Crusades

[Ned]

I repeat, the justification was the Turkish aggression against and a call for help from the Eastern Empire, the harrassment of pilgrims, and muslim occuppation of Jerusalem and the Holy Land that had lead to persecution of Christians. You keep reducing this to only the Turks, denying the harrassment of pilgrims, and ignoring the basic problem of muslim control of the holy land regardless of the Eastern Empire's diplomatic relations/food supply with the Arab rulers of Egypt/Jerusalem. Note the call of the council was to liberate Jerusalem and the churches of Asia. The latter clearly meant the recently lost Anatolia and Syria.

The problem of the invasion of the Danube was that it was by the Turks who had been having enormous military successes against everybody. They were a "new" threat to Europe that in fact caused alarm.

I understand the problem the Eastern Empire had with the crusaders. They were independent actors who might retake the Empire's lost territory, but keep it for themselves. In this, the Eastern Empire was right.

But this shows they made a mistake in asking the pope for help. Had they asked the Western Emperor, or the King of the Western Franks, they may have gotten a clearer arrangement on who was really in charge. But, at the time, both the Emperor and the King were on the outs with the pope and were militarily weak.

Even so, the point was to drive back the Turks, retake the metropoliton churches of Asia and take Jerusalem. In this, they were partly successful. Their greatest failure was to not defeat the Turks who went on to destroy the Eastern Empire, assault Europe and take over Arabia.

It was a fascinating time in Europe.

[Cyclotron]

I hate double posts!

[Cyclotron]

Originally posted by Ned
I repeat, the justification was...

Stop repeating. There is a difference between the "official" justification for actions and the real reasons people do them. It is manifestly clear from the behavior of the Crusaders and the Pope that the call for help from the East was just an excuse, not a real motivation for the Crusade.

The Crusade would only count as a defensive war if the Crusaders were fighting to defend either 1) themselves or 2) their allies. Jerusalem was under the control of a Byzantine ally, meaning that the conquest of Jerusalem was not in defense of either the Franks or the Byzantines. That's it. The Turkish agression against the Byzantine Empire had nothing to do with Jerusalem or the Levant; you repeadedly confuse "Muslim Agression" or "Muslim Control" with Turkish aggression and control. Islam is not some monolithic front of evil. The Turkish aggression in Anatolia is not the same thing as the Islamic rule, and one does not justify a response to another.

The Crusaders did not care about the Eastern Church or the Emperor. They allied with the Eastern Christians only when it suited their ambitions to power and control.

The Muslims had been in control of Jerusalem for centuries; there was a reason this happened in the 11th century and not the 7th. The fact that Jerusalem remained in Muslim hands was not an "aggression." The harassment of pilgrims was furthermore done by the Turks, who were not in control of Jerusalem when the Crusaders got there. If the Crusaders had been interested in the plight of the pilgrims, they would have assisted the Byzantines and Fatimids against the Turks - but instead they took Jerusalem for themselves and warred on the Fatimids. If the Crusaders had been interested in stopping the Turkish advance, they would have stayed in Anatolia to do so - but they departed as soon as they could and went on to the Levant. None of your justifications stand up to even the barest scrutiny.

Even so, the point was to drive back the Turks, retake the metropoliton churches of Asia and take Jerusalem. In this, they were partly successful. Their greatest failure was to not defeat the Turks who went on to destroy the Eastern Empire, assault Europe and take over Arabia.

No. The point was to retake Jerusalem, gain land, and enrich themselves. The Crusaders never demonstrated by a single action that they were at all interested in driving back the Turks and retaking the churches of Asia. They never had any intention of fighting the Turks any more than was required to make their way to the Holy Land. They were profoundly disinterested in the welfare of the native Eastern Christians; they massacred them in Jerusalem and elsewhere along with the Muslims and Jews. "Not defeating the Turks" was not a failure, because it was never their goal. The Crusaders did not do things with some grand historical sense of purpose; they went to take Jerusalem because they saw spiritual and economic opportunity. Your opinions on what they should have done don't change that.

[Ned]

C, you do conflate what happened with what the pope and the Eastern Empired intended to happen. You also ignore the fact that the crusaders all initially went to Constantinople, did attack the Turks, and did take Antioch rather than go directly to Jerusalem by sea which would have avoided the Turks entirely.

You also refuse to address the fact that the Eastern Emperor's ambassadors were at the Council. Did they protest the pope's plan? Clearly all left the conference thinking the pope's plan was approved by the East, as they all journeyed to Constantinople directly, something they would not have do had they believed that Constantinople was hostile.

Now, as to offensive and defensive wars, there is the question of how long an enemy must hold territory before it is no longer just to mount a counter-campaign. But, regardless of other circumstances, if the enemy is assaulting, resting, assaulting, resting in a pattern of campaigns, as were the Turks, any action against them was defensive.

The fact that the Arabs of Egypt currently controlled Jerusalem means little. The city had changed hands frequently. Further, these very same Arabs had destroyed the Holy Sepulcher in the recent past and could no longer be trusted. They were the enemy of the West, even if they were friends of the East.

[Imran Siddiqui]

rather than go directly to Jerusalem by sea

You don't know much about supply lines and logistics, do you?

[Cyclotron]

Originally posted by Ned
C, you do conflate what happened with what the pope and the Eastern Empired intended to happen. You also ignore the fact that the crusaders all initially went to Constantinople, did attack the Turks, and did take Antioch rather than go directly to Jerusalem by sea which would have avoided the Turks entirely.

Going to sea was not a viable option for such a large force, and the Crusaders desperately needed supplies and provisions. Their only choice was to go through Byzantine land, and the only way the Emperor would let them through and give them the needed supplies was if they helped him capture a few fortresses from the Turks. As soon as this was done they departed. They attacked the Turks only because it was a condition of Byzantine help that they badly needed. Going "by sea" was not possible for them; the Fourth Crusade was able to do so only by becoming so heavily indebted that they had to do whatever the Doge wanted.

You also refuse to address the fact that the Eastern Emperor's ambassadors were at the Council. Did they protest the pope's plan? Clearly all left the conference thinking the pope's plan was approved by the East, as they all journeyed to Constantinople directly, something they would not have do had they believed that Constantinople was hostile.

The Pope's "plan" was to get warriors to go to the East. That is, by anyone's measure, not much of a plan. Of course the Emperor approved it; he wanted some Western mercenaries to help him out. Constantinople only became hostile when they realized very quickly after the arrival of the Crusaders that the Franks had no intention of being good allies, but instead defied the Byzantines every chance they got and kept territory that they had sworn to hand over the the Emperor.

You need to stop focusing on people like the Pope and on what the Crusaders actually did and what their purposes actually were as revealed by their actions. Of course the Pope is going to talk about "helping out the East" and being buddies with the Emperor - what else do you think he would say? But his flowery words had very little to do with the actual reasons that he wanted the Crusade and the actual reasons that the Crusaders went.

Now, as to offensive and defensive wars, there is the question of how long an enemy must hold territory before it is no longer just to mount a counter-campaign.

Is 461 years long enough for you?

But, regardless of other circumstances, if the enemy is assaulting, resting, assaulting, resting in a pattern of campaigns, as were the Turks, any action against them was defensive.

They resisted because they perceived the Crusaders as being in cahoots with their enemies, the Byzantines, which they were initially. I think you can argue that the actions of the Crusaders in Anatolia were defensive, because the Crusaders were helping their supposed ally, even if it was only because they had no choice. That, however, has nothing to do with Jerusalem, nor the carving out of the Kingdom of Jerusalem from a great deal of territory that was decidedly not Turkish. The Crusades were about the taking and holding of Jerusalem, not about Anatolia, which was at best a minor chapter in the history of the Crusades. The whole venture is not made defensive just because a few inital battles against the Turks may have been.

The fact that the Arabs of Egypt currently controlled Jerusalem means little. The city had changed hands frequently. Further, these very same Arabs had destroyed the Holy Sepulcher in the recent past and could no longer be trusted. They were the enemy of the West, even if they were friends of the East.

See, here you go again: "all Muslims are pretty much the same." The Turks and Fatimids were at war, and the Fatimids were allies of the Byzantines. It actually means a great deal. The Crusaders attacked a country not at all involved in the "defensive war" in Anatolia - actually, they were involved, on the side of the Byzantines. Your assertion that the city "changed hands frequently" is totally irrelevant and a poor justification for anything.

You forget that the Caliph who had destroyed the Holy Sephulchre was replaced by a Caliph who prompty rebuilt it with the help of the Byzantines. One insane Caliph and suddenly no Arab can be trusted? You are apparently very, very paranoid. The Fatimids had excellent relations with Christendom at the time, especially the Byzantines. Jerusalem was far safer in their hands than it was under the Crusaders, who took great glee in a general slaughter of the population - I would say that was a far greater reason for mistrust than the simple destruction of a Christian holy building.

The problem is that you come to this discussion with a preconceived notion of Islam and Muslims generally as an "enemy of the West," and don't require any proof to justify that belief. The very fact of Fatimid control of Jerusalem is casus belli enough for you, because as vague "enemies of the West" they are worthy only of destruction, and any violence done against them is purely "defensive" in nature even when it is quite obvious that there was nothing defensive about it. I really can't draw anything out of this discussion but that you are an unapologetic bigot for whom violence is justified so long as it against Muslims, who are for you a prima facie enemy regardless of what their actions actually are. You can't just end your argument with "well, regardless of the facts, it was justified because they were 'enemies of the west'" and expect me to take you seriously. You are accusing me of some kind of anti-West bias, but it seems clear to me that you are the one arguing for biased revisionism. My conclusions are not my own; you can find the same conclusions in any contemporary history book that doesn't have a Euro-Christian inferiority complex axe to grind.

To address the original question of this thread, which seems to be rapidly vanishing in the rear-view mirror of this argument, people perceive the Crusades as "evil" in particular not because they were so much worse than other atriocities of the day, but because 1) we know more about them than we do about conflicts not involving Europeans and 2) They were incredibly wasteful, bloody, and largely unprovoked, even by medieval standards. There is no vast conspiracy to discredit the history of Europe or the actions of Christendom; there is sincere and honest scholarship attempting to examine the Crusades without the distorting lens of jingoism applied by both Christian and Muslim contemporaries. In that sense, I am being a revisionist in the academic sense of the term - a critical analyst of historical fact.

I would advise you to look at things critically as well, and drop this frankly quite stupid assumption of some monolithic Muslim front of aggression and evil that has been eroding at God's great Christian people for centuries. It is not heresy to say that the Crusaders included a lot of venal and cruel people among their ranks, and that the Crusaders generally used the Eastern Empire for their own benefit and were not good allies in any sense of the term. The world will not end if you acknowledge that indeed, the Crusades were an example of Christian aggression, which they most assuredly were. We can acknowledge that people on both sides did things that modern Christians and Muslims alike can be ashamed of, and move on from there. That is far more constructive - and historically accurate - than painting "the enemy" with the broad brush of bigotry and ignorance.

[Ned]

C,

1) They sieged Nicea and it was returned to the EE.

2) They took Antioch and would have returned it to the EE had Alexius's envoy not left prematurely and had they been supplied and supported by the EE as promised.

3) They took Jeruslam, because that was the main objective of the campaign.

Now, you focus on 3 to denigrate the whole campaign because, at the time, Jerusalem was under control of the Egyptian Arabs, allies of the EE. You call me a bigot. But, what is true is that the crusaders viewed all Muslims as enemies, primarily on religious grounds. The whole point of the expedition was to restore Jerusalem and the other cities of Anatolia and Syria to Christianity.

That the EE, or we in the 21st century, could distinguish between Muslims is clearly beside the point, as the situation must be viewed in the contexted of the times to those who were there.

But I think we agree, do we not, that the crusader campaigns in Anatolia and Syria were justified even if the subsequent taking of Jerusalem was not.

One more point. Urban II called for another crusade in 1100. This crusade attacked the Turks in Anatolia and was defeated. I think this shows that the pope's intention was to aid the EE as best he could in addition to restoring Jerusalem to Christian rule.

[Cyclotron]

Originally posted by Ned
1) They sieged Nicea and it was returned to the EE.

Because they were forced into doing so by Alexius, whose help they needed.

2) They took Antioch and would have returned it to the EE had Alexius's envoy not left prematurely and had they been supplied and supported by the EE as promised.

Bullsh*t. Bohemond never had any intention to make Antioch anything other than his personal fief. The Byzantines helped them tremendously before and Bohemond was just looking for the slightest excuse to throw off his sworn obligations to the Byzantines.

It scarcely matters even if Alexius didn't support them all the way - the Crusaders, including Bohemond, had sworn an oath to give all territory conquered from the Turks back to the Emperor. A complaint that the Byzantines were less than helpful is not a substantive reason to break that oath.

3) They took Jeruslam, because that was the main objective of the campaign.

Well, at least we agree on something.

Now, you focus on 3 to denigrate the whole campaign because, at the time, Jerusalem was under control of the Egyptian Arabs, allies of the EE.

You yourself just said it was the main objective of the campaign. It is not unfair to focus on Jerusalem, because it was the main objective of the campaign. The story of the Crusades is the story of taking and holding Jerusalem; that is the point. It is entirely proper that I focus on that, since it is far and away the most important issue.

You call me a bigot. But, what is true is that the crusaders viewed all Muslims as enemies, primarily on religious grounds. The whole point of the expedition was to restore Jerusalem and the other cities of Anatolia and Syria to Christianity.

That is totally incorrect. The Crusaders made alliances many times with local Muslim powers against others; sometimes they allied with Muslim rulers against other Crusaders! The Crusaders had a long relationship with the Ismailis that was often quite friendly. It is patently obvious that the Crusaders did not view all Muslims as automatically enemies - in fact, one of the main problems of Outremer was that, though the "old school" Christian nobles understood that the Muslims could be worked with and allied with, new arrivals from Europe fresh off the boat and filled with zealotry would always ignore the advice of the veteran Crusaders.

You give the Crusaders far too little credit if you think they couldn't understand the difference between these groups. They had some leaders as politically savvy as any Byzantine Emperor, and they knew very well the divisions within the Muslim world and how allies could be found within it.

But I think we agree, do we not, that the crusader campaigns in Anatolia and Syria were justified even if the subsequent taking of Jerusalem was not.

I go by Alexius' agreement: all lands taken by the Turks shall be returned to the Byzantine crown. So long as this was done, I believe you could argue that the war was in some sense "defensive." Antioch does not qualify, because it was not returned; Jerusalem does not, because not only was it not returned, but it wasn't even held by the Turks at the time.

One more point. Urban II called for another crusade in 1100. This crusade attacked the Turks in Anatolia and was defeated. I think this shows that the pope's intention was to aid the EE as best he could in addition to restoring Jerusalem to Christian rule.

The purpose of the 1100 crusade was to reinforce the Kingdom of Jerusalem now that it had been established, not to push back the Turks. The Crusaders only fought the Turks because they were in the way of getting to Jerusalem. The Crusaders were interested in the Turks only insofar as they were interested in keeping the overland routes to the Kingdom open. It does not in any way demonstrate the willingness of anybody to aid the Byzantines; that crusade of 1100 in fact pillaged quite a bit of Byzantine territory and almost came to blows with the Emperor's forces. Any benefit to the Byzantines was incidental to the Crusaders' own aims.

[Ned]

I just ordered Medieval II: Total War. I think it will allow me to actually play some of these battles rather than just read about them. I was wondering just how the Turks were so powerful compared to everyone else. I think it had to do with their horse archers, my favorite unit from Rome Total War.

C, Thanks for the discussion.

[Heresson]

nah, horse archers were used by seldjuks, but I think the strenght of ottoman army were janissaries.

[Drake Tungsten]

It'd be like the UK calling for help against the Soviets in 1980 and the US landing troops in China and taking Beijing.

This is the worst analogy I've read in a long time...

[Cyclotron]

Originally posted by Ned
I just ordered Medieval II: Total War. I think it will allow me to actually play some of these battles rather than just read about them. I was wondering just how the Turks were so powerful compared to everyone else. I think it had to do with their horse archers, my favorite unit from Rome Total War.

HAs in RTW were certainly the best unit type (Parthians FTW). As far as the Turks in real life, I think that their mobility generally served them well; horse archers were a part of that, but their infantry was also comparatively lighter. The Crusaders had a lot of heavy armor going for them; there are a lot of Muslim writers who said that even the low class pauper footmen among the Crusaders would walk around with multiple arrows sticking out of their gambesons - even they had surprisingly thick armor. That turned out to be a mixed blessing, however, in the hotter climates of the Levant (demonstrated at Hattin and elsewhere).

C, Thanks for the discussion.

I get a little heated sometimes... but thanks for being a sport. I really do recommend the books I cited earlier, I think you'd find them really interesting. I also can't stress enough that you should be more critical about the view that Muslims generally were or are a monolithic enemy; even their contemporaries in the Crusades rarely saw them that way when they actually met Muslims in Outremer. I think a lesson worth learning is that anybody can be the aggressor, even when they say they have the best of intentions.