Why did the crusader states fail?

>>1856698
>Minority of Norman and French over local Muslims, Christians, and Jews
>Surrounded by desert without extensive natural defenses
>Muslims states are richer and have more population
There's no way in hell the Crusader States could've lasted. It's a miracle they manage to cling for nearly 2 centuries.

Those nobles and settlers should've gone to Anatolia and help repopulate it from the Seljuk incursions.

>>1856709
>Those nobles and settlers should've gone to Anatolia and help repopulate it from the Seljuk incursions.

That's assuming they're working from the mindset of a unfied front against Islam. This is the same set of Crusades that attacked Byzantine and split it up briefly.

>>1856709
>Those nobles and settlers should've gone to Anatolia and help repopulate it from the Seljuk incursions
>Implying the population of Anatolia significantly changed due to Seljuk incursions

>>1856698
Because they were small states planed right in between powerful Muslim empires with no real official response to keep them alive.

It's a goddamned miracle that they lasted as long as they did.

>>1856709
Yet these are more or less the same disadvantages any foreign conquest faces, and some of them were far more lasting.

It's not simply that the Franks were a minority, it's that they kept a jealous monopoly on military force without also expanding their ranks with intermarriage and assimilation of local existing powers. Sometimes they would take Greek or Armenian wives, but the nobility wasn't expanded to incorporate her family. Instead only her children and Franks from abroad were included, and locals were no more than mercenaries and auxiliaries that had little cause to side with the Crusaders over the Byzantines, the Armenians of Cilicia, or even the Muslims of Egypt and Syria - especially when the Franks insisted on supplanting their faith and customs with Latin Catholicism.

There were extensive natural defenses, because contrary to belief their enemies weren't Bedouins but Turkic tribes, professional sergeants, and urban militia, none of whom were any better at taking advantage of the desert than the Crusaders and their local Christian allies. This is why there were plenty of river crossings and valleys which they fought over by constructing large stone castles. What happened however was that the Crusaders could not maintain enough political unity over time to properly support these castles in their constant border conflicts, isolating them which allowed Muslim forces to raid with increasing impunity.

Finally, the Muslim states were not richer or more populous. An individual Muslim emir could be richer than his Christian peer, but that did not mean he was more powerful as his administration did not translate into military force the same way it did with the Crusaders. What happened was that over time, the Crusaders lost their political unity at the same rate as the Muslims gained it, and the latter were far more open to incorporating different sources of fighting men into their army.

>>1856698
The just didn't kill quite enough Muslims.

>>1856698
I remember reading that most of the crusaders went back home after their success. Perhaps it should have been made more clear that this was colonization and either encouraged people to stay, perhaps with land grants or other financial incentives, or invited settlers along for the ride.

Salidin managed to stop the arab infighting long enough to drive the crusader states out.

>>1856849
The crusaders also repeatedly turned down offers from the Mongols to form a joint alliance against the Muslim powers

Right wing 'white pride' nostalgia babbies worship both the Nazis and crusaders for their martial aesthetics (which I'll fully admit were cool in both cases) but also for their snobby, pig-headed stubbornness, which in both cases left them isolated and beaten by smarter, more socially and ideologically flexible powers

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>>1856878
Then the French and English showed up and kicked his ass hard enough that those tiny states were able to remain in the middle of a large Muslim empire for the next century.

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>>1856880
>islam
>ideologically flexible
Is this a post?

>>1856865
They understood that it was colonization. What they also understood was that the existing colonizers didn't want to share with new comers and disrupt the local balance of power.

>>1856880
By the time the Mongols appeared, all the above problems already took their toll on the Crusader States which had staved off complete destruction by playing the Ayyubid dynasts against each other while establishing lucrative trade between Latin Europe and the Middle East.

Ironically it was the Mongols who destroyed them, as their advance precipitated the militaristic reform of the Mamluk Sultanate which reduced Syria to a frontier state in preparation. At the same time the Mongol invasions disrupted Middle Eastern trade, which tanked the Crusader State's economy and effectively made it easy for the Mamluks to cut off relations with them.

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>>1856917
The Germans also showed up but Barabarossa took a little tumble into the river

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>>1856926
Did manage to fuck up the Turks along the way though.

>>1856938
>strength 15,000-100,000
What the hell? That's a pretty big difference

>>1856938
Why are those strength numbers so utterly shit? How can the discrepancy be so large?

>>1856878
>saladin
fuck you

Saladin just picked up Nur ad-Din's scraps. Nur ad-Din was the one to unite Syria and Egypt first.

>>1856948
100,000 is the contemporary number given by German chroniclers.

15,000 is what some modern historians propose instead.

Welcome to the age of warfare without strict record keeping.

>>1856998
Those bastards.

Didn't they know that autists would endlessly debate the numbers and tactics of their battles?

>>1856998
That's still an unnaturally large difference usually they'll be able to keep the estimate within 30,000 troops or so.

>>1857036
Sometimes chronicles weren't in the business of estimating, but instead promoting royal or religious propaganda.

>>1857043
This. "muh 2.5 gorillion Persians" Herodotus, comes to mind.

>>1856698
They were a massive minority compared to the Muslims, who they treated like shit. Literally no one liked them.

>>1856716

>Muh fourth crusade
Byzanfucks had it coming

>>1857294

>faling for the Venetian Jews

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>>1856926
I always like to imagine how history would have changed in Frederick I hadn't drowned in a fucking river right on Outremer's doorstep.

>>1857297
not even Jews deserve to be put in the same category as Venetians

>>1857331
Probably not as much as you think.

>>1857352
Richard came within a hair's breadth of taking Jerusalem as is. With Barbarossa and his massive army, the Crusaders should at least be able to accomplies that much. Maybe they could cripple Saladin's empire by actually annihilating rather than driving off his core forces, too.

shit sands

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>>1857864
>>1857331
>>1857036
>>1856998
>>1856938
>>1856926

>mfw the Crusades were thwarted by someone falling into a river and FUCKING DROWNING

Is this the most JUSTFUCKMYSHITUP death in history?

>>1856849
Their Castles were also horrendously understaffed, most of the time. The main citadels of the states were huge, and there were never enough soldiers to defend the walls.

>>1857294
t. latin

>>1857294
REEEE

The first crusade succeeded because of the fractured nature of the post caliphate Islamic world. Even then, individual Sejluk warlords were powerful enough to force the crusaders to abandon their initial mission, which was to fight the Sejluks at war with Byzantium. Jerusalem was, at that point, an independent city state which was both the holiest of holiest for Catholicism and an easy target so became the new objective of the first crusade. The crusader army when they took Jerusalem, Antioch et al were a force weakened by loss of men and weakened by the return home of many of its leaders (and their retinue) who held significant fiefdoms in Europe. Those who remained were largely second sons or unlanded mercenaries such as the Norman lords.

The first crusade created militarily weak kingdoms which nonetheless was capable of holding territory in the fractured political landscape. The populous of these kingdoms were still largely Muslim (with a few exceptions which had remained Christian throughout the Caliphate periods such as Armenia) and efforts to convert their populous was limited and did not extend beyond urban centres. The perceptions of the conquerors by their subjects did not therefore change to that of rightful rulers.

The states become more powerful as funding and soldiers slowly flowed in from Christendom, but they also become a symbolic common enemy which ambitious Muslim warlords could use to unify the fractured factions. Nur-Adin and Saladin unified a large portion of the Islamic world and the force assembled was overwhelming compared to the power of the Crusaders Kingdoms. Subsequent crusades led by powerful European kings evened the playing field, but only temporarily as none would or could commit these armies permanently. The Mongol invasions provided relief, but the conversion of the Chagatai, Ilkhan and Golden Horde Khanates to Islam freed the Arabs and Egyptians to crush the ever diminishing Kingdoms.

>>1856709
You forget the religious oppression of all non-latins

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>>1858365
King Richard's scheming little brother threw a wrench in the works as well.

Not to mention, as a tactician, Richard wasn't especially brilliant. His favorite thing to do was charge in full force and fuck shit up. If he had been more skillful of a leader, it might have led to a better outcome.

>>1856946
>source a (victor's side): 15000
>source b (loser's side): 100000

>>1857036
To a pre-enlightened devil worshiper, 10,000 would be no noticeably different than 100,000

>>1859270
Actually the smaller number is a modern estimate and the larger number comes from the victor's side.