In 1192 Richard I of England on a ship heading back to England and was forced by bad weather to put the ship in Corfu which was currently under the control of the Byzantine Empire and soon a series of events would follow leading to Lionheart's imprisonment and later death; but what if there was no storm delaying him from saving England from Phillip II and John and Richard I the Lionheart was able to return back to England without being harassed by environmental ? We approach this view on various points in different ways and explore what the World would be like with the preservation of the Angevin Empire in Not By a Nose.
POD[]
Richard the Lionheart's trip back to England is never harassed by bad weather and he returns to England to defeat John of England and Phillip II more early. Also, he is never struck by a bolt in this TL, therefor his reign would last longer.
Timeline[]
| 1196 | England, Château de Gisors |
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It's over. The French attempt to make a gap in the Norman defense's has failed and the Lionheart along with his men are filled with glory by the sight of countless French corpses. There are countless treasure's left behind by the fleeing French but none are more priceless then the corpse of Phillip II, who was struck in the head by an arrow right after giving his men a morale speech telling them to follow him to death, but none would do so if it meant dying before you even had the chance to hit the enemy. France is in chaos, Lordships and Dukes are fighting over the remaining land have divided the territory unevenly leading to more problems. The small kingdoms continue to fight even as the Lionhearts army's advance day by day with no resistance to heed there advance. The French pause their bickering for the moment, although with little morale or trained soldier's left to fight, gather a make-shift army and the rest of the armies to a castle known in the region as Château du Fleckenstein near the city of Lembach.
Château du Fleckenstein, France's last battle site before the end of the conflict and of an united France.
In 1197, an large force commanded by the Lionheart himself arrived at the outskirts of the castle where light resistance was quickly brushed off. In the first attempt to take the castle, the British (Im going to use that term for now) failed at breaking through the defenses on the wall, the Lionheart afterwards regrouped his army and surrounded the castle starting the Siege of Château du Fleckenstein or more formally known as the First Battle/Siege of Lembach. The French continued to hold off until a week later when a group of deserters gave the Lionheart valuable information on the weakly guarded entrance at the rear of the castle; taking advantage of the opportunity at hand, Richard quietly and quickly rearranged his forces with most amassing near the rear of the castle. Early next day the French awoke to an horrifying surprise: The British where storming the castle, this new surprise lead to a quick evacuation of the castle as the French fell back to the nearby town of Lembach where the First/Second Battle of Lembach began. Making the last stroke, the Lionheart began to revolve his men around Lembach and entrapped the French once more and after 10 hour's of fighting, the French army officially surrendered. To make term's short, the French surrender would go by these terms:
- France would concede all territories listed in the treaty.
- Paris would be divided between the small French kingdoms (see the other terms) and the Angevin Empire for OTL 5 years.
- The rest of France would be divided between the same French kingdoms as before but boundaries would be regulated. If needed to be so, each kingdom has the right to join the following nations in unification -
Holy Roman Empire
Angevin Empire
- (more concession's and limit's to be put down later)
The Treaty of Lembach or known to by the French as the Devil's Wish turned the rest of France into a group of small kingdom's held together only by the sheer force of the Angevin Empire and the Lionheart's will.
| 1122 | Israel, Middle East |
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Lionheart knew what happened last time he left England, but it had to be done for Christ's sake. In 1122 Richard of Lionheart with a formidable army left England for Israel to reclaim the Holy Land and to establish an Anti-Muslim Bloc in the Middle East during what is now known as the Fourth and final crusade before the short fifth one. During most of the campaign both sides failed at taking advantage of opportunities that only continued to war with no victor. Finally, in 1124 Muslim forces broke through the center and managed to encircle 1/3 of Richard's whole army and attempts to rescue them failed; Richard and the rest of the army fell back to the coast and began a series of short counterattacks that gave Richard and his forces enough time to evacuate. At long last the Crusades had ended and the Holy Lands gates where closed for centuries to other religions.
| 1130 | Alsac Lorraine, France |
It was his final years of glory, historians say, and the last conflict that would arise in his life time again. (TBC)