William the Crusader - Normans invade Andalusia

thekingsguard

For a story I'm working on, one of the PODs is that rather than attack England, William the Bastard, following a vision from God, decides to conquer Muslim Spain. Some details need to be worked out, of which, I'd love your opinions:

1) Could William conquer Andalusia? It was one of the Caliphatyes weak periods, and with a few more volunteers under his banner, could William conquer Spain?

2) What would he have to do to, and his hiers have to do, to maintain thier conquests?

3) What sort of Norman/Ibero culture might imerge? For starters, what what William call his new nation?
 
Cuāuhtemōc

Cuāuhtemōc

Banned
Andalusia is indeed weak in this time period - it was divided into dozens of taifas that emerged during the demise of the Ummayad Caliphs of Cordoba but this was not the case for all of Al-Andalus. The Andalusi taifas that remain will likely flock to the Taifa of Batalyos or the Taifa of Ṭulayṭulah, making them much more powerful in the long run. The Normans would be isolated and facing an extremely hostile population that is predominately Arabic in language and culture as well as Muslim in their religion. The Catholics might serve as a loyal fifth column to the Normans though there will be issues with the Mozarabic Rite and you can forget about the Jews ever lending aid to the Normans.

It won't last.
 

thekingsguard

Cuāuhtemōc said:
Andalusia is indeed weak in this time period - it was divided into dozens of taifas that emerged during the demise of the Ummayad Caliphs of Cordoba but this was not the case for all of Al-Andalus. The Andalusi taifas that remain will likely flock to the Taifa of Batalyos or the Taifa of Ṭulayṭulah, making them much more powerful in the long run. The Normans would be isolated and facing an extremely hostile population that is predominately Arabic in language and culture as well as Muslim in their religion. The Catholics might serve as a loyal fifth column to the Normans though there will be issues with the Mozarabic Rite and you can forget about the Jews ever lending aid to the Normans.

It won't last.
Click to expand...

Would it really be any more difficult than the few dozen years he had to spend subdueing Nordic Britania? The Normans took a century or two to fully cement thier control over England too after all.

Just for theoreticals, what would William have to do to cement his control?
 
Cuāuhtemōc

Cuāuhtemōc

Banned
thekingsguard said:
Would it really be any more difficult than the few dozen years he had to spend subdueing Nordic Britania? The Normans took a century or two to fully cement thier control over England too after all.

Just for theoreticals, what would William have to do to cement his control?
Click to expand...

Yes, it would be. England is at least right across the Strait of Dovers from Normandy. Andalusia is much further away and it's right in the heartland of Muslim territory. Unlike the Levant, there is barely much of any of a Christian population remaining (most of them converted during the late Ummayad period) to serve as a base of support for your hypothetical Ibero-Norman crusader state so William would need to rely on Normans, Flemings and Britons and maybe a few Iberians to shore up his base though I bet not many would want to make the journey.
 

thekingsguard

Cuāuhtemōc said:
Yes, it would be. England is at least right across the Strait of Dovers from Normandy. Andalusia is much further away and it's right in the heartland of Muslim territory. Unlike the Levant, there is barely much of any of a Christian population remaining (most of them converted during the late Ummayad period) to serve as a base of support for your hypothetical Ibero-Norman crusader state so William would need to rely on Normans, Flemings and Britons and maybe a few Iberians to shore up his base though I bet not many would want to make the journey.
Click to expand...

Any chance of this getting crusaders support in the long term? I'm sure more than a few knights would swear fealty to William and settle down in Iberia for a chance to reclaim old Christian lands. Plus, unlike the Holy land, it can be easily reinforced.
 
Cuāuhtemōc

Cuāuhtemōc

Banned
thekingsguard said:
Any chance of this getting crusaders support in the long term? I'm sure more than a few knights would swear fealty to William and settle down in Iberia for a chance to reclaim old Christian lands. Plus, unlike the Holy land, it can be easily reinforced.
Click to expand...

It's easier to reinforce but it doesn't make it that much easier. You still have the Taifas of Batalyos and Ṭulayṭulah, not to mention the dozen of other taifas that are not going to take kindly to a Christian presence and will make transporting reinforcements via sea to be difficult. The Iberian states are still isolated by hostile Muslim states and are still too weak to provide much of any assistance. And William will be alive to see the rise of the Almoravid dynasty right across the water in Morocco and the taifas are sure to invite them in to intervene if William and his Norman knights are too much of a threat.

Expect a disaster like the Battle of Sagrajas.
 

8Deer

I actually remember thinking of a similar TL a long time ago where the Normans went to Galicia instead of Sicily. I think I ripped it off from a great map from the Map Thread...In my sketch, I had them come as mercenaries, like the Anglo-Saxons in Britain. Soon, they revolted forming their own kingdom.

It's a cool scenario, I just don't know if Andalusia is plausible.
 

MerryPrankster

In order for his regime to survive, William might not have a choice but to practice religious tolerance, regardless of what the Church or his own more prejudiced followers might want.
 
Cuāuhtemōc

Cuāuhtemōc

Banned
MerryPrankster said:
In order for his regime to survive, William might not have a choice but to practice religious tolerance, regardless of what the Church or his own more prejudiced followers might want.
Click to expand...

That's all fine and dandy but given the precedent of the other Crusader states in their treatment of the non-Roman Catholic residents, I'm not expecting much of anything especially when it's time for Crusade and you have tens of thousands of newcomers coming and will cause trouble.

And Norman Sicily's tolerance pretty much went out the door as soon as the Hohenstaufen took power. As soon as the House of Normandy goes out, so will the tolerance.

And of course, that's if they survive the Almoravid invasions. The Iberian kingdoms, which had a larger pool of manpower, tried to fight them and failed miserably. The Normans won't do much better.

And Galicia's a better location to settle.
 
Zioneer

Zioneer

Banned
Wasn't there a well-written timeline that involved the Vikings (not Normans, just generic Scandinavians) invading Muslim Spain and conquering a fair bit of it? That was a good TL. I wonder what happened to it?

Anyway, a Norman invasion of Andalusia is unlikely to succeed for the reasons detailed by others in this thread, though if William goes for an invasion of Catalonia, it might work better there.
 

Tocomocho

Some points:

- By 1066 the first batch of taifas that followed the collapse of the Caliphate in 1031 has already extinguished itself and the only ones left with an Atlantic coastline (from where I assume the Normans would be coming from) are Badajoz (roughly Extremadura+Central Portugal) and Seville (The Guadalquivir basin west of Cordoba, Algarve and Cadiz). Both of them are either tributaries of Leon, of Castile, or both depending of the year. So don't expect those two to be enthusiastic about the Norman empress since they are basically stealing their life savings. Instead, they will send their armies to help off their vassals as soon as the War of the Three Sanchos comes to an end.

- William's main advantages over the Saxons, Celts, Scots, etc were heavy cavalry and stone castles - neither of which are a novelty in Iberia unlike in Britain. They'll probably need to bring siege engines to take fortresses too.

- Also, weren't William's barges dangerously overcrowded with horses when he invaded England (or so I remember reading)? I suppose the Channel is short enough to lower the danger of losing troops, but going all the way to Andalusia with the same means... uh oh. They better find something more adequate for long distance travel.

I dunno. Maybe William makes it and generates some major havoc, but I get the feeling that the ones that are going to benefit the most in the end are going to be the Almoravids. The same that happened after the largely forgotten "Balearic Crusade" some decades later.
 
Errnge

Errnge

MormonMobster said:
Wasn't there a well-written timeline that involved the Vikings (not Normans, just generic Scandinavians) invading Muslim Spain and conquering a fair bit of it? That was a good TL. I wonder what happened to it?

Anyway, a Norman invasion of Andalusia is unlikely to succeed for the reasons detailed by others in this thread, though if William goes for an invasion of Catalonia, it might work better there.
Click to expand...

Cough cough, Dingo Said, cough cough.

But to the OP, I think best chance would be to invade from Northern Iberia, gaining support of the christians there.
 

thekingsguard

OK, my goal is that by the start of the 1400s, William's decendants control a Kingdom roughly consisting of OTL Spain and Portugal. What is the route needed to do so?
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top
Top