If Barbarossa had lived

Frederick Barbarossa led an army of 100,000 Germans on Crusade to the Middle East but died when a horse threw him into a stream they were crossing and the shock of the cold water flowing through the joints of his armor onto his overheated skin caused him a heart attack which prevented him from swimming to shore, and he drowned. (Or so goes the popular explanation  ). Without their strong leader, the German discipline crumbled, and only five thousand made it to Acre.

Saladin's chronicler wrote: "If Allah had not deigned to show His goodness to the Muslims by willing the death of the King of the Germans at the very moment he was about to prostrate Syria, men would say today, 'Syria and Egypt once belonged to Islam.' "

Would this massive army, which had braved overland peril, the enmity of the Byzantines and the Seljuk Turks, hunger and hard travel, to reach Palestine and fail by an accident just short of its goal have succeeded in saving Outremer? Would Saladin have been just another man who tried to stop the West but failed? How radically would the world be changed, had Barbarossa lived?

The Third Crusade would likely have succeeded, so long as the massive egos of himself and Richard I of England didn't cause too much conflict within the crusader ranks.

Originally posted by Constantine XI The Third Crusade would likely have succeeded, so long as the massive egos of himself and Richard I of England didn't cause too much conflict within the crusader ranks.

 You put to much faith into Richard, i'd of given him 5 minutes before he insulted the Germans so totally that they'd be after his blood more than that of the Muslims.

I havn't doubts about the success of the germans if they could put their hands in Holy Land, you only need to see the absolute power that they showed in Anatolia, crushing without difficult the turks from there. The problem here isn't that but, the organization of the new conquered lands after the departure of the majority of german crusaders (always happened this, very few men stayed after the original crusade).

And... what great weakness!! In the entire golden XII century the Outremer territories never had more than an skeletical military-feudal structure.

This of course is the beginning of another question: what could they achieve with a more numerous contingents?