The Kingdom of Georgia had been a tributary to the Great Seljuq Empire since the 1080s. However, in the 1090s, the energetic Georgian king David IV was able to exploit internal unrest in the Seljuq state and the success of the Western European First Crusade against Muslim control of the Holy Land, and established a relatively strong monarchy, reorganizing his army and recruiting Kipchak, Alan, and even Frankish mercenaries to lead them to the reconquest of lost lands and the expulsion of Turkish raiders. David's battles were not, like those of the Crusaders, part of a religious war against Islam, but rather were a political-military effort to liberate Caucasus from the nomadic Seljuks.