Cross, Crescent, and Frontier: The Global Holy War Collection (1095–1923)

COMING 15 NOVEMBER 2026 · FULL COLLECTION RELEASE

Cross, Crescent, and Frontier: The Global Holy War Collection (1095–1923)

From the preaching of the First Crusade to the final collapse of the Ottoman world, this collection follows more than eight centuries of war, faith, empire, frontier life and contested memory.

The aim is not to retell a simple story of Christianity against Islam. The same periods are full of rival Christian states, rival Muslim rulers, shifting alliances, civil wars, conquest, coexistence and people fighting for reasons that rarely fit neatly into a modern label.

How the collection is built

• Primary evidence is used wherever it survives, alongside modern scholarship.
• Accounts from opposing sides are compared rather than one version being treated as the whole story.
• Army strengths, casualties and other disputed figures are shown as estimates when the evidence does not justify an exact number.
• Famous stories and later myths are tested against the record rather than repeated because they are familiar.
• Soldiers, sailors, auxiliaries and civilians remain in the story alongside rulers and commanders.
• Every named battle, siege, landing, naval action and major military engagement covered in the collection is entered in a master Battle Register with its modern location, decimal coordinates, principal protagonists and result. Disputed battlefield locations are marked approximate rather than given false precision.

Battle Atlas & Master Register

A companion register sits alongside the main chapters. It contains 341 engagements and major military actions, from Yarmouk, Civetot and Dorylaeum through the Crusader-state frontier wars, Hattin, the later crusades and fall of Outremer, the Northern Crusades and Baltic frontier, the Ottoman Mediterranean struggle, Kosovo, Vienna, the eighteenth-century Ottoman wars, the Balkan Wars, Gallipoli, the Arab Revolt and the Turkish War of Independence.

The Northern Crusades and Baltic frontier section adds 31 engagements and major military actions from Dobin in 1147 to Marienburg in 1410. It includes indigenous uprisings, Russian frontier wars, Teutonic and Livonian campaigning, Lithuania’s wars with the orders, and the failed siege of Marienburg after Grunwald rather than reducing the whole period to knights fighting pagans.

The register is deliberately not limited to famous set-piece battles. Sieges, amphibious landings, uprisings and other major military actions are included where they materially shape the campaign. A coordinate is a navigational locator, not a claim that a medieval or early-modern battlefield can always be pinpointed to a few metres.

The reading route

1. Prologue — Before the Cross Was Taken: Christianity, Islam and the Road to 1095
2. I — The First Crusade: From Clermont to Jerusalem, 1095–1099
3. I-B — Crusader States Frontier Wars Battlefield Companion: Ramla, Harran, Ager Sanguinis, Edessa, the Second Crusade, Nur al-Din and the road to Saladin, 1101–1174
4. II — Jerusalem: The Contested Holy City
5. III — Saladin: Counter-Crusade, Hattin and the Third Crusade
6. III-B — Later Crusades & Fall of Outremer Battlefield Companion: Beirut, Damietta, Gaza, La Forbie, Louis IX, Ayn Jalut, Baybars and the fall of Acre, 1197–1291
7. IV — Constantinople: 1204 and 1453
8. V — The Reconquista: Eight Centuries That Were Never One War
9. Northern Crusades — Cross, Sword and Survival on the Baltic Frontier: conversion and conquest, Baltic resistance, the Sword Brothers and Teutonic Order, Novgorod, the Great Prussian Uprising, Lithuania, Riga’s alliance with pagan Lithuania, Grunwald and the failed exploitation at Marienburg, 1147–1410
10. Northern Crusades & Baltic Frontier Battlefield Companion: Dobin, Lyndanise, Tartu, Saule, Neva, Lake Peipus, the Great Prussian Uprising, Durbe, Karuse, Turaida, Grunwald and Marienburg, 1147–1410 (31 engagements in the master register)
11. VI — The Ottomans: From Frontier Beylik to Empire
12. VI-B — Ottoman Mediterranean Battlefield Companion: Tunis, Preveza, Castelnuovo, Algiers, Nice, Tripoli, Djerba, Malta, Cyprus and Lepanto, 1535–1574 (12 engagements in the master register)
13. VII — Vienna: 1529 and 1683
14. VII-B — Eighteenth-Century Ottoman Wars Battlefield Companion: Pruth, Petrovaradin, Timișoara, Belgrade, Grocka, Larga, Kagul, Chesma, Bender, Kinburn, Ochakov, Focșani, Rymnik, Izmail and Kaliakra, 1711–1791 (18 engagements in the master register)
15. VIII — The Balkans: Faith, Empire and Nationalism
16. IX — The Armenians: Empire, War and Genocide
17. X — Gallipoli: The Campaign From Both Sides of the Wire
18. XI — The Arab Revolt: Lawrence, Faisal and the War Behind the Legend
19. XII — The Ottoman Collapse: 1918–1923

Companion reference: Cross, Crescent, and Frontier — Master Battle Register & Coordinates.

Battlefield companions: I-B — Crusader States Frontier Wars, 1101–1174, III-B — Later Crusades & Fall of Outremer, 1197–1291, Northern Crusades & Baltic Frontier, 1147–1410, VI-B — Ottoman Mediterranean, 1535–1574 and VII-B — Eighteenth-Century Ottoman Wars, 1711–1791 extend the military chronology with disputed battlefield locations, dates and outcome classifications clearly marked where the evidence does not justify false precision.

Northern Crusades: Cross, Sword and Survival on the Baltic Frontier, 1147–1410 sits above its 31-engagement battlefield companion. The narrative handles conversion, conquest, indigenous resistance, local auxiliaries, winter campaigning, source bias and later national memory; the companion provides the geospatial and chronological reference underneath it.

Focused investigations into individual battles, personalities and disputed questions will sit alongside the main chapters where they add something useful rather than simply repeating the same ground.

The Prologue, all twelve major chapters and the Battle Register will be released on 15 November 2026. Until then, this page is the guide to the complete collection.