General Henry IV de Dreux was still in shock as he marched his army through Ottoman territory to his camp near the borders of Aleppo. He had seen the fortunes of war swing wildly in both direction in the span of just months.
When the war began the Kingdom's allies had made grand promises of aid, but only the Papal States sent a small expedition to North Africa. Jerusalem had stood all but alone before the might of one of the greatest powers in the world. At least the Iberian powers had shown support by sending war subsidies.It had pained him greatly to hear of the fall and brutal sack of Jerusalem itself but time was needed to hire mercenaries. When the Moroccan army finally headed north to Henry's first camp near Beirut his men took advantage of the hilly terrain, ambushing contingents of the enemy's advance guard and raiding their supply line. By the time the main armies faced eachother the Muslims were demoralized and had been out of supplies for days.
Henry was something of a relic. His family had a long crusading tradition, and he preferred the heavily armored knights of the family stories he had grown up with to these musket armed troops supported by light cavalry armed in the fashion of Venetian Stradioti. He had to admit their effectiveness, however. For the first time in its entire history an army of Jerusalem defeated a Morrocan force, and one that outnumbered them greatly. Henry had sought to push his advantage, chasing the Moroccans into Africa. Each time he routed the enemy, but as he veered further and further away from his supply lines and attrition began to take its toll, he began to suspect his enemy was just purposefully leading him away from friendly territory.
By the time of this realization it was too late, however. Henry managed to push the enemy army into Al-Karak, hoping to clear a route back to Jerusalem to resupply and take the city from its captors, but it was too late. He army was a ghost of its former self, having lost well over half of its men over the preceding months.
Now he was forced into Turkish territory. Many in Europe had decried the Kingdom's attempts at diplomacy with the Ottomans, but these efforts showed their worth in this war. Only by fleeing to neutral territory was Henry able to keep his army from being completely destroyed. The Turks were not on good terms with Morocco and the latter could not afford a war with them. Efforts to retake Beirut and Jerusalem failed, but as long as Jerusalem had an army Morocco had to guard the provinces it had taken and would not be able to push their advantage with sea landings at Cyprus, where King Fulk had set up his court in exile.
The war continued into 1607, when the Moroccans began to suffer from instability brought on by ethnic tensions within their vast Empire that were exacerbated by heavy war taxes need to keep. Eventually they were forced to offer Fulk a peace treaty that left the Kingdom's territory intact, although a heavy war endemnity was required and again the nation was ruined from a long war and high inflation.
Fulk spent the next two years putting down rebellions. It was obvious that his kingdom could not continue in this fashion. Every war with Morocco weakened it and eventually the Kingdom would be annexed or fall apart. He would have to increase his nations resources, and land overseas was safest from the Moroccan threat.
In 1609 he saw his chance. The Ottoman Empire had gone to war with Byzantium, the latter now a small Catholic nation based in Greece. While the people of the Kingdom had grown tired of war their were old antagonisms that could be exploited. Back at the close of the 12th century Jerusalem was the seat of a powerful kingdom ranging from Armenia in the west to Baghdad in the east. But when the Latins invaded Egypt the Muslims hired the pagan Qara-Suu from the north to descend like a swarm of locusts on Latin land. Then the Romans, whether provoked by their stated opposition to the invasion of Egypt or more likely by fear and covetousness, attacked the Kingdom. The Latins held as long as possible but the war weakened both them and the Romans, allowing Egypt to wipe out the Kingdom while the Turks pushed back the Romans and attained the position of power they held to this day.
When the reborn Kingdom was Christianized the stories of the Latin heroes of the Middle Ages, holding as they could against all neighbors, reentered the national consciousness and as a result the Byzantines were not well regarded despite their conversion to Catholicism. They in their turn distrusted the Latins for their diplomatic treaties with the Ottomans. When reports came in that riots in Larissa resulted in the deaths of several Latin merchants Fulk declared war. The more astute in the nation wondered at the timing of this incident, coincidentally happening shortly after Roman armies were forced to leave their territory to fight the Turks, but for the most part Fulk had succeeded in quelling dissent against the war.
Henry de Dreux was again put in charge of the army. While his efforts in the war with Morocco resulted in failure, he had also commanded the army to its first field victories over the muslims and his reputation was relatively un tarnished by his ultimate defeat.
Henry advised a quick landing on Naxos as he knew he could not count on the Ottomans to keep the Byzantine fleet in port forever.
His strategy proved well founded. Although Latin troops would be temporarily cut off from their fellows in mainland Greece Naxos fell.
Then even better news came in. The Roman army was completely destroyed by the Turks, who made peace and exacted a heavy tribute from the Empire rather than land. Now nothing stood in the way of Henry's conquest of the Byzantine capital of Larissa.
Envoys were sent to the Romans demanding the complete annexation of their territory. The Emperor had little choice but to accept and would spend the rest of his days in exile in Kaffa.
King Fulk could hardly believe his turn of fortune. Just three short years after the disastrous fight with Morocco the Kingdom had nearly doubled in size for the price of a few sieges and his people largely accepted the war. These new possessions would be mostly safe from Morocco, whih had never become a naval power despite owning a large amount of coastline. Meanwhile Morocco was as powerful as ever but showed some signs of strain. Their last wars with major powers had not gone as well those with Jerusalem or the Mamluks and their territory was split in two. Hopefully this would give the Kingdom time to breath and deal with its new territories.
OOC; Finally starting to catch up to where I've played to. Watch for a couple guest stories in the next update.
Obviously I should have listened to Dafool long ago and captured some more territory earlier. Having most of my territory be overseas from North Africa is a big help for future wars.
Admission about the war. I had used subsidies to add to the army and scored some big victories early on. Then when Moroccan reinforcements met me with the main army of their's I'd been chasing I still won, but they retreated to different provinced. I followed the smaller one and destroyed it. I keep wondering if their morale was low enough to instakill the bigger one, which would have made a huge difference. Instead low manpower and attrition killed me, despite most of the early battles resulting in heavier losses on their side. Ah well.
The seemingly imaginative alternate history of the original KOJ is actually from an mp game I'm playing for a different game, although in that one I'm the ERE. In that one the war is still ongoing though, so I tried to add an ending to it that would somewhat plausibly result in the situation we see in 1399 in EU3.
I love continuity in things like this. 
