Wasn't it Manuel I who doomed Byzantium? It looks that

>>1779025
Everyone was a threat. The Turks just happened to be the ones you single out as more important with hindsight.

>>1779125
>Everyone was a threat.

Like who?

>Italians
Mainly concerned with squeezing trade concessions

>Pope
More like an ally

>Arabs
Completely irrelevant, recked by eveyone

>Crusaders
Capable of stinging at best

>Normans
Just plundering here and there

>Pechenges
Exterminated by his father

>Coumans
Ally and backbone of the army

>Hungarians
Conflict over Serbia only

>HRE
Ally

Nope, just Turks were the real enemy. All other enemies were made by Manuel and his retarded policy.

>>1779228
I said everyone. Once again dismissing each with one liners doesn't change what the Byzantine court understood about them. The Italians and Crusaders for example were clearly a major threat considering the damage they did with some very violent squeezing and stinging. Each one of them presented a major danger to the state in their time, and it's only luck that things went one way or another.

>>1779228
Pechenegs were Turks.

>>1779228
Can someone educate me why Crusaders would attack the Byzantium

>>1779303
catholic work ethic

>>1779303
So they could rule it.

>>1779365
Isn't that like friendly fucking in a sense? I would think christians would unite against other common enemies or nonbelievers but apparently they have a huge fucking history of killing each other off as well. Might as well just be considered primitive tribes

>>1779408
More like different companies in an industry 'uniting' against a common threat to the industry but eager to undercut or takeover the competition at a moment's notice. Bohemund, who took over Antioch in the First Crusade, was planning on invading the empire immediately after.