any case, the world would likely be pretty different today.

[Mooks]

Islam would not have been hurt as a religion, in fact it could very well have been strengthened.
Just like the Exile for the Jews created a 'personal' and universal (geographically universal) religion, the Muslims might very well have been pushed to a more personal relationship with Allah instead.

Of more immediate results would be a huge scrappy invasion of Crusader states, as well as the fall of Saladin (I can't imagine him being able to remain in that very position after such an event).
The Crusader states could very well have been snuffed out even without a Hattin, and much much earlier...

That culd have been a benefit for Europe perhaps... As it wouldn't be drained in continual crusades, where the previos wave of idiots had just learned the ropes before the next came along and ruined it for everyone else.

In any case, the world would likely be pretty different today.

I dont think so. Without saladin then the muslim world would be fractious (Saladin had some rebellious sons) and they wouldnt have made a cordinated effort. Sure their ranks would swell, but that wont help much against the massive crusader castles.

[Watchman]

The Crusader States were living on borrowed time from the beginning strategically. The only things that really kept them alive as long as happened were the mind-boggling resources the for the period incredibly well-organized Crusading Orders could throw behind them, and the pragmatic willigness of not a few Muslim princes to employ them as blunt instruments in their squabbles with their neighbours.

On their own they had a pretty much constant and desperate shortage of about everything needed to wage war in the circumstances - agricultural base to support feudal troops, money to pay for mercenaries, raw land area for strategic depth, manpower...

The Ilkhanid Mongols gave them a brief breather by preoccupying or eliminating many of their more powerful Muslim neighbours, but had they not been themselves busy with the Mamluks and the border wars related to the fragmentation of the Khanate would most likely have taken over the place themselves.

[Kraxis]

I dont think so. Without saladin then the muslim world would be fractious (Saladin had some rebellious sons) and they wouldnt have made a cordinated effort. Sure their ranks would swell, but that wont help much against the massive crusader castles.

I'm pretty certain the squabbles would erupt, but only after the invasion of the Crusader States.

The leaders would know that to infight would cause the recently joined troops to disband. They would want to fight the 'infidels'.
So even if they couldn't find a common leader, the Crusader States would face numerous smaller invasions they couldn't possibly hold off in total. A few might be turned back, but while the Crusader armies dealt with them, the others were reducing castles everywhere else.

And the castles, while great and all, were not meant to halt invasions per se. They were meant to hold invasions up until the army could arrive to deal with the invader. If the army couldn't do that, then the castles would fall as surely as they did historically. Also, many of the said castles would have their garrisons deeply depleted for the Crusader army... They couldn't hold out.

[azraeltheFallen]

Actually one of the reasons that the crusaders were able to take palæstina, was that the muslims had alot of internal stride, so if as we assume that saladin would not be able to hold his position after mecca had been sacked, I belive that all those who whom earlier on had power(Al-Adil), or wanted power(saladin's sons) would split the country in many camps, and if the Crusaders after this played their card right, as the first crusaders did, they could have kept the states for quit a while.

[Mooks]

The crusades were a horrible mistake.

Yet they are sooo interesting to read about.

I think the crusaders wouldve gotten a recruitment boost. Bragging about destroyin the muslims holy places is nothing small. But at the same time the muslim peasants living around the castles wouldve been pissed.

[Kraxis]

There might have been some increase in the Crusader states, but Reynald would likely try to suck up all the glory, making the event a personal one, not one made by the Crusaders. This could as easily downgrade the victory to a mere 'another great victory over the infidels'...

[Watchman]

And the castles, while great and all, were not meant to halt invasions per se. They were meant to hold invasions up until the army could arrive to deal with the invader. If the army couldn't do that, then the castles would fall as surely as they did historically. Also, many of the said castles would have their garrisons deeply depleted for the Crusader army... They couldn't hold out.

Not quite correct. Strong fortifications, especially in a climate as harsh as the hot and arid Mediterranean one, were specifically designed to frustrate invasions if necessary entirely by themselves. If the besiegers could not reduce the fortress through various direct offensive means or convince it to surrender, a rather typical result - both in Europe and in Outremer - was for the besieger exhaust himself logistically and be forced to lift the siege. This happened because of diverse reasons, but the easily most common ones were the besieger running out of his troops' agreed-upon time of military service and/or the money to pay them, and raw supply shortages (ie. exhausting the reserves of food and/or water that could be foraged or extorted from the area). Siege camps, or at least the European ones with their nonexistent hygiene, were also breeding grounds for contagious diseases and not a few armies were decimated as a result.

Any decent fortress obviously had considerable supplies for its garrison and would almost invariably have a secure water source; in the arid Levant the entire purpose of many smaller fortresses was no doubt to specifically control such strategic resources.

The end result of all this was that by far more often than not a defender who would almsot certainly be wiped out in a field battle could defy invasions from a markedly superior enemy from the security of his fortifications, and the latter would typically have to content himself with ravaging the countryside to undermine the defender's support base and economy.

In the circumstances impressive strings of conquests of fortifications normally only happened after those had been stripped of most of their garrisons for a field battle which was then lost - this, as well as some very savvy generalship and diplomacy, was specifically what allowed Saladin to squeeze the Franks against the sea after Hattin. Most of the remaining (and typically rather skeletal) garrisons were simply so demoralized they were willing to capitulate on terms without putting up a serious resistance, a tendency which Saladin naturally sought to encourage by offering quite generous terms.

Something similar also happened on occasion during the Hundred Years' War, although as the French quickly came to rely specifically on strong fortresses and hit-and-run warfare to frustrate English campaigns the occasions where the latter could exploit weak garrisons weren't all that common.

[Kraxis]

Of couse the Muslims wouldn't be so stupid to attack the most limited water resources,so that a single castle could hold them back.
And in this case the troops wouldn't time out easily, they would wait their time for the revenge. The only problem would indeed be water.

Further, I can't imagine the Crusader States not putting up a real effort to halt the invaders by arms. The martial tradition among these states and their warrior elites was enough to ensure they would take to the field. After all they did believe to a great extent that they were fighting for God.

So if the Muslims chose a more wet route the castles wouldn't have many chances, with their garrisons stripped and the Muslims not giving up. And there we have it, the determination, the strength and the better set up for sieges for the Muslims would in this case spell doom for the Crusader States.
Perhaps Acre would as in real history survive some time yet, perhaps a few other places, but the majority of the Levant would return to muslim rule.

[Watchman]

As the fact the Crusader States could defend their limited territory, and even expand it a bit on occasion, as competently and for as long as they did ought to point out they were pretty good at this "fortresses for area denial" thing. Not that their neighbours were any slouches either, as the overall rank inability of even major Crusades to greatly alter the overall geopolitics implies. Not a few failed specifically around walls.

The Crusader States elite weren't stupid (that wasn't much of a survival trait there; not only were there the Muslims to worry about, their internal politics were also rather fractitious and cutthroat - literally, as the Assasins were sometimes involved). Saladin was one of the very few warlords who managed to outfox them to such a degree he could goad them to taking to the field in unfavourable circumstances (although an unusual concentration of overconfident diehards in the Frankish leadership helped), and I don't think that quite worked against Richard and the survivors of the previous bout a while later anymore. Although by that point it was Saladin who owned the fortifications, and having to painstakingly deal with the things kind of wore Richard and his boys down.

Nonetheless, as already mentioned the Crusader States were very much living on borrowed time. While Reynald razing Mecca might well have upset things enough to make Saladin's career quite a bit different, the resulting general jihading fury would have offered a canny and ambitious leader no end of possibilities for establishing a similarly cohesive power base. Not that such an "unifier" would necessary be a requirement; the First Crusade succeeded well enough despite rank squabbling among the leadership due to the disunity of the opposition, and the Crusader States weren't the most united bunch either. Moreover the Muslims would be operating from a far better strategic base; even if the great righteous invasion was carried out by separate Muslim princes joined primarily by the necessity of doing it - be it because of personal convictions, to avoid losing their heads to angry subjects over inactivity in the face of such and affront, pragmatic opportunism for land-grabbing or any combination thereof - it would still have been a rather more united front than was the norm in the muddles politics of the Levant and the ability of the Franks to withstand such sustained assaults would certainly have been sorely tested indeed.
Most likely it wouldn't have held up.

[Orb]

Well, I reckon that each invasion would be independent and that the European knights would just run them over. The individual princes didn't have enough strength and unity to defeat them. It would seem unlikely to me that the muslims just agree to one big joint attack.

[Samurai Waki]

As it was found out by the Turkish when they invaded Europe, the Middle Easterners can fight well in their own turf and the Europeans can fight well in their own turf, but it's not interchangeable. The Europeans did have limited success in the holy land, and the Turkish had little better. Once they overran the Balkans and tried moving into the Major Organized Nations of Europe they encountered a lot more coordinated resistance, and were ultimately turned back. Hell even the Turks had a hell of a time wrestling Wallachia too the ground, and that wasn't even considered a major european power at the Time, They tried moving into Austria...which was equalled death, they tried Italy...which was Death... They Tried Malta...which was Death... They Tried Poland, and Russia which was major death, against Minimal Forces. The Colder Climate and Use of Heavier Horse against the lighter Armed and Nimble Ottoman's meant that they would be owned..badly. Similarly, the Europeans during the Crusades/Medieval Era attempted using their tactics in area's not suited for their type of warfare and we're beaten...often times badly.

We all know that the Feudal System in the Middle East was just as lively, and fragmented as the one's in Europe. And while there would be a coordinated effort by *some* Princes and Nobility to lead their own counter crusade into Europe, they would've found out the hard way, much like the Crusaders Did; that you shouldn't try tactics familiar in your own homeland, to use against people in an unfamiliar place. I think if the Muslim's would've made it into Central Europe, they would've got quite tired of the constant Sieging and High Mortality Rates suffered by trying to take thousands of Castles.. much like the Ottomans did.

[Watchman]

As for the Ottomans, their main problem with campaigning beyond the Balkans was actually purely logistical. You see, their primary mustering and supply area was around Istanbul; and as the bird flies, Paris is closer to Vienna than that place, nevermind now the extremely uncooperative nature of the geography the Ottoman main armies had to cover.

Which basically meant that by the time the Ottoman army reached its furthest allies and vassals and could finally start fighting the proper recalcitrant infidels beyond them, the better part of the campaign season was already over.

On the field, all in all the Ottomans tended to mop the floor with the European armies. Seriously better organization and usually better discipline goes kind of a long way for that, and as far as "weight" of soldiery went one should keep in mind the Christian warrior aristocracy of subjugated and allied regions was by and large inducted to the Ottoman forces as is without any meaningful change in equipement or style of combat.
Not that the Ottomans tended to have overwhelming difficulties in dealing with high- and late-medieval chivalry in battle anyway, whether they had knights of their own or not.


The Crusader Kingdoms were similarly handicapped chiefly by strategic and logistical considerations, not tactical; the alterations they made to the basic European approach to field battles were quite enough to keep their armies competitive against the Muslim ones after all. Where they always had problems was lack of raw territory and hence economic resources (all the more so as the opportunistic Italian mariners made a point of securing a near monopoly over sea trade), which in turn meant an acute shortage of both feudal estates to support knights and other feudal local troops and cash to pay for mercenaries. The Crusading Orders helped, as did the steady stream of would-be Crusaders from Europe (the main Crusades themselves often tended to be a bit of a nuisance though), but nevertheless the fact remained the Crusader Kingdoms never had as many combatants at their disposal as they would have needed, nevermind now wanted.

That the understandably somewhat unreliable Muslim peasantry for obvious reasons could not be trained and equipped to serve as militias naturally didn't help one bit either. One can only imagine how restless the fellahin would've gotten once they heard of some stinky Frank laying waste to the holiest places of their faith, for that matter...

Had some change of circumstances, such as the hypothetical sack of the holy cities by Reynald discussed, forced the surrounding Muslim states to adopt a much more consistently aggressive stance towards the "Franks" than the opportunistic Realpolitik one they mostly maintained, the resources of the latter would have started running very thin indeed right fast. They had enough trouble holding their ground even when they could make alliances of convenience with the Muslims after all.

As a side note one sort of suspects the Assasins would've gone kind of bonkers over such an atrocity, far removed from mainstream Islam as they were. Having those happy nutjobs (who, recall, held several quite strong castles smack in the middle of Crusader territory) go on a killing spree among the Frankish aristocracy wouldn't exactly have stabilized the Crusader States given the inevitable inheritance disputes it'd have spawned.

[Mooks]

Ya, the crusaders were crazy about inheritance. Raynald was a minor knight from france until he managed to seduce the queen of Antioch (I think it was antioch).

I still think the crusaders couldve held off. Saladin wouldve been deposed, and the muslims wouldve fought amongst themselves. Crusaders just had to play the waiting game. The muslims owe their victory over the crusaders almost entirely too Saladin.

[Watchman]

It was Baybars' Mamluks (although IIRC the head honcho had already gotten swapped by that time) who actually evicted the Franks for good, you know.

Anyway, it's not like the Crusader States were exactly one happy cooperative family either. Anything but. Not only did the about four states themselves constantly have disputes of hierarchy and precedence, they all had their own endless internal muddy power struggles and petty squabbles - and to boot both the Templars and Johannites often had issues with not only each other but also about every conceivable temporal authority (the Templars nearly came to blows with one Holy Roman Emperor once...).

What mainly kept them alive was the deep coffers of the Orders, and the fact the scores of Muslim princes in the immediate vicinity were more concerned with pragmatic Realpolitik than kicking the infidels out. Had Reynald sakced the holy cities, however, the flood of irate ghazis from all over the Middle Eastern Muslim world flocking in to put the boot in the perfidious infidel alone would've rather forced their hand towards much more consistently aggressive policy. If not else then by replacing a leader viewed as too lenient on the barbarians, avoiding which would no doubt have done wonders to the princes' committement.

And I sincerely doubt if the limited resources of the Franks could've withstood that kind of sustained aggression for too long. It's not like the Muslim factions would've needed to cooperate all that much anyway, so long as they directed their energies primarily against the Franks rather than each other.

[Mooks]

Do you think that the muslims wouldve questioned their faith just a weee bit after the destruction of mecca?
"

[Watchman]

As opposed to howling for the blood of the sons of infidel dogs of the female persuasion responsible ? It's not like losing Jerusalem exactly shook them that much by itself either, and that place only happens to be the third holiest...

[Watchman]

Actually, when you think about it the whole thing just might make them that much keener to get that one back.

[Del Arroyo]

I don't know why there is this inflated reverence for "Muslim anger". There is nothing special about it. They're just a bunch of angry people. If you hit them, they fall down. Modern Islamism finds its motivation in *recent* Western intervention in historically Muslim lands and is encouraged by the West's crystal clear lack of resolve. The crusades are a part of their history the same as the Revolutionary War is a part of US history. The capture of Mecca and Medina certainly would have had an effect on the Islamic religion, though it is hard to imagine it becoming even more fractured and divided than it already is.

[Watchman]

Well, Mecca in particular and the pilgrimage there is just about the exact one thing the widespread and secularly fractious Muslim world had in common. So some stinky infidel razing the place would logically have been one of the very few things able to inspire some sort of reasonably cohesive and focused fury regardless of exact confessional or political affiliation (at least within reasonable distance), you know ?

And when it really comes to it the main thing that allowed the strategically very badly situated Crusader States was the specific absence of a motivated and sustained Muslim attempt to kick them out, so...
They folded pretty fast once such came in another form, ie. a sufficiently powerful prince (Salah al-Din, although his old boss Nur al-Din was already making a spirited attempt) or state (Mamluk Egypt) taking over enough of the region to be able to turn his attention to such things instead of Byzantine power politics where the Franks were but one actor and potential pawn among many.

[Mooks]

If muslims did think that mecca was their holiest city. They wouldve been pretty mad at what Reyald WOULDVE done to their relics. Masses of pig poop on top of that big black rock they seem to worship comes to mind (Seen it in pictures, everyone walks in a circle around it for some reason)