AHC: Muslims in 1204, Catholics in 1453

DominusNovus

Your challenge is simple: Swap the order of the Crusader and Turkish conquests of Constantinople.

- Neither conquest has to take place exactly in that year, you get a half century leeway in either direction.
- The Byzantine Empire should remain in a sizable and recognizable portion after the Muslim conquest, as it did after the 4th Crusade.
- However, a realm independent of the Catholic conquest should not exist (it may linger for a few years as Trebizond did).
- The new Catholic state should be comparable to the Ottomans in longevity.
 

ggarner57

Byzantines completely collapse after Manzikert, manage to hold Greece/some Balkans and Ionia? That would possibly let Constantinople fall, but do they have to retake it? Because if not, some enterprising wannabe crusader could take it from the Muslims in 1453.
 

Fabius Maximus

You don't even have to go back as far as Manzikert; have Alexius IV seek help from the Turks rather than the Crusaders, make similarly extravagant promises to them as IOTL, and have the Turks take Constantinople in retaliation. The Byzzies cling on somewhere, but are unable to retake Constantinople. Later in the 15th century, a Catholic army (from Serbia maybe?) takes the city back for Christendom.
 

Wendell

Perhaps the Seljuks are more unified in the 1200-1215 frame of time, and they are able to take advantage of the decaying Byzantine position to capture the City. Maybe as a part of this too, the OTL Fourth Crusade did continue on to Jerusalem?

As a result, a continuing Byzantine state forms in some European Greek city as a Nicea analogue. Instability eventually des in the Seljuks, and within 50-60 years of taking the Queen of Cities, they've lost it again to the Greeks, who, after the successful 4th and 5th crusade in this timeline, find themselves at the wrong end of the papacy eventually?
 
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