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GRCooper t1_j3ys1p9 wrote

Reply to comment by Ataraxia25 in Were muslim armies harder to maintain in the field? by DJacobAP

Yeah, but the crusaders weren’t in Europe at the time. They were, to quote Jake and Elwood, on a mission from god

Yeah, I’m sure they didn’t always get along, but if you and your men decide to go it alone in the Levant, you’re a thousand miles from home surrounded by people who want to kill you. That’s a big incentive toward working together

Additionally, the crusaders kind of congregated in Constantinople. Much of the trip they’d have been with their own guys, and probably wouldn’t have seen their European enemies until they’d entered enemy territory.

It’s a lot easier to bug out and go home if it’s a few dozen miles away.

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failsafe07 t1_j3zapad wrote

The crusaders were a deeply fractious bunch almost from the get go though. It would repeatedly bite them throughout the period. It didn’t during the first crusade in large part because the region was, if anything, even more fractious than the crusaders were, and to top it off, the specific parts of the region were something of a liminal space between the major powers of the region so after Antioch there wasn’t really anybody with any particular ability or will to stop the progress of the crusade to Jerusalem, so all the infighting wound up not really mattering

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mrgoyette t1_j40lr1m wrote

Yes, in fact the Fatimids arguably encouraged the Crusaders to make progress to Jerusalem. The political situation in the region at the time was far more complex than many responses here are making it out to be.

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Irichcrusader t1_j414719 wrote

In addition, the leaders of the First Crusade deserve credit for (mostly) putting their differences aside and trying to work as a unified army. Bohemond, due to having the most war experience, was voted as the overall commander, but he still had to consult the other leaders when a big decision had to be made.

By contrast, a lot of later Crusades included several Kings with large egos that made it very difficult to work with one another. Of course, that's only one factor in why later Crusades failed. The Fourth Crusade, for all its twists and turns, showed remarkable cohesion and that may well be because it was a "Princes" crusades made up of Counts, Dukes, and whatnot that were prepared to fight under a single elected leader.

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