Crusader States

>>2782599
That standard was that they were low manned and highly funded. I believe that when Salado took Jerusalem there were two Templars in the whole city. Instead of relying on pure manpower, they had an advanced network of castles and fortifications to defend the area. The knights' attendants and servants were called to the field with them on many occasions as well, as were mercenaries. At any given time the states could muster somewhere around 8-12 thousand troops for a short campaign. However, Templars were very few and their militaries were still comparatively small at full size.

>>2782599
I don't have it on me at the moment, so my numbers might be off, but according to
>The Crusades: The Authoritative History of the War for the Holy Land by Thomas Asbridge

The manpower available to the leaders of Outremer was surprisingly small - lots of campaigns talk of forces of a few hundred knights backed by a thousand or so other forces. The Battle of Inab, for example, had just 1,600 men from Antioch. Before the rise of Zangi al-Din, there were even some horrifyingly small expeditions consisting of something like ~50 or so knights.

The general idea seems to be that Outremer lasted only as long as it did because the Latins were far more concerned with holding onto it than the Muslims were with ousting them. The Muslim polities in the region were constantly fighting with eachother, and generally seemed to be more concerned with gaining hegemony over eachother rather than eliminating the Crusader states. Take the Zangid dynasty, for example. Zangi al-Din fought almost his entire career not against Outremer, but fellow Muslims in the region, only turning against Edessa at the end of his career. In fact, Zangi was so feared by other Muslims that Damascus even allied with the Kingdom of Jerusalem.

>>2785469
Good points. I recall reading about Crusader states allying with one or another Muslim leader against other Muslim factions during their first century there.

i don't have any numbers to provide, but i do know the crusader strategy broadly wasn't too concerned with putting troops in the field. i mean, they would and could if they had to, but the main strategy was essentially building a large network of fortresses and castles to defend their areas. if muslim armies avoided them and went straight in, the fortresses would just empty out and attack them from the rear. if they tried to besiege them, the muslim army would quickly lose momentum and be in serious trouble. saladin's great success was in luring that retard guy of lusignan and the rest of the whole crusader army out into the field where he crushed them and left the fortresses dangerously bereft of manpower - hence his rapid conquest of the kingdom. also he honoured his guarantees of safe passage for surrendering fortress garrisons which greatly sped up the process.

can't tell you fuck all about the county of tripoli, but i know the county of edessa had very few troops at the best of times. maybe a bit over a thousand if we are being generous. antioch had some more but frequently wasted them on stupid expeditions, hence falling frequently into the orbits of jerusalem or byzantium

>>2785469
>>2785576
>you now remember the second crusade attack damascus, their main muslim ally in the region, and still failed at that
those guys were morons desu.

>>2785469
>Before the rise of Zangi al-Din, there were even some horrifyingly small expeditions consisting of something like ~50 or so knights.
didn't one of the kings of jerusalem fuck off with about 300 of them to counter what they thought was a fatimid raiding party, only to find it was a full invasion force? i remember reading almost all of them got killed except the king who had to book it through the wilderness on his own for quite a while

The crusader states had both manpower and trust issues. The native populations of the area were quick to turn to whoever was strongest at the time. Made for unreliable recruits. Additionally, royal authority was weak since nobles like Guy would raid and unite Muslims against them. They would have required free companies to move to the area from Europe to give them reliable troops in any measurable numbers.

>>2787476
>didn't one of the kings of jerusalem fuck off with about 300 of them to counter what they thought was a fatimid raiding party, only to find it was a full invasion force?
Yup. IIRC only like 1 knight survived and the King almost got caputured.

>>2787467
>the county of edessa had very few troops at the best of times
Didn't help that Edessa itself only had about 10,000 people living in it.

>>2782599
about 100 kngiths an 1000 serfs
michael haag templars book covers this perfectyl

>>2787476
the true cross was lost as well, which was then used as firewood